ANOTHER REASON TO BE GRATEFUL THIS HOLIDAY SEASON.
I don't attend Dutch Sheets' church!
Read attached and you'll know why. I could, as I have so often done, go into one of my tirades regarding his sanctimonious preachings, but you know what, I'm going to pass this time.
Besides, THE GOOD GUYS WON! I can afford to be magnanimous.
Happy Turkey Day; gobble, gobble
http://www.dutchsheets.org/index.cfm
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
WIRED SHUT: Coultergeist Finally Shuts Up. You Are Now Free To Jump Up and Down In the Cabin.
I know it's wrong as a Christian to wish someone ill or to revel or delight in the pain and suffering of another, but the news that right-wing hate monger Ann Coulter recently had her jaw wired shut and for the foreseeable future will be unable to spew any of her hateful barbs has me all warm and fussy. Details on what happened and, more importantly, who we should thank for this momentous event, are sketchy. But whether she broke her jaw on her own, or had it broken for her is irrelevant. The important thing is her mouth will finally be shut! If you need any more evidence that there is a loving God, you need look no further.
This loathsome creature – I’d call her a woman but that would imply that she is human – has now been so marginalized that even right-wingers like Bill O’ Reilly and Laura Ingraham have distanced themselves from her. What is so great about this news is that her new book is due out in January and apparently she will be unable to go out on speaking engagements to promote it.
Everybody please repeat after me. Aahh Shucks!
Monday, November 24, 2008
Nailin’ Palin: Some People Just Don’t Get It!
There are many things for which I am grateful this Thanksgiving season. I have a job, albeit one which will afford me little time to spend with my wife over the next four weeks – it’s called retail, or hell as it is better known to those of us who are in it. Maria and I are both healthy. There don’t appear to be any major household expenses on the horizon, other than an oil contract for home-heating fuel that I foolishly signed back in August before the prices dropped in half. Next time I will be a little more patient and wait before signing with an oil company. Both of our cars are in good shape, and will probably remain that way for the foreseeable future. And Maria and I have some money saved in the bank for a rainy day that we both pray will not turn into a monsoon. Given the economic unrest in the country, not to mention the whole planet, things are pretty good here in the Fegan household. And yet there is still one more thing for which I am immensely grateful this season: Sarah Palin will be stayin’ in Alaska next January!
Not to pile it on, as it were, but the prospect of this woman bein’ a heart beat away from runnin’ the world’s number one democracy was sendin’ chills down my spine. It wasn’t just that she was unaware that Africa was a continent and not a country, or that she didn’t know which countries comprised NAFTA, though you would think a major candidate for the office of vice-president of the United States would at least look up that information before talking about it. What continues to appall and frighten me is that the more I learn of this woman’s views and past, the more relieved I am that she will not be any where near the vicinity of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, unless that is she buys a ticket for a tour of the place. Apparently though this sentiment is not shared by all. The website http://www.ourcountrypac.org/ is out to not only keep her memory alive and well – as though we could ever forget her comedic contributions on Saturday Night Live – but to run a “Thank You” ad that will run oddly enough right around Thanksgiving. PAC spokesman Sal Russo said they have received $2 million in donations for the ads, which will start running tomorrow in Alaska and will include a national buy. "We wanted to give Sarah Palin the reassurance that despite the critics, Americans by and large appreciated her service and want her to continue to be a voice." “This woman’s reputation is going to be so damaged that she can never be a national political figure,” said Joe Wiezbicki, the PAC’s coordinator. So the goal of the ad is to “preserve her options.”
Not to beat a dead horse, but some people just don’t get it. The reason John McCain lost the election so badly was because his vice-presidential nominee, while unifying her base, alienated many independents and moderate Republicans. So long as the bulk of the Republican party continues to allow the extreme right flank to dictate its agenda, it is going to have an extremely difficult, if impossible, time winning back the Whitehouse. If you take away the Plain states, the Deep South and the Appalachian Trail, the Democratic party routed the Republican party about as badly as any party could expect to get routed. Now is not the time to be obstinate and arrogant. It took the Democrats two more election cycles after their defeat in 1980 before they finally nominated a centrist among their ranks. Bill Clinton, for all his personal flaws was the most effective President the nation has had since Eisenhower, another moderate. It is time the Republicans woke up, stole a page or two from the Democrats and booted the xenophobes and fanatics out of the party. Reagan courted the religious right, but he always kept them at a healthy distance. For the good of the GOP, Sarah Palin needs to be given he walkin’ papers ASAP. Maybe then Tina Fey can go back to her real role on 30 Rock.
Friday, November 07, 2008
Bullet the Blue Sky:
A Nation Embraces Change and a Political Party is Left Wondering What Hit It.
In the end it was the American people who finally got it after all; the American people who collectively stood up and, like that crazy anchorman in the movie “Network”, shouted out loud and clear, “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” More than sixty four million voters pulled the lever for Barack Obama, almost eight million more than John McCain got. Of the 538 possible electoral votes cast in the election 364 went to Obama, 174 went to McCain. It was, for all intents and purposes, a landslide victory, but more importantly it was a resounding repudiation of not only a failed policy, but of a failed politics. If you are a Republican today you are in dire need of some long, overdue soul searching.
For lost in all the hoopla of what is clearly the most significant milestone in American history – that of an African American being elected president of the United States – is the fact that for all the clamor for change that was resonating though out the electorate, and the fear that this eloquent and most statesmanlike of politicians – one part Kennedy, one part Lincoln, one part King, Jr. – might make a serious misstep and, like the last two democratic candidates before him, fumble the ball the one yard line, it was John McCain, the former maverick, who fell on his sword and got routed.
Let’s not forget that it was McCain who was ahead in the most critical demographic: independents. This voter group represents almost a third of the electorate and as early as June, they were expected to vote resoundingly for Obama. Except something was going terribly wrong in Obamaland. With less than a month to go before the Republican National Convention, McCain held a slight lead over Obama among moderates and was within two points of him overall.
So what happened? Pundits continue to blame the economic meltdown for McCain’s undoing. Someone had to take the bullet for the economy and the conventional wisdom is that when things go badly the incumbent party takes the wrap. The other contention is that the McCain campaign never got their ground game going. They had sowed up the nomination a full three months before Obama had clinched, and yet they never got their message out. Obama, meanwhile, had established the most aggressive and well-staffed network of volunteers in decades. The avalanche of support, coupled with a seemingly endless supply of campaign donations, simply overwhelmed McCain.
