The Achilles Heel of the 'christian' Right

[ck4829]

It is much easier to get a mob together to burn down a bridge rather than build one, no?

This is the idea that the entire 'christian' Right is based upon, they want to remove people's rights, and take things away from people, rather than expand services for the poor and take care of the environment.

Notice:
They want to take away your right to abortion and some groups even don't want you to have access to contraceptives
They want to ban gay marriage

But, once you suggest for them to create social programs and taking care of the environment, out roll the accusations that you are a Marxist, Terrorist Sympathizer, or Bush Basher who hates America, it's all because the 'christian' Right was not created to build bridges, but burn them down.

The Achilles Heel of the 'christian' Right can be easy to strike, we just have to force them to look at social services, the environment, and other things that will improve people's lives instead of just 'negative' factors in US politics.

[DoYouEverWonder]

1. Good luck

Didn't they just ax their President-elect for wanting to expand their agenda?

Just take away their tax-exempt status and screw 'em.

[acmejack]

2. I think he stepped down.

Because they refused to expand their agenda to include homlessness, poverty and hunger.

snip>
The Rev. Joel Hunter, of Northland Church, a nondenominational congregation 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 gay 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.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/4356876.html

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. He knew that when they elected him

I think 'step down' is a nice way of saying, they turned down his agenda when they found out what he was about.

[izzie]

3. The trouble with what you say is they do not reason the same.

If you say we need to help the poor by giving them something they will say they help them by making them stand on their own two feet. If you say I do not feel people have to go to church they will say but what could be wrong with going and learning about JC? If you say I wish to think for my self they will say that your learning is wrong and if you were taught right you would think the right way. I have come up against these people in college classes etc and they just do not reason like the general pop. They reason all in the line of their Christian far right thoughts, just like all zealots in all religious do. All one needs to do is read about England under Bloody Mary to see how this works and just how long it has been going on. Europe and the world is full of it. Some how the enlightenment has not gone far enough.

[Toots]

4. Their true Achilles Heel is Jesus Christ...

:shrug:

[PATRICK]

5. The rank and file

CAN reason to the better issues once they start talking. Punishing, enforcing 'responsibility" or setting up moral barricades are ALL ineffective. Once they are revealed to the decent individual as only ends in themselves benefiting amoral, immoral pols you ARE starting to get somewhere.

The levels of moral discussion between parent and child for example, a person of law versus a person of principle, have boundaries that not just obstacles but meeting places. Each can be frustrated that they can't get together on the same level but general all decent humans, all growing, non-stunted humans are going in the same direction. Those who DENY morality this unity deny morality itself and divide and conquer all. Those on the "highest" levels by definition know better than to lord it over those wandering on the lower slopes.

Bluntly, the practical Jesus emphasized actions and results, honesty and inner intent. If entire groups have been soul destroyed to the point of spreading evil and calling it good then THERE is a cause for real opposition and disagreement. There should be no holding back then by any other individual or moral institution- but regrettably human cowardice and inertia matches one face of evil with its own self-satisfied, safe imperfection. The RW itself can only be defined as "Christian" at best on an infantile or adolescent false authoritarian level. That is THEIR humbling reality. The LW humbling reality is that it can never boast about the perfection to which simple compassion too weakly aspires.
But then the real problem is that each human consciousness is its own weak god seeking to protect its own idolatry in some larger communal huddling, ironically unfit for the world being created thus falsely. Trying to get simple, to shed illusions and pride is recognized as very extremely difficult and dicey. If we can't recognize what results are good and bad we will inherit the bad and lose the luck of the good so none of being "good" is guaranteed, static, or easy. The rest is death and nothingness.

[Gold Metal Flake]

7. You are right, of course.

For proof people need go no farther than this weeks headlines:

President-elect of Christian Coalition resigns

There are many Christians who may have strong feelings against abortion rights who nonetheless are otherwise socially aware and believe in the teachings of Christ. These people must be experiencing an internal conflict as they find themselves unable to ignore or disregard the authoritarian, theocratic nature of the current conservative Christian movement. They recognize that the relationship between their leaders and the RNC is basically to provide voting fodder for Corporatists. Every week we on DU read of yet another fundamentalist who has strained at the leash, and made a public break with the dogma.

This is an opportunity to reduce the numbers of the heard. Pick them off at the edges and let them wander away. Many will head to more moderate causes, some will follow Christian leaders like President Carter. Some will choose to continue their worship privately. No matter where they go, the conservative fundamentalist voting block evaporates.

It's happening now. What we need is More and Faster.