Welcome to Doomsday (Bill Moyers)

[Dover]

Welcome to Doomsday
By Bill Moyers
1.
There are times when what we journalists see and intend to write about dispassionately sends a shiver down the spine, shaking us from our neutrality. This has been happening to me frequently of late as one story after another drives home the fact that the delusional is no longer marginal but has come in from the fringe to influence the seats of power. We are witnessing today a coupling of ideology and theology that threatens our ability to meet the growing ecological crisis. Theology asserts propositions that need not be proven true, while ideologues hold stoutly to a world view despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. The combination can make it impossible for a democracy to fashion real-world solutions to otherwise intractable challenges.

In the just-concluded election cycle, as Mark Silk writes in Religion in the News,

--...the assiduous cultivation of religious constituencies by the Bush apparat, and the undisguised intrusion of evangelical leaders and some conservative Catholic hierarchs into the presidential campaign, demonstrated that the old rule of maintaining a decent respect for the nonpartisanship of religion can now be broken with impunity.

The result is what the Italian scholar Emilio Gentile, quoted in Silk's newsletter, calls "political religion"—religion as an instrument of political combat. On gay marriage and abortion— the most conspicuous of the "non-negotiable" items in a widely distributed Catholic voter's guide—no one should be surprised what this political religion portends. The agenda has been foreshadowed for years, ever since Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and other right-wing Protestants set out to turn white evangelicals into a solid Republican voting bloc and reached out to make allies of their former antagonists, conservative Catholics.

What has been less apparent is the impact of the new political religion on environmental policy. Evangelical Christians have been divided. Some were indifferent. The majority of conservative evangelicals, on the other hand, have long hooked their view to the account in the first book of the Bible:

-- So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." --

There are widely varying interpretations of this text, but it is safe to say that all presume human beings have inherited the earth to be used as they see fit. For many, God's gift to Adam and Eve of "dominion" over the earth and all its creatures has been taken as the right to unlimited exploitation. But as Blaine Harden reported recently in The Washington Post, some evangelicals are beginning to "go for the green." Last October the National Association of Evangelicals adopted an "Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility," affirming that "God-given dominion is a sacred responsibility to steward the earth and not a license to abuse the creation of which we are a part." The declaration acknowledged that for the sake of clean air, clean water, and adequate resources, the government "has an obligation to protect its citizens from the effects of environmental degradation."...cont'd


http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17852

[byronius]

1. This is amazing. Bill Moyers? I had no idea he was so cool.

I'll have to watch all the old videotapes my mother sent me.

[redwitch]

2. Bill Moyers is WAY cool.

He is one of a very few American journalists who have stood up and spoken out against the insanity- Read some of his speeches on patriotism and free speech, he is so eloquent and passionate. He gives me hope.

[KC21304]

3. He is very smart, decent, and he has been trying

to wake up the people of the US for a very long time.

[Hekate]

4. Thanks for posting this

It deserves a :kick:

I miss Bill Moyers on PBS: it was he who broke the story about "Patriot Act 2" on PBS, back when it was just a secret draft circulating at the behest of Ashcroft and Cheney.

I am so glad he continues to speak out on the subjects of patriotism and religion -- toward the end of his tenure with NOW he self-identified as a Southern Baptist, born and bred, and discussed his misgivings about where the SBs and other fundamentalists are heading. It takes courage these days to take on what is rapidly becoming the religious establishment, as under the tutelage of Rove et al they (that is, their spokespeople) are able to mount swift and vicious attacks on any individual they perceive as criticizing their world-view.

Bless Moyers for a long and healthy life. He's a much-needed ally and voice of sanity.

Hekate

[k j]

5. Bill Moyers

is an enlightened soul, no doubt about it. :)

On edit: Thanks for posting this link! Great read.

On edit again: Okay, finished the entire article. This is one to pass on. Thanks again.