But while both these explanations are plausible, both are also excuses. The very simple and most salient reason that John McCain lost the presidential election of 2008 was his pick of Sarah Palin for vice president. No doubt her supporters will claim she is being made the scapegoat for a campaign that was never able to define a coherent message that it could market to the nation. There is certainly some truth to that. At what most pundits called the critical juncture of the campaign - the rollout of the proposed $700 billion bailout - the announcement that McCain was suspending his campaign to fly down to Washington, had even his most ardent supporters scratching their heads in amazement. A week before that he boldly stated that the fundamentals of the economy were strong.
But, still, despite the missteps and miscues, the election was still there to be won. And that was because, for all the seeming substantive similarities between him and Bush, there were still enough voters who believed in that maverick image of John McCain. There were still enough people who remembered how he had been savaged in that shameful 2000 Republican primary by the likes of Karl Rove. He had built up a reputation over two and a half decades of irritating his own party just enough to keep them honest. With all of Obama’s millions, the memory of McCain was still alive in the hearts and minds of the electorate. He defeated the likes of Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Mr. 9/11 himself (Rudy Giuliani), not by running to the extreme right flank of his party, but by running to its middle. In doing so he incurred the wrath of all the conservative talking heads like Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, none of whom had any use for McCain. Mary Matalin, wife of Democratic strategist James Carville, publicly supported Fred Thompson and stated that John McCain had virtually no chance of winning the presidency.
And yet with all the backlash of the conservative right, in what was clearly a change year, with the exception of those first few weeks after Obama had wrapped up the Democratic nomination and had jumped out to an early lead, McCain was holding his own. All of the prominent polls showed the race to be a statistical dead heat. And then it happened. The Democrats held their convention in Denver; Obama chose Joe Biden as his running mate, not Hillary Clinton like some had foolishly thought, and suddenly McCain was down six points in the polls. He needed something daring, something unexpected, something that could unite the conservative base of his party, and at the same time capitalize on the resentment he felt was still being harbored by many Hillary supporters, angered that their candidate was not on the Democratic ticket. In what can only be described as an act of desperation, he chose Alaskan governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. The base was beside itself with glee. It was the proverbial two birds with one stone moment. A woman and a Christian conservative all in one package. Not only would they unite the party, but they would steal away all the disenfranchised Hillary supporters. Hello Whitehouse.
Initially, the pick proved to be a stroke of genius. Less than a week after the Republican convention, McCain was up two points in the popular vote. Furthermore, and more importantly, he was up in all the battleground states he needed to win the Whitehouse. But something went terribly wrong with the former Wasilla mayor. The more people got a chance to hear her speak, the more they began to realize not only how unready and unprepared she was for the office of vice-president; the more uneasy they became with who she was as a person. There is a golden rule for all vice-presidential picks: do no harm. With each passing day, and each passing interview, Sarah Palin was doing more damage to John McCain than the economic implosion was. The irony was that while conservatives loved her, independents, that demographic that often decides presidential elections, were growing increasingly alarmed at her political stances and he divisive rhetoric. This was particularly troublesome for McCain, since it was this very demographic that got him the nomination in the first place. A full week before the infamous “fundamentals are strong” comment, Obama regained the lead among independents and never looked back. In retrospect the housing market collapse sealed the deal. Obama looked more presidential; McCain looked like someone who was groping for a message to rile up his base. The chants of socialism and terrorists became almost comical in the midst of a historic recession that was ravaging the nation. Sarah Palin may have been appealing to what she thought was the “real” America, but the nation as a whole wasn’t buying it. Her negatives, and those of John McCain’s, rose with each passing day. Not even caricatures such as the likes of Joe the Plumber could stop the hemorrhaging. McCain, like the economy, went south fast.
And now that this election is over, now that the nation has chosen someone with the proper temperament to lead us out of this malaise, the postmortems will begin. It will be a hard pill to swallow, but the Republican party is essentially in the same place the Democratic party was in 1980 when Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter: fragmented and politically isolated, with a tired and worn out message no one of consequence wants to hear. If you look carefully at the nation what you will find is astounding. Obama won in every part of the country: the north, the south, the mid-west, the west coast, and the southwest. Only the plain states, the deep south and the Appalachian trail eluded him. The inclusive nation that Reagan had helped to create in the 1980s had left in droves to support not only a Democratic presidential candidate, but both houses of Congress. The Republican party has now become a party in full retreat, at war with itself and unable to come up with a populist message to stir the electorate. Family values, abortion, the war on terror may play well on Fox, but not in the millions of homes across America. When you can’t pay your mortgage, and you don’t know if you’re going to have a job next week, and your 401k looks more like a 201k, you need real leaders who have real solutions. The Republicans never articulated a real message that real Americans could latch onto. What is troubling is that there doesn’t appear to be any body within the party that can reverse its fortunes. Mitt Romney? Mike Huckabee? Please, spare me. What’s worse, if you’re a Republican, is the total denial of what went wrong in the first place. In the halls of conservative talk shows, the bravado is appalling. McCain and Palin weren’t tough enough; they needed to hammer Obama earlier and more often, as though eight weeks of non-stop verbal diarrhea weren’t enough to thoroughly turn off all but the most unabashedly myopic bigoted pinheads. When people like George Will start disowning you, you’ve got problems!
If the Republican party is to ever rise up, dust itself off and, more importantly, become a major player on a national level, it is going to have to do what the Democrats did in 1992: find a centrist who will bring some balance to its ranks. Allowing the James Dobsons and the Rush Limbaughs free reign to kidnap the party has severely damaged its pedigree among independents, and compromised any hope now and in the future of capturing the national stage. The Right loves to tout the conservatism of Reagan, but they forget that he couldn’t have won the presidency without moderate Democrats, any more than Bill Clinton could’ve won the 1992 election without moderate Republicans. The nation is neither conservative nor liberal; it is what it has always been: a collection of independent thinkers who look for leadership from their leaders. If the Republicans are truly serious about winning back the Whitehouse, they need to find someone who can stand up to the right flank of the party and at the same time appeal to the masses. McCain, for all his legendary maverick status, clearly was not up to the task. Too often throughout this campaign he seemed clueless as to what to do or say on the economy, and when it came to going on the attack he seemed uncomfortable resorting to the mudslinging that Bush and Rove did so well against John Kerry in 2004. In the end it was impossible to differentiate who was on top of the ticket: him or Palin. In the end it didn’t seem to matter; he became what he most despised about the very process he once fought against. That, more than anything was what did him in.
