Why the Christian Right Becomes More Extreme As America Grows More Tolerant

[MountainLaurel]

This made more sense than anything else I've read lately on the topic. Funny how a Brit has more insight into the U.S. than many national commentators.

The rigidity of Christian Right politics has been a complicating factor in governing the United States for the past several decades, stripping away flexibility needed to negotiate on issues as diverse as policies in the Middle East, abortion, health care and the federal budget.

Gone is the more practical approach of assessing government actions based on what might help the country the most – and compromising with those who have differing opinions. Everything, it seems, gets measured by some Christian fundamentalist yardstick of what’s right and wrong.

Adding to this religious style of politics has been a deep sense of victimhood among right-wing Evangelicals, as if Christians were some persecuted minority in the United States, threatened by all-powerful Muslims imposing Sharia law or secular humanists banning Christmas.

Repeated endlessly on right-wing talk radio, these paranoid messages have become real to millions of these religiously inspired voters. So, political adversaries must not only be bested, but crushed. After all, they represent strategies of the anti-Christ.

http://www.alternet.org/belief/151766/why_the_christian_right_becomes_more_extreme_as_america_grows_more_tolerant?page=entire

[HockeyMom]

1. They are losing control from the pulpits

so they are trying to LEGISLATE their existence back into society.

[FiveGoodMen]

2. Let me tell you about the Xtian Right

Satan kicked them out for not meeting Hell's minimal standards of decency.

[3waygeek]

4. Or as someone smarter than I put it...

the Christian Right is neither.

[RKP5637]

3. Very interesting! Thanks for posting! n/t

[kestrel91316]

5. Religious and social tolerance = persecution to the christofascists.

[bigmonkey]

6. As a corollary, lying to the "devil' is no sin.

That's why they have no trouble making things up. Their hypocrisy is irrelevant, because only the devil (the liberals, the communists, the Catholics, whoever) would object to a true believer using every possible means to defeat the "enemy of mankind". Christofascists forgive one another immediately for this kind of "sin" because they all feel they're on the same, hard-pressed, righteous side.

[TalkingDog]

7. Actually the book "The 4th Turning" predicted this exact scenario

and for similar reasons. It's part of a sociological cycle.


Written about the coming (now current) era of cultural and ideological partisanship:

‎"An impasse over the federal budget reaches a stalemate. The president and Congress both refuse to back down, triggering a near-total government shutdown. The president declares emergency powers. Congress rescinds his authority. Dollar and bond prices plummet. The president threatens to stop Social Security checks. Congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling. Default looms. Wall Street panics."

http://www.fourthturning.com/


I ran across it a few years ago, so none of this is horribly surprising; just sad.