By Alan Bean

Rick Santorum has raised eyebrows with a comment about President Obama’s “phony theology”.  According to the surging presidential candidate, Obama’s worldview is driven by “some phony ideal, some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology, but no less a theology.”

Aked to explain this remark on Face the Nation, Santorum said he was referring to the president’s environmental views.  According to an AP article:

The former Pennsylvania senator said Obama’s environmental policies promote ideas of “radical environmentalists,” who, Santorum argues, oppose greater use of the country’s natural resources because they believe “man is here to serve the Earth.” He said that was the reference he was making Saturday in his Ohio campaign appearance when he denounced a “phony theology.”

But when reporters asked for an explanation of the “phony theology” remark immediately after it was uttered, the candidate made no reference to environmentalism, explaining instead that the president practiced one of the various “stripes” of Christianity.

So where does Mr. Santorum stand?  Does he think Barack Obama is a genuine Christian or doesn’t he?

Here’s the most candid packaging of the GOP candidate’s take on the relative merits of the various expressions of Christianity.  In a speech at a Catholic University in 2008, Santorum charged that Satan, “the Father of lies”, had launched an all-out attack on the American church, starting with “mainline” Protestant denominations like the Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, the United Church of Christ (Obama’s denomination) and the American Baptists.  Here’s the salient paragraph:

 And so what we saw this domino effect, once the colleges fell and those who were being education in our institutions, the next was the church. Now you’d say, `wait, the Catholic Church’? No. We all know that this country was founded on a Judeo-Christian ethic but the Judeo-Christian ethic was a Protestant Judeo-Christian ethic, sure the Catholics had some influence, but this was a Protestant country and the Protestant ethic, mainstream, mainline Protestantism, and of course we look at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country and it is in shambles, it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it. So they attacked mainline Protestantism, they attacked the Church, and what better way to go after smart people who also believe they’re pious to use both vanity and pride to also go after the Church. [Emphasis added]

As Frederick Clarkson suggests, Rick Santorum believes the mainline denominations that were once the backbone of American Protestantism have entered a post-Christian phase.

If this is so, how should we assess the candidate’s comments about Obama qualifying as a Christian?

There are two ways of accessing any religion, whether Presbyterian or Mormon.  Both groups claim to fit under the broad “Christian” umbrella.  If they define themselves as Christian, Santorum believes, they are Christian, but only in the weak sense that they embrace the Christian brand name.

At a deeper level, there are stripes of Christianity that are relatively pure (Santorum would include the Roman Catholic Church and evangelical Christianity in this category), and stripes of “Christianity” so thoroughly infected by satanic error as to be Christian in name only.

I have no interest in debating this issue with Mr. Santorum.  Like any political figure, he is free to believe what he wishes about religion, environmentalism, or any other subject.  But when he attacks the “theology” of another candidate he is up to something: this isn’t slip-of-the-tongue language.

Rick Santorum has recently pulled ahead of GOP frontrunner, Mitt Romney, in pivotal swing states like Michigan and Ohio; but how will he fair south of Dixie?

That’s where the contrast between real and phony Christianity helps the former Pennsylvania Senator.  He isn’t reaching out to conservative Catholics; they are already on board.  The intended audience for his “phony theology” rhetoric is southern white Protestants, the folks most inclined to suspect Barack Obama’s social gospel Christianity and Mitt Romney’s Mormonism.

The President of the United States must be everybody’s president, at least in theory.  In times of national crisis theory approaches reality.  A nation on the ropes needs to rally aroud an inspirational leader Like “Winny” or FDR.   This explains why presidential candidates have traditionally refrained from attacking the personal character or the religion of opponents; or, more precisely, attacks of this nature have been intentionally subtle.

Can you be everybody’s president (in the weak sense I have suggested) if you suggest–if only by implication–that 45 million American religionists (and the current president) are in thrall to a “phony theology” that falls short of authentic Christianity?

Has the culture war evolved to the point where a serious presidential candidate is tempted to adopt a divide-and-conquer rhetoric that America’s status as a unified nation is called into question?

Perhaps we have.  I pray we have not.