No, I’m thinking what the Republicans need most is not another Ronald Reagan, but rather a Dwight D. Eisenhower type; a man who is a true leader and is respected by both parties. If Obama does not pick him for a cabinet post, Colin Powell might be the ideal choice. He incurred the wrath of the ultra right-wing of the party for his endorsement of Obama, which was more a repudiation of McCain and Palin, but he could just be the “right” tonic for a tattered and torn party that desperately needs to be saved from the inmates and nutjobs who are currently running the asylum.
A Nation Embraces Change and a Political Party is Left Wondering What Hit It.
In the end it was the American people who finally got it after all; the American people who collectively stood up and, like that crazy anchorman in the movie “Network”, shouted out loud and clear, “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” More than sixty four million voters pulled the lever for Barack Obama, almost eight million more than John McCain got. Of the 538 possible electoral votes cast in the election 364 went to Obama, 174 went to McCain. It was, for all intents and purposes, a landslide victory, but more importantly it was a resounding repudiation of not only a failed policy, but of a failed politics. If you are a Republican today you are in dire need of some long, overdue soul searching.
For lost in all the hoopla of what is clearly the most significant milestone in American history – that of an African American being elected president of the United States – is the fact that for all the clamor for change that was resonating though out the electorate, and the fear that this eloquent and most statesmanlike of politicians – one part Kennedy, one part Lincoln, one part King, Jr. – might make a serious misstep and, like the last two democratic candidates before him, fumble the ball the one yard line, it was John McCain, the former maverick, who fell on his sword and got routed.
Let’s not forget that it was McCain who was ahead in the most critical demographic: independents. This voter group represents almost a third of the electorate and as early as June, they were expected to vote resoundingly for Obama. Except something was going terribly wrong in Obamaland. With less than a month to go before the Republican National Convention, McCain held a slight lead over Obama among moderates and was within two points of him overall.
So what happened? Pundits continue to blame the economic meltdown for McCain’s undoing. Someone had to take the bullet for the economy and the conventional wisdom is that when things go badly the incumbent party takes the wrap. The other contention is that the McCain campaign never got their ground game going. They had sowed up the nomination a full three months before Obama had clinched, and yet they never got their message out. Obama, meanwhile, had established the most aggressive and well-staffed network of volunteers in decades. The avalanche of support, coupled with a seemingly endless supply of campaign donations, simply overwhelmed McCain.
But while both these explanations are plausible, both are also excuses. The very simple and most salient reason that John McCain lost the presidential election of 2008 was his pick of Sarah Palin for vice president. No doubt her supporters will claim she is being made the scapegoat for a campaign that was never able to define a coherent message that it could market to the nation. There is certainly some truth to that. At what most pundits called the critical juncture of the campaign - the rollout of the proposed $700 billion bailout - the announcement that McCain was suspending his campaign to fly down to Washington, had even his most ardent supporters scratching their heads in amazement. A week before that he boldly stated that the fundamentals of the economy were strong.
But, still, despite the missteps and miscues, the election was still there to be won. And that was because, for all the seeming substantive similarities between him and Bush, there were still enough voters who believed in that maverick image of John McCain. There were still enough people who remembered how he had been savaged in that shameful 2000 Republican primary by the likes of Karl Rove. He had built up a reputation over two and a half decades of irritating his own party just enough to keep them honest. With all of Obama’s millions, the memory of McCain was still alive in the hearts and minds of the electorate. He defeated the likes of Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Mr. 9/11 himself (Rudy Giuliani), not by running to the extreme right flank of his party, but by running to its middle. In doing so he incurred the wrath of all the conservative talking heads like Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, none of whom had any use for McCain. Mary Matalin, wife of Democratic strategist James Carville, publicly supported Fred Thompson and stated that John McCain had virtually no chance of winning the presidency.
And yet with all the backlash of the conservative right, in what was clearly a change year, with the exception of those first few weeks after Obama had wrapped up the Democratic nomination and had jumped out to an early lead, McCain was holding his own. All of the prominent polls showed the race to be a statistical dead heat. And then it happened. The Democrats held their convention in Denver; Obama chose Joe Biden as his running mate, not Hillary Clinton like some had foolishly thought, and suddenly McCain was down six points in the polls. He needed something daring, something unexpected, something that could unite the conservative base of his party, and at the same time capitalize on the resentment he felt was still being harbored by many Hillary supporters, angered that their candidate was not on the Democratic ticket. In what can only be described as an act of desperation, he chose Alaskan governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. The base was beside itself with glee. It was the proverbial two birds with one stone moment. A woman and a Christian conservative all in one package. Not only would they unite the party, but they would steal away all the disenfranchised Hillary supporters. Hello Whitehouse.
Initially, the pick proved to be a stroke of genius. Less than a week after the Republican convention, McCain was up two points in the popular vote. Furthermore, and more importantly, he was up in all the battleground states he needed to win the Whitehouse. But something went terribly wrong with the former Wasilla mayor. The more people got a chance to hear her speak, the more they began to realize not only how unready and unprepared she was for the office of vice-president; the more uneasy they became with who she was as a person. There is a golden rule for all vice-presidential picks: do no harm. With each passing day, and each passing interview, Sarah Palin was doing more damage to John McCain than the economic implosion was. The irony was that while conservatives loved her, independents, that demographic that often decides presidential elections, were growing increasingly alarmed at her political stances and he divisive rhetoric. This was particularly troublesome for McCain, since it was this very demographic that got him the nomination in the first place. A full week before the infamous “fundamentals are strong” comment, Obama regained the lead among independents and never looked back. In retrospect the housing market collapse sealed the deal. Obama looked more presidential; McCain looked like someone who was groping for a message to rile up his base. The chants of socialism and terrorists became almost comical in the midst of a historic recession that was ravaging the nation. Sarah Palin may have been appealing to what she thought was the “real” America, but the nation as a whole wasn’t buying it. Her negatives, and those of John McCain’s, rose with each passing day. Not even caricatures such as the likes of Joe the Plumber could stop the hemorrhaging. McCain, like the economy, went south fast.
