MOYERS: "the delusional is no longer marginal"

Welcome to Doomsday
By Bill Moyers, New York Review of Books

There are times when what we journalists see and intend to write about dispassionately sends a shiver down the spine, shaking us from our neutrality. This has been happening to me frequently of late as one story after another drives home the fact that the delusional is no longer marginal but has come in from the fringe to influence the seats of power. We are witnessing today a coupling of ideology and theology that threatens our ability to meet the growing ecological crisis. Theology asserts propositions that need not be proven true, while ideologues hold stoutly to a world view despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. The combination can make it impossible for a democracy to fashion real-world solutions to otherwise intractable challenges.

In the just-concluded election cycle, as Mark Silk writes in Religion in the News,

the assiduous cultivation of religious constituencies by the Bush apparat, and the undisguised intrusion of evangelical leaders and some conservative Catholic hierarchs into the presidential campaign, demonstrated that the old rule of maintaining a decent respect for the nonpartisanship of religion can now be broken with impunity.

The result is what the Italian scholar Emilio Gentile, quoted in Silk's newsletter, calls "political religion"—religion as an instrument of political combat. On gay marriage and abortion— the most conspicuous of the "non-negotiable" items in a widely distributed Catholic voter's guide—no one should be surprised what this political religion portends. The agenda has been foreshadowed for years, ever since Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and other right-wing Protestants set out to turn white evangelicals into a solid Republican voting bloc and reached out to make allies of their former antagonists, conservative Catholics.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/print.php?sid=20345

love Moyers

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Please- show me where Jackson asserted that a good Christian must vote Democratic.

While your at it, I'd like some description of how Jackson fits into a larger movement that marries religion with the Democratic Party.

Arbeit macht frei

BIG surprise there! :crazy:

:)

But too many ignorant people believe it.

...Bill forgot to mention the GOP making appeals to black churchgoers- using the "Family Values TM" bait.

...From USNews and World Report...

"Bush made bigger gains (among blacks in 2004, up from 2000): from 9 to 16 percent in Ohio and from 7 to 13 percent in Florida. With most African-Americans identifying as churchgoers, some pastors say a new emphasis on "family values," especially opposition to same-sex marriage, is responsible for the shift."

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/050321/21blacks.htm

That does not make it true.

This and the religion thing are only of mild interest.
The main topic and problem is there are no longer elections being held in America.
Discussions that seem to say that any group is a voting block help to support the myth that elections and voting still exist.

a bonus subscription offer to Human Events, and book offers from such authors as Coulter, OReilly, Medved, etc. It just figures...

you mean heathens. they call the catholics heathens. they still call the catholics heathens.

any catholics out there offended by the southerrn baptist calling you heathens

they call you heathens in case you dont know

this is who the baptists reached out to, to help support bush,......heathens

if i were a catholic, i would be offended