The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Michelle Goldberg and ‘The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Evangelicalism’

Posted on | August 17, 2011 | 48 Comments

Da Tech Guy yesterday made passing reference to something I had previously noticed but chosen to ignore: Michelle Goldberg’s article at the Daily Beast warning that both Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry are in league with “some of America’s most radical theocrats.”

Can we just call this what it is, namely fear-mongering and bigotry against devout Christians? Because I’m frankly sick and tired of this little game, which has been going on for decades but is seldom called out for what it really is.

If a conservative were to accuse liberal Jews of conspiring for political dominance, he would be automatically condemned as an anti-Semite and purged from polite society. And yet no liberal is ever condemned for accusing conservative Christians of conspiring for political dominance.

This goes back at least as far as Norman Lear and People for the American Way, and the same agitprop methods have been pursued quite lucratively by the disgraced and disgraceful Southern Poverty Law Center.

Fear of a Christian theocracy, the alleged objective of schemes purportedly hatched and incubated by secretive cabals of fundamentalists, has been a persistent theme of liberal journalism and advocacy for at least three decades now. But where is this theocracy they’ve warned us about? 

To hear them tell it, we are always but one election cycle away from the dawn of a Margaret Atwood dystopia — If Republicans win, the Bible-thumping fascists will impose their morals on us all! — yet we recently passed through several years of GOP dominance and I don’t recall any headlines about the National Morality Police shutting down gay discos or strip joints during the Nightmare Era of Bushdom.

Goldberg works her Chicken Little act quite successfully, making the bestseller lists and collecting prestigious literary awards for her scary stories about the Fundamentalist Menace. Why? Because they’re an easy target to demonize in the eyes of the secular urban elites who comprise the intellectual leadership of modern liberalism.

Modern liberals are predisposed to hate Christians, and Goldberg is a world-class expert at feeding their hatred. She is to anti-Chrisitan propaganda what Julius Streicher was to anti-Semitic propaganda, yet it seems no one dares to call her out for her despicable fostering of fear and bigotry.

And perhaps some conservatives have not noticed what is quite obvious to me: Goldberg targets her venom almost exclusively at Protestant evangelicals — not at Catholics. This is a convenient trick, you see, and I long ago remarked how, whenever someone goes off on a rant against pro-lifers and the “Religious Right,” it’s always presented in the context of Protestant fundamentalism, even though anyone actually involved with pro-lifers knows that the hard-core shock troops of the movement are the Catholics.

Attacks on the “Religious Right” are thus exposed as a not-so-subtle appeal to the basic anti-redneck prejudice of the urban elite. It behooves anti-Christian propagandists like Goldberg to portray the “Religious Right” as a stereotypical bunch of ignorant hillbilly holy-rollers, because these are the people whom the urban elite know the least about, and whom they therefore fear the most.

If you tried to tell the urban elite that the great danger to American civil liberties was posed by conservative Catholics, you would be impugning their own friends, neighbors and relatives of the urban elite, and they would laugh off your fear-mongering as a transparent fraud. But choose as your scapegoats a collection of Baptists, Pentacostals and other fundamentalist Protestants, and the urban elite will devour your scary stories and ask for second helpings.

Insofar as the “Religious Right” has influence in American political life, how is it that the conservatives on the Supreme Court are justices Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito — all Catholic — and yet Goldberg and her ilk continue scaring liberals with the frightening specter of right-wing Protestantism? 

Goldberg is making an appeal to a specific prejudice, and it is unfortunate that fundamentalist Protestants are particularly vulnerable to such tactics. Why? Because there is no Protestant pope, no recognized hierarchy, no established collection of official documents outlining the beliefs of these diverse demoninations. Therefore, any Protestant theologian, pastor or layman may write a book or organize a conference to advance his own particular beliefs, and this results in a proliferation of literature from which the likes of Goldberg may cherry-pick examples that fit her theme of a theocratic conspiracy.

For example, we are told by Goldberg that Rick Perry is associated with “the New Apostolic Reformation, a Dominionist variant of Pentecostalism that coalesced about a decade ago,” and I guarantee you that 90% of Goldberg readers have never set foot inside a Pentacostal church, so that all they know about it is what she tells them. She quotes this author and that minister, and portrays them all as proteges of R.J. Rushdoony, then depicts Perry as a sort of theocratic Trojan Horse by which all these “Dominionists” are going to seize power and . . .

