America struggles with its own evangelical Taliban (Left wing labeling alert)

Daytona Beach News Journal ^ | 08/02/2006 | Pierre Tristam

[SirLinksalot]

America struggles with its own evangelical Taliban

At this late stage of the Bush rapture, American evangelism is a lot like the Exxon Valdez: Massive, sloshing with oily energy and not a little drunk on its power as it steers through hazards of its own designs. The moment evangelicals began tearing down the church-state wall, the rubble became their shoals. The wreck will be ugly. It will take years to mend because, as one of their own, Minnesota's Rev. Gregory Boyd, recently put it: "Never in history have we had a Christian theocracy where it wasn't bloody and barbaric. That's why our Constitution wisely put in a separation of church and state." Meanwhile, too much damage is being done by policies keyed to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" not to have lasting consequences abroad and at home.

The wreck's effects abroad are spreading. Remember William Boykin, the Army lieutenant-general who went around Christian congregations after Sept. 11, telling them how he knew that "my" God "was bigger than his" (one of Osama's lieutenants), "that my God was a real God, and his was an idol"? Instead of being relegated to sorting junk mail in a Pentagon basement, Boykin was promoted to undersecretary of defense for intelligence -- including the supervision of prison interrogations. It's "his" God against the jihadis now in Iraq and Afghanistan, and apparently "his" God against the Constitution or the Geneva Conventions.

The evangelical assault on secular values at home is no less dangerous than its Islamic variant. It's a difference of degrees, not substance. The difference is hard to see when evangelicals eagerly thump for blood-letting abroad or stage-manage it like Boykin and his crusading commander-in-chief do. John Hagee is a Texas evangelical and leader of that hybrid known as the Christian Zionist movement. He commands a huge following and the ear of politicians, Bush among them. Earlier this month Hagee led a rally of 3,500 evangelicals at a Washington hotel, where he called Israel's attacks on Lebanon a "miracle of God" and proof that Israel was doing God's work. Hagee was quoted in The Wall Street Journal as saying that for Israel to show restraint would violate "God's foreign policy statement" toward Jews. Bush sent Hagee a message of praise for "spreading the hope of God's love and the universal gift of freedom."

When he's not thumping for Israel, Hagee raises money for Republican causes and beats war drums in line with his clash-of-civilizations thesis. "This is a religious war that Islam cannot -- and must not -- win," he wrote in a recent book. He also sees the United States heading toward a nuclear confrontation with Iran, itself a fulfillment of a joyful promise: "The end of the world as we know it is rapidly approaching," he writes. "Rejoice and be exceedingly glad -- the best is yet to be." In other words, war is a good thing, rapturous and necessary and sealed with a kiss from God, as the world edges toward Armageddon. The Bush presidency is that evangelical view's self-fulfilling prophesy. Militants for Hezbollah, Hamas and the Taliban speak the very same language. Only the roles are reversed.

Gregory Boyd, author of those words in the first paragraph about every Christian theocracy's sorry history, is the sort of evangelical who wants to prevent a complete wreck. His profile appeared in the Sunday New York Times, yang to Hagee's Journal yin three days earlier. Boyd wants evangelicals out of politics, out of cheering for war and turning politics and patriotism into "idolatry." "America wasn't founded as a theocracy. America was founded by people trying to escape theocracies," he tells his Minnesota congregation. Boyd, writes The Times, "lambasted the 'hypocrisy and pettiness' of Christians who focus on 'sexual issues' like homosexuality, abortion or Janet Jackson's breast-revealing performance," as well as the claim the evangelicals alone know the right values. "All good, decent people want good and order and justice," he says. "Just don't slap the label 'Christian' on it."

Boyd and Hagee are the good cop and bad cop of American evangelism as it pulpits its way to 50 million congregants and beyond. The bad cop is winning right now. It's always easier to destroy than build. We should know. Boyd and Hagee have their twins all over the world of Islam, where theocratic thumping is the regressive rule. There, too, the likes of Hagee are winning. But that's not our battle. It's Islam's to resolve, if it can. Our battle is with our own domestic Taliban, if it doesn't sink us on those shoals first.

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Tristam is a News-Journal editorial writer.

