Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
President Biden is a Devout Believer! Or Something…
Scott Wilmot has a great post up about Joe Biden’s endless promotion of abortion rights; not surprising for a Democrat, of course. But Joe Biden describes himself as a devout Catholic, which appears to stick in Scott’s craw, just a bit. Now, my first thought is that perhaps when Mr. Biden describes himself as a devout Catholic, perhaps he is lying. Such behavior would not be completely new for Mr. Biden. But no! No less reputable a source than The New York Times ran an article yesterday (cited by Scott himself in the comment section of the thread I linked to above) with the following lead on Twitter: “President Biden is perhaps the most religiously observant commander in chief in half a century. A different, more liberal Christianity grounds his life and his policies.”
Has The New York Times forgotten Bill Clinton? Every time another woman accused him of sexual assault, one could find him in the front pew of a church somewhere, with his glasses on the end of his nose in a nice, grandfatherly way, reading his Bible. The New York Times itself often used such photo-ops irrefutable demonstrations of his Christian beliefs as evidence that Mr. Clinton was an ethical man. Does The New York Times now think that was all a bunch of hooey?
Has The New York Times forgotten Barack Obama? When there were enough American voters getting concerned about his background, and his self-described formative years in the Muslim faith, The New York Times started running stories about Mr. Obama’s having spent years of his life in the pews of the church of Jeremiah Wright, developing his Christian faith. And this was not some short-term, cynical political ploy. They continued to run these stories, for an extended period of time. Until enough American voters began getting concerned about Obama’s background, and self-described devotion to a vicious racist like Mr. Wright. Then, such stories mysteriously disappeared, for some reason.
But regardless, Mr. Obama was a deeply religious man, right? Or does The New York Times now think that was all a bunch of hooey?
Has The New York Times forgotten Jimmy Carter? Of course not. But no liberal dares mention the Christian faith of Mr. Carter, because it appears that he actually believes in God. So the less said about that, the better.
Has The New York Times forgotten George W. Bush? He prayed several times per day. He prayed at the beginning of tax policy meetings (Heavenly Father, we beg that you guide us, as we consider these important decisions…). You can say what you want about Mr. Bush, but no one can question his devotion to his Christian faith.
So The New York Times honestly thinks that “President Biden is perhaps the most religiously observant commander in chief in half a century”?
Of course they don’t.
So why do they publish such news stories propaganda pieces? Propaganda works better if it’s not an obvious lie. Why do they do this? Choose a lie that’s less obvious, right?
The most obvious answer is that they’re trying to make modern, trendy leftism appear to be inspired by the wisdom of the ages. What would Jesus do? Well, he’d make abortion on demand for teenagers a Constitutional right! Yep! That’s exactly what he’d do! You conservatives can’t criticize anything in the Bible, right? So all this post-modern leftist silliness is actually Biblical teaching, you provincial rubes! Ha! There you go!
And I suppose that may be their reasoning. Providing cover for Mr. Biden from the right by falsely cloaking his policies in Christian theology is a reasonable approach, I suppose. If you have no ethics whatsoever. Which The New York Times, obviously, does not.
But I really don’t think that’s it.
Read the lead from The New York Times article again:
“President Biden is perhaps the most religiously observant commander in chief in half a century. A different, more liberal Christianity grounds his life and his policies.”
Why would they include that second sentence if they were trying to equate Mr. Biden’s policies with traditional Christian theology? And what the heck is “different Christianity” anyway? Is that the type of Christianity in which you don’t believe in God and you do whatever you want? Ok, fine, but what is the virtue in believing in not believing in anything? Or something?
Joe Biden’s head glowing in church. It is sometimes difficult for him to suppress his halo.
This is all so confusing.
Maybe they wanted to suggest that Mr. Biden was a Christian, but they just couldn’t do it, and they chickened out? Maybe this article was written by a committee, so it can’t even agree with itself? Maybe they’re afraid that some Democrats might think that Mr. Biden actually believes in God?
I don’t think any of those explanations are right. This just doesn’t make any sense.
Unless The New York Times actually believes that all of its readers are profoundly stupid and uninterested in the world around them. Except for that one reader (There’s always one, right?) named Bob:
NYT: “Joe Biden is a devout Catholic.”
Bob: “Yeah but…”
NYT: “Shut up.”
And honestly, who cares what Bob thinks? After all, The New York Times is a reputable news source, right?
Right?
I was hoping that, as I wrote this out to clarify my thoughts, I would reach an understanding of all this. But I really don’t understand. Why is The New York Times doing this?
