LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY mad_mediocrity)

I was browsing through and old Newsweek (from February of this year), and came across a scary article. You can find it online here. (I browsed through the dark_christian archives and couldn't find it, but I apologize if this is a repeat.)

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Some choice highlights:

Falwell and the religious right figure that if they can raise a generation that knows how to argue, they can stem the tide of sin in the country. Seventy-five percent of Liberty's debaters go on to be lawyers with an eye toward transforming society. "I think I can make an impact in the field of law on abortion and gay rights, to get back to Americans' godly heritage," says freshman debater Cole Bender.

Conservative Christian leaders would like to have a cadre of conservative Christian attorneys, who then become judges, politicians and political appointees.

[...] with the goal of eventually flooding the system with "thousands" of conservative Christian lawyers. "We are training debaters who can perform a salt ministry, meaning becoming the conscience of the culture," says Falwell [...]

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The fact that there is a "Falwell University" at all, and that it's basically propogating hateful messages and downright incorrect facts to young people, actually scares me less. What scares me is the fact that they're training these people to become more polished, more articulate, more convincing to the easily-swayed or less-educated.

I can take Phelps-fanatics yelling crazily at cameras, with spittle running down their chin, because they look so blatantly crazy that they're just giving the movement a bad name. But I'm worried about this Next Generation of fundamentalists, who are essentially being trained to proselytize, and who are being taught the tools to make this Dominionist ideology look attractive. Am I over-reacting and being over-pessimistic? I really hope so, because the alternative is just damn depressing.