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Dennis Terry's Teachable Moment
Much has happened since Rick Santorum visited Dennis Terry's church. The video that People for the American Way made of Terry's declaration that those who do not believe as he does about Christian nationalism and about Christianity itself should "get out" of the country. And the video shows Rick Santorum joining in the standing ovation Terry received from the congregation. The video has gone viral. Santorum has had to distance himself from Terry's controversial words as has Terry himself. He now claims he meant something different than his unambiguous meaning, and now the church is trying to scrub the web of the evidence of his indiscretions. But their efforts are way too little, way too late. Transcripts of Terry's demagoguery are also circulating. One transcript of the hottest part of the sermon reads:
I don't care what the liberals say, I don't care what the naysayers say, this country was founded as a Christian nation. The god of Abraham, the god of Isaac and the god of Jacob. There's only one god, there's only one god and his name is Jesus. I'm tired of people telling me that I can't say those words. I'm tired of people telling us as Christians that we can't voice our beliefs or we can't no longer pray in public. I'm, listen to me, if you don't li..love America and you don't like the way we do things, I've got one thing to say, GET OUT!. Terry's pugnacious bigotry and anti-democratic fervor should forever remind us of the threat posed by the dominionist sector of the Religious Right -- including the implications of the widespread belief in the false narrative of American history called Christian Nationalism. But, as Sarah Posner points out at Religion Dispatches, it should also remind us that Tony Perkins has a pastor problem. Perkins was a member of Terry's church when he founded the Lousiana Family Forum, the state political affiliate of Focus on the Family before rising to head the Washington, DC religious right lobby group, Family Research Council, also an offshoot of FOF. Perkins' appearance with Santorum was actually a return to his roots. While its inevitable that this would be treated by some as the Campaign Gaffe Du Jour, the best way to view the episode is as a revelation about the nature of the Religious Right and its remarkable -- and remarkably resilient -- political power that transcends individual election years. In the figures of James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Dennis Terry and Rick Santorum, it also provides us with something of a family album of snapshots about the nature of the religious right, and the peculiar alliance between electorally active conservative evangelicals and conservative Catholicism. Readers will recall that just before the South Carolina primary, religious right leaders, panicked that their preferred candidate Gov. Rick Perry was headed for disaster, met to find a candidate around whom they could rally. The endorsement went to Santorum. In retrospect, it seems likely that much of Santorum's seemingly surprising strength comes from the third party efforts of religious right leaders like Dobson and Perkins to keep his candidacy afloat against the odds.
Fortunately, fellow Louisianan and Baptist minister Rev. Welton Gaddy was able to appear on the Rachel Maddow Show on behalf of the Interfaith Alliance, which opposes the bigotry of Terry, Santorum and Perkins and provide some perspective. Gaddy called Santorum's use of churches as campaign venues "a prostitution of the church" and Terry's rant as constituting a real "war on religion" in the U.S. -- those that don't meet the particular religious tests of Rev. Dennis Terry.
Dennis Terry's Teachable Moment | 18 comments (18 topical, 0 hidden)
Dennis Terry's Teachable Moment | 18 comments (18 topical, 0 hidden)
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