Evangelicals playing the "Bigotry" card

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I think that the evangelical movement has largely been hijacked by that movement - aka the 'new apostolic movement' - but the two are not one and the same, because the dominionists include some pentecostals and even 'jews for jesus.' Also, there are Evangelicals who are liberal. Not many, but they are out there, and I would rather not do them the disservice of tarring them with the same brush when they've had the mental fortitude to hold out in a very hostile environment to social justice.

In contemporary culture, those who claim to tolerate everything are intolerant of ideas that come from perspectives other than their own, especially when those ideas are rooted in conservative politics or evangelical faith.

Though Antisemitism and anti-Catholic bigotry sadly are still with us,

the new and "accepted" bigotry among some on the left is for those who call themselves -- or are sometimes mislabeled by people who don't know the difference between born again and born yesterday -- evangelical Christians.

With two evangelicals running for president, the opening salvo in what is likely to be a God vs. government battle has already been launched.

A June 22 article in Rolling Stone magazine gives bigots permission for more bigotry. The illustration by Victor Juhasz, which accompanies it, reveals where the writer is headed. Michele Bachmann is dressed as Joan of Arc with a Bible in one hand, a bloody sword in the other, a cross on her chest, and the "finger of God" pointing at her from heaven. In the background, people are being burned at the stake. Father Charles Coughlin at his worst would have had trouble topping this on his bigoted radio broadcasts in the 1930s.

Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi says Bachmann is "a religious zealot whose brain is a raging electrical storm of divine visions and paranoid delusions."

One of many examples he cites is her assertion that China is "plotting to replace the dollar bill." Recently, China's official Xinhua News Agency editorialized in favor of a new global reserve currency, replacing the dollar. Don't look for a retraction.

There's plenty more in "Michele Bachmann's Holy War" on which the bigots can feast (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/ne ... r-20110622). This is the argument of anyone who has little or no faith in God. They attack people who believe the Supreme Being does not sit in the Oval Office.

The secular left is also going after Rick Perry's faith. Writing in The New York Times, Timothy Egan refers to the Texas governor as a "biblical bully" and asks, if "God is ignoring Rick Perry?"

Rick Perry’s Unanswered Prayers
By TIMOTHY EGAN

A few months ago, with Texas aflame from more than 8,000 wildfires brought on by extreme drought, a man who hopes to be the next president took pen in hand and went to work:

“Now, therefore, I, Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, under the authority vested in me by the Constitution and Statutes of the State of Texas, do hereby proclaim the three-day period from Friday, April 22, 2011, to Sunday, April 24, 2011, as Days of Prayer for Rain in the State of Texas.”

Then the governor prayed, publicly and often. Alas, a rainless spring was followed by a rainless summer. July was the hottest month in recorded Texas history. Day after pitiless day, from Amarillo to Laredo, from Toadsuck to Twitty, folks were greeted by a hot, white bowl overhead, triple-digit temperatures, and a slow death on the land.

In the four months since Perry’s request for divine intervention, his state has taken a dramatic turn for the worse. Nearly all of Texas is now in “extreme or exceptional” drought, as classified by federal meteorologists, the worst in Texas history.

Lakes have disappeared. Creeks are phantoms, the caked bottoms littered with rotting, dead fish. Farmers cannot coax a kernel of grain from ground that looks like the skin of an aging elephant.

Is this Rick Perry’s fault, a slap to a man who doesn’t believe that humans can alter the earth’s climate — God messin’ with Texas? No, of course not. God is too busy with the upcoming Cowboys football season and solving the problems that Tony Romo has reading a blitz.
But Perry’s tendency to use prayer as public policy demonstrates, in the midst of a truly painful, wide-ranging and potentially catastrophic crisis in the nation’s second most-populous state, how he would govern if he became president.

“I think it’s time for us to just hand it over to God, and say, ‘God: You’re going to have to fix this,’” he said in a speech in May, explaining how some of the nation’s most serious problems could be solved.

That was a warm-up of sorts for his prayer-fest, 30,000 evangelicals in Houston’s Reliant Stadium on Saturday. From this gathering came a very specific prayer for economic recovery. On the following Monday, the first day God could do anything about it, Wall Street suffered its worst one-day collapse since the 2008 crisis. The Dow sunk by 635 points.

Prayer can be meditative, healing, and humbling. It can also be magical thinking. Given how Perry has said he would govern by outsourcing to the supernatural, it’s worth asking if God is ignoring him.

Though Perry will not officially announce his candidacy until Saturday, he loomed large over the Republican debate Thursday night. With their denial of climate change, basic budget math, and the indisputable fact that most of the nation’s gains have gone overwhelmingly to a wealthy few in the last decade, the candidates form a Crazy Eight caucus. You could power a hay ride on their nutty ideas.

After the worst week of his presidency (and the weakest Oval Office speech since Gerald Ford unveiled buttons to whip inflation), the best thing Barack Obama has going for him is this Republican field. He still beats all of them in most polling match-ups.

Perry is supposed to be the savior. When he joins the campaign in the next few days, expect him to show off his boots; they are emblazoned with the slogan dating to the 1835 Texas Revolution: “Come and Take It.” He once explained the logo this way: “Come and take it — that’s what it’s all about.” This is not a man one would expect to show humility in prayer.

