If we’ve got evangelical fundamentalists getting extreme in response to the threat of Muslim extremism, supporting and supported by an administration with mercenary agendas in the middle east, what did you expect would happen?

I thought so.  I didn’t see it coming either, until it was too late.  Let’s not let it happen again.

Ditto, Skruff! Maybe some of them will come under the influence of such as Jim Wallis .I am glad that Rep. Pete Stark is one of us, fighting the relgious right .Wallis is fine , but I prefer Arhtur Caplan, Paul Kurz, and Peter Singer as ethicists !

This seems hopeful.

I often confuse hope with blind optimism, however. I’ll wait to see what happens before I start dancing in the street.

Actions speak louder than words, yetta yetta, so on and so forth, etc..

I agree. Anyone interested in this should read Hedges’ book. It was truly frightening.

I congratulate my evangelical friends on their “boarding a new train.” May I suggest you welcome aboard the blowhard democrats and republicans, put the pedal to the metal on that sob, and get as far out of the USA as you can so we can get the country back onto the right track.  And, E.J., please avoid the temptation to piss liberals off yet again by writing about religion.  Thanks.

Oh, Please!

That religious whore is being systemically pitched off the back of the religious beast. The religious right and the neoconservative political right have reached that inevitable point in their doomed marriage where there isn’t enough occidental imperialistic colonialism, deceit, brinksmanship, greed, racism, hypocricy, or naked avarice left to sustain the ill-fated union another iota longer. As fate would have it, there also is no dignified or gracious way for these two beastly entities to part ways, given their recent history. So, we are left to relive the fall of the Roman Empire in that manner a poorly constructed edifice of second rate iron speckled up with miry clay tends to collapse during low-level windstorm. While real contructions withstand the blow, the religious whore is finding out from the likes of Guiliani during press conferences to unmask global ambition that her services are no longer needed or appreicated. Sure, the marriage brought forth children, the duped and bamboozled who bought into that tripe about America being a Christian nation led by the voice of GOD. But, these days, the gullible are starting to see the light. The one time naive base for Bush are now sick of the war and rumors of war, fear the immediate effects of global warming, and have lost their homes to mortgage brokers because their jobs were outsourced to Elbonia, Neverherdovia, while their kids are the worst educated, most dummed-down bunch of unhealthy, overweight, self-important, over-indulged pinheads on the planet. Truly, the mighty USA has fallen, the right, religious and polital combined, are most obviously unwilling and unable to help us back up.

The problem is that the remaining political beasts and the religious whores who adore them are no better able or willing to rescue us than the right. All of them are human, too, falling short of the Glory of GOD demonstrated by a true love of this country. They are all in it for what the effort will net them once all the graft is taken and the money is counted, catering basically to their heftier campaign contributors.

Please folks… The song goes “Onward Christian Soldiers
Masching AS to war.

Not marching off to war, or marching on to war…

A similarly for a likeness of battle against “sin”

It’s really a good song, and this ole athiest hums it while making protest sings against the Iraq occupation

There has never been a political party in the United States that was both pro life and pro equal opportunity for the children of all races and classes once they are born.  The closest we have come is a pro workers’ movement in the Catholic Church.

The Protestant churches have focused on pro life and sexual issues. The Catholic Church has focused on equal opportunity and economic justice in addition to pro life and sexual issues. Which is way the Republican Party can’t count on them as much as it counts on the Protestants.

It would be interesting to see what Christians would do if a pro life, pro equal opportunity party ever came into existance.

Acts 4:32 through Acts 5:11 indicates that the early Christians were socialists.

Read Hedges new book “American Fascists”. Millions of fundamentalist , fascist fanatics are eager for Armageddon, and thus support the middle east wars.

What do you think about these*Chrisitan soldiers* marching off to war—against BushCo?

it looked so easy, our heritage beckoned
the nation was, after all, christian
and so they began their crusade marching toward theocracy
and as they plodded the children wailed “are we there yet?”
and god whispered “you’re going the wrong way”

To the optimist, the glass is half full.
To the pessimist, the glass is half empty.
To the intellectual, either determination is equal.
To the skeptic, what’s in the glass and why is everyone so preoccupied with its volume?
To Einstein, only the glass’s total acceleration and time-space reference frame matter. Its liquid contents are hardly relative.
To God, I maketh the water into wine and you argue? Drink up!

And to the engineer the glass is twice as big as it should be.
To the architect the glass is archaic and needs remodeling.
To the psychologist: Why do you feel the need to measure the water?
To the accountant half-full vs half-empty is defined by tax liability.
To the lawyer, “how much are you paying me to prove the glass is half full/empty?”

And to the neo-con, it’s the fault of the Democrats and big Government so the glass will now be given to the wealthiest among us, along with a tax break to “incentivise” them to take it.  A new plan will be devised so that “everyone will have a glass” but upon examination it will be shown that all middle class people with glasses will lose them, nobody poor will get them, and Halliburton will make but won’t deliver them.  Anyone questioning this plan will be accused of hating America.

Were I in a mood to be unkind, I would call this “tripe”

I’ve always wondered why “Evangelical Protestantism” is discussed as a seperate entity.  Are Catholics not also pushing for laws against abortion, and opposing “gay marrige”? Do they not “evangalize” as in recruiting new members particularly through their missionary work?

The whole “religion thing” has set back civilization countless years.  It matters not if some cheese says:: “The enviornment is also important” What matters is these folks are attempting to shove their way of life down everyone’s throat.... I’m having none of it!

