The Prickly Pear: Is The Religious Right Dangerous?
Is The Religious Right Dangerous?
Be very afraid of the Christian right. They’re jihadists, zealots, America’s own brand of Whahhabism. If they’re not stopped, they’ll soon start assassinating the non-religious. That’s what columnists in the mainstream press write.
but keep those reasoned responses coming….
I thought she laid it out very well. There is a lot going on in America today, but theocracy is not one of the trends.
What amazes me is how deadset some people are in trying to advance the threat of a theocracy. I just isn’t a sensible fear – American Christians just do not hold a majority view of support for that.
She did do well with lining up her argument.
Yet with influential people saying the kinds of things found here–
http://www.reandev.com/taliban/
–is it any wonder that non-Christians can feel a tad apprehensive when even the moderate types start going on about prayer in the schools, etc.?
The writer of the article you mention doesn’t talk about the hateful statements some of her heroes make. And yes, some on the left are just as hateful. Absolutely. I can understand why peeps on the right are afraid of them, too.
We’ll just have to gag everyone who doesn’t say sensible stuff like we do! 😉
We weren’t talking about everyone saying “sensible stuff”. We were talking about the reasonable suspician that there is theocracy fulminating. There is not.
You cited a collection of extreme statements, that were not given in context, so for other than propaganda purposes they are pretty useless as discussion points.
People can and do say outrageous things… I don’t apologize for favoring sensible. And you are the only one ’round these parts suggesting gagging. T’warn’t me.
“is it any wonder that non-Christians can feel a tad apprehensive when even the moderate types start going on about prayer in the schools, etc.?”
Yes it is a wonder. I don’t know how the stretch is made, quite frankly…except that they want to make it.
I do think there have been such major shifts in our society that many have not caught up with that fact. People who want prayer in schools are harkening back to time when it was all looser, and people in general were more reticent in their religion, if they held to it. And perhaps the reactionaries live in that thinking as well.
I think if there were serious debate on prayer in schools most Christians wouldn’t want it, what they want is often a return to different time and society on these sorts of issues. Can’t have that… and it wouldn’t be good to want it IMO.
But I am all for voting for those who hold the same values I do into office. I think that is the right of every American. And those who aren’t represented in that have to wait their turn til they get a majority. That is not theocracy by any stretch of the imagination- it is just a poison the well tactic for those who say so.
maybe I took you wrong… maybe you are just saying there’s lots of extremism in the rhetoric out there. I’d agree with that, but I don’t think of it as scary unless I see a scary trend that goes along with it.
I guess I would like to underline that theocracy is just not one of those trends, I do think it is interpreted, wrongly, from extreme statements, but also from a paranoia to just about any religiously tinged statement.
And that is repressive.
I take this sort of discussion seriously, so maybe I pounce on those who are trying to make light of it.
but I couldn’t tell with you, Paula… then I visited your blog and remembered that you come from a very different sort of personality than me. It probably takes some getting used to to interact.
The writer of your cited article seems to think that Christians are being persecuted in the U.S. right now. She used anecdotal examples to support that view. It’s only fair to use anecdotal examples (vis a vis “out of context” quotes) to support the view that it is Christians who want to do the persecuting. I disagree with both positions, notwithstanding the lunatics on each side who would shoot those with opposing views if they could get away with it.
It surprises me that you don’t see how non-Christians could feel the way I described. Oh well.
I personally think the “fear the theocracy” rhetoric is drummed up, what I see in it is more the fear that favored positions will change because of the activism of Christians in politics. It is polluted politics as usual to try to paint the other side as some democracy threatening force.
I’m just in agreement with the author that the accusations are false.
Christians don’t want “to do the persecuting”. Christians have largely wanted to be left alone for the longest time and the political left pushed their agendas with such inroads into things such as states legislated abortion policy, regulating schools so heavyhandedly in many things that interfered with ethics of the families, etc that the went active. And now the status quo doesn’t like it.
But that is no reason to raise the specter of ‘theocracy’. And the things written along that are pure diatribe.
Out of context simply means you don’t know what the quotations referred to…. in context they might have been as harsh, or they might have been quite mild.
But you know what? I will say I feel the winds changing. There needs to be some real efforts made at sitting down at the table together…soon.
What I will grant you is that the idea that a group of people telling you what God says you ought to do from the legislature is simply a type of tyranny if it is subject simply to their group view.
That is not well understood, that Christianity is largely principles and not a set of laws. That is gets sidetracked into that has happened in history, so again, I can grant you that.
It just won’t add up to theocracy, because that is not what is being proposed or supported. Choosing a government assembly that better represents their concerns… that is, and that remains very democratic. in a Republican sort of way…(sorry couldn’t resist)