Wars
of the Laptop Bombers
Today's
Stories
January 27,
2005
Christopher
Brauchli
The
FBI's Carnival of Errors
January 26,
2005
Saree Makdisi
An
Iron Wall of Colonization: Fantasies and Realities About the
Prospects for Middle East Peace
Scott Fleming
In Good Conscience: an Interview with Concientious Objector Aidan
Delgado
Dave Lindorff
Filling Saddam's Shoes: the Puppet Regime Return's to Torture
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Salazar and Obama: Two Dismal Debuts
Toni Solo
The
US and Latin America: a Not-So-Magical Reality
William James Martin
Condoleezza Rice: Confused About the Middle East
William A.
Cook
Bush's Second Inaugural Address: the Lost Ur-Version
Eric Hobsbawm
Delusions
About Democracy
Alexander Cockburn
The CIA's New Campus Spies
January 25,
2005
Brian Cloughley
Iraq
as Disneyland
Mike Roselle
Satan is My Co-Pilot
Josh Frank
/ Merlin Chowkwanyun
The War on Civil Liberties
John Chuckman
Freedom on Steroids
Paul Craig
Roberts
A
Party Without Virtue
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
The
Intolerance of Christian Conservatives
James Petras
The
US / Colombia Plot Against Venezuela
Website of the Day
Lowbaggers for the Environment
January 24,
2005
Fred Gardner
Last
Monologue in Burbank
Lori Berenson
On the Politicization of My Case
Uri Avnery
King
George
January 22
/ 23, 2005
Jennifer Van
Bergen / Ray Del Papa
Nuclear
Incident in Montana
Alexander Cockburn
Prince
Harry's Travails
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Company That Runs the Empire: Lockheed and Loaded
Stan Goff
The Spectacle
Saul Landau
Nothing Succeeds Like Failure
Gary Leupp
Official Madness and the Coming War on Iran
Fred Gardner
Is GW Getting the Runaround?
Phil Gasper
Clemency Denied: the Politics of Death in California
Stanley Heller
A Kill-Happy Government: Connecticut Chooses Death
Greg Moses
The Heart of Texas: an Inauguration Day Betrayal on Civil Rights
Justin Taylor
The Folk-Histories of John Ross
Daniel Burton-Rose
One China; Many Problems
Elaine Cassel
Try a Little Tyranny: Questions While Watching the Inaugural
Mike Whitney
Failing Upwards: the Rise of Michael Chertoff
Mark L. Berenson
My Daughter Has Been Wrongly Imprisoned
Christopher
Brauchli
It Doesn't Compute: a $170 Million Mistake
Gilad Atzmon
Zionism and Other Marginal Thoughts
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Day of the Rats
Mark Donham
The Secret Messages of Rahm Emmanuel
Ben Tripp
Adventures in Online Dating
Walter Brasch
Hollywood's Patriots: Soulless Kooks, Mr. Bush?
Poets' Basement
Wuest, Landau, Ford, Albert & Drum
January 21,
2005
Dave Lindorff
A
Great American Journalist:
John L. Hess (1917-2005)
Sharon Smith
The
Anti-War Movement and the Iraqi Resistance
Don Santina
Baseball, Racism and Steroid Hysteria
Ron Jacobs
Locked Out and Pissed Off: Protesting the Bush Inauguration
Kurt Nimmo
The Problem with Mike Ruppert
Don Monkerud
Once They Were Cults: Bush's Faith-Based Social Services
Alan Farago
Swimming Home from the Galapagos
Derek Seidman
An
Interview with Army Medic and Anti-War Activist Patrick Resta
Read How the
Press & the CIA
Killed Gary Webb's Career
January 20,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Dying
for Sycophants
William Cook
The
Bush Inauguration: A Mock Epic Fertility Rite
Joshua Frank
The Democrats and Iran: Look Who's Backing Bush's Next
Eric Ruder
Why Andres Raya Snapped: Another Casualty of Bush's War
Mike Whitney
Coronation in a Garrison State
Robert Jensen
A Citizens Oath of Office
Peter Rost
Bush Report on Drug Imports: Good Data, Bad Conclusions
David Underhill
Is It Torture Yet?: the Eclectic Fool Aid Torture Test
James Reiss
Adieu, Colin Powell: Pea Soup in Foggy Bottom
CounterPunch
Staff
Voices
from Abu Ghraib: the Injured Party
January 19,
2005
Marta Russell
Social
Security Privatization & Disability: 8 Million at Risk
Mike Ferner
Marines
Stretching Movement: Protesting Urban Warfare in Toledo
Nancy Oden
The
Nuremberg Principles, Iraq and Torture
Tony Paterson
A Catalogue of British Abuses in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Divide-and-Conquer Plan to Destroy Social Security
Doug Giebel
BS and CBS: When 60 Minutes Helped Promote WMD Fantasies
Alexander Cockburn
Will
Bush Quit Iraq?
