- ‘In some sections of the Bible, vicious acts of vengeance, including the genocidal extermination of opposing tribes and nations, appear to be blessed by God. God turns on the Egyptians and transforms the Nile into blood so the Egyptians will suffer from thirst – and then sends swarms of locusts and flies to torture them, along with hail, fire and thunder from the heavens to destroy all plants and trees. To liberate the children of Israel, God orders the firstborn in every Egyptian household killed so all will know “that the Lord makes a distinction between the Egyptians and Israel” (Exodus 11:7). The killing does not cease until “there was not a house where one was not dead” (Exodus 12:30 ). Amid the carnage God orders Moses to loot all the clothing, jewelry, gold and silver from the Egyptian homes (Exodus 12:35 -36).’ (3)
- ‘A literal reading of the Bible means reinstitution of slavery coupled with the understanding that the slavemaster has the right to beat his slave without mercy since ‘the slave is his money’ (Exodus 21:21). Children who strike or curse a parents are to be executed (Exodus 21:15 , 17). Those who pay homage to another god “shall be utterly destroyed” (Exodus 22:20 ). Menstruating women are to be considered unclean, and all they touch while menstruating becomes unclean (Leviticus 21:17 -21). Blasphemers shall be executed (Leviticus 24:16). And ‘if the spirit of jealousy’ comes upon a man, the high priest can order the jealous man’s wife to drink the ‘water of bitterness.’ If she dies, it is proof of her guilt; if she survives, of her innocence (Numbers 5:11 -31). Women, throughout the Bible, are subservient to men, often without legal rights, and men are free to sell their daughters into sexual bondage (Exodus 21:7-11). Hatred of Jews and other non-Christians pervades the Gospel of John (3:18 -20). Jews, he wrote, are children of the devil, the father of lies (John 8:39 -44).’ (4)
- ‘The book, however, paints a picture of a bloody battle between the forces of good and evil, Christ and the Antichrist, God and Satan, and the torment and utter destruction of all who do not follow the faith. In this vision, only the faithful will be allowed to enter the gates of the New Jerusalem. All others will disappear, cast into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:14 -15).’ (5)
- ‘Mainstream Christians can also cherry-pick the Bible to create a Jesus and God who are always loving and compassionate.’ (6)
- ‘Church leaders must denounce and biblical passages that champion apocalyptic violence and hateful political creeds. They must do so in the light of other biblical passages that teach a compassion and tolerance, often exemplified in the life of Christ, which stands opposed to bigotry and violence. Until this happens, until the Christian churches wade into the debate, these biblical passages will be used by bigots and despots to give sacred authority to their calls to subjugate or eradicate the enemies of God.’ (6)
- ‘Dominionism preaches that Jesus has called on Christians to build the kingdom of God America America
- ‘The old definitions of words are replaced by new ones. Code words of the old belief system are deconstructed and assigned diametrically opposed meanings. Words such as ‘truth,’ ‘wisdom,’ ‘death,’ ‘liberty,’ ‘life,’ and ‘love’ no longer mean what they mean in the secular world. ‘Life’ and ‘death’ mean life in Christ or death to Christ, and are used to signal belief or unbelief in the risen Lord. ‘Wisdom’ has little to do with human wisdom but refers to the level of commitment and obedience to the system of belief. ‘Liberty
- ‘There are at least 70 million evangelicals in the United States – about 25 percent of the population – attending more than 200,000 evangelical churches. Polls indicate that about 40 percent of respondents believe in the Bible as the ‘actual word of god’ and that it is ‘to be taken literally, word for word.’ Applied to the country’s total population, this proportion would place the number of believers at about 100 million. These polls also suggest that about 84 percent of Americans accept that Jesus is the son of God.’ (18)
- ‘In a 2004 study, the political scientist John Green identifies those he calls ‘traditional evangelicals.’ This group, which Green estimates at 12.6 percent of the population, comes ‘closest to the religious right’ widely discussed in the media.’ It is overwhelmingly Republican. It is openly hostile to democratic pluralism, and it champions totalitarian policies, such as denying homosexuals the same rights as other Americans and amending the Constitution to make America
- ‘Radical social movements, as Crane Brinton wrote in The Anatomy of Revolution, are almost always tiny, although they use the tools of modern propaganda to create the illusion of a mass following. As Brinton noted, ‘the impressive demonstrations the camera has recorded in Germany Italy Russia China
