Religious-right pressure groups and their leaders regularly encourage Christians to get out to the polls and vote for candidates who support their political agenda. On Monday, for example, the far-right organization Restore America sent out a mass e-mail calling for churches across the country to register Christians to vote in the November general election. Of course, we applaud all institutions — Christian or non-Christian, religious or secular — that seek to increase civic involvement among their members. But this part of Restore America’s e-mail caught our eye:
“Of the 52 million voter eligible Christians in America, 10 million were not registered to vote for the 2006 Election, and over 20 million who were registered, did not vote! . . . Bible believing Christians in America who are eligible to Vote, make up 24% of all eligible voters.”
Really? Only 22 million Christians voted in 2006?
More than 207 million Americans were eligible to vote in the 2006 general election, and nearly 86 million voted. The suggestion that only a quarter of those voters were Christians is just absurd.
Moreover, Restore America claims only a quarter of eligible voters are “Bible believing” Christians. Nearly 213 million Americans were eligible to vote in the 2008 general election, with more than 132 million actually going to the polls. According to exit polling, more than 80 percent of voters that year identified themselves as Protestants or Roman Catholics. That means more than 105 million voters (at least) self-identified as Christians.
Looks to us like Restore America is leaving out a whole lot of folks from its count of Christians in this country. But don’t be surprised — those who don’t subscribe to the religious right’s narrow, rigid ideological agenda don’t make the cut. So when people like David Barton and Cynthia Dunbar argue that our nation’s laws and society should be based on the Christian Bible, remember that they mean their own interpretations of the Bible. The opinions of people who don’t meet their criteria for being proper Christians simply don’t count.
I’m curious about the phrase ‘Bible-believing’ Christians. I’ve never met a Christian who would answer ‘no’ to the question ‘Are you a Bible-believing Christian?’ Admittedly, before I became an atheist I used to think there was a very narrow version of True Christianity, and that I was one of the rare members. So embarrassing.
Justin, I interpret the phrase “Bible-believing Christian” to mean Christians who accept a literal interpretation of the Bible without question and without exception. Just my humble opinion.
A Bible-believing Christian is a person who believes that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old and no death (not even animal or plant death) existed at any time in natural history until after Eve took a bite out of the fruit hanging on the “knowledge of good and evil tree.” You can use that as the canary in your coal mine—your barometer—your universal dipstick. Why do these parapolitical organizations go after these people? Let’s try these reasons:
1) They do not give a crap in a toilet about Jesus themselves. They are in it for the political gamesmanship, money, and power.
2) They are well-educated, slick, sophisticated, and well-schooled in the art of mass communications.
3) They know that the so-called Bible-believing Christians that they prey upon are not well-educated, not slick, not sophisticated, and not wary of the fact that they are being prayed upon. As I have said in numerous contexts in the past, all you have to do is mention the key words: The “J” name, Bible-believing, etc., and they will jump off a cliff for you without even thinking.
Said like an 80-year-old lady: “Well. He said he believed in Jesus, and he was just such a nice, well-groomed young man. I just had to believe him and give him my support.”
They almost never realize that dropping the Lord’s name, the faked niceness , and the well-groomed are the standard disguise of religious thiefs and charlatans in the United States. These gave up the black mask over the face many years ago.”
Ok, Jew boy , you hit the nail on the head. They, the funny-mentalists, do exactly what you said and my opinion ain’t humble.
The problem is that trying to squeeze meaning out of a literal reading of their bible. That removes the responsibility of actually having to think. They just say, “Well, Pastor Castor said it and even if it doesn’t make sense, he’s an ordained minister and knows more than I do.
That kind of non-thinking is what has lead to all of the hate and discontent we see today coming from the far right wing. They have a superior “I know everything, you know nothing” attitude they present. And they do it with a smirk on their faces like they had when they were in elementary school saying, “Nya, nya, nya, nya.
