Posted on 06/28/2005 9:19:57 AM PDT by voletti
THIS week, for the fourth year in a row, President George Bush broke from affairs of state to address the Southern Baptist Convention. He promised the strict evangelical group, which has 16m members, that he would work hard to ban gay marriage and abortion, and that their “family values” were his values, too.
In the 1960s, many liberal Americans thought they had banned religion from the public square for good. Yet nowadays the president, the secretary of state and the House speaker accept the evangelical label. A packed prayer breakfast takes place every Thursday in Congress. And liberals regularly contend that one of America's two great parties is bent on creating a theocracy—backed by a solid core of somewhere between a quarter and a third of the population.
Why is the religious right as powerful as it is? The question puzzles even Americans. Their country, as a whole, is not getting more religious. The gap between it and European countries has increased, but largely because of Europe's growing godlessness. Most Americans say that religion is very important (60%) or fairly important (26%) in their lives, but Karlyn Bowman, a polling analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, points out that the figures were 75% and 20% in 1952.
What has changed is, first, the make-up of Protestant America and, second, the realignment of religious America's politics. The generally liberal mainline churches have declined, while harder outfits like the Southern Baptists have spurted forward. White evangelicals, who see the Bible as the literal truth (or darned close to it), now make up 26% of the population.
It is not just a matter of numbers but of confidence. Born-again Christians are no longer rural hicks; they are richer and better educated than the average American.
(Excerpt) Read more at economist.com ...
Thanks for that factoid. Perhaps I was mistaken.
???????? I don't know what you mean. Anyway, the notion here that Protestants somehow don't gamble is ABSURD. Visit any casino. PLENTY of Protestants there (including Southern Baptists) gamble. In fact the Redneck type guy wearing a cowboy hat is a well known type that gambles. Am I living in some sort of parallel universe where folks here actually believe that Protestants don't gamble? If so, then the casinos would go broke tomorrow.
I don't think there is a single state where Baptists comprise a majority of the population, they may be the largest denomination, but they don't constitute an outright majority.
Southern and Baptist are not co-equal terms. The Methodists are the other predominant Southern Protestant faith, and it is from the Methodists that you find more adherents of the "redneck" culture, not to mention, much of the political leadership.
"Harry Truman was both a Southern Baptist AND a poker player"
He was also a Freemason, and he was from Kansas City, a city where I'm guessing, you didn't have a real thriving "Baptist" culture (in the sense that Southerners use the word "Baptist") He was also a member of the Pendergast machine, which specifically fought the Klan, which at the time, had a very high Evangelical membership.
Not in English. And I'm not aware of any other language where the word for wine can also mean grape juice.
Are they saved? Scripture would say "yes." It never ceases to amaze me that the bulk of Paul's writings in the epistles is to correct error and questionable behavior, and yet he still refers to them as "saints" and "brethren."
Once again, people from large metropolitan areas in the South, heavy emphasis on Jackson, Mobile, New Orleans, Pensacola.
Not to mention that almost everyone who is anyone in country music has done a show on the Biloxi strip in the last 10 years, Leno makes regular appearances at the Beau Rivage.
In general, the kind of fundamentalists who believe that "secular" radio is evil are likely to not be amongst the patrons of Beach Boulevard.
I think the notion of gambling as a sin kicked in around Cromwell's time. Back then even watching Shakespearean plays was considered a sin. It's more of a Roundhead notion than anything Biblical. This reminds me of a friend of mine from Colombia who doesn't drink coffee. The notion of a Colombian not drinking coffee struck me as absurd so I questioned him about this and he respond because he is a believer in the Bible. So I asked him what section of the Bible prohibits coffee drinking since coffee as a drink wasn't around until about a millenium after the Bible was finished. So the Colombian said it was more of a matter of not taking chances . Huh? Well, I guess you could say the same about gambling. Not specifically prohibited but somehow it just doesn't feel right. Now I admit there are a lot of folks who shouldn't gamble because they are compulsive (like a guy I knew whose house was constantly filled with lottery tickets) but to take part at a game of chance where you don't risk your whole life savings...what's the problem?
Send me a private reply and we'll discuss some problems with the NIV.
well we SHOULD stick to KJV, everyone knows God spake directly to the prophets, apostles, and all in KJV.
What's changed is.....the secularists. They once cared about the the medical fact that in a late-term abortion, a child, at a stage highly sensitive to pain, is put through a brutalising agony.
What's changed is......secularists have embarked on a campaign to radically redefine "family" and "marriage" so that they are evacuated of their previous, meileenia-old meaning.
That this writer wonders about such thinks demonstrates a complete ignorance of social (and religious) history.
No, you back up your statement that Jesus drank wine.
I guess as long as they are struggling for the right reason - YES? In God's eye that is no different than my sturggling with a foul mouth or urges that I don't care to discuss here.
Hey, I saved, not perfect!
Or, His drinking fermented wine would have brought corruption to his sinless blood.
Um, no. Truman was from Independence, MO.. But wait!!! You say Truman was a (GASP!) Freemason??? Tell me it's NOT true! That would have put him in league with the Devil...along with those other Freemasons such as George Washington, Franklin, and MOST of the Founding Fathers. Dig up the base of the Capitol! It is known that Washington placed a Freemason symbol there!!!!
"Wine," in the English language certainly can refer to unfermented juices as well as fermented. Check the 1828 Noah Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language and the 1913 Merriam Webster's New International.
Luke 7 33-34 NAB
For John the Baptist came neither eating food nor drinking wine and you said "He is possessed by a demon". The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you said "Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners."
We can't conclude that Jesus ate olives, either, since, AFAIK, that is not mentioned in the Bible.
However, Jesus lived in a time and place where wine, fish and olives were staple foods. Is it possible he never partook of these foodstuffs? Sure. But it would be highly incongruous, like Jesus not wearing sandals.
Hmmm. Religious Right is fighting to make sure you still have the right to mention G-d if you want to.
Atheistic Left is fighting to make sure you don't have the right to say homosexuality is sinful if you want to.
Does the term "backlash" come to mind?
Just out of curiosity, which group seems more dangerous - the one that wants to curb your rights or the one that wants to maintain them?
Shalom.
The KJ Bible is the simplest Bible for children to read and memorize. It has been analyzed to have a 6th grade reading level. The NIV has almost a 9th grade reading level.
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