The Theft Of King

Dreher, Linker, and Poulos are butting heads over moralistic therapeutic deism. Here's Linker:

Rod Dreher doesn't like this post at all. And why? Because if it weren't for traditionalist Christians like Dreher and Martin Luther King, Jr., there would have been no civil rights movement. Because apparently you need to be a traditionalist Christian to stand up for social justice and human rights. Gee, that's a pretty confusing way of using the term "traditionalist Christian." Let's see if I follow. All those devout Christian racists (and slave owners) in the American North and South over much of the past 400 years -- they weren't traditionalists. But the abolitionists  -- they were traditionalists. And so were Christians who protested for civil rights. But not the bigots beating those protesters to a pulp in the name of Christian tradition and authority. They weren't traditionalists. And yet, those who at this very moment proudly oppose the expansion of civil rights to gay men and women in the name of Christian tradition and authority -- they're traditionalists. As I said, this is pretty confusing. And ridiculous.

There is something repellent about the way in which the successors of those who defended slavery and segregation on Biblical grounds now seek to align themselves with Martin Luther King Jr, and the black churches that resisted Jim Crow. Repellent, but not surprising. The self-righteousness of these people is matched only by their imperviousness to reality.