A Post-Evangelical America

Wow--I never realized what a subversive threat to our very national existence I was until I read some of the postings on this blog. I'm one of those "evangelical Christians" that have been trying to ruin everyone's life. Funny, I thought that by being a veteran, raising a family, holding down a job for the last 30 years, paying taxes and voting my conscience every election that I was in some way helping our nation. I didn't realize that by speaking my (conservative) mind on the issues of the day and voting my conscious instead of my pocketbook, that I was trying to install a Taliban-like system into this great republic of ours. Thanks for clearing things up.

I think it would be better to refer everyone to Jeremiah 1:5. Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. Before you were born I dedicated you, or Luke 1:15 He will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb.Or even Luke 1:44 For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Doesn't sound like this is just some fetal tissue or group of cells to God. As a Catholic we recite the Nicene creed which says We believe in the Holy Spirit , the Lord, the giver of life. These aren't
just empty words people can proclaim and then go about doing something else in their lives. Someone
brought up the story of who cast the first stone. Well if you remember Jesus tells the woman to go and sin no more.In John 14:15 He says. If you love me you will keep my commandments. Its all about bringing our will into line with his. can the kingdom of God be divided.?It bothers me more that Joe Biden calls himself a Catholic. I'd like to call him on his faith. It's not a cafeteria. you don't pick what you want to believe or not. It's not a democracy,it's a monarchy with Christ as king.! To be blunt it's his way or the highway. There's no middle ground. I'd call Obama on his faith. But I strongly doubt he is a christian. Anyone who would support partial birth abortion and call themself a christian is either deluded or demonic. As to whether we sould help the poor as Obama says he will. We should, but on the heirarchy of social ills nothing trumps abortion.When we don't speak for those who can't, then the souls lost aren't just theirs.

There is a reason why the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is the Separation of church and state. "Separation of church and state is a political and legal doctrine that government and religious institutions are to be kept separate and independent from each other.[1] The term most often refers to the combination of two principles: secularity of government and freedom of religious exercise.[2]" (wikipedia definition) The religious right would love nothing more than to do away with this American principle. Thomas Jefferson wrote "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."

The ideals that the founding fathers shared was that the US would be governed by Logic, Reason and Ethics. These principles are to keep the American people safe from religious doctrine.

The separation of church and state was one of the most important ideas of the founding fathers. We all can worship as we wish without fear of retaliation by the government for our beliefs. But for decades that has not been good enough for evangelicals who want to impose their beliefs in the classroom, in business, in the bedroom and in all levels of government. They have every right to their own religious beliefs , but no right to try to make them the official and sanctioned religion in America. No one has been able to persuade the evangelical movement that their efforts are contrary to the constitution and to the will of the majority of the American people. So we have a large minority which will never change their mind about their role to convert society into their religion. They are right and everyone else is wrong. With that entrenched mindset the political future will look alot like the past; a divided country, red vs. blue, white vs minority, religion against religion, conservative vs. liberal, and worst of all hate vs hope. We can all speak to God in our own way but we will never be able to agree on what he is saying.

Obama is a professing Christian. There is a big difference between a professing Christian and a real Christian. He is also a cafeteria Christian - those who are of the opinion that they can just pick and choose whatever they like about Christianity and discard what they don't like. They also think it's good to add in a few Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu beliefs, and anything else. Time, God, and Jesus Christ will separate the wheat from the chaff.

"Evolution deniers are no different than holocaust deniers and need to be treated as such."

This is absolutely one of the most ignorant and unthoughtful statements I have seen in some time.
To compare the THEORY of evolution to the reality of the Nazi holocaust is like comparing UFO's to the events of September 11th. Are you sure your real name is not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
My hope is that you are not even closely associated with the teaching profession. Frightening indeed!!

To all those who support the notion of a "Christian America":

Imagine if Islam was the predomininent religion in America, would you endorse faith based politics in this scenario? I thinkl not.

Your beliefs are yours alone, and they are yours to have, though I will ask you kindly not to push them on me via governemnt. A good example of a system dominated by religion: The Taliban.... Seriosuly, religion mixed with politics is a bad concoction...... It's 2008 (time to move forward).

