Article to read and form your own opinion

> The evangelical "Christian Reconstructionists" are a
> hootin' and a
> hollerin'. Their "Justice Sunday" TV and radio
> broadcast reached 60
> million Christians. They're poised to take over the
> government, to push
> through legislation and judges who will vote the way
> they want. They
> are enthused by one of their own in power in the
> White House and really
> believe they will be able to control the world--and
> make everyone in it
> a Christian (their kind of Christian, of course).
> The irony is, Jesus
> would be first on their hit list and considered a
> major threat to them,
> a threat to be done away with. His teachings are
> too pacifistic for them.
>
> The following article, Damned If You Don't, is
> meant to wake up
> thinking people in our country and point out to them
> the dangers of the
> Christian radicals. The author thinks we are not
> taking their threats
> seriously enough. Bill Moyers thinks so, too. I
> agree with them on
> that. I hope we will all remember this in 2006 when
> our votes will
> count (and let's hope they will be fairly counted.
> Unfortunately, that
> is not one thing we can be sure of anymore, with no
> paper trails to
> follow--and proven vote fraud having taken place in
> the last two
> presidential "elections" in Ohio, Florida, and other
> states). If you
> don't want to read the entire article, just glance
> at the following
> excerpt. It gives something to remember at voting
> time.
>
> EXCERPT: Reconstructionism as well as the Christian
> Dominionism theory
> are getting really popular in this country. Big
> Time. And we're not even
> noticing. Gary North, one of the Evangelical's
> loudest voices, has
> declared that Reconstructionism "argues that it is
> the moral obligation
> of Christians to recapture every institution for
> Jesus Christ."
>
> George Grant, author of "Bringing In The Sheaves:
> Replacing Government
> Welfare with Biblical Charity," declared in "The
> Changing of the Guard:
> Biblical Principles or Political Action:"
>
> "Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a
> commission, a holy
> responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ
> -- to have dominion
> in civil structures, just as in every other aspect
> of life and godliness.
>
> " But it is dominion we are after. Not just a voice.
>
> "It is dominion we are after. Not just influence.
>
> "It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time.
>
> "It is dominion we are after.
>
> "World conquest. That's what Christ has commissioned
> us to accomplish.
>
> "We must win the world with the power of the Gospel.
> And we must never
> settle for anything less... Thus, Christian politics
> has as its primary
> intent the conquest of the land -- of men, families,
> institutions,
> bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the
> Kingdom of Christ."
>
> George Bush told Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud
> Abbas: "God told me
> to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then He
> instructed me to
> strike at Saddam Hussein, which I did, and, now, I
> am determined to
> solve the problem in the Middle East..."
>
>
> 'Damned if you don't'
> May 16
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
> By Ed Naha <http://mkanejeeves.com/?p=111>
>
> Are you the kind of person who yearns for an
> old-fashioned world? You
> know, wherein we'd all obey the laws and the
> punishments of the old
> Hebrew Scriptures? Wherein all religious
> organizations, congregations
> other than strictly Fundamentalist Christianity,
> would be pummeled and
> persecuted? Wherein any person who advocated or
> practiced other
> religious beliefs would be tried for idolatry and
> executed? Wherein
> blasphemy, adultery and homosexual behavior would be
> criminalized; with
> those found guilty also executed? How about public
> floggings and
> burnings? You down with that? Hoo-yah! Welcome to
> the future!
>
> Now, I know you're thinking: how can things get any
> better than that!
> They do! Imagine women being reduced to slave status
> (Hey, you Hooters
> fans!), considered the property of their fathers
> and, after marriage,
> the property of their husbands! Dads could even sell
> their daughters
> into slavery if the SUV payments posed a problem!
> People who owned
> slaves could physically abuse them as long as the
> beatings didn't kill
> them within three days! (I mean, sometimes less is
> more.) Is that
> far-out or what? Totally.
>
> Welcome to a type of "Christianity" that is bubbling
> under the surface
> of our Bizarro society. If you're into all the
> above? You are a
> Christian Reconstructionist. Take a bow!