January 18,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
How
Americans Were Seduced by War: Empire and Militant Christianity
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Federal
Judge: Abu Ghraib Abuses Result of Decision to Ignore Geneva
Conventions
Douglas Lummis
It's a No Brainer; Send Graner: a Rap for Our Time
Ron Jacobs
Syria Back in the Crosshairs?
Seth DeLong
Enter the Dragon: Will Washington Tolerate a Venezuelan-Chinese
Oil Pact?
Lance Selfa
Stolen Election?: Most Democrats Didn't Even Bother to Inquire
Paul D. Johnson
Mystery Meat: a Right-to-Know About Food Origins
Elisa Salasin
An Open Letter to Jenna Bush, Future Teacher
January 17,
2005
Heather Gray
Misconceptions
About King's Methods for Social Change
Robert Fisk
Hotel Room Journalism: the US Press in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
What the NYT Death Chart Omitted: Civilians Slaughtered by US
Military
Jason Leopold
Sam Bodman's Smokestacks: Bush's Choice for Energy Czar is One
of Texas's Worst Polluters
Gary Leupp
A Message from the Iraqi Resistance
Douglas Valentine
An Act of State? the Execution of Martin Luther King
Harvey Arden
Welcome to Leavenworth: My First Encounter with Leonard Peltier
Greg Moses
King
and the Christian Left: Where Lip Service is Not an Option
January 15
/ 16, 2005
James Petras
The
Kidnapping of a Revolutionary
Robert Fisk
Flying Carpet Airlines: My Return to Baghdad
Ron Jacobs
Unfit for Military Service
Brian Cloughley
Smack Daddies of the Hindu Kush: Afghanistan's Drug Bonanza
Fred Gardner
The Allowable-Quantity Expert
Dr. Susan Block
The Counter-Inaugural Ball: Eros Day, 2005
John Ross
Zapatista Literary Llife
Suzan Mazur
Unspooking Frank Carlucci
M. Shahid Alam
America's New Civilizing Mission
Frederick B. Hudson
Jack Johnson's Real Opponent: "That I Was a Man"
Mike Whitney
Bush's Grand Plan: Incite Civil War in Iraq
Tom Crumpacker
A Constitutional Right to Travel to Cuba
Bob Burton
The Other Armstrong Williams Scandal
John Callender
La Conchita and the Indomitable 82-Year Old
Lila Rajiva
Christian Zionism
Saul Landau
An Imperial Portrait: a Visit to Hearst's Castle
Doug Soderstrom
A Touch of Evil: the Morality of Neoconservatism
Poets' Basement
Davies, Louise, Landau, Albert, Collins and Laymon
January 14,
2005
Robert Fisk
"The
Tent of Occupation"
Lee Sustar
Bush's Social Security Con Job
José
M. Tirado
The Christians I Know
Dave Zirin
The Legacy of Jack Johnson
Sheldon Rampton
Calling John Rendon: a True Tale of "Military Intelligence"
Tracy McLellan
Under the Influence
Yves Engler
The Dictatorship of Debt: the World Bank and Haiti
Tom Barry
Robert
Zoellick: a Bush Family Man
Website of
the Day
Ryan for the Nobel Prize?
January 13,
2005
Mark Chmiel
/ Andrew Wimmer
Hearts
and Minds, Revisited
Joe DeRaymond
The Salvador Option: Terror,
Elections and Democracy
Greg Moses
Every Hero a Killer?...Not
Dave Lindorff
The Great WMD Fraud: Time for an Accounting
Jorge Mariscal
Dr. Galarza v. Alberto Gonzales: Which Way for Latinos?
Christopher Brauchli
Gonzales and the Death Penalty: the Executioner Never Sleeps
Gary Leupp
"Fighting
for the Work of the Lord": Christian Fascism in America
January 12,
2005
Robert Fisk
Fear
Stalks Baghdad
Josh Frank
The
Farce of the DNC Contest
Jack Random
Casualties
of War: the Untold Stories
John Roosa
Aceh's Dual Disasters: the Tsunami and Military Rule
Carol Norris
In the Wake of the Tsunami
Mike Whitney
Pink Slips at CBS
Alan Farago
Can
the Everglades be Saved?
