In a campaign speech in Ohio on Saturday, Rick Santorum accused President Obama of embracing a “phony ideal,” a “phony theology.” Not “a theology based in the Bible, a different theology.” He’s claiming his remarks were taken out of context. Watch (at about two minutes in), where he talks about environmentalism being a “phony theology:”
When questioned by Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation yesterday about why he was calling the president’s faith into doubt, Santorum insisted:
“I wasn’t suggesting the president’s not a Christian. I accept the fact that the president is a Christian,” Santorum said, looking agitated. “I just said that when you have a worldview that elevates the Earth above man and says that we can’t take those resources because we’re going to harm the Earth; by things that frankly are just not scientifically proven, for example, the politicization of the whole global warming debate – this is all an attempt to, you know, to centralize power and to give more power to the government.
“It’s not questioning the president’s beliefs in Christianity. I’m talking about the belief that man should be in charge of the Earth and have dominion over it and should be good stewards of it.
“I’ve repeatedly said that I believe the president is a Christian. He says he is a Christian. But I am talking about his worldview or the way he approaches problems in this country and I think they’re different than how most people do in America.”
Today, his national press secretary, Alice Stewart (whose previous job was press secretary for Michele Bachmann’s presidential campaign), went on MSNBC and also claimed that Santorum wasn’t questioning Obama’s religion. Instead, she said, he was talking about “radical environmentalists, there is a type of theological secularism when it comes to the global warmists in this country. That’s what he was referring to. He was referring to the president’s policies, in terms of the radical Islamic policies the president has and specifically in terms of energy exploration.” Watch:
Moments later, reports MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, Stewart called, “while the show was on the air—to say she regretted the slip of the tongue, and to please note that she had misspoken and did not realize until it was pointed out to her that she had used the word ‘Islamic’ by mistake.”
Of course. Because secularists and Muslims and environmentalists are equally the sworn enemies of anyone with a “Christian worldview” and therefore America. An understandable mistake to mix them up in a torrent of dog-whistles: Theological secularism. Global warmists. Radical Islamic. If you’ve had a “Christian worldview” education, you’ve been taught that two of those—secularism and Islam—are competing “worldviews” in a cosmic clash with Christianity, vying for domination in the world. And you’ve probably been exposed to the false claim that global warming is a hoax, that environmentalism “and its ramifications must be clearly understood by Christians so that we can protect ourselves and especially our children from the unbiblical brainwash that permeates our schools, media, popular culture, and yes, our churches,” according to Christian Worldview radio host David Wheaton.
Unpacking Santorum’s comments: he admitted to Schieffer that he believes humans are biblically commanded to take dominion over the earth, and that environmentalism is in conflict with that mandate. (See, there are some mandates Republicans like: if they can claim they came from God, not the government, or at least from the government via God.) In Michigan today, Santorum is rehashing this speech claiming that “climate science” is actually “political science.” Translation: there is no science, there is only God. Any attempt at science is necessarily political, and therefore illegitimate if in conflict with a “Christian worldview.”
Don’t be fooled by Santorum’s defense that he believes Obama when the president says he’s a Christian. Listen to the world salad Santorum and Stewart dropped onto the national airwaves. Anyone steeped in the “Christian worldview” (including Stewart’s old boss Bachmann) would fully understand that code as “Obama doesn’t govern from a ‘Christian worldview.’ And you know what that means: he must be a secularist, or an Islamist, or some other enemy of Christianity and America, like a socialist or an environmentalist. Because someone who doesn’t have a ‘Christian worldview’ must have one of those other, anti-American, anti-Christian worldviews.”