Today I had a very nice lady who helped me keep from falling on the floor. We got to talking and I found that she’s a “birther.” She said that despite being asked many times to prove he was born in the U.S., he refuses to do so. I opened my laptop and showed her President Obama’s birth certificate. “Oh,” she said, “anyone can make up a phony birth certificate.” When talking with a fool make certain they’re not doing the same.
Then she asked THE question: Do you believe the bible? “Which version?” “There’s only one…the one that Jesus and his disciples read.” “Oh, they read the Masoretic Text? Or was it the Septuagint?” She looked at me as though I had just materialized out of thin air. “What are those?” “The bible you asked about.” “No, no, no…I meant the King James Version.”
When I got through chuckling I asked her when the KJV was released. She didn’t know. “The original KJV came out in the 1620s, complete with errors galore. So the last version was around 1628…and it was still filled with errors that have never been corrected. Jesus died around 33 CE so how could he read something that wasn’t printed until about 1,600 years later? Naturally, she said she’d have to ask her pastor.
She honestly believed that the KJV was the ONLY bible ever written. I told her that I had several versions, from Alter’s Five Books of Moses to the Stone Edition of the Tenach, the New International Version, plus a few other Christian versions, including the Living Bible and even have the NIV on my Palm T/X. When she asked why I have so many versions I answered, “Because I want to know how they compare with the Masoretic text because the Masoretic is the ORIGINAL. Of course it doesn’t have the “New” Testament because God said that there is one testament, there is no “new” testament. Of course, I’m talking from the Jewish point of view.
The Restore America figures are more revealing than concealing. It clearly reveals that the Restore America faction consider half the electorate who claimed themselves as either Protestant or Catholic, aren’t Christians. That’s a clear signal to those other so-called “Christians” are actually considered to be apostates or pagans masquerading as Christians.
When the day of the rope comes, there will be more of these “fake” Christians swining from the telephone polse, trees, and gibbets than real pagans (socialists, liberals, and Muslims). In many a small town in America there are loud and vociferous demonstrations by contending parishes that never reach the media, local or national. Save the nut-church that demonstrates at military funerals on the “issue” that God hates fags.
This fifty/fifty proposition should be taken seriously
Gordon wrote:
“….there will be more of these “fake” Christians swining from the telephone polse, trees, and gibbets than real pagans (socialists, liberals, and Muslims).
He’s calling socialists, liberals, and Muslims “real pagans.”
So I take it only capitalists, conservatives, and non-Muslims are NOT pagans?
According to my American Heritage Dictionary, the definition of pagan: “One who is not a Christian, Muslim, or Jew; a heathen.
Note that Muslims and Jews are not considered pagan (at least according to this dictionary). Also note the definition of pagan has nothing to do with one’s preference of economic theory.
Beverly wrote:
“The problem is that trying to squeeze meaning out of a literal reading of their bible.”
Uh, I thought I already said that.
The use of the ” in front of ‘fake’ is supposed to tell the cognoscenti that that which is sandwiched between said “””” is tongue in cheek.
The point is that the Retore America folks consider half of those who call themselves “Christian” are actually not Christians, but some other breed of infidel such as apostates, heretics, socialists, liberals and Democrats.
The Reign of Terror under Citizen Robbespierre massacred more common people than aristocrats, as the common people who served or todied to the aristocrats were more dangerous to the revolutionaries than the aritocrats.
There is also a band wagon, snow ball effect to the pronunciations of the rabid in which each pronouncement of the extend of witchcraft, enemies of the people, enemies of the faith, enemies of the state, and whomever is deemed heretical, inimical, and apostate must out do the previous pronouncement to retain the spotiight, the attention, and the awe of the faithful. Thus the effects of the purges of Stalin, and of the Final Solution pit the various districts and local commandatura to compete for the equivalent of sales quotas in each reporting period.
As the Bar once said, one has to know when to bet, when to hold, and when to fold.