A Crisis of Political Faith for Evangelicals

[babylonsister]

http://www.cqpolitics.com/2007/09/a_crisis_of_political_faith_fo.html

A Crisis of Political Faith for Evangelicals
By Shawn Zeller | 9:40 AM; Sep. 17, 2007

GOP hopefuls will get no free passes this time from a religious base angered by tepid progress on its agenda

In almost every presidential election of the past three decades, social conservative and evangelical voters didn’t need anything like their own debates or special summit meetings with the candidates. That’s because their choices were so obvious early on: In 1980 there was Ronald Reagan, who coyly told the members of the evangelical Religious Roundtable that, while he understood its membership was barred from endorsing him, he felt free to endorse them. In the past two elections there was George W. Bush, who describes himself as a born-again Christian and won his second term with the support of four out of five evangelicals.

So far in the 2008 campaign, though, evangelical conservatives have been facing a very different prospect: No obviously viable candidate to rally behind and an increasingly restive mood in their ranks.

So political leaders of the religious right are stepping up efforts to find a consensus choice, starting this week by staging the first-ever Values Voter Presidential Debate for the Republican candidates. The debate, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., will be moderated by Joseph Farah, who edits the conservative online news site WorldNetDaily, and the questioners will include such old lions of the movement as Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation and Phyllis Schlafly of the Eagle Forum.

ugh/more...

http://www.cqpolitics.com/2007/09/a_crisis_of_political_faith_fo.html

[Flabbergasted]

1. The fundi movement may as well pack up and go home.

[eppur_se_muova]

4. I like your spelling -- makes me think of 'fungi'

Maybe we could call them "fundgies"?

[Blackhatjack]

2. Overlooked are the Non-Conservative Evangelicals Who Are Breaking For Dems This Time...

There are many evangelicals who are engaged in ministering to the poor and disadvantaged who have become fed up with so-called religious leaders promoting a Republican agenda.

We may witness in the 2008 election a massive turnout of moderate/liberal evangelicals voting for Democrats, and huge number of conservative evangelicals 'staying home' rather than vote for the failed Repub candidates.

Should be interesting to see how this plays out.

[liberal N proud]

7. Some of us were always for the Democrats

I have had much anguish over the last 7 years listening to the If your not republican you can't be Christian crap.

[Blackhatjack]

10. Same here! n/t

[beberocks]

3. The GOP/fundies have made lots of progress

Progress in:

--acting holier than thou (while being caught with their pants down in the men's room)

--hurting the poor while enriching themselves

--killing innocent people (not too many of them are ringing their hands over the dead Iraqis and the Iraqi kids that are orphans, starving, or dying from diseases that could have been prevented except for the contaminated water and lack of medical care)


I'm sure all the fundies will comfort themselves that they, and they alone, are going to heaven because they attend church regularly. That other stuff (helping the poor, not killing, etc.) doesn't apply to them!

[Warpy]

5. There are a number of contributing factors

First and foremost, the millennium came and went and Jesus didn't show up. Again. Millennium fever has just about run its course and the country will begin to convalesce.

Second, all the men at the top are getting on in years. Falwell dropped dead of a gluttony induced coronary. The rest are mostly in their 70s and early 80s. Moon hasn't been crowned master of the universe in many months and may be either dead or incapacitated, the whole thing being covered up by the family to maintain the empire (god can't die, you know).

Third, ordinary people along the secular continuum, believers or not, are getting sick to death of sanctimonious bullying and are showing it. The Jesus fashion and aint we great is going the way of Britney inspired clothing for suburban matrons and low carb diets to fit into it.

I don't expect the zealots to go quickly or quietly, but it seems clear now that they will go. We won't even need a Rapture to get rid of them.

Good riddance.

[babylonsister]

6. "...Jesus didn't show up. Again." Warpy, you are funny, but I guess there

are a lot of disappointed people out there.

[Arugula Latte]

8. Fundies, there's nothing left to do but give away all your possessions,

strip yourselves nekkid and wait for Jesus to come back. Any day now, fundies. Any day. You just keep hope alive, m'kay?

[sinkingfeeling]

9. So they thought Bush 'was one of us'. That pretty much tells me that they don't

1) know anything and 2) can't identify reality and 3) have really bad judgment. The only comment was how one of their leaders can decide who is the 'most religious' of the candidates. How does one become so arrogant that they believe they can see inside someone's personal life and soul?

[OHdem10]

11. There was article last week from the Broader Christian

Coalition indicating they were subordinating the Cultural
Values to the more important issue of our time--Greater
War on Terrorism.

Just Friday on C. Matthews, Hamm (fist name slips my mind)
appears on Cultural Matters on OReilly, but Friday
a guest on Guilliani. She explicitly stated that they
Righties were very serious --Terrorism trumps Cultural
Issues at this election time.

You must remember Terrorism is seen as one of the signs
of the end times. VanImpe, Tele-evangelist and guru on
the Rapture, End Times, repeats Terrorism as "sign" just
about every week. VanImpe is one of those with lines to WH

Hagee, Another Televangelist--keeps his mega church members
filled with Terrorism and the "NEW HITLER"--Arhmadinojad.
Also Wh Connections. Iran, Iran Iran--his flock probably
know more about Iran than they do America.

My Point is for the Fundamentalist--Terrorism has become
a Religious issue.

Whos is keeping Bush with enough support, that the Republicans
on the HILL are not ready to peel off.

Monitor Religious TV if you want to know what is going on.
You have to watch it more than one--then you pick up the
patterns and the framing.

[Lex]

12. The fundies were pwned

but I don't feel sorry for them.

I wish they'd stop being so gullible re: the GOP using them, but then they wouldn't be fundies, would they?