Rick Perry, Republican presidential hopeful, is on the rise and many are concerned.
Christopher Hitchens, applying his usual wit and wordpower in a recent Slate article, points out the “sheer wickedness and stupidity” of some of Perry’s claims, like the Bible is inerrant and that those who do not “accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior would be going to hell”.
Hitchens is unhappy about his half-affected convictions, the way he wriggles between absolutism and something less. One moment the Bible is literally correct; at other times just a guide. Perry “tells us that he is a ‘firm believer’ in the ‘intelligent design’ formulation that is creationism’s latest rhetorical disguise, adding that the ‘design’ could be biblical or could have involved something more complex, but is attributable to the same divine author in any event.”
I’m surprised Hitchens doesn’t go for the jugular here by posing an obvious line of questioning.
How is it possible for a hard-line Christian to successfully lead a secularised nation to the promised land if they believe the Bible to be inerrant and morally sufficient? Why waste time and effort on representative government and its tortured processes, if you already have in hand a divine statute containing the requisite answers? Is democracy just a means to theocracy, the Constitution subservient to the Bible?
Extremists who despise America may be insular and misanthropic, but at least they’re internally consistent in rejecting liberal democracy for a political system based on what they believe to be superior God-given laws.
On any reasoned account, Perry is either confused, lying about his conservative orientation or intends to foist his religious orthodoxy upon the American people from within the White House. Perhaps all three.
