Rick Santorum’s done a lot of complaining about Obama now that he’s the latest Republican candidate to think he’s the front runner.  His shtick is to always bring in a religious perspective.  Recently he accused Obama of having a “phony theology,” referring (it seemed) to the debate over contraception, though this morning–for some unfathomable reason–he’s taken to suggesting that his remark relates to energy policy.  To sum up the phony theology argument(s): Santorum sees Obama’s attempt to get all employers that offer health care to include birth control to be an attack on religion, as the Catholic church has hospitals and colleges under their aegis.  AND Santorum thinks that protecting the Earth is upside-down, as  it’s our Genesis-derived right to dominate and plunder the Earth.

Let’s take a brief couple sends to put the irrationality of each argument to the sword before moving on.  The first amendment doesn’t give religions any right to impose its desires on society; it gives all of us the freedom from religious domination, like a church that blocks elements of medical coverage from hospital or university employees.  And since we live here on it, protecting the Earth is not merely part of our good stewardship of it, but an important part of keeping ourselves safe and healthy.  Santorum’s irrational positions could both fit under the heading of anti-health.

Let’s put aside his utter inability to grasp basic logical concepts and the general anti-health, pro-rape platform of the Republican party lately, for which Santorum has become the poster child.  Santorum repeatedly telling us that his perspective is informed by his religion, but so far as I can tell, the content of his religion is just another datum that has failed to make and impact on his pre-decided ideas, for the very concept of campaigning on a faith-based platform is itself anti-Biblical.  It is directly contradictory to the message given by Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount (found in Matthew, chapters 5-7).  For those of us with red-letter editions, it’s a pretty hard sermon to miss, as it’s a giant block of red ink that swallows at least a couple pages (this varies depending on font/page size, of course).  I draw your attention specifically to Matthew 6:1-6, in which Jesus instructs his followers to give alms and pray only in secret, pointing out that those who flaunt their religious beliefs, giving alms publicly, praying on the street corners, are hypocrites who have already received the rewards they were looking for.  Santorum is also the poster boy for this very hypocrisy of which Jesus warns us.

His attempt to diminish Obama as having a “phony theology” is reminiscent of the Pharisees who rebuked Jesus for sitting at the table with sinners, prostitutes and (gasp) tax-collectors.  The Pharisees believed in a ritual purity that Jesus understood as a performance-based dividing mechanism that allowed hypocrites to declare themselves cleaner in the eyes of God, a baseless assumption.  As Santorum makes the rounds today, “clarifying” his position without apology, doubling-down on his assertion that Obama has things backwards, it becomes increasing clear that Santorum is as devoid of any true theological content as he is of the intellectual.