<p>" Somewhere you have your facts very wrong. Perhaps the neocon Zionists are not the only ones who have been duping and exploiting you?"</p>
<p>Thank you JHS. I started to reply to the post you were responding to but by the time I picked up my jaw from the floor, you had done so quite eloquently.</p>
<p>well, according to some Christians, Catholics aren’t Christian. So in that way judge</p>
<p>The idea of being “saved” implies that if you are “not save” no matter what Christian faith one claims, is that you are not Christian enough…aint that nice</p>
<p>“The idea of being “saved” implies that if you are “not save” no matter what Christian faith one claims, is that you are not Christian enough…aint that nice”</p>
<p>CGM, did you know that mainstream Protestants don’t believe that? I’m not sure about other parts of the country, but born agains and fundamentalists aren’t too common in the northeast.</p>
<p>To use term Christian-fascist is, to my mind, no different than using the term Islamo-fascist. </p>
<p>Both are intended to demonize a broad swath of society—un-necessarily and incorrectly with no small amount of condescension and bile. </p>
<p>It does no good to say I only mean the <em>real</em> Christian or Islamic fascists (as the notion is utterly un-categorizable), as most liberals and many conservatives understood when the slur was applied only to Muslims in support of the administrations efforts in their war on terror, i.e. Iraq.</p>
<p>It would be no better to refer to far right Zionists as Judeo-fascists. In fact, it would, in these parochial quarters, instantly be termed anti-Semitic, with at least some, if not complete, truth.</p>
<p>Some time back I started a thread that criticized the Bush Administration for using the term “Islamo-fascist.” Almost all the liberals agreed and many chimed in:</p>
<p>Will they chime in now?</p>
<p>JHS,</p>
<p>do you feel as strongly about identifying the neo-cons with the religious right (meaning, Christian-Right)?</p>
<p>And if not, why not?</p>
<p>Based on your own, quite accurate (according to Fu-kayama) reading of the neo-con history.</p>
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<p>That explains a lot. They are extremely common here in Texas, and many of them do support the neocon politicians, so I thought that was common. And, I was only referring to them as ‘Christian’ because they themselves refer to themselves that way. But I agree that ‘hypocrite’ is a better term for many of them. It is true that they don’t consider Catholics and Mormons Christian. In fact, the born-again ‘Christian’ homeschool co-op my son attended ostracized the Catholics and Mormons children. They called them ‘cults.’ There was a bit of a fuss over the issue and the Mormon families withdrew. Some of the Catholic families stayed but weren’t happy.</p>
<p>This discussion is getting to a level of detail that is beyond my knowledge, so, rather than get duped again (as I supposedly was by Fides’ statement) I shall withdraw any further comments unless I know what I’m talking about.</p>
<p>All I know is what I’ve experienced with some people in my area.</p>
<p>Leal, there are many Protestants in the Northeast who are unbelievably liberal on a social level (ever hear of the National Council of Churches?). I am genuinely surprised that there aren’t more mainstream Protestants in your area, but I guess things are very different in different geographic areas. The lack of knowledge (not yours specifically) of other than Christian fundamentalism is what can lead to some misunderstanding. If your only experience is with those groups, you really may not know that others exist and can be offended by the generalities and snipes at “Christians.”</p>
<p>Yesterday, DH and I received a letter from a college friend of his who recently became a minister (he was “born again” a few years ago apparently). Anyway, he just got back from a mission trip in Switzerland (of all places!), and his later states (in part): “…One day I preached to 700 unsaved women…” I kid you not!<br>
How about that for preposterous?!</p>
<p>I always find it curious how Catholics and Mormons are lumped together. The Catholic Church has existed for 2,000 years; it is the original Christian faith, and, before the 16th century, one of the only two Christian Churches in existence (the other being the Orthodox Church). Mormonism, on the other hand, is a relatively very new invention, an offshoot of Protestantism.</p>
<p>I guess it’s an American thing. Protestantism has always been the dominant religion in the U.S.; Catholicism and Mormonism, despite their having nothing to do with each other, have always been categorized as “other.”</p>
<p>an exerpt from a recent article</p>