And now that this election is over, now that the nation has chosen someone with the proper temperament to lead us out of this malaise, the postmortems will begin. It will be a hard pill to swallow, but the Republican party is essentially in the same place the Democratic party was in 1980 when Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter: fragmented and politically isolated, with a tired and worn out message no one of consequence wants to hear. If you look carefully at the nation what you will find is astounding. Obama won in every part of the country: the north, the south, the mid-west, the west coast, and the southwest. Only the plain states, the deep south and the Appalachian trail eluded him. The inclusive nation that Reagan had helped to create in the 1980s had left in droves to support not only a Democratic presidential candidate, but both houses of Congress. The Republican party has now become a party in full retreat, at war with itself and unable to come up with a populist message to stir the electorate. Family values, abortion, the war on terror may play well on Fox, but not in the millions of homes across America. When you can’t pay your mortgage, and you don’t know if you’re going to have a job next week, and your 401k looks more like a 201k, you need real leaders who have real solutions. The Republicans never articulated a real message that real Americans could latch onto. What is troubling is that there doesn’t appear to be any body within the party that can reverse its fortunes. Mitt Romney? Mike Huckabee? Please, spare me. What’s worse, if you’re a Republican, is the total denial of what went wrong in the first place. In the halls of conservative talk shows, the bravado is appalling. McCain and Palin weren’t tough enough; they needed to hammer Obama earlier and more often, as though eight weeks of non-stop verbal diarrhea weren’t enough to thoroughly turn off all but the most unabashedly myopic bigoted pinheads. When people like George Will start disowning you, you’ve got problems!
If the Republican party is to ever rise up, dust itself off and, more importantly, become a major player on a national level, it is going to have to do what the Democrats did in 1992: find a centrist who will bring some balance to its ranks. Allowing the James Dobsons and the Rush Limbaughs free reign to kidnap the party has severely damaged its pedigree among independents, and compromised any hope now and in the future of capturing the national stage. The Right loves to tout the conservatism of Reagan, but they forget that he couldn’t have won the presidency without moderate Democrats, any more than Bill Clinton could’ve won the 1992 election without moderate Republicans. The nation is neither conservative nor liberal; it is what it has always been: a collection of independent thinkers who look for leadership from their leaders. If the Republicans are truly serious about winning back the Whitehouse, they need to find someone who can stand up to the right flank of the party and at the same time appeal to the masses. McCain, for all his legendary maverick status, clearly was not up to the task. Too often throughout this campaign he seemed clueless as to what to do or say on the economy, and when it came to going on the attack he seemed uncomfortable resorting to the mudslinging that Bush and Rove did so well against John Kerry in 2004. In the end it was impossible to differentiate who was on top of the ticket: him or Palin. In the end it didn’t seem to matter; he became what he most despised about the very process he once fought against. That, more than anything was what did him in.
No, I’m thinking what the Republicans need most is not another Ronald Reagan, but rather a Dwight D. Eisenhower type; a man who is a true leader and is respected by both parties. If Obama does not pick him for a cabinet post, Colin Powell might be the ideal choice. He incurred the wrath of the ultra right-wing of the party for his endorsement of Obama, which was more a repudiation of McCain and Palin, but he could just be the “right” tonic for a tattered and torn party that desperately needs to be saved from the inmates and nutjobs who are currently running the asylum.
Monday, November 03, 2008
VOTE, VOTE, VOTE!
Regardless of whatever political party you may belong to, or even if you’re an independent like me, tomorrow this nation gets a chance to do what many people in the world do not have a right to do: VOTE!
So, no matter how long the line at your polling booth may be, get out and vote. It’s the only thing we can all agree on, that this most precious and God-given right that we get to exercise every four years, is the best way we can show our appreciation for our democracy. Never take for granted what so many have sacrificed so much to preserve.
May God bless this nation!
Regardless of whatever political party you may belong to, or even if you’re an independent like me, tomorrow this nation gets a chance to do what many people in the world do not have a right to do: VOTE!
So, no matter how long the line at your polling booth may be, get out and vote. It’s the only thing we can all agree on, that this most precious and God-given right that we get to exercise every four years, is the best way we can show our appreciation for our democracy. Never take for granted what so many have sacrificed so much to preserve.
May God bless this nation!
Sunday, November 02, 2008
The Great Crusade To Come: Pluralism vs. Fundamentalism
Below is a transcript from the October 24th edition of MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Obermann in which both Obermann and Richard Wolffe of Newsweek are responding to Sarah Palin’s comments mocking fruit fly research, which has brought about breakthroughs in the treatment of Down Syndrome; a disorder that Palin’s youngest child has.
Obermann: “How could they let Governor Palin go out and mock research that has identified a genetic indicator for autism? Who was stupid enough to let that happen?”
Wolffe: “Keith, I’m going to be as restrained and measured as I possibly can about this. But this is the most mindless, ignorant, uninformed comment that we have seen from Governor Palin, so far. And there’s been a lot of competition for that prize. Fruit flies aren’t just to do with this kind of research. They are a standard scientific model in genetic research along with a whole range of other organisms and cells, including mice, rats. I mean, there’s nothing fluffy or funny about it. It’s scientific and if you deliver your first serious policy speech and you make this kind of basic error, you either don’t have a scientific adviser or you don’t have a speechwriter who knows what they are saying.”
With due respect to both men, neither of them has a true handle on what is really going on here. Because if either or both actually knew the REAL truth about how something like this could happen, both with update their passports and head for the nearest border immediately, if not sooner.
The simple and scary truth about Palin’s comments is that they are neither an indicator of stupidity nor of sloppy and uninformed speech writing. They are indicative of a world-view that is quite prevalent within the fundamentalist Christian community, and thoroughly shared by Palin, that shuns not only science, but the idea that science has anything relevant to say about what ails us. This argument has been going on within Christianity for almost two centuries; in deed probably much longer. But it has taken root in American politics now for several decades. To call it myopic would be way too simple. It strikes at the core of a belief system that, in its own way, is as primitive and violent as its Islamic counterparts. While it is true that Christian fundamentalists aren’t likely to fly planes into buildings or blow up cars in front of shopping malls, like Islamic fundamentalists, the similarities are frighteningly real with respect to how their ideology imparts itself within their respective communities.
In principal, fundamentalist Christians believe in the literalist interpretation of the Bible; particularly Chapter one of the book of Genesis. They shun any suggestion, no matter what the evidence suggests, that the world and the universe around it might be billions of years old, and that the story of Adam and Eve might be more of a parable rather than an actual historic event. Those who dare to suggest otherwise are called heretics; their salvation hanging in the balance.
