Should we Respect Conservative Christians?

This year at BayCon, a science fiction convention I frequently attend, there was a panel on why we should respect conservative Christians and how much disrespect there apparently is of them.  Well, to be fair to the presenters, I never actually went to that one.  I was at the con for pleasure, not to dive deep into a very serious and, I think, complicated debate.  Truth be told, just seeing that on the program turned my stomach.  I needed time to tease out my various thoughts and feelings before reacting.  I wish I had attended, now, because I'd be able to be more specific in this post toward responding to their specific complaints (which for all I know may well be valid).  The important thing is that it got me thinking about whether or not and to what extent we have an obligation to respect the conservative Christians.  So, this post represents my thoughts on the subject in general, as opposed to a reaction to anything any individuals said that I wasn't there to hear.  I hope my readers will take it as such.

In theory, I believe in respecting everybody.  In fact, I think that modern, enlightened, first world, democratic society is based on respect.  The Declaration of Independence says that we're all created equal.  This thought is the basis for much of first world society in modern times.  The implication of that statement is that we are all, essentially, deep down, worthy of respect as human beings.

A problem arises, however, when you have a group whose beliefs are fundamentally opposed to those basic principals.  If someone were to say that they fundamentally disagreed with freedom of speech, for example, and then got mad at anyone who was upset by that statement, I think most of us would have a great deal of trouble respecting such a person.

I see quite a lot of Christian extremists in America who are fundamentally opposed to freedom of religion and a separation of church and state.  These are foundational American values.  The first is a guaranteed right in our constitution.  The second is, in my reading, a re-phrase of the establishment clause of the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion".  The term was coined by Thomas Jefferson, who pointed out that we must have that in order to have freedom of religion.  The two are inseparable: two parts of a whole.

A few years ago, I spoke with a friend of my father's who is a professor of the Sociology of religion with an expertise on American Christianity (please understand that this does not make him pro- or anti- Christian in any way -- that should be obvious, but I've had people assume that his academic interest in the subject implies some sort of adoption of its tenets, which, of course, it does not).  

He told me that from the founding of America all the way through the Twentieth Century, a separation of church and state was an accepted norm by all but the outliers of the bell curve.  It's really only in the Twenty First Century that we first see any mainstream adoption of any idea that separation of church and state might be at all optional.

So, we should all be really, really scared that anyone except the fringe is taking that idea at all seriously.  And, yet, I have friends who seem to have bought into this anti-American meme.  Listen!  For the last time! A separation of church and state is an absolute, essential, critical American value, a critical Enlightenment value and a fundamental human right.  It is non-optional!

Now that we've cleared that up, let me get to why respecting conservative Christians is so complicated.  While I'm sure there's a great deal of diversity among conservative Christians and it's unfair to anybody to assume that they fit a pattern just because they wear a label, there is a pattern that I see with conservative Christians that makes respecting them a problem.

The first part of this pattern is that they seem fundamentally opposed to a separation of church and state and freedom of religion.  Some of them are up front about this (scarily enough!) and others are more cryptic about it, but it's a definitely a pattern.

Take for example, the issue of women's reproductive rights.  We all know that the real reason a lot of conservative Christians are anti-reproductive rights is because they (a) believe in the soul, (b) believe that the soul comes into the "body" (I guess a microscopic zygote is a type of body) at the time of conception and (c) that God, through the medium of the Bible, has forbade us from ending pregnancies.  This is a religious argument for outlawing something!  It's opposed to freedom of religion.  And, yet, it's a pattern with conservative Christians that they typically want it legally enforced.  Now, I'm sure there are plenty of non-religious arguments on the anti-reproductive rights side, however this is clearly a religious argument.

Take for another example gay marriage.  The typical conservative Christian argument against it being legal is that homosexuality is an "abomination against God" and that it says that in the Bible.  Regardless of what the Bible actually says, the fact that such people are making a Biblical argument at all proves that they want gay marriage to be illegal for specifically religious reasons.

The same is true with outlawing stem cell research.  Here, the standard conservative Christian line is the same as the anti-reproductive rights line.  Again, it's a religious argument.  The same is true for their reasons for wanting to keep schools from teaching children to use condoms: they have a religious belief that pre-marital sex is immoral and have Biblical arguments for that.  So, what we have in that case is a defiance of separation of church and state.  Ditto for wanting school prayer.

What this means is that there is a pattern among conservative Christians of being fundamentally opposed to freedom of religion and a separation of church and state.  They want to force their religious opinions on the rest of us and force us to obey religious laws!