<p>“Armed with blood-red rhetoric and the hubris of the politically connected, Hagee filled his 5,000-seat church for a weekend-long event culminating in his Night to Honor Israel in October. To an eager audience preparing for the end times, analogies to Hitler and denouncement of “appeasement” were flying. Anti-Muslim rhetoric was at a fevered pitch. All of it was dressed up as love and benevolence for God’s chosen people. But what masqueraded as Biblically mandated generosity toward the Jews was nothing more than a political rally for a war not just against Iran, but against Islam, and for the dominance of Christianity (Hagee’s brand, of course).”</p>
<p>Fides, it is true that Protestantism is predominant because preference of religion in the U.S. was simply numbers driven and based on the immigration pattern to the American colonies from Britain. Relatively few Catholics immigrated to early America. There were really only two regions with a prominent Catholic population in pre-Revolutionary and pre-Civil War America; Maryland and South Carolina.</p>
<p>And to other posters who believe there are few fundamentalists or “conservative” Christian practitioners in the northeast, what about Mennonites, the Amish and Quakers? All very different. You see how the word ‘fundamentalist’ can be interpreted?</p>
<p>Not sure what you mean, FS. To me, “neocon”, “religious right”, “Christian right” are all broad, imprecise, but sometimes useful terms to describe informal groupings of people with meaningful political, social, and/or ideological overlap. None of the terms are mutually exclusive – and “Christian right” is probably subsumed within the broader “religious right” – but for me there is a meaningful difference between each of them. Of course, to say that a difference is meaningful does not mean that it is meaningful in every context, though.</p>
<p>One doesn’t ususally see people who know what they are talking about equate neocons with the Christian right, for two obvious reasons: (1) Many neocons aren’t Christian – that is part of what made them “neo” in the first place – and most or all share only some of the Christian right’s principles, usually coming to them from a completely different direction. (2) There are some pretty big ideological fault lines there, which don’t move everyday but threaten to cause earthquakes when they do. And it’s not as though either category is monolithic. I suspect it’s tough to get five neocons in a room without having some major factional disagreement (or two, or five), and any category that clearly includes all of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and the current Pope and his predecessor is eliding a bunch of significant differences. </p>
<p>The overlap between, say, Bill Kristol and John Paul II is small enough that not too many people confuse the two. And there are enough, and varied enough, Christians out there that I don’t worry about people confusing “Christian” with “Christian right”. But I do worry about people confusing “Zionists” with “Jews”, because I am very aware of the small number of people who are in one category without being in the other. And I am allergic to the idea that “Zionists” are manipulating everything right and left to accomplish their “Zionist” agenda by subterfuge. </p>
<p>On the other hand, there is this:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.myspace.com/RavShmuel[/url]”>www.myspace.com/RavShmuel</a> Look at the “Protocols” video.</p>
<p>“And to other posters who believe there are few fundamentalists or “conservative” Christian practitioners in the northeast, what about Mennonites, the Amish and Quakers? All very different. You see how the word ‘fundamentalist’ can be interpreted?”</p>
<p>You’re very right Lake Washington. I am a Moravian, which is the original Protestant and nothing is more fundamental than that! We’re based on Pennsylvania and have some very close ties with the Mennonites. I was using the term to refer to what we call “born agains” and that evangelizing thing that we see on tv. By the way, on another topic, my daughter chose Plattsburgh and I’d like to tell you that I used some of your posts to help her ask questions and research in the right direction and she was very much helped by the information and opinions you provided, so I thank you!</p>
<p>I am glad your daughter is enjoying SUNY Plattsburgh and I hope that her experience will encourage other “downstaters” and applicants from the rest of the MidAtlantic region. Good luck to her.</p>
<p>This discussion, as so many others on CC, is a reminder that words do have connotations and mean different things to different people. Talk of “Jihad” makes some of us nervous, even when the users protest they mean it in a religious way. Talk of “Christian Soldiers” “Warriors for Christ” or “Crusaders” makes others nervous because of historical associations or present-day hijacking of the terms. </p>
<p>“Communist” means one thing to a hippie commune, and quite another to someone whose relatives were murdered by Stalin. And so forth.</p>