Likewise, fundamentalists do not believe in global warming, and often refer to it as a lie from Satan meant to distract us from God’s work. The reason for this has nothing to do with doubting the empirical evidence that has now been corroborated by virtually every reputable scientist on the planet; it has to do with the Great Tribulation (Matt. 24:21), which “true” Christians believe will happen either prior to, during, or after Christ’s return to Earth. At that time all “true” believers will be taken up to heaven (referred to as The Rapture), while the remainder will be resigned to an eternity in hell. Depending on whether one is a Pretribulationist, a Prewrath Tribulationist, a Seventh Trumpet Tribulationist (in deference to Rev. 11:15 & Cor. 15:52) or a Posttribulationist, the bottom line is that man’s fate lies not in any scientific modality, but in a select group of scriptural verses that carefully lay out God’s predetermined will for all His people. Since the book of Revelation does not specifically or even remotely mention global warming as a possible end scenario for the human race, for any “true” Christian to refer to it as a legitimate threat is Heresy.
This fundamentalist world-view is not new, as I explained earlier. It was first popularized by John Nelson Darby, the father of Dispensationalism, which places a heavy emphasis on prophecy and eschatology, the study of the "end times." Dispensationalism is a Christian theological view of history and Biblical interpretation that became popular during the 1800s and early 1900s and is held today by many conservative Protestants. The belief hinges on three core tenants:
1. The Bible is to be taken literally. John F. Walvoord, in his book "Prophecy in the New Millennium," provides this explanation:
"History answers the most important question in prophetic interpretation, that is, whether prophecy is to be interpreted literally, by giving five hundred examples of precise literal fulfillments. The commonly held belief that prophecy is not literal and should be interpreted nonliterally has no basis in scriptural revelation. Undoubtedly, a nonliteral viewpoint is one of the major causes of confusion in prophetic interpretation."
2. Dispensationalism teaches that the Church consists of only those saved from the Day of Pentecost until the time of the Rapture. It is held that the Church consists of a small number of Israelites under the election of grace in the present dispensation along with a large number of Gentiles. (see Scofield note on Rom. 11 and The Mac Arthur New Testament Commentary : Romans 9 - 16). During the 70th week of Daniel, God will deal specifically with the nation of Israel to bring it to national salvation, in which Israelites who have faith in Jesus Christ during that time will inherit the promised Theocratic Kingdom and the unconditional Covenants God made with Israel. Israel will fulfill its role as the Theocratic Covenanted Kingdom promised to the nation in Old Testament prophecy.
3. Dispensationalism teaches that Israel in the New Testament refers to saved and unsaved Israelites who will receive the promises made to them in the Abrahamic Covenant, Davidic Covenant and New Covenant. (See The Millennial Kingdom by Dr. John F. Walvoord.)
Opponents of Dispensationalism argue that when the Apostle Paul spoke of the dispensation of grace, he was not speaking of an age or period of time but rather he was speaking of stewardship. But conservative Christians do not concern themselves with opponents to their theology. They are certain that theirs is the only viewpoint that is relevant, since it derives directly from the “Word of God.”
What is appallingly dangerous is not how pervasive this belief system still is throughout many Christain churches, but how much political power it still wields throughout the breadbasket of the country; in deed in many affluent, suburban communities in the northeastern and western United States. Many otherwise intelligent and thoughtful people believe profoundly in fundamentalist teachings of the Bible. Though biblical scholars have argued about scripture and its interpretation since the founding of the Roman Catholic Church almost two thousand years ago, conservative Christian preachers have remained steadfast in their denunciation of anything that seeks to challenge their preconceived notions about said scripture. Followers of these conservative evangelicals are encouraged to avoid the trappings of “the world” or the temptation to “doubt the Word of God” as though to evoke even a hint of independent thought would be akin to bringing down a lightning bolt upon one’s head. The ending verse of Revelation is used by these modern day Pharisees to keep the flock in check.
That we are still having this argument more than 1500 years after St. Augustine wrote his thesis, “The Literal Meaning of Genesis” is proof of just how powerful fundamentalism still is in the world. Individuals like James Dobson, Dutch Sheets and Lou Engle are but a few of the more prominent voices of the political landscape that threaten the nation with retreat from common sense and the supposed wisdom that God imparted onto His people in the first place.
In the last two general elections, the Conservative Right was integral in the victories of George W. Bush as President, as well as the election of many other conservative legislators to Washington. These legislators, in concert with the Administration, have led the fight to introduce the teaching of Creationism (AKA Intelligent Design) into the curriculum of America’s public school system. Advocates of Creationism claim they are only interested in presenting “their” side of the argument. Critics claim they are attempting to rewrite the last two hundred years of scientific research because it conflicts with their beliefs and values.
Pastor John Hegee is CEO of Global Evangelism Television (GETV), and is the President and CEO of John Hagee Ministries, which telecasts his national radio and television ministry carried in the United States on 160 TV stations, 50 radio stations, and eight networks, including The Inspiration Network (INSP) and Trinity Broadcasting Network. The ministries can be seen and heard weekly in 99 million homes.
Hagee is also the founder and National Chairman of the Christian-Zionist organization Christians United for Israel, incorporated on February 7, 2006 as a "Christian American Israel Public Affairs Committee" (AIPAC) lobbying Congress to support Israel.[3] He has incurred some controversy for his religious beliefs and comments regarding Nazism, Catholicism, Islam, homosexuality, Jews, and Hurricane Katrina.[4] Many prominent politicians often speak at his conventions, not out of any unilateral agreement with his controversial stances, but out of fear of his political influence. In 2007, Hagee stated that he does not believe in global warming, and he also said that he sees the Kyoto Protocol as a conspiracy aimed at manipulating the U.S. economy.[21] Also, Hagee has condemned the Evangelical Climate Initiative, an initiative "signed by 86 evangelical leaders acknowledging the seriousness of global warming and pledging to press for legislation to limit carbon dioxide emissions." Many other prominent conservative religious leaders, such as James Dobson and Tony Perkins have an equal disdain for the Climate Initiative, again not because of a dearth of data that supports it, but because it conflicts with pre-conceived notions about scripture.
What is encouraging is the fact that fundamentalism appears to be nearing its end as a belief system, not only within the United States, but throughout the Middle East, as well. Pluralism, once thought of as the four-letter word of Christians, is taking root within the body politic in ever increasing numbers. Christians have often referred to pluralism in the same manner in which capitalists often refer to socialism, as something abhorrent and ungodly. And yet many of the preconceptions of pluralism have formed the basis of our representative government. The lack of any officially recognized religion is but an example of a pluralistic tendency among the Founding Fathers, which conservative evangelicals still have a hard time swallowing.
