Tuesday, May 10, 2005

One for 'Us,' and None For 'Them'

Abraham at Political Influentials brings up an interesting column about how Evangelical Christians are not Monolithic. This is a true statement, technically. When it comes to social issues I think it wrong. That is the point of the whole theocratic movement, to impose a social order on the society based on conservative Christian religious dogma. It will be "open" to variation, but only those where Christians can swallow it, so to speak. The reactionaries are not going to make everyone be Baptists or even be born-again, but what they don't seem to understand is that not everyone is Christian, and because they (me) are not, that should not be a reason to discriminate against them, nor should it a be license to use the government to try and either force or even just encourage religion or more likely a particular brand of religion on anyone.

I think history is missed on people. In the past the evangelical Christians oppressed Catholics in this country. The Catholics gave some back too, but catholic discrimination was not just common, it was the norm.

Today we have something relatively similar. The Evangelicals have evolved. They are tolerant of most other Christian variable, and to some degree to Jews and Muslims. Inside the evangelicals you still will get plenty of blood loss over whether you are a KJV fan or you push forward with NIV or some other heathen text. The tolerance level is far dicier and has we have seen lately in the new outright oppressive against other non-monotheists. Admitting this reality is a big debating point though.

I fully agree that the 'born-again' Christians are not going to view the same issues the same way. They do however have a slew of issues that they move in crisp step with far and above all other Christians. There is no middle ground on abortion or homosexuality or other social issues. Do they disagree on taxes? Sure they do. The political spectrum of view points in many churches though I think is shrinking.

In the column though one thing was really missing: debate on anti-gay stances. It is quite clear that evangelicals most often either out-right anti-homosexuals, or they compartmentalize the issues. Think of being against gay marriage, but not being anti-gay. I don't see a difference, they often nuance it. It is the same as the cliché: "hate the sin, not the sinner." Well, when you are not religious, you don't sin, it is not applicable as a concept, so again, it is failure to grasp that people live outside your frame of reference.

Abraham had a funny, which I don't think was intentional in his post:
Evangelicals Are Not A Monolith

I've seen quite a few references to theocracy lately. If you're interested in another point of view read this opinion article from an evangelical. He offers some insight on what they stand for.
The bold is mine. It is subtly funny. A better choice would have been "some of them” instead of "they," but I got the overall point of post.

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