‘War’ on Christians Is Alleged

I can’t be the only one creeped out about how Evangelical Christians have completely immersed themselves in a war-mindset. It makes them a great tool for fascism. mjh

‘War’ on Christians Is Alleged
Conference Depicts a Culture Hostile to Evangelical Beliefs
By Alan Cooperman, Washington Post Staff Writer

The “War on Christmas” has morphed into a “War on Christians.” …

Among the … speakers [at the two-day conference in Washington on the “War on Christians and the Values Voters in 2006”] were former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and Sens. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) as well as conservative Christian leaders Phyllis Schlafly, Rod Parsley, Gary Bauer, Janet Parshall and Alan Keyes.

To many of the 400 evangelicals packed into a small ballroom at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, it was a hard but necessary look at moral relativism, hedonism and Christophobia, or fear of Christ, to pick just a few terms offered by various speakers referring to the enemy.

To some outsiders, it illuminated the paranoia of the Christian right. …

“This is a skirmish over religious pluralism, and the inclination to see it as a war against Christianity strikes me as a spoiled-brat response by Christians who have always enjoyed the privileges of a majority position,” said the Rev. Robert M. Franklin, a minister in the Church of God in Christ and professor of social ethics at Emory University.

White evangelicals make up about one-quarter of the U.S. population, and 85 percent of Americans identify themselves as Christians. But three-quarters of evangelicals believe they are a minority under siege and nearly half believe they are looked down upon by most of their fellow citizens, according to a 2004 poll. …

In a luncheon speech yesterday, DeLay took issue with the “chattering classes” who think there is no war on Christians.

“We are after all a society that abides abortion on demand, that has killed millions of innocent children, that degrades the institution of marriage and often treats Christianity like some second-rate superstition. Seen from this perspective, of course there is a war on Christianity,” he said. [mjh: let me be the first to call Christianity a first-rate superstition]

I watched part of Ron Luce’s Battle Cry on the Christian channel 23 (you’d be shocked how much time I spend on that channel — my wife certainly is — but I feel you’ve got to know what this particular group is up to; besides, it’s always cool to see TDJakes). Battle Cry addresses teenagers as being attacked by their culture and forced to sit in a pen with pigs (me, maybe you). It uses hip-hop and skateboard culture to reach the youngins. Reminds me of that King of the Hill episode when Bobby joins a bunch of Christian skateboarders. mjh

Evangelical teens rally in S.F. Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer

“This is more than a spiritual war,” [Ron] Luce, [whose Teen Mania organization is based in Texas,] said. “It’s a culture war.”

Military metaphors abound in Luce’s descriptions of the struggle. He tells young people of how “an enemy has launched a brutal attack on them.” At a pre-Battle Cry rally Friday afternoon on the steps of City Hall, Luce told his mostly teenage audience that “terrorists of a different kind” — advertisers — were targeting them and that they were “caught in the middle of the battle.” [mjh: “Terrorists”? Aren’t we overusing this term?]

“Are you ready to go to battle for your generation?” he asked, and the young people roared “yes!” and some waved triangular red flags flown from long, medieval-looking poles.

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