Posted on 11/10/2008 10:08:48 PM PST by AnalogReigns
When Barack Obama takes the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2009, he will do so in the 30th anniversary year of the founding of the so-called Religious Right. Born in 1979 and midwifed by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, the Religious Right was a reincarnation of previous religious-social movements that sought moral improvement through legislation and court rulings. Those earlier movements — from abolition (successful) to Prohibition (unsuccessful) — had mixed results.
Social movements that relied mainly on political power to enforce a conservative moral code weren't anywhere near as successful as those that focused on changing hearts. The four religious revivals, from the First Great Awakening in the 1730s and 1740s to the Fourth Great Awakening in the late 1960s and early '70s, which touched America and instantly transformed millions of Americans (and American culture as a result), are testimony to that.
Thirty years of trying to use government to stop abortion, preserve opposite-sex marriage, improve television and movie content and transform culture into the conservative Evangelical image has failed. The question now becomes: should conservative Christians redouble their efforts...
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
The republican party must alway deeply acknowledge this part of them; but I will say this CAN’T be the only part of the republican party. We can’t win on this alone.
An angel of light?
bookmark
Just one close election is a little too soon to claim the death of the religious right.
FROM AN EMAIL RECEIVED TODAY IN REBUTTAL:
Cal Thomas calls Christians to unilaterally disarm
It is disappointing when Christian conservatives who are engaged in the battle for the soul of the nation are subjected to misguided ideas of influential Christians like syndicated columnist Cal Thomas. In his latest column, Thomas pronounces a requiem for the religious right.
According to Thomas, the last election is proof that Christians’ attempt to influence the future of the nation for the past thirty years was in vain. Thomas advocates a retreat from the public square and limits Christians’ duty to preaching the gospel and doing good works.
Letting the culture disintegrate without a peep from Christians while we wait for a revival is, according to Thomas, the righteous thing to do. But this is contrary to our biblical duties and historical precedence.
A Lesson From History
The Great Awakening in America starting in the 1730’s did bring about social transformation. But the Awakening was preceded by efforts on the part of faithful Christians to reform public policy.
James Oglethorpe sought to reform England’s prisons. Due to the “gin craze,” Queen Caroline passed prohibition legislation against the sale of gin. Queen Anne established free schools for indigent children. The Society for the Reformation of Manners helped to convict nearly one hundred thousand people for debauchery and profaneness.
Raising the issue of public sins like drunkenness, brought conviction of sin and helped to break up the spiritually fallow ground in England and the colonies. The revival harvest came forth from seeds planted in the spiritual soil tilled by social reformers. So God used both means; first the preaching of social righteousness and then the gospel.
Thomas minimizes the efforts of Christians who are not willing to surrender their spiritual and constitutional birthrights. He offers a false choice and a limited view of the gospel that is not worthy of the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
What’s a Christian to Do?
Jesus commanded Christians to be the salt and light of the world. As salt, Christians are commanded to act as a preservative, mitigating the effects of sin decay. As salty advocates for biblical righteousness and justice, the Christian’s duty is not limited to the personal, familial, or spiritual realms. Being the salt of the world extends to all of life, including the realm of public policy.
Imagine what kind of world it would be if Christians did not resist the most egregious sinful impulses of radical secularists. Why they might try to take their second grade public school students on field trips to homosexual marriages. They might take their minor daughters to get risky, surgical abortions without notifying the parents. But Thomas tells Christians they should be silent and just feed the poor.
Christians are also to shine as lights, reflecting God’s character and truth. While Christians ought to reflect love and service, they must also stand boldly for biblical truth and morality. God is not just perfect love. God is also perfect truth, righteousness and justice. Christians must reflect all of the character of God, not just the parts we prefer or the world accepts.
This is not necessarily going to win friends. Jesus warned us that the world hates the light because it will expose man’s evil deeds. Being the light means standing for the truth out of a loving concern for the consequences, eternal and temporal, to individuals and society. Often the only thanks you get for doing this are insults.
No one other than Jesus Christ has ever been perfect salt and light, having come from the Father in perfect grace and truth. He was reviled, slandered and killed because he bore witness to the truth.
Being salt and light is the duty of every Christian. If we refuse to be the stinging salt and blinding light we make ourselves worthless. If we lose our effect as salt, Jesus said we deserve to be trampled on. Thomas would have us abandon our duty, but for what?
Thomas thinks that if Christians will just stick to loving people in his very narrowly defined way, and lay down our duties and rights to preserve and illuminate the culture, we will have real transformational influence, not empty political influence. This is a false choice.
