Posted on 02/02/2006 10:23:52 AM PST by DeweyCA
--snip--
Danforth draws no connections between the divisions bared in the Thomas debate and the polarization that bedevils Congress today. He recalls a more pleasant era of coalitions and compromises that gave way to ever fiercer partisanship starting in the early 1990s after Thomas was already on the bench. He dates the beginning of the downslide to the arrival in the Senate of sharp-tongued former House Republicans.
--snip--
That certainly dovetails with the argument of Baptist Sunday school teacher and certified Democrat Jimmy Carter, who pursues the theme in his hot-selling recent book, "Our Endangered Values," with 750,000 copies in print. He quotes Danforth and accuses the GOP of building an intolerant, uncivil agenda from "narrowly defined religious beliefs." Hardliners, he says, are deepening the social divide by "imposing their minority views on a more moderate majority."
--snip--
In an interview, Carter praises Danforth as "one of my heroes" and says modern-day fundamentalism is identifiable by superiority, exclusivity and narrow-mindedness. The current alignment reminds him of Sen. Joseph McCarthy's red-baiting frenzy of 50 years ago. He says the country licked McCarthy and will beat the Christian conservatives, "once the American people realize accurately what is happening."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Rush just did commentary on this. Danforth would have been embarrassed by our Founding Fathers.
Danforth and McCain are both on Christie Whitman's PAC doing their best to get moderates elected to every political office.
I take comfort in knowing "moderates" like Danforth and liberals are frightened by those who have their beliefs and faith firmly rooted into the ground.
Banking on the continued appeal of a wishy-washy John Spong-esque Episcopalianism and decrepit, socially liberal Mainline Protestantism at this stage in history is foolish in the extreme. There's a reason Danforth's church is rotting from the inside, and there's a reason ministers like him are largely ignored.
Curious why Danforth does NOT switch parties. He has NO agreement with anything the Republican's stand for today. He is a DIEN. Democrat In Everything but Name. Just make the intellectually honest switch scumbag Jack. QUIT lying that you are a "Republican" you are not. Like Bob Barr your Republican loyalty was complete self serving based only on how you personally could profit from party support. You have never been on our side and we no longer care to carry your rabid stupidity.
what a load!
I remember Tip O'Neil and Reagan having toddies together after work.
I think the animosity that we see today began with the Bork hearings.
....nor the New either.
Note that the article say Carter's book has "750,000 copies in print" rather than "750,000 copies sold". Are there truckloads of the book sitting somewhere?
Danforth - Yale Law School and Divinity School in the 1960's.
John Danforth eulogized the late Senator John Chafee, Lincoln Chafee's father, at his funeral. The Danforths and Chafees are old friends.
"Republicans have transformed our party into the political arm of conservative Christians," he wrote in the New York Times on Wednesday. The party "has gone so far in adopting a sectarian agenda that it has become the political extension of a religious movement." Though antiabortion, Danforth wrote that GOP principles, such as limited government, free markets and internationalism, have "become secondary to the agenda of Christian conservatives."
The former New Jersey governor, Christine Todd Whitman (last vestige of Rockefeller Republicanism), is warning that religious extremists have taken over the Republican Party.
Whitman: Bush on Iraq (a "go it alone" attitude has "done a great deal of damage to ourselves"), on the environment ("everything was seen through the prism of the reelection," she said, "and their base, pollsters were telling them, didn't care about the environment").
She said people who blow up abortion clinics and kill abortionists have "become more and more active in the party."
"I want to see Republicans win, up to a point"
Oct, 2005
Former Senator John Danforth gave a speech at the Bill Clinton Center in Arkansas lamenting the takeover of his party by religious extremists who don’t respect the boundary between Church and State.
Former Sen. John Danforth said Wednesday that the political influence of evangelical Christians is hurting the Republican Party and dividing the country. Danforth, a Missouri Republican and an Episcopal priest, commented after meeting with students at the Bill Clinton School of Public Service, a graduate branch of the University of Arkansas on the grounds of the Clinton presidential library. “I think that the Republican Party fairly recently has been taken over by the Christian conservatives, by the Christian right,” he said in an interview. “I don’t think that this is a permanent condition, but I think this has happened, and that it’s divisive for the country.” He also said the evangelical Christian influence would be bad for the party in the long run.
Carter is truely delussional if he thinks ANAYONE wants to hear what he has to say...Not even the Europeans care. They used him as an anti American cudgel to whach America.
Mr. Carter's book has sold nearly all of the 310,000 copies in its initial printing, said Mr. Rosenthal of Simon & Schuster, and the company has since pushed the number in circulation to 675,000. Mr. Carter has had best-selling books before, most notably his 2001 memoir, "An Hour Before Daylight," which sold 300,000 hardcover copies.
I was listening to this song by Randy Travis. This what Danforth and liberals really FEAR!
http://lyrics.duble.com/R/randytravislyrics/randytravisriseandshinelyrics.htm
"Rise and Shine"
A baby in a manger, the town of Bethlehem
The wise men had the heart to know He was the great I Am
They crossed the desert many miles to kneel down at His feet
The star that led them seemed to tell them what had come to be
The Son's gonna rise and shine
Make the lame walk, the deaf talk, and give sight back to the blind.
