Blab It, Grab It: Why Evangelicals are Finally as Mad as Hell
John McCain is walking into the buzzsaw of denouncing the evangelical community again. Walking away this time is going to be more difficult than McCain anticipates, because true believers are finally as mad as hell.
It's been a slow build including Ralph Reed and the Native American casinos; Rudy Giuliani endorsed by Pat Robertson then losing the primaries over his mistress' police car cab rides; the Heritage Foundation think tank wrong on every aspect of the war; graduates of Robertson's law school propping up Alberto Gonzalez before he had to resign, and Ted Haggart out of the closet.
In the last month, Barack Obama has backed away from some of his pastor's views, and James Carville has compared Governor Bill Richardson to Judas but none of that compares to how often evangelicals are denounced when they are no longer politically expedient. McCain was comfortable throwing Jerry Falwell and Bob Jones University under the bus until it cost him a presidential election. Now that he's in the ranks of the religious right, here's what he needs to know: You can pretend to be evangelical if you're not, but the true believers will eventually cast you out like babies pitched over the wall as in Old Testament Shibboleth.
I was raised evangelical, with devout parents and a father who traveled the world with mission work. We heard most rock songs backwards before hearing them like you did, so as to pick out the telltale "natas." You'd be surprised how many words sound like satan if that's what someone's listening for. It's hard to walk away from a lifetime of conditioning. So as McCain dimes out Hagee, Robertson and the rest after soliciting their endorsement, the community he's denouncing has one belief: everything in the King James Bible is true. Healing, prophecies, end times and speaking in tongues. And if you're not with them, enjoy the eternal lake of fire because that's where you're going, my friend.
It's a hard denomination to categorize because evangelicals worship in storefronts, megachurches, abandoned movie theatres and everything in between. The fact that they're so invested in believing makes it all the more difficult for them to stomach McCain seeking their endorsement only to dump them for the Catholic Church controversy. It's built into the religion. I know now that it's wrong, but there were murmurs of, "Why are there so many Catholic orphanages? All those priests and nuns," as far back as I can remember.
In the heartland, our communion was Saltine crackers and grape juice. I didn't attend a Mass until my late teens, and thought that after one sip of wine I was probably drunk. It's farm country, and it is full of voters who are tired of being a joke behind closed doors after their votes are counted.
Church youth groups now volunteering to clean up New Orleans are coming home to ask their parents why their political party has no plans to ensure that America's next infrastructure victims won't be subjected to a similar Homeland Security implosion.
Meanwhile, Oral Roberts, Jr. has stepped down because the evangelical "name it claim it" theory (the richer you are, the more god loves you) is under IRS investigation in case grassroots donors did not know they were buying private jets for pastors who wield political influence. Hagee hasn't been busted yet, but eventually it won't pass the smell test when the congregation becomes as poor as the pastor is rich.
As kids we called it the "blab it, grab it" theory. That still seems to hold.
Follow Karen Dalton-Beninato on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kbeninato
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Hey Karen, I almost went to Bob Jones. Whew! I'm in music too (...hmmmm:
Why can we not have true separation of church and state by rounding up all these "God'People", put them on a boat (or ark) and send them aaaallll back to the Holy Land so they can work it out amongst themselves
Thanks Grrrl,
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Whatever. I'll believe it when I see it. Another evangelical tradition is threatening to withhold their votes unless the candidate stops playing lip service and gets serious about their issues. Then trudging to the polls in November to vote Republican. Rinse, repeat, every two years. Want to know why Republicans take evangelicals for granted?
Because they can. Evangelical issues won't play well with the general electorate, so if a politician has to decide between angering a group of voters who actually will vote against him for it and evangelicals, it's an easy equation: you jettison the people who pay lip service to their threats and fold when it counts.
Dobson's talking a pretty good game right now, and "courageously" refusing to endorse McCain.
But I--and I'm sure John McCain as well--feel comfortable predicting that, come November, he and his followers will quietly file into their voting booths.
And won't be voting Democrat.
The radical religious right is incensed because they're losing the seat at the table they thought they had. Now they'll have to go back to winning their converts the old fashioned way, instead of getting government to impose their beliefs on all people.
What's the old-fashioned way? Hint - remember the Christian song, "They'll know that we're Christians by our love . . ." It's a lot more difficult than forcing certain textbooks on schoolchildren . . .
And a lot more difficult than using tax money to buy votes through "Faith-bas
Evangelicals are committed to hierarchical paternalism. God tells the leader, the leader tells the pastor, the pastor tells the fathers, the fathers tell the family what to do. Evangelicals spend large chunks of the time they invest in indoctrinating their flock to actively teaching them not to think for themselves. Consequently, no one gives a damn what they "think", because only the leaders have any influence on what they "think".
Evangelicals are mad as hell? Tough. They have been in the vanguard on every horrible Bush initiative, and no one has any respect for their idiot opinions anymore except themselves. We could almost run this nation successfully by taking the evangelical position on every issue and reversing it. Evangelicals are fools. They have no influence with anybody except to repulse those of us who are capable of thinking.
I have found evangelicals, that I have encounterd, that have proclaimed it to me, (wear it on their sleeve) are some of the meanest people you want to meet. They were soo wrong about supporting the republican party (does god forgive blindness?) Sadly, I have kept my children away from the church. I believe they have done more to hurt christianity by mixing politics and religion, than any single group in the last 50 years.
They do not think they've been "had" by Jesus, they think they've been had by Bush.
Most of them voted for Huckabee, but the PTB, including "powerful evangelical leaders" would not endorse him for fear of losing their economic hegemony. Except for Falwell's heir, who did endorse him.
"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise
- James Madison
"Ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption, all of which facilitate the execution of mischievous projects."
- James Madison
"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."
- Thomas Jefferson
"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot.... they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer engine for their purpose."
- Thomas Jefferson
"...religi
- Thomas Jefferson
Outstanding reply, thanks for those quotes.
And I'm so glad someone else remembers El Kabong!
and Bobbaloo, too!
"I'll do the thinnin' around here, and dooooon't you for-get it."
Amen
Too bad anyone has to "pander" to any religious group to begin with. I have not seen any evidence from any religious group that they are about anything other than power and money. Why does your church support killing? That's not what Christ taught. Shame on you for using the Lord's name for political and monetary gain! Hypocrisy is what he preached against. He taught justice. That's never what evangelicalism was about.
Whatever.
Liberals have values too:
Promote peace. Matthew 5:9
Help the poor. Isiah 10:1
Protect God's creation. Genesis 2:15
I'm so sick of this tripe. Whatever happened to separation of church & state?
God abandonded the human race on a rock in the middle of no where so we can not infect the universe.
with one million dead in iraq, two million displaced and 20% of iraqi children now orphaned, the evangelical movement has alot to answer for. I pray for their souls.
I do not.
Bow down now to The Great Potato you heathens or perish forever at Dennys!
I've never figured out why so many people seem to need validation of their faith from the government.
When you are as paranoid and institutionally insecure as these people are, you seek validation everywhere
I have no sympathy for ministers who abuse the pulpit over politics.
None.
Zip.
Zero.
You people are too slow, gullible, unexposed to different viewpoints, and naive.
You're only realizing NOW that your religion has been hijacked by war-mongering, money-grubbing, hypocritical, hate-mongers?
And you're "mad as Hell" about it, yet Yeshua preached peace. Weird.
Learn critical thinking, please, and teach it to the other evangelicals.
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