“Our guy is a devout believer in Christianity! Well, a different Christianity! You know! Not the yucky kind! He believes in the belief of not believing in any actual beliefs! Well, nothing specific! It’s different and liberal! So what we really mean is, he’s liberal. But in a Christian way! But not regular Christianity! A different Christianity! Or something!”
It would appear that the authors of this New York Times piece are as confused as I am. So why are they publishing it?
I have no idea why they’re doing this. It’s just surreal.
This is going to be a strange four years…
Published in General
This…
More lies out of the NY Slimes.
In the last 50 years:
Nixon, a practicing Quaker, prayed with Kissinger, on their knees.
Carter, a regular churchgoer, almost lost the 1976 election over his comments about temptation.
Reagan attended church weekly and cited God as a reason to defeat communism. His quotes include
and:
https://hollowverse.com/ronald-reagan/#footnote_3_1370
W, attended church weekly, prayed with his cabinet. My brother, who was a staffer for VP Cheney, remembers Cheney commenting on this.
That leaves only Ford, Bush Senior, Clinton and Obama as less than devout. Ford and Bush Senior I have not researched.
Nice line, I did not notice this the first time.
Do I remember the iconization of POTUS as beginning with Obama? One never saw previous POTUS depicted like this:
or this:
They’re just getting started on JoJo.
For non-Orthodox, here’s what I mean by icon. A contemporary Madonna and child.
I don’t remember pictures of Trump like this in the newspapers…
I think Alexandra gets it right:
Now here you go, you’ve got me all wound up again.
Now, I can’t write as elegantly and powerfully as you do, but I can paste tweets so I’ll drop these two in here for some further reading for those (if any) who want to know what gets me wound up.
The only thing authentic about Joe is his fake persona as a devout Catholic.
Biden is the kind of Christian who reads Palms.
I’d say G.H.W. Bush was religious in that polite, we-don’t-talk-about-it-dear way of WASPs. We Episcopalians admire understatement. But I do remember seeing the bio documentary on him and was touched by his recounting going to church every day and praying on his knees for the life of his young daughter. She died of leukemia, and it probably affected him the rest of his life.
That first headline catches my eye: Joe Biden Misreads Augustine.
Which suggests that Joe Biden reads Augustine.
Which I just can’t believe.
Joe Biden, sitting alone in his study at night, with a well-thumbed copy of “On Christian Doctrine” in his lap, and a thoughtful expression on his face. Right.
No, I just can’t believe that.
Can’t wait for the devout Catholic to sue the “Little Sisters of the Poor” again
C’mon man. Obviously Joe does not read Augustine. Pecknold uses the word misreads because Joe’s speech writer put it into the speech. By misreads, he means that Joe used the quote out of context and not in full.
I have a little story that relates to the issue here. Maybe I told this before. When I had my open heart surgery for the second time, as I was coming out of the unconscious state induced by whatever drugs I had been given, I had hallucinations or maybe just a dream. In this particular dream maybe as many as a hundred patients had been set up in recovery from surgery with me. As a comparison was made, I don’t know by whom but maybe the Almighty, between what each patient professed to believe and what was actually their belief, almost all of these patients were removed from the recovery process because what they professed was not the truth about their belief and I was left almost alone in recovery. The prime subject matter was Christianity and politics and a big item within that was the right to life of the unborn.
There are a lot of shallow Christians, to include Catholics out in the world. My favorite theological bumper sticker asks; “What Would Jesus Drive”. Any devout golfer knows it’s a Titleist.
Outstanding! This could be an awesome meme ….
Joe Biden hates us. He is divisive and anti-Catholic. He needs hit with a ruler.
“President Biden is perhaps the most religiously observant commander in chief in half a century. A different, more liberal Christianity grounds his life and his policies.” Clearly True… Focus of devotion is below.
Given the way he feels about us, he’s got the wrong fingers extended.
Our old friend, Sister Simone Campbell, of the Obama-era Nuns on the Bus fame weighs in with her (wrong) take on St. Joe’s “very developed approach” to abortion. She claims that because St. Joe is so concerned about religious liberty that he doesn’t want to force his beliefs on others.
This is total hogwash. Abortion is a human rights issue, not a religious liberty issue. These people really do think we are stupid. They have sold their souls to the father of lies.
As @glennamurgis pointed out, Biden’s concern for religious liberty will show itself or not when he sues the Little Sisters of the Poor.
Matt Walsh gives a good description of the religion Joe follows: the religion of self (from 09:15 to 11:12
The horns are showing.
I liked this one:
Failure is an option
From what I’ve seen, Bush senior was quietly more religious than what he revealed in public.
Yes, that is what I have heard. A lot was brought out on the services during his wake. I was actually surprised to learn how religious he actually was.
When you have pictures of him peeing on Russian hookers, why go with a beatification shot?