Wait a minute: Didn’t our current president spend a couple of decades in the pews of a church whose pastor had a lot of dangerously kooky beliefs? Why is Goldberg warning us about these Dominionists, when she evidently finds nothing to fear in Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s “black liberation theology”? Because to warn against Wright’s kooky beliefs would expose her to accusations of racism, whereas smearing a bunch of Pentacostals in Texas is risk-free. But I digress . . .

My point is that the non-hierachical nature of evangelical Protestantism lends itself quite readily to the kind of Ransom Note Method by which Goldberg creates her scary picture of Perry and Bachmann as puppets of a theocratic conspiracy.

Did Bachmann quote a certain fundmentalist author? Well, that same author also said A, B and C, you see, and was a known associate of various other Dominionist types who wrote X, Y and Z. And thus Bachmann is presented as an adherent of beliefs she has never personally espoused. (Bachmann’s personal religious beliefs are not exactly a secret.)

Smearing evangelicals is easy for liberals, whereas smearing Catholics is a greater challenge, since they’d pretty much have to take on the whole organized church. And speaking of Catholics, Lisa Graas quoted one of them yesterday:

Take away God, and all respect for civil laws, all regard for even the most necessary institutions disappears; justice is scouted; the very liberty that belongs to the law of nature is trodden underfoot; and men go so far as to destroy the very structure of the family, which is the first and firmest foundation of the social structure. The result is that in these days hostile to Christ, it has become more difficult to apply the powerful remedies which the Redeemer has put into the hands of the Church in order to keep the peoples within the lines of duty.

That’s Pope Pius X, from 1904.

Category: Intellectuals, Liberals, Michele Bachmann, Religion

Comments

48 Responses to “Michelle Goldberg and ‘The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Evangelicalism’”

  1. McGehee
    August 17th, 2011 @ 3:55 pm

    These are the people who made George W. Bush — a lifelong Methodist — out to be a fire-and-brimstone fundamentalist.

  2. Catherine
    August 17th, 2011 @ 3:56 pm

    Eh, I think the reason she doesn’t attack Catholics is that it is so very unoriginal.  The Protestant angle is getting tired, to be sure, but to attack Catholics is to fire a shotgun point blank at a seriously decayed horse.  Kennedy pretty much wasted their ammo during his abbreviated presidency, so they had to switch to something else.

  3. Anonymous
    August 17th, 2011 @ 4:09 pm

    These are the people who made George W. Bush — a lifelong Methodist — out to be a fire-and-brimstone fundamentalist.

    “Lifelong Methodist”? I thought he was raised Episcopalian and married into Laura’s Methodist faith.Methodists vary greatly in their devoutness and political leanings. The UMC hierarchy has been taken over by liberal squishes (Hillary was raised Methodist), but I know Methodists who personally are quite conservative, both as to their faith and their politics.

  4. Anonymous
    August 17th, 2011 @ 4:24 pm

    RSM: you make several excellent points, especially regarding the non-hierarchical nature of Evangelical Protestantism allowing for diversity of ideas, doctrines, etc., which can then be attacked by “progressives.” 

    I’m less sure, though, concerning your point that urban elites being more likely to have friends, family who are Catholics. True, up to a point, but many rapidy growing “Sun Belt” cities historically had relatively low numbers of Catholics – e.g., Atlanta, northern FLA, Raleigh/Chapel Hill/Durham, Charleston SC, Dallas, Houston, Austin, etc. Although the progressive elites from such places are not considered part of the intelligentsia, they buy books, vote for Democrats/progressives, promote the same ideas, and yet many of them still have more (lapsed) Protestant than (lapsed) Catholic friends.    

    When you mention, “Because to warn against Wright’s kooky beliefs would expose her to accusations of racism, whereas smearing a bunch of Pentacostals in Texas is risk-free. But I digress . . .” I don’t see that as a digression at all, but one of the main points. A large part of the Catholic base includes Latinos, a minority group, whereas the threat from “theocratic” Protestantism is assumed (by “progressives”) to reflect “white anxities” and not to include Afr-Am churches since minorities lack power & agency, blah, blah.

