Fortnight Over

After two weeks in the Kentish wilderness, I have finally caught up with what I missed whilst chopping wood, burning wood, and providing a smash hit with my home-made rotisserie cooker. By smash hit, I mean it actually cooked three chickens, none of them fell into the fire, the pole didn't break, and no one had food poisoning the next morning.

So now, after missing out on Parkville's Tom Watson narrowly missing a chance to win the Open at Turnberry and Labour resorting to homophobia in their futile effort to retain Norwich North in the recent by-election, I'm back parked behind my laptop. And recently I've been making notes on how British media are framing the States in their correspondent reports. And for correspondents from a country where 70 percent of the populace don't say that there is a God (in spite of all coinage containing abbreviations for "By the Grace of God" and "Defender of the Faith" with reference to Queen Elizabeth II), any story from the U.S. where religious fervour equals a "backward" approach grabs headlines, albeit buried well inside.

On various supply runs to go after chicken, marshmallows, and other edibles, I picked up the Labour-leaning Guardian on two occasions and the Murdoch-owned Sunday Times once. And twice in the Guardian, correspondent, columnist and editor alike hammed up rather condescendingly the religious aspect of each story. For starters, this Guardian piece on the Texas Board of Education considering a proposal to emphasise Christian influence on the founding of the United States. That same day in their Sport section, Lawrence Donegan commented on Stewart Cink's celebratory speech, at first lamenting the concept of athletes giving thanks to God for their performance in their sport (including identifying Kurt Warner as still with the St. Louis Rams when he led Arizona's Cardinals in the most recent Super Bowl), but credited Cink with invoking the Almighty in a succinct, but not bragging manner.

Then comes the final commentary from BBC's Justin Webb, who after eight years of reporting from Washington is returning to the British Isles. In his generally glowing commentary of his adopted home (and his kids' native land), his echoing the in-bred optimism of the U.S. comes to a screeching halt when referencing the case of two Wisconsin parents convicted of reckless homicide for refusing to take their 11-year-old diabetic daughter to a doctor. Until she stopped breathing those parents believed that having their child treated with regular insulin shots was putting a doctor's word above God's.

Now I can't doubt the existence of the fervently religious back home. Quite often I find myself able to relate closer to them than secularists that dominate Western Europe. But as growing numbers suggest that the way to curb poverty, abortion, illegal immigration, socialism, fascism, racism, etc. etc. is to emphasize a narrow strand of Christian thought, to isolate their communities from outside influence, and to latch onto any far-fetched idea to satisfy their conviction, I find myself leaning in the opposite direction.

Seriously, if the Founding Fathers were truly devout Christians, then why would the First Amendment ban Congress from establishing a state religion before banning them from prohibiting its free exercise? Why would Thomas Jefferson have a Koran on his book shelf? Why would the words of an avowed religious critic, Thomas Paine, be the very call to bring America to revolt against the tyranny of King George III (who, as pointed out last month, was head of the Church of England)?

But at the same token, for every nut who attempts to end an argument with an impromptu mass recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, there are genuine, devout, and open-minded followers of Christianity and the many other faiths that have flourished in the States. And for secular media to assume that any religious person from the U.S. must believe that God directed U.S. troops to pillage Toronto (then known as York) in 1813, Obama was born in Kenya, and the capital of Wisconsin is Green Bay, evokes a dangerous tendency to condescend.

And more often than not, pride comes before the fall.