Random Politics & Religion #24

While the nation’s capital was twittering with excitement on Wednesday about former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, something far more outrageous was underway in another Senate hearing: Sen. Bernie Sanders, in a blatant violation of Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, was applying a religious test for an office of public trust.

Specifically, Sanders doesn’t think Christians are fit to serve in government because they’re bigots. Basic Christian theology, in Sanders’s view, “is indefensible, it is hateful, it is Islamophobic, and it is an insult to over a billion Muslims throughout the world.”

Here’s what happened. During a confirmation hearing for Russell Vought, President Trump’s nominee for deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, Sanders expressed his indignation at an article Vought had written in January 2016 about a controversy that erupted at Vought’s alma mater, Wheaton College. A political science professor, Larycia Hawkins, had published a Facebook post announcing her intention to wear a hijab in solidarity with Muslims and suggesting that Christians and Muslims worship the same God.

Vought, a Christian, took issue with Hawkins’s post and defended Wheaton in an article for The Resurgent. During the hearing Wednesday, Sanders repeatedly quoted one particular passage he described as “Islamophobic” and “hateful.” Vought wrote: “Muslims do not simply have a deficient theology. They do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ his Son, and they stand condemned.”

As a matter of theology, there is of course nothing objectionable, much less Islamophobic, about that. It is simply a statement of fact: core Christian doctrine, plainly stated in the Bible, says that eternal life comes only through faith in Jesus Christ. Not that exclusivity is unique to Christianity. By their very nature, most religions are exclusive, especially when it comes to salvation.

As for having a “deficient theology,” one could substitute any other religious group for Muslims: Christians also believe that Jews have a deficient theology, along with Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, and the tens of thousands of Britons who claim membership in the Temple of the Jedi Order. And of course, members of all these religions likely believe Christians have a deficient theology.

To Sanders, Christian Theology Amounts to Bigotry

But to Sanders, a sincerely held religious belief—like believing there is only one path to salvation—amounts to bigotry and should disqualify anyone, or at least Christians, from public service. Reporting for The Atlantic, Emma Green noted that at one point, the exchange between Sanders and Vought became tense, with Sanders “raising his voice and interrupting Vought as he tried to answer questions.”


In other words, Sanders understands Vought’s a Christian, he just didn’t think Vought was that kind of Christian. Neither did Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who defended Sanders, saying, “I don’t think anybody was questioning anybody’s faith here.” Van Hollen then questioned Vought’s faith and claimed his theology is all wrong: “I’m a Christian, but part of being a Christian, in my view, is recognizing that there are lots of ways that people can pursue their God.”

It should go without saying that this is the sort of thing that should never come up in a Senate confirmation hearing. But it helped illuminate what progressives like Sanders and Van Hollen really think about religion, and especially Christianity. It’s okay to say you’re a Christian if, like Van Hollen, you don’t really think Christianity is the one true path to salvation. But if your version of Christianity lays claim to exclusivity—as orthodox Christianity does—then you’re a bigot who, as Sanders said of Vought, “is really not someone who is what this country is supposed to be about.”

Agree With My Religious Views Or You Can’t Hold Office

Let’s take a step back. Article VI of the Constitution states that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” Yet it seems that Sanders and his ilk not only want to exclude sincere Christians from public office, but to impose a kind of secular test of their own. To serve in government, in their view, one must affirm the ever-changing tenants of progressivism.

One recent example of this cropped up in Illinois, where the state’s child welfare agency declared that staff must “affirm” gender ideology and “facilitate” LGBT identities for foster kids, or be fired. Same goes for foster parents. If children or adolescents under the state’s care “explore/express a sexual orientation other than heterosexual and/or a gender identity that is different from the child/youth’s sex assigned at birth,” agency staff and foster parents must “support and respect” the child’s exploration “without any effort to direct or guide them to any specific outcome for their exploration.” If not, then in the state’s eyes you’re not fit to be a staffer or foster parent.

The state of Illinois has thus claimed that adherence to traditional Christian teaching on sexuality, which makes the bold claim that God created only two sexes, male and female, makes one unfit to be around children.

Progressives Have No Use For Christians

That’s more or less what Sanders did by conflating Vought’s thoroughly commonplace understanding of Christian theology with racism and bigotry. A spokesman for Sanders said in a statement issued Thursday: “In a democratic society, founded on the principle of religious freedom, we can all disagree over issues, but racism and bigotry—condemning an entire group of people because of their faith—cannot be part of any public policy.” The nomination of Vought, “who has expressed such strong Islamaphobic language,” the statement said, “is simply unacceptable.”

At the hearing on Wednesday, Sanders said he would vote against confirming Vought for deputy director of the OMB. Afterwards, Muslim groups including the Council on American-Islamic Relations and Muslim Advocates, along with the American Civil Liberties Union, condemned Vought’s comments, saying without a hint of irony that his views threaten the principle of religious freedom.