Paul Craig
Roberts
What's
Our Biggest Problem in Iraq...the Insurgency or Bush?
January 11,
2005
Tom Barry
The
US isn't "Stingy"; It's Strategic: Aid as a Weapon
of Foreign Policy
James Hodge
and Linda Cooper
Voice
of the Voiceless: Father Roy Bourgeois and the School of the
the Americas
Linda S. Heard
Farah Radio Break Down: Joseph Farah's Messages of Hate and Homophobia
Derrick O'Keefe
Electoral Gigolo?: Richard Gere and the Occupied Vote
Gila Svirsky
A Tale of Two Elections
Harry Browne
Irish
"Peace Process", RIP
January 10,
2005
Ramzy Baroud
Faith-Based
Disasters: Tsunami Aid and War Costs
Talli Nauman
Killing
Journalists: Mexico's War on a Free Press
Uri Avnery
Sharon's Monologue
Dave Lindorff
Tucker
Carlson's Idiot Wind
Dave Zirin
Randy
Moss's Moondance
Dave Silver
Left Illusions About the Democratic Party
Charles Demers
Plan Salvador for Iraq: Death Squads Come in Waves
William A.
Cook
Causes
and Consequences: Bush, Osama and Israel
January 8 /
9, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Say,
Waiter, Where's the Blood in My Margarita Glass?
John H. Summers
Chomsky
and Academic History
Greg Moses
Getting Real About the Draft
Walter A. Davis
Bible Says: the Psychology of Christian Fundamentalism
Victor Kattan
The EU and Middle East Peace
John Bolender
The Plight of Iraq's Mandeans
Robert Fisk
The Politics of Lebanon
Fred Gardner
Situation NORML
Joe Bageant
The Politics of the Comfort Zone
Mickey Z.
I Want My DDT: Little Nicky Kristof Bugs Out
Ben Tripp
CounterClockwise Evolution
Ron Jacobs
Elvis and His Truck: Out on Highway 61
Saul Landau
Sex
and the Country
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Time to End the Blackout
Ellen Cantarow
NPR's Distortions on Palestine
Richard Oxman
Bageantry Continued
Poets' Basement
Gaffney, Landau, Albert, Collins
January 7,
2005
Omar Barghouti
Slave
Sovereignty: Elections Under Occupation
Kent Paterson
The Framing of Felipe Arreaga: Another Mexican Environmentalist
Arrested
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Old
Vijay Merchant and the Tsunami
David Krieger
Cancel the Inauguration Parties
Gideon Levy
New Year, Old Story
Dave Lindorff
Ohio Protest: First Shot Fired by Congressional Progressives
Christopher
Brauchli
Privatizing the IRS
Roger Burbach
/ Paul Cantor
Bush,
the Pentagon and the Tsunami
January 6,
2005
Brian J. Foley
Gonzales:
Supporting Torture is not His Greatest Sin
Greg Moses
Boot
Up America!: Gen. Helmly's Memo Leaks New Bush Deal
Petras / Chomsky
An
Open Letter to Hugo Chavez
Alan Maass
The Decline of the Dollar
Dave Lindorff
Colin Powell's Selective Sense of Horror
Jenna Orkin
The EPA and a Dirty Bomb: 9/11's Disastrous Precedent
P. Sainath
The
Tsunami and India's Coastal Poor
January 5,
2005
Alan Farago
2004:
An Environmental Retrospective
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Oversight
Detected?: Sen. McCain and the Boeing Tanker Scam
Jean-Guy Allard
Gary Webb: a Cuban Perspective
Fred Gardner
Strutting, Smirking, As If The Mad Plan Was Working
David Swanson
Albert Parsons on the Gallows
Richard Oxman
The Joe Bageant Interview
Bruce Jackson
Death
on the Living Room Floor
January 4,
2005
Michael Ortiz
Hill
Mainlining
Apocalypse
Elaine Cassel
They
Say They Can Lock You Up for Life Without a Trial
Yoram Gat
The
Year in Torture
Martin Khor
Tragic
Tales and Urgent Tasks from the Tsunami Disaster
Gary Leupp
Death
and Life in the Andaman Islands
January 3,
2005
Ron Jacobs
The
War Hits Home
Dave Lindorff
Is
There a Single Senator Who Will Stand Up for Black Voters?