I submit that one of the biggest hurdles that Christians need to overcome when it comes to the concept of a pluralistic society is a complete lack of understanding of what the word pluralism actually means. Like so many other belief systems, Christianity has as its core belief the need to make Disciples of others. From a purely philosophical perspective, such a mission statement suggests that those embarking on such quests to “convert” unbelievers to their faith carry two presuppositions with them: first and foremost, that their faith is indeed the one true faith. So far so good. It wouldn’t be much of a conversion process if one didn’t believe his or her faith was the superior one. But then things turn decidedly ugly, for the second presupposition implies not only a condition of superiority, but a fervent belief that to deny the obvious is a sign of demonic beliefs that somehow need to be suppressed or altogether eliminated. And that, in a nutshell is the difference between a fundamentalist and a pluralistic approach to religion. The former seeks not only a strong belief in one’s own convictions, but a total submission of the other side to the inevitable logic of the superior belief; while the latter leaves open the possibility that both are entitled to their own religious convictions, and more importantly, that both have a right to coexist within the same community without fear of retribution .
The Crusades in the first three centuries of the second millennium A.D. underscored brilliantly a fundamentalist belief system that went amok Initially their purpose was to thwart the encroachment of Muslim influence into the Byzantine Empire. However, on a popular level, the first Crusades unleashed a wave of impassioned, personally felt pious Christian fury that was expressed in the massacres of Jews that accompanied the movement of the Crusader mobs through Europe, as well as the violent treatment of "schismatic" Orthodox Christians of the east. During many of the attacks on Jews, local Bishops and Christians made attempts to protect Jews from the mobs that were passing through. Jews were often offered sanctuary in churches and other Christian buildings. As for the Muslims, after he recaptured Jerusalem in the Third Crusade (1187 – 1192), Saladin, the Sultan of Egypt, spared civilians and for the most part left churches and shrines untouched to be able to collect ransom money from the Franks. Saladin is remembered respectfully in both European and Islamic sources as a man who "always stuck to his promise and was loyal." His largess was not rewarded, however, for when Richard I (AKA Richard the Lionhearted) captured the island of Cyprus, he massacred everyone, despite an earlier promise to leave noncombatants unharmed if the city of Acre surrendered. The brutality of this incident is among the darkest pages of Christendom.
One could say that ever since Abraham bedded down with his maidservant Hagar and produced Ishmael, the world has been locked in the horns of a never-ending dilemma as the descendants of both Ishmael and Isaac continue to wage war to determine who is the true and righteous heir of God’s favor. It matters not that in Gen. 21:11-13 God ostensibly settles the question by stating that both sons (Ishmael and Isaac) will be leaders of great nations, the world continues to be consumed by the flames of intolerance that surround the combatants. Both are right, and I’m afraid both are wrong.
This incessant need not only to be right, but to vanquish any and all opinions to the contrary is what is truly wrong with religion. It is not the belief in an all powerful and loving God that has blinded us; it is this persistent drive to stamp out conflicting interpretations of that all powerful and loving God that has blinded the world with the very hatred and venom that are supposedly at odds with just such a God. Small wonder there are still atheists in the world. And even within Christianity itself, there is deep division. Norther Ireland was for centuries a seething cauldron of religious intolerance as Protestants and Catholics killed one another in the name of the same God they proclaimed to worship.
The irony of ironies is that this insanity appears to be going the way of the dinosaur, as more and more people, fed up with the apparent hypocrisy inherent to such narrow and restrictive view points are choosing to divorce themselves from their respective brethren and brake the chains of such fundamentalist and primitive thinking. Whether owed directly to an economy in free fall or simply the result of outward corruption within the ranks of its hierarchy, the Religious Right in the United States is slowly losing its stranglehold on the nation as more and more moderate thinkers are stepping up and being heard. Issues like abortion and gay rights and creationism, while still critical, are now beginning to share the stage with increasingly equal issues like poverty, climate change, disease and world hunger.
In the Middle East, it is not the bullets of American rifles that are beginning to quell the rhetoric of extremist clerics who have historically driven their followers to commit heinous acts of violence, but rather the byproducts of free-market capitalism. Nike, more than Smith and Wesson, is killing the hatred of centuries of intolerance.
The goal of pluralism is not the elimination of God from public discourse, but rather the elimination of the belief that those who do not conform to a majority religious view are not somehow entitled to the same rights and privileges accorded to us all. It is not anti-Christian to allow a Jew or a Muslim to have a contradictory opinion about their God. We have seen all too well what religious intolerance has wrought on this planet. Isn’t it time we put down our guns and picked up our plowshares? Isn’t it time we finally grew up as a race and lived out the true command of God to love one another as He loved us?
I don’t believe I’m waxing too poetically when I say that there will come a day when all the great religions of the world will finally coalesce into one gigantic spiritual community and become the children of God they were originally intended (created?) to be. Pie in the sky? Perhaps, but I can dream can’t I?
This is the Great Crusade that awaits the human race. Not erasing scientific theories that threaten narrow interpretations of scripture, nor beheading non-believers who defy religious clerics. Hatred and ignorance are the dance partners of a dark and troubled world. If evil is to forever be defeated, it must first be sought within the confines of our own hearts. It should be the mission statement of every God-fearing servant who has a heart of gold and a faith that is fearless to expose the lies of an enemy that has thousands of years of history on his side and the blood of millions to show for it!
Below is a transcript from the October 24th edition of MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Obermann in which both Obermann and Richard Wolffe of Newsweek are responding to Sarah Palin’s comments mocking fruit fly research, which has brought about breakthroughs in the treatment of Down Syndrome; a disorder that Palin’s youngest child has.
Obermann: “How could they let Governor Palin go out and mock research that has identified a genetic indicator for autism? Who was stupid enough to let that happen?”
Wolffe: “Keith, I’m going to be as restrained and measured as I possibly can about this. But this is the most mindless, ignorant, uninformed comment that we have seen from Governor Palin, so far. And there’s been a lot of competition for that prize. Fruit flies aren’t just to do with this kind of research. They are a standard scientific model in genetic research along with a whole range of other organisms and cells, including mice, rats. I mean, there’s nothing fluffy or funny about it. It’s scientific and if you deliver your first serious policy speech and you make this kind of basic error, you either don’t have a scientific adviser or you don’t have a speechwriter who knows what they are saying.”
With due respect to both men, neither of them has a true handle on what is really going on here. Because if either or both actually knew the REAL truth about how something like this could happen, both with update their passports and head for the nearest border immediately, if not sooner.