>
> Reconstructionism as well as the Christian
> Dominionism theory are
> getting really popular in this country. Big Time.
> And we're not even
> noticing. Why? We're above it. We're smarter.
>
> Not really.
>
> We think because we're smart, because we read books
> and newspepers,
> because we know that Jesus said "love one another,"
> we get it. We don't.
> And that's what these deviants are counting on.
>
> There's a war going on and we're not paying
> attention.
>
> It's being fought right here, right now.
>
> It's a war of conquest; geared towards, not only
> conquering our minds,
> but our souls...and, eventually, our nation.
>
> Gary Hedges, who has an excellent article in this
> month's Harper's
> magazine about religion on the airwaves, told
> interviewer Amy Goodman of
> an annual gathering of the most powerful national
> religious broadcasters
> held in Anaheim, California, last month: "Over the
> last few decades," he
> said, "these radical religious broadcasters, who
> have essentially taken
> control of the airwaves, have built a parallel
> information and
> entertainment service that is piped into tens of
> millions of American
> homes as a way of essentially indoctrinating
> listeners and viewers with
> this very frightening ideology
>
> "...I grew up in the Church. My father was a
> Presbyterian minister. I
> have a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity
> School, which is what
> you get if you are going to be a minister, although
> I was not ordained.
> For me, this is not a religious movement. It's a
> political movement.
>
> "If you look at the ideology that pervades this
> movement, and the term
> we use for it is dominionism, it comes from Genesis,
> where the sort of
> founders of this movement, Rouses Rushdoony and
> others, talk about how
> God gave man -- this is a very patriarchal movement
> -- dominion over the
> land. And dominionists believe that they have been
> tasked by God to
> create (a) Christian society through violence, I
> would add. Violence.
> The aesthetic of violence is a very powerful
> component within this
> movement. The ideology, when you parse it down and
> look what it's made
> up of, is essentially an ideology of exclusion and
> of hatred. It is a
> totalitarian ideology. It is not religious in any
> way.
>
> "These people quote, as they did at this convention,
> selectively and
> with gross distortions from the Gospels. You cannot
> read the four
> Gospels and walk away and tell me that Jesus was not
> a pacifist. I'm not
> a pacifist, but Jesus clearly was. They draw from
> the Book of
> Revelations - the only time in the Bible - and
> that's a very
> questionable book, as Biblical scholars have pointed
> out for centuries,
> the only time when you can argue that Jesus endorsed
> violence and the
> apocalyptic visions of Paul. And they do this to
> create an avenging Christ.
>
> "They have built a vision of America-- (and) latched
> onto a religious
> movement or awakening that is radically different
> from previous
> awakenings, and there have been several throughout
> American history. In
> all religious revivals, Christian religious revivals
> in American
> history, the pull was to get believers to remove
> themselves from the
> contaminants of secular society. This one is very,
> very different. It is
> about taking control of secular society.
>
> "...And this is an America where people like you and
> me have no place.
> And you don't have to take my word for it, turn on
> Christian
> broadcasting, listen to Christian radio. Listen to
> what they say about
> people like us. It's not a matter that we have an
> opinion they disagree
> with. It's not a matter of them de-legitimizing us,
> which they are. It's
> a matter of them demonizing us, -- describing us as
> militant secular
> humanists, moral relativists, both of which terms I
> would not use to
> describe myself, as a kind of counter-militant
> ideology that is
> anti-Christian and that (is) essentially propelled
> by Satan that they
> must destroy. Listen to their own language.
>
> " You know... in 'Justice Sunday,' listen -- I urge
> everyone to go back
> and look closely at what James Dobson, head of Focus
> on the Family,
> said. He talked about Roe v. Wade causing the
> biggest holocaust in the
> 20th century. There is a frightening kind of
> revisionism and a kind of
> moral equation of a magnitude that... having lived
> through
> disintegrating states in Yugoslavia and other
> places, essentially
> divides -- destroys the center, divides the American
> public, and creates
> a very dangerous and frightening culture war. And
> that's what these
> people are about."
>
> Ah, but it's hinkier than that. Much more surreal.
