We Are All Godless Now

by digby

I confess that I’m a little bit surprised at all the uproar over Coulter’s statements about “perfecting” the Jews. I’m no theological scholar, but I’m pretty sure she’s just mashed up some methodist teachings from her youth with some rancid pop-theology she got from hanging around with people who think the “Left Behind books” are prophesy. I’m sure she did it for effect, but I also think it’s not quite the deliberate, unprecedented insult that everyone thinks it is.

I’m not excusing her. This is the same person, after all, who famously said after 9/11 that we should “invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.” It’s not like she doesn’t truly believe that the Jews are all going to hell. (Many Christians do, including her Dear Leader, by the way.) But that’s just one small part of her noxious, hate-filled wordlview. She’s the worst kind of bigot who believes that anyone who isn’t a member of her personal bloodthirsty tribe should be converted or killed. I don’t think she has any special antipathy for Jews because she thinks they need to be “perfected” (which she seems to think is the same thing as “converted.”) She thinks everyone should be converted to her beliefs in all things. Preferably through force and intimidation:

“We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed too. Otherwise they will turn out to be outright traitors.

So I find it just a little bit surprising that so many people are finding this one comment about “perfecting the Jews” out of bounds. As if there aren’t literally thousands. And it can’t just be that she said something religiously incorrect. The woman wrote this, for heaven’s sake:

Democrats revile religion but insist on faking a belief in God in front of the voters claiming to be “spiritual.” They can’t forthrightly admit they are Druids, so they “reframe” their constant, relentless opposition to every Biblical precept as respect for “science” or the “Constitution”—both of which they hate. Their rage against us is their rage against the Judeo-Christian tradition. I don’t particularly care if liberals believe in God. In fact, I would be crestfallen to discover any liberals in heaven. So fine, rage against God, but how about being honest about it? Liberals can believe what they want to believe, but let us not flinch from identifying liberalism as the opposition party to God.

You can read an extended excerpt of the first chapter, here.

This week, spouting some half baked theological nonsense about Christian perfectionism is a huge insult. That screed above, however, is no biggie. Pardon me for failing to see why one is so much worse than the other.

And anyway, as Atrios has been saying for a while, once you start making religion a major litmus test in politics it’s only a matter of time before people starting arguing about who represents the “one true religion.” (In politics talk it’s called “drawing contrasts” or “negative campaigning.”) People fought wars for centuries over this stuff. In the middle east they still are.

I guess a lot of Americans feel they really missed out on something and want a little bit of that action for themselves. So get ready. We’re all likely to have to become theologians before this is over so we can figure out for whom to vote. I can hardly wait.

Update: I guess I’m not writing clearly today. I agree that Ann Coulter is an Anti-Semite. She is also a racist, a homophobe, a sexist and an eliminationist, a totalitarian and a liar. She is a horrible person on every level as I have written many times. I’m just surprised that this particular slur is considered unusual.

I’m sure she did it for effect, meaning that everything she does is for effect on some level. But I also wrote that truly believes that Jews are going to hell. She also said, “I would be crestfallen to discover any liberals in heaven.” This is how the woman thinks. Why would anyone think this comment about Jews being “perfected” (which she clearly doesn’t understand in any theological sense) is different than any other disgusting screed she’s ever written. What am I missing?

UpdateII: Sara at Orcinus explains that this “perfected Jew” term is a specific fundamentalist Christian line that goes back a ways. My apologies. I had thought it was just a muddled perversion of the Wesleyan view of “Christian perfectionism.”

Perfection” is an idea — and a phrase — with a long fundamentalist pedigree that goes back at least to the 1960s, and perhaps farther. The idea that Jews are God’s Formerly Chosen People, who somehow got broken and lost — and eventually, superceded in Daddy’s favor — when they failed to recognize Jesus as the Messiah is a favorite Evangelical conceit. In this view, God misses the Jews and would still rather choose them — but his hands are tied. He simply can’t do that until they come around to his way of thinking on the Jesus thing. In the meantime, these stubborn “imperfect” ignorants (gifted from the start with way too much free will — an error God has been trying to reverse ever since) have left him no choice but to give their spot on his big lap to the Christians. Of course, “perfected” Jews” — those who come to accept the Christian Messiah — are God’s best beloved of all.

Fascinating. I would imagine that I’m still right that Coulter got this from her “Left Behind” buddies at the Coral Ridge Ministries. I just have to laugh at the idea that this extremely sophisticated pit viper actually buys the fundamentalist line, beyond the fact that everyone is going to hell but her and Rush Limbaugh.

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