Rich Lowry on Christians in America on National Review Online
America is in the midst of a new Great Awakening. …
[O]rthodox Christians have an enormous influence on national life through the Bush administration. What trial lawyers are to John Edwards, the orthodox are to Bush — his indispensable political base. According to Green, roughly 75 percent of evangelicals voted for Bush. White evangelicals accounted for as much as 40 percent of his total vote. Another 20 percent came from traditional Catholics and serious mainline Protestants. The Bush presidency should be stamped: “Brought to you by orthodox Christian believers.” …
As Walter Russell Mead writes in his brilliant forthcoming book, Power, Terror, Peace, and War: “The rise in the number of evangelical Protestants, combined with their increasing levels of affluence, political participation and education, suggests that for the next generation at least, we will be witnessing the rise and consolidation of an evangelical establishment that will view America’s world role in a different way than the waning and dying mainstream Protestant establishment that once set the Wilsonian agenda.”
This dynamic is already evident. The divide with Europe is partly driven by faith, as secular Europeans cringe at American religiosity. America’s strong support for Israel is a product of a potent alliance between evangelicals and hawkish Jews. Evangelicals have supported an extraordinary amount of human-rights activism recently on issues from religious persecution to sex trafficking to AIDS. Bush has tapped into that idealism and made it an important aspect of his war on terror.
Domestically, the influence of Bush’s orthodox base can be seen in his faith-based initiative, his signing of a partial-birth-abortion ban and his opposition to gay marriage, among other things. The rap against evangelicals used to be that they were intolerant, but they have lately demonstrated their ability to work with conservative Jews and Catholics in a new, powerful traditionalist ecumenism.
The fervor over The Passion has taken many observers by surprise. It shouldn’t, and you ain’t seen nothing yet. [mjh: be afraid, be very afraid — oh, but that’s the Bush Doctrine, isn’t it?]
Dick Lowry proves we are, not just a Christian Nation, but an Orthodox Christian Nation.
Notice that line of Lowry’s proving the Radical Jihadist Christians are really tolerant: they form stategic alliances with other religious people. Guess atheists like me will just have to pray for tolerance, too.
Now that “Christians Rule!“, we can expect more commercial triumphs like the Jesus Action Figure. mjh
Biblical Action Figures are approximately 6 inches in height. Each figure includes background play scenery printed on laminated paperboard.
[mjh: They’re tax-deductible! Kidding… I think.]