It’s important to understand what’s going on here. The Left, itself a kind of secular religion, does not really think it’s okay to be religious—to hold strong convictions about eternal salvation or the divinity of Jesus Christ. Progressives believe this is disturbing and un-American. The irony is that the opposite is true, as John Adams put it: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Understand, too, that the progressives who now run the Democratic Party will turn a blind eye to the exclusivity claims of Muslims and other religious groups they think they need in their political coalition. But they will not suffer Christians. There’s a simple reason for that: Democrats know they have lost orthodox Christians as a constituency, and now they have no use for them.

Oh if not for my job, I would have loved to be there.

Rises in terrorism are a multi-faceted issue, but being the poster child for a reduced police presence isn't exactly helpful to your cause. Whoever replaces her not only has to reverse that, but also figure out a way to deal with the hilariously under-equipped and under-trained force that's already there.

Yeah, great strategy liberals! Let's condemn over half of the nation, that's going to go well!

Then again, this is coming from a side of the political spectrum that cries "deplorable" for anyone not exclusively agreeing to them 100%.

The key interlude occurred with the ubiquitous Kamala Harris, the same Senator Harris who failed the bar the first time she took the bar exam. Only a Kamala-Comey marriage could birth this debacle:


Thursday night, Attorney General Sessions’ Justice Department released a statement about Comey’s testimony. The statement reads as follows:


In fact, Comey always knew the “parameters of the Attorney General’s recusal.”

It gets worse for Comey. Right before and right after the answer that triggered the DOJ’s extraordinary written statement (name me the last time the DOJ publicly identified their recent ex-FBI Director as having just lied to Congress?), Comey denied knowledge about the “extent” of Sessions’ recusal and denied knowing Sessions’ scope of recusal as to “if he reviewed any FBI or DOJ documents.”

Congress criminalizes lying to Congress under oath. The relevant statutes are 18 USC 1621 and 18 USC 1001. Section 1621 requires a person first, be making a statement under a sworn oath; second, that statement be “material” to the proceeding; third, the statement be false; and fourth, the statement be knowingly and willfully false. Section 1001 mirrors those elements, without the same tribunal prerequisites: it also requires the government prove a person willfully made a materially false statements. In either case, the primary focus is: first, a false statement; second, a false statement as material to the matter; third, the false statement be made knowingly and willfully. A statement is not false if it can be interpreted in a completely innocent manner. A statement is not material if it is not particularly relevant or pertain to the subject of the matter. Willfully remains a very high standard of proof in the criminal law, though less in perjury cases than in tax cases: it requires the person know they are lying.

Sadly, for Comey, Sessions has the smoking gun: Sessions’ own email sent and read by Comey, according to the Department of Justice statement, showing Comey in fact did know “the parameters of the Attorney General’s recusal” despite his repeated comments to the contrary to Senator Kamala Harris’ questions.

Dead. To. Rights. This really is a slam dunk case, or as close to it as imaginable. Maybe Comey will claim the Ruskies hacked his emails, and blame them instead?

the POTUS Obstructed Justice.

Prove it.

I like how KNs arguments are so weak that he has to dismiss any dissenters before they respond by saying they are "Denying reality". Really poor debate form.

If you are going to say that the statement "Not that I'm aware of" proves perjury then you could also draw the line to Trumps intimidation.

Except he was aware of it.

You cannot prove his awareness at the time of the question. He didn't say "No" it said "Not that I'm aware of". So he could have known, but at the time of the question he couldn't think of it. That answer absolves him. It is a stretch to say he committed Perjury. You can say that he should have been aware but not that he lied or was wrong.

Yea Comey committed Perjury and the POTUS Obstructed Justice.

So you are going to implicate those three without mentioning how people like Saevel and Nausi are consistently doing the same thing? Yourself and I even see things based on our preconceived notions. We all deny reality at times but most of the time we just see it from a different lens.

Except that is not a defense for perjury.

Also, do you know that your so-called "Defense for perjury" would undermine his entire testimony?

You are seriously stretching well past the breaking point. I'm not even sure if you are serious or just trolling now.

Perjury is the intentional act of swearing a false oath or of falsifying an affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to an official proceeding.

So you are going to implicate those three without mentioning how people like Saevel and Nausi are consistently doing the same thing?

Savael presents his argument based on observations of events that occur. Nausi does too.

I'm not doing this "thing". It's KN being KN.

prove perjury

The definition of prove isn't universal. All you really have to prove it to is the jury or judge.

Just because you don't think you can prove anything without being inside someones head doesn't mean that's the way it is. Otherwise killers could just say I didn't intend to pull the trigger 6 times, reload, then pull it again.

Here is the definition of Perjury:


The wording of his statement totally absolve him of this. Unless you can read his mind at the time of him answering that question, you cannot prove perjury.

Not at all. It is nearly impossible to prove Perjury. You know it, you just want to keep the narrative going that Comey is the bad guy here. Saying I'm trolling doesn't make me incorrect.

“Muslims do not simply have a deficient theology. They do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ his Son, and they stand condemned.”