Comments on: Co-belligerents, left and right

By: Scroop Moth

Scroop Moth — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 04:41:54 +0000

Evangelicals have been co-belligerents with Republicans on issues of taxation, the family, and the like.

What started it all off wasn’t prayer in schools, abortion, supply side economics, Israeli defense, or gay marriage.

The birth of the movement was in the loss of Bob Jones University’s tax exemption for its practice of segregation. Secondarily, I think the movement sprang from our military defeat in Vietnam and the backlash-need to blame our humiliation on hippies, rather than on our strategy, our military command, and the “nonparticipation” of troops themselves.

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By: Ken

Ken — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 20:33:53 +0000

“Surly evangelicals know when they are being conned by socialists and lefty propagandists”

Surely that’s what makes us surly. ;>

There is nothing knew about the link between evangelicalism and progressivism. Most nineteenth century evangelicals were post millenialists and the attempt to usher in the kingdom of God through political activity seemed at least appropriate if not a necessary aspect of evangelism. Walter Rauschenberg’s Social Gospel seemed less radical and more Christian until the economic presuppositions of progressive politics were exposed as fallacies by the socialist and communist disasters of the twentieth century.

Out of the yeasty ferment of progressive politics came an increasingly secular strain that has forgotten its evangelical roots. Swept clean of its Christian birth, progressivism now suffers under a sevenfold demonic assault.

The blind persistence of progressive, secular politics is testimony to the power of its original inspiration. This perennial adolescent, feeling so achingly the injustices of this present world, never pauses to consider the manifest failures of his prescriptions.

Conservatives, who seek to conserve the Liberalism of the immediate post Enlightenment centuries with its unapolegetic commitment to liberty and the free market know full well the injustices of the world but prefer to allow the Burkean “small platoons” of citizens animated by a common culture arising from Christian European civilization to find their own concrete solutions free of the totalitarian reach of government.

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By: llama

llama — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 19:43:24 +0000

At first blush, Barack Obama may strike evangelicals as an unreconstructed liberal or, in other words, beyond salvation. But he is wise to reach out to them at a moment when the geological sands are shifting beneath our feet. Now and then he speaks in the ancient accents, promising to create “a kingdom right here on earth” or arguing that “our individual salvation depends on our collective salvation.” Those phrases slip by, generally unnoticed by his partisans (who are evangelical in their own way). They are worth noting in the months ahead. Not only do they connect us to the richness of a deep American past; they might even point to the better future we’ve been waiting for since, well, forever.

I find this frightening. Surly evangelicals know when they are being conned by socialists and lefty propagandists. It is easy. All you have to remember is when they open their mouth to speak – you have all the proof you need.

Watch what they do instead.

I also refuse to accept that as a Christian, I cannot be commited to anything else I choose that is not illegal or sinful. Nor should I be a co- anything as a result, including being co-operative.

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