>Yes, this is a very popular story -- the 'founding
>fathers were devout Christians' -- told by local
>ministers and televangelists over and over again.
>Mostly, I've observed, in white churches.
And yet, it's a half-lie in so far as the founders (they might easily name) were clearly critical of religion if not downright hostile. Yes, the christers have quotes they use to back up their claim, but they ignore the rest. It's too complicated for propaganda purposes, in my estimation, so that's why I dropped it. It's like a personal trainer who recently asked me how I felt about sociology--it wasn't scientific and composed of stuff we just made up. *sigh* I _know_ he could appreciate a much more nuanced understanding of science, but why bother? I'd just come off as defensive. Or a know-it-all.
Thu. evening after this incident I talked to a friend for a couple of hours and I said, "If the left operated on the basis of 'talking points memos' like this.... If we could disseminate the truth instead of lies in our own 'churches,' 'radios,' and '700 clubs'...."
But, woah... eeeuuuuwwww. Yuck. both of us rejected that outright--and we've talked about this at Lame Brained Onanists before. What would left agit-prop look like?
>As you know, the most ardent believers tend also to be
>self-described patriots, passionate lovers of their
>country. I think the 'this is a Christian nation'
>story solves what would be a troublesome dilemma for
>these folks -- specifically, how do you passionately
>love your country as if it were a god AND properly
>love your god (who, you're told, demands you have "no
>other gods before me") at the same time? The answer
>is to turn the country into an instrument of that same
>god and therefore, worthy of your devotion.
>
>
>A neat trick, which has an added benefit of providing
>the explanation for your efforts to modify the culture
>along evangelical lines. You're not changing the
>country, you're merely changing it BACK to its
>Christian roots.
It's not at all clear to me that it's entirely about an uncompromising patriotism. Be that as it may, I think the far more political trick is this: to make it appear that 1. christers are oppressed by bigoted anti-xtian Yankee lib'rulz (they are a persecuted minority group, IOW) AND (without contradiction) 2. xtianity is so pervasive (so natural, so normal, so foundationally True) in history and contemporary life, that anyone who objects must be condescend to. I know you're from Atlanta, so you know that "Bless yo' heart" is an insult.
It's fascinating! Clever? Naw.
>Rather clever really.
>
>Thus you create a well sealed box of thoughts,
>impervious to even the most powerful rhetorical and
>factual weapons.
Yeah, and I have to shut my mouth--because I'd really like to complain officially--because the last thing the kid needs is to be singled out as the son of the infidel from the wrong side of the tracks. It's bad enough that we don't live in YUPville and that the checks I write to the booster club emanate from an address in "the ghetto." And it's bad enough that some of us have invaded their world with things like 12 year old cars, single-parenthood, and finery from Pennys. But, it's OK that the recruits from the ghetto will help them win basketball games, of course. Just as long as we know our place.
Kelley