Mike Whitney
The Guantanamo Gulag
Joshua Frank
Greens and Republicans: Strange Bedfellows
Maria Tomchick
Playing Politics with Disaster Aid
Rhoda and Mark
Berenson
Our Daughter Lori: Another Year of Grave Injustice
David Swanson
The Media and the Ohio Recount
Kathleen Christison
Patronizing
the Palestinians
January 1 /
2, 2005
Gary Leupp
Earthquakes
and End Times, Past and Present
Rev. William
E. Alberts
On "Moral Values": Code Words for Emerging Authoritarian
Tendencies
M. Shahid Alam
Testing Free Speech in America
Stan Goff
A Period for Pedagogy
Brian Cloughley
Bush and the Tsunami: the Petty and the Petulant
Sylvia Tiwon
/ Ben Terrall
The Aftermath in Aceh
Ben Tripp
Requiem for 2004
Greg Moses
A Visible Future?
Steven Sherman
The 2004 Said Awards: Books Against Empire
Sean Donahue
The Erotics of Nonviolence
James T. Phillips
The Beast's Belly
David Krieger
When Will We Ever Learn
Poets' Basement
Soderstrom, Hamod, Louise and Albert
December 23,
2004
Chad Nagle
Report
from Kiev: Yushchenko's Not Quite Ready for Sainthood
David Smith-Ferri
The
Real UN Disgrace in Iraq
Bill Quigley
Death
Watch for Human Rights in Haiti
Mickey Z.
Crumbs
from Our Table
Christopher Brauchli
Merck's Merry X-mas
Greg Moses
When
No Law Means No Law
Alan Singer
An
Encounter with Sen. Schumer: a Very Dangerous Democrat
David Price
Social
Security Pump and Dump
Website of the Day
Gabbo Gets Laid
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
Historical Amnesia
Omar Barghouti
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond
They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
Richard Oxman
On the Seventh Column
Kathleen Christison
Imagining
Palestine
Website of the Day
FBI Torture Memos
December 21,
2004
Greg Moses
The
New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV
Dave Lindorff
Losing
It in America: Bunker of the Skittish
Chad Nagle
The View from Donetsk
Dragon Pierces
Truth*
Concrete
Colossus vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam
Patrick Cockburn
"Things Always Get Worse"
Seth DeLong
Aiding Oppression in Haiti
Ahmad Faruqui
Pakistan and the 9/11 Commission's Report
Paul Craig
Roberts
America
Locked Up: a System of Injustice
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
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January 27, 2005
Those Liberal Southern Baptists!
Why
Conservative Christians Fear Tolerance
By
Dr. TERESA WHITEHURST
Editors'
Note: This is the second of a two-part essay on Conservative
Christians. Click here to read Part One.
The new craze in conservative Christian
churches is to become a bit of a masked avenger, a spiritual
action-figure, if you will. Perhaps in keeping with all the violent
game shows, action movies and reality shows, not to mention the
new fascination with war and "the army of one", conservative
Christians crave a challenge they can sink their teeth into.
That challenge is confrontational evangelism: Putting
one's intolerance into action.
But just as there's always
a bigger fish, there's always a more conservative denomination,
a stricter adherence to biblical traditions. What some people
think of as conservative, others view as liberal. Activists who
incite their flock to hostility and persecution towards "liberals"
or sinners (one and the same, in their opinion) call themselves
"conservative", but that's not what we would have called
them at our little church in the wildwood many years ago.
We had quite a few bones to
pick with these so-called "conservative" churches that
claim to be saving America from the liberals. In fact, we called
them liberal. They're just lucky we didn't use
their methods to impose biblical rules and standards by
force, if need be.
In our Southern "holiness" church, we considered the
Southern Baptists down the road soft on sin, and headed for trouble
in the hereafter. Preachers warned, especially at revival time,
of the encroaching tide of Christian tolerance (due to the "Jewish
liberal Hollywood" influence, we were told) for things outlawed
in various parts of the Bible.
Because our family was at church
every time the doors were open, I heard what seemed a million
sermons on the dangerous compromises that other denominations
were making with worldly influences and thus with Satan himself.