    To what extent is this anti-“theocratic” demagoguery politically effective? Thus, to what extent is it a cynical, strategic “target of convenience”? If white men are the last remaining “safe’ target for humor, they’re also the last safe target for fear-mongering. After selling these books to urban elites, the message can then be redirected to low-information Democrats, independents.   

    Btw, Catholics, in general, are also rumored to be less faithful to their doctrines than are Evangelical Protestants; yes, a devout segment of them are active in the pro-life movement, but I wonder if secular progressives are more likely to view Catholics as Daycare Christians?

  5. Rob Crawford
    August 17th, 2011 @ 4:46 pm

    Calling any Kennedy “Catholic” is unfair to the entire history of the Catholic church, including the Inquisition and the Great Schism.

  6. Aggie Sprite
    August 17th, 2011 @ 4:48 pm

    The Catholic Church has been adapting to liberal dogma as of late. Witness some of the more famous Catholics: Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, etc. Witness also the Church’s stance on “social justice”. Some of us have been forced to leave a church due to actual praising of Obama’s policies.

    My guess is the Catholic Church is not a big threat to liberals, but rather a tool.

  7. Lisa Graas
    August 17th, 2011 @ 4:51 pm

    God bless, Stacy McCain. Amen.

  8. Lisa Graas
    August 17th, 2011 @ 4:53 pm

    P.S. Haters of the Judeo-Christian ethic, read the Declaration of Independence….please….and then maybe you’ll see why we say that America will literally be destroyed by those seeking to enshrine as “rights” things that CONTRADICT Natural Law.

    Read the Declaration. It’s not a Catholic thing. It’s not a Jewish thing. It’s not a Protestant thing or a Christian thing. It’s an “AMERICAN” thing — in the Declaration of Independence.

    Class dismissed.

  9. Lisa Graas
    August 17th, 2011 @ 4:57 pm

    Oh, and on the tenth amendment…..Rick Santorum stood up and spoke out against Lawrence v. Texas which was a case of the federal government (Supreme Court) telling a State that it could not have a law banning something opposed to Natural Law. This is where the Tenth Amendment is attacked on Natural Law, where the federal Supreme Court struck down a State act of preserving Natural Law. If anyone else currently running for president stood up in support of Texas on that ruling, other than Rick Santorum, I’m not aware of it.

    OUR RIGHTS trump State and Federal powers. BOTH State and Federal Powers MUST DEFEND our rights. NEITHER has authority to enshrine as a “right” something opposed to Natural Law.

    For Pete’s sake, read the founding documents, people. And vote for someone who understands these things. Please.

  10. Lisa Graas
    August 17th, 2011 @ 4:58 pm

    That’s why we would benefit from having the First Republican Catholic Presidential Nominee who also happens to be a staunch conservative. (wink wink)

  11. polypolitical
    August 17th, 2011 @ 5:02 pm

    As someone with ample negative experience in both fundamentalist protestant and pentecostal churches and now firmly a-religious in my views, yet strongly a fiscal conservative, I must say that although I agree that bigoted views like Goldberg’s are atrocious, I am somewhat fearful of Perry and Bachmann.  As a fiscal conservative but socially libertarian person, there is NO choice on the ticket for me.  While certainly the vaguely evangelical G.W. Bush administration didn’t bring a religious cabal into power, I really have no desire to have someone as president who looks at it as their mission to return the U.S. to its “christian” roots.  I have heard growing groups like one local to me (www.iotconline.com) pushing an agenda including assertions such as that the 1st Amendment freedom of religion only applies to Christian denominations–not to other non-Christian religions. 

  12. David R. Graham
    August 17th, 2011 @ 5:16 pm

    Correct, GWB and Bushes way back are Episcopalians (Anglicans).  Also, Methodism, just as Episcopalianism, Puritanism and Separatism (whose representatives landed at Plymouth Rock, Puritans coming only later), derive from the Church of England (Anglicans).  So does the United Church of Christ, BTW, via New England Congregationalism (Puritans), they of the notorious Jeremiah Wright.  Wright represents a “white” church, not a black one.

  13. McGehee
    August 17th, 2011 @ 5:17 pm

    I stand corrected as to the “lifelong” part — but being raised Episcopalian makes fundamentalism even less likely a part of his Methodism.

    The main reason I scoff at that notion is that my wife is a lifelong Methodist and I did like Dubya when we got married. I’ve known a number of very conservative Methodists but none came close to breathing fire.