Being salt and light does mean preaching the gospel and seeing God change the individual. It includes doing good to the widows and orphans, the sick and the poor. Studies have shown if you want to find voluntary works of compassion and charity, religious conservatives do much more than any other group. From hurricane and tsunami relief, to pregnancy care centers, homeless shelters, and hospices, it is religious conservatives that are generally the first on the scene and the last ones to leave.
It is not a choice between preaching the gospel or doing works of mercy or standing for biblical values. We can and must do it all.
Being “salty lights” consists of displaying obedience to Jesus Christ in every aspect of life. That includes the political debate about the future of our nation. Christians believe that God really cares about matters of killing unborn babies, the institution of marriage, religious liberty, just judges, parental rights in education, etc. These concerns are based on biblical values.
Cal Thomas suggests that Christians ought to serve in obscurity and a diminution. Ironically, he uses his nationally syndicated column to advance this idea. If he were serious, he would quit writing and go work in a homeless shelter.
Thomas is unable to follow his own advice because it is fundamentally flawed. He writes because he wants to impact the market place of ideas and influence public life. Why does he object when others want to do the same? Thomas ought to applaud Christians who are attempting to do the same thing he is doing only by other means.
I must of missed something here. Didn’t 0 try to hide his abortion record? Didn’t he go after the “values” voters? This “Religious Rights RIP” is hogwash. If we let one setback make us fold, then yes. But last I checked, the Religious Right isn’t filled with moderates. Most of them are bandwagon Christians.
The rat scum think we’ll scatter, but they are wrong. We’ll come back stronger than before, and with less moderate baggage to weigh us down. Let the moderates stay with the weak churches, like the unitarians, (lib) presbytarians, etc. Our churches are growing, and they will continue to grow, because our is the message of the Lord. And I won’t surrender for anything.
above email from:
Christian Anti-Defamation Commission
www.christianadc.org
Did I miss the pandering to the religious right this election? Because honestly, I thought there was much less of that this election than previous elections. Palin mentioned abortion a few times and that was pretty much just in regards to Obama’s support of infanticide and McCain mentioned it like twice, and neither time did he bring it up on his own (it was at the debate once).
Bye bye to both!!!!
No one so far, has elected either to any office, that I know of and they do not have the veto power to kick loyal conservatives out of the power structure especially when we weren't at the table picking our Republican candidate for President. We were handed a candidate selected by the media and Democrats in the early primaries, left with others who either had no name visibility or only recently (like when they decided to run for office) found their conservative principles.
Conservatism didn't lose, it was never tried!!!!!
Obama’S preacher man had the reason wrong.
Nov 4th was the chickens coming home to ROOOOOST!!!
The damness is staring!!!
I’m glad William Wilberforce did not have Cal’s attitude!
Something in the very first paragraph caught my attention, and a theory occurred to me. Could it be that the reason abolition ultimately succeeded and Prohibition did not is that the former concerned not only morality but human rights, while the latter - regardless of the true motives behind it - purportedly was enacted to protect the people from their own reckless behavior? When government places restrictions on the people “for their own good” - whether the true intention is to improve their character or to line Al Capone’s pockets - they will ultimately become resentful. Slavery was different in that it involved subjugation of an entire class of individuals, whose humanity couldn’t be denied forever.
I agree with Cal’s argument that moral “vices” should generally be addressed through social pressure and not force of law. However, when unwilling victims are involved, it becomes a matter of justice and not simply morality. As I see it, the proper role of government is to protect each individual not from his or her own destructive behavior, but from that of others. I’d be curious to know what y’all think out there.
AMEN to that!!!!!!!!!! :-(
Someone sent me a email photo today of a tombstone in a cemetery that read...
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BORN JULY 4 1776
DIED NOV 4 2004
Death by suicide
And I can tell you who drove the last nail into the coffin: Dr. Dobson, when he got all Keith Olbermann on Fred Thompson’s a$$. It split the party just when we needed to get behind the best of the contenders and stay focused. By the time this practical political concept finally dawned on Dobson, he backed McCain, probably because of Sarah; but the damage for 2008 was already done.
Exactly. What the writer of this article does not take into account is that the religious right worship a God who knows his way out of the tomb.
When things don’t go well everyone jumps off the bandwagon.
When conservatives get back in power they will all come running saying we were with you all the time.
It will be amazing to see.
Ping to an awesome graphic!
