Posted on 12/18/2004 7:37:17 PM PST by ambrose
I Am A Conservative Christian, And The Religious Right Scares Me, Too
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By Chuck Baldwin
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The Covenant News ~ December 15, 2004 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For those readers who are unfamiliar with my biography, let me here provide a thumbnail sketch of my conservative bona fides:
I attended, graduated, or received degrees from fundamentalist Christian schools such as Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan, Thomas Road Bible Institute (now known as Liberty Bible Institute at Liberty University) in Lynchburg, Virginia, Christian Bible College in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, and Trinity Baptist College in Jacksonville, Florida.
I am currently in my thirtieth year as the Senior Pastor of the Crossroad Baptist Church (Independent) in Pensacola, Florida. I was the Executive Director of the Florida Moral Majority in the early 1980's. I was an active member of the local Christian Coalition.
I have marched and protested against abortion clinics. I have led several pro-life rallies and even led our church to construct A Memorial To Aborted Babies. I have conducted small and large (some drawing crowds numbering in the thousands) pro-life, pro-family rallies and meetings in the Pensacola area and in many towns and cities across the state of Florida.
When Ronald Reagan was running for President, I helped Dr. Jerry Falwell register more than fifty thousand new conservative voters in my state. I have attended White House functions with former President Reagan and former Vice President George H.W. Bush.
I supported and defended Chief Justice Roy Moore and his fight to display a Ten Commandments monument at a pro-Ten Commandments rally in Montgomery, Alabama and even on national television.
I am an annual member of the National Rifle Association and a life member of Gun Owners of America. I have been the featured speaker at several pro-Second Amendment rallies.
No one can honestly question my commitment to pro-life, pro-family, conservative causes. That being said, the Religious Right, as it now exists, scares me.
For one reason, on the whole, the Religious Right has obviously and patently become little more than a propaganda machine for the Republican Party in general and for President G.W. Bush in particular. This is in spite of the fact that both Bush and the Republican Party in Washington, D.C., have routinely ignored and even trampled the very principles which the Religious Right claims to represent.
Therefore, no longer does the Religious Right represent conservative, Christian values. Instead, they represent their own self-serving interests at the expense of those values.
It also appears painfully obvious to me that in order to sit at the king's table, the Religious Right is willing to compromise any principle, no matter how sacred. As such, it has become a hollow movement. Sadly, the Religious Right is now a movement without a cause, except the cause of advancing the Republican Party.
Beyond that, the Religious Right is actively assisting those who would destroy our freedoms. On the whole, the Religious Right comports with those within the Bush administration and within the Republican Party who, in the name of "fighting terrorism," are actually terrorizing constitutional protections of our liberties.
The Religious Right offered virtually no resistance to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the passage of the Patriot Act, or the recently created position of National Intelligence Director. Neither did the Religious Right offer even a whimper of protest as President Bush and Republicans in Congress created a first-ever national ID card in the new intelligence bill, which eerily has more in common with early Twentieth Century German and Russian intelligence institutions than anything envisioned by America's Founding Fathers.
Another disconcerting feature of today's Religious Right is its attempt to Christianize political entities which it supports and to demonize political entities which it opposes. This trend is especially scary.
When people are told that they are voting "Christian" by voting for Republican Party candidates, it is being intimated that they are voting non-Christian by voting for any other candidate. This is not only silly on its face, it is downright dangerous!
I don't remember anyone saying people voted "Christian" when they elected the outspoken Christian candidate, Jimmy Carter, President. Yet, Carter, in his personal life, demonstrated as much, if not more, Christianity than does George W. Bush. If you recall, Carter even taught Sunday School in a Southern Baptist Church while President.
However, in spite of the fact that President Bush and the Republican Party in Washington, D.C., have repeatedly supported copious unchristian (not to mention unconstitutional) programs and policies, Christians act as if Bush and his fellow Republicans have ushered in the Millennial Kingdom.
More than that, the Religious Right appears to believe that G.W. Bush is the anointed vicar of Christ. But instead of wearing the garb of a religious leader, he wears the shroud of a politico and a military commander-in-chief.
As such, in the minds of the Religious Right, Bush's war in Iraq is a holy crusade. America is fast taking on the shape of the old Holy Roman Empire and President Bush is quickly morphing into a modern day Caesar.
The willingness of the Religious Right to give President Bush king-like subservience is easily seen in the way they demonize anyone who dares to oppose him. This is very unnerving.