- ‘The movement has sanctified a ruthless unfettered capitalism.’ (21)
- ‘In an August 14, 2003, fund-raising letter, Walden O’Dell, CEO of Diebold, told Republicans that he was ‘committed to helping Ohio deliber its electoral votes to the president next year.’ O’Dell and other Diebold executives and board members are supporters of and donors to the Republican Party. Blackwell, an African American [Ohioan secretary of state], oversaw a voting system in which African Americans, who vote primarily Democratic national elections, found polling stations in their districts, especially in heavily Democratic areas such as Cleveland, grossly understaffed. There were in these polling stations long lines with delays that sometimes lasted as long as 10 hours, sending many potential voters home in frustration. Aggressive poll monitors questioned and often disqualified new voters because of what the monitors claimed was improper registration. Blackwell banned photographers and reporters from polling places, making irregularities and harassment harder to document. The Diebold machines recorded record high turnouts – 124 percent in one of the precincts – where Bush won overwhelming victories and low voter turnout in districts that went for Democratic Senator John Kerry. Kerry campaign workers reported numerous irregularities, including the discovery of a machine that diverted votes from Kerry and Bush. Ray Beckerman, part of the Kerry campaign, said that he found that touch-screen voting machines in Youngstown
- ‘This tactic has required the airbrushing out of past racist creeds – an effort that, sometime after 1970, saw Jerry Falwell recall all copies of his earlier sermons warming against integration and the evils of the black race.’ (28)
- ‘ ‘We got 126,000 contractors over there, some of them making more than the secretary of defense,’ said House defense appropriations subcommittee Chairman John Murtha. ‘How in the hell do you justify that?’ ’ (30)
- ‘Radical Christians now hold roughly 50 percent of chaplaincy appointments in the armed services and service academics, and increasingly use their positions to openly proselytize cadets and denigrate other religious faiths.’ (32)
- ‘There arise moments when those who would destroy the tolerance that makes an open society possible should no longer be tolerated. They must be held accountable by institutions that maintain the free exchange of ideas and liberty. The radical Christian Right must be forced to include other points of view to counter their hate talk in their own broadcasts, watched by tens of millions of Americans. They must be denied the right to demonize whole segments of American society, saying they are manipulated by Satan and worthy only of conversion or eradication. They must be made to treat their opponents with respect and acknowledge the right of a fair hearing.’ (36)
- ‘The movement has targeted the last remaining obstacles to its system of indoctrination, mounting a fierce campaign to defeat hate-crime legislation, fearing the courts could apply it to them as they spew hate talk about the radio, television and Internet.’ (37)
- ‘Mainstream believers have often come to the comfortable conclusion that any form of announced religiosity is acceptable, that heretics do not exist.’ (37)
- ‘The new utopians are not always wrong in their critique of American society. But what they have set out to create is far, far worse than what we endure. What is happening in America
- ‘The loss of manufacturing jobs has dealt a body blow to the American middle class. Manufacturing jobs accounted for 53 percent of the economy in 1965; by 1988, they accounted for 39 percent. By 2004 they accounted for 9 percent.’ (45)
- ‘The so-called red states, which vote Republican and have large evangelical populations, have higher rates of murder, illegitimacy and teenage births, which vote Democrat and have kept the evangelicals at bay. The lowest divorce rates tend to be found in blue states as well as in the Northeast and upper Midwest .’ (46)
- ‘The state with the lowest divorce rate is Massachusetts
- ‘Conversion, at first, is euphoric. It is about new friends, loving and accepting friends; about the final conquering of human anxieties, fears and addictions; about attainment of wealth, power, success and happiness through God. For those who have known despair, it feels like a new life, a new beginning. The new church friends call them, invite them to dinner, have time to listen to their troubles and answer their questions. Kennedy tells us that we must keep in touch in the days after conversion. He encourages us to keep detailed files on those we proselytize. We must be sure new converts are never left standing alone at church. We must care when no one else seems to care. The new converts are assigned a ‘discipler’ or prayer partner, a new friend who is wiser than they are in the ways of the Lord and able to instruct them in their new life.’ (56)
