LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY navytron89) Fromamericablog

Now THAT'S what I like to hear.

"Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and faith started being used to drive us apart," the Democratic presidential candidate said in a 30-minute speech before the national meeting of the United Church of Christ.

"Faith got hijacked, partly because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, all too eager to exploit what divides us," the Illinois senator said.

"At every opportunity, they've told evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage, school prayer and intelligent design," according to an advance copy of his speech.

"There was even a time when the Christian Coalition determined that its number one legislative priority was tax cuts for the rich," Obama said. "I don't know what Bible they're reading, but it doesn't jibe with my version."

Its nice to see that  Obama has basically given the verbal finger to the Religious Reich and told the public that they should start thinking forthemselves and stop letting the church run their lives by dividing them with Biblical fear-mongering.

Since he has basically told them off,  I'm curious to what will be the replies from the Christian Coalition and see how they react and spin-doctor their replies back to villianize him for his comments. I can see Asshat Robertson taking the first shot from his 666 Club, of course anything that he says in reply will of course make Robertson look like an even bigger asshat. 

But religious twits like Chick and others will probably pull a swift-boat anti-Christian strike against him and say all kinds of nasty rumors and question his "Christian" America values. 

I'd like to see how Faux News handles this, as they mostly ignore the Democrats or do negative spins toward their pollings to make the GOP seem all right and strong.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY catvincent)

I caught this headline from the BBC:

"A US evangelical Christian minister has been appointed to lead a million-dollar program to tackle gang violence in Los Angeles, the city's mayor said.

Reverend Jeff Carr, a minister in the Church of the Nazarene, was named director of gang reduction and youth development programs for the city."

Ignoring the whole church/state divide thing specifically, I wondered if the matter was made worse by CoN being Dominionist. Nothing on DC Wiki or Theocracywatch.

( My attempts to research them - look if you're curious or think you can help )

That's all I got - but enough to make me twitchy. Throwing it out to the wiser and better-clued-in members of the group.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY eiredrake) NJ Bill requires Pharmacists to Fill Orders no Matter Beliefs

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) A pharmacy would be required to fill prescriptions for any drug it stocks such as birth-control pills regardless of a pharmacist's moral beliefs under a bill that cleared the Legislature on Monday.
The bill, approved 56-18 by the Assembly, establishes a pharmacy's duty to fill lawful prescriptions without undue delay and without consideration for a pharmacist's moral, philosophical or religious beliefs.
If a pharmacy doesn't have a prescription in stock, the pharmacy would have to either obtain it under expedited ordering or find a nearby pharmacy to fill the prescription.
The bill was approved by the Senate in June 2006 and goes to Gov. Jon S. Corzine for his signature.

(Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

Oddly enough when I search google for this, I find only five or six articles all posted to anti-choice websites. Funny that.

This issue is mostly effecting female reproductive choice. Since the people behind it hate women and hate the idea of them being free to do with their own bodies as they see fit. They'd rather see you all barefoot, naked and in the kitchen. Now, I'm not female, but the very idea that a pharmacist can deny someone prescribed drugs is a threat to everyone's liberty, not just women. It is especially absurd in that the drugs in question are being touted by the religious right as 'abortion drugs' when they do nothing of the sort. They use the same tactics of lies, distortions, hominem attacks, straw men and other fallacies that they do in every other aspect of any issue they find themselves forcing on people. This issue potentially effects me just as much as anyone and it effects all of you.

Personally, I can't believe this is even an issue that needs to be put into a law. Am I to be lectured before I purchase a Whopper at BK now too? Should we allow Muslim pharmacists to deny diabetics insulin made from pig pancreas? Should we allow a Hindu to allow someone with blood clots to die because he refuses to give them heparin, which is made from unclean cow liver/lungs? Should a Scientologist pharmacist be allowed to ignore someone's prescribed anti-psychotics because that religion believes modern psychology and psychiatry to be non-science?

The answer to all these is no, even from the right winger's perspective. So why the hell should Christian pharmacists be given a special right to do this? As far as I'm concerned the rights of these pharmacists do not outweigh the rights of the customers. Their rights to preach about their religion end when it begins to interfere with my rights. That's the bottom line. I go into a pharmacy because I need or want a particular drug. I am not going into a pharmacy to have some asshole tell to me about how I'm an evil person. This is no different than the rabid evangelicals chaplains in the military who demand that they be allowed to proselytize to everyone yet deny anyone else has a right to practice their own religion.