The simple and scary truth about Palin’s comments is that they are neither an indicator of stupidity nor of sloppy and uninformed speech writing. They are indicative of a world-view that is quite prevalent within the fundamentalist Christian community, and thoroughly shared by Palin, that shuns not only science, but the idea that science has anything relevant to say about what ails us. This argument has been going on within Christianity for almost two centuries; in deed probably much longer. But it has taken root in American politics now for several decades. To call it myopic would be way too simple. It strikes at the core of a belief system that, in its own way, is as primitive and violent as its Islamic counterparts. While it is true that Christian fundamentalists aren’t likely to fly planes into buildings or blow up cars in front of shopping malls, like Islamic fundamentalists, the similarities are frighteningly real with respect to how their ideology imparts itself within their respective communities.
In principal, fundamentalist Christians believe in the literalist interpretation of the Bible; particularly Chapter one of the book of Genesis. They shun any suggestion, no matter what the evidence suggests, that the world and the universe around it might be billions of years old, and that the story of Adam and Eve might be more of a parable rather than an actual historic event. Those who dare to suggest otherwise are called heretics; their salvation hanging in the balance.
Likewise, fundamentalists do not believe in global warming, and often refer to it as a lie from Satan meant to distract us from God’s work. The reason for this has nothing to do with doubting the empirical evidence that has now been corroborated by virtually every reputable scientist on the planet; it has to do with the Great Tribulation (Matt. 24:21), which “true” Christians believe will happen either prior to, during, or after Christ’s return to Earth. At that time all “true” believers will be taken up to heaven (referred to as The Rapture), while the remainder will be resigned to an eternity in hell. Depending on whether one is a Pretribulationist, a Prewrath Tribulationist, a Seventh Trumpet Tribulationist (in deference to Rev. 11:15 & Cor. 15:52) or a Posttribulationist, the bottom line is that man’s fate lies not in any scientific modality, but in a select group of scriptural verses that carefully lay out God’s predetermined will for all His people. Since the book of Revelation does not specifically or even remotely mention global warming as a possible end scenario for the human race, for any “true” Christian to refer to it as a legitimate threat is Heresy.
This fundamentalist world-view is not new, as I explained earlier. It was first popularized by John Nelson Darby, the father of Dispensationalism, which places a heavy emphasis on prophecy and eschatology, the study of the "end times." Dispensationalism is a Christian theological view of history and Biblical interpretation that became popular during the 1800s and early 1900s and is held today by many conservative Protestants. The belief hinges on three core tenants:
1. The Bible is to be taken literally. John F. Walvoord, in his book "Prophecy in the New Millennium," provides this explanation:
"History answers the most important question in prophetic interpretation, that is, whether prophecy is to be interpreted literally, by giving five hundred examples of precise literal fulfillments. The commonly held belief that prophecy is not literal and should be interpreted nonliterally has no basis in scriptural revelation. Undoubtedly, a nonliteral viewpoint is one of the major causes of confusion in prophetic interpretation."
2. Dispensationalism teaches that the Church consists of only those saved from the Day of Pentecost until the time of the Rapture. It is held that the Church consists of a small number of Israelites under the election of grace in the present dispensation along with a large number of Gentiles. (see Scofield note on Rom. 11 and The Mac Arthur New Testament Commentary : Romans 9 - 16). During the 70th week of Daniel, God will deal specifically with the nation of Israel to bring it to national salvation, in which Israelites who have faith in Jesus Christ during that time will inherit the promised Theocratic Kingdom and the unconditional Covenants God made with Israel. Israel will fulfill its role as the Theocratic Covenanted Kingdom promised to the nation in Old Testament prophecy.
3. Dispensationalism teaches that Israel in the New Testament refers to saved and unsaved Israelites who will receive the promises made to them in the Abrahamic Covenant, Davidic Covenant and New Covenant. (See The Millennial Kingdom by Dr. John F. Walvoord.)
Opponents of Dispensationalism argue that when the Apostle Paul spoke of the dispensation of grace, he was not speaking of an age or period of time but rather he was speaking of stewardship. But conservative Christians do not concern themselves with opponents to their theology. They are certain that theirs is the only viewpoint that is relevant, since it derives directly from the “Word of God.”
What is appallingly dangerous is not how pervasive this belief system still is throughout many Christain churches, but how much political power it still wields throughout the breadbasket of the country; in deed in many affluent, suburban communities in the northeastern and western United States. Many otherwise intelligent and thoughtful people believe profoundly in fundamentalist teachings of the Bible. Though biblical scholars have argued about scripture and its interpretation since the founding of the Roman Catholic Church almost two thousand years ago, conservative Christian preachers have remained steadfast in their denunciation of anything that seeks to challenge their preconceived notions about said scripture. Followers of these conservative evangelicals are encouraged to avoid the trappings of “the world” or the temptation to “doubt the Word of God” as though to evoke even a hint of independent thought would be akin to bringing down a lightning bolt upon one’s head. The ending verse of Revelation is used by these modern day Pharisees to keep the flock in check.
That we are still having this argument more than 1500 years after St. Augustine wrote his thesis, “The Literal Meaning of Genesis” is proof of just how powerful fundamentalism still is in the world. Individuals like James Dobson, Dutch Sheets and Lou Engle are but a few of the more prominent voices of the political landscape that threaten the nation with retreat from common sense and the supposed wisdom that God imparted onto His people in the first place.
In the last two general elections, the Conservative Right was integral in the victories of George W. Bush as President, as well as the election of many other conservative legislators to Washington. These legislators, in concert with the Administration, have led the fight to introduce the teaching of Creationism (AKA Intelligent Design) into the curriculum of America’s public school system. Advocates of Creationism claim they are only interested in presenting “their” side of the argument. Critics claim they are attempting to rewrite the last two hundred years of scientific research because it conflicts with their beliefs and values.
Pastor John Hegee is CEO of Global Evangelism Television (GETV), and is the President and CEO of John Hagee Ministries, which telecasts his national radio and television ministry carried in the United States on 160 TV stations, 50 radio stations, and eight networks, including The Inspiration Network (INSP) and Trinity Broadcasting Network. The ministries can be seen and heard weekly in 99 million homes.
