... as apposed to blind acceptance. This can only be a good thing. I have personally known several of the key leaders of the extremist right wing Christian movement. Their extreme self-pocessed arrogance and power-hungry, self-serving behavior were the exact opposite of what I believe to be in keeping with the teachings of Christ. They couldn't get along with each other. How on earth were they ever to hold on to a coalition of political power that demands compromise and accommodation, not unyielding personalized proclamations of the very will of God!
These men, these wealthy white men, all had mastered the use of telemarketing--a strategy well used by this administration for its horrific record of mass marketing fear as a tool for exploitation. These fanatical religious leaders had built a foundation of financial support that, for the most part, was fashioned from frightening the unsuspecting, taking money from the old who trusted their leadership and from the misinformed that only knew them as their carefully crafted media personalities. These men personally lived very well while many of their loyal supporters did without, believing they were doing the right thing.
In the late 1970s, at the behest of one of these leaders, I had the opportunity to travel the country meeting thousands of these good people. And they were indeed very good people. They were indeed doing without. They were, unknowingly, beginning the foundation of support that would catapult this extremist agenda into the White House for the past 7+ years.
What angers me the most is that these men had their day in the sun. They had their chance in political power to make our nation, and the world in which we all live, a better place. And their horrendous job performance has deeply damaged our democracy, leaving Americans in a far more precarious position in our world--a world that hates us more than ever.
They recklessly and irresponsibly turned our national coffers into a financial mess that reminds me of the convicted felon Jim Bakker's PTL ministries' fraud. (Do you remember the $8 billion in cash that was flown to Iraq that just disappeared into thin air?? It was only in the news for a few days. Why hasn't that ever the subject of investigations leading to prosecutions!?) This administration has been characterized by horrendous, deplorable financial mismanagement that has indeed benefited select groups.
I hope the people of our nation have learned a difficult and hard lesson: The ego centric, power hungry, money grabbing, self serving, extremists are never to be trusted--especially when they claim, like our president has indeed claimed (which was carefully hushed from the mass media), to speak for God. I can think of nothing more dangerous than the religious extremists abroad and at home.
The mixture of religion into politics with the design of forcing a narrowly prescribed social agenda which financially rewards the weathy onto the unsuspecting and undeserving public is not just unconstitutional, it is dangerous. It is the substance of hubris. It is wrong. I am delighted that these extremists are losing political power in both their own ranks and within the political sphere. The damage they have done to the people in their own cause who sincerely want to work good in the world, and the damage they have done to the nation will last for many years.
Below is an excerpt from an interesting article worth the read:
The founding generation of leaders like Falwell and Dobson, who first guided evangelicals into Republican politics 30 years ago, is passing from the scene. Falwell died in the spring. Paul Weyrich, 65, the indefatigable organizer who helped build Falwell’s Moral Majority and much of the rest of the movement, is confined to a wheelchair after losing his legs because of complications from a fall. Dobson, who is 71 and still vigorous, is already planning for a succession at Focus on the Family; it is expected to tack toward the less political family advice that is its bread and butter.
The engineers of the momentous 1980s takeover that expunged political and theological moderates from the Southern Baptist Convention are retiring or dying off, too. And in September, when I called a spokesman for the ailing Presbyterian televangelist D. James Kennedy, another pillar of the Christian conservative movement, I learned that Kennedy had “gone home to the Lord” at 2 a.m. that morning.
Meanwhile, a younger generation of evangelical pastors — including the widely emulated preachers Rick Warren and Bill Hybels — are pushing the movement and its theology in new directions. There are many related ways to characterize the split: a push to better this world as well as save eternal souls; a focus on the spiritual growth that follows conversion rather than the yes-or-no moment of salvation; a renewed attention to Jesus’ teachings about social justice as well as about personal or sexual morality. However conceived, though, the result is a new interest in public policies that address problems of peace, health and poverty — problems, unlike abortion and same-sex marriage, where left and right compete to present the best answers.
The backlash on the right against Bush and the war has emboldened some previously circumspect evangelical leaders to criticize the leadership of the Christian conservative political movement. “The quickness to arms, the quickness to invade, I think that caused a kind of desertion of what has been known as the Christian right,” Hybels, whose Willow Creek Association now includes 12,000 churches, told me over the summer. “People who might be called progressive evangelicals or centrist evangelicals are one stirring away from a real awakening.”
The generational and theological shifts in the evangelical world are turning the next election into a credibility test for the conservative Christian establishment. The current Republican front-runner in national polls, Rudolph W. Giuliani, could hardly be less like their kind of guy: twice divorced, thrice married, estranged from his children and church and a supporter of legalized abortion and gay rights. Alarmed at the continued strength of his candidacy, Dobson and a group of about 50 evangelical Christians leaders agreed last month to back a third party if Giuliani becomes the Republican nominee. But polls show that Giuliani is the most popular candidate among white evangelical voters. He has the support, so far, of a plurality if not a majority of conservative Christians. If Giuliani captures the nomination despite the threat of an evangelical revolt, it will be a long time before Republican strategists pay attention to the demands of conservative Christian leaders again. And if the Democrats capitalize on the current demoralization to capture a larger share of evangelical votes, the credibility damage could be just as severe.
And while my post today is still not considered politically correct or popular, mark these words, for the truth they tell will live long past today's narrowly defined spectrum of "acceptable" debate. I feel better now, having gotten this off of my chest.
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