Regarding the Holy Vote
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Wed Sep 13, 2006 at 11:43:55 AM EST
Ray Suarez, Senior Correspondent for the Newshour with Jim Lehrer, was a guest on NPR's Diane Rehm show last Friday.  They talked about religion and politics and Suarez's new book, "The Holy Vote: The Politics of Faith in America."
It sounds like a good book.  I'll order of copy of it.  Suarez demonstrated a good grasp of the original intentions of the founding fathers.  

I was disappointed, however, in Suarez answer to one of his callers.  Someone asked him if he perceived any threat from Dominionists and Christian Nationalists to the First Amendment.  In effect, Suarez's answer was that he felt confident the pendulum of public opinion would swing back to the middle and that the First Amendment would prevail.

Mainstream Baptists will find little solace and much to be alarmed about in Suarez's opinion.  In the 1980's we were repeatedly assured that the pendulum would swing back to the middle in the Southern Baptist Convention.   Today we ask "What happened to the Baptist pendulum?"

The same people who took over the institutions and agencies of the Southern Baptist Convention are working with others to take over the institutions of civil government throughout the country.  Suarez needs to read Randall Balmer's Thy Kingdom Come and Michelle Goldberg's Kingdom Coming.  If he needs a crash course on their tactics and the implications for the judiciary, he should read John Dean's interview of Michelle Goldberg on Findlaw.

Those of us who have been dealing with this movement for nearly thirty years are growing exceedingly weary of watching wave after wave of centrist leaders and thinkers underestimate the purpose, intentions and patience of the Religious Right.  Their goals are not a secret.  Moderates just refuse to take them at face value.




Display:
You've taught us and now those of us working with faith, interfaith and ecumenical groups are educating people as fast as we can.  Wish I could give you back some of the energy you've given us.

by tikkun on Wed Sep 13, 2006 at 09:17:34 PM EST

And, he spoke well. But what struck me in retrospect was that he did not make reference to anything specific whatsoever - not names, nor groups, organizations, history.....

It was strangely abstract, devoid of any specificity. And now, "the pendulum".....

by Bruce Wilson on Thu Sep 14, 2006 at 10:02:05 AM EST


Bruce, I heartily second your recommendation of Randall Balmer's book. It's one of two published in the last few months that I got out of the local library and was so blown away, I immediately went out and bought them in hardcover, something I almost never do because I can't afford it.

I recommended it to my mom, who picked it up right away and passed it along to her pastor.

The other is Dan Wakefield's The Hijacking of Jesus. Run, don't walk!

While we're on the subject of books, Kevin Phillips's American Theocracy got absolutely shredded in a review posted yesterday at Christianity Today. Hmmmmmmmm............ that wasn't the book I read!


by anomalous4 on Thu Sep 14, 2006 at 04:53:13 PM EST



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