The Super Tuesday Southern Surge for Mike Huckabee may have surprised media talking heads, but it came as no great shock to those of us who live in the South. Old Time Religion resonates down here and a candidate who says he wants to amend the Constitution to ensure that hallowed document is more Southern Baptist Bible-friendly doesn't scare most of us one little bit. He's apt to hear a rousing "Hallelujah Chorus" come primary day.
Many super-conservative Southerners want their government to Get Right With God (that'll solve everything) and there's only one way to do it. They're not alone. Evangelicals and religious fundamentalists nationwide have been wooed and won by the far right. Conventional wisdom? They're all alike. They're a voting bloc as solid as the Berlin Wall. Or they were. Outside the deep South the Ultra-conservative Christian Wall is being dismantled in much the same way as the communist one was-- brick by brick. And not by some external, atheist liberal insurgency, but by committed believers who see a broader, more tolerant, more inclusive vision of the Christian ethic.
There is a quiet Christian revolution underway. It's not some brand-spanking new pop-culture fad. The movement is decades old, a force of faith arguing for reason, for peace, for commitment to addressing the needs of "The least of these..." both here and abroad. These evangelicals do not want an American Theocracy. They are not interested in power politics or photo-ops in the Oval Office. These evangelicals see war, genocide, poverty, disease, illiteracy, intolerance and greed as the primary evils loose in a suffering world. Led by progressive Christians like Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo, this burgeoning faith-based group has kinder, gentler priorities.They work in concert with like-minded people of all faiths, Christian and non-Christian, for social justice. They're a growing movement and they've got momentum.
What they haven't got is the kind of rapt attention the MSM has given the rabid religious right. Why? They're boring. Their leadership is not given to outrageous pronouncements like "We ought to take out Chavez and Ariel Sharon had it coming" Pat Robertson or "You can blame homosexuals, feminists and abortionists for 9/11" Jerry Falwell. When Tony Campolo said "Mixing religion and politics is like putting together ice cream and horse manure. It doesn't hurt the horse manure, but it ruins the ice cream", the media yawned. There's no percentage in covering the rational, reasonable Christian when the other guy is hollering hellfire, brimstone, divine retribution and the occasional political assassination.
The old school ultra-conservative evangelicals/fundamentalists successfully narrowed the entire moral universe to a single, hot-button battleground where the enemies were gays, lesbians, desperate women and the families of those stricken by catastrophic illness with no hope of ever recovering. Pro-family meant only one kind of family--their own. Pro-life did not extend to protesting the commission of an immoral war for oil in which hundreds of thousands die, are maimed, are orphaned, are displaced. Too many of them innocent babies and small children. These Iraqi little ones are, according to a fifty-something year old South Carolina dyed-in-the-wool pro-lifer, "Collateral damage. Too bad." War is hell. But if it's ours, it must be righteous.
Slowly, surely, there's a moral climate change coming. The new evangelical is rising. There's evidence of it even in the resistant South. The fact that warrior John McCain defeated Southern Baptist Mike Huckabee in both the South Carolina and Florida Republican primaries lends credence to a shift in priorities.
There's more:
She's 37, a wife and mother of three small children. She's a Phi Beta Kappa with a demanding career in academia. She's also a South Carolina born and bred devout evangelical Christian who gets tears in her eyes when she speaks of the love of God and what that love means in her life. She is opposed to abortion as a casual means of birth control, but she's pro-choice. She is not a member of either party; she's not a single-issue voter. She makes her choice of candidate only after careful study of both issues and potential nominees, bases her decision on what she believes is best for her family and her country. She did not choose Mike Huckabee. She supports Barack Obama.
She's a forty-something African American professional who voted for George W. Bush twice. "Because he was a praying man, a born again Christian who said he was for family values. It was a mistake. Just because they say they're believers doesn't mean they're gonna do the right thing. This war--this war--they won't fool me again." She'll vote for a Democrat in 2008, she says. Either one who gets the nomination.
