Via Greater Metropolitan Rainforest - a post on Christian Fascism. It gives me hope.
I think all movements have their time, and I think the time for this particular movement is already winding down. Religion will always be with us, and I think that a certain spiritual revival will be consistent in this country but that people will eventually embrace more positive aspects of their faith, or drop out completely. I think the megachurch leaders are their own worst enemies; that much money and power flowing through them is inherently corrupting.
"winding down" - I like the thought.
Greater Metropolitan Rainforest is posting on another great article, The Radical Christian Right is Built on Suburban Despair by Chris Hedges.
Millions of Americans live trapped in soulless exurbs which lack any kind of community, leaving them feeling isolated and vulnerable. Without alternatives for their social despair, they flock to demagogues promising revenge and a mythical utopia.
I like the premise that what drives the Christian Right is despair. It helps explain the hate.
They hated this world. And they willingly walked out on this world for the mythical world offered by these radical preachers, a world of magic, a world where God had a divine plan for them and intervened on a daily basis to protect them and perform miracles in their lives. The rage many expressed to me towards those who challenge this belief system, to those of us who do not accept that everything in the world came into being during a single week 6,000 years ago because it says so in the Bible, was a rage born of fear, the fear of being plunged back into a reality-based world where these magical props would no longer exist, where they would once again be adrift, abandoned and alone.
Chris Hedges is the author of American Fascists, The Christian Right and the War on America. A book on my reading list (which is 20 books long at the moment).
Metafilter has a thread tracking Chris's article. I'm a big fan of Metafilter, but I have a problem with some of the nutball liberals. They tend to post some bizarre stuff.
Hedges has some interesting things to say.
ReplyDeleteHow exactly a Christian can rationalize fascism, which is elitist by definition, with the teaching of JC, must involve a major blind side. Course most of them only use scripture in service of ideology.