Catholic and Enjoying It!
The more religion becomes a consumer mode for accessorizing, rather than a matter of truth, the more Americans, including ignorant Catholics and Evangelical Emergent types, will have no problem with it. When Christianity ceases to be about what is true and simply becomes one’s preferred way of coping with life, the more helpless one becomes the liberal theological project.
Rick Warren was, in a way, a perfect demonstration of this. He is to be commended for taking a deep gulp and actually praying a Christian prayer at the Inauguration. But the way in which he introduced it: “I humbly ask this in the name of the one who changed my life”, which, being translated, means, “Jesus is my subjective experience.” Caesar *loves* Jesus to be a purely subjective experience, because that means Caesar gets all the real estate and Jesus gets to be a fantasy some people like to console themselve with. If, at some point, these people with Jesus fantasy try to act in the public square in a way Caesar doesn’t like, he can just bark “STOP IMPOSING YOUR VALUES ON ME!!!!” and the people with the private fetish about Jesus will generally apologize, meekly say, “Well… he changed *my* life!” and then back off.
The Dems will use this to great effect over the next few years. And a great many Emergent folks and clueless Catholics will fancy that their religion is being respected while this is done, because we will periodically get to hear somebody from the civil right movement mention God or Obama allude to the Bible or some gospel choir sing about the brotherhood of man.
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