It appears you missed the point of Thomas’ article or didn’t read it.
He suggested that attempting to change a decaying culture by gaining political power hasn’t worked and won’t in the future and that the method Christ used, that of teaching God’s word would change hearts as laws do not.
Thomas didn’t call for disarming, only for the use of the right weapons.
I concur with your point that the correct ‘weapons’ are spiritual not tangible. The battle is for the mind and soul.
But emphatically I reject the premise in the very title of the article.
Cal tells the Christian Right to try acting Christian for a change. Hey Cal, why don’t you do it yourself? Lead by example. Shut up and put your money where your mouth is.
Afraid of the purges, Cal?
Does 'DUH 1' cause you to lose sleep at night?
Or have you cut a deal with ol' Scratch to stay at your keyboard?
The religious Right is not dead, and this is no time to rest.
So we should surrender to the Obamessiah and embrace everything that is evil in our society, huh Cal?
As long as I have a vote left, I will vote pro-life until either my vote is taken away, or the people of the United States of America repent of the national holocaust that they have allowed to take place and we once again relegate the murder of unborn children to the status of a CRIME.
We may never succeed, but God does not require us to succeed, he requires only that we try. Cal Thomas has surrendered to the enemy. I refuse to join with him in laying down arms and bowing before Molech.
God help this nation if the Christians stop being salt and light.
Good point. And that is why the pro abortion movement says that pro lifers just want to control individual behavior instead of acknowledging that pro lifers are fighting for innocent human beings currently being murdered.
Cal Thomas thinks that feeding and clothing and visiting those in need will change the world.
He's wrong.
Go out into the world of churches, and I guarantee you that that has been going on in spades for centuries. Every church can boast some meal they do for the needy, some drive that raises assistance, some caring program that shows charity. The church is full of those kinds of things.
The church is great at caring. It is also great at teaching its members how to be Christians. There are studies, conferences, schools, retreats, etc., enough to fill calendar of every Christian in America.
So, we're good at taking care of things and ourselves.
What we're not good at, and what we don't do very much of is designing outreach focused on intentional sharing of Jesus with those who are unbelievers or are unchurched.
Many will claim that their feeding program or their kids fun program or whatever is "outreach." By that they mean that "maybe" someone will catch the bug, get infected with Jesus, and begin attending their church. That might happen occasionally, and it might happen accidentally, but it doesn't happen by design.
Intentional outreach involves intentional reaching out and inviting the unchurched, then it involves some event, and then it involves intentional follow-up.
If you don't believe me, check out the Apostle Paul.
Cal Thomas is dreaming if he thinks feeding someone's gonna turn them into Christians. They'll just stuff that turkey in the freezer, that box of cheerios on the shelf....along with all the other food they have there from agencies, drives, and programs run by government. After a few weeks of that, they realize that hunting/gathering has changed. This is just one of the ways the tribes find food as they wander the length and breadth of the land.
Maybe we could put Jesus' picture on milk cartons that go into these homes. "Have you seen this man?" At least that would be the start of real outreach.
And real outreach, a real message, and real follow-up is what happened in the great awakenings. It wasn't about having food and clothing drives.
This rebuttal is excellent. Thomas is wrong on this one and I refuse to step down, back down, or give up. One loss doesn’t mean defeat. The War continues, we have to regroup, see what is taking place, find stronger candidates with core values and focus on the Republic. Most of all, stop fighting each other who are like- minded.
As a early teen in 1980, I heard my teenage freinds talking about how Ronald Reagan was the Anti -Christ, and how things were going get really bad. In 1980, I thought that my young friends were ill- informed (nuts), and they were. When I here the fear engendered knowledge spewed about this election, I think the same thing. I am a Traditional Anglican and a critical realist. Reading the comments here, reminds me how close we humains remain to the spirit of fear that spawns inquistions, pogroms and witch trials. Thank God for the Enlightenment. There is nothing more dangerous than ignorance hid under the mantle of religion. In sum, Barack Obama is nothing more and nothing less than a very competent American politician. My teenage friends from the 80’s learned that lesson the last time the nation elected “a dangerous person”.
RIP President Reagan
Exactamento
Pan Yan, I agree. President Reagan must be turning over in his grave at that comparison.
It hasn't worked because it's co-opting the tactics of the left by "attempting to use the power of government to transform culture." Or simply put, government as God.
