The partisan mind has a tendency to politicize institutions in our society. The radical left uses our public school system as a weapons. The reaction right seeks to "weaponize" our churches.
The process of politicizing institutions harms our society and the institutions the partisans politicize.
Recently, I have been looking at the damage that the political right does to our nation's churches.
Modern Conservatism is an ideology that was conceived during the French Revolution. So the best way to begin a discussion of conservatism and religion is to look at the French Revolution.
The ruling class has long seen religion as tool to control the people. Rulers in Europe had a long history of fanning religious conflict in their quest to maintain. For example, in the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, followers of Catherine de Medici killed tens of thousand of Calvinists in a single day.
Protestants led similar atrocities.
The French Revolution worked as follows:
During the American Revolution, Ben Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson had traveled to France to seek support.
The US Founders hobnobbed with the French nobility and built support for their cause. Notable French leaders such as the Marquis de Lafayette and Comte de Grasse supported American Troops.
The Founders built up support for liberal reform in France.
King Louis XVI borrowed money to help support the US Revolution which put France in debt.
France suffered a crop failure and the nation was thrown into crisis.
King Louis XVI called a meeting of "The Estates General."
This body had three estates: The clergy was the first estate. The clergy was loyal to the king. The nobility were in the second estate. Many of the members of the second estate were liberals.
The third estate, in theory, represented the people. The third estate was controlled by a radical political group called The Jacobins.
The Jacobins were unruly and King Louis XVI tried to disband the third estate.
The third estate declared itself to be the National Assembly.
The National Assembly was led by two Jacobins named Danton and Robespierre.
The liberals tried to find a peaceful solution to the impasse between the National Assembly and King. The Jacobins ended up assassination the King, but they found themselves surrounded by enemies.
Robespierre and followers decided that the best way to secure their authority was to institute a "Reign of Terror."
Mass killings after a regime change was standard practice in Europe.
The Jacobins began killing anyone they saw as a threat including royalists and the liberals who were trying to find diplomatic solutions.
The form of the conflict is extremely important.
The First Estate (the clergy) was loyal to the king. The National Assembly came from the Third Estate. They saw themselves in direct opposition of the clergy.
To fight the clergy the Jacobins created a stupid new religion and demanded that the clergy support their stupid new religion.
Robespierre and friends eventually turned on each other and the National Assembly self destructed.
General Napoleon Bonaparte was a Jacobin. Napoleon invaded and toppled the Papal States.
Napoleon captured Pope Pius VI. Pope Pius died while in captivity.
The conclave for the new pope occurred in occupied Rome. Napoleon then made a pact with Pius VII, the new pope, that he would restore Catholicism for political support. This event was called the Concordat.
Napoleon returned to France. Napoleon slaughtered the protestors in the street then worked with a group called the Le Sénat conservateur.
Le Sénat conservateur layed the groundwork for Napoleon to declare himself emperor.
The Conservative Movement is named after this august body that brought Napoleon to the thrown.
Napoleon, who was a Jacobin, developed a really clever way to distance himself from the first Reign of Terror and the stupid religion.
Napoleon and the conservatives simply blamed everything on the liberals.
Conservatism has really been a broken record since the French Revolution.
Conservatives simply hate liberals. They have hated liberals since the day that Napoleon projected the acts of the Jacobins onto the the supporters of the US Founders.
King William IV of England was in awe of the way that Napolean turned the French Revolution around and blamed all the hardships created by the Revoluion on the people.
King William IV had his beloved Tory Party rebranded as the Conservative Party. The stated goal of the Conservative Party is to conserve the monarchy, the peerage and the established religion (which in the case of England is the Anglican Church).
The unfortunate legacy of conservatism is that the conservatives ended up making the church political.
This did not affect things in the United States until after the Civil Rights Movement when foolish intellectuals in the GOP adopted conservatism to draw the Dixiecrats into the Republican Party.
Conservatives began aggressively politicizing American churches. The predictable effect is that Conservatives have driven a large number of people out of American churches.
The picture shows Napoleon Bonaparte with Le Senat Conservateur. This is one of the greatest moments in Conservative History:
I know that I sound like a broken record myself. I live among Conservatives. These conservatives hate the French Revolution. They blame liberals of the French Revolution for all the problems of the modern age. I am trying to figure out how to explain to people who have not studied history that they are wrong.
The partisan mind is the source of most of our problems. Partisan conservatives who drive liberals from the congregation are harming their churches and are harming this nation.