Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Why Christian Right positions matter to the rest of usThis column gives us a strong reminder of how the views of the Christian Right can affect politics in the US: Wayward Christian Soldiers by Charles Marsh International Herald Tribune 01/20/06 (also at CommonDreams.org 01/22/06)Marsh is one of the best writers I've seen on how religious views can affect people's attitude toward politics and political action. His book God's Long Summer (1997) takes a careful look at the religious beliefs of those of people taking a wide variety of positions on civil rights during the "Mississippi Summer" of 1964. His autobiography The Last Days (2001) also deals with some of the same subjects. I particularly related to that one because he spent much of his childhood in Laurel, MS, where his father was pastor of the First [Southern] Baptist Church. That's about 40 miles from where I grew up. In this column, Marsh goes back three years to look at the statements of various fundamentalists leaders on the then-impending Iraq War: Charles Stanley, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Atlanta, whose weekly sermons are seen by millions of television viewers, led the charge with particular fervor. "We should offer to serve the war effort in any way possible," said Stanley, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention. "God battles with people who oppose him, who fight against him and his followers." In other words, the Christian Right constituency is also a mainstay of public support for the Iraq War. | +Save/Share | | |
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