The Liberal Shields From Reality ™ are being held over Joe’s head, so far. Just watched a few of his unscripted moments in the last day or two, just one or two.
They’ll be carrying him across the finish line of life for the next four years, the press and his administration, and Congress will be pressing their weight against him to get what they want. Else they’ll publicly start stating the obvious. And get Kamala, who’s probably got more of the extreme wing on her side for this crap.
Trump is a blowhard, and a boor, but I actually think he cares about the people who voted for him, and those who are just run right over by government (see Keystone Pipeline workers, including union employees). Which is, in part, why I think he did some stupid and foolish things on Jan. 6.
Biden, et al, are literally ugly in their presence. The fact that they are required to lean on the press to cover them, and their potential voters, is vomit-inducing. They might as well have said Biden made up his own religion. He either owns who he is, or doesn’t, but this is just make-believe, being sold as a nice backdrop to someone who looks medically unfit to hold the office.
Joe is a Catholic who believes in himself, lives for life on earth, and hopes he can fool God once he dies.
I will write a post about Joe Biden’s speech later that is largely the same as this comment. I’ve been thinking quite alot about language recently.
The Echo of Faith
The entire inaugural reminded me of a beautiful Church without any believers in it. Christian Churches and all religiously inspired buildings tend to have wonderful art and bright and powerful colors. Though not so refined or as elegant, national celebrations have bright colors and songs as well. Also like religious rituals they are often hosted in front of old beautiful buildings built with a sense of purpose. Both categories of ceremonies appeal to a sense of tradition and community and attempt to affirm certain virtues they hold dear. In some ways Joe Biden’s speech, like many American speeches through our 240 some year history, sounded like a Sunday sermon. And while it sounded fine, it felt empty.
Eventually without real faith, all that is left to religious traditions are the beautiful buildings and the hauntingly crafted songs accompanied by an echo of pleasant feelings to replace the deeper faith. In a similar fashion, without real patriotism or a real commitment to America’s Constitution and our noblest traditions, we have a shallow ceremony saying words that we sort-of-kinda believe in even though we aren’t particularly sure of their exact meaning.
Take his reference to Saint Augustine for example,
What exactly do you mean by opportunity and security and all that? I know what classical liberals mean and what Christians think about these concepts. I don’t know what Joe Biden means by those concepts. I don’t even know if Joe Biden knows what he means. But the words sound pretty and people clap when you say them so why bother thinking through them. People are there for the comfort of ritual after all. It detracts from the ritual to focus on the philosophy of G-d given rights that the ritual is based on.
continued..
The Constitution, of the United States is the foremost among the American institutions where people sing the melody without believing in the lyrics. Leftists talk ceaselessly about how the Constitution protects our freedoms but do all they can to undermine it. To leftists who still have a remnant of patriotism, the Constitution means whatever is good, cuddly and convenient at the time. In a similar fashion, cafeteria Catholics and other lefty Church-goers who describe Christ as a touch-feely granola eating hippy who would side with whatever the left-wing beliefs are popular at the moment. The choir members sing just as well when they don’t believe in G-d. Why not just focus on the pleasantness of the song rather than focus on how the story involves the betrayal, torture and murder of the most innocent person who has ever lived. The real story of Christianity isn’t really suitable family movies.
As loathsome as he was, I admire Woodrow Wilson’s honesty with regard to the Constitution.
The constitution was made to prevent the centralization of the power by a Federal Government. Wilson and the other progressives understood this and wanted to get rid of the checks and balances but they were largely unsuccessful until FDR who could praise the constitution while undermining both it’s literal meaning and the philosophy of limited government that it emerged from.
Pope Francis seems like FDR. He is known for his charm and affability but not deep philosophical introspection. Francis also appeals to people’s sense of niceness and doesn’t focus on the harder virtues of justice and prudence. There are unconfirmed rumors that both FDR and Pope Francis are intellectual lightweights. FDR seems more effective than Pope Francis is swaying the center of the culture in my opinion. There are FDR Republicans remember. You know you have changed the culture when you get large numbers of people to change their minds or to change their party. Pope Francis has gotten secular lefties in the media to say nice things about him while his church loses followers. To my knowledge, he hasn’t convinced lefty journalists to get into Jesus.
When faith is lost, the rituals and traditions can continue for decades. Even generations. But there is a certain point when people quit bothering with the rituals and the pretences of belief. The squad is an example of this. They don’t need to pretend to even like America. Why should they? They have rejected the exhausted rituals that were Grandpa’s outdated habits for another faith.
So goes the way of empty rituals without any sustaining belief behind them.
Great stuff, Henry – that’s the seeds of a great post.