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Monday October 29, 2007
Category: Faith, Politics"The Evangelical Crackup", pt. 2
Three thoughts on the NYT piece entitled "The Evangelical Crackup". 1. The evangelical political leadership we've known for the past 20 years is headed out. The founding generation of leaders like Falwell and Dobson, who first guided evangelicals into Republican...Filed Under: casting stones, George W. Bush, James Dobson, richard land, Rick Warren
posted by David Kuo @ 9:02am Permalink 
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Great post, David. Since I'm not knowledgeable enough to really add anything to it, I will simply ask a minor question:
Every election year, when Democratic candidates appear at African-American churches the Sunday before Election Day, there are threats that the churches have violated their tax-exempt status. (Usually, to be careful, the minister introduces them in some non-partisan way like, "As you know, Sen. Clinton is involved in important issues of the day, so we thought it was good to hear from her at this time," or something like that.)
But many of the actions FROM THE PULPIT which Kirkpatrick described in the NYT Magazine article seemed to go far beyond that in advocacy for the Republican Party and for specific candidates. (To say nothing of those millions of "abortion is evil" flyers distributed in conservative churches by the Christian Coalition that very same Sunday before Election Day.)
Not that the Bush Administration at the political level would ever target this, but do you know if bureaucrats with the Justice Department and the IRS ever targeted that? And did any of this ever interfere with (or at least complicate) your faith-based initiatives work at the White House?
(Maybe that wasn't so minor ... LOL.)
Posted by: Larry Parker | October 28, 2007 9:20 PM
It is not a great shift towards the left that is happening, it is the great apostasy. Just compare Jin Wallis and his Leftist hordes to the Apostles. True, Christianity is not GOP talking points, BUT, the Democrats taste of their fruit is sickening and has been proven deadly. As soon as Christians that imbibe Democrat politics realize, that they have completely sold out the faith to liars and cheats, that use the poor to pay for their wealthy lifestyles, they will suffer at a far greater rate than anything the Bush administration is throwing at them.
David, you haven't (and I assert can never) proven where the Democrats offer Christians anything except to embrace heresy and lies. You never step up and prove their worth "Biblically." Why not?
Democrats have proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that they are anti-Christians. Abortion, gay marriage and socialism/taxation are the glowing warning signs. And the anti-Christian "hate crimes legislation" is ghettoizing Christians that want to preach the truth. The youth of today has been so brainwashed by Hollywood's and Wall Street's advertisement-education techniques, that abominations are just more minority classifications. But, when they look in the mirror in years to come and see King Bera looking back at them, then, and only then, will the world get a glimpse of a revivial.
James Dobson and Jerry Falwell preach the truth about Christian morality. There can be no compromise. "Tolerance" to a Secularist, Humanist, Liberal, Progressive means only one thing, that YOU become a Democrat. Their closed minds are ubiquitous to their movements and agenda. Their minds are seared closed to doing what is right just as was foretold.
The Christian youth are not stupid. They are tired and weary from too many single parent houselholds. But God will not completely abandon them to the hedonism awaiting them with a joining of hands with the Democrat party. The pendulum may swing for a brief time to this new powerful Leftist machine, but, this was prophesied to happen. The millions of Christians joining the Church are not cheering for Gay Rights and Abortion unfettered to take hold of the world. No indeed, they are praying for men and women to follow the Lord. The Gospel leads the Church because the Gospel IS The Evangel. And what The Left rejects more than anything else is the Gospel of Christ and the whole council of God.
It is far past time for YOU David Kuo, to prove how Christians can support Democrats and hold to the mission presented - in its entirety -from from the Gospel of Matthew to the book of Jude. Please atart with the family and marriage as preached by Christ Jesus. If "divorce" breaks up a "marriage" between a man and a woman, then same-gender marriage is impossible to begin with, as Jesus is clear about what sex the bride and groom are to be. OR, you could deal with another anti-family issue the high taxation of the family, which cause untold sufering of millions and millions of married couples and their children.
It's time to put up David. You keep peddling the Democrats, now it is time to show how their product is not a sham. Wallis versus Dobson? What a cruel joke Wallis is. His words and actions echo Secular Humanism 101. They speak Democrat politics.
They DO NOT help the poor. New Orleans proves that. The conditions of our inner cities proves that. The conditions of our broken and never started homes in poor neighborhoods prove that. Democrats look, talk and act just like enemies of Christians AND of America. They NEVER hold our enemies accountable. Neville Chamberlain's they are not. Complicit in the attacks on our people and lands they are. Too many enemies of American freedom are supported by Democrats. Democrats do not appease, they support our enemies. How many Hollywood elites - every single one a Democrat - run to cheer Chavez and Castro?
If war in Iraq is the ONLY thing driving Christians away from the Republicans, then what Democrats do to harm innocent people with their political power is something that Christians will come to see sooner or later. And never is that supportable.
Posted by: Donny | October 28, 2007 10:53 PM
I believe this is the one attempt that became well known, Larry-
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-allsaints24sep24,0,6570946.story?coll=la-home-center
What I find interesting about the magazine article is the insistent effort at insularity, the mix of denial about the outside world and deliberately locking it out.
Posted by: Jillian | October 28, 2007 11:00 PM
Those pamplets should just state:
"Democrats are evil."
Honesty is not a bad thing to preach.
