AMERICAN IDOLATRY
So what ever happened to the evangelicals?
Feeling largely abandoned by George W. Bush over his lukewarm support of an abortion ban and faith-based social programs, combined with his bellicose brand of foreign policy, the religious right has taken a forced time-out.
Quick to learn, evangelicals felt George was giving Jesus a bad name. Politicizing God had backfired, and the wounded Christian soldiers retreated back to their mega-churches to regroup for their next Crusade.
Neither Republicans nor Democrats received a significant net gain from the God vote. Democrats enjoyed an eight-point bump from evangelicals disillusioned by Bush, but God's chosen weren't flocking to the Blue side. Experts say the God Squad has stepped back from politics to reevaluate and charge up the batteries so they'll be juiced up for 'O8.
How had God's watchdogs been led so far astray? How had money, influence, and politics wormed they evil way to the very welcome mat of heaven? Indeed, how did a failed wild-catter with a penchant for digging dry holes end up leading the friends of Israelites out of the desert, and into an ambush in Iraq?
Traditionally, evangelicals have been strong supporters of our Israeli-based, Middle Eastern foreign policy and with good reason: they have an inkling Jesus may stop by Jerusalem on his next layover. They haven't quite worked out what to do with those Jews in the Jewish state not willing to make the 11th-hour conversion to Christianity. Currently Jews are due to expire in Revelations "Lake of Fire" for eternity -- or until Hell freezes over -- whichever is longer.
It's not easy being a fundamentalist Christian voter two thousand and six years after the Savior took one for the team. God couldn't possibly like anyone as stupid as Commander Bush, yet the Dems insist on killing off babies, stem cells, and marriages between men and women. I mean, what would God do, given the sorry choices He has in '08? It's so difficult to know.
As ignorant as I am about God and religion, I suspect it would be a reach to think the finger of God-- the digit that sparked life into Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel -- would ever touch the touchscreen of a Diebold voting machine. Can you imagine if God's choice ended up as one of the 18,000 Florida non-votes in Katherine Harris' 13th district? We'd go another 2,000 years not knowing whether God truly hates Republicans.
Call me sentimental, but I'll take the quaint little New England churches over the 60,000 seat "Godstock " stadiums any day. I was baptized kicking and screaming at the age of 28 in one such church in New Hampshire. And though it nearly killed me, I do admire the architecture and the music -- if not the little guy wearing the rug, fingering his pipe organ.
I just hope that when God's messengers do return to influence the next election, they will have had time to reflect on the tragic consequences their political ideology had on the first eight years of the new millennium.
So what ever happened to the evangelicals?
Feeling largely abandoned by George W. Bush over his lukewarm support of an abortion ban and faith-based social programs, combined with his bellicose brand of foreign policy, the religious right has taken a forced time-out.
Quick to learn, evangelicals felt George was giving Jesus a bad name. Politicizing God had backfired, and the wounded Christian soldiers retreated back to their mega-churches to regroup for their next Crusade.
Neither Republicans nor Democrats received a significant net gain from the God vote. Democrats enjoyed an eight-point bump from evangelicals disillusioned by Bush, but God's chosen weren't flocking to the Blue side. Experts say the God Squad has stepped back from politics to reevaluate and charge up the batteries so they'll be juiced up for 'O8.
How had God's watchdogs been led so far astray? How had money, influence, and politics wormed they evil way to the very welcome mat of heaven? Indeed, how did a failed wild-catter with a penchant for digging dry holes end up leading the friends of Israelites out of the desert, and into an ambush in Iraq?
Traditionally, evangelicals have been strong supporters of our Israeli-based, Middle Eastern foreign policy and with good reason: they have an inkling Jesus may stop by Jerusalem on his next layover. They haven't quite worked out what to do with those Jews in the Jewish state not willing to make the 11th-hour conversion to Christianity. Currently Jews are due to expire in Revelations "Lake of Fire" for eternity -- or until Hell freezes over -- whichever is longer.
It's not easy being a fundamentalist Christian voter two thousand and six years after the Savior took one for the team. God couldn't possibly like anyone as stupid as Commander Bush, yet the Dems insist on killing off babies, stem cells, and marriages between men and women. I mean, what would God do, given the sorry choices He has in '08? It's so difficult to know.
As ignorant as I am about God and religion, I suspect it would be a reach to think the finger of God-- the digit that sparked life into Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel -- would ever touch the touchscreen of a Diebold voting machine. Can you imagine if God's choice ended up as one of the 18,000 Florida non-votes in Katherine Harris' 13th district? We'd go another 2,000 years not knowing whether God truly hates Republicans.
Call me sentimental, but I'll take the quaint little New England churches over the 60,000 seat "Godstock " stadiums any day. I was baptized kicking and screaming at the age of 28 in one such church in New Hampshire. And though it nearly killed me, I do admire the architecture and the music -- if not the little guy wearing the rug, fingering his pipe organ.
I just hope that when God's messengers do return to influence the next election, they will have had time to reflect on the tragic consequences their political ideology had on the first eight years of the new millennium.
posted by R. Reynolds at 8:18 AM
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