  14. David R. Graham
    August 17th, 2011 @ 5:26 pm

    What?!?  The Roman Catholic element of the Latin Church (includes Protestant [Lutheran] and Reformed [Calvinist] Christians) is the only one growing in members.  The rest are all out-flow (Episcopalians) or out-flow equal to in-flow (Lutherans and Calvinists, the latter including the entertainment businesses called “mega-churches”).  Catherine, you should try to honor your name.  Benedict XVI is the only prominent leader of the Latin Church, so far, who has stood down the Mohammedan menace (at Regensburg, 12SEP06).  I am an Episcopalian bearing ordination from the United Church of Christ.

  15. David R. Graham
    August 17th, 2011 @ 5:38 pm

    Benedict XVI’s point at Regensburg.  Little noticed: in using ontology (an aspect of which is natural law) as the basis for repelling Mohammedan aggression, Benedict at Regensburg pivoted almost a millennium of Roman Catholic foundational argument away from Thomistic sense-based epistemology to Augustinian direct knowledge-based epistemology.  This is a proverbial “tectonic shift” barely showing on the common meters of measurement because it is so deep.  However, huge things follow in its train, good things.  

  16. Bob Belvedere
    August 17th, 2011 @ 5:45 pm

    -Well said, Stacy.

    -The Michelle Goldbergs of this world do avoid attacking Catholics for the reasons you state.  They certainly don’t want to offend their ‘Catholic’ friends like Chris Matthews, who are CINO’s.  But, also, the Church, having a ‘recognized hierarchy’ and a being for all intents and purposes a monarchy [Cardinals aka ‘Princes of the Church’] is, as far as the Left is concerned, part of the Elite Establishment ? one of their own.  Besides, the Left knows they have heavily infiltrated the RMC and are destroying it from within already, so why upset a good thing.

    PS: You know what sounds good to my ears?  ‘Protestant Pope Robert Stacy I’ [unless it disqualifies you from being the first gentile President of Israel].

  17. David R. Graham
    August 17th, 2011 @ 5:46 pm

    Whoever you are, you fear phantoms of your own imagination.  And you are ignorant of natural phenomenology.  There is no a-religion, just as there is no a-theism.  Everyone believes in themselves, some even believe in their self.  That’s all religion is and that’s all God is.  You are swinging at cloud castles you yourself make.  There is no economy without religion and God.  Politics is many tics.  You’ve got that right, at least.

  18. Anonymous
    August 17th, 2011 @ 5:48 pm

    The worst part about this insane conspiracy theory is that so many on the left buy into it. One one would think that those who tout their critical thinking skills would be able to see past such folly.

  19. Anonymous
    August 17th, 2011 @ 5:55 pm

    If the Catholic “monarchy” is part of the establishment, that raises a related point: as such, Catholic leadership would be more likely to have a seat at the table under “progressive” corporatism, which might further contribute to that denomination’s greater insularity from anti-“theocracy” demagoguery.    

  20. David R. Graham
    August 17th, 2011 @ 5:55 pm

    O bullshit!  No one can or has forced you to leave a church.  Pelosi, etc. do not represent the Roman Catholic church and they know they do not. Elements of the RC church in the USA have been a tool of progressives and localities of it in this country and elsewhere remain firmly so — witness Notre Dame and the secular nun who tipped the balance on nationalization of the medical profession. But that is not the Roman Catholic church, much less the direction of leadership now, including USA leadership.  If your knees can’t straighten on their own, give them the assistance of a brace.

  21. Catherine
    August 17th, 2011 @ 5:57 pm

    True, but I was pointing out that his papal “connections” were at issue in his election.  At that point in time, probably anyone with a Catholic-sounding name would have had to deal with that in some way.

  22. Bob Belvedere
    August 17th, 2011 @ 6:01 pm

    -While it is a truth that whatever the Left accuses the Right of doing is actually what they themselves are doing, it follows that whatever virtues they claim for themselves are, in fact, actually virtues of the Right.

    -Chesterton: When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing — they believe in anything.

  23. Bob Belvedere
    August 17th, 2011 @ 6:02 pm

    Spot-on.