He's sixty-two. He's a white, conservative Southerner, a pastor who believes the Bible is the absolute, inviolable word of God. He's a religious fundamentalist who is passionately pro-life. After considering war, poverty, the plight of America's working poor and a world in need of uplifting leadership from the United States, he passed on the South Carolina Republican primary. "I voted on the 26th," he says, blushing. "I voted for Senator Obama."
Given the Huckabee Southern Surge on Super Tuesday, when the inevitable Christian (R)evolution is flourishing, the South is apt to be the last bastion of the narrow, unyielding brand of Old Time Religion. This is where the dwindling population of religious dinosaurs will breathe their last. Their time come and gone.
Amen to that.
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The people you describe are part of the problem. They insist on perpetuating their moronic positions even thought hey do not wish to live by the rules they shove at the rest of us. If you profess a revealed religion yet you know it is false you are beyond brain dead.
...All the time.
I used to be hard right. Christian. Politics. Then I had a conversion. I still have my moments, sometimes not so attractive moments (often here on Huffington, when my knee jerk reactions get the best of me); but the conversion I had came sitting out in an empty field late at night for weeks on end talking to God. It came about because the best people I found myself meeting were liberals of all faiths (and no faith) who honestly asked me about my beliefs; in response, I found that I had more anger and rules than I did kindness and empathy.
I keep quiet about my faith now. It's mine. Imperfect. Unsettled. Still questioning. At times even baffling. But it's sincere and valuable.
So when I hear policos use Jesus Christ as a marketing tool or when self-proclaimed ministers of the Gospel use the same son of God to beat the hell out of a person who through no effort of their own is attracted to and in love with someone of the same gender, I am enraged. And I wonder if it's the same rage that filled Jesus when he turned over the tables of the money changers in the temple. Or if it's the same rage he felt toward the rabbis who used their "goodness" to condemn those who were struggling and lost. Or if my anger should be replaced by his willingness to forgive those who killed him.
The one thing I am sure of is that I would feel better about the church if it broadly demanded that the Dobsons and the Robertsons of the world sit down and shut up, and allow God's spirit to guide each believer in the way their heart was created to go.
all i can say is... thank god!
These are the meek that have been always oppreseed by organized religion.they follw the teachings of their books but not the Heirarchy. No One CAN SPEAK of God, only provide an example by which to follow the teachings.
How dare these Religions judge and persecute the creations made by a God or Nature. Both are divine and miraculous.
fianlly a time in histroy when those who know the difference between Relgious Faith (judgement & irresponsiblity) and Personal Spirituality (Human Rights and Responsiblities).
WE ARE THE ONLY BEINGS -BY GOD OR NATURE- ON THIS PLANET THAT JUST ONE OF US CAN CHANGE THE WORLD, for better or worse.
The meaning of life is simple,Do the best you can for all that you have been given- a blessing that requires commitment and dedication (responsiblity)
The origins of life are irrelevant- God or Nature will only be served if we take care of each other, our planet and thus our future.
I'm an Ex Catholic, adult life atheist... but drawn to the Gnostics.
Religious Heirarchies have High Jacked our most basic human right- the right to commune with our maker (god or nature)
My wife, who hails from a Midwestern evangelical family, is part of this new generation of faithful, progressive Christians. There's a new generation that's rebelling against the status quo (just as is happening on the secular side of the ledger), and it's going to change America. Right now she's hard at work organizing young evangelicals (and mainline) Christians to fight global poverty and achieve social justice.
Her organization is called the Boston Faith + Justice Network, and while it's based in "liberal" Massachusetts, it comprises many evangelical Christians, many who have come here from the South and Heartland to set up domestic missions and plant churches out on the edges of Christian America.
"...There is a quiet Christian revolution underway. It's not some brand-spanking new pop-culture fad. The movement is decades old, a force of faith arguing for reason, for peace, for commitment to addressing the needs of "The least of these..." both here and abroad. These evangelicals do not want an American Theocracy...."
As politely as I can, you are so completely wrong it is impossible to overstate my opinion. Huckster wants to change the US Constitution to match up with the rules of his imaginary friend in the sky (there being zero evidence of any god, including the invisible pink unicorn, Zeus, or the christian fable). Once a specific religious sect controls a nation subsequent leaders always attribute the failure of its policy, not to the inadequacy of those policies, but the continued presence of gays, liberals, etc.
Enjoying religious choice in America is granted in our constitution. The (r)evolution should be the holding of one's personal values in one hand while upholding our constitution with the other.
Obama '08
"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful."
Seneca
Im sure i will get a ton of response to this but religion is only in place as a way to control the weak minded. By weak minded i do not mean dumb, rather,,,, shall i say gullible. Why else would normal sain people believe in anything that they havent seen. Its out of a fear for when one dies, in hopes that there will be a better life than the one are living now.
Get religion out of politics, because as i see i dont want to be force feed all that crap because you want someone of same "values" running our country.
Those are my kind of Christians. And it's about time they found their voice. Jimmy Carter is one of them and his Carter Center is doing so much good work, but he's drowned out by the religious extremists.
I don't think the MSM ignores this new breed and much of the old because they are boring. It's because the radical Christians have deep pockets and access to the airwaves. Who has their own t.v shows, mega churches where they pull in millions, radio stations? It's not the Carters or the Campolos of the world, but the Dobsons, Haggards, Falwells, and Robertsons.
It is my ferverent hope that you are correct, and that the "right to religion" does not have to mean "religious right". We will see how it pans out here in Texas, the stronghold of evangelical conservatives like Jim Hagee who wants to usher in Armageddon by bombing Iran, and Joel Osteen, who believes God wants us all to be rich. Highly recommend you read Rabbi Brad Hirschfield's new book "You Don't Have to be Wrong for Me to be Right" for even deeper dialogue that includes Judaism and Islam into this equation. Agape.
Linda, I suspect that you speak for a whole lot more than the Southland. Good leadership, like good politics, usually does not make headlines.
There is a "quiet storm" growing in many areas of political thought, and the media-crazed money soaked political system that we see prancing around on-stage doesn't "get it" yet. Doesn't see it coming, because it's coming ... not on war horses and thundering chariots, but on a donkey.
It's a growing realization that, whether or not we may one day be accountable to an almighty god, we are accountable right now to ourselves and to one another ... even to men and women we have never met, on the other side of the planet. It's a realization that many of the policies and politics that have been presented to us by the rulers who act in our name are, pure and simply, evil ... and that it is our own responsibility to bring that evil to light no matter where and in whom it may be.
The politicians who are madly competing for the office of savior truly cannot fathom the truth that, while the tide advances slowly, it cannot be turned.
Very well chosen words, Ma'am,
North Carolina has her share of the Religionists of which you so eloquently speak. I've been out of that trap for many, many years but am aware of the many millions still at it. Sorrowfully, it is nearly a foregone requisite in the Business and Social Spectra, i.e., a citizen's connection to everything in "The Network" must first begin with their Choice of Church. It is only this requirement that somehow paints them with the same brush used on any brand of "Religionist." And the way OUT of this conundrum is so riddled with negative potential that most of the now "Ins" would never consider taking any steps at "getting out."
Sorrowfully, too, the most ardent of their leadership have too great a vested interest in the status quo that they can't speak honestly for their congregations. After all, the Leader's sole livelihood depends on keeping his Flock intact and delivering their particular brand of KoolAid...the worst kind of Catch-22.
I have no hope of a cure for the disease you reference, though I do fear for the allegiant innocent among them who might stand to lose the lifestyle that has seen them through many a trial and tribulation. A meaningful first step, though, might simply begin with their Pastors turning away from the National dialogue and turning "To" their congregations and address some of our modern day's realities. They might open by refuting any notion of "Armageddon", for instance. That alone might be enough to help Reason reenter the picture.
Brick
I am not a religious person, but I do believe there can be good done by those who are.
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Posted February 6, 2008 | 03:49 PM (EST)