Hagee is also the founder and National Chairman of the Christian-Zionist organization Christians United for Israel, incorporated on February 7, 2006 as a "Christian American Israel Public Affairs Committee" (AIPAC) lobbying Congress to support Israel.[3] He has incurred some controversy for his religious beliefs and comments regarding Nazism, Catholicism, Islam, homosexuality, Jews, and Hurricane Katrina.[4] Many prominent politicians often speak at his conventions, not out of any unilateral agreement with his controversial stances, but out of fear of his political influence. In 2007, Hagee stated that he does not believe in global warming, and he also said that he sees the Kyoto Protocol as a conspiracy aimed at manipulating the U.S. economy.[21] Also, Hagee has condemned the Evangelical Climate Initiative, an initiative "signed by 86 evangelical leaders acknowledging the seriousness of global warming and pledging to press for legislation to limit carbon dioxide emissions." Many other prominent conservative religious leaders, such as James Dobson and Tony Perkins have an equal disdain for the Climate Initiative, again not because of a dearth of data that supports it, but because it conflicts with pre-conceived notions about scripture.
What is encouraging is the fact that fundamentalism appears to be nearing its end as a belief system, not only within the United States, but throughout the Middle East, as well. Pluralism, once thought of as the four-letter word of Christians, is taking root within the body politic in ever increasing numbers. Christians have often referred to pluralism in the same manner in which capitalists often refer to socialism, as something abhorrent and ungodly. And yet many of the preconceptions of pluralism have formed the basis of our representative government. The lack of any officially recognized religion is but an example of a pluralistic tendency among the Founding Fathers, which conservative evangelicals still have a hard time swallowing.
I submit that one of the biggest hurdles that Christians need to overcome when it comes to the concept of a pluralistic society is a complete lack of understanding of what the word pluralism actually means. Like so many other belief systems, Christianity has as its core belief the need to make Disciples of others. From a purely philosophical perspective, such a mission statement suggests that those embarking on such quests to “convert” unbelievers to their faith carry two presuppositions with them: first and foremost, that their faith is indeed the one true faith. So far so good. It wouldn’t be much of a conversion process if one didn’t believe his or her faith was the superior one. But then things turn decidedly ugly, for the second presupposition implies not only a condition of superiority, but a fervent belief that to deny the obvious is a sign of demonic beliefs that somehow need to be suppressed or altogether eliminated. And that, in a nutshell is the difference between a fundamentalist and a pluralistic approach to religion. The former seeks not only a strong belief in one’s own convictions, but a total submission of the other side to the inevitable logic of the superior belief; while the latter leaves open the possibility that both are entitled to their own religious convictions, and more importantly, that both have a right to coexist within the same community without fear of retribution .
The Crusades in the first three centuries of the second millennium A.D. underscored brilliantly a fundamentalist belief system that went amok Initially their purpose was to thwart the encroachment of Muslim influence into the Byzantine Empire. However, on a popular level, the first Crusades unleashed a wave of impassioned, personally felt pious Christian fury that was expressed in the massacres of Jews that accompanied the movement of the Crusader mobs through Europe, as well as the violent treatment of "schismatic" Orthodox Christians of the east. During many of the attacks on Jews, local Bishops and Christians made attempts to protect Jews from the mobs that were passing through. Jews were often offered sanctuary in churches and other Christian buildings. As for the Muslims, after he recaptured Jerusalem in the Third Crusade (1187 – 1192), Saladin, the Sultan of Egypt, spared civilians and for the most part left churches and shrines untouched to be able to collect ransom money from the Franks. Saladin is remembered respectfully in both European and Islamic sources as a man who "always stuck to his promise and was loyal." His largess was not rewarded, however, for when Richard I (AKA Richard the Lionhearted) captured the island of Cyprus, he massacred everyone, despite an earlier promise to leave noncombatants unharmed if the city of Acre surrendered. The brutality of this incident is among the darkest pages of Christendom.
One could say that ever since Abraham bedded down with his maidservant Hagar and produced Ishmael, the world has been locked in the horns of a never-ending dilemma as the descendants of both Ishmael and Isaac continue to wage war to determine who is the true and righteous heir of God’s favor. It matters not that in Gen. 21:11-13 God ostensibly settles the question by stating that both sons (Ishmael and Isaac) will be leaders of great nations, the world continues to be consumed by the flames of intolerance that surround the combatants. Both are right, and I’m afraid both are wrong.
This incessant need not only to be right, but to vanquish any and all opinions to the contrary is what is truly wrong with religion. It is not the belief in an all powerful and loving God that has blinded us; it is this persistent drive to stamp out conflicting interpretations of that all powerful and loving God that has blinded the world with the very hatred and venom that are supposedly at odds with just such a God. Small wonder there are still atheists in the world. And even within Christianity itself, there is deep division. Norther Ireland was for centuries a seething cauldron of religious intolerance as Protestants and Catholics killed one another in the name of the same God they proclaimed to worship.
The irony of ironies is that this insanity appears to be going the way of the dinosaur, as more and more people, fed up with the apparent hypocrisy inherent to such narrow and restrictive view points are choosing to divorce themselves from their respective brethren and brake the chains of such fundamentalist and primitive thinking. Whether owed directly to an economy in free fall or simply the result of outward corruption within the ranks of its hierarchy, the Religious Right in the United States is slowly losing its stranglehold on the nation as more and more moderate thinkers are stepping up and being heard. Issues like abortion and gay rights and creationism, while still critical, are now beginning to share the stage with increasingly equal issues like poverty, climate change, disease and world hunger.
In the Middle East, it is not the bullets of American rifles that are beginning to quell the rhetoric of extremist clerics who have historically driven their followers to commit heinous acts of violence, but rather the byproducts of free-market capitalism. Nike, more than Smith and Wesson, is killing the hatred of centuries of intolerance.
The goal of pluralism is not the elimination of God from public discourse, but rather the elimination of the belief that those who do not conform to a majority religious view are not somehow entitled to the same rights and privileges accorded to us all. It is not anti-Christian to allow a Jew or a Muslim to have a contradictory opinion about their God. We have seen all too well what religious intolerance has wrought on this planet. Isn’t it time we put down our guns and picked up our plowshares? Isn’t it time we finally grew up as a race and lived out the true command of God to love one another as He loved us?
I don’t believe I’m waxing too poetically when I say that there will come a day when all the great religions of the world will finally coalesce into one gigantic spiritual community and become the children of God they were originally intended (created?) to be. Pie in the sky? Perhaps, but I can dream can’t I?
This is the Great Crusade that awaits the human race. Not erasing scientific theories that threaten narrow interpretations of scripture, nor beheading non-believers who defy religious clerics. Hatred and ignorance are the dance partners of a dark and troubled world. If evil is to forever be defeated, it must first be sought within the confines of our own hearts. It should be the mission statement of every God-fearing servant who has a heart of gold and a faith that is fearless to expose the lies of an enemy that has thousands of years of history on his side and the blood of millions to show for it!
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