LIKEITIS, I am truly sorry, but you are absolutely deluded. First of all, the Inquisitions are wildly exagerrated as to their severity. Were there abuses- yes, but nowhere near the degree as claimed. The Crusades were a DEFENSIVE war after centuries of Islamic aggression against Christian pilgrims and peoples. Again, there were occasionally abuses and excesses, but if not for the Crusades, Europe would have become Muslim. Finally you say ALL missionary efforts are identical to imperialism. Presumably, heathens would have been better off cannibalizing each other and offering human sacrifices in the scores of thousands. Yeah, that BAD OLD CATHOLIC CHURCH!!

Examples of attacks by atheists? Really, are you serious?? Ok, how about the purges of Lenin, the mass starvation of the Ukraine by Stalin, the pogroms of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, Chairman Mao's cultural revolution, Castro, the Shining Path, all the tin horn Marxist dictators of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.... so far, 100 million victims and counting. Next time get your facts straight before you display for the whole world your colossal ignorance.

I am a 34 year old African American who has been raised all of my life in a deeply religious, born again Christian household. My former pastor with whom I disagreed with on many issues but deeply respected taught our congregation 3 things that I will always remember: 1.) you CAN disagree with someone and co-exist. Jesus did this time and time again. I find it extremely disappointing that that evangelical movement represented in the media these past several years were and in some cases still are so intolerant of other beliefs, cultures, social and political ideas. 2.) God is more powerful, more loving, more forgiving and more graceful than anything in this world. He taught us this to understand his position of being pro-choice and yet anti-abortion. He did not believe that it was the role of the church, the house of God, to rule people. To tell people who or what they were or how to live their lives. God is perfect but we are far from it and have no place making decisions for others. Instead he was an activist in a different way. To bring Christ's message to those women who were at the crossroads of making the decision to abort or not. To minister to them instead of intimidating them. To love them instead of threatening them or taking away a right given to them by our government. Since we the people are the government does it mean that Christians shouldn't let there opinions be heard in the legislature? No...by all means we should. But we live in a country of many cultures, religions and beliefs. Jesus said to give to Caesar what is Caesars. In other words - accept that we live in such a society where people's beliefs are not our own and let us live peacefully among them. Implore them to see our beliefs without judgment but accept it and move on when they do not. 3.) The separation of Church and State is for our benefit. It is for that reason that we should not want our Christian belief and ideology to RUN our country of poly-ethnic and polytheistic society. Why? Because we would not want a government ruled by a religion other than our own. We would not want to be under the rule of Muslim or Jewish or Baha???i or Hindu belief systems. Is it because those beliefs are wrong or evil or ignorant? NO.....it is because we are citizens and deserve to practice our faith in peace. It is a foolish assumption that putting Christian beliefs into our power system is a good thing. It opens the door for another religion to take control....and we are then no different than the countries in the Middle East. Countries where your religion and your government are one and the same. Where individual rights do not matter. As Christians we have our own shameful history of Christian rule gone awry (Spanish Inquisition)

To be continued???

As long as Obama KEEPS his campaign promise to Spread the Wealth, that's all the people need. Obama promised to give free money from the people with millions and the rich politicions and give it to us. Obama promised to buy our homes that were being foreclosed and he promised free medical, prescriptions and dental coverage. There is no need for us to work and pay taxes when Obama will pay for what we need.

I have to disagree with you on Catholics, there's no way that "slightly more than half" are pro-choice. However, many Catholics are opposed to the conflict in Iraq and want to bring our troops home, which I think overrode any problems they had with Obama's pro-abortion stance.

The author conveniently left out the fact that blacks overwhelmingly rejected gay marriage in California. 70% of blacks voted against gay marriage. Are they narrow minded? Or are they, too, concerned about the left forcing their morality on the rest of us?

What the author left out of this article was how the black community in California overwhelmingly voted against gay marriage. 70% of blacks voted for Prop 8. Just because people voted for Obama, it does not indicate America has moved left of center. Blacks don't want the left imposing their view of morality on them any more than anyone else.

Christian religion has been used since its inseption to justify unjust behavior. That is why it has no place in politics. People believe whatever is most convenient for them at the time. Thats why the right wing is a walking, talking contradiction in terms and have no real credability.