A Nation Under God (Lib's view)

Mother Jones ^ | Jan 2006 | John Sugg

[isaiah55version11_0]

TRINITY CHAPEL in suburban Atlanta’s Cobb County is hardly the picture of a revolutionary outpost. It’s a stylishly modern Church of God—a denomination that, though conservative, is certainly mainstream. Parishioners are drawn from a community whose average income is a comfortable 35 percent above the national norm, whose tree-lined country roads intersect McMansion subdivisions....Reconstruction—an obscure but increasingly potent theology whose top exponents hold that Christian crusaders must conquer and convert the world, by the sword if necessary, before Jesus will return....Reconstruction has slowly absorbed, congregation by congregation, the conservative Presbyterian Church in America (not to be confused with the progressive Presbyterian Church [USA]) and has heavily influenced others, notably the Southern Baptists.

[isaiah55version11_0]

Such an artful tapestry of fact, fiction, paranoia, and general confusion. Clearly the libs get the best drugs.

[Chanticleer]

Truly. I'd like to address that convoluted mess, but where do you start?

[sure_fine]

[Alex Murphy]

Reconstruction—an obscure but increasingly potent theology whose top exponents hold that Christian crusaders must conquer and convert the world, by the sword if necessary, before Jesus will return....

Like you said, Isaiah, "such an artful tapesty of fact, fiction, paranoia, and confusion."

[Chanticleer]

I don't know much about these "Reconstructionists," but I see a lot of good being included with the bad. Francis Shaeffer was a brilliant theologian. It seems that the word may become a Christian equivalent to Neocon -- a scary word meant to defame a group without sounding bigoted.

[Jacquerie]

This article serves to reinforce northeast, urban, liberal fear of southern Christians. Anyone who places their trust in God rather than the state cannot be a leftist. Therefore we are their enemy.

All we want to do is save our long held traditions of local government and public expression of faith in any public institution we choose. This country never came close to a theocracy in the first 200 years of unrestricted religious freedom. The liberal fear of religion is not fear of theocracy, that is an excuse. Their concern is that faith in God precludes faith in the federal government.

[isaiah55version11_0]

Not directly your normal topic, but I thought you would like this.

[wallcrawlr]

Well, it certainly was an entertaining read.

In this worldview, the mandate for Christians is not just to live right or to help their neighbors: They are called upon to take over or eliminate the institutions of secular government.

I seriously find it difficult to understand how the same churches that split over what color the carpet is in the sanctuary are organized enough to take over the government.

This should be unbiased:

John Sugg: He is at work on a book on the history of the antievolution movement in Georgia.