Before Jason Childs founded the Center for Progress in Alabama, he was a "Liberty University-trained evangelical pastor." He was a part of the Christian Right movement for years, at least until he got divorced and experienced first-hand the darker side of the Christian Right. This led him to reconsider what he had been a part of and now he is trying to warn the rest of us about what's really going on. But will anyone listen?
Or perhaps I should ask: will America's corporate media listen and broadcast what he has to say?
I want you to know that the fundamentalist political movement is the beginning of a cultural revolution that will take our nation to a very dark place. You have to understand that this has been methodically planned and is being carried out with the utmost vigilance. In accordance with their worldview, my old friends do not in the least care about what you think. They are against democracy, and they are seeking to end the rule of the majority in our great country.
They truly believe that if you have not been "saved," you are living under a curse and are incapable of knowing what is best and that because of this you should be ruled over. You should also know they do not believe that even centuries-old Christian communities (Catholics, Anglicans, Greek Orthodox, etc.) are "saved," only those who think like they do.
You might be thinking that a minority fundamentalist group of zealots can't really take over the direction of a society. Just look at Iran, or the countless other places where people have allowed this to happen. Are you all really going to sit back and watch this happen? They will begin to attack all sources of accurate information.
Public radio was first, next will be museums and then science books. Just listen to them argue against the scientific facts about the peril our planet is facing, because it does not fit in with their ideas. They represent a clear and present danger to our union.
Source: Alternet (via: Friendly Atheist)
Those of us who have been paying attention to the Christian Right over the past decades won't find this very surprising, but how many people have really been paying attention like they should? That's the problem: too few people have been watching closely enough and thinking carefully enough about what the Christian Right is doing and what it's agenda is.
If there is anything very new here, it's probably the how explicit the anti-democratic character of the agenda has become. It's one thing to point out how a disdain for or even opposition to democracy is a logical consequence of the Christian Right's agenda, but it's quite another to say that they themselves are not only fully aware of this, but are consciously pursuing it.
People pursuing an agenda that draws them into anti-democratic positions can be dangerous, but they can also likely be reasoned with if undermining democracy wasn't their original goal. People for whom an end to democracy is part of the point pose a different sort of problem entirely. You can't encourage them to pursue their goals via more democratic means. You can't reason with them about the importance of letting voters decide their own future.
This is why the Christian Right is such a "danger to our union." However much they might preach that they want to "restore" America, the fact is that they want an end to America as a democratic, free nation so they can replace it with a repressive and even fascist theocracy. Every vote for a politician that supports the Christian Right's agenda is a vote to advance us one step further towards that end.
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