  24. Anonymous
    August 17th, 2011 @ 6:03 pm

    I’ve heard that one said before too.  Perhaps, I will concede, “a-religious” isn’t the right term.  This is what happens when I write comments with the children swirling about my legs!  My point isn’t really to disagree with RSM.  I think this pathological hatred of evangelicals goes too far, is bigoted and foolish, just like many things liberals believe.  On the other hand, I wanted to point out that there are many people I know who are distinctly NOT Christians, disagree with Christians on moral and social issues, and yet are entirely unhappy with the way the Federal Government is intruding in our lives, spending our children into bankruptcy, and crushing our economy.  No economy without religion and God?  That statement leaves me a little mystified.  I’m rather agnostic in my beliefs, so I will concede that there *might* be no economy without “god” but without religion?  Organized religion has been quite destructive to me both financially and emotionally over many years, and I would daresay “religion” and the “economy” are not friends, at least in my personal economy 🙂

  25. David R. Graham
    August 17th, 2011 @ 6:20 pm

    Stacy, I think you’ve made the point the hard way, time to go up a few back alleys.

    Progressives/Chaotics attack fundamentalists/evangelicals because they are easy, low-risk targets.  Their real target is the Roman Catholic church, or better, the Latin Church in toto.  Always has been, always will be.  They invented the phrase “Western Civilization” to treat the Latin Church as if it doesn’t exist and isn’t estimable for any purpose of “right thinking” people.  Wishful thinking.

    And the reason for that is one thing with two faces:  malice; and the two faces are: abortion and sodomy.  The Latin Church has always and will always condemn malice.  And that’s why progressives/chaotics attack the Latin Church through its modernly easiest (i.e., most legalistic) targets, fundamentalists/evangelicals.  If they attacked the Roman Catholic church directly — or even Presbyterianism, Lutheranism or Episcopalianism — they would be attacking many of their friends and, more to the point, they would be attacking an indomitable foe who can annihilate them.  They know that.

    Chaotics attacking modern evangelicals are doing a service, rather like birds picking lice off an elephant’s back or food from between a crocodile’s teeth.  The Church is always well-quit of legalists (Cromwellians) and self-promoters (Puritans).

  26. Catherine
    August 17th, 2011 @ 6:20 pm

    Um, I don’t think pointing out that Kennedy had to deal with those who thought of him as a papist mole or that the Kennedy name is not thought of as representing devout Catholics well is dishonoring my name.  I’m a big fan of our current pope, and I do think that attacking Catholics as subversive elements of the American populace is way overdone.  Add in the (sometimes deserved) pedophile comments, fisheater comments and everything else we Catholics have been called, and bashing Catholics as a group is just  so… passe.

  27. Anonymous
    August 17th, 2011 @ 6:25 pm

    ” Organized religion has been quite destructive to me both financially and emotionally…”
    An interesting charge, care to elaborate?

  28. The Wondering Jew
    August 17th, 2011 @ 6:30 pm

    Stacy, what you hint at here, but don’t come out and say (but I happily will, since I have a certain degree of inoculation against charges of Anti-Semitism) is that Liberal Jews are by far the worst offenders of this sort of anti-Christian propaganda.  If we can’t name the problem we can’t really do much about it.  Sadly, starting with socialism and Communism the ideas held in great disproportion by secular Jews have had a badly corrosive effect on our politics.  To notice this truth, which should be obvious to any conservative, doesn’t make you Anti-Semitic.   I am not claiming all Jews hold such beliefs or even most Jews– religious Jews, in particular, are less likely to hold such beliefs.  But liberalism, socialism, anti-evangelicalism etc. substitutes for religion for many of these secular Jews.

  29. gg
    August 17th, 2011 @ 6:34 pm

    Hi Stacy!

    I guess, every passerby you meet offers you a gift ( including gg.) You just have to keep your eyes, ears, and nose alert to spot the gift. 

    The other day, I was passing by this Methodist church. The sheep were leaving the corral. This pretty woman shining in her Sunday dress said good morning to me with a big smile. I was surprised that she matched her step to mine and began a conversation. I guess she figured she would give a gift to this lonely old man.

    “Is it not hot?” She asked.

    “Not too bad,” I replied.”

    ” It might not feel so to you but it’s. Do not walk too far in this heat.”

    “OK, Mom. We all have to die someday, and if I am old enough to be killed by walking a few blocks in the sun, so be it.”

    She giggled, “Where were you born?”

