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28073. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 3/18/2006 5:10:08 PM This is an excerpt from a review of Kevin Philip's new book American Theocracy. The full review is in the American Politics thread.
Phillips is especially passionate in his discussion of the second great force that he sees shaping contemporary American life — radical Christianity and its growing intrusion into government and politics. The political rise of evangelical Christian groups is hardly a secret to most Americans after the 2004 election, but Phillips brings together an enormous range of information from scholars and journalists and presents a remarkably comprehensive and chilling picture of the goals and achievements of the religious right.
He points in particular to the Southern Baptist Convention, once a scorned seceding minority of the American Baptist Church but now so large that it dominates not just Baptism itself but American Protestantism generally. The Southern Baptist Convention does not speak with one voice, but almost all of its voices, Phillips argues, are to one degree or another highly conservative. On the far right is a still obscure but, Phillips says, rapidly growing group of "Christian Reconstructionists" who believe in a "Taliban-like" reversal of women's rights, who describe the separation of church and state as a "myth" and who call openly for a theocratic government shaped by Christian doctrine. A much larger group of Protestants, perhaps as many as a third of the population, claims to believe in the supposed biblical prophecies of an imminent "rapture" — the return of Jesus to the world and the elevation of believers to heaven.
Prophetic Christians, Phillips writes, often shape their view of politics and the world around signs that charlatan biblical scholars have identified as predictors of the apocalypse — among them a war in Iraq, the Jewish settlement of the whole of biblical Israel, even the rise of terrorism. He convincingly demonstrates that the Bush administration has calculatedly reached out to such believers and encouraged them to see the president's policies as a response to premillennialist thought. He also suggests that the president and other members of his administration may actually believe these things themselves, that religious belief is the basis of policy, not just a tactic for selling it to the public. Phillips's evidence for this disturbing claim is significant, but not conclusive. 28074. jexster - 3/19/2006 5:38:50 AM Jen,
Have YOU converted yet?
Grand Ayatollah Sistani on Homosexuality
Juan Cole
No you say?
Well maybe it's time you checked it out.
I am sure the Sayyed would be delighted to receive a pious pilgrim from the Cult of the Burnt Bush 28075. jexster - 3/22/2006 4:59:36 AM "You cannot evade the issue of God, whether you talk about pigs or the binomial theory, you are still talking about Him. Now if Christianity be. . . a fragment of metaphysical nonsense invented by a few people, then, of course, defending it will simply mean talking that metaphysical nonsense over and over. But if Christianity should happen to be true - then defending it may mean talking about anything or everything. Things can be irrelevant to the proposition that Christianity is false, but nothing can be irrelevant to the proposition that Christianity is true." GK Chesterton
28076. jexster - 3/22/2006 9:51:16 AM Anglican Leader Says the Schools Shouldn't Teach Creationism
LONDON, March 21— The Archbishop of Canterbury opposes teaching creationism in school and believes that portraying the Bible as just another theory devalues it, he said in a newspaper interview published Tuesday.
"I think creationism is, in a sense, a kind of category mistake, as if the Bible were a theory like other theories," the archbishop, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, told The Guardian. "Whatever the biblical account of creation is, it's not a theory alongside theories. It's not as if the writer of Genesis or whatever sat down and said, 'Well, how am I going to explain all this?'
Cantaur Brings On a Mighty Monty Python 28077. anomie - 3/26/2006 12:29:12 AM Just getting around to reading your post 28069, Thoughtful. Not sure anyone could have said it better. I'd like to see Jen's reply, but I think I'll have to wait a while longer. 28078. arkymalarky - 3/26/2006 12:32:25 AM will it be italic? 28079. anomie - 3/26/2006 12:32:33 AM I remain perplexed at the assertion that it takes a God to explain the miraculous. As if the ordinary can exist and carry on without one. Same with creationism, which asserts that life is too complex to be explained without a creator...but everything else can exist without one? 28080. arkymalarky - 3/26/2006 12:32:48 AM Hmm. 28081. arkymalarky - 3/26/2006 12:33:41 AM That was not to Anomie's post, but to the italics issue. 28082. anomie - 3/26/2006 12:38:15 AM Sorry. Don't know how to play wth the "toys". 28083. arkymalarky - 3/26/2006 12:42:13 AM That's been up there several days, but hardly anyone posted since the open tag(s). 28084. Adam Selene - 3/26/2006 4:33:38 AM Anyone here read the gnostic gospels of Jesus? I've almost finished it... amazing.
