Marianne Williamson and Pete Buttigieg: Two Competing Critiques of Religious Right

There were two spiritual visions in the Democratic party we saw in the debates. On one side was the moralist, Pete Buttigieg. On the other was the healer, Marianne Williamson.

At the spiritual level, Buttigieg’s appeal to Democrats is that he reprobates the religious Right. His quotations from the Bible are certainly more fluent than Donald Trump’s. But Mayor Pete uses Scripture the way a hero character in an Aaron Sorkin drama woul d, purely as a weapon designed to intellectually and theologically humiliate conservative political rivals. He quotes the Good Book in the style of a new atheist email forward. Oh, you say you worship a brown-skinned religious minority who loves the poor? And yet you support the rich white racists who would have executed him. Oh you don’t like my lifestyle? But you wear clothes with mixed fibers. That means you too go directly to hell, doesn’t it?

About the Author

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Michael Brendan Dougherty is a senior writer at National Review Online.

There were two spiritual visions in the Democratic party we saw in the debates. On one side was the moralist, Pete Buttigieg. On the other was the healer, Marianne Williamson.

At the spiritual level, Buttigieg’s appeal to Democrats is that he reprobates the religious Right. His quotations from the Bible are certainly more fluent than Donald Trump’s. But Mayor Pete uses Scripture the way a hero character in an Aaron Sorkin drama woul d, purely as a weapon designed to intellectually and theologically humiliate conservative political rivals. He quotes the Good Book in the style of a new atheist email forward. Oh, you say you worship a brown-skinned religious minority who loves the poor? And yet you support the rich white racists who would have executed him. Oh you don’t like my lifestyle? But you wear clothes with mixed fibers. That means you too go directly to hell, doesn’t it?