Perry revels in a muscular brand of ignorance (Rush Limbaugh is a personal hero), one that extends to the ever-fascinating history of the Lone Star State. Twice in the last two years he’s broached the subject of Texas seceding from the union.

“When we came into the nation in 1845 we were a republic, we were a stand-alone nation,” says Perry in a 2009 video that has just surfaced. “And one of the deals was, we can leave any time we want. So we’re kind of thinking about that again.”

He can dream all he wants about the good old days when Texas left the nation to fight for the slave-holding states of the breakaway confederacy. But the law will not get him there. There is no such language in the Texas or United States’ constitutions allowing Texas to unilaterally “leave any time we want.”

But Texas is special. By many measures, it is the nation’s most polluted state. Dirty air and water do not seem to bother Perry. He is, however, extremely perturbed by the Environmental Protection Agency’s enforcement of laws designed to clean the world around him. In a recent interview, he wished for the president to pray away the E.P.A.

To Jews, Muslims, non-believers and even many Christians, the Biblical bully that is Rick Perry must sound downright menacing, particularly when he gets into religious absolutism. “As a nation, we must call upon Jesus to guide us through unprecedented struggles,” he said last week.

As a lone citizen, he’s free to advocate Jesus-driven public policy imperatives. But coming from someone who wants to govern this great mess of a country with all its beliefs, Perry’s language is an insult to the founding principles of the republic. Substitute Allah or a Hindu God for Jesus and see how that polls.

Perry is from Paint Creek, an unincorporated hamlet in the infinity of the northwest Texas plains. I’ve been there. In wet years, it’s pretty, the birds clacking on Lake Stamford, the cotton high. This year, it’s another sad moonscape in the Lone Star State.

Over the last 15 years, taxpayers have shelled out $232 million in farm subsidies to Haskell County, which includes Paint Creek — a handout to more than 2,500 recipients, better than one out every three residents. God may not always be reliable, but in Perry’s home county, the federal government certainly is.

Ideas that come from the minds of secular liberals are considered right and good, no matter their track record.

Ideas from conservatives, be they secular or especially evangelical, are "bat sh-t crazy,"

There is a way to blunt this coming tidal wave of anti-evangelical bigotry. Bachmann and Perry -- and any other Republican who wishes to join in -- should not play on the territory of their opponents. Instead, they should focus on what works and whose lives have been transformed by embracing similar faith and similar attitudes.

Each time a liberal wants to raise taxes to pay for more programs, Republican candidates should introduce to the public people who liberated themselves from government, as examples for others to follow. Some will have experienced a spiritual conversion. Others will have simply "gotten their act together" and decided they can do more for themselves than government.

In the tradition of Horatio Alger, a story about people who have overcome is better than a story about those still wallowing in self-pity, low expectations and welfare dependency. A positive message beats whining and class envy every time.

Growing numbers of people are addicted to government and need help getting "clean."

Bachmann and Perry could respond to the bigotry by announcing a joint project to be continued no matter who wins the nomination and election. People who want to escape poverty would be introduced to local churches and synagogues, or secular organizations that operate on similar principles.

Scriptures command outreach to the poor, which most religious institutions used to do a lot more of before many ceded that role to government. Helping to transform a life is one of the greatest pleasures on Earth.

The bigots, like the poor, will be with us always, but this is one way they might be shamed into silence

Maybe there should be a special term for the majority of Evangelicals who are nutjobs. Like President Bush coined the term "Islamofascist," to indicate that he wasn't going to war with all Moslems--only the bad ones.

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How about "Christianazis" or "Fundanistas"?

How about figuring out what something IS before you coin a hate talk label for it?

How about taking that tin-plated crown off your head and stop dictating what other people should do, say, or think?

If Christians want to be admired, loved, and respected, then they might do well to first consider choosing to be admirable, loveable. and respectable in their own deeds, words, and thoughts - but that's a choice that I sincerely doubt that most Christians would make, even if they knew that they could make it.

I seriously doubt most of the evangelicals that are called nutty are actually nutty. Like the term "racist" this bashing people because they are Christian and Conservative has gotten to the point that more and more people just for what it is.

Christians wouldn't be respected or admired by you regardless of how they acted, I'm sorry for saying this but in my opinion I consider many atheists to be as bigoted or more bigoted than they claim Evangelicals are.

I am a Christian, but from a brand that most evangelicals would deny the name Christian to. Part of this is the reason why I so dislike them - they would have you think my little daughter's infant baptism isn't legitimate because she was too young to make a choice in choosing Christ - or mine, for that matter. Or because I don't put a whole lot of stock in Revelations, and don't believe in the rapture, I'm not really a Christian. And God forbid that I should reject their heartless prosperity gospel, which explains poverty as God's wrath, and prosperity as his blessing. Trust me, I could go on and on. And it's not just a matter of theological differences that makes me so hostile, as I have no problem with other Mainline Protestants and Catholics, even though I don't agree one hundred percent with them - these other faiths aren't damning me to hell like evangelicals are.
Trust me, it's not just atheists who have a problem with evangelicals.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

They are throwing you and mainline protestants into the Evangelical Category too you know.

If they are, there's nothing I can do about that. It's still not going to make me like evangelicals any more.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer