In Culture War, Newsweek Tells Evangelicals - Bring The Troops Home (Don Feder Alert)

Don Feder.com ^ | 11/27/2006 | Don Feder

[goldstategop]

After decades of excoriating evangelical Christians as bigoted morons, foaming-at-the-mouth fanatics and vile hypocrites -- both sexually-obsessed and sexually-repressed (part Elmer Gantry, part Elmer Fudd) -- the media has hit on a new tactic.

The cover story ("America's God Complex - Like George W. Bush, The Religious Right Is At The Crossroads") in the November 13th Newsweek explains that evangelicals aren't really all that bad - it's just that the poor fools have been duped by the Republican Party, their energies (which should be devoted to more worthwhile endeavors) diverted to sordid politics.

But there's hope that the Bible Belt will come to its senses and abandon Values Voter activism for bake sales - Newsweek discloses.

The publication contrasts such movement icons as Focus on The Family's Dr. James Dobson, with a reputed new breed of evangelical leaders.

One of these young Turks, Adam Hamilton, tells the members of his Leawood, Kansas church, "Our task is not to go around judging people - Jesus didn't do that." Apparently, Pastor Hamilton missed incident with the woman accused of adultery, described in the Gospel of John. Jesus saved her from stoning, then told her to "Go and sin no more." Sin no more? - rather judgmental, wouldn't you say?

Leaders like Dobson, Falwell and Robertson have "lost their focus on the spirit of Jesus and have separated the world into black and white," Hamilton declares. "I can't see Jesus standing with signs at an anti-gay rally."

Nor can one picture Jesus standing with a sign at a pro-life demonstration, an anti-pornography rally or a rally against global warming.

There weren't many leather bars in Jesus' day. In 1st. century Judea, "gay rights" was a non-issue. There also weren't rallies against child sacrifice or ritual prostitution - which the Bible puts in the same category as conduct of the San Fran persuasion.

By the way, only Newsweek could compare a Kansas pastor nobody's ever heard of with a radio psychologist whose voice reaches an estimated 220 million worldwide, as if they represented contending currents within the evangelical movement.

But the (quote, unquote) news magazine moves doggedly forward with its thesis. The "new generation of evangelical believers" is "pressing beyond the religious right of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, trying to broaden the movement's focus from the familiar wars about sex to include issues of social and economic justice."

Feed the homeless and shelter the hungry? Now that's the stuff! Newsweek doesn't understand that it's not a choice of caring for the needy or fighting to save marriage and stop the slaughter in the womb. All are integral aspects of the same ethic.

Since their political awakening in the mid-1970s, while evangelicals worked to end the scourge of abortion and stay the steady march of social decay (the Sodomizing of American culture), they have simultaneously raised billions to fight famine in Africa, build homes for the poor, rehabilitate addicts and provide aid to the most destitute among us.

The religious right's crusade to save the family -- opposition to abortion and so-called same-sex marriage -- might itself be seen as charity. The family is the first and most important social welfare agency.

Functional families raise children who won't end up living on the streets or pregnant and on welfare at age 16. If the left succeeds at destroying the American family, there will be homeless shelters, soup kitchens and rehab centers as far as they eye can see - assuming there's anyone left to man them.

Still, Newsweek rhetorically asks if conservative Christians can "move beyond the apparent confines of the religious right as popularly understood, or are they destined to seem harsh and intolerant - the opposite of what their own faith would have them be?" And, if the latter, will they still beat their wives with worn-out cliches?

According to Newsweek, evangelicals can continue their obsession with abortion and homosexuality, their "God complex" (and thus "seem harsh and intolerant") or repent and adopt an agenda more pleasing to the media elite - "social and economic justice," the Gospel of Gore.

There's a major flaw in this line of reasoning: Whether not evangelicals are prepared to leave politics alone, politics won't leave them alone.

The left is on a mission against God. It correctly perceives Christianity (more broadly, the Judeo-Christian ethic) as the principal obstacle to the attainment of its utopian vision. Thus, it is determined to stigmatize, marginalize and ghettoize Christians - to increasingly circumscribe their influence and to confine their values to a designated building on a chosen day of the week.

The left has declared war on Christians. Even if evangelicals laid down their arms, the fighting would continue. Besides 1.3 million abortions a year in this country, and the relentless push for gay marriage (mandated by an imperial judiciary) the left is:

* Sexualizing children (including those from Christian families) in the guise of sex education - teaching teen-aged girls to put condoms on bananas and offering how-to training on acts the average prostitute would refuse to perform

* Teaching kids (starting in kindergarten) that homosexuality is a normal, healthy and perfectly acceptable lifestyle. Try it; you'll like it.

