Micah Beckwith should resign as lieutenant governor of Indiana because, as a state official, he blatantly violates the constitutional right to freedom of religion for all in Indiana.
Beckwith recently called for hatred against Islam, denouncing a religion that has about 2 billion adherents globally as a “demonic death cult.”
He is fanning the flames of scapegoating that lead to anti-Muslim violence, as evidenced in last month’s fatal attack against a mosque in San Diego.
Beckwith is doing exactly what he is accusing “Islamists” of doing. He is justifying hatred in the name of his narrow and misguided version of a “Christian” God.
In my IndyStar debate with Beckwith last fall, he insisted that the Christian God is violent. As a scholar of religion and psychology, I presented him with evidence that this is a gross distortion of the heart of the message of Jesus into its very opposite.
I know what I’m talking about. I have written an entire book titled “A Violent God-Image.” There I show how hate and violence in the name of God is always a fear-based distortion of the actual purpose of religion to foster love and peace. Beckwith’s lack of formal theological training is apparent when he manipulates and cherry-picks religious texts to make them fit his own biases.
What is most disturbing is that Beckwith is calling for hatred of Islam in his role as the second highest government official of Indiana. He did so while prominently sporting the official lieutenant governor logo on his attire.
His attacks on those practicing the religion of Islam in the state of Indiana are thus literally examples of the Christian theocracy he wants to impose — as I predicted in an IndyStar column in 2024.
These official attacks on a religion are not only unconstitutional in the U.S. and in Indiana, which protect the freedom of conscience and the free exercise of all religions. They also go against the very tenets of the founder of Christianity, Jesus, who responded, when his first followers wanted to forbid others to pursue their own way of following him, that they should leave them be (Luke 9:49-50). Islam venerates Jesus in its own way without following those who claim to speak exclusively for Jesus or God.
To be clear: The problem is not one religion or another. The problem is always the bigoted, dehumanizing distortion of any religion.
As a Hoosier who grew up in Germany, I am painfully aware how serious it is for state and religious leaders to vilify another religion. In the 1930s, the so-called German Christians called for hatred of the Jewish religion. These Christian nationalists enjoyed broad support and used blood libel and other antisemitic hate speech against the non-Christian, Jewish community. This eventually led to horrific consequences: the murder of millions of Jews during the Holocaust.
Beckwith is a dangerous example of the current abuse of the Christian religion for bigotry. It is extremely harmful that a self-proclaimed Christian nationalist state official openly calls for hatred against Muslims unless they convert to Christianity.
Beckwith clearly is not fit to represent all Hoosiers in a fair and unbiased fashion. He is unable to guarantee both the U.S. and the Indiana constitutions’ protection of the free exercise of religion, and his hate speech violates Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Matthias Beier is an associate professor of clinical mental health counseling and pastoral theology at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis. He is the author of three books and publishes the Religion and Society on the Couch newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Micah Beckwith’s hatred of Islam makes him unfit for office | Opinion
Reporting by Matthias Beier, Opinion Contributor / Indianapolis Star
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By Matthias Beier, Opinion Contributor | USA TODAY Network