If you can't do the job, whatever your reason, then quit. It's one thing to expect your job to be reasonably accommodating when it comes to your religious beliefs. It is quite another to use your workplace as a pulpit to try to belittle the choices of others.


Edit:  Bill number is A992
Text of the Bill here from NJ state assembly site


Edit: Apparently it's the shortest bill ever

Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:

 

     1.  Section 27 of P.L.2003, c.280 (C.45:14-66) is amended to read as follows:

     27.  a.  A pharmacist shall conduct a drug utilization review before each new medication is dispensed or delivered to a patient.

     b.  A pharmacist shall conduct a prospective drug utilization review in accordance with the provisions of this section before refilling a prescription or medication order to the extent he deems appropriate in his professional judgment.

     c.  A pharmacist shall exercise independent professional judgment as to whether or not to dispense or refill a prescription or medication order.  In determining to dispense or refill a prescription or medication order, the decision of the pharmacist shall not be arbitrary but shall be based on professional experience, knowledge or available reference materials.  A pharmacist shall not refuse to dispense or refill a prescription or medication order solely on the grounds that to dispense or refill the prescription or medication order would contravene the pharmacist's philosophical, moral or religious beliefs.

(cf: P.L.2003, c.280, s.27)

 

     2.  This act shall take effect immediately.

xposted here and to my livejournal.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY catvincent)

I'm studying with great attention John Robb's book 'Brave New War' - his detailed but readable discussion of the nature of the kind of decentralised guerrilla forces that with modern tech and comms are capable of taking on a military state and winning. Depressing and scary and I think essential in understanding the modern world and our immediate future.

He's a smart guy, experienced in strategic thought (ex planner of counterterror ops for SEAL) and he's done his research. Even if I can't tempt you to read the book, I do urge you to check out his blog and do the necessary back-reading to grok the concepts he uses. He understands the nature of modern warfare in a way very few in the US military do, and the political wing of the Dominion don't at all.

For example, he points out the very sensible reason an attack on Iran is a really bad idea - it'd be a major blow to international trade with massive knock-on effects to the global economy.

Unfortunately...

David Brin reports on an article , ”Losing Iraq, Nuking Iran” from Paul Craig Roberts. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. In short, a man deep in old-school Republican Conservatism. Here's what Roberts says:

“The prospect of nuking Iran doesn't seem to disturb the three frontrunners for the Republican nomination, who agreed in their June 5 debate that the US might use nuclear weapons to destroy Iran's uranium enrichment facilities.”

' “The war in Iraq is lost. This fact is widely recognized by American military officers and has been recently expressed forcefully by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of US forces in Iraq during the first year of the attempted occupation. Winning is no longer an option. Our best hope, Gen. Sanchez says, is "to stave off defeat," and that requires more intelligence and leadership than Gen. Sanchez sees in the entirety of our national political leadership: "I am absolutely convinced that America has a crisis in leadership at this time."

“More evidence that the war is lost arrived June 4 with headlines reporting: "U.S.-led soldiers control only about a third of Baghdad, the military said on Monday." After five years of war the US controls one-third of one city and nothing else.”

Moreover: “A year ago Colin Powell said that the US Army is "about broken." Col. Andy Bacevich, America's foremost writer on military affairs, documents in the current issue of The American Conservative that Bush's insane war has depleted and exhausted the US Army and Marine Corps:"Only a third of the regular Army's brigades qualify as combat-ready. In the reserve components, none meet that standard. When the last of the units reaches Baghdad as part of the president's strategy of escalation, the US will be left without a ready-to-deploy land force reserve." '

And then the bombshell, as it were:

' “Neocons have convinced themselves that nuking Iran will show the Muslim world that Muslims have no alternative to submitting to the will of the US government. Insurgency and terrorism cannot prevail against nuclear weapons.Many US military officers are horrified at what they think would be the worst ever orchestrated war crime.

' “There are reports of threatened resignations. But Dick Cheney is resolute. He tells Bush that the plan will save him from the ignominy of losing the war and restore his popularity as the president who saved Americans from Iranian nuclear weapons. With the captive American media providing propaganda cover, the neoconservatives believe that their plan can pull their chestnuts out of the fire and rescue them from the failure that their delusion has wrought.” '

That - plus reading Robb - is plenty scary. Then Brin finishes off the piece with his own (he admits rather madcap, but not actually impossible) idea that the situation in the White House and Pentagon could be best described by a 'Manchurian Candidate' model...

