Back in January I put up this post, called "The Testing Time is Coming." Not only does the post still seem good to me, upon looking back, but the title seems appropriate, and now more than ever.
One of the most chilling pieces of (non-violent) video I have ever seen was the clip of William Pryor asking Roy Moore, "Will you continue to acknowledge God if you resume your duties as a judge?" (That's a slight paraphrase.) The "acknowledgement" in question merely involved having a large monument of the Ten Commandments in his courtroom, ruled unconstitutional by a federal court. And the saddest part of it was that Pryor was a man of good will and himself, as I understand, a Christian.
Here is "Under God" by the Booth brothers:
Comments (2)
Will you continue to acknowledge God if you resume your duties as a judge
Isn't that as about as literal a religious test for office that you can get?
Posted by c matt | July 6, 2011 3:32 PM
Good point. The way it went, it was almost as though Pryor thought Moore was nuts (I mean, really, it seemed that way) and was using the phrase "acknowledge God" as a stand-in for "keep that monument in place." And I think Pryor did that, to be as fair as possible, because that was the way Moore set it up. He held that "acknowledging God" entailed not backing down on the monument, and he insisted on using that phrase in the questioning. So Pryor picked up the phrase from him and gave it back to him, sort of like if you were talking to someone who believed he was a postage stamp you would say, "Okay, so do you think you will continue to be sticky if you go out in the rain?"
Posted by Lydia | July 6, 2011 4:08 PM