COULD THE EMERGENT CHURCH SWAY THE 2008 ELECTION?

I sure fucking hope so.

On another note, there are rumblings that our government might fall this fall, which will give me something to talk about besides the US election.

This is from our favourite wingnuts over at Christian Worldview Network:

COULD THE EMERGENT CHURCH SWAY THE 2008 ELECTION?
By Jan Markell
http://www.olivetreeviews.org/

The President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Albert Mohler, isn’t surprised that many young evangelicals are moving to the left politically. He states, “There is a sense among younger evangelicals that the conservative movement has gained a bad reputation as being against things rather than for them.” Mohler continues, “I think the younger generation of evangelicals looks at a lot of older evangelicals and says, ‘You just don’t get it. You’re not connecting with the issues. You’re too happy, too consumerist, and too materialistic. You’re living in an evangelical subculture.’”...

I've never understood how the religious right managed to be both "pro-life" and pro-death penalty, gun ownership and war. I guess once you're out of the birth canal, they don't give a shit. Finally, some young religious folk are waking up to this fact and pointing out the obvious: the religious right is full of killjoys and self-righteous jerks. It's also odd that the "emergent church" sees the older evangelicals as "too happy", when all they do is bitch and moan about blastocysts and monogamous gays.

...Dr. James Dobson says, “With evangelical leaders who fought against abortion and for protection of the institution of marriage now retiring or passing away, a void is starting to appear. Just like a little wooden boat floating downstream, many evangelical Christians are adrift in new swift currents of a ‘social gospel.’”

Researcher and author Berit Kjos suggests that there is now an emphasis on deeds instead of creeds. She suggests that behind its noble appearance hides a post-modern version of “Christian Socialism,” which many of these young people have bought into. They are more world-centered and perhaps less Word- centered.

Their focus is not that of their parents’ generation. This generation is not bound by anything the “Christian Right” may have focused on. They primarily want to think about caring for the planet and the poor, and will vote accordingly in November...

Unfortunately for the staid old conservatives with god on their side, part of the answer to both poverty and environmental concerns is birth control. Jesus would be spinning if his grave, if he ever existed, and was supposed to still be in said grave. But the news is ultimately good: these believers are putting their money, and probably their votes, where their mouths are. Jesus supposedly wanted us to be nice to each other, and wedge politics, hawkish foreign policy, and letting the poor starve to death are not very nice. If only they could see the rest of the way to the fact that they've been duped, not only by their church, but by their state.

It just occurred to me that part of the problem with Dobson is that he makes other believers seem so damn reasonable.

...Conservatives are not against helping the sick and needy; however, they also will not abandon the defenseless unborn to the grinder of modern secular abortion mills. The “Christian Right” will remain more concerned about “spiritual poverty” and biblical illiteracy. But neither side has a lock on morality or anything else...

So they might help you if you're sick and needy, so long as you remain chaste and read your Bible. It's astounding how abortion got all tangled up with biblical literacy, because, and I may be wrong on this, I don't think the Bible has a great deal to say about abortions. At least, not directly. There are verses that can be interpreted that way, along with the mixed fibres thing and the menstruating women are unclean thing.

Oh, and who does have a lock on morality? Xenophobic hate-mongers? Closeted anti-gay preachers? Super-rich men who teach that poverty is a virtue, and god needs your money? People who scour holy text to find scraps to justify their bigotry?

...It remains to be seen if these young people who are Emergent Church enthusiasts or followers of the pied pipers of the “Religious Left” will actually solve the problems for which they have a burden. One has to wonder if the post-modern generation even has a grasp on what true Socialism is and its failure around the globe upon masses of people. To hear some of their leaders talk, today’s religious conservatives should hang their head in shame for the sin of neglect of . . . you fill in the blank....

Because Jesus was clearly a capitalist. And big on democracy, too.

...In the 1990s my home state of Minnesota elected a buffoon of a Governor named Jesse Ventura. We paid a steep price for that, and he sailed into office on the vote of the under-30 generation...

Fucking kids. Let's raise the goddamn voting age. Jesse Ventura is a bit of a clown, I'll grant, but he has sounded pretty fucking sensible of late. And can anyone tell me what the steep price for Ventura was? Is it PZ Myers?

...If the post-moderns have their way in November, a similar result is guaranteed as they sweep the Left into office. McLaren, Campollo, Wallis, and associates have paved the way for them and made the grass look much greener on the other side of conservatism. But thanks to the Fall in the Garden, every square foot of grass on either side is full of weeds, and there is really no panacea for the world’s desperate problems except for the Lord’s return...

What the hell does that even mean? And how does saying that both leftie and rightie evangelicals are wrong help your cause? And Jesus has been "just around the corner" for the better part of two millenia. Dude's running late, kids. You'd better make other plans.

...That does not mean that until that time some of the issues being raised should not be attended to. But expectations should be kept relatively low. And no matter what administration rides into the White House on January 20, 2009, much of the glowing campaign rhetoric will fizzle out as man is not the problem solver nor is bigger government. The only solution is the government that is upon His shoulders (Isaiah 9:6)...

More craziness here. We should try to help the poor, sick and the environment, but really, there's no hope. WTF? And the current government's chief order of business seems to be getting out of the government business. So obviously, they're on your side. Do you want a smaller government so you can ride roughshod on the Bill of Rights? And are you suggesting that Jesus get the write-in vote? He can't be President. He's not an American citizen. You're going to need a constitutional amendment for that one (though it looks like the Republicans might try for one to get Arnie in the White House someday).

As I've said, neither Obama or McCain are going to be particularly good for the US or the rest of the planet. Obama will be marginally better (It's like electing Abbott as opposed to Costello). There are three other options, and it'd be nice to hear about them once in a while, but let's face it: barring a few notable exceptions, the POTUS is either a Democrat or a Republican.

The idea that biblical literacy is the most important issue facing the US today is batshit crazy. Monogamous gays and unborn babies aren't what's fucking things up for the US. It's all the other sneaky shit the government has been able to pull while its citizens were looking the other way: at their pastor, at American Idol, or at their GPS systems.

Marx was right about the opiate thing.