Religion's infusion into politics offers opportunities for verbal abuse

Reverend Huckabee who once ran for President of the United States--wikimedia commons

One of the more troublesome aspects of religion, many say, is its infusion into politics, especially of the kind that intimates President Obama is part of a plot that includes radical Muslims to downgrade the United States values so the country can be taken over by evil forces.

Right Wing Watch is an organization that provides insight into the operations of some of these groups.  Their mission is to examine some of the statements of extreme right groups in an aggregate form on a daily basis.  This allows readers to see what is being said and written about politics and society that represent right wing ideas.


Presently key entertainers are being used to take the podium and explain the concepts that the right wing people offer.  Pat Boone, for example, has recently said that the Obama administration can be likened to Dr. Strangelove, a 1964 film starring Peter Sellers that is considered a comedy.  Yet Boone maintains it is fact, in a narrative that also relates the case of Willie Horton, a convicted murderer who, on a weekend furlough, committed violent crimes and became the topic of political debate in the Presidential election of 1988.  It was a time when Republicans were said to be "swift-boating," which became a phrase used for negative, and questionable, campaign tactics.

Religion, however, is one of those areas that brings politics into a particularly troublesome area, as it is woven more and more into articles, speeches and forums that allow the conservative agenda to espouse its cause.

The cause is to continue the process of evangelical missions, that offer values of family, God and patriotism.  And while these values as "standalones" may be reasonable ones, many Americans reject how the words are manipulated by both right and left extremes in order to prove a political point.

And although this infusion of religion into politics is welcomed by many Evangelicals, it also offers opportunities for verbal abuse, as observed by Right Wing Watch, and a survey of Charisma News, where those who call themselves Christians may call Obama a traitor for working with Muslims to overthrow the government.

It is the kind of speech in the form of writing that psychologists and legal authorities remind us is verbal abuse, especially when authority is used to downgrade others in the form of manipulations or outright lies.

And while many people of religious persuasions become involved in partisan politics, it is often the issue that experts say is more important than that.  For focusing on the concerns of the world that impact everyone, like not enough food or water or the new for new ways of cultivating food or creating energy, is what affects everyone and might persuade people to use their energies in positive ways.