John Kerry attacked President Bush last week with regard to Bush’s stance on stem cell research. Kerry accused the President of putting ideology before science, and the subtext was clear. See, John Kerry is a Catholic… he’s just not too Catholic. Oh, he’s Catholic enough to court the Catholic vote, but not Catholic enough to offend his progressive, forward-thinking, 21st century friends on the left. John Kerry’s Catholicism is of the dashing, romantic John Kennedy variety… not the old fashioned, strict John Paul variety. For George W. Bush, faith is a matter of reverence. For Kerry, it’s a matter of convenience.

Kerry’s comment is just the latest in the left’s ceaseless attacks on reverence. Hidden in a speech about science, camouflaged as campaign rhetoric, Kerry’s missive called Bush by name, but it was targeted at anyone who shares the President’s reverent ideas about God. The left wing in this country outgrew that type of reverence long ago. They’ve replaced the antiquated, spiritual idea of reverence with modern, human ideas. The left is all for peace, love, and tolerance, if those goals are acheived through humanist, athiestic means. Reverence, a concept that encompasses and eclipses all these ideas, is rejected outright by today’s liberals.

I supposed I should offer a definition of what I mean by reverence. Reverence, as I see it, is really a combination of two things. First, it is the belief that man was created, knowingly and intentionally, by an active, present, loving and omnipotent God. Secondly, reverence is the behavior inherent in holding that belief. I’m talking about behavior born of the humility, compassion, and respect felt by those who are reverent. If you see yourself and everyone around you as an equal creation of God, it tempers your behavior. It makes you unwilling to harm other people because you see them as the property of your creator, just as you are yourself. It makes you patient and forgiving. It makes you thirst for justice. Reverence makes you look for the good around you rather than the bad. It doesn’t make you perfect, it neither discounts nor eternally prevents your trespasses… but reverence promotes far more positive behavior than does the belief that man is his own ultimate authority.

Any moral code worth following and strong enough to last is built on a belief in right and wrong as defined by the Creator of the Universe. A code like that is inherent, it doesn’t have to be taught, and it is assumed as the norm by everyone who follows it. It’s what C.S. Lewis called “natural law.” That kind of code is far more effective and constructive than any law based entirely on the values of man. For one thing, man’s values change. What is considered intolerable today might be acceptable tomorrow. Beyond that, man’s values are subjective. You and I might agree, for instance, that stealing is wrong, but we might disagree about whether or not an MP3 downloader is stealing. Ultimately, though, man’s laws are fallible because man is corruptible. Men can be persuaded to make and support laws for selfish reasons or based on temporary situations. God’s laws, natural laws, are not corruptible. Sure, a man can persuade himself that it is in his best interest that he behave in a way he knows to be wrong. He might even persuade himself that it is good that he does so… but the mere fact that such an act of self persuasion is necessary proves the rule. Man’s values change. God’s do not.

We are becoming less and less reverent and we are suffering for it. Because we don’t see each other as interactive parts of a system controlled by God, we hold ourselves to lower standards. We are increasingly cruel and disrespectful to each other and even to ourselves. We don’t see ourselves as creations endowed with a life we owe to our Creator, so we take our own lives for granted and treat them irreverently. It is acceptable in an irreverent society to abuse oneself with all mater of toxins, practices, and overindulgences. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not pointing a finger at everyone else from a pious soapbox. I’m as guilty as anyone I know. “Indulgence” might as well be my middle name.

So what is the solution? I bet you’re expecting me to steer this little tirade toward an endorsement of one organized religion or another, aren’t you? Well, surprise. I have no intentions of doing so. Religion is not the same thing as reverence. In fact, it’s often the exact opposite of reverence. It is possible to keep the letter of God’s law and break the heart of it. And because religions are man-made systems, they’re completely corruptible. It’s possible to obsess on the law and to pervert it; to turn God's natural laws into your own subjective ones.

Here’s an example from my own observations: I am constantly amazed and bewildered by the people who believe that all you have to do to keep the second commandment, the one about not taking the Lord’s name in vain, is to avoid using the curse word that is commonly abbreviated G.D. That’s laughable. Of all the actions and ideas mankind is capable of, God only felt that ten of them were worth His divine commentary and direction. Ten! Do you for one second believe that one of only ten commandments amounts to “Don’t use this curse word, I don’t like it.” We’re talking about GOD, not prim and proper aunt Martha. Surely God cares more about context and meaning than syllables. Could it be that using God’s name in vain amounts to more than your choice of expletive when you drop something heavy on your toe? Certain Moslems behead hostages in God’s name. Certain Christians bomb clinics in God’s name. Certain others merely rail against Harry Potter and rock music in God’s name. All of them are acting in vain. And all of them are very religious. They just aren’t very reverent.

For what it’s worth, I agree with John Kerry that George W. Bush puts ideology ahead of science. Unlike Kerry, though, I think that’s a good thing. I think that Bush would rather be reverent than President; that he'd rather lose the election because of who he is than win it because of who he pretended to be. Kerry, on the other hand, would rather be President than be anything else. That’s a terrible example to lead by in this day and age.

Consider Columbine. Consider Enron. Consider Abu Ghraib. Stay the course, Mr. President. We need all the ideology, all the reverence, we can get.