* Distributing condoms to adolescents

* Working to ensure that 14-year-old girls can get an abortion without the knowledge - let alone the consent - of their parents

* Pushing taxpayer-funded embryonic stem-cell research - cloning-to-kill

* Moving toward assisted suicide and euthanasia

* Fighting any attempt to counter the torrent of filth and graphic violence pouring out of Hollywood to inundate the nation in visual sewage

* Using the news and entertainment media to demonize Christians - hence movies like "V for Vendetta," "Saved" and "The DaVinci Code" - ergo smears like talk-show host Rosie O'Donnell's recent charge that "Radical (Bible-believing) Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like the United States"

* Passing hate crimes laws which will criminalize speech - especially speech that's critical of homosexuality

* Getting Christian groups thrown off college campuses because they're "non-inclusive" - i.e., won't allow homosexuals in leadership positions

* Laboring diligently to keep our borders open and pass another amnesty -- thus facilitating new waves of illegal immigration with the ultimate goal of deconstructing America

* Purging the public sector of religious manifestations, including banning stand-alone Ten Commandments displays and removing "One nation under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance

* Working to adopt an anti-terrorism policy which will consist of sensitivity training, multiculturalism and inculcating an appreciation for the religion of peace.

* Assuring the eventual destruction of Israel with a Palestinian state

* Undermining democracy. Replacing popular sovereignty with judicial autocracy - making elections irrelevant. Having civilizational issues like the definition of marriage decided by unelected officials, answerable to no one - a law (pardon the pun) unto themselves.

A November 17th Associated Press story ("Liberals Aim To Ram Measures Past Congress") is coming attractions for a horror movie of epic proportions -- "Nightmare On Capitol Hill".

AP reports: "After years of playing defense, liberal advocacy groups see the Democrats' takeover of Congress as a long-awaited chance to convert some of their broader goals into law. Their wish list includes workplace protections for gays, a broader hate-crimes law, and a multi-pronged push to reduce unplanned pregnancies" - that is to say: forcing religious employers to hire flaming homosexuals (and provide benefits for their same-sex partners), repealing the First Amendment (at least as far as criticism of buggery is concerned) and eliminating the modest restrictions on abortion we've worked so hard to achieve (like the federal ban of partial-birth abortion and Unborn Victims of Violence Act).

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council summed it up nicely in a National Review piece, "Anticipate the fiercest assault of our time against abstinence, marriage, life, good judges and religious freedom."

Is this a fight evangelical Christians want to abandon? Is it a fight they can afford to abandon?

Here, the left-wing media is playing the part of Tokyo Rose ("Go home, evangelical Christians. This isn't your fight. You can't win," etc. etc.)

Conservative Christians aren't buying it. As much as anyone, they know what's at stake here - only everything.

[goldstategop]

Don't be fooled by Newsweek's exhortation to social conservatives to surrender in the culture war. The Left is going to continue its relentless push to drive God out of public life, undermine the family, promote secularism in the place of traditional values and deconstruct America out of existence. For those who care about the Judeo-Christian ethic, there is too much at stake to ever bring the troops home.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[2banana]

Like - who reads "Newsweek" anymore? Even die-hard liberals I know don't even read it. An who, in the age of the internet, wants to read news that is 1 week old?

[L98Fiero]

My standard Newsweek post:

"Newsweek? Not in this house!" -Hank Hill

Hotel chains buy Newsweek. Every Marriott I've ever been in had it in the room right along side USA Today.

[Mamzelle]

re: And, if the latter, will they still beat their wives with worn-out cliches?)))

LOL--nice.

[Dilbert San Diego]

How Freakin' condescending can they be.

This is the same mentality of the dude who wrote that book "What's the Matter With Kansas", which talked about how "middle America" didn't vote correctly. That book talked about how the poor rubes out there didn't really understand the issues, didn't really vote for their own economic interests when they have been voting.

So now we're going to say that the religious oriented voters aren't looking at things properly? They should pray in church and not be involved in the larger world at all?


So condescending for some ivory tower elite who publish Newsweek magazine to tell someone what the criteria are in the political world and what issues belong in politics and which don't.

Does Newsweek take the editorial stance that homosexuals should stay out of court and stop trying to push homosexual marriage? Does Newsweek think that the gay community should hang out in the Castro and other such neighborhoods around the country and not try to affect the larger culture? That's similar to what they are trying to say to church going people by saying they should get out of politics.