[WestVirginiaRebel]

The difference between the Muslim countries and the USA is that we can tell our religious nuts to go jump off a cliff if we want to.

[Just mythoughts]

Good one. I remember one time posting the *Collegiate Merriam-Webster* definition for science and was written the riot act for their definition.

[Mazda3Fan]

Exactly, and I've never had a fundamentalist Christian tell me that I had to convert or die.

[metmom]

Try the M-W definition of *theory* sometime. But don't say you weren't warned.

[metmom]

With a knife held to your throat, no less.

[metmom]

Yeah, that *all men created equal* stuff, too.

[Just mythoughts]

ok thanks...

[MikeA]

Note the French name of the author. What a bunch of written diahhrea that was. I'm dumber for having even read the first sentence of it, which was as far as I got before I felt brain cells draining out of my head faster than this Frog writer can write a tortured and over-wrought metaphor.

[Restorer]

I don't ever recall any nation being a *Christian Theocracy*.

Depends on your definition. But for a great many centuries many nations enforced varieties of Christian belief.

And they were indeed all bloody and barbaric.

The problem was, of course, the enforcement of doctrine, not the nature of that doctrine.

Government-enforced monopolies of religion are bad for all concerned, including most especially the particular religion involved.

[dighton]

For what it’s worth, this drama queen grew up in Beirut.

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

What amazes me is that this guy makes a living at this.

[metmom]

But the problem was the government, not the Christian part. Those governments could have enforced other belief systems if they had wanted to. Christianity can't be blamed for the evil that is done in Christ's name by others just because it was the tool used. A brief reading of the Gospels and Jesus' own words would settle that. No way He justified that kind of behavior.

[Tai_Chung]

Pierre Tristam

About Me
I'm an editorial writer and columnist at the Daytona Beach News-Journal in Florida. The name notwithstanding, I'm not French except by education. I'm Arab by ethnicity (ex-Lebanese, to be precise), Jewish by intellect, Catholic by failed conviction, liberal by nature, and above all (and most gratefully, current presidency excepted), American by choice and nationality.... “Il n’y a rien de si dangereux qu’un homme indépendent comme moi, qui aime à rire et qui hait les sots.” [Voltaire]

http://www.blogger.com/profile/8713012

Anti-US article about Olympics

Anti-US/Bush/Captialism/religion article

Anti-Bush article comparing his re-election to the aftermath of a nuclear blast

Anti-Israel article about the war and equates Hezbollah to America’s neo-cons

Anti-US article about how terrible it is to live in America

[driftless2]

All this idiot Tristram has to do is show all the deaths that Christians have caused in the last one hundred years in the name of Christianity as opposed to radical Islam. What religion flies airplanes into office buildings and kidnaps and kills journalists, workers, and other innocent civilians? Mr. Tristram, you are an extreme dope.

[Mazda3Fan]

Exactly. I've had various Christian groups send missionaries around, but they've always been very nice and have never been anything but polite. I'd hate to see a fundamentalist, is there any other kind, Muslim group come to my door looking for a convert.

[stop_fascism]

Never in history have we had a Christian theocracy where it wasn't bloody and barbaric

Where has there been a Christian theocracy? The papal states would qualify, but they weren't any more bloody or barbaric than any other government in their time. The commonwealth under Cromwell, while a theocracy, was much less bloody and barbaric than the Tudors or Stuarts who proceeded them.

[jordan8]

You can read dozen of articles like this any day of the week in this country, the authors and the publishers have no shame about it. The contrast with the Mel Gibson story is striking.

[Restorer]

But the problem was the government, not the Christian part.

I partially agree with you. The only problem is that this verges a little too close to the attitude of those Muslims who claim that any Muslim behavior of which they disapprove is by definition not "really Muslim."

During something like 75% of the history of Christianity "proper belief" was legally enforced over most of the area it controlled.

No other religion that I'm aware of, except Islam, for which it is 100%, has a record even close to that.

Obviously I agree with you about this being a misuse of the teachings of Christ and his immediate followers. However, I don't think Christianity, with its almost unique history of forcing belief on others, can be let off quite that easily. We really ought to examine what it is about our belief system that contributed to its being led astray for so long a time.