Dark Christianity
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dogemperor [userpic]
Muslim Orphans Relocated to Christian Home

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]ordos45)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/01/13/MNGATAPKNF1.DTL&type=printable

A Virginia Missionary group providing relief is moving 300 Muslim orphans to a Christian Children's Home in the capital of Indonesia. Also there are plans to raise money for building a Christian orphanage.

dogemperor [userpic]
The Far Right's "Compassion Deficit"

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]sunfell)

I've been reading various rumblings around the Net- in both blogs and mainstream sources about the apparent 'compassion deficit' displayed by the Extreme Right in reaction to last week's tsunami disaster. Not all Christians are guilty of this- the moderates and non-Dominionists are pouring help and money into helping these people recover. But it's clear that the Dominionist dominated Right has a compassion deficit.

Here are some articles and excerpts that back that up. You can decide for yourself. Long, but very interesting post here... )

dogemperor [userpic]
CounterPunch on "Moral Values"

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]sunfell)

This CounterPunch article on 'moral values' is subtitled "Code Words for Emerging Authoritarian Tendencies in Americans".

A small excerpt:

The belief that President Bush's "moral values" helped him to win re-election has led certain political and theological pundits to conclude that the Democrats must "get religion" and bridge the "God gap" if they are to regain the presidency. They are being told to get a grip on God and morality and, like the Republicans, let their light of faith shine for all religiously-motivated voters to see if they are ever to achieve a political resurrection. Those who interpret the presidential election in these terms appear to miss a critical point: rather than faith-based "moral values," the election appears to reveal a growing morality gap in America. We may not be witnessing the ascendancy of "moral values" but the rise of authoritarian tendencies in Americans. It is this apparent phenomenon, and the moral and spiritual crisis it represents, that need to be examined and addressed.

Following World War II, social scientists conducted a landmark study of how great masses of supposedly enlightened, Christian people willingly tolerated the systematic oppression and extermination of millions of their fellow citizens and others (Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Black persons, mentally and physically-impaired people, and political dissenters). A related concern was how masses of other people, who profess freedom as a God-given birthright, could stand by for so long and allow such religious, racial, ethnic, ideological and homophobic hatred to continue. The aim of the study was to employ the scientific method to understand what in an individual causes him to be prejudiced, and to use the findings to help in seeking solutions to inter-group prejudice and hatred. The study revealed that authoritarian tendencies in an individual's personality make him receptive to anti-democratic propaganda and policies that target out-groups for discrimination and destruction. (The Authoritarian Personality, Adorno, et al, pp v-viii, Harper and Brothers, New York, 1950).

The personality tendencies of the authoritarian-disposed individual were found to include:

--"Desire for a strong leader" [italics added] resulting in "submissive, uncritical attitude toward idealized moral authorities of the in-group" (Ibid, pp 231, 228);

--"Cultural narrowness" [italics added] seen in rigid acceptance of the conventional middle-class values of "the culturally 'alike'" and the tendency to reject and punish "the culturally 'unlike' . . . who violate conventional values." (Ibid, pp 102, 228);

--Unreflective ethnocentric patriotic conformity, rooted in the belief that one's own nation is superior and should rightly dominate and that other nations are inferior and threatening out-groups (Ibid, pp 107-109);

--Negative stereotyped perceptions of the members of "unlike" out-groups (Ibid, pp 228, 235, 236), rather than seeing them as individuals who also laugh and cry and love and hate, or who, in the words of Joseph Berger, "lived, laughed, cursed, fought, who did the things human beings do" ("At Holocaust Museum, Turning a Number into a Name," The New York Times, Nov. 21, 2004);

--Anti-introspection, i.e. resistance to self-understanding, to soul- searching, to cause-and-effect analysis of individual and group behavior, unable to tolerate ambiguity, belief in mystical, unexplainable phenomenon, disparaging intellectual attempts to perceive life's nuances and complexities (Ibid, pp 236, 235); and

--Aggression, involving "the ethnocentric need for an out-group" who represents "the intrinsic evil (aggressiveness, laziness, power-seeking, etc.) of human nature . . . [that] is unchangeable [and] must be attacked, stamped out, or segregated, wherever it is found, lest it contaminate the good." (Ibid, pages 232-234, 148).


This is a very in-depth and interesting article.

dogemperor [userpic]
Ah, the glory of the faith-based initiative....

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]rialian)

"These people need tough love," Robinson said. "I don't feel comfortable with it. God don't get no pleasure punishing us. But he does it. Jesus would have done the same thing."

===The good reverend says this as he is booting out a 21 year-old pregnant woman and her three children of the shelter he runs.

===I think this does show the difference between compasion-based faith and rules-based faith.

dogemperor [userpic]
Christian Conservatives Turn to Statehouses

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]sunfell)

Well, it was bound to happen- with the "mandate" from the election, conservative Christian Republican statehouse members are now flexing their muscles and getting ready to legislate 'moral values'.

This New York Times (registration required) article details some of their plans:

"I think people are becoming emboldened," said Michael D. Bowman, director of state legislative relations at Concerned Women for America, a conservative Christian advocacy group based in Washington. "On legislative efforts, they're getting more gutsy, and on certain issues, they may introduce legislation that they normally may not have done."

It is on the state level "where most family issues are decided," Mr. Bowman said. And it is there that local advocacy groups hope to build quickly on the momentum from the election when legislatures convene in the new year.

