Fwd: the "I am a Christian" movement
jeffd
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jeff Duvall <duvall.j...@gmail.com>
Date: May 17, 9:46 am
Subject: the "I am a Christian" movement
To: FreeYourThoughts
http://s2.excoboard.com/exco/thread.php?forumid=135167&threadid=2059286
Kevin Philips is a former Nixon staffer, who then went on to denounce
the
economic policies of the Reagan administration.