Are we heading for a modern day religious inquisition, this one led not by the Catholic Church but by the Religious Right? Are we witnessing the type of marriage between Church and State that America's founders originally feared?
I used to believe that liberals were paranoid for being fearful of conservative Christians gaining political power. Now, I share their trepidation.
Of course, the sad truth is, neither George W. Bush nor the Republican Party in Washington, D.C. represents genuine Christian or even conservative principles. If they did, they would take their oaths to the Constitution seriously and then neither liberals nor conservatives would have anything to fear, for the U.S. Constitution protects the rights and freedoms of all men.
Unfortunately, when the seed of Bush's unconstitutional policies come to fruition, it will produce large scale fallout economically, socially, and politically. And sadder still will be that, instead of blaming Bush's infidelity to constitutional government and conservative principles, people will blame Christianity and conservatism itself. The result of this miscalculation will doubtless be a massive tide of support for more and greater unconstitutional government, but only under a different name.
Chuck Baldwin chuck@chuckbaldwinlive.com Chuck Baldwin Live http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com
I just love it when folks with their "progressive" heads up their as*es refer to our fine founding fathers as examples. The founding fathers were about as far to the right as you could get. They were religious, righteous, and certainly not afraid of war. Put George Washington or Sam Adams in line at the next "gay pride" (um - emotional disturbance pride) parade, and find out what they think about it. Bet they'd keel over if they weren't already dead.
I'm not exactly sure what real point Chucky's trying to make because he doesn't seem to know it himself. On the one hand he's afraid of religion/state, and on the other he thinks Bush doesn't take religion seriously enough. Make up your mind, Chucky.
Do we really scare you ambrose?? Our nation was founded by the " religous right"......
Of course, that's what the GOP Establishment wants you to believe, as if we have no other choice....but think about THAT, in & of itself: doesn't that say something is terribly wrong with the way things are going now, if true conservatives have no other place to go? That if we don't follow the Establishment line, that we might as well join the other side because we are helping Michael Moore & Hillary? That excuse is a bunch of BS.
A distressing number of my Christian friends . . . 4 maybe . . . think Chucky poo is right.
It's quite disturbing to me. AT least 2 of them should know better.
The WHOLE is plenty complex with many hidden forces and efforts but I still think that Chucky poo has come down far tooooooo wholesale blind and dismissive of the hideously greater evil on the other side REGARDLESS of whatever hazards are on our side. And I think he's wrong about a lot of those.
NSL's have been used for years. FISA has been overseeing NSL's for years.
-- Peroutka’s running mate, Chuck “Is Bush the Antichrist?” Baldwin.
Are you incapable of discerning my decription of their actions and their lack of knowleged from name calling?
Apparently so.
I know the guy; they don't.
I am operating from an informed point, they aren't. That rather defines their ignorance, doesn't it?
He supports Annan the same way he supported the Assault Weapons Ban renewal.
Say one thing to the press so they can't demagogue an issue, and quietly do the thing they don't want you to do.
Or is that too difficult to comprehend?
I've been to his services. I've talked to him. I've met some of his family. I've seen and heard him in action.
Yeah, sometimes he impresses me. He walks the walk and that makes a lot of freepers nervous. They only wish they could live up to his level of comitment to conservatism instead of merely being republicans floor mats.
Say one thing to the press so they can't demagogue an issue, and quietly do the thing they don't want you to do.
Did that really have to be spelled out to be understood? For some people, I guess it did.
He writes essays, not epics. You really can't expect him to write so that every capricious question you might have is pre answered.
The reality is that principled Conservatives know that he is saying that it is time to hold the Republicans accountable for non Conservative actions.
Pretty simple to see that he thinks that there are those who have traded them for the seat of power they seem to enjoy right now.
The truth is that Baldwin hit what little conscience the party-first Republican 'conservatives' have left; he's intimidating to them. They can't stand it that he is pointing out that selling your soul for the power of this world is rather shallow. And that is what they have done and are doing.
He walks the Conservative walk. That is what bothers conservatives about him.
“Let me be the first one to say it: President Bush is on track to lose in November, and it won't matter who his Democratic opponent is.”
Fringe lunatics, regardless of the point of the compass to which they gravitate, are worrisome. ;~)
CJ, I know that you are among the masters of distortion on FR.
That is not what he said and you know it.
As I said, you are without peer when it comes to distoring someone else's words.
There are some idiots who would rather have Dubya pound his chest and lose than have him keep his mouth shut and win.
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