    ” I was never born.”
    She laughed, “That is a good one.”

    ” Is no joke. Do you think you were born?”

    ” Yes, not far from here.”

    ” Well, your mother had a baby not far from here, but you are not that baby now, the person you are was manufactured by our society and your church.”

    ” You are so funny! Where were you manufactured?”

    ” I came to this country in my early twenties, so I was manufactured here too, but I turned out a defective American.”

    She laughed again, “I wish I could talk more. You are such a character, but I’m meeting people for lunch. Don’t go too far.”

    She sped away. To some, truth sounds like a joke.

    But the best gift that afternoon was handed to me by an old lady that passed by without saying a word. She was wearing a perfume that triggered feelings of long ago. It evoked falling asleep in arms that smelled so. But whose, I didn’t know. The happiness I felt then, returned just as fresh, but fred from face, bosom, arms, or name. Hmm! I guess I getting seriously old. ;))

  30. Anamika
    August 17th, 2011 @ 6:43 pm

    I’d bet all my money and the soul I don’t have that if evangelists could be transported in time and if they would hear what Jesus was preaching, they would have been at the foot of the cross, yelling:

    KILL THE BASTARD! LOL

  31. Anamika
    August 17th, 2011 @ 6:46 pm

    The other day, I was passing by this Methodist church. The sheep were
    leaving the corral. This pretty woman shining in her Sunday dress said
    good morning to me with a big smile. I was surprised that she matched
    her step to mine and began a conversation. I guess she figured she would
    give a gift to this lonely old man.

    Can you really have open eyes, ears, and nose if you see others as “sheep leaving the corral”?

    Happiness returned, nice. Is it a different kind of happiness than you usually have?

    Yes, others’ truths often sound like jokes. The pretty womans truth probably sounds to you like a joke as your truth does to her.
    There is no Truth.

  32. Triumph Of The Ill « The Camp Of The Saints
    August 17th, 2011 @ 2:50 pm

    […] at The Other McCain, Stacy McCain has up a very good post on this whole twisted rigamarole the Left periodically makes to the effect that this or that […]

  33. Anonymous
    August 17th, 2011 @ 6:51 pm

    It is a long story, and certainly it is all my fault in the sense that I allowed myself to be taken in by it, but to sum up:

    1) ten years of being exhorted by religious leaders whom I respected to pay tithes and offerings (on pain of my finances being “cursed” if I didn’t tithe and not “blessed” if I didn’t pay offerings over and above the tithe)
    2) spending days and nights working for the church,
    3)  refusing to leave a small geographic area to look for a better paying or more fulfilling job because my first duty was to “God” (i.e. the church),
    4) having child after child because it was what “God ” desired for my life,
    5) watching my wife’s self-esteem be crushed as she struggled to “submit” to me and to the ministry and stayed home to raise the children because that was what she was called by “God” to do…

    like I said, it is a long story, but I came to see how fake the majority of people involved in organized religion are; during my early years out of college, it set me back in financial and personal terms by thousands of dollars a year that I “voluntarily” paid to the church (never mind the previously mentioned inability to go elsewhere from where I lived to find a better job– THAT cost me thousands more per year if not tens of thousands…)

    more?

  34. TR
    August 17th, 2011 @ 6:54 pm

     Nice post Stacy and it should be a chapter in your forthcoming book on how the NY-22 led the way to the landslide of
    2010, while RSM found comfort and an A/C adaptor for the laptop near the
    living room couch in homes across America (including Wasilla!).  Why let Michelle whats her name get all the books out.  Self-publish then sell the rights!

  35. gg
    August 17th, 2011 @ 6:55 pm

    If you look at the sweep of history, there IS clear and accelerating movement towards independence, freedom, tolerance. OK, so it’ll never be 100% of the population. But the solid and growing majority HAS learned to live and let live, particularly when contrasted with a century or a generation ago.

    It’s only the religious extremists on one side and the the sanctimonious liberals on the other who want to force their values on everyone. It’s in their interest exaggerate each other, but it’s not accurate. George Bush exaggerated the “terrorists” in order to excuse his power grab. Liberals exaggerate the religious right in order to support their desire for moral superiority. But the truth is that these views are on the fringes, while “live and let live” has already won the hearts and minds of the majority.