I find it very difficult to respect anyone who thinks that way, because they are fundamentally opposed to human rights, to the foundational values of modern democracy and fundamentally anti-American.

Then, there's another problem.  I'm fairly certain that a huge percentage of conservative Christians fundamentally disrespect and look down on the rest of us.  It's more than just that they think we've been lead astray by the Christian devil and that they're convinced we'll "burn in Hell".  It's clear that, at a deep level, many of them think that if someone's non-Christian they must somehow lack the discipline to be Christian, rather than assuming, as I think most of the rest of us do, that we just have different religious beliefs.  

In other words, while people of other religions who really think of us as equals realize that we all just have different beliefs and affirm our equality with them in the human quest for the truth, many, many conservative Christians specifically think that (a) they're fundamentally right and we're fundamentally wrong and (b) that the only reason why we don't believe what they believe that we just want something else to be true out of some sort of weakness or deficiency.

So, they fundamentally disrespect us.  And, yet, it seems, all too often, I hear conservative Christians expecting us to respect them.  What's more, "respect" can have different meanings.  It means something very different if I say, "children should respect their parents" versus if I say, "we should all respect each other."  The first implies a fundamentally unequal relationship.  The latter implies an equal one.

What really gets me, though, is that a lot of conservative Christians have horror stories about just what terrible, awful people they were before they "found Jesus", as in they were robbing liquor stores, raping women and addicted to crack before they finally "found Jesus".  I've done bad things in my life, but never anything that bad.  So, by any objective reasoning, I ought to be considered more disciplined than them and yet, I've seriously had mega church Christians tell me to my face that I'm non-Christian because of a lack of discipline.  Yeah right!

Here's what I'd say to any conservative Christian who is upset because she or he feels disrespected by non-Christians...

1. Do you believe in freedom of religion and a separation of church and state?  If so, how does that affect issues like reproductive rights, prayer in school, gay marriage, etc?  Are you prepared to affirm that women should have the right to figure out their religious convictions about ending a pregnancy on their own or do you think the government should force Christian doctrine on them? Do you think gays and Lesbians have a right to figure out their own religious convictions about whether it's alright for them to get married on their own, or do you think the government has some responsibility to force the conservative Christian answer on them?
2. Do you respect non-Christians?  Do you really respect non-Christians?  Do you honestly affirm that we're all just searching for the truth and that you think conservative Christianity is right but that you realize that other people have come to other conclusions and that that's all okay?  Or, do you think that you know better than we do and have some sort of right to shake your finger at all of us?
3. When you say "respect", do you mean hierarchical respect, as in you think that we should look up to you?  Or, do you mean egalitarian respect, as in we should all respect each other as sisters and brothers?

If you are in any way opposed to freedom of religion or a separation of church and state (which, as I've said, is really same thing), you're fundamentally un-American and anti-democracy. If you fundamentally disrespect non-Christians or if what you mean by "respect" is that you expect people to look up to you, then you are really fundamentally opposed to the Enlightenment conviction that all human beings are fundamentally worthy of respect.   If you mean the egalitarian type of respect, but you refuse to respect us while expecting us to respect you, you're a hypocrite.  So, in any of those circumstance, I see no reason why I should respect you (except that I have my own reasoning on the matter, as we'll see).

If, on the other hand, you affirm freedom of religion and separation of church and state, you respect non-Christians and what you mean by wanting "respect" is the egalitarian kind of respect, I think I already respect you.  My respect for you falls under my conviction that everyone has the right to freedom of religion and a separation of church and state.  This is one reason why conservative Christians really should affirm these values, rather than opposing them.  By affirming them, you put yourselves on the moral high ground with the rest of us and can, thereby, honestly expect to be respected as exercising your rights.  By opposing them, you also oppose your own rights, as well.

So, I'm really not sure what the problem is.  If you basically respect me and affirm my rights, I already respect you and affirm yours.  If you are fundamentally disrespectful of me and oppose my rights, then you're backing me into a corner from which I must fight you. 

Now, I do believe in holding out respect to people, even when I don't feel that it's reciprocated and part of me wonders if it's warranted.  I try to respect the person, the soul, the essence of who a person is and understand that maybe their disrespect of me comes from some deep-rooted disrespect that others have aimed at them and that, deep down, disrespectful people often have trouble respecting themselves.

However, I do feel called to fight against the kind of disrespectful, anti-rights, anti-American, anti-democracy conservative Christian with my speech, with my writing and in every other peaceable way that citizens of a free society must.  I call upon all of my fellow citizens, not only of America, but of the world and of the Cosmos to do the same.  I call upon conservative Christians to join us in that cause.