Some Christians and Catholics are "Tired of Liberal Ideology." But Exactly how has that Harmed Them?

Tired of Liberal Ideology, Putin Proposes a Village for "tired" Americans Outside Moscow 

When I read this piece, the first thing that popped into my head was how absolutely ignorant someone would have to be to decide that living in Russia, under what would be an Orthodox church dictatorship, could possibly be better than living in the United States and enjoying complete, constitutionally guaranteed freedom.  Anyone who would even think about doing this would have to be brainwashed, or radicalized, which is the ideological term in use these days.  

Or they would have to be so incredibly selfish and so twisted in their values, especially in their respect for other human beings, to be willing to live in a place where it takes government authority to keep people in line. 

One of our great, early Presidents and founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson, once said: 

"The error seems not sufficiently eradicated, that the operations of the mind, as well as the acts of the body, are subjects to the coercion of the laws.  But our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them.  The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit.  We are answerable for them to our God.  The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as injurious to others.  But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god.  It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."  Notes on the State of Virginia, 1792

Who, in this country, has had their personal freedom of conscience diminished in any way by the free exercise of anyone else's rights?  How is it that people can get "tired" of ideology to which they do not subscribe themselves, and which they are not compelled or coerced into accepting?  And are these people so bottomless in their naivete', stupidity and selfishness that they aren't sensitive enough to understand that there might be people who are sick and tired of conservative ideology, which does advocate imposing itself on others, unlike liberal ideology?

Religious Extremism is Part of the Problem 

There's a lot of Christian nationalism wrapped up in these complaints about liberal ideology.  There's a lot of "Anglo-Israelism," which is the literal application of the Old Testament covenant relationship between God and the Jewish nation, in the religious extremism that forms the foundation of heretical Christian nationalism.  That leads to the belief that God will judge this nation for its collective sin in the same way that he judged the Jewish nation for its collective sin under the Old Testament covenant.  So, they blame those whom they see as responsible for America's collective sins.  

The New Testament narrative goes to great lengths to make it very clear that the end of the old covenant began with the birth of Jesus Christ, and ended rather dramatically with his crucifixion and resurrection.  Jesus is recorded as having given a prophecy, found in the latter chapters of Matthew, known as his "Eschatological Discourse," in which he predicts the destruction of the Jerusalem temple as the sign of the "end of the age."  His own gospel, which involves an individual covenant relationship between God and humans, a "spiritual kingdom" proclaimed by Jesus, is not specific to any race or ethnicity.  There is no offer of a covenant relationship with any nation, and no blessings given to nations as a result of anything associated with Christianity.  There is no such thing as a "Christian nation." 

Christian nationalism, and its variants, which include a healthy dose of white supremacy that pulls from the "chosen people" theme of the Old Testament, has so thoroughly intruded into and influenced American Christianity, including the Catholic church, that the accompanying intolerance of ideas considered to be incompatible with faith, or with their own specific brand of the faith, is not uncommon and is very likely behind the idea of extremists being "tired of liberal ideology."  

So that's an explanation of the problem.  But that still doesn't explain how it is that the rights of those who are tired of it have been affected or how their civil liberties are somehow diminished because liberal ideology is protected as a matter of free conscience by the Constitution of the United States.  In the words of Jefferson, there's no evidence that anyone's "pocket has been picked," or anyone's "leg has been broken."  

All I see in these complaints is inexcusable intolerance.  And that, in the Christian gospel, is sinful. 

An Overly Prosperous, Uneducated Population That Takes Far Too Much for Granted

The selfishness and ignorance that has combined to produce this intolerance seems to be getting more prevalent in American society as time goes on.  There are "media prophets" who figure out how to exploit what many Americans just don't know about their government and how it works, and who create and deliberately intensify conflict between social, political and economic ideologies in order to make money for themselves.  Rush Limbaugh established the model for this, and left a whole train of wannabees in his wake, including the likes of Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and other small-fry, local market whiners who echo the same themes, deliberately keeping people uninformed, pushing outright lies, playing to bias and prejudice and inciting emotional responses, specifically anger, in order to keep their ratings up and the advertising dollars rolling into their pockets.  

I've said, for a long time, that when it comes to Civics and history education in our schools, we have failed to live up to the expectation of providing a sufficiently educated electorate which is the key to preservation of a democracy.  We've also failed to overcome our long history of racist discrimination and bigotry.  It's those in the predominant racial, social and religious majorities that are in favor of autocracy, and who desire to live under autocratic rule, because they benefit from it.  But that's not the America our founders envisioned, or that we, the people, built and want to see prosper.

And if this is the doctrine and theology that dominates the religious right, then a large swath of American Christianity is wallowing in heresy, and many churches are showing evidence of apostasy.  The Apostle Jude was quite prophetic when he was describing intruders in the church in the first century in which he was writing.  He called them out as "ungodly perverts who turn the grace of God into licentiousness," compared them to the ungodliness of Sodom and Gomorrah, and called them "blemishes on your love feasts, waterless clouds, autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, uprooted."  

He could be describing exactly what is happening among the more extreme religious political right. 

"These are grumblers and malcontents, they indulge their own lusts, they are bombastic in speech, flattering people to their own advantage.  V. 16

We Are Tired of Conservative Ideology.  But It Neither "Picks our Pocket" nor "Breaks our Legs" 

If given a choice, most liberals, certainly not all but I won't paint with a broad brush, would not choose to go to some kind of ideological or political enclave as expatriate Americans living elsewhere in the world.  We understand how democracy works.  We ourselves have endured the control and rule of the Republican Party at various times, many of us must endure some of the most ridiculous aspects of the loss of our freedom because we, as a people, have failed to hold politicians accountable to enforce laws, like those against gerrymandering, and must then put up with state legislatures that lose their minds and create autocracies within states.  

So we put up with it, bide our time, come around to realizing that we have to vote all the time, and on occasion, elect politicians who undo conservative fascism.  We understand how our democracy works and we would not trade the freedom we have for anything, we would rather put up with adversity and fight back, use the courts if we have to, and spend our resources protecting individual rights and freedom, thank you, than we would developing hatred for those who think differently but are entitled to the same rights and freedom, regardless of whether they acknowledge it or not.  

And I will speak for myself, but I certainly would never leave this country to live in another, because too many people here have too many rights to live as they please.