An e-mail from my evangelical friend (a glimpse inside their minds)

He works for a well known evangelical christian organization. He's a good guy and one of my best friends. How we've been able to co-exist all these years is a testament to both our personalities. Anyway, I e-mailed him and asked him to help me understand evangelicals. Here is his response.......

"I don't like knowing that people I care about are disappointed and down. So, please know that I truly empathize with you because I know how much you cared about this election.

As for evangelicals and Jimmy Carter, that part is really pretty simple. America was a completely different country in 1976. The country had just come off the debacle of Watergate and, quite frankly, the Dems could've nominated a watermelon as their candidate and it would've won 2 to 1. But something happened at the 1976 Conventions that shifted the evangelical vote probably forever. The Repub Party added the pro-life plank to its Platform while, at the same time, the Dems added the pro-choice plank. Reagan pounded on that issue in the '80 campaign and the evangelicals were in his corner. That was a huge, huge development.

Evangelicals have backed every Repub candidate since then.There's no way to accurately measure just how important it was for Bush to have come out in support of a Federal Marriage Amendment earlier this year. Was it political posturing? Absolutely. Do I and every other evangelical believe that he is sincere in his support for the amendment? Without a doubt. The day he introduced his support for the amendment was the day the whole issue became a constant topic of conversation in evangelical circles. It had the same exact effect on evangelicals as the abortion issue did in the '80 campaign.In 2000, 4 million evangelicals did not cast their vote.

But this time there was a possibility that the traditional definition of marriage could either be preserved or go by the wayside. So, the evangelicals got organized in getting out the vote and, thus, they went to the polls en masse.Kerry kept saying that there was a clear choice in candidates and he was right. Evangelicals saw one candidate as being pro-life and pro-traditional family and saw the other candidate as the opposite.All of these things are the practical explanation for how and why evangelicals vote the way they do. However, there's a much bigger and heartfelt reason of why they tend to vote Repub.

I'll do my best to explain it because if a person doesn't live in the Christian community (for lack of a better term) like I do every single workday, it can be difficult to understand.When it comes right down to it, evangelicals see the world through biblical glasses. When I give the following examples, please know that our opinions are not based on personal feeling or on what a guy like James Dobson says. Our opinions on controversial issues are based on what is said in the Bible.We oppose abortion because, based on what is said in the Bible, the act of abortion goes against the very nature of God. Taking the life of an innocent child flies in the face of that child's Creator.

We obviously believe that it is harmful to the baby. And, studies upon studies have shown how emotionally and physically harmful it is for the mother. Because we believe God is Creator, embracing abortion as a society can also carry harmful consequences. Evangelicals make the abortion issue a deciding factor on which candidate will receive their vote.Also, I care deeply for all people but that does not mean that I should encourage or embrace the propagation of their lifestyles. I work with people who came out of the homosexual lifestyle and every last one of them talk about the despair, hurt and pain homosexuals live with. The crux of the matter is that they are searching for hope and, I believe, the only hope that can deliver the joy they seek comes in the form of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Though I care for individuals in the gay lifestyle as much as anyone other sect of society, I believe that their choices are emotionally and, many times, physically harmful to them. In turn, I believe that the propagation of the homosexual lifestyle in any form will be harmful to society and must be opposed.In a nutshell, evangelicals generally trust a candidate who shares the same biblically-based values that we do. Those two issues are usually good barometers."

Because the Bible says alot of other things, like not going to war on lies and not taking health care away from children, but evangelicals ignore that. It isn't gay marriage and it isn't abortion. It's a phony moral superiority that the Republican Party allows them to have.

I asked him to reconcile how evangelicals can be pro-life on aboriton and pro murder of women and children in Iraq. Im sure he'll have an answer, but I have a catholic friend who is a quasi-dem and who was wedged out of this election because of abortion who thus far has not been able to answer that question and he admits it.

Hypocrites. You reap what you sow.

"... child's Creator."

******NEWSFLASH!!!*****

Tell your friend that by his own definition Bush* is going to Hell.

We are under the control of people who think our sins are because of a talking snake. Lovely.

P.S. when are we going to reinstate the stoning of those who commit adultery. After all, it is in the Bible.
:(

It's in the Bible!

"I work with people who came out of the homosexual lifestyle and every last one of them talk about the despair, hurt and pain homosexuals live with."

Well, of course! America oppresses them!

In the New Testament Jesus spoke most often about:

a). Stopping homosexual perversion

b). Preemptive strikes on enemies to prevent war

c). Tax cuts to stimulate economic growth

d). Helping the poor


Hint: he only every talked about one of these.

