Co-opting Christianity for one's own purposes

I have a huge problem with evangelical zealots who glibly invoke the name of God to justify what they do, or invoke his blessings for success in sports, in business, in politics and even in war. Watching Stephen Harper, early in his first term as Prime Minister, end his pronouncements with the words, "God bless Canada!" turned my stomach, frankly. It invoked an image of Harper imitating one of G.W. Bush's ubiquitous war cries; in itself, the manifestation of blasphemy. Jesus drew a clear line between the secular and the divine when he said, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. Render unto God what is God's."

A book I recently read echoed the blasphemously false piety in 18th-century attitudes that reconciled capitalist-driven slavery with a self-serving conception of Christianity. In "The Slave Ship" (see books page), I found a revealing prayer recorded by John Newton, later an active minister of the Church of England and the composer of the hymn, "Amazing Grace." Newton was on his third voyage as a slaver, his second as captain, when he caught wind of a planned slave insurrection. After clapping several slave boys in irons and using thumbscrews to "urge" confessions from them, he "examined" several men, punished them and sent them off to their eventual fate on a man-of-war. He then wrote a prayer in his spiritual diary that the book's author notes, "acknowledged the omnipresence of death in the slave trade. He did not ask God to change it, for it was in the nature of business, but rather to help him be ready to meet it." From what I can see, there is no difference between the ability of 18th-century capitalists, so-called Christians who actively promoted and justified slavery, and the so-called Christians of the late 20th and early 21st centuries who actively promote the oppression of minorities, wars of aggression, the stripping of human rights, the spread of corporatism at the expense of democracy, the disenfranchisement of the poor, etc. Anyone who invokes the name of God for the purpose of achiving their base secular goals give Christianity a bad name. To Newton's credit, he publicly rejected his own past and embraced the cause of abolition as he neared the end of his life.