The list of Baptist sins, a long one, is listed here to illustrate
the dormant disagreements within conservative Christianity:
1. Their women were allowed
to wear makeup
2. Baptist women styled their
hair according to "Jewish/liberal Hollywood" fashion
(Some even "let their hair down" literally, allowing
their crown of glory to flow down freely, attracting male attention,
rather than keeping it off their upper potentially erotic areas-neck,
shoulders, chest and back-in modest braids, buns or what we teens
called "beehives")
3. Their women sometimes wore
sleeveless dresses, and Baptist men often wore short-sleeved
shirts
4. They allowed coed swimming
at Jr. High and Sr. High church camp
5. Many Baptist men smoked
cigarettes when not at church
6. At the Baptist church nearest
ours, members were known to go to the movies, thus supporting
the "Jewish/liberal Hollywood" industry responsible
for America's moral decay
7. On at least one occasion,
their youth group held a party at the skating rink wherein their
tolerance for bodily gyrations led to dancing
8. Baptist kids were allowed
to go to prom, at which dancing is not just allowed but encouraged
9. Shamelessly coed youth activities
mingled boys and girls-and some even included rock music (Many
pregnancies resulted from these outdoor parties and Bible study
classes, after which smitten teens, fighting powerful temptations
of the flesh, drove someone of the opposite sex home afterwards,
or trailed off together to pray in some secluded spot)
10. Baptist men were well known
to cuss at their places of business
11. Every man, woman and child
was almost certainly bound for hell because of their easy one-time-only
"born-again" idea, like the one to which President
Bush ascribes, which is assumed sufficient, technically speaking,
for an entire lifetime; contrasted to our weekly repentance,
this guaranteed backsliding
12. Some of their female children
were allowed to wear "the clothing of men": pants or
shorts
13. Certain Baptist men claimed
that beer is not technically in the same category as "strong
drink", thus can be allowed; some also played cards (the
sin of gambling)
14. Their women dressed up
for church like Jezebels with stylish clothes, sexy shoes, and
even jewelry-not plain, unadorned and modest like the kind of
woman who's worth the price of many rubies
(With the unfortunate combination
of pale skin and dark hair, I particularly resented Baptists
girls regarding item #1, but that is not relevant to this discussion.)
Taking the list as a whole,
one can readily see that the theme is "too much tolerance"
for things of this world. The Baptists were trying to be good
people, perhaps, but were making compromises with worldly things;
they would pay the price, come judgment day.
Gimme That Ol' Time Religion
Before the radical religious
right took over American government, tolerance of sin and sinful
influences was preached against, but with different methods and
words than it is now. In the "old fashioned religion",
we were taught to follow Jesus' example in terms of witnessing,
"hating the sin", and evangelism. The goals I learned
in church, Sunday school, vacation Bible school, prayer meeting
and revival were to:
(1) share one's Christian beliefs
when asked
(2) model compassion and faith
in God for those who are suffering or discouraged (Mother Teresa's
work is an excellent example),
(3) go out into the world to
preach the Good News (assuming one felt "called" by
God to do this), and
(4) pray for sinners and backsliders
(including and especially oneself).
I tried my best to follow these
instructions. As a proud member of the statewide youth evangelism
team, we were quite proactive, especially on sunny Saturday mornings.
We went door to door handing out brochures, offering cute little
New Testaments at strip malls, singing hymns on street corners,
and generally making a nuisance of ourselves to busy shoppers
and hungover homeowners.
People tolerated us pretty
well. Some of them probably pitied us, particularly me with my
dowdy clothes, pale face and overdone enthusiasm, but a few seemed
genuinely interested. Maybe some lives were changed, who knows?
That was the gamble (sorry, wrong word!)-the risk that we were
willing to take. In our fight against sin and our desire to save
souls by bringing them to God, we were brave young teens, willing
to look foolish, have the door slammed in our face, and miss
Saturday morning cartoons.
While obviously we were on
the far right side of conservative, in important ways the times
were different, and church teaching reflected that difference.
First, the goal of our evangelism was usually spiritual conversion,
not political restriction. Second, going about things the old-fashioned
evangelical way, we confronted sin not with hateful placards,
threats of violence, bombings of clinics, or powerful political
lobbies, but through prayer and our genuine if naïve attempts
to model Jesus' love for all.
It's the method that
makes the difference between the respectful evangelism of those
days and the confrontational evangelism of today.
In the old days, if someone
grieved us personally with behavior that interfered with our
Christian lives or caused others to sin, we used Jesus' conflict-resolution
system, going first to the offender alone, then with a friend,
then with others, and so on. The goal was something today's Christian
right knows little of: reason and persuasion-not litigation,
castigation or legislation.
