Kim Davis and the Immaculate Perception

Where are the moderate, rational, intelligent Christians?  Why aren’t they opposing the elected Kentucky clerk who has claimed god’s authority for refusing to do her job?   Evidently, they endorse her bigoted interpretation of Christianity.  Evidently, they accept her as the ultimate interpreter of god’s will.  We now have the Gospel According to Kim.

She’s certainly not a virgin—married four times--but she seems to claim she has an immaculate perception of what god thinks and that he grants her the divine authority to discriminate against gays.

Consider the thousands of letters to the editors, blogs, op-ed columnists, talking heads, network and cable news  anchors and legal ”experts” commenting on her refusal to grant gay couples marriage licenses.  Almost without exception they deal with the legal, secular aspect of an elected county official refusing to follow the requirement of her office.  No one seems to question her contention that she is justified by god. 

What about the moral, theological questions?  What gives her the authority to determine what god wants and how, according to her immaculate perception, his wishes can override civil law.  This is where “real” Christians seem to be missing in action.  Since they limit their arguments against Davis to “legal” grounds, they safely avoid pointing out that she is using theological arguments to justify her bigotry and the “real” Christians haven’t got the balls to confront her on that.

Conceptually, it’s similar to Muslims arguing that theirs is a loving, peaceful religion then one of their brethren goes out and blows up a bunch of people.  The Muslims reply, of course, “That’s not real Islam.”  Well, the Christians sing “Jesus loves you,” every Sunday then someone like Davis comes along and qualifies that on Monday by adding “unless you are gay”.  Christians might reply, “But that’s not real Christianity.”   Really?  Then why don’t they have the courage to stand up against an obscure Southern county clerk who claims to have an inside track to the mind of god?  By omission the “real” Christians are silently endorsing Davis’s as some kind of theological authority.  The fact that presidential candidates Huckabee and Cruz endorse the new high priestess of Christianity is so stupid it is not worth discussing.

I did some research looking for any conservative who is pushing back against Davis and I found this written by conservative columnist Michael Gerson in the Washington Post: "Whatever their intentions, these people are doing great harm to the cause of religious liberty and to the reputation of their faith.”

In other words, this kind of “Christian” behavior is further alienating thinking, rational Americans and contributing to the growing number of “nones” in America—those who ascribe to no religious faith.  So, if you already had a rather low opinion of Christianity in America, Ms. Davis just gave you another reason to lower it even more.