[goldstategop]

They are liberals. They make the rules and every one else has to follow them. They believe they are a self-annointed elite and what will come out next year is their complete condescension and contempt for those they perceive as standing in the way of utopia. That's who they are.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[Blue_Ridge_Mtn_Geek]

I'm not sure why the heading has "Don Feder" alert. Seems to me that Don has nailed Newsweek's condescending, "secular journalist from another planet" article pretty accurately.

[Mamzelle]

re: How Freakin' condescending can they be. )))

If you've been reading Nat'l Review Online for years, as I have--the elites on our side of the aisle can be just as patronizing, unfortunately . The conservative publications do not have any evangelicals on their mastheads, although they send out Stanley O'Livingstein now and then out to the Deepest Darkest South to do a number on the primitives...

The left is testing the waters. They want the religious right to know that the Republicans are not-so-secretly ashamed of them. It's a very smart move. The bluebloods have always been embarrassed by the Joe Sixpacks.

[spintreebob]

I'm confused. Does the radical religious right control the GOP? Or does the GOP control the radical religious rihgt? Now, if they were the same people, would that be self-control?

[gusopol3]

we've just been handed the greatest box of ammunition to fire at leftist thugs that one could ever hope for. Time to make some noise. ( I think WSJ opinion articles are available the following day at the link, without subscriber registry; Brooks' book is finally out and WSJ ran piece by him todaythat is positively devastating to the character and motivations of the left-- to put it succinctly,
Democrats truly are the PARTY OF ENVY): http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1744484/posts?page=1

[Chewie84]

'One of these young Turks, Adam Hamilton, tells the members of his Leawood, Kansas church, "Our task is not to go around judging people - Jesus didn't do that." Apparently, Pastor Hamilton missed incident with the woman accused of adultery, described in the Gospel of John.'

Also, Jesus exposing the Pharisees for the hypocrites that they were.

'Newsweek doesn't understand that it's not a choice of caring for the needy or fighting to save marriage and stop the slaughter in the womb. All are integral aspects of the same ethic.'

Exactly!

I'd say what the article discusses is almost certainly the strategy for Newsweek (And the Left as a whole). They know that most of what their agenda promotes are things that evangelicals oppose. So, if they can't silence the opposition, they'll have to rely on Plan B.: Try and trick them into shifting their focus elsewhere.

[AHerald]

A link to the book at Amazon:

Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth about Compassionate Conservatism

[AHerald]

Oops. My post #12 probably makes no sense to you, goldstate, since it doesn't relate directly to your article. I was posting a link in reference to gusopo13's post regarding the Brooks' book and mistakenly aimed it at you.

[gusopol3]

Thanks; I'll order from Amazon if not available at Borders- I like to browse a bit before I buy.

[Joseph DeMaistre]

During the French Revolution Christians were slaughtered, churches were closed and Christian morality was mocked, blasphemy became mandatory, etc. The Left, in recent years, has begun looking more and more like the bigoted French Revolutionaries of 200 years ago. If they had their way Christians would be stripped of their citizenship, churches would be closed, etc. If we don't take a stand against the anticlericalism of the Democratic Party, then we deserve what we get. The Democrats are the party of hate today, and they are the party of the French Revolution, not the American Revolution. I know for a fact that my French Catholic ancestors suffered horribly for their fidelity during the French Revolution. Alexander Hamilton contrasted the French Revolution with the American Revolution in a 1794 letter. "It is not among the least perplexing phenomena of the present times, that a people like that of the United States—exemplary for humanity and moderation surpassed by no other in the love of order and a knowledge of the true principles of liberty, distinguished for purity of morals and a just reverence for Religion should so long persevere in partiality for a state of things the most cruel sanguinary and violent that ever stained the annals of mankind, a state of things which annihilates the foundations of social order and true liberty, confounds all moral distinctions and substitutes to the mild & beneficent religion of the Gospel a gloomy, persecuting and desolating atheism." Take a stand against anticlerical bigotry and call it what it is: HATE.

[DeweyCA]

The left is on a mission against God. It correctly perceives Christianity (more broadly, the Judeo-Christian ethic) as the principal obstacle to the attainment of its utopian vision. Thus, it is determined to stigmatize, marginalize and ghettoize Christians - to increasingly circumscribe their influence and to confine their values to a designated building on a chosen day of the week.

If the Let could get away with censoring us, or bannin us completely, they would do it. They hate the fact that we still the right to free speech and to vote. They will do all they can to marginalize us and our power.

[Giant Conservative]

It correctly perceives Christianity (more broadly, the Judeo-Christian ethic) as the principal obstacle to the attainment of its utopian vision.

Christianity never needs to be hyphenated.