Secular, Sectarian and Sacred

So, OK then, here's one Baptist minister who sets out to change America, leads a march on the nation's capital, and succeeds in changing the law of the land. And here's another Baptist minister who has set out to change America and to rewrite the laws of the land. So what's the difference? Why do I admire and honor the former while mocking the latter as a theocratic goof? Is it just because one was a liberal and the other a conservative?

Actually, the difference between the two cases is huge. One could almost say these two cases are opposites. King offered secular arguments in sectarian language. Huckabee is offering sectarian arguments in (mostly) secular language.....

King's biblical oratory and Huckabee's bibliolatrous babble serve very different arguments. King's argument was ultimately a secular one: a call for justice in accord with the biblical prophets but also, even more so, in accord with the rights guaranteed in the Constitution. Huckabee's argument is ultimately a religious one: a call for the Constitution to be re-written in accord with the (alleged) fiats of his faith.

Those are very different. It is in no way inconsistent to endorse the former while opposing the latter. In fact, it would be inconsistent not to.

[via slacktivist]