>
> On December 24th, 2001, Pat Robertson resigned his
> position as President
> of the Christian Coalition. Many Conservative
> Christians were dancing
> (discreetly) in the streets. They believed
> Robertston had stepped down
> in order to allow George W. Bush to take his
> rightful place as the head
> of the true American Holy Christian Church. Dubya
> was the first to be
> the anointed President, the first regent in a
> dynasty of regents
> awaiting the return of Jesus to earth. The President
> would now be the
> minister through whom God would execute His will
> over the nation. Dubya
> accepted the crown and his holy sword.
>
> And Dubya loved wielding that sword.
>
> As he told Bob Woodward: "We will export death and
> violence to the four
> corners of the earth in defense of this great
> nation."
>
> Welcome to the new Crusades, kids.
>
> Dubya considers himself a Crusading Knight.
>
> That would explain everything, in terms of his holy
> wars and his
> threatening half the countries on earth, quoting
> from The Sacred Book
> "My Way or the Highway."
>
> It's delusional. But it's here. Right under our
> noses. Smell it. It
> reeks of catastrophe. These zealots aren't kidding
> around. These people
> are REAL. And they're beginning to reshape this
> country.
>
> Both of these groups want to eradicate what we know
> as America, today.
>
> The poor? Screw them. If their family can't help
> them? It's a curse from
> God. The rich? They're blessed. That's God beaming
> down on them and
> saying they're "okay with Me." Some of this nonsense
> actually goes back
> to Calvinism wherein, the richer you were, the more
> you plowed over the
> poor, the more God blessed you. If you had nothing.
> God didn't like you
> all that much.
>
> Oh, how far we've come along. (But please NOTE: this
> would explain
> Bush's take on bankruptcy, Social Security, tax cuts
> for the rich, the
> obliteration of the inheritance tax for the rich,
> Medicaid for the poor,
> "tort reform," national ID cards and outsourcing
> American jobs to
> benefit the wealthy at the expense of American
> workers.)
>
> Journalist Frederick Clarkson, who has written
> extensively on the
> subject, warned in 1994 that Dominionism "seeks to
> replace democracy
> with a theocratic elite that would govern by
> imposing their
> interpretation of 'Biblical Law.'" He described the
> ulterior motive of
> Dominionism as eliminating "...labor unions, civil
> rights laws, and
> public schools."
>
> Clarkson then described the creation of new classes
> of citizens: "Women
> would be generally relegated to hearth and home.
> Insufficiently
> Christian men would be denied citizenship, perhaps
> executed. So severe
> is this theocracy that it would extend capital
> punishment [to cover]
> blasphemy, heresy, adultery, and homosexuality."
>
> With my Jersey mouth? I'm dead.
>
> Pat Robertson and his ilk have long urged that the
> true believers go
> underground, infiltrate the political system. Get
> the zombies in place
> to overthrow the government. I know it sounds crazy.
> It is. But we live
> in crazy times. These people are determined to turn
> Jesus' "Kingdom of
> God," a spiritual place ("My kingdom is not of this
> world.") to a real
> place. America. And that's just the launching point.
>
> From here? They want to conquer the world. (Does
> this sound like PNAC
> to you?) Leo Strauss, the Godfather of the NeoCons
> and the teacher of
> Paul Wolfowitz and his PNACers, stated that a leader
> had to deceive the
> citizens he ruled and that those who lead must
> understand that there is
> no morality. There is only the right of the superior
> to rule the inferior.
>
> These folks are into Christ as an avenging warrior,
> sort of a Biblical
> Rambo. According to Reconstructionist Gary North,
> women who have
> abortions should be publicly executed "along with
> those who advised them
> to abort their children."
>
> And just think. In Biblical terms, punishments for
> non-capital crimes
> include whipping and restitution in the form of
> indentured servitude, or
> slavery.
>
> Remember: "Justice Sunday" was seen by 60 million of
> the flock.
>
> Remember: This flock is fine with public floggings.
>
> And that's not even taking into consideration being
> forced to watch Fox
> News. (Me? Two orders of flogging to go, please.
> ANYthing but Hannity!)