We can only hope their New Reformation is successful. Otherwise, what’s needed are Religious Convictions in the courtroom. Because obviously, the so-called faithful exchanged their ‘God-fearing’ for ‘God nose-thumbing.’ And Political Dogmatism can go to the dogs today. Society lives better without either of their abuses.

To the optimist, the glass is half full.
To the pessimist, the glass is half empty.
To the intellectual, either determination is equal.
To the skeptic, what’s in the glass and why is everyone so preoccupied with its volume?
To Einstein, only the glass’s total acceleration and time-space reference frame matter. Its liquid contents are hardly relative.
To God, I maketh the water into wine and you argue? Drink up!
~GW=MCHammered

“New Reformation” is not the proper historical analog to compare to this phenomena. The reformation was highly theological in content and worldwide in its scope. This situation is more like reversing a trend as ancient as Constantine’s relationship with the church in the 300s.

However, if evangelicalism is being untangled from a partisan political machine--I would rejoice and laugh and sing. That is fantastic news.

I don’t agree with the issue Cizik’s chose as his “test case” but I do agree with his general impulse for demonstrating compassion towards the poor and the earth. But by choosing something as partisan as GW as his emphasis, he made a tactical error.

I hope he can drop back and reformulate his “reformation” as something more general and less partisan.

Anyone with a discerning and sincere commitment to a life in Christ has watched in horror as step-by-step over the last two and a half decades the Evangelical leadership together with a few, highly visible Catholics, have carried the public face of Christianity from Church to ReichsChurch. As much as our political life has witnessed the capture of our government by a coterie of well placed neo-conservatives, no less so have their friends and sympathizers among the faithful seized control of what most have come to envision as Christian orthodoxy, that though more than once these have been found in outright opposition to the views expressed by Pope and Vatican. One is reminded of the fashion in which Czechoslovakia was brought to Communist dictatorship in the years immediately following WWII.

Undoing the damage that has been done to the cause of Christ in world by this “leadership” will not occur overnight. These are powerful, well-funded and in many cases, quite popular persons. For Evangelicals, a vote of the NAE Board is the barest of minimums. But it does manifest evidence of broad concern about the direction of things and that is hopeful. A Christianity coupled to Christ and not to the Republican Party should give no comfort to His enemies in our midst, however. He is empowered, not limited, by obvious weakness and invisibility.

John Lowell

It would be a relief if a large part of Fundamentalism were to recognize the fact that the Bill of Rights is a guard for them too. Conversion through threats and use of civil authority doesn’t led to conversion, but just to greater hypocrisy. If it were possible to convert, truly by force than we would be the Christian World they seem to want, but in fact we have been through this process for almost 2000 years and it hasn’t worked and the faithful have been guilty of un-necessary and non productive crimes of murder and theft. It would be good if they would remember that our ancestors, although most were religious without even thinking about it, were smart enough to know from their own recent histories, when trying to find a single truth for religion each group begins to first persecute the non-believer and then to progress into persecution of the believer for inadequate faith or error in faith.

As each group believes god only talks to them, each believe the other is wrong and then the major function of government becomes keeping each splinter group from disrupting and destroying the nation. Read our history. If you need a current example, just look to Iraq and Islam.

Despite the manipulation of the Christian Evangelicals and people of other faiths by political operatives such as Karl Rove and others, many people of faith do actually have a conscience and a measure of intelligence.

Many seem to be getting wise about the Bush administration and the moral and spiritual hypocracy of needless war, killing and destruction. Torture, war profiteering, corruption of all kinds also are creating grave doubts.

For those who are sincere about prayer, belief in God and using their minds and hearts to understand realities and make honorable choices, spiritual and metaphysical approaches can be very useful.

Prayer and medidation are much like “remote viewing,” the technique developed by US military and intelligence researchers to obtain accurate information and insight through a kind of ESP. This very natural human ability can be accessed by anyone ... including those who have faith in unseen phenomena and those who are skeptical.

The articles below may be of interest:

“Amazing enhanced human perception abilities are emerging, say researchers”

Steve Hammons
American Chronicle
February 8, 2007

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle. asp?articleID=20423

- - -

“Unconventional Human Intelligence Support: Navy SEAL’s report”

By Steve Hammons
Columnist, PopulistAmerica.com
Populist Party of America
January 7, 2007

http://www.populistamerica.com/unconventional_human_in telligence_support

- - -

“Human abilities ‘remote viewing’ and ‘anomalous cognition’ are important for us now”

Steve Hammons
American Chronicle
September 13, 2006

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle. asp?articleID=13578

- - -

“Remote viewing provides insight on the big issues and our everyday lives”

Steve Hammons
American Chronicle
June 30, 2006

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle. asp?articleID=11078

Here’s what I get out of this:

No matter how Conservative you are, if you are a sane person sooner or later you will recognize reality when it slaps you in the face, and you will deal with it.

Rev. Cizik sounds like a lot of dis-enchanged Conservatives who refuse to COMPLETELY turn over their brain to the Bushes and Dobsons.  As Mr. Conservative, William F. Buckley said when asked about Bush’s legacay: “George Bush has no legacy!”

I may seriously disagree with Rev. Cizik on many and most issues, but since he has shown that he has both a brain and a spine, and that he uses BOTH, dialogue and discussion are possible.

Clearly Rev. Cizik has stopped following the dictum of Chico Marx: “Who you gonna believe: Me or your own eyes?”