Any direct confrontation
was reserved for those cases where someone's behavior was directly
interfering with our lives. For instance, one man developed the
habit of snoring on the back pew at a volume that would envy
a grizzly bear, such that nobody could hear a word the preacher
said.
This individual, who shall
remain nameless, foolishly thought that he could satisfy both
his wife and the Lord by making a token appearance at church
while still sleeping late. After much discussion, it was finally
decided that an elder would approach Mr. X and point out his-well
I don't think they called it a sin-unseemly behavior that revealed
his disrespect for the scriptures and the preacher, and deafened
us all in the process.
When this didn't work (and
it didn't), a few older people talked to him about the problem.
Mr. X straightened up for a while, but it was eventually discovered
that he had substituted smoking behind the church for snoozing!
This led to many pointed sermons on the sins of tobacco, and
Mr. X eventually stopped coming so often. Clearly, Mr. X interfered
with our lives as Christians in a real way: we couldn't hear
the sermon, he was setting a bad example for teens who were all
too eager to sleep during long sermons, and so on. To remedy
and prevent such happenings, pastors preached against whatever
it was in the person's spirit that led them to act in such a
way as to sin, particularly when that sin interfered with other
members' pursuit of righteousness.
But when it came to sins that
didn't directly interfere with our lives-e.g., when we saw sin,
particularly on lifestyle issues, such as those Baptist ladies
who wore "Jezebel" clothes and makeup-we were not to
interfere, but to pray that the person would come to his or her
senses and repent.
Confrontational Evangelism
This is what has changed. Conservative
Christianity's new mandate is to forcibly prohibit any
American from indulging in what they consider the worst sins-sins
that used to be things like arrogance, selfishness, violence,
greed, indifference to human suffering or even torture,
but are now things like sex-ed, Halloween, cursing on TV, gay
marriage, Harry Potter, "Happy Holidays" and Spongebob
Squarepants.
Confrontational evangelism is the evangelism of choice in conservative
churches today because it offers an outlet through which members
can use their energy, passion and talents not to minister
to individual souls (who may or may not be receptive or
grateful), but to work with others in order to make a tangible
difference in the way all Americans behave. The
assumption-and it's a big one-is this: If you change the behavior,
the souls will follow. If you forcibly alter American culture,
it will become more Christian. If you change the laws, it will
lead to a change of heart for millions of Americans.
Since Mr. Bush became president,
another related assumption has shifted from the fringe to the
center of conservative Christianity: If you change American culture
by whatever means necessary, God will protect it from harm. If
you don't, expect another 9/11.*
Leaders of the GOP churches
in his service repeatedly stress that our culture is in a state
of alarming decline and must be repaired, lest the entire nation
become godless (no longer "one nation under God").
This may sound like a threat, but to conservative Christians it's
code for "get out there and change America!" This clarion
call for fast, organized, highly visible political action is
appealing to young people because it offers a more results-oriented
short-term mission (e.g., get a law changed, a book banned, a
Constitution amended) than the old "pray and hope the seed
finds good soil" approach.
Conservative churches have
all but ditched the old-fashioned non-confrontational "tolerant"
evangelism, which carries the risk of ridicule or social rejection,
and may not yield fruit for a very long time.
With the aid of elaborate marketing
campaigns, they now have the option of spreading their "faith"
(the euphemistic word for a particular denomination's beliefs,
prohibitions or rules) in ways that won't make them look silly
like we did out on those street corners, but will make them feel
powerful, godly, triumphant and right.
So who's a sinner and who's
not? If everybody took aggressive political action against
those we consider sinners, we'd see utter chaos on the streets,
the schools, the churches and the courts. Because there will
always be a bigger fish-and a more righteous Christian-nobody,
and I mean nobody, would be safe. Not even Southern Baptist ladies.
*This part of the bargain
is particularly shocking to moderate Americans, but in fact it's
nothing new. This "spiritual warfare" obsession that's
gripping fundamentalist churches echoes the demonology and witchcraft
beliefs that captured the imagination (and the hangman's' noose,
not to mention the stake) of 17th century Europe and New England.
Dr. Teresa Whitehurst is a clinical psychologist and writer.
Her most recent book describes the nonviolent guidance of children, Jesus on Parenting,
Baker Books, 9/2004.
You can contact her at DrTeresa@JesusontheFamily.org
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