"A glimpse inside their evil minds."

Those Evangelicals are some of the most hateful people on the face of the earth who would vote for Hitler as long as he was pro life.

perhaps he will understand that the role of government is not to mirror his sacred prejudices (and call them "values").

It wasn't always such a priority. Used to be they'd look down on Catholics for "save the baby over the mother"-type thinking.

Furthermore, by also objecting to or legally impeding all forms of birth control, they actually wind up using babies as punishment for "unauthorized" sex.

Evangelicals only started to care about abortion in a big way once feminism became a bigger boogeyman forn them tha Catholicism, and the truth is it's sex more than anything else that gets their blood boiling.

we'll all die, but at least we voted for a party with an anti-choice plank and whose leaders (wink wink nudge nudge) "support" a gay marriage ban.

Fucking idiot.

They cannot eat, sleep, drink, think or shit without consulting this Bronze-Age document, which has been interpreted so many different ways over the centuries that it would confound most any scholar.

Fundamentalist Christianity is first and foremost a business, a money-making endeavor -- God Inc. It threatens one with the worst kind of punishment -- eternal damnation, with no hope of reprieve -- unless one falls into line. Then, the business keeps the frightened souls addicted by living a constrained life, all to avoid that potential end-of-the-game permanent punishment. The fundamentalist lifestyle is not pro-life, it is life-denying -- it dictates that man shouldn't use his God-given intelligence to sort through a problem, but rather he should consult the scriptures for wisdom. (And only insofar as those scriptures have been defined by the particular church itself.)

Jesus would be aghast if he saw what has been done in His name -- how a heartless business had been made out of Him, and how it is driven by such blind ignorance and fear. And by how many have been mercilessly tortured and killed by those who claim his mantle.

He would weep.

"If Jesus came back and saw all of the things being done in his name, he would never stop vomiting."

I would have told this person that we are a SECULAR nation, and that he can shove his perversion of the teachings of a good man up his ECUMENICAL ASS. SIDEWAYS. WITH NO LUBE.

"When I give the following examples, please know that our opinions are not based on personal feeling or on what a guy like James Dobson says. Our opinions on controversial issues are based on what is said in the Bible.We oppose abortion because, based on what is said in the Bible, the act of abortion goes against the very nature of God. Taking the life of an innocent child flies in the face of that child's Creator."

...but I don't believe that they are NOT influenced by "Dobson et. al." - whoever is the spokesperson of the moment/year. (And I don't think "the BIble" is nearly as concerned about abortion as what living(born) people are doing to other living people.)

Sex, guilt, original sin - the whole thing is a transfer of our freedom to some authority figure.

Mass Psychology of Fascism
http://www.notbored.org/reich.html

Why do people follow fascists?
Why do people act irrationally?
Why dont people revolt?
Not because they're stupid, ignorant, jobless or crazy.
Smart educated people with jobs also become fascists.
The real reason - sexual repression
What represses sexuality?
Authoritarian families: daddy-mommy-baby
Authoritarian religions: god-satan-mortals
Authoritarian economies: rich-middle-class-poor
Authoritarian race relations: white-asians-blacks

I'm a Catholic, but I would be called a bad Catholic. Most liberals if not all look for answers through the scientific method. Observe, hypothosize, expirment, observe. It's been a while since science class, but that pretty much sums it up. People who strongly believe in organized religion look towards it for answers. They are simply incurious. They do not want things proven to them, just told to them. Simply, they are sheep. They don't want to think of moral gray issues. With abortion, they don't want to consider ectopic (sp?) pregnancies that neither the child nor the mother would survive if brought to term. Do these people not realize you stop abortion the same way you stop terrorism: you change conditions so that it is not a viable option. If we spent time building an economy in Iraq to serve Iraqis the insurgency would be much less of a problem. If we had a better less complicated adoption system in this country abortion rates would be lower. Humans are curious beings. We explore space, we explore ourselves, we explore the limits of science. Evangelicals do not explore, they are taught not to question their faith and their god. The see evolution as heresey, I have even see people question whether geocentrism is really incorrect.

It's about what I would expect.

I am dismayed that people come to this thread only to say the guy is a "fucking bigot". Yes it makes me angry that people are hypocritical and intolerant, especially in the name of God, but this is their perspective.

It helps us to understand where all those votes are coming from.

It's also good to note that there are many Christians who are also liberals and would never vote for a president who wages illegal war. My brother is one of them, and he is of course no less a Christian than your friend.