Posted by: Donny | October 28, 2007 11:04 PM
a person has to be honest to preach honesty. I'm prepared for the arguments that the old line was holding up Jesus. I hope these people can explain themselves better to their maker than they have to me.
Posted by: Doug | October 28, 2007 11:15 PM
I have never seen hatred preached more acutely than when preached by a so-called Christian. Thanks for diminishing me without knowing the first thing about me, Donny, based on a label. How Christian of you....
Posted by: maxcat06 | October 29, 2007 8:00 AM
"A person has to be honest to preach honesty. I'm prepared for the arguments that the old line was holding up Jesus. I hope these people can explain themselves better to their maker than they have to me."
Posted by: Doug
Doug,
You only need to read and compare what Christ Jesus (The Gospels) and the Apostles presented "for" Christians to live by, to see that people like Falwell and Dobson preach the same thing as did Jesus, Peter, John, James, Jude and Paul. Leftists on the other hand, are teachers like Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche and Richard Dawkins.
I've listened to the arguments of both the Leftists and "the old line." I'm sticking with "The faith delivered ONLY once to the Saints."
You know, "the old line."
Another old line: "Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever."
So much for "progressive" theology.
Matter of fact . . . let's keep things in context. The following is from the New Testament:
Keep on loving each other as brothers. Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.
Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,
"Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you." So we say with confidence,
"The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.
What can man do to me?"
Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
////
And continuing on the theme of good teachers and false (bad) teachers in the Church . . .:
"Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings."
(Even when it comes to mundane things like food.)
Posted by: Donny | October 29, 2007 8:09 AM
No Donny, you have to read the whole Gospel and the whole New Testament. Jesus and the Apostles, as far as is recorded didn't run around saying "Covet, fornicate, exert power over your neighbors and trouble strangers and hurl invective at your peers, get rich, eat pigs but for the love of He who sent me have nothing to do with homos and have all the babies you can." The first commandments are to love God with all your heart and all your soul and your might and your neighbor as yourself.
Second, if you are honest, "All Democrats are Evil" is false witness. Plain and simple. Once again, in Christian love and friendship I'd point out to you, to do with as you will that you are continually absolutist when talking about Democrats and morally relativist when talking about Republicans. I'm a hypocrite, sinner, and grouchy fat man so I don't judge you but if you really want to be honest with yourself and you are so concerned with biblical proof, try to find a bible passage that supports using different standards for people you don't like than you hold for those you do.
And I don't mean a random clutter of scripture, I mean something that speaks along the lines of "Your enemies test and find blemished at every turn, but with your allies find all their errors to be meaningless."
Posted by: Doug | October 29, 2007 8:33 AM
If divorce was disapproved of by Jesus, and God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral, does that suggest that the state ought to prevent divorce and punish adulterers?
This was a common view until pretty recently. In Ireland divorce only became legally possible in the 1990s.
Would a Biblically-based politics eliminate civil divorce and make adultery a crime?
Just wondering what the implications are. All that stuff about leftist hordes,glowing warning signs, abominations, great apostasy, ghettoizing Christians-- that's pretty scary stuff! But I'd kind of like to know what the nuts and bolts of the Biblical political program might be, before I sign on. The pure marriage bed bit sounds pretty good, but I'd like some concrete details.
Thanks!
Posted by: SkipChurch | October 29, 2007 8:52 AM
Skipchurch, it's been tried. It was the Puritan reign in Massachusetts. The end result was that it had to censor printers, burn books and pamphlets, ban public assembly, and ultimately resorted to hanging its most adamant critics- all Quakers. Thereby the Puritans become the false witnesses, authoritarians, and murderers it claimed to transcend. (Quakers were also expelled from Virginia by religious leaders and slaveholders, but put up less of a fight there.) The King of England heard of the abuses and ended up disempowering the Puritan government in the 1660s. The Puritans then ruined their remaining political standing with the Salem Witch trials around 1690.
The First Amendment ultimately resulted from the record of abuses committed against Quakers in Boston in the 1650s and 1660s. It's been the bane of theocrats and neopuritans ever since.
The most famous of the Quakers involved was a woman named Mary Dyer. There are several accounts of her struggle online, and ultimately her hanging (by which she defeated the Puritans, nonetheless). There is a statue of Mary Dyer at the state capitol building on Beacon Hill in Massachusetts. Massachusetts took quite a lesson away from the affair; it has been an anti-theocratic, anti-neopuritan state ever since. Even now it remains cheerfully at war with theocrats- legalizing gay marriage was in part a choice to take them on yet again.
Posted by: Jillian | October 30, 2007 8:19 AM
Jillian-- yep. Those Quakers just had to go! Of course with two of my kids in Quaker schools I'm more than a little leary of the new crop of "Biblically-based Christians."
The Puritan experiment is so interesting. My family was a part of that, arriving in 1630, and I'm glad to say both Massachusetts and my family survived on this continent.
It is very striking to me how little history, and indeed how little thought, has informed the views of the most rabid of the Biblically-based Christians of today. They much prefer a posture of pious outrage to devoting any effort to considering how the actual governance of our country might be improved for the benefit of the citizens.
"Intelligence, it might be said, has caused our troubles; but it is not unintelligence that will cure them. Only more and wiser intelligence can make a happier world" - Bertrand Russell
Posted by: SkipChurch | October 30, 2007 9:29 AM
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