Bring a light into the darkness no one can deny
As sure as there's a heaven, the Son's gonna rise and shine
At the age of thirty-three, the prophecy fulfilled
On the cross at Calvary His blood for man was spilled
The sky was black as midnight, but 'neath the dark and gloom
Voices rang and angels sang dancing 'round the tomb
The Sons's gonna rise and shine
He'll take away the keys of death, the grave will loose its bind
Hell will be defeated in three days of time
On resurrection morning, the Son's gonna rise and shine
It's been two thousand years, but the story's still the same
For those who will believe in Him and call upon His name
The Son's gonna rise and shine
Heal the sick, raise the dead, the Savior of mankind
The day will soon be dawning will be the end of time
King of kings, Lord of lords, The Son's gonna rise and shine
Jesus, Son of Glory will save your soul and mine
Brother are you ready, the Son's gonna rise and shine.
******
In Our Endangered Values, Carter offers a personal consideration of "moral values" as they relate to the important issues of the day. He puts forward a passionate defense of separation of church and state (I don't remember him complaining about Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, John Kerry campaigning in churches), and a strong warning of where the country is heading as the lines between politics and rigid religious fundamentalism (like abortion & gay marriage) are blurred.
Now, he describes his own involvement and reactions to some disturbing societal trends that have taken place during the last few years. These changes involve both the religious and the political worlds as they have increasingly become intertwined (like having Jesse Jackson "counsel" Bill Clinton during Monicagate while having his own affair), and include some of the most crucial and controversial issues of the day -- frequently encapsulated under "moral values." (oral sex in the oval office doesn't count)
Many of these matters are under fierce debate. They include preemptive war, women's rights (abortion), terrorism, civil liberties (gay marriage), homosexuality, abortion, the death penalty, science and religion, environmental degradation (peanut farming), nuclear arsenals, America's global image (Castro & Chavez, Jimmy's buddies, don't like us), fundamentalism, and the melding of religion and politics (it's only allowed if the left, including Jimmy, does it).
SBC (Southern Baptist Convention) is a primary target of the former president’s harshest criticism in his latest book, “Our Endangered Values.”
Carter’s criticism of the conservative direction of the SBC is longstanding. In 1993, he and his wife publicly announced their allegiance with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (a breakaway group of liberals and moderates, formerly of the SBC but now stridently anti-SBC), and in 2000 he felt compelled to announce with fanfare once again his break with the SBC.
Despite his claim that the other members of his church agree with him about the SBC, his church, Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia, continues to contribute financially to Southern Baptists’ cooperative missions, ministries and theological education.
ON ABORTION:
"I am convinced that every abortion is an unplanned tragedy, brought on by a combination of human errors,” he has stated, adding, “I have never believed that Jesus Christ would approve ... abortions.”
However, his public record doesn’t match his private beliefs.
While governor of Georgia, Carter publicly supported family planning programs that included abortion. Writing the forward, he also endorsed a book titled “Women in Need” advocating a woman’s right to abortion. As president, he organized the White House Conference on Families in 1979, which stated the right to abortion as a national priority. Finally, he hired Sarah Weddington as a White House staffer -- the lead attorney who argued for abortion in Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court case that made abortion legal.
ON HOMOSEXUALITY:
Carter having declared that he personally believes that marriage should be reserved for a man and a woman, while also publicly advocating civil unions for homosexuals.
In 1992, Carter served as the honorary co-chair of the Human Rights Campaign, a homosexual advocacy group. Not surprisingly, he believes that a marriage amendment to the U. S. Constitution is unnecessary. He has stated that homosexuality is a sin, but sees nothing wrong with a “Christian” homosexual being ordained. In fact, he compares the sin with adultery, but forgets that Jesus told the woman caught in adultery, "Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more" (John 8:11, NKJV).
Moreover, he stated to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s general assembly that homosexuality is one of several issues that “in God’s eyes fade into relative insignificance, as did circumcision in the first days of the early church.”
ON THE ORDINATION OF WOMEN:
In Southern Baptist life, only local churches have authority to ordain men and women to church office and the convention has not restricted churches in this action. Based on our understanding of the Bible, the majority of Southern Baptists strongly embrace women in ministry, but reserve pastoral leadership for men. Carter decries this democratically arrived at position as the primary reason he “decided to sever my ties” with the SBC.
ON THE SBC’S RECOGNITION OF THE COMPLIMENTARY ROLES OF HUSBAND AND WIFE:
Carter makes the outlandish claim that by encouraging women to submit to their husband’s "servant leadership," as taught in Scripture, conservative Christians somehow want to subjugate women like those in some Islamic nations.
In the article on the family in the SBC’s statement of faith, he apparently missed the language about “equal worth” of the husband and the wife before God, or the statement that the wife “being in the image of God as is her husband” is “thus equal to him.” He also ignored the charge to husbands that they should love their wives to the point of dying for them as Christ sacrificially loved the Church.
http://tinyurl.com/7bxab
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