> > hi Chip:
> >
> > yours is a piece of intellectual snobbery that boggles the
> > imagination. where in heaven's sake did you pick it up?
> >
> > R
> >
>
>In my church youth group when I was 17.
that's where you learned intellectual snobbery? what am i missing here? well, it wouldn't be the first time.
i assume you regard yourself as a christian since you used the term "church group"?
>You apparently missed that lesson.
shame on me. my loss is your gain.
that's where you learned the XXXXs and YYYYYs and ZZZZs? i admit, my church experience was mostly confined to ZZZZZs, and plenty of them. but i was one of the lucky ones.
>You might read:
>
>Martin, William. (1996). With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious
>Right in America. New York: Broadway Books.
i might; but your recommendation will have to go at the end of a long reading list. no offense. maybe i can catch the reruns ....
>Martin, who I worked with when we were both advisors to the PBS series of
>the same name as his book (which was the series study companion),
>demonstrates how a broad range of leaders on the Christian Right consider
>themselves devout Christians and justify their ideas and actions through
>their particular reading of Biblical text.
i think even you will agree, chip, that what one sees oneself as is not always what one is? at least, there's room for disagreement, right?
>He also study's apocalyptic
>aspects of their belief. That this is true is even more vivid in the TV
>programs where they are interviewed.
to be honest, chip, i find the christian right profoundly boring. and profoundly disturbed. they're running an age old, paranoid game with a new, highly unimaginative name. i'm a lot more interested in what you think should be done with them than in their bad habits and frightened personalities and desperate beliefs.
of course i agree the public needs to know more about them; what one doesn't know can hurt one. however, i'm not sure that any study of their beliefs will accomplish more than preach to the converted, pro and con. i regard them as a symptom rather than a cause. the cause is what needs to be treated, not the symptom. change a symptom without treating the cause and another symptom rises to take its place.
>I also wrote the entries on apocalyptic belief for the following:
>
>Encyclopedia of Millennialism and Millennial Movements. Richard A. Landes,
>ed., (Berkshire Reference Works; Routledge encyclopedias of religion and
>society). New York: Routledge, 2000.
>
>Encyclopedia of Fundamentalism. Brenda Brasher and Jeffrey Kaplan, eds.,
>(Berkshire Reference Works; Routledge encyclopedias of religion and
>society). New York: Routledge, 2001.
>
>I even presented a paper on the dangers of Christian apocalypticism to a
>national conference of fundamentalists in Ohio.
how did it go? did you feel like the christian in the coliseum? did you say anything that might upset them? did you have a question and answer period?
>So you have a right to your opinion that what I wrote was "intellectual
>snobbery,"
yes, i do don't i. at least while americans continue being allowed to practice some of our rights.
>but at least a few people, including some rank and pew folk, seem
>to think I have done my homework on this topic.
which wasn't what i was talking about, chip. i wasn't questioning your pedigree. i wasn't referring to what you've done but to what you did when you responded to my posting. you were too full of yourself to make the effort to understand what i'd written. for example:
1. i didn't say shrub isn't a "real" christian, did i? what's a "real" christian? what's an "unreal" christian?
2. perhaps i'm wrong but i think "christian soldier" is an oxymoron. what's your expert opinion?
what i said was "i don't think the faux president is any more christian than the roman emperor nero, for example, who also threw helpless people to the lions to maintain his popularity ratings."
am i wrong here, chip. or do i need another lecture on XXXXs and YYYYYs and ZZZZZs?
and i said "shrub is a hypocrite and opportunist."
do you understand what i was trying to say?
i wasn't talking about the christian right, chip, i was writing about a phoney who's roots are the spoiled upper class of the USA. shrub is running a game. if you want to consider him a christian of any stripe, be my guest. sadly, he does fill the bill of a lot of christians today. but i like my christians a bit more genuine, a bit more "christian" if you will. a bit more like the christians, i hope, who attended your church youth group. or are you a product of the christian right you study with such commitment?
R
>-Chip Berlet