Yes, Christianity is being repressed! It is so difficult to be Christian in the U.S. right now. If you don't believe me, watch these serious thinkers conflate religion, fear of others, and nationalism into neat little packages.
From Firedoglake:"Hate the liberals and the gays" has a resurgence, just in time for the election. Shocking.
For the power pastors of the religious right, it's about maintaining their hold on power and the illusion of control of political dialogue. For with such control and the trappings of power come large and regular donations. And those donations perpetuate their hold on power.
PFAW's Right Wing Watch put this YouTube clip together of a Coral Ridge Ministries program designed to motivate pastors to involve their congregations in electoral politics:
On Saturday, Coral Ridge Ministries—the televangelism empire of the late D. James Kennedy—broadcast a special program to encourage pastors to involve their churches in this year’s elections. While the panelists—Tony Perkins of Family Research Council, Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel, Jordan Lorence of Alliance Defense Fund, and Gary DeMar of American Vision—offered the usual admonishments that there’s no such thing as separation of church and state, the theme of the evening was that Christianity is being “suppressed” in this country by liberals and the “militant homosexual agenda.”...
This is the persecuted majority syndrome: the idea that it’s a whole lot simpler to convince people to join your political program if you convince them that their faith is “under attack.” This has been one of the Religious Right’s dominant themes over the last few years through campaigns such as FRC’s “Justice Sunday,” a series of televised, church-based rallies to support President Bush’s most radical judicial nominees, who the Right claimed were being opposed because of their religion.
Oh, please. Why do they still have tax exempt status when they are very clearly operating as a shell wing of the Republican party, motivating their flocks through fear of damnation to vote for the GOP? Personally, I find using denial of salvation as a means of political whipping offensive, and a contemptible, shameful abuse of the power of faith. And I'm not alone in thinking this.
After watching the Rev. Wright media hoohaw, why do the "pastors of the right" continually get a pass? Especially when they deliberately and provocatively insert themselves into the political process with a vengeance? Hypocrisy, much?
As Emproph at Pam's House Blend puts it:
Just like the thief who thinks everyone is stealing from them...
Just like the liar who thinks everyone is lying to them...
Jordan Lorence of the Alliance Defense Fund thinks...the ACLU and the homosexual activists, who are into coercing unwilling people to do things, and to silence them, and all of that. There is an authoritarianism to that, that they are in total denial about
Ever heard of projection, Jordan? You may want to look it up.
Amen. Having uncovered DOJ personnel decisions by political and sexuality hiring purity tests, and with an office of religious dole in the White House dispensing public funds for church programming, I think I can safely say that their version of "Christian persecution complex" is a load of election year hooey. Shouldn't the religious right be called out for lying to their flock? Or is bearing false witness no longer a sin?
Especially when their hold on power within the GOP is tenuous -- or is being honest about their declining influence not something of interest?
