I want to begin my recall blog post series with one of the most sensational and under-reported events that took place around the time that well over 9,000 signatures had been successfully verified by the Hamilton County Election Commission: the Mayor of Chattanooga needlessly injected religion into the recall by claiming that it was orchestrated by the stewards of satan who are intent on fomenting chaos and luring our community into damnation.
In August of 2010, at the height of the Recall controversy, Mayor Ron Littlefield began an email correspondence with Chattanooga Tea Party President Mark West asking for a meeting to discuss calling off the impending recall. In the initial email the Mayor accused Mark West of having raised the "hate level in Chattanooga to 'red' and contributed to a very toxic situation among the population in this community". Additionally, Littlefield absurdly claimed that the recall of elected officials was "in violation of the laws of God and man."
To his credit, Mark West responded courteously and respectfully to the Mayor's email. Mark West expressed gratitude for the invitation to discuss the recall with the Mayor but first he wanted to take the suggestion of a sit-down discussion to some of his "personal counselors" and spend some time reflecting on the matter in prayer.
Littlefield wasted no time in his reply - or in using scripture as a weapon for bullying Mr. West. The Mayor called upon Mark West to "consider" dark and vengeful verses like those in Psalm 35:
"Let them be confounded and put to shame that seek after my soul: let them be turned back & brought to confusion that devise my hurt. Let them be as chaff before the wind: and let the angel of the Lord chase them. Let their way be dark and slippery: and let the angel of the Lord persecute them. For without cause they have hid for me their net in a pit, which without cause they have digged for my soul. Let destruction come upon him at unawares; and let his net that he hath hid catch himself: into that very destruction let him fall."Mayor Littlefield also suggested that Mark West and his "personal counselors" take into consideration Romans 13, a selection of the Bible that has historically been used to justify everything from the divine rule of royalty to plantation state slave-owners:
"Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: that powers that are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receives to themselves damnation."Mayor Littlefield ended his second email to Mark West with this jaw-dropping caveat: "Finally, let me respectfully suggest that you need to decide today what is more important to you: politics or Jesus."
George W. Bush could not have done better. Either you are on the side of the Mayor and Jesus Christ and the Holy Mother Mary, or you are on the side of the recall and damnation and Beezlebub.
Mark West's response is interesting - he takes the Mayor to task for saying that the recall is "fringe" since so many registered and verified voters within Chattanooga signed the petition and he repeatedly calls for the recall to not be about personalities but about political differences. In a section of his response that deserves reprinting in full, Mark West completely destroys Littlefield's attempts to use theology to defend arbitrary power and to undermine democracy by presenting his Mayoral term as something ordained from on-high:
"Finally, let me address the attempt to "spiritualize" this matter and to question the rights of ordinary citizens to exercise those powers that are granted to them legally. In consulting with several pastors, mentors and godly men (who are seasoned and grounded in the Word), we can find no basis for the statement that you have made asserting that I am "in violation of the laws of God and man.
Based on the Chattanooga City Charter, the Recall effort is a fully legal mechanism as granted to ordinary Chattanooga citizens to respond peacefully to elected officials who in their judgment are deserving of such removal from office. So I fail to understand how the passages you have quoted (that are not in the context of a republic or democracy) have any application to this process. We have not advocated resistance, violence or any such action of rebellion but are simply following the peaceful process afforded to us by law."The Mayor responded with what I would like to call "the nuclear option". Apparently Mark West's rejection of a sit-down discussion and his calls for civility from the Mayor and his principled stance on upholding the democratic processes afforded to the voters of Chattanooga by our own city charter touched something deep inside the Mayor, because he proceed to lose his mind. Littlefield's response begins with this pearl:
"I have reached out to you twice as a Christian brother. You obviously are so overcome with political fervor that Biblical standards have taken a back seat."And his email ends with a quote reminiscent of Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction:
Finally ,this morning, I was given this verse through a totally unrelated channel, but no doubt intended by God for you to consider:
"Warn a divisive person once, and then warn him a second time. After that, have nothing to do with him. You may be sure that such a man is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned" (Titus 3:10-11).
I have asked my pastor to reach out to the leadership of your church.Mayor Ron Littlefield's profound sense of entitlement is literally of biblical proportions. Not only does the Mayor seem to believe that he has been ordained to be the Mayor of Chattanooga by God (and therefore this whole "voting" thing afforded to us by a recall does not really matter) but he actually sent these emails from his government email address.
Ron
When the Recall finally went to Judge Jeff Hollingsworth's courtroom, the Mayor's wife walked around the room handing out a small sliver of paper. On it were two bible verses:
Religion was not injected into the recall by the bible-thumping Tea Party crowd. In fact, it was intentionally avoided by their leadership. Instead, the Mayor used his own beliefs and the beliefs of others in an absurd attempt to justify his tremendous sense of personal entitlement and privilege. He even went so far as to use scripture as a weapon against the people he saw as his opponents. Chattanooga, I present to you your highest elected official, Mayor Ron Littlefield.