Jeez Doug, I am not arguing that Christianity is all good, I am arguing that it is complex. There are historic fatalistic patriarchal homophobic elements in the Black church and then there are people like Frederick Douglass and Fannie Lou Hamer.
We remember Douglass saying:
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters . Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."
In another section of the speech, Douglass complained that in America the great question always seems to be "will it pay?" Quoting from Revelation 14:6, Douglass admonishes:
" if such a people as ours had heard the beloved disciple of the Lord, exclaiming in the rapture of the apocalyptic vision, "And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people;" they, instead of answering, Amen Glory to God in the Highest, would have responded,--but brother John, will it pay? Can money be made out of it? Will it make the rich richer, and the strong stronger? How will it effect property? In the eyes of such people, there is no God but wealth; no right and wrong but profit and loss .[Our] national morality and religion have reached a depth of baseness than which there is no lower deep."
Secular leftists get creeped out by this language. Why? Is it less inspiring than a passage referencing a Muslim or Jewish or secular text? It was his metaphoric wellspring. Big deal.
I am not arguing that people should not critique Christianity, I am arguing against the flip side of the overly-simplistic rightist argment that all liberals are on a slippery slope toward statist collectivism and totalitarian terrorism.
-Chip Berlet
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Doug Henwood
> Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2001 4:20 PM
> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Subject: Re: Ashcroft's prayer circle
>
>
> Chip Berlet wrote:
>
> >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
>