When it comes to examples of extremists using faith as a political weapon to divide Americans, one can hardly beat David Barton. The right-wing phony historian who calls separation of church and state a “myth” decided this week to explain why fundamentalist Christians shouldn’t be upset that he has been collaborating with his Fox News buddy Glenn Beck. Beck is a Mormon, and many fundamentalists don’t consider Mormons to be Christians. (Some just bluntly call it a cult.) Barton, however, says Beck is a better Christian than those evil Democrats:
“Christians concerned about Glenn’s faith should judge the tree by its fruits, not its labels. After all, Nancy Pelosi and Bill Clinton openly call themselves Christians, as do Evangelical Christian ministers such as Jim Wallis and Joel Hunter. Although these individuals have the right labels, they have the wrong fruits; yet many Christians have a more visceral reaction to Glenn than to Pelosi, Clinton, or Wallis. This is wrong; it is not Biblical.”
Kyle at Right Wing Watch has more here.
Does Barton ever stop to think, just for a minute, how arrogant and insulting it is to judge the faith of other people? Has he forgotten something about “Judge not, that ye be not judged’ (Matthew 7:1)? The frequency with which he uses faith as a political weapon does make one wonder.
Hopefully, it’s getting to the point that educated, rational, adults, among them moderate church leaders, moderate Republicans Independents and Democrats, as well as leaders in business, are realizing that “something has to be done” about these liars and crooks who are stealing the Christian faith for a dark political end.
Progressive thinkers, blacks, Muslims, Hispanics, Jews and gays, hopefully, will realize that they are going to have to get fierce, and rise up and smack these people down before America follows Nazi Germany into oblivion.
Violence is not called for. However, if these people are not defeated soon, we will pass a tipping point at which, as occurred with Nazi Germany, the world has to rise up in self-defense.
Right now, the GOP is cynically throwing up the “mosque” controversy to distract people from the economic malaise their policies caused, and these con artists on the right are getting rich exploiting the opportunity. As a result, they are also throwing a monkey wrench into the western worlds efforts to defeat Islamic terrorism.
This has to be stopped, cold.
Harold Dow, veteran CBS reporter died Friday at the age of 62.
Here’s a great report of his on the life and death of Medgar Evers, the great civil rights leader who worked on voting rights.
Quote from Medgar Evers widow:
“The power …was in the vote. The power was elusive… because of the fear.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EST8rmZRrNk
Fruits? Don’t get me started.
There, I fixed it for him.
I like it Bill. It’s like I have told you for over a year. When everything gets reduced down to its lowest common denominator, it’s all about the fruit—and the nuts.
Please read the following post at the correct Reverend Dr. Bruce Prescott’s baptist blog. It gives the true story behind how and why the Religious Right was founded—in the words of those who actually founded it. I was surprised and shocked to learn about Billy Graham’s involvement in the founding of the Religious Right. I have always held Billy in high esteem, but that esteem has been lowered about 50 percent after reading this piece:
http://mainstreambaptist.blogspot.com/
Unless I’m mistaken, the “Religious Right” is a spin off of the “Silent Majority.” The people who are so concerned that the Koran tells Muslims that it is okay to lie, cheat, mislead, etc. The Christian bible doesn’t SAY that, but the Religious Wrong do EXACTLY the same things they blame Muslims for doing.
Unfortunately, people do not read the bible and if they glance at it from time-to-time they don’t know what the bible is saying. Instead of reading more modern, up-to-date bibles that can almost be understood. Christians think that they’re the “new” Jews. That’s why they want the Ten Commandments in schools, courts, and other public venues. They were not freed from Egypt. Most don’t honor the Sabbath–the SEVENTH day, not the FIRST. Greed and envy are rife causing more problems despite the commandment not to envy what your neighbor. It has caused people to buy things they don’t need, causing the credit crunch.
I find that people who watch hate vendors like Beck BELIEVE him without thinking about what he is saying. Fair and Balanced? Yeah, and I’m the runner up for the Miss Texas pageant. (I choked on that )
Billy Graham and his buds started the bigot…err…Silent Majority. Their whole idea was to grab as many offices that they could and bring this country back to its Christian “roots.” Let me spell that out for you, BIGOTRY. You are either one of them and if you’re not, you’re on the outs. The “Silent Majority” morphed into the “Religious Right,” note that they say “Religious” and not “Christian,” and that is subterfuge. Then they have the chutzpah to call the Muslims sneaky liars?
Where Ann Coulter comes into all of this I don’t know, but she’s one of the loudest voices who call Democrats atheists. My doctor doesn’t allow me to listen to her else my blood pressure would blow another artery. To use religion to bring up false accusations is heinous. It is so unAmerican that it isn’t funny.
Where do I get all of this info? I was working for Oxford University Press and another Christian publisher when this form of bigotry raised its serpent like head. Nobody took them seriously at the time. I did and tried to spread the warning that what we are seeing now was coming our way. People laughed at me. They’ve stopped laughing.
David Barton is a complete idiot. He had dedicated his life to perpetuating his delusional world view. What a sad character he is.
Barton, I AM judging you by your fruits. ‘Nuff said. And your fruits are as fruity as you.
David, what gives you the idea there are “moderate Republicans”? ‘Moderate’ and ‘Republican’ are oxymorons anymore. The two words don’t work together in the same sentence.
Beverly, actually, the Christian Bible DOES advise to lie. Or mislead, if you prefer. Paul contradicted Jesus in important religious matters and made himself greater than his master. He admitted using trickery and deception to gain his ends. Check these out:
“And unto the Jews I became as a Jew that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law (I became) as under the law that I might gain them that are under the law.”
I Corinthians 9:20.
“….nevertheless, being crafty, I caught you with guile.”
II Corinthians 12:16.
Oh, and PS to Beverly: Actually, in the 1950’s President Eisenhower foresaw the takeover of the Republican Party by Religious Righties and warned against it. Check it out in the book Republican Gomorrah by Max Blumenthal. It will blow your socks off.
We could go on and on for reams of pages as to what the Bible commands. Stuff like not wearing different fabrics together, stoning your disobedient children, not eating pork or shellfish….. Stuff that idiots like David Barton and Glenn Beck have probably never heard before and would choke on.
And just WHO is Barton to decide who is a good Christian? Actually, according to Mark, hardly anyone can be identified as Christian:
“And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”
Mark 16:17-18.
Thus, I doubt David Barton or Glenn Beck have even a rudimentary inkling what the Bible says.
There are a few moderate Reps out there (voters) who are like polar bears stranded on small chunk of ice hundreds of miles away from land (or solid ice). They keep trying to be polar bears but are waking up to the fact that the world has changed drastically. The elected GOP are all hosts for an alien life form that has taken them over. And of course it is really fear of a changing world that has brought all this on.
It’s obvious Beck and Barton don’t believe in God, or they would fear his wrath.
David, I finally watched the Medgar Evers video you linked us to. Thank you. It brought tears to my eyes. I’m old enough to remember these events….Medgar Evers, the four little girls in the Birmingham church, Viola Liuzzo, Mickey Schwermer, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr,…. I’ll never forget these names, and I can’t help thinking that on November 4, 2008, they were all looking down and smiling.
Sixty-two is WAY too young to die. RIP Harold Dow.