Religious Right and Evangelicals

Evangelical: Religious Right Has Distorted the Faith : NPRon the book Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America: An Evangelical's Lamentread, listen, consider. then, discuss carefully.if you have read the book, i'd love to hear your opinion.i have not read it, but i would like to. i like what he says about "insufficiently pro-life". whether i personally hold said beliefs, i have always found the religious right to be inconsistent in their claims and their actual alliegences. further, i have found their political beliefs to be inconsistent with the commands of scripture. above all, christ command love and forgiveness and mercy and meekness. the religious right demonstrates none of these in their politics which are made up of "this is the unutterably evil thing we're railing against today".there is a difference between seeking righteousness and seeking to be right. i feel there is too much of the latter.i have always known that evangelicals did not start out opposed to abortion. the church very much supported legalization. and then they changed their minds. i'm all about people being able to change their minds, but to later lie about it is bad form.
social issues i suppose. those topic subject lines are really vague..
it could be coffee house, but i know how this will go.Edited by brennakimi, : edited just before move. move didn't keep the edit.Edited by brennakimi, : No reason given.

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

I'm not sure what you are interested in discussing. But I did read the article and was fascinated by the book, I will probably pick it up in a few days.What I found curious was the portion that talked about the initial reason for the formation of the religious right. That when the US government attempted to revoke Bob Jones Universities tax exempt status because of its discrimination policies is what pulled the trigger in forming the movement.It would be interesting to me to consider what was such a threat about Bob Jones University and tax exampt status revoked. Did they see it as some sort of domino affect that might expand to include all religious affiliated orginizations? Or did they see it as an attack on Christianity itself because its attacking a university that is producing fresh evanglicals that will help promote false biological information and other important things important to creationism and associated biblical thoughts?

i may be mistaken, but i thought creationism (tm) was newer than that.i think it's that they realized how much they could be effected if the government stopped treating christians differently from everyone else. i think this terrified them that they might lose some political power as well. so they had to mobilize and fast. then they snowballed (both ways) and picked up more issues tha would gve the church (tm) more clout.i'm not really sure what i'm interested in discussing, either. i certainly don't want to get into a "true christian" fight about politics (again). Edited by brennakimi, : No reason given.

Creationism (tm) is older then now anyways. They had the tm variation created as at least as early as the Scopes Trial I would think. Williams Jennings Bryan (president runner up as well as the most powerful political/religious leader of the time) supported the Bible over the science.I mean Creatioism (tm) was not as sophisticated back then, and probably hadn't developed the kind of resources like AiG or ignorrant books. But it was in its beginning phase where it was using solely the Bible over canned/false arguements that are used now a days.

i see.yeah scopes, i guess i just didn't think about that.

Well recommended information was that I also look into Henry Morris.He appears to be pointed at as the father of the modern variation of Creationism (tm). Which however, also led me to George McCready Price, a canadian creationist. Price was apparently fundamental in the creation of Morris's viewpoint on flood geology. Price's literature was also fundamental piece of information that Bryan used at the Scopes Trial. So there appears to be a great deal of history behind the American Creationist movement...

Interesting. Ya really gotta watch those extremist liberal southern baptists eh?Just shows how latent bigotry can be so entrenched and form such a foundation for some peoples thoughts -- and what really motivates them.Thanks. I have other places to post this.

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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
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i really do believe that the biggest problem with american christianity is the radical retrograde political movement and not really american church people. they are, i suppose, more impressionable than most, but they are being inspired of some horrible leaders.i hate to bring on the wrath of the internet, but we all know that large numbers of people can very easily fall prey to radical retrograde political movements and do horrible awful things as a result of following a line of thought that begins very simply and continues into more tenuous areas based on "party loyalty".

Particularly if their {moral compass\social conscience} is based on a borrowed {philosophical\religious\etc} source and not subject to personal scrutiny (invert golden rule\enlightened self-interest} -- then all it takes is a leader that convinces that that action {X} follows from {subscribed (assumed moral) belief Y} and they are off {X}ing as hard as possible.How do you get so many soldiers to conspire to torture? Start by convincing them that {normal conventions} don't apply to {situation involved}. Tell them that {lives of "moral" friends and neighbors} depends on it.Give me independent thinkers anytime.

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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
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precisely. all you have to say is that the "other side" is part of a "global conspiracy" to "destroy" your "nation and way of life" and you can get people to support anything. works EVERY TIME.Edited by brennakimi, : No reason given.

Well, for those of us who actually lived through the period in question, the main thrust of the Christian Right was to maintain their Avoidance Schools so little Johnny or little Suzy wouldn't have to go to school with the monkeys. Christian Schools popped up like toadstools, every Baptist Church, every Evangelical Church suddenly had it's own School, and the Tax Exempt status was but one of the issues. The BIG issue was to keep the Evil Government from telling them they had to admit them black kids.

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that's what he says it was all about.read more carefully. Edited by brennakimi, : No reason given.

And when exactly did I say it was not about that?I am simply saying that regardless of what the current crop of Evangelicals and Fundamentalists claim, the reality is that their attention was on keeping their little schools and churches white as Ivory Soap and taxfree havens.I agree that the Fundamentalist and Evangelicals are masters at revisionist history.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

ok we were just discussing i suppose the more recent developments.the good thing though, is that many have moved past the ivorysoap mentality. let me paint a picture though. in pensacola we have hicks, rednecks, and then more or less everyone else. rednecks are smarter than hicks but dumber than everyone else. but. hicks are better people. rednecks are racist. hicks are not. we decided it must be because the hicks are too stupid to see any differences while racists are smart enough to see differences but not smart enough to know that that doesn't make black people not people.so i guess i'm scared that it will get worse before it gets better.