So - Iran nuked for basically the same face-saving gain that led Thatcher to the Falklands. But with oil. Maybe not by stupididy, but plan.

And, if Robb is right (and he's been spot-on so far, more than anyone else in the field) the Global Guerrillas who survive will just spread their memes and continue winning.

They're an enemy the US Dominion fear greatly - one they can't fight directly, where every indirect action against them and their support structure (or as we like to call them,' non-combatants') risks massive blowback from media exposure. These open-source terrorists (another term Robb coined) are also the perfect enemy for propaganda, excusing even more draconian loss of liberties... and so the wheel turns.

(X-posted to my blog)

EDIT - full article 'Losing Iraq, Nuking Iran' is here:
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts06072007.html

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY catvincent)

Sara at Orcinus has another excellent post this week, where she looks at a plausible future scenario of Dominionist action post-2008-Democratic-victory (assuming, of course, there is one). It's not a very pretty picture...

An excerpt:

' The widespread public disaffection with the religious right is real and growing. The first-generation leaders are dying off; and they're losing unusual numbers of their hand-picked successors (Ralph Reed, Ted Haggard) in corruption and sex scandals. Unless the Democrats really screw it up (always a possibility), they are going to lose the 2008 election -- and with it, most of their power to work their political will on the rest of us. Past history suggests that the religous right won't return as a political force for another 20-40 years; and that the actual length of that exile will depend almost entirely on how thoroughly we manage to discredit them and their ideas. They're falling all on their own; but once they're down, it'll be up to us to make sure they stay there.

However, being out of politics doesn't mean they'll be completely gone from our midst. Those institutions they've built now constitute an entire separate subculture. They've got their own media, schools, arts, resorts, hospitals, nursing homes, malls, and community gathering places. It's entirely possible to live from cradle to grave without ever having to step outside of this carefully-created Christianist reality sphere. Even if this alternate universe loses it worldly power, it doesn't mean its residents will need to ever step outside that bubble if they don't want to. In some form -- the same, or slightly diminished -- this culture will probably continue to carry on along its own separate path. We should not imagine that just because we no longer see them goofing on the air, they no longer exist. FDR-era liberals made that mistake; we should take pains not to repeat it.

Furthermore, they’ve built shadow organizations within our most powerful national institutions -- most notably, Congress, the military, and the legal system. Losing political power will reduce the resources available to this network, hurt recruitment, and weaken its clout; but we can't afford to assume that the whole thing will just vanish on its own. How much of it remains, again, is up to us -- in this case, how effectively we can root out these religious cabals and disentangle them from our public and private institutions. On this front, the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy will last precisely as long as we allow it to.

Also, as noted in the post below, they've already raised several million kids in this cultural hothouse, and carefully indoctrinated them to carry on God's work in spite of Satan's (er, our) efforts. So we need to ask: Where will these kids be in another ten or 20 years? '

The previous post she refers to in the text is the one I posted here. The following article at Orcinus on the right wing and domestic terrorism, which mentions Dominionism as a major player, is here.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY cinnamonical)

Long-time lurker/commenter, first-time poster.

From Yahoo!News: Faith adopts key role in 2008 campaign

While the article doesn't explicitly state something about dominionist Christianity as far as I can tell, I think the fact that there appears to be this emphasis on the faith of the candidates for this upcoming national election says something about the general mindset of Americans and where this country is headed - something that I'm not sure is entirely positive, though it can be if handled correctly.

(If this is too off-topic, feel free to delete. ^_^;;)

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY nebris)

From WaPo
Friday, June 1, 2007; A04

Florida evangelist Bill Keller says he was making a spiritual -- not political -- statement when he warned the 2.4 million subscribers to his Internet prayer ministry that "if you vote for Mitt Romney, you are voting for Satan!"

But the Washington-based advocacy group Americans United for Separation of Church and State says the Internal Revenue Service should revoke the 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status of Bill Keller Ministries, nonetheless.