In Texas, conservative Christians are backing an amendment to prevent human cloning, a measure that would also block the kind of cloning used in embryonic stem-cell research. In Georgia, advocacy groups hope to win approval this year of two measures limiting abortion, after redistricting helped Republicans take control of the state legislature. In Kansas, conservatives have won a majority on the State Board of Education, which is expected to introduce changes this spring to the high school science curriculum challenging the theory of evolution. And in Maryland, some black churches have joined with a white Republican state delegate to push for a ban on same-sex marriage.

"People were mobilized during the election and they're still mobilized," said Judy Smith, Kansas state director for Concerned Women for America, which is working to put a measure on the ballot in 2006 to amend the Kansas Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. "We would be stupid not to act now. This is exactly what we had hoped for."


Yeah, right. Here comes the steamroller, America- prepare to return to the Dark Ages.

Electoral victories at the state level have prompted Christian conservatives in many states to renew the fight for causes that had stalled earlier. In Georgia, redistricting helped give Republicans control of the State House of Representatives, said Patricia Chivers, director of government relations for Georgia Right to Life. With the State Senate and the governor's office already controlled by Republicans, the change in the House has given Ms. Chivers new confidence that the state can pass two anti-abortion bills that she said had languished in the House under the Democrats.

One bill requires a woman to wait 24 hours after asking for an abortion, when she is offered information on alternatives, risks and pictures of fetal development, and another requires minors who want an abortion to be accompanied by their parents or guardians. Now, other adults can escort minors.

In Kansas, conservatives now hold 6 of the 10 seats on the State Board of Education. All of them favor teaching theories that compete with or criticize evolution, said Jack Krebs, a member of the State Science Standards Writing Committee and vice president of Kansas Citizens for Science.

In 1999, the Kansas board voted to erase any mention of evolution from the state science curriculum, opening the door for the teaching of creationism. That was reversed in 2001, after three board members who supported the move were defeated in a Republican primary. Kathy Martin, a newly elected member of the board who favors teaching alternatives to evolution, said the board would probably take a different route this time, like introducing the teaching of "intelligent design," a theory that holds that the development of the universe and earth was guided at each step by an "intelligent agent."


"Intelligent Design" is a Christian Trojan Horse designed to destroy scientific inquiry, research, and our lead in it.

State Representative Cynthia Davis of Missouri prefiled two bills for the next session of the Legislature that she said "reflect what people want." One would remove the state's requirement that all forms of contraception and their potential health effects be taught in schools, leaving the focus on abstinence. Another would require publishers that sell biology textbooks to Missouri to include at least one chapter with alternative theories to evolution.

"These are common-sense, grass-roots ideas from the people I represent, and I'd be very surprised if a majority of legislators didn't feel they were the right solutions to these problems," Ms. Davis said.

"It's like when the hijackers took over those four planes on Sept. 11 and took people to a place where they didn't want to go," she added. "I think a lot of people feel that liberals have taken our country somewhere we don't want to go. I think a lot more people realize this is our country and we're going to take it back."


Whose country? The Dominionists? In their minds, 'liberals' (anyone who does not fall into ideological lock-step with them) are Satanic, evil, and must be destroyed. The irony is that this country has not been liberal for nearly 30 years. Who is this 'liberal' straw man they are creating? Is it us?

dogemperor [userpic]
Lessons from 1994

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]swisscelt)

Or, why the "coming" theocratic movement in the US really is still coming, even if it seems alarmist to say so.

In 1994, a band of Republicans staged a "revolution" which resulted in the political shift of the House from Democrat- to Republican-controlled. The new Congressmen and women set out to work quickly, installing a platform which they advertised as the "Contract with America". Some key measures of the "Contract" found their way to law, and these young Turks in the House even succeeded in impeaching a President.

But the revolution was not to last. Some of the revolution's key leaders-- such as Newt Gingrich, who was then a Representative from Georgia-- fell from grace. The rest shied away from the spotlight that was then shone upon them from the media. Eventually, the movement was, so far as the American public can tell, relegated to the history books.

Now, 10 years later, one might ask if such a revolution could happen again. The answer is no. But the reasons why the answer is no are quite surprising.

Read why. )

But then, the first revolution wasn't about the Republican party, either. Sure, it was to some: To Gingrich, to his fellow Georgian [and member of the Class of 1994] Bob Barr, and to old guard Republicans such as Bob Dole, 1994 was all about tilting the balance of power back to the Republicans. But to others-- LaTourette, Brownback, and their supporters in such shadowy organizations as the National Reform Association-- the Revolution of 1994 was the dawn of theocracy in this country. The Republican party is simply the vehicle, just as the party was used as a vehicle for abolitionists and prohibitionists in previous generations.

These theocrats are unconcerned with party affiliations. Unlike Gingrich and Barr, they're unconcerned with the spotlight. Certainly, Steven LaTourette and Sam Brownback are not "household names". Their concern is with what they call "family values", which actually has as much to do with familial love as Mao's "re-education camps" had to do with education.

Family values? )

Meanwhile, Brownback and others continue to bring forth legislation to support the Theonomists' goals. The text of the legislations are, at this point, not important; they're not likely to pass anyway at this point in time. What is important to the Theonomists is that they continue to be well-represented in Congress. They've waited 10 years to get where they are. If it takes another ten, or more, to get where they're going, it doesn't really matter to them. Such a gradual change suits their agenda better, anyway.

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