  36. Anonymous
    August 17th, 2011 @ 6:58 pm

    I agree, gg.  Hopefully the majority will continue in that trend 🙂

  37. g g
    August 17th, 2011 @ 7:10 pm

    Anamika, is life not going well?

    Lately, you have begun to bitch about trifles, and in this case, your complain is false and sheepish. Christians are not offended to be called sheep. That metaphor comes from the Bible. Methodists call their priests Pastors which is another word for herder.

    Define that truth that is not. For example that protestants often call their ministers Pastor is true. So obviously, truth as the agreement of statements to facts, exists.

  38. Anamika
    August 17th, 2011 @ 7:19 pm

    Ok, perhaps cynicsm and condescencion were not in the phrase “the sheep were leaving the corral”. Glad we could clear that up.

    As for truth your comment “To some, truth sounds like a joke”, again seemd to have the same tone. But maybe not.

  39. FenelonSpoke
    August 17th, 2011 @ 7:23 pm

    I am sorry, polypolitical that you had such an abusive experience in the church. Anyone who stresses mandatory tithing and  says Gods curses result from not tithing IMO, tramples on the sacrifice of Jesus and the blood of the New Covenant.  I have never been in a church that stressed that or in the ministry of a church that said such a thing; I am sorry they took advantage of you in that way. The person who lays out most clearly how mandatory tithing is against the New Covenant and one of the the best ministers I know of is a man, Wayne Monbleau, who has a program on the radio  called “Let’s Talk About Jesus” and his website is called “Loving Grace Ministry”. One of his pet peeves is “Prosperity Preachers”. Another is preachers like Harold camping predicting the end times when the Bible says we are not to do that. His whole ministry is lifting up of Jesus. I haven’t found anything quite like it on the air.
    I would encourage you to give him a call to tell you story for the process of healing. You can write to him by e-mail too. He is a good  man and a fine Christian and I am not associated with his ministry in anyway except for enjoying listening to it.

  40. Anonymous
    August 17th, 2011 @ 7:31 pm

    I doubt Mr Monbleau would appreciate my current views, but I thank you for trying. I’m well convinced of the falsity of Christian beliefs at this point (it has been a few years since the story I related above) and am quite happy in the way my life is going now, even though it certainly isn’t compatible with Christianity. -PP

  41. Anonymous
    August 17th, 2011 @ 8:15 pm

    You believe this is a typical example Christianity?

  42. Anonymous
    August 17th, 2011 @ 8:31 pm

    “typical?” no, I don’t think it is typical, although I would say there are elements of my experience throughout most fundamentalist Christian churches–the more “fundamentalist” the more elements seem to crop up.
    And my point on here, as I said, is mostly to say that I don’t want a fundamentalist president. Michelle Bachmann’s discussion of “submission” recently brings it to the forefront for me.

  43. ThePaganTemple
    August 17th, 2011 @ 8:39 pm

    There are still a lot of conservative Episcopalians as well.

  44. ThePaganTemple
    August 17th, 2011 @ 8:42 pm

    Oh, knock it off, you “two”

  45. ThePaganTemple
    August 17th, 2011 @ 8:45 pm

    There are enclaves of the Catholic Church that are subversive. Some are actually liberation theologists, or aligned with that movement, and some take their affinity and support for illegal aliens to the point of breaking the law. But I think, or at least hope, that they are a minority.

  46. ThePaganTemple
    August 17th, 2011 @ 8:50 pm

    She said “A church”. Why should she remain in a church that expresses views she doesn’t support? Especially one that, as she said, openly praises Obama and his policies? If I were a Catholic I sure wouldn’t contribute money to a church like that, nor would I feel comfortable taking part in the Eucharist in such a church, or from such a Priest. I would probably feel that such a Priest and congregation were engaging in as bad a mockery of Church ritual as any black mass.

  47. Fondatori
    August 17th, 2011 @ 11:18 pm

    People don’t like to admit this but there is a significant culture of anti-christianity embraced by many Jews.  Michelle Goldberg is a proponent of this admitted bigotry:

    http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/72770/christian-wrong/

  48. The Wondering Jew
    August 18th, 2011 @ 3:04 pm

    I hear you Fondatori, but we can’t even get people to discuss it even on a conservative blog, even when the same point is raised by, say, a Jewish person.  I know because I’ve tried a few times and nobody ever takes the bait. . .