Another Bone-Headed Baptist Moment

2 years ago

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I wanted to ignore it, and held out for more than a month. I didn't talk about it. I didn't think about it. I went to Texas, attended church with my relatives twice, talked with my Pentecostal cousin about nationalized health care, talked to my aunts about God's will, heard lots of Bible quoting, even did some myself, and never once considered bringing it up.

Whew! Over the hump, I thought. Never again to be riled by Southern Baptist idiocy, I'm free at last.

A little while later Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, apologized for having compared national health care to "what the Nazis did." I congratulated myself. I'd refused to be baited. I'd spared myself upset and had been wise to do so. Everyone makes mistakes. I've known Land a long time. Been bawled out by him a time or two. Had some good discussions. Land's a smart guy. He got carried away and he's really sorry, I told myself.

I was happy that Richard Land had been big enough to say he was sorry. Proud of myself for resisting my usual pique.

And then he did it again. He snuck off and started saying that . . . stuff.

What I think or don't think doesn't mean diddly squat to Richard Land or any other Southern Baptist of his ilk. And what he thinks ought not to mean any more to me.

But Lord help me, how can such a smart man be so absurd? This is a guy who went to Princeton . He's no rube.

So, okay, educated fools are nothing new, and people who will say anything to keep power are nothing new either. But he's saying things he knows to be complete fabrications. He's doing it in the name of Jesus. And he's trying to lead people who really do want to be like Jesus in a devilish direction.

Nothing new there either.

I just wish I didn't get so riled up about it.

The Baptist Center for Ethics Web site, EthicsDaily.com, which helped disseminate Land's comments, only gave him more publicity. And in my piddly way, I'm doing the same. But something good has come out of it. A coalition of Christians, Muslims and Jews has come up with a good idea. Maybe it will cool my jets.

Noting several recent examples of political partisans trying to tar their opponents by casting them as Nazi-like, these religious leaders have called for a moratorium on all Nazi comparisons. Nobody can enforce such a ban, and I hope no one would want to. But the rest of us ought to just dismiss all such comparisons as demagoguery – no matter who uses them. No matter what they're saying, we ought to shrug and turn away. Whether they're liberals or conservatives, such rabble-rousing is vicious. It demeans the memory of those who died in the Holocaust. It trivializes real horrors in the pursuit of political gain.

It's indecent. It's ignorant in the worst sense of the word. The only reasonable reaction is to look away, just as polite people would if someone of such stature were to pull down his pants and moon the crowd.

We'd pretend not to notice until he gained control of himself. We ought to do the same with Nazi comparisons.

Maybe next time, I'll be able to.

Filed Under: Woman Up

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