- ‘This intense showering of affection on an individual, as psychiatrist Margaret Thaler Singer described in her 1996 book ‘Cults in Our Midst,’ is often very effective: ‘As soon as any interest in shown by the recruits, they may be love-bombed by the recruiter or other cult members. This process of feigning friendship and interest in the recruit was initially associated with one of the early youth cults, but soon it was taken up by a number of groups as part of their program for luring people in. Love-bombing is a coordinated effort, usually under the direction of leadership, that involves long-term members flooding recruits and newer members with flattery, verbal seduction, affectionate but usually nonsexual touching, and lots of attention to their every remark. Love-bombing – or the offer of instant companionship – is a deceptive ploy accounting for many successful recruitment drives.’ ’ (56-57)
- ‘The new convert is drawn gradually into a host of church activities by his or her new friends, leaving little time for outside socializing. But the warmth you embrace soon brings new rules. When you violate the rules you sin, you flirt with rebellion, with becoming a ‘backslider,’ someone who has converted but has fallen and is once again on the wrong side of God. And as the new converts are increasingly invested in the church community, as they cut ties with their old community, it is harder to dismiss the demands of the ‘discipler’ and church leaders. ‘Backsliding’ is a sin. Doubt is a sin. Questioning is a sin. The only proper relationship is submission to those above you, the abandonment of critical thought and the mouthing of religious jargon that is morally charged and instantly identifies believers as part of the same, hermetic community. The psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton describes this heavily loaded language, the words and phrases that allow believers to speak in code, as ‘thought-terminating clichés.’ ‘Jesus is my personal Lord and Savior’ or ‘The wages of sin are death’ are used, in this instance, to end all discussion.’ (57)
- ‘The most susceptible people, we are told in the seminar, are those in crisis: people in the midst of a divorce; those who have lost a job or are grieving for the death of a close friend of relative; those suffering addictions they cannot control, illness, or the trauma of emotional or physical abuse.’ (59)
- ‘The goal of the conversion is to generate a sense of crisis by stressing that all who are unsaved are lost and in desperate need of help.’ (59)
- ‘The point that evangelists are instructed to make is that eternal life cannot be achieved through good deeds or even a good life. It is impossible to earn your way into heaven. We must accept that we have sinned, will always commit sins, and ask to be born again so Jesus will take our sins upon Him. Once this is done we can learn to live a new way that, while not totally free of sin, allows us to live a life approved by God, a life in which, with the help of the church, we learn to reject sinful acts.’ (71)
- ‘Gays and lesbians within the church, seeking desperately to deny their sexuality and remain in the Christian collective, suffer severe depression and blows to their self-esteem. The US Surgeon General’s office has published data indicating those who are young and gay are two to three times more likely to commit suicide.’ (108)
- ‘Any relationships outside the rigid, traditional model of male and female threaten the hierarchical male power structure vital to the movement. Women who do not depend on men for their identity and their sexuality, who live outside a male power relationship, challenge the cult of masculinity, as do men who find tenderness and love with men as equals. The lifestyle of gays and lesbians is intolerable to the Christian Right because their existence is a threat to the movement’s chain of command, one its leaders insist was ordained by God.’ (110)
- ‘ ‘They want to end homosexuality in America,’ [Rev. Dr. Mel White] says, ‘…one step at a time, first the federal marriage amendment, and then comes no adoption, no service in the military, the reinstatement of the sodomy laws and driving us back into our closets, or worse.’ ’ (113)
- ‘The force possessed by totalitarian propaganda – before the movements have the power to drop iron curtains to prevent anyone’s disturbing, by the slightest reality, the gruesome quiet of an entirely imaginary world – lies in its ability to shut the masses off from the real world.’ Hannah Arendt (116)
- ‘Totalitarian systems usually start as propaganda movements that ostensibly teach people to ‘believe what they want,’ but that opening gambit is a ruse. This insistence on the primacy of personal opinion regardless of facts destabilizes and destroys the primacy of all fact. This process leads inevitably to the big lie. Facts are useful only if they bolster the message. The use of mass-marketing techniques to persuade rather than brainwash allows millions of followers to accept the toxic totalitarian line, having been tricked into believing it’s their own. Ironically, at the outset the movement seemingly encourages people to think ‘independently’ or ‘courageously.’ ’ (118)
- ‘Evolution posits what they fear most: a morally neutral universe.’ (121)
- ‘To tell men they are equal has a certain sentimental appeal. But this appeal is small compared with that made by a propaganda that tells them they are superior to others, and that others are inferior to them.’ Karl Popper (132)
- ‘Wealth, fame and power are manifestations of God’s work, proof, that God has a plan and design for believers. This new class of celebrity, plutocrat Christians fuses with the consumer society, one where the lives and opinions of entertainers, the rich and the powerful are news.’ (136)
- ‘Calls for diversity and multiculturalism are nothing more than thinly veiled attacks on anyone who is willing or desirous or compelled to proclaim Christian truth. Today, calls for tolerance are often a subterfuge, because they’ll tolerate just about anything except Christian truth.’ Rev. Frank Wright (142)
- ‘The ideology is espouses is a radical evil, an ideology of death. It calls for wanton destruction, destruction of human beings, of the environment, of communities and neighborhoods, of labor unions, of a free press, of Iraqis, Palestinians or others in the Middle East who would deny us oil fields and hegemony, of federal regulatory agencies, social welfare programs, public education – in short, the destruction of all people and programs that stand in the way of a Christian America and its God-given right to dominate the rest of the planet. The movement offers, in return, the absurd but seductive promise that those who are right with God will rise to become spiritual and material oligarchs. They will become the news class. Those who are not right with God, be they poor or Muslim or unsaved, deserve what they get.’ (149)
- ‘This is the genius of totalitarian movements. They convince the masses to agitate for their own incarceration.’ (150)
- ‘One of the most striking trains of the inner life of a crowd is the feeling of being persecuted, a peculiar angry sensitiveness and irritability directed against those it has once and forever nominated as enemies. These can behave in any manner, harsh or conciliatory, cold or sympathetic, severe or mild – whatever they do will be interpreted as springing from an unshakable malevolence, a premeditated intention to destroy the crowd, openly or by stealth.’ Elias Canneti (151)
- ‘It is only by grasping our own capacity for evil, our own darkness, that we hold our own capacity for evil at bay. When evil is purely external, then moral purification always entails the eradication of others.’ (154)
- ‘The National Center for Education Statistics shows a 41 percent growth in the total enrollment at conservative Christian schools between 1992 and 2002. TheNational Center
- ‘The National Center for Education Statistics shows a 41 percent growth in the total enrollment at conservative Christian schools between 1992 and 2002. The
- ‘When it is faith alone that will determine your well-being, when faith alone cures illness, overcomes emotional distress and ensures financial and physical security, there is no need for outside, secular institutions, for social-service and regulatory agencies, to exist.’ (182)
- ‘The message being preached is one that dovetails with the message of neoconservatives who want to gut and destroy federal programs, free themselves from government regulations and taxes and break the back of all organizations, such as labor unions, that seek to impede maximum profit.’ (182)
- ‘It is hard to resist the conclusion that this enemy is on many counts the projection of the self; both the ideal and the unacceptable aspects of the self are attributed to him. The enemy may be the cosmopolitan intellectual, but the paranoid will outdo him in the apparatus of scholarship, even of pedantry.’ Richard Hofstadter (200)
‘Debate with the radical Christian Right is useless. We cannot reach this movement. It does not want a dialogue. It is a movement based on emotion and cares nothing for rational thought and discussion.’ (205)
No comments:
Post a Comment