NY Times' Kristof: "Christian Right has largely retreated from the culture wars"
December 04, 2006 5:46 pm ET
In his December 3 New York Times column (subscription required), Nicholas D. Kristof condemned the "fundamentalist" writings of atheists such as Oxford University professor Richard Dawkins and author Sam Harris, claiming that "the tone of this Charge of the Atheist Brigade is often just as intolerant -- and mean" as that of Christian conservatives. Kristof concluded his column by claiming that "the Christian Right has largely retreated from the culture wars," adding that he hopes "that the Atheist Left doesn't revive them." Kristof provided no support for his assertion. Nor did he explain how it squares with recent actions by Christian conservative leaders. For example:
- Last week, Christian church leaders criticized evangelical pastor and author Rick Warren for inviting Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) to speak at an evangelical AIDS conference because of Obama's support for abortion rights. Rev. Rob Schenck, president of the National Clergy Council and chairman of the Evangelical Church Alliance's Committee on Church and Society, asserted that "Senator Obama's policies represent the antithesis of biblical ethics and morality, not to mention supreme American values, " adding that "as a supporter of abortion, Sen. Obama nullifies the first of all human rights, the right to life." Conservative radio host and columnist Kevin McCullough recently asked: "Why would Warren marry the moral equivalency of his pulpit -- a sacred place of honor in evangelical tradition -- to the inhumane, sick and sinister evil that Obama has worked for as a legislator?"
- The Times itself recently noted that Christian Coalition of America (CCA) president-elect Rev. Joel C. Hunter stepped down because CCA's executive board had "resisted his [Hunter's] efforts to broaden its agenda to include reducing poverty and fighting global warming." The Times noted that Hunter "has gained a reputation as an evangelical leader seeking to expand the agenda of conservative Christian activists from issues like abortion and same-sex marriage."
- Religious conservative groups such as Focus on the Family supported midterm election ballot initiatives attempting to ban same-sex marriage in eight states, while other groups such as the Family Research Council criticized the New Jersey Supreme Court's decision granting same-sex couples the same legal rights and benefits as married couples.
- The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights is conducting a "2006 Christmas Watch," noting: "Every December sees its fair share of 'Grinches,' those retailers, schools, websites, towns and municipalities who refuse to acknowledge Christmas as part of the 'holiday season.' These Christmas kill-joys are all around. This Christmas, the Catholic League, Father Benedict Groeschel, C.F.R. and the other Franciscan Friars of the Renewal have joined up to put the spotlight on these folks."
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Is anybody reading him saying, yeah you're right Bill, the Christians have backed off. And taking it seriously?
Y'all know how them reichwingers can't concentrate on more than one goal at any time. Bush is a perfect example of that...
So who is fighting:
1. For the right to tell women how to govern their wombs;
2. For the right to tell homosexuals how to govern their bedrooms;
3. For the right to interfere in every conceivable aspect of private life;
Atheists or Christians?
Don't think too hard on this one. Just let the answer immaculately appear.
Does that apply to a 14 year old?
I would offer that it should be between the 14 year old and her parents if anyone, not to be dictated by the wishes of a totally disconnected organization regardless of affiliation. It does muddy if the parents are separated. This, like any of life's decisions, is not easy because there are too many variations to have a one rule fits all answer.
Yes, when someone makes a point you cannot refute, toss out some cryptic reference for the sole purpose of muddying the waters.
What in the name of creation does a 14-year-old's womb have to do with the ongoing Christian crusade to boss around the lives of consenting adults? The evangelical Christians principal grievance is with consenting adults doing things -- anything -- out of line with their belief system. So how do they address this concern? By invoking children as the reason why we should ban contraception such as the dreaded Morning After Pill.
So goes the argument in all its illogic: "It's like giving little girls permission to have sex! GASP!"
No other substance sold ANYWHERE in the USA has EVER been held to the standard of "a child might use it" or it "might provoke adult behavior in children".
Not cigarettes.
Not booze.
Not dynamite.
"We should ban dynamite because the next KA-BOOM! you hear might be your child! GASP!"
See how dumb that argument is? No? Well, we can't all be intellectually nimble.
asking. bla bla bla.....
Cant even decide whether or not to smoke cigarettes so that isnt even a good try at a point
Does that apply to a 14 year old?
We have minors in the U. S. being charged as adults when they commit a crime so, why can’t a fourteen year old make a decision about her womb?
Don't raise her in a home where there is abuse, violence, rape and incest.
Then she'll tell you.
Be careful there fantagor.
Please do not confuse the vocal religious right with Christians, they aren't Christians they're hypocrites.
Progressives are not all atheists, in fact I'm sure that atheists only comprise a tiny fraction of them. There is also no shortage of atheists at the conservative end of the spectrum.
My beef is with people who keep trying to make those false associations. It's not our conservative, sometimes religous fellow Americans that are the problem. It is the right_wing_nut, hate mongering, talking heads that control the airwaves. They constantly try to wedge us apart.
It is they who will have to answer to a higher authority when their time comes. May the gods and godesses have mercy.
ALL atheists couldn't care less what this person or that person does with their bodies.
But SOME part of Christianity does.
It's actually neo-Judaism. They take their entire ideology from the Old Testament, the old Hebrew law codes. Their sexual mores, their bigotries, their hatred of gays, all comes from that part of the Bible.
The only book they care about in the New Testament, the Christian part of the Bible, is Revelations. The Doomsday book. They love it, they really want the world to end. Nihilism.
Jesus didn't talk about any of that stuff. He was out preaching inclusion, love, healing, all kinds of cool stuff. He was the John Lennon of his day. These "Christians" would have hated Jesus. They woulda had him crucified. They're not Christians.
Monotheism is crap anyway. The universe is Taoist. Just ask it.
you sound like my twin separated at birth!
Yes, many alleged "christians" aren't Christians. The Christ had his say in the latter part of the Bible, but his words and doctrine are a rocky road. Who wants to love the poor? To enfold everyone in forgiveness? To temper the tongue and withhold judgment? To foresake wealth? To live a life of simple service?
Better to abide by the Old Testament, with all its war and hatred and slavery, and call yourself a Christian, although the New Testament is called the NEW TESTAMENT for a reason. It is the new way and as the Golden Rule replaces all other rules, the New Testament replaces the old text.
"Do unto others as ye would have done unto thee." Sheer brilliance! The total essence of morality captured in one sentence.
But for the American, they worship Gold. In Cash We Trust. Megachurches with Burger Kings and televangelist theaters with sat uplinks and radio stations. All in the name of the Holy Profit. Their saints are celebrities and their dogma whatever is up for sweeps week. That's the temple of Corporatism. They don't got monasteries, they got accountants.
I know some right wing athiests and agnostics who think the gov't does have the right to tell you what to do with your body adn what you can do in your bedroom.
I work for one such @#$%*&.
believe that religion should be used to control the population and that "Secular society is the worst possible thing, because it leads to individualism, liberalism, and relativism, precisely those traits that may promote dissent that in turn could dangerously weaken society's ability to cope with external threats." ([link to tvnewslies.org]
So you have a lot of people who may be atheists themselves, but want to use religion to keep the rest of us in line.
That's the point I was trying to make which you did so much better.
That the troglodytes would go scurrying back to their caves, but the Dobsons and Falwells and Robertsons of the world are making too much money off of these rubes, and the GOP has found them to be an easily-manipulated voter base. They aren't going away any time soon.
shearing them for their wool. At least they'd be contributing to society...
So the atheists are fighting back after being relentlessly vilified for years (forever, really), and all of a sudden Nicky Kristof just finds the whole conflict so unseemly. My my I just may get the vapors. *swoon*
I agree. Why exactly should atheists be tolerant of people who blow up buildings, shoot doctors, & outlaw science? If religious moderates didn't tolerate extremists in their ranks, then maybe these things wouldn't happen. So maybe it's time to stop tolerating the moderates.
at least we should stop tolerating tolerant moderates!
pray all you want. put up your manger scenes. anything. just don't ask me to participate or use my tax money or public property for religious purposes. how kristof sees this as intolerance is beyond me.
hmmm... where's the seperation of church and state there?
Yes, Barack Hussein Obama is the antichrist...
[link to www.wonkette.com]
and we have the unmitigated gall to go through the Muslim world and tell them their clerics are too crazy and dangerous to be involved in politics.
Pot!!! Have you met Kettle?
It's time that religion actually get discussed again, rather than swept under the "you go your way and I'll go mine" wishy-washy rug.
We all have the right to believe what we want, but we also have the right to tell others that we're pretty sure their beliefs are wrong. Religion deals with major questions of fact that have real answers.
Politeness has been killed in public discussion for years. Might as well bring religion into it. You know, for the ratings.
You have to be an atheist to see 'God', to realize that what everyone has been searching millenia for has been right there all along, in plain view.
There is no enlightment in denial. All is real. Buddha, eat your heart out.
IF you believe your religion is so weak that it requires the intervention of STATE POLICY, STATE PARTICIPATION, and even STATE LAW to thrive, then your religion is a FALSE religion.
The Rightwing "Christians" spend all their time in hatred, divisiveness, and the pursuit of POLITICAL power. They have spent mountains of effort and money to try to turn America into a "Christian" Theocracy, with overtly "Christian" public servants, fashioning and enforcing "Christian" laws on all human behavior.
These people are neither Christian nor even religious ... they are would-be tyrants, who wish to rule over the lives of all the people. And in their pursuit, they do enormous damage to the real Christian religion, and heap insult on the living memory of Jesus Christ Himself. As the old country song goes, "Their 'love' ... is the HURTIN' kind."
Please do not confuse the vocal religious right with Christians, they aren't Christians they're hypocrites.
Progressives are not all atheists, in fact I'm sure that atheists only comprise a tiny fraction of them. There is also no shortage of atheists at the conservative end of the spectrum.
* - Rocky Mountain Joe
We would all welcome other Christian voices into the public debate about these issues. Where are you? Where have you been? If the right-wing, fundamentalist, evangelical nutballs are not representative of most Christians in the U.S., then where are the rest of you hiding? Are you just not as politically savvy as the evangelicals? Can't get yourselves on TV? Can't get the journalists to come and interview you? Have you tried? Have you spent any effort whatsoever in trying to get the media and the politicians to pay more attention to your brand of Christianity? Or are you just lying back all smug and superior in your sanctified mainline church club while your right-wing brethren beats the hell out of what it is you claim to believe? I know you're out there. I see you guys post ever now and then on blogs. I have friends who are members of, in fact rather significant persons, in mainline churches. I ask them the same question. Here's the answer I get..."no one wants to rock the boat or have internecine warfare." Sounds like a cop out to me. Isn't this what happened to Islam? The problem isn't Christianity. The problem is fundamentalism, no matter from whose religion, and the best people to combat that isn't atheists, it's Christians. What are you guys waiting for? The Second Coming?
I feel like I've just been taken to the wood shed. You're absolutely right, CBALLS. It's time that us more progressive Christians stand-up and fight instead of just curling up into a ball anytime the arrows start flying.
There's a blog called Street Prophets that grew out of Daily Kos run by a poster named Pastor Dan. Do you know it? It's a great site. Pastor Dan is a UCC pastor and is politically active.
Unfortunately, I haven't been there in a while.
Geez, I sound like I was never schooled in proper English. That should say "we Christians".
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell
He bends over backwards too far too often. He goes to Darfur, is one of the great experts on the situation, but he credits his opponents with having deep motives too. Most often, they don't. He can't see what's going on in America, though, if he thinks the Christian Right has retired from the field.
But he's mostly wrong when he's too quick with an "on the other side" concession. Dawkins is often insulting to God-believers, but hey, he thinks it's all a superstition. You can have a debate with him, or not, if you choose. He is not saying that you have to start every day in school with a recital of why God doesn't exist. He's not advocating shutting down the anti-evolution museums. Or shooting the ministers and other wackos who advance the Creationist claptrap. He's not advocating mandatory abortions.
But liberals of the Kristof variety always give away the farm, because they have to see themselves as noble and even-handed.
According to an article last week in Salon by Sidney Bloomenthal, Evangelicals voted in the same numbers in 2006 as they did in 2004 (which is quite something given there was no presidential race this time.) It's just that a lot of other people got out & voted against them.
[link to www.salon.com]
As long as the thinkers outnumber and outvote the non-thinkers, the Republic has a chance.
The point isn't whether or not the religious right has retreated from the culture wars, the *point* is that the media has some responsibility to insist on a level of accuracy and a factual basis from the people they employ, even columnists. Newspapers should not run "opinion" columns that are riddled with errors that any decent fact-checker could verify as false with a minimum of effort. Not that I expect that level of accountability, mind you . . .
These rats called evangelicals are the roots for all culture wars all over the world.AS their insane Jerry faultwell said a Christian army that will kill and destroy all unchristian enemy.If you recall their activities from Christian East temor separating from Indonesia to all over Africa where they go convert people and use them as a God Army in sudan and every trouble born area as CongoSomalia just to mention a few.They spread their poison here and abroad.
Man you have the dark glasses these evangelicals put it in every phobic person who takes what they brain wash people with as granted.Their propagnda is starting melting out in the new communications era like snow is melting under the rays of sun.Only a fool will look that way and get himself absorbed under the witches of the new century.
that says, "The Religious Right - America's Taliban". The other day some guy at the store yelled out at me, "Hey, wattaya got agin religion?" I replied, "Nothing, until you try to make your religion my government". He got a confused look on his face and drove away.
It says, "The Christian Right Is Often Neither." Living in the red middle of blue Pennsylvania means my wife and I get some odd looks over that one.
These guys live in a bubble. "Christian right has largely retreated from the culture wars"? What's he smoking? Sounds more like the kind of foolish, wrong-headed pronouncements you hear out of David Brooks.
Or you could celebrate the confusion of Christmas by putting "I am Jesus (and You're Not) at the top of the charts...
It made me laugh, at any rate...
www.indiestore.com/pinkboxrecords