{"id":278,"date":"2008-01-24T22:53:53","date_gmt":"2008-01-24T22:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/2008\/01\/more-of-ron-pauls-interview.html"},"modified":"2008-01-24T22:53:53","modified_gmt":"2008-01-24T22:53:53","slug":"more-of-ron-pauls-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/01\/more-of-ron-pauls-interview.html","title":{"rendered":"More on Ron Paul’s Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"paul3.jpg\"Outspokenly against the war and out of step with his party on much else–his support for tying American currency to the gold standard or for abolishing the Department of Education, for example–Ron Paul is typically portrayed as the libertarian bomb thrower in the Republican presidential field. Culturally speaking, though, Paul is in lockstep with the party’s base: a conservative evangelical whose worldview is shaped by his faith. Paul doesn’t typically discuss his faith life, but did in his recent Beliefnet interview<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Ron Paul: As the years went on [my wife and I] became more annoyed with the liberalization of the Episcopal church and it didn\u2019t fit us. None of our children stayed in the church\u2026. We now go to a Baptist church.
\nGod-o-Meter: Does that mean you now consider yourself an evangelical?<\/strong>
\nRP: Yeah, I do. But I\u2019m not sure that every single person that uses those labels are absolutely uniform and that people know exactly what they mean\u2026 some evangelicals get a little bit annoyed because I\u2019m not always preaching and saying, \u201cI\u2019m this, I\u2019m this, and this.\u201d I think my obligation is to reflect my beliefs in my life. I like the statement in the Bible that when you\u2019re really in deep prayer you go to your closet. You don\u2019t do it out on the streets and brag about it and say, \u201cLook how holy I am.\u201d If a person has true beliefs and is truly born again, it will be reflected in their life.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And though Paul said his faith influenced his pacifist streak<\/a>, he also discussed how it shapes such orthodox conservative positions as his opposition to abortion rights and support for religion in the public square:<\/p>\n

A few years ago, you wrote a Christmastime essay that said there was a war on religion in this country: \u201cThe ultimate goal of the anti-religious elites is to transform America into a completely secular nation\u2026 biased against Christianity.\u201d Do you still see that kind of assault happening?<\/strong>
\nI think it\u2019s systemic\u2026 in court cases that say you can\u2019t say a prayer at a football game. Where is it in the Constitution that said that somebody can prohibit prayer? The First Amendment says the federal government shouldn\u2019t write any laws regarding freedom of speech and prayer. And if it becomes offensive\u2026 then the local people have to deal with it…. it should be the school board or somebody. But there can\u2019t ever be under the First Amendment a prohibition. The Founders never thought that to be the case\u2026. It\u2019s systemic, especially the aggressive atheists who are always going to courts, to say that their attitude because they\u2019re atheists means a prohibition against expression of Christianity and that of course didn\u2019t happen 30 or 40 or 50 years ago. It\u2019s much more so today because there are some people aggressively trying to undermine Christianity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

All of which makes God-o-Meter wonder: how out of step is a pro-life evangelical conservative who’s dark on the Iraq war with the rest of the GOP’s evangelical base? With Beliefnet’s new poll of evangelicals<\/a> showing that “ending the Iraq war” is seen as more important than “winning the Iraq war” maybe less than he’s given credit for.<\/p>\n


\n8<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Outspokenly against the war and out of step with his party on much else–his support for tying American currency to the gold standard or for abolishing the Department of Education, for example–Ron Paul is typically portrayed as the libertarian bomb thrower in the Republican presidential field. Culturally speaking, though, Paul is in lockstep with the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ron-paul"],"yoast_head":"\nMore on Ron Paul's Interview - God-O-Meter<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/01\/more-of-ron-pauls-interview.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"More on Ron Paul's Interview - God-O-Meter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Outspokenly against the war and out of step with his party on much else–his support for tying American currency to the gold standard or for abolishing the Department of Education, for example–Ron Paul is typically portrayed as the libertarian bomb thrower in the Republican presidential field. 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