Keller, 49, who has a call-in show on a Tampa television station and a Web site called Liveprayer.com, on May 11 sent out a "daily devotional" that called Romney "an unabashed and proud member of the Mormon cult founded by a murdering polygamist pedophile named Joseph Smith nearly 200 years ago." If the former Massachusetts governor wins the GOP nomination and the presidency, Keller's message added, it will "ultimately lead millions of souls to the eternal flames of hell."

In a letter to the IRS yesterday, Americans United called Keller's message a violation of the ban on partisan politicking by tax-exempt religious groups.

Keller, in a telephone interview, laughed off the controversy. "Let them come after me for making a spiritual statement about Mitt Romney. I would love that," he said. "Bring it on."

-- Alan Cooperman

It kinda scares me that I agree with Keller. lol

And there's The Pedo Meme again!

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY exotic_princess)

Link here

Better get used to seeing evangelicals in high places
Religious right taking seat in Washington establishment
By HANNA ROSIN

Goodling is part of a new generation of evangelicals ushered in by Falwell, who insisted that Christians get involved in politics. They are graduates of the exploding number of evangelical colleges, which no longer aim to create a parallel subculture but instead to train "Christian leaders to change the world," as the Regent mission statement reads.

( Article here )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY yinepuhotep)

I'm not sure why this man is even considered a serious contender for the Republican nomination, given the quality of supporters he attracts. Then again, given that he's one of the three candidates who openly admitted to rejecting science, I shouldn't be too surprised. Only saddened that he believes his view is not out of the mainstream in America.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY wyldraven)

CNN: Christian right leader (Dobson) writes off Giuliani

( Excerpt. Click Headline for full story. )

This looks like a rather forceful rejection of Giuliani. "I cannot, and will not, vote for Rudy Giuliani in 2008. It is an irrevocable decision." Of course, he said he was writing as "a private citizen and not on behalf of any organization or party." It's Giuliani's support of a woman's right to choose that has apparently made Rudy an anathema to Dobson. Of course, his three marriages haven't helped this situation either.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY rwday)

Atlantic Online has the transcript of an interview between James Dobson and Joel C. Rosenberg concerning nuclear conflict and Armageddon. The scariest part, I think, is at the end:

Rosenberg:...And given the events going on in our world today, people at the Pentagon, people at the CIA, people at the White House are asking to sit down and talk about these issues, to understand the Biblical perspective, because it is uncanny what is happening out there and it deserves some study.

Dobson: Joel, you are doing a great work. What you just mentioned of people in the Pentagon and the CIA are asking you for interepretations of what you see that allowed you to write these books. I think that's done by divine inspiration. And I appreciate it.

Assuming Rosenberg isn't just talking out of his backside, the idea that people in the Pentagon/CIA are discussing foreign policy with someone who believes that nuclear war is God-ordained is frankly terrifying.

( The entire article, in case the Atlantic link doesn't work )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY lihan161051)

.. when I got an email on one of the lists I'm subscribed to, with a link to Lousiana Conservative's Why I am switching to the Democrat Party. I really hoped that maybe someone on the right had realized some of what I've realized about the philosophical similarities between the fundamentalists on the right and the ones on the left, and was reaching across the gap and striking a blow for tolerance, and maybe, just maybe, it was a sign of some unusual sanity and courage over there.

Then I clicked through and read it. Words fail me.

*sigh*

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

It's a small thing, but still significant. The Miami Herald reports that the "Center for Reclaiming America" has closed its doors.

Bringing an end to ambitious goals that included raising $2 million to launch a Capitol Hill lobbying arm, opening a dozen regional offices and recruiting activists in all 435 congressional districts, the Fort Lauderdale-based Center for Reclaiming America has shut its doors.

The conservative organization, part of the Rev. James D. Kennedy's Coral Ridge Ministries, let its eight employees go last week. Coral Ridge also closed its Capitol Hill-based Center for Christian Statesmanship, founded in 1995 to convert lawmakers to evangelical Christianity.

Brian Fisher, executive vice president at Coral Ridge Ministries, said the closings are part of a larger effort to redefine the ministry's mission.

''We believe that by streamlining the operations we will be able to return to our core focus,'' he said.

Could there be an actual backlash growing against such organizations? It's very possible.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Great interview with Bill Moyers in the "Christian Century" magazine. Here's what he has to say about religion and politics:

So much is being written and said about the alliance between the religious right and the Republican Party. What role do you think religion should have in the public arena?

