Somehow, Rick Santorum takes an Obama “for instance” where he talks about things that “make America great” and sees “ a president who doesn’t believe in American exceptionalism”.

Part of this American belief that we are all connected also expresses itself in a conviction that each one of us deserves some basic measure of security. We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, hard times or bad luck, a crippling illness or a layoff, may strike any one of us. "There but for the grace of God go I," we say to ourselves, and so we contribute to programs like Medicare and Social Security, which guarantee us health care and a measure of basic income after a lifetime of hard work; unemployment insurance, which protects us against unexpected job loss; and Medicaid, which provides care for millions of seniors in nursing homes, poor children, and those with disabilities. We are a better country because of these commitments. I’ll go further – we would not be a great country without those commitments.
—from Obama’s April 13 speech in response to the House Republican budget proposal

I guess what Obama failed to communicate there was the divine powers of the free market.  The “Faith and Freedom Conference”,  the idolatrous “faith” that so many right wingers espouse,  is about conservative politics with a little bit of “Divine Providence” thrown in. It’s the kind of religion the corporations could love,  for it infuses efforts to further the right wing economic policies with a “sense of spiritual fervor”.

What really gets me is this:  The article that occasioned this post quoted from Santorum’s remarks at the “Faith and Freedom Conference”,  but the most “theology” he could muster is a mention of “Divine Providence”. The gist of his remarks centers on how Obama doesn’t believe in “American exceptionalism” (which in itself,  is ridiculous, especially  when you take into account that he starts from the above quote from Obama).  As I mention in the previous paragraph,  the problem is that he doesn’t “talk up” the “powers of the “free hand of the market”,  which is conservative speak for their belief in the ultimate good that will bloom when business is left completely alone to bestow it’s “blessings”.  The “market” is like a fourth person of the trinity (what’s the word for a “foursome” like “trinity” is for a threesome?  Whatever that is,  that’s the theology of the “Faith and Freedom Conference”.  Or maybe one could say that “the free market” takes the place of the Holy Spirit.)

Whenever I hear the right wing wax “free market” (which is almost constant when they talk about the economy),  I am thankful for the voices in the church that have recognized the confrontation between the Kingdom of God and The Kingdoms of this world.  This is not an espousing of an “otherwordly” philosophy,  but a recognition that the world as God intends sands in stark contrast to the powers that would control it for their own gain.  These voices in the church have unmasked the “free hand of the market” rhetoric as the deception that it is,  which is a ruse to represent the self-interest of the powerful as “good for us all”,  while most of those who buy this are amongst the most damaged by that ‘”medicine”.  They buy into it , in no small measure because their faith leaders have helped to convince them that this is what God has intended for “America” (and usually this “concern for all” stays within the boundaries of America;  the idea of a “world community” is largely rejected and the concerns of others are translated as “threats” to “our way of life” ; a “way of life” that is steadily slipping down the slope of increased power at the top and decreased share for the rest)

The political uproar resulting from hubristic right wing governors,  and a hubristic GOP House espousing extremist economic policies of a Paul Ryan plan has sparked a hope in me that churches who have recognized this frontal assault of these conservative efforts on the bulk of the population will begin to finally to rediscover the Biblical message that The Kingdom of God is not so much “within you” as it is “among you”.  I am reminded of the kinds of conditions that spawned spiritual movements such as The Catholic Worker founded by  Dorothy Day,  and Walter Rauschenbusch’s “Social Gospel”.   We’ve heard a resurgence of right wing angst over “The Social Gospel” as a by-product of this latest series of right wing efforts to roll back “corrections” to earlier oppressive power structures (like the efforts to curb “labor”). Rauschenbusch emphasized a “Kingdom of God” vs “individual salvation” (and so led him to some less than ecclesially strong views of the church,  on which I think he was mistaken,  but understandably so in his circumstances).  That my hope is stirred re: the church in these circumstances is an indication that I am a strong believer in the church as a community of communities aligned with “Kingdom of God” rather than “Kingdoms of this world”.   It seems to me that the intensifying of the efforts of the beneficiaries of the present economic status quo to speed up the solidification of their positions is a great opportunity for the church to be forming its people re: The Kingdom of God and seek the status as a distinct community.