Running From the Religious Right

Friday, November 05, 2004
Running From the Religious Right

By Elaine Cassel

Many years ago, I ran away from home — Jacksonville, Florida — to Washington, D.C. I had just graduated from high school and had been awarded a full music scholarship to a prestigious Florida performing arts institution.

My departure was unplanned. It was an instinctive gesture that later proved to be my salvation from the religious cult that masqueraded as a Baptist Church. I asked my mother, a convert to the cult, to take me to the airport. She was glad to get rid of me. Years of brainwashing efforts by her, other members of my family, the evil preacher that she worshipped, and the intimidating churchgoers that formed her circle of friends, had not converted me. She reminded me every chance she could that I would burn in hell. Well, it won’t be as bad as living here, I would retort.

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I experienced an immediate sense of physical revulsion. Yes, I had been up late Tuesday night, sitting with friends quietly in front of the television as it became increasingly clear that what we feared would come to pass. Yes, I had had a little too much wine to dull the pain. Yes, I had slept fitfully, if at all, fearful of the future.

The fact that the right-wing bigots who call themselves followers of Jesus Christ but who worship only their own power were going to be a big factor in the election came as a surprise to me — and I, a political junkie, thought I knew a good bit about the campaign. I knew that churches, who ought to lose their tax-exempt status for doing so, were telling their members how to vote. I occasionally listened to the religious Rush Limbaugh’s of religious talk radio. I had read that Bush believed that God chose him to run for office in 2000 (I believe it was James Baker and George Schultz who did so, but I guess the God story tells better). My sisters and their families are still enmeshed in the religion, they and my cousins educated in the Christian madrasas-church schools and universities like Bob Jones that teach hatred and bigotry like other schools teach reading and writing.

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http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/cassel11052004/

Being a Born-again Pagan I have much to fear from my fundie relatives too. Hunker down folks and began the resistance from the fundie fascist!

(I'm 68)

You think weapons of mass destruction was a lie? Wait until you hear the lies that will be told in the name of religion.

I expect this to be done, as it has throughout history. However...

Wait until Bush tells you that God told him that all Unitarians or Jews who don’t “accept” Jesus can’t get a passport. Wait until he tells you that AIDS, cancer, heart disease, and more are God’s way of punishing you for sins past. Wait until he tells you that if God meant for you to have health insurance he would have given you a job to pay for it. I know this will come to pass because this is what they believe. This is what they say. This is what they do.

This is a stretch. I've heard of people saying this about AIDS but the rest is paranoia and hate, as is evident in the overuse of the word "they".

on Recontructionism and Dominionism.

There is no limit to the restrictions and penalties they will impose. If Calvin's Geneva is appealing to you, then you will enjoy the Dominion. You think there is no cause for concern? Already prominent conservatives call for our deaths (think Coulter) and there is no public outrage. There is no public outrage because 50% the population is in agreement, and another 40% thinks like you, that it reflects paranoia to be concerned. I've been worried about these trends since the early 1980s, shocked at the speed that the heresy has become the norm. We are facing deep-shit trouble, and the time to worry about it is now, not after the camps have been built and we are behind barbed wire. You know perfectly well that the charges against us have been made publicly. You need to take the accusations seriously because they have been levied in deadly earnest.

And a set of hand-picked quotations from people on the fringe don't shape my opinions as much as the fact that 39% of evangelical Christians are Democrats, and 26% of them voted for John Kerry in Ohio, and when you have that kind of disconnect from the stereotype, you do not use words like "they" and put all sorts of evil intentions in their head.

if there can be a "worse"----misfortune is sent to punish the sinful and sometimes to "test" the faithful. I've heard people that seem like the middlest or middle class Protestants INCREASINGLY say that such things as heart problems are "judgment."

As to inter-faith war? Well just this week I watched a Church of Christ staffer start telling his southern Baptist recent-election-ally on "moral values," that his pastor and their adult study group believe that ALL Protestants need to be in ONE church to fight the "error ridden" denominations like Episcopalians and Unitarians. I've seen this increase over this election cycle but once the euphoria ended on Thursday, it was interesting to see that the conversion urge was creeping overtly into intra-Protestant conversations. Oh, and both confided to me that the *real* threat is the growth of the "Mormons"----

And, it wasn't the first conversation of the same type I've heard. The desire for "unity" on behalf of some evangelical Protestant denominations in Texas has been discussed on a personal level for a while. Frankly, my Lutheran office mate brought it to my attention last summer and I've been listening to it increase ever since the election heated up. It isn't "paranoia and hate" to those of us sitting directly in the Bible Belt---it is what we hear in private conversations all around us.

Just as it is dangerous for the so-called "War on Terror" to be characterized as a war against Islam, our despondency over the results of Election 2004 should not turn into a war on Christianity.

It is up to moderate Muslims to reach out to other Muslims and moderate Christians to reach out to other Christians to avoid a major clash.

Demonizing people of any faith will inevitably cause a worse backlash than we have already seen.

gave Bush the presidency, are certainly not exempt from attack. By using the system to politicize their extremism and voting their bigotry and theocratic ideals into reality, they have made themselves a legitimate and well deserving target of vigorous reprisal.

The hands off of religion approach has never been acceptable when that religion promoted and institutionalized hatred, bigotry, slavery, war, and other historical "Christian" ideals that hurt or otherwise made other people miserable.

A war against "Christian extremism" is not a war against "Christianity" unless you choose to see it as that. Present results of that extremism demand a clash of resounding proportion. If moderate and liberal Christians are not up to the task, then the job falls to the remaining concerned Americans who have not yet been silenced.

Now of all times is the time to stand against such extremism, loudly and vigorously. I, for one, am not about to drink the koolaid and let that extremism go unchallenged.

We should be recruiting progressive Christians to spread the message that Democratic values are Christian values.

It's not a hands-off approach I'm suggesting, it's a proxy approach.

I don't see any.

All the churches in this area were plastered with W signs.

I've spent far too much time here on DU trying to explain that not all Christians are followers of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. Please check out this website for more information about evangelical Christian progressives.

www.sojo.net

And, if you saw a church with a sign promoting a political candidate, then that church was in violation of its tax-exempt status. Take a quick picture and contact the FEC and the IRS.

I'm certainly not going to rely on turn-the-other-cheek folk to dig us out of this national catastrophe.

You know, the one that threw the moneychangers out of the temple. The one who said he came with sword. Come over here and I'll kick your ass to prove it. :-)

"Heal the sick.
Feed the hungry.
Clothe the naked.
Shelter the homeless.
Visit the imprisoned."

God Bless the World. No exceptions.

As an Episcopal hymn based on a passage from the prophet Micah says, "What does the Lord require for praise and offering?...Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God."

that stuff & escape--Religious Right, 'christian' cons..& the Catholic faction.

I don't think RR are a plurality of church goers, those unable to have
secular & religious/spiritual awareness.

Democrats build positions & policies on moral social issues.
Infuriates, that the media is pretending it's otherwise Ellen Goodman, EJ Dionne put this well.