Bobby Jindal says Donald Trump isn’t really a Christian.
Ben Carson said — initially, at least — that a Muslim isn’t fit to be president.
Mike Huckabee says Barack Obama is trying to “criminalize” Christianity and that the president is a “pretend” Christian.
Can we stop — please! — with the religion rhetoric?
Jindal was just the latest to ridicule another Republican presidential candidate’s statement of faith. Trump had spoken to the Values Voter Summit and proclaimed his deep Christian faith. Jindal followed him and said Trump has never read the Bible and that he believes only in himself.
I kind of get where Jindal, the Louisiana governor, is going with the Trump jabs. Trump opened himself up to the ridicule by proclaiming to a group of zealous conservatives that he’s one of them. Jindal, I suppose, has the right to challenge one of his rivals’ assertions in that regard.
But this continual back and forth regarding candidates’ faith is getting tiresome and, frankly, it misses a critical point about electing the next president of the United States.
The point is that the president is head of a secular state and government. We can argue until hell freezes over about what the founding fathers intended when they wrote the Constitution. But the finished document is as secular as it can possibly be.
The First Amendment spells it out. Congress shall make no law that establishes a state religion, it says. Isn’t that enough evidence of what the founders intended when they established the Bill of Rights in the nation’s government document?
So, let’s cut the talk about who’s a real Christian?
It does not matter.
He said this about him. She said this about him. Etc. Everyone is saying something about somebody else. Wouldn’t it be nice if folks simply practiced their faith (or not, for those who do not have particular beliefs), rather than worrying about how others are practicing? I think that’s the whole “plank in the eye” thing. I know it’s pie-in-the-sky wishing, but that’s what lazy Fall Saturday’s are for.
Amen …