>I abhor Ashcroft and his prayer circle, but some of the
>comments about Christianity on this thread have been
>ludicrous. Remember the abolition movement? Largely a
>Christian social/political movement. Remember the civil
>rights movement? Largely a Christian social/political
>movement. Blacks in the civil rights movement were
>overwhelmingly active Christians. Where would the
>anti-interventionist movement speaking up for justice in
>Central America be if it were not for radical Catholics?
>
>There are many different types of Christianity. What pases
>for intellectual discourse on this thread has dropped into
>prejudice and stereotype. The assumption that White
>Christian conservative evangelicals represent the range of
>Christianity is simpy bigotry, and is a form of secular
>White racism that dismisses one of the most significant
>institutions in Black America.
Which has had a far more ambiguous effect than you say here. Christianity has also had a conservatizing on black Americans, maintaining social hierarchies, encouraging fatalism - or, in its prosperity variant, allowing creeps like the Rev Creflo Dollar <http://www.worldchangers.org/> to separate the desperate from their money on the promise that more would return. ("Does your baby need shoes? Give that money to me!")
And how about a word for good old secularism? I strongly doubt that Jesus was born of a virgin, or rose from the dead. Are all those incredible things just metaphors? Then why those metaphors? Why not Wicca or the gods of Mt Olympus?
Like the man said, sad men made angels of the sun....
Doug