The problem isn't confined to Evangelicals, either. So-called "social justice" teaching in Catholic churches is leading people to believe that all of society's problems -- from poverty to prison sentences -- can be cured by public funds. So we see people like Doug Kmiec, who was a passionate opponent of abortion and a strong legal advocate for the repeal of Roe v Wade, endorsing the candidacy of Barack Obama, by looking at "the larger issues" of social justice remedies that Obama promises through federal welfare programs funded by excessive taxation of the "evil" rich. On the far end of the spectrum, you have churches like Jeremiah Wright's, who condemn "good works" such as soup kitchens and private funds for the needy, and instead demand money from the federal government in reparation for past racial injustice. Class warfare in the quest for the utopia that will never exist on this earth.
For those who can't understand why any pro-life Christian could vote for someone who advocates the most extreme anti-life measures, please know that there is a very active "religious left," and Obama has been long involved (per the below linked article by Stanley Kurtz) "through foundation grants, shared political activism, collaboration on legislation and tactics, and mutual praise and support — with the Chicago-based Gamaliel Foundation, one of the least known yet most influential national umbrella groups for church-based “community organizers.” And their mode of operation is much more subtle than the in-your-face style of ACORN. They operate in stealth mode.
I agree that there should be more Christian charity in the trenches and leading by example, but simply abandoning the movement invites the left to dance on the grave of "far-right" Christianity. And they'll do it, too.
I like the idea of standing up and calling evil evil when specific ballot initiatives come up and contacting representatives to make voices heard, but maybe not so fully aligning with a single party. Somehow it seems to put a bullseye on a much larger group.
And the really sad thing, is that if you actually read the encyclicals and canons that explain social and economic teaching, the church teaches almost the exact opposite. See just about anything and everything written by Popes Leo XIII and Pius XI. On a regular basis, passages are taken out of context from these men and used to call evil good and good evil. And these are the popes from "modern" times.
Seriously, we need better catechesis.
lets see.
McCain INTENTIONALLY set out to exclude the religious right.
McCain gets his pal to run for office, Thompson, to split the conservative vote.
Huckabee stays in the race to sacrifice himself to draw away the religious from McCain.
NOW the “brains” are saying the religious right did not help.
It is like not inviting someone to the party and condemning them for not showing up.
(NOTE: Thompson is now pushing for RNC chair, NO THANKS! fool me once...)
I cannot believe that Catholics continue to slip toward Marxism, I mean “Social Justice”. 53 % of “Catholics voted for NObama. We as conservative Catholics are going to need to find a way to confront the Marxists who wrap themselves in Catholicism. They are so willing to throw abortion under the bus in order to achieve “social and economic justice” This proves Rush’s point, Liberalism trumps everything (race, religion, economics).
To any Catholic Freepers, please provide any links that may help in our battle.
Christ was angry the money changers were in his father’s house,
not
that there were money/currency changers.
I do not believe Jesus was “political”. There are some Catholic “social justice” types who claim that Jesus was a revolutionary..... which usually provokes a response from me.... “Like Che?”
Perhaps that's what Cal Thomas thinks this election meant. And I guess he thinks we should just go along with it.
“Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21).
Yep...I thought it was very poignant
Sorry, Cal, but the religious right is still alive and growing and more importantly -- PRAYING!
These are important, (Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy),
but faith in the omnipotent power of God and Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit will reign.
Catholics did not vote for Obama. Please get it through your head.
Catholic In Name Only — CINOs voted for Obama.
You are also wrong on the percentage points.
Only 48 percent of white CINOs voted for Obama.
Mr. Thomas nails this one.
I agree, Salvation. I’m not recommending the church not engage in charity or that it stop its teaching/training mission with its members.
I’m just saying that we should be honest about when we are truly targeting unchurched people. A real campaign in that regard would invite, inform, and follow up with unchurched people.
As you say, that is the crux: faith in our God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Mr. Thomas is correct, though. "Too many conservative Evangelicals mistake political power for influence." Thomas rightly distinguishes between "power" and "influence." Power relies on force. Influence relies on people knowing and wanting to do the right thing.
Wilberforce (for example) did not rely on political power alone to stop the British slave trade; he had already won the moral battle among the British people, outside of Parliament; the political battle inside Parliament was crucial from a legal standpoint (and it was necessary to defeat the powerful people who benefited from the slave trade); but in many respects it was a foregone conclusion.
Similarly, I've heard it said (Samuel Adams?) that the Revolutionary War was fought and won long before the first shot was fired: in their minds and actions, the colonists had already become an independent nation. The war itself was merely a formality.
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