Reply #15: good post; one caution [View All]

[m berst]

Conservative theology and liberal politics are not necessarily incompatible, nor are liberal theology and conservative politics. Religion has become so politicized and politics so religionized that it is difficult to sort through anything. This, of course, is the danger from blurring the lines between church and state.

If we judge various churches with a conservative-liberal political yardstick, we are making the same mistake as those who judge government on a conservative-liberal theological yardstick.

A relative handful of ruthless and unscrupulous men have succeeded in creating a social Frankenstein monster of fundamentalist Christianity and reactionary politics and seized virtual control of one of our political parties and now of our government. What they are doing has very little to do with religion or government and is destroying both. They have promoted a series of lies - that to be conservative theologically you must be a fundamentalist; that to to be a fundamentalist you must be conservative politically; that to be conservative politically you must be a Republican; that to be a Republican you must be a reactionary. They have achieved all but the final step - that to be a reactionary you must be a fascist.

This can't be fought by merely replacing liberals at each step. It is the process of blending religion and politics in the way that they are doing it that is dangerous, and imitating it in a mirror-like fashion can't work.