LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

From One Thousand Reasons, a poignant editorial with the weight of history behind it:

America Beware
By Doug Holdread

I'm angry. It's not just Islam that has been hijacked. Fundamentalists have taken over the cockpit of Christianity and are redirecting us toward totalitarianism.

"Totalitarianism" is defined as "a special version of authoritarian control - political or cultural - that invades the individual's private sphere in all aspects of life, and operates by the willing participation of the people in their own oppression."

Fundamentalists are celebrating the reelection of George Bush, their messiah, who they believe will reverse the erosion of traditional family values. They hope he'll lay olive branch aside, and be as ruthless with lesbian baby-killers and gay pedophiles as he is with terrorists.

They are unwittingly collaborating in the formulation of a totalitarian state. Christianity has been hijacked by radical militants that don't represent true Christianity. These fanatics have forgotten our history.

Early Christians lived under a totalitarian system that forced everyone to conform to pagan religion. Everyone was expected to burn incense at the altar of Caesar. Christians courageously refused and paid with their lives. They were loyal to Jesus' peaceable kingdom, not to Caesar's Empire. They refused political office and service in the Roman army.

But in the fourth century Christianity became the official state religion, and Christians were suddenly in control, able to use political power to force others to conform to their rituals and moral standards. The next thousand years were shamefully characterized by crusades and inquisitions.

Totalitarian Christianity reigned until the Reformation when courageous souls found religious freedom in the new world. In America there was room enough for polygamists and pacifists and Papists. They could practice their faith and live their lives in peace.

But now, once again we're headed toward a totalitarian system in which the state forces one religious world-view upon everyone, with a right-wing administration acting as the enforcer of conservative Christianity, even defining certain sacraments.

Some totalitarian regimes, like Chinese Communism outlaw religious expression all-together, while others, like the Taliban force the population to conform to the morality and rituals of the favored religion. Traditionally Americans have not been forced into one mold. But now religious conservatives, allied with the government are trying to bully us through laws and sanctions.

We Christians follow Christ freely, not because we are forced to. We don't need laws to make us behave and we don't need the state to force Christian behavior upon our non-Christian neighbors.