<p>As I understand it, the parallelism between “jihad” and “Onward, Christian Soldiers” is very apt. If you go back 30 years or so, I think the conventional understanding of “jihad” in the Muslim world was that it was a metaphorical war, a struggle to improve the quality of one’s own devotion and obedience, and to confront sinful behavior in others. Not a guns-and-bombs sort of war. That may still qualify as the conventional meaning in the Muslim world, but obviously the term has been appropriated and redefined by Islamists as a literal war to expel nonbelievers from the Muslim world. That is pretty much the only meaning of “jihad” we ever deal with in America. What’s more, we redefine further it as a generalized war against the West – “they hate our freedom” – and not a defensive war against Western interference. (This is not to apologize for or to express any support for the Islamists, only to note that there is a difference between what they say they are doing and what we say they are doing.) So when we hear that “jihad” is a fundamental obligation for every Muslim, it has different connotations for American non-Muslims than it does for Muslims. Similarly, those who have been on the receiving end of weapons wielded by actual soldiers killing in the name of Christ may hear “Onward, Christian Soldiers” more literally than its author intended.</p>
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<p>A quick google tells me that, indeed, that song title (as does the word “Crusade”) comes in very handy for far left-wing ideology websites and articles. One typical example I found with a quick look was this article in Salon:</p>
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<p><a href=“http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2003/01/03/christian/print.html[/url]”>http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2003/01/03/christian/print.html</a></p>
<p>People who are concerned with the precise use of language may want to start here. Everyone reading this thread knows that our society is becoming increasingly secular (many here have expressed their glee about it), and yet they feel no shame in perpetuating the kind of propaganda Hedges is putting forth with his new book, Sullivan with his “Christianists,” and many, many others with a left-wing agenda.</p>
<p>And, as someone earlier said, for the people who may actually believe this nonsense–there’s a sucker born every minute.</p>
<p>These anti-religion attack books, as I call them, are just more evidence that secularism and the “Enlightenment” worldview has won the day. You have the rare politician mention the word “God” in a speech and suddenly we’re living in a fascist theocracy. We live in a culture that straight-up demonizes religious people and religious faith (Christians and Christianity above all else, of course). </p>
<p>I don’t know what Atheists are complaining and worrying about. They’ve got it made these days. They’ve won the culture war, and this has nothing to do with who is in the White House. In our society, if you are a deeply religious person of genuine conviction, you are considered a weirdo by the majority of the population.</p>
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Yes, and if you are president (or at least a Republican president) who exhorts the name of God in a speech you are pilloried. I wonder what these same critics would say if Bush were to actually lead the country in prayer as FDR used to:
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<p>Oh my, I just realized that FDR used the “C” word (crusade).</p>
<h2>“Leal, there are many Protestants in the Northeast who are unbelievably liberal on a social level (ever hear of the National Council of Churches?). I am genuinely surprised that there aren’t more mainstream Protestants in your area, but I guess things are very different in different geographic areas.”</h2>
<p>Actually, there are tons of mainstream Protestant Churches here in our part of Texas (Houston). My husband jokes we live in ‘LutheranLand’ and there are at least three Presbyterian Churches, one Episcopal, two Methodist Churches and two HUGE Baptist Churches near our house, in addition to about five Lutheran Churches and a Lutheran High School. We even have one Presbyterian Church on Westheimer who has a Brad Pitt lookalike pastor (I kid you not) that has services televised locally on Sunday mornings.</p>
<p>But, there has been a substantial increase in the number of the big ‘super-sized’ nonaffilitiated Bible churches in Houston. DH also jokes about some of them…calling one in particular, Church of the Cirque du Soleil…because they do things like converting their ‘stage’ into dirt-bike jumping ramps or a place for crashing cars (yes the building is that big). I’m sure the theatrics fits the sermon somehow and people do seem to love this pastor and his family (no it’s not the Lakewood Church, but almost as big and popular), so to each his own I suppose. I really don’t get the whole ‘prosperity’ message they preach though. I just want a good old fashioned liturgy, sing a little Gloria Patri, take Communion and occasionally remind myself that I can still say the Nicene Creed…a listen to a sermon constructed around a passage from the Bible that makes sense to me. I don’t have a need for extreme entertainment value, but again…to each his own.</p>