If you dont' know - these are the "new" gospels discovered in 1945, written in coptic (nearly modern heiroglypics) and dated to be circa 100-200Ad. In other words, as old or older than the "true" gospels. These writings put christianity in a whole new light and really highlight how the catholic church cherry-picked the books they wanted to focus on their interpretation. The one by Mary Magdelen and another that mentions Jesus kissing Mary... wow.
Basically - gnostic versions of christianity focus on self-knowledge of god and do not require a priest to mediate. Much like the "modern" protestent movement, but even more radical if you can believe it.
Anyway - I'm really wondering how the new translations are playing with the religious conservatives? Are these new gospels even acknowledged? 28085. Adam Selene - 3/26/2006 4:35:57 AM Anyone here read the gnostic gospels of Jesus? I've almost finished it... amazing.
If you dont' know - these are the "new" gospels discovered in 1945, written in coptic (nearly modern heiroglypics) and dated to be circa 100-200Ad. In other words, as old or older than the "true" gospels. These writings put christianity in a whole new light and really highlight how the catholic church cherry-picked the books they wanted to focus on their interpretation. The one by Mary Magdelen and another that mentions Jesus kissing Mary... wow.
Basically - gnostic versions of christianity focus on self-knowledge of god and do not require a priest to mediate. Much like the "modern" protestent movement, but even more radical if you can believe it.
Anyway - I'm really wondering how the new translations are playing with the religious conservatives? Are these new gospels even acknowledged? 28086. Adam Selene - 3/26/2006 4:38:14 AM Anyone here read the gnostic gospels of Jesus? I've almost finished it... amazing.
If you dont' know - these are the "new" gospels discovered in 1945, written in coptic (nearly modern heiroglypics) and dated to be circa 100-200Ad. In other words, as old or older than the "true" gospels. These writings put christianity in a whole new light and really highlight how the catholic church cherry-picked the books they wanted to focus on their interpretation. The one by Mary Magdelen and another that mentions Jesus kissing Mary... wow.
Basically - gnostic versions of christianity focus on self-knowledge of god and do not require a priest to mediate. Much like the "modern" protestent movement, but even more radical if you can believe it.
Anyway - I'm really wondering how the new translations are playing with the religious conservatives? Are these new gospels even acknowledged? 28087. Adam Selene - 3/26/2006 4:39:40 AM Anyone here read the gnostic gospels of Jesus? I've almost finished it... amazing.
If you dont' know - these are the "new" gospels discovered in 1945, written in coptic (nearly modern heiroglypics) and dated to be circa 100-200Ad. In other words, as old or older than the "true" gospels. These writings put christianity in a whole new light and really highlight how the catholic church cherry-picked the books they wanted to focus on their interpretation. The one by Mary Magdelen and another that mentions Jesus kissing Mary... wow.
Basically - gnostic versions of christianity focus on self-knowledge of god and do not require a priest to mediate. Much like the "modern" protestent movement, but even more radical if you can believe it.
Anyway - I'm really wondering how the new translations are playing with the religious conservatives? Are these new gospels even acknowledged? 28088. Adam Selene - 3/26/2006 4:40:42 AM so I hit refresh to see if anyone's posted... and get duplicates of my last post. This sucks.
Fix please. 28089. Wombat - 3/26/2006 5:08:42 AM Adam Selene: A real blast from the past. 28090. arkymalarky - 3/26/2006 5:12:05 AM Ain't it though.
But give up on refresh, Adam. The vcr buttons are your friends. 28091. judithathome - 3/26/2006 6:39:46 AM Adam, if you MUST refresh, go back to the front page and do it...don't do it on the thread you've just posted on...
It is not going to be fixed, trust me. You have to adjust. ;-)
And another thing, on weekends, this place is not busy at all. It is a rare thing to have your posts answered within an hour, much less within minutes. 28092. jexster - 3/26/2006 4:45:54 PM Last week's TPMC Book Club featured Kevin Phillips and his best-selling American Theocracy
There was a gaggle of various commentator/reviewers and load of comments on the comments all of which can be found starting here
Consensus: Just say no to snake chunkers (Earl Long's)
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