For both those reasons, I speculated last week that the evangelical right in America is headed for that calmer stage of organizational maturity. I further noted that this was likely to fuel some schisms over the short term, mostly between hard-core religious authoritarians who thrive on high levels of fear, anger, and intensity, and want to stay the old course; and the softer core looking to expand their sights, so that they can live their values.
The coming split in the evangelical right will be fueled by the different ways its various factions adapt to this new reality. The possibilities are likely to take two main forms. On one hand, we'll see the amoral authoritarian leadership fade away, and the hard-core authoritarian followers in retreat. On the other, however, are growing numbers of Christians who are already beginning to moderate -- some of them to the point where we may start seeing them in the progressive mainstream. --What If God Loses? 11/15/06
I found this bit particularly instructive (OK -- validating: it supports what I have been saying about the Christianists for a while):
The Florida pastor recently tapped to lead the Christian Coalition of America resigned his position in a dispute about conservative philosophy - more than a month before he was to fully assume his post, he said this week.
The Rev. Joel Hunter, of Northland, A Church Distributed, in Longwood, Fla., said he quit as president-elect of the group founded by evangelist Pat Robertson because he realized he would be unable to broaden the organization's agenda beyond opposing abortion and same-sex marriage.
He hoped to include issues such as easing poverty and saving the environment.
"These are issues that Jesus would want us to care about," Hunter said. . . .
Hunter hoped to revive the group by expanding its agenda to include what he called "compassion issues." He also planned to teach evangelicals how to "vote with their life," or integrate and apply their Christian values to public life.
The coalition's rejection of Hunter's approach means it is unwilling to part with its partisan, Republican roots, Hunter said.
I happen to agree with Hunter, and not just because of his name -- stewardship of the earth, easing poverty (which has come to be, in my mind, the great destroyer), extending the benefits of society to those left outside, the "compassion" issues to which he refers, seem to be to be the proper sphere of Christian activism. I think the greatest Christian heroes of the twentieth century are Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Berrigan brothers. Christ, as I remember from my childhood Sunday school classes, was not a negative thinker -- he taught an active approach to love and compassion that seems to be foreign territory to the Dobson Gang.
Pat Robertson, Pat Robertson, why hast thou forsaken me?
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