Frank Schaeffer: Right-Wing Hatemongering Fueled by Christianity?

[marmar]

Right-Wing Hatemongering Fueled by Christianity?

By Frank Schaeffer, AlterNet. Posted September 21, 2009.

The ugly side of Evangelical Christianity is very much to blame for the anti-Obama hyperventilating.



Former president Jimmy Carter went on the record to point out that he believes that racism is at the heart of the great deal of the extreme animosity being leveled at President Obama (NBC News September 15). Carter identified himself as a Southerner with an insider's understanding. There's something he didn't mention however: the special culpability of his own religion -- Evangelical Christianity -- for the anti-Obama hyperventilating and furious reaction to our first black president. And that reaction has less to do with race and more to do with the ugliest side of religion.

The fact is that if you're going to blame one group above all others for the willful ignorance and continuing ugliness of the response to President Obama the best candidate would be the evangelical/fundamentalist community. The angry part of the South Carter spoke of is racist because it's dominated by a certain type of "Christian" culture.

Since Carter is also an evangelical Christian (as well as a Southerner) he would have done well to use his evangelical insider status to point to not just racism but to scream bloody murder about a bigger problem today: the hijacking of Christianity as the source of the hate and anger directed against all things "other" by a vocal (and health care lobby-organized and funded) angry minority of voters who are poisoning the American body.

American Christianity Is At The Heart Of Our Worst Problems

Are the New Atheists leading us to enlightenment? The problem with the recent New Atheist attacks on Christianity is that they mirror the hostility of the evangelical/fundamentalist subculture toward the secular society that it so disdains. The real answer to the question; "Can Christianity be saved from the Christians?" is not going to be found coming from people like Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris et al. Instead that answer may be found in the life and work of Christians such as former president Jimmy Carter, President Obama, the late writer John Updike, and other public figures from Desmond Tutu to Nelson Mandela who's faith can be taken seriously because of the moral authority given them by their achievements outside the realm of theology. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/story/142755/right-wing_hatemongering_fueled_by_christianity

[patrice]

1. Many churches are mutual admiration societies within the middle-class equivalent to a country-club

One stop shopping for social entertainment, fun, someone to mind the kids, and feeling better about who you are and what you are doing.

[soonerliberlmom]

2. Nail on the Head

Right-Wing Hatemongering Fueled by Christianity?  so true. 
not much more can better explain it.

[OneGrassRoot]

3. I agree. Welcome to DU!

:hi:

[KittyWampus]

10. I don't think Christianity is fueling hatemongering. It's one of several delivery systems.

It's a channel, not the poison or the poisoner.

[HowHasItComeToThis]

4. YOU BET'CHA TO BE SO GOOD THERE MUST BE BAD GUYS

[tridim]

5. In other words, they're clinging to religion and guns.

And both are making them be afraid.

[Better Today]

6. They fuel each other in a truly sick synergy.

[calimary]

7. Well, extremist fundamentalism has certainly set us back in schools -

what with all the people who now believe the earth is less than 10,000 years old. GOTTA teach that biblical stuff in science class, don't we? MSNBC even had an author on this morning with a book about it - but they hardly touched upon that particular aspect of how this 13th-Century mindset is infiltrating and infecting our schools. The book's author's premise is that we as a nation will be unable to compete with the rest of the world if we're "educating" our next generations like this.

These neanderthals won't be happy until they've pulled us back at least 200 years. Hard to say which "taliban" is worse - the radical Islamics' or our domestic evangelical version.

[PVnRT]

8. OOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH This'll be fun

:popcorn:

[thereismore]

9. Wow, Frank is really anti-evangelical now. His dad did a great job! nt