The Religious Bigotry of Katie Allison Granju

Katie Granju is not unique so I don’t wish to single her out for that reason, but she is typical of a certain type of Liberal and she was linked by Glenn Reynolds making her musings more widespread than if she were blogging in blissful anonymity in Knoxville.

She began a passive-aggressive defense of Barack Obama in a recent column which can be summarized as: Obama’s past association with terrorists, racists and crooks are not a big deal.

What was interesting is that on the way to her conclusion she needed to take a swipe at Sarah Palin.

…Sarah Palin has wrapped ACORN and Ayers inside a particularly nasty package of racist and religious hate mongering that turns off all but the most rabid nutters.

Now that’s an interesting turn of phrase and she got a reaction. She allows comments on her column, but they are pre-screened so comments so which she disapproves don’t make it on to her site. She claims that she is getting flak from both sides, but in reality the comments are running about 100 to 1 against her.

But she was finally goaded into saying what evidence she has that Palin is committing hate and here it is, ready?

Palin's statements that Obama isn't like "us" and doesn't see America like "us" have a clear meaning to the same people who have been circulating the ridiculous e-mails that claim Obama is a Muslim from Kenya. That's what I mean by her pandering to nasty racial and religious bigotry.

This is it?

This ties Palin to people who claim Obama is a Muslin from Kenya?

Who is saying that Obama is a Muslim for Kenya? Not Palin. Everyone acknowledges his father was Kenyan. His autobiography refers to Islamic studies, not surprising for someone who lived in Indonesia. Relatives stories differ on his attachment to Islam while a young man. Given his reluctance to discuss his relations with people like Ayers and Wright after he began his run for President, we don’t really know what Obama’s early religious orientation was. The point is that the McCain/Palin campaign have stayed far away from this issue and trying to tie Palin to it is dishonest.

In fact, it’s Palin whose religious beliefs have been lied about. Palin belongs to a Pentecostal church. She is being branded a religious kook who is tied to faith healing, witchcraft, anti-Semitism, homophobia, and the belief that dinosaurs roamed the earth 6000 years ago. She is accused of wanting to teach Creationism in public schools and being a Christian “Taliban.” This is religious bigotry, but it’s being practiced by her opponents.

In a way it’s understandable. The mainline Christian denominations have so watered down their faith that they have eliminated the need for God’s grace. If the message of Christianity is that God loves you no matter what, what is the need for the redemption of sin?

If the wages of sin are forgiveness, Christ died on the cross by a mistake.

And really, that story about the “son of God;” who believes that anyway?

People go to Mainline churches for the same reason Obama did, to make the right connections; to be seen by the right people.

But it’s really understandable. The Katie Granjus among us really don’t understand Christians. I have no clue as to the religious affiliation of Katie Granju. She may be atheist, agnostic, Christian or Jew, but she has no clue about Christians.

Oh no, she may remonstrate: “some of my best friends are Christians.” In fact, she may even claim to belong to a Christian church. But then, Jeremiah Wright is ordained as a Christian pastor.

She may be Jewish. There are a great many Jews that are hostile to Christians. She may be atheist or agnostic and those groups have become rather rabid in their hatred of Christians. In fact several bestselling books and several recent movies have as their foundation a hatred of Christianity.

So it’s easy for someone like Granju to toss off a bon mot about pandering to nutters. It’s how they view people who are real Christians, who believe that Christ is the Son of God; who believe that he rose from the dead to redeem them from the sin that God condemns. And while that belief does not reside anywhere at Knox News or in most faculty lounges, it remains the animating belief of most people in the United States.

But what strikes me about people like Ganju is their ability to create a monster out of people who profess a faith in Christ. It is a disturbing echo of the 1930s in Europe when another religion was demonized. That did not end well – for anyone, including the weak chinned, bespectacled people who were put in charge of spreading the venom. Unfortunately before the end millions died.