'(Gimme) That Old Time Religion'

LAST WEEK, Pastor Terry Jones, the "Yosemite Sam" whack-job, presided over a disgusting show trial to condemn Islam, found it "guilty," and sentenced it to death by burning. He then doused a Koran with gasoline and set it aflame before his mesmerized, slack-jawed flock. That, in turn, ignited killings and attacks against Westerners in Afghanistan by outraged radicals.

Viewing these incidents in a political light, Andrew Sullivan wrote: "The interaction between Christianism and Islamism could take us all back to the dark ages. Both acts are, to my mind, egregiously unhinged. What on earth does it achieve to burn a holy book? And how screwed up is a religion which responds to this by murdering UN workers? Both mindsets are sick versions of religious fanaticism. My fear of a Huckabee or Palin as president is precisely their ability to inflame this kind of thing still further, and identify the the entire United States as representative of Christianist excess. The current GOP no longer includes in its leadership even someone like George W. Bush who kept insisting that Islam itself was not the problem, Islamism is."

Sullivan is right, of course. Whether Christianist or Islamist, "(Gettin') That Old Time Religion" (as Gentleman Jim Reeves' bible-thumping song goes) too easily leads backward to medieval delusion. To be sure, neither Republicans nor evangelicals had anything to do with Pastor Jones. But politically, the Religious Right (roughly 13% of the electorate) and its "Christianist" sub-components are joined at the hip to the Grand Old Party. Wily electioneers divined this alliance of convenience long ago to win national offices. And for a time, it worked. But like all Faustian Bargains, it was never sustainable. The devil will collect his due.

If the rational folks inside the GOP are smart, they'll soon say, stop, and take their party back from the yahoos. Surely there is a better way forward. But maybe it's not that simple. Perhaps we are witnessing a party in Darwinian flux as it copes with the unstoppable tectonics of political and societal change. If American history is any guide, no party can remain static, or should. In any event, the erection of the "wall of separation between church and state," as Thomas Jefferson phrased it in 1802, is a tribute to American wisdom. Let's not muck it up now.