As Halloween draws near, ones thoughts turn to things scary, even bizarro.
Like demons.
But for some evangelical Christians, demons stalk us year-round. They believe demons have taken hold of parts of our country, especially Washington, D.C.
O.K… I can live with the D.C. part.
As the recent AP release “Election-year goals of fringe Christian group questioned” points out, some Christian religious leaders, like Lou Engle the leader of The Call prayer marathons, has warned that the tornado that decimated Joplin, Missouri this year was evidence of God’s judgment on the country over…. wait for it…. abortion. Demons are punishing women over choice, so they leveled Joplin.
Say what?
And, Mike Bickle, founder of the International House of Prayer, views the acceptance of same-sex marriage as a sign of the end times. The end times, the favorite theme of the follow-my-nutty-ideas-or-you’ll-burn-in-hell pulpit thumpers (pass the plate).
But here is the creepiest part, these apocalyptic doomsayers were the organizers of GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry’s Houston prayer rally in August, a week before he announced his candidacy. The end of the world is an intense focus of many of the religious leaders involved in the rally.
Now that’s scary.
Actually, Perry should be holding prayer meetings about God’s judgment on Texas, as large parts of that parched state burn like the portal to hell-fires.
But, it isn’t just Perry, as Karl Giberson and Randall Stephens reveal in today’s New York Times editorial, “The Evangelical Rejection of Reason… The Republican presidential field has become a showcase of evangelical anti-intellectualism. Herman Cain, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann deny that climate change is real and caused by humans.” Perry and Bachmann also dismiss evolution as an unproven theory.
Giberson and Stephens expose the anti-intellectual fundamentalist evangelicals who promote (and profit from) the idea that “their country has been overrun by a vast secular conspiracy.”
They point us to the earth-is-10,000-years-old leader, Ken Ham; the-founders-intended-America-to-be-a-Christian-nation, David Barton; and the really scary, gay-people-are-unnatural (and SpongeBob SquarePants promotes gayness), James C. Dobson. They left out the Rev. James Farwell who warned that Teletubby Tinky Winky might be gay. All of this would be funny…. if it wasn’t so relentlessly promoted.
These anti-intellectual scare-mongers want to take over our government…the Tea Party (useful dupes) is wrestling for control of the GOP, and intend to place the evangelical boogie-men’s hand-maiden, or man, in the White House.
Egads!
By the way, no Mormons, i.e., candidates Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman, need apply for evangelical political blessings... they're not real Christians.
“…when the faith of so many Americans becomes an occasion to embrace discredited, ridiculous and even dangerous ideas, we must not be afraid to speak out, even it it means criticizing fellow Christians.” Amen to that!!!
Showing posts with label Rick Perry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rick Perry. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Monday, October 17, 2011
GOP's Anti-Patriotism
Sullivan Ballou was a major in the 2nd Rhode Island Volunteers during the Civil War. He wrote this letter to his wife in Smithfield, 14 July 1861 from Washington, D.C.:
Dear Sarah, The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days, perhaps tomorrow. And lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I am no more.
I have no misgivings about or lack of confidence in the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how American civilization now leans on the triumph of the government and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution. And I am willing, perfectly willing, to lay down all my joys in this life to help maintain this government and to pay that debt.
Sarah, my love for you is deathless. It seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence can break. And yet my love of country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly, with all these chains, to the battlefield.
Sullivan’s letter continues for many paragraphs as he expresses his undying love for his “dear Sarah," his hopes to see “our boys grown up to honorable manhood around us,” and how when his last breath escapes him, "it will whisper your name."
So how do our politicians today uphold this honorable, courageous recognition of the vital role our government plays in the lives of all of us. The recognition that civilization leans on the triumph of the government. The reverence for the great debt we owe to those who went before us? The burning inspiration that together our country can do great things, for and with each other?
Under this noble lens, it's hard to watch the current crop of GOP candidates elbow each other aside in their eagerness to curry favor with the anti-government, pro-corporate me-first Tea Party.
Presidential wanna-be Michelle Bachmann at a Tea Party rally called the current administration a "gangster government,” to great applause, and even claimed in a recent debate that citizens should pay no taxes at all.
The current GOP-majority House blocks job-creating measures intended to lift us out of the financial morass they are largely responsible for under the Bush/Cheney administration. Their constant drum beat is for tax breaks for corporations…. corporations they and the Supreme Court have labeled as “people” with the right to spend unlimited sums of money to buy elections. As GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney said this year at the Iowa State Fair, “Corporations are people, my friend.”
GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry calls the upcoming election a religious crusade to put God in charge of government. God is the cloak scroundels use to mask their raw lusting for the power of the presidency, however unqualified and self-serving. Bible-thumping rheotric designed to obscure their lack of patriotism.
Where are the GOP presidential candidates who will uphold Sullivan Ballou’s honorable, unselfish recognition of the vital role government plays in the lives of all of us?... and the great debt we owe to those who fought and died for this government? Their sacrifice wasn't for corporations.
Sullivan Ballou was mortally wounded at the first Battle of Bull Run a week after he wrote this letter. He was a true patriot… by definition a person who loves, supports, and defends his country and its interests with devotion. It says nothing about slash and burn devisive ideology against his government.
Grand Old Party, where are your Sullivan Ballous?
Dear Sarah, The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days, perhaps tomorrow. And lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I am no more.
I have no misgivings about or lack of confidence in the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how American civilization now leans on the triumph of the government and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution. And I am willing, perfectly willing, to lay down all my joys in this life to help maintain this government and to pay that debt.
Sarah, my love for you is deathless. It seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence can break. And yet my love of country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly, with all these chains, to the battlefield.
Sullivan’s letter continues for many paragraphs as he expresses his undying love for his “dear Sarah," his hopes to see “our boys grown up to honorable manhood around us,” and how when his last breath escapes him, "it will whisper your name."
So how do our politicians today uphold this honorable, courageous recognition of the vital role our government plays in the lives of all of us. The recognition that civilization leans on the triumph of the government. The reverence for the great debt we owe to those who went before us? The burning inspiration that together our country can do great things, for and with each other?
Under this noble lens, it's hard to watch the current crop of GOP candidates elbow each other aside in their eagerness to curry favor with the anti-government, pro-corporate me-first Tea Party.
Presidential wanna-be Michelle Bachmann at a Tea Party rally called the current administration a "gangster government,” to great applause, and even claimed in a recent debate that citizens should pay no taxes at all.
The current GOP-majority House blocks job-creating measures intended to lift us out of the financial morass they are largely responsible for under the Bush/Cheney administration. Their constant drum beat is for tax breaks for corporations…. corporations they and the Supreme Court have labeled as “people” with the right to spend unlimited sums of money to buy elections. As GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney said this year at the Iowa State Fair, “Corporations are people, my friend.”
GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry calls the upcoming election a religious crusade to put God in charge of government. God is the cloak scroundels use to mask their raw lusting for the power of the presidency, however unqualified and self-serving. Bible-thumping rheotric designed to obscure their lack of patriotism.
Where are the GOP presidential candidates who will uphold Sullivan Ballou’s honorable, unselfish recognition of the vital role government plays in the lives of all of us?... and the great debt we owe to those who fought and died for this government? Their sacrifice wasn't for corporations.
Sullivan Ballou was mortally wounded at the first Battle of Bull Run a week after he wrote this letter. He was a true patriot… by definition a person who loves, supports, and defends his country and its interests with devotion. It says nothing about slash and burn devisive ideology against his government.
Grand Old Party, where are your Sullivan Ballous?
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