Whose religion? Christian? Muslim? Jew? Sikh? Buddhist? Catholic? Protestant? Shi'ite? Sunni? Orthodox? Conservative? Mormon? Amish? Wicca? For that matter, which Baptist? Bill Clinton or Pat Robertson? Newt Gingrich or Al Gore? And who is going to decide? The religion of one seems madness to another. Elaine Pagels said to me in an interview that she doesn't know a single religion that affirms the other's choice.

If religion is the voice of the deepest human experience—and I believe it is—humanity contains multitudes, each speaking in a different tongue. Naturally, believers will bring their faith into the public square, translating their unique personal experience into political convictions and moral arguments. But politics is about settling differences while religion is about maintaining them. Let's realize what a treasure we have in a secular democracy that guarantees your freedom to believe as you choose and mine to vote as I wish.

Some people on the left think the Democratic Party needs to be more explicitly religious. What do you think about that counterstrategy?

If you have to talk about God to win elections, that doesn't speak well of God or elections. We are desperate today for cool thinking and clear analysis. What kind of country is it that wants its politicians to play tricks with faith?

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY wyldraven)

Imam leads first prayer by Muslim cleric on Texas Senate floor

( Read more... )

I particularly enjoyed this part: </sarcasm>

Sen. Dan Patrick stepped off the floor for Imam Yusuf Kavakci's prayer, in which he recited a passage from the Koran in Arabic and read an English translation.

"I surely believe that everyone should have the right to speak, but I didn't want my attendance on the floor to appear that I was endorsing that," said Patrick, a freshman Republican from Houston.

Here's hoping the freshman Senator finds this to be his first, and only term.

ETA: From the Senator's own website:

A native of Baltimore, Dan has been a Texan since joining Houston CBS affiliate KHOU TV in 1979. In 1988 he launched talk radio KSEV and soon after discovered a little known national host, Rush Limbaugh. His group added KPRC radio in 1992 and then sold the stations joining San Antonio-based Clear Channel Communications.

That explains so much.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY velvetpage)

Red family, blue family This is the best explanation I've ever read of the difference between the conservative view of the world, and the liberal view.

Nutshell version: Both conservatives and liberals view the nation in terms of a family, but they have different ideas of what that means. Conservatives tend to view family as a series of obligations that one is born into, while liberals see family as a collection of negotiated commitments. In the Inherited Obligation family, traditional roles are taken on because that is just part of your obligation to your family. Words like "freedom" and "choice" are bad because they are seen as the freedom to choose not to fulfill one's obligations. Liberals are misunderstood because flexibility can look like slipperiness when liberals talk about, for example, moving to the center on issues. Since commitments are up for negotiation, conservatives tend to believe that nothing is ever settled - there's never a time when commitments are taken seriously. In fact, the reverse is usually true - those who negotiate their own terms are more likely to stick with them in the long run.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Jeff Sharlet's Daily Kos diary goes into more detail about the Christian Embassy and the people who are part of it. It's an interesting and chilling read. Here's an excerpt:

Christian Embassy is political.
Unlike the conservative Family Research Council, which McCullough describes as an explicitly political lobby with which Christian Embassy sometimes coordinates, Christian Embassy focuses on "networking, individual counseling, that kind of thing." McCullough told me that Christian Embassy is apolitical; on the other hand, he also said its ministry has a political impact: "It’s more to help the individual grow as a person in their relationship with God, and then their politics is going to be an outcome."

Christian Embassy believes religion should guide politics.
Christian Embassy believes that politicians, diplomats, and officers should not consider their personal faith separate from their politics and their official duties. McCullough offers as a role model President Bush: "...in terms of the way [Bush] talks, the way he believes, he doesn’t really say ‘Oh I’m going to do religious things now and do other things later.’"

Christian Embassy sees the top brass as its mission field.
McCullough on Christian Embassy’s Pentagon presence: "At the Pentagon, we have a flag officers groups. Your stars, basically, 1-4 stars. We also have a disciple group at the pentagon. And there’s a general Bible study that meets Wednesday morning where 70-120 come. Most of our groups that we organize and work with are at the officer level. Flags, a good percentage. We have about 40 that come or are involved with that."

Christian Embassy is closely involved with political and military officials.
Those who work with Christian Embassy will typically meet in small groups, under the supervision of a counselor like McCullough, for an hour every week. Counselors typically select a scripture verse for discussion and attempt to draw out its "practical" implications, often through application to current events. Participants can and do call on Christian Embassy counselors for additional advice outside of their cell meetings. These counseling sessions typically take place in the officer’s or politician’s office. The most committed participants may travel overseas on behalf of Christian Embassy or arrange their official government travel to leave time for evangelizing work. This work may sometimes be "covert," such as a evangelizing in countries where it’s against the law.

Christian Embassy takes political positions.
Participants may call on Christian Embassy for advice on specific issues. "'What does the Bible say about this?'" is a common question, according to McCullough. He says Christian Embassy will not give explicit policy advice, but as a counselor, he would tell a member of Congress or a military official that a particular position -- pro-choice politics, or pacifism, for instance -- is "contrary to scripture."

Christian Embassy believes the Iraq War may be biblically sanctioned.
On the question of the war in Iraq, McCullough counsels: "We have war all throughout the Bible. Man’s history is war. So what’s the right thing? Not necessarily [the] war in the Bible. But what are you looking for? Is peace possible?" McCullough answered his own question by laughing.

Christian Embassy is a lobby in all but name.
McCullough says Christian Embassy is not a lobbying organization, but describes his work thusly: "I often will go visit a member of Congress and say, ‘Hey, there’s this going on, could you be involved in that?’ ... Or I will recommend to some of these groups that are issue oriented as to who might be interested in helping them. I am aware of where people are. So we do try to connect the dots. Network people." He agrees that Christian Embassy participants use the Christian Embassy network to political advantage, but considers this a positive outcome since it gives ambitious political, diplomatic, and military figures an incentive to get more involved with Christian Embassy’s evangelical theology.

His latest article is in the December "Harpers" (online in January) about how fundementalists are actively trying to rewrite American history to turn historical figures into religious ones. He is also the author of "Jesus Plus Nothing" (the Fellowship) and "Soliders of Christ"- (Ted Haggard's church). He is a careful and reliable researcher, and has revealed some very chilling trends in the ongoing onslaught by certain Christian sects against the Separation clause and the government itself. The Pentagon is merely the tip of the iceberg.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY jenk)

David Kuo (the deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives from 2001 to 2003, and the author of “Tempting Faith”) has an op-ed in today's New York Times. He quotes John W. Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute:

Modern Christianity, having lost sight of Christ’s teachings, has been co-opted by legalism, materialism and politics. Simply put, it has lost its spirituality. [...] Whereas Christianity was once synonymous with charity, compassion and love for one’s neighbor, today it is more often equated with partisan politics, anti-homosexual rhetoric and affluent mega-churches.

And:

Evangelicals are beginning to see the effect of their political involvement on those with whom they hope to share Jesus’ eternal message: non-evangelicals. Tellingly, Beliefnet’s poll showed that nearly 60 percent of non-evangelicals have a more negative view of Jesus because of Christian political involvement; almost 40 percent believe that George W. Bush’s faith has had a negative impact on his presidency.

One can but hope...Dominionism is as much a corruption of evangelical Christianity as "abstinence-only" sex ed and clinic bombers.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

It's starting- the disintigration of the connections between the Republican Party and the extreme Christian right.

From the Sioux City Journal:

A day after the Democratic sweep of the midterm elections, Woodbury County Republican Chairman Steve Salem had harsh words for his own party, lambasting the influence of the conservative Christian right wing.

Salem said he coined a new phase: "You've heard of IslamaFascists -- I think we now have Christian fascists. What is the definition of a fascist? Not only do they want to beat you, but they want to destroy you in the process."

Salem said "if things keep going the way things are going locally and statewide, it is going to be more and more difficult for Republicans to recruit candidates. We have elements of the party who are moral absolutists, who take the approach that if you don't take my position every step of the way, not only will I not support you, but I will destroy you."

I have a feeling that this will be happening in Republican strongholds across the country.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY velvetpage)

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20061110/25958.htm

"Many things died on November 7th, 2006. Twelve years of Republican control of the House. Six years of electoral success for President Bush. Four years of GOP Senate control. Perhaps the "inside the beltway" mindset of Christian conservatives will also die. However, death, for the Christian, is certainly not a bad thing, because death always points toward resurrection. Christianity teaches that redemption is always possible, no matter how bleak things appear. For the Christian conservatives, perhaps something died on November 7th, but, thanks be to God, on November 8th we can start again."