>
> And some of these true believers have now
> infiltrated our current
> government. Look at them. DeLay? Frist?
>
> Gary North endorsed stealth tactics to infiltrate
> the government as far
> back as 1981 to help "smooth the transition to
> Christian political
> leadership...Christians must begin to organize
> politically within the
> present party structure, and they must begin to
> infiltrate the existing
> institutional order."
>
> Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition threatened to
> take over the
> Republican Party "from the bottom up" and to run
> "stealth candidates"
> for local offices and to get into local public
> school boards to bring
> them down.
>
> Back in the day, Dr. Stanley Monteith, a California
> activist and a
> member of the Christian Coalition intoned in 1993:
> Democracy was a "mob
> rule" and declared that the purpose of (a Christian)
> "civil government"
> was to "terrorize evil doers...to be an
> AVENGER!...to bring down the
> wrath of God to bear on all those who practice
> evil!"
>
> Like people who help the poor, the sick and who
> still admire FDR's programs.
>
> People like Us.
>
> Or, as we laughingly call ourselves, spawns of
> Satan.
>
> These are folks who believe that the Bible is free
> of error.
>
> These are people who oppose inter-racial marriages.
>
> These are people who believe Catholics, Jews,
> Muslims and all
> non-like-minded Christians are going to hell.
>
> The kind of Mayberry folks who would still burn
> witches, but make it
> family-friendly by introducing marshmallows into the
> fray.
>
> Katherine Yurica, an expert on Dominonism, notes
> that it's followers
> include Bush, Cheney, Rumsefeld, Wolfowitz,
> Ashcroft, Scalia, Thomas,
> Gingrich and Robertson.
>
> Sure, we think they're crazy. Oddballs. Loonies.
>
> But maybe WE'RE the ones who are crazy. Why? Because
> we dismiss them as
> "Loonies."
>
> Last week, Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi
> signed into law a
> measure that authorized state officials to post the
> Ten Commandments,
> excerpts from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, and the
> phrase "In God We
> Trust" in any and all public buildings, thus
> officially sanctioning
> Christianity as the state's official religion.
>
> Nobody caught that story. Why? Because we're too
> smart. We're focusing
> on the important issues, the faux red meat issues
> the Republicans toss
> in front of us to distract our vision.
>
> Gary North, one of the Evangelical's loudest voices,
> has declared that
> Reconstructionism "argues that it is the moral
> obligation of Christians
> to recapture every institution for Jesus Christ."
>
> George Grant, author of "Bringing In The Sheaves:
> Replacing Government
> Welfare with Biblical Charity," declared in "The
> Changing of the Guard:
> Biblical Principles or Political Action:"
>
> "Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a
> commission, a holy
> responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ
> -- to have dominion
> in civil structures, just as in every other aspect
> of life and godliness.
>
> " But it is dominion we are after. Not just a voice.
>
> "It is dominion we are after. Not just influence.
>
> "It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time.
>
> "It is dominion we are after.
>
> "World conquest. That's what Christ has commissioned
> us to accomplish.
>
> "We must win the world with the power of the Gospel.
> And we must never
> settle for anything less... Thus, Christian politics
> has as its primary
> intent the conquest of the land -- of men, families,
> institutions,
> bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the
> Kingdom of Christ."
>
> George Bush told Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud
> Abbas: "God told me
> to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then He
> instructed me to
> strike at Saddam Hussein, which I did, and, now, I
> am determined to
> solve the problem in the Middle East..."
>
> Still think these people are silly?
>
> A week ago, so-called secular humanists and regular
> Christians, gathered
> in New York City at the Open Center to try to
> understand all this
> religious politicism that twists the teachings of
> Christ into a weapon.
>
> "This may be the darkest time in our history," said
> Bob Edgar, general
> secretary of the National Council of Churches and
> former six-term
> Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania. "The
> religious right have been
> systematically working at this for 40 years. The
> question is, where is
> the religious left?"
>
> The religious left died on a cross two-thousand
> years ago.
>
> A resurrection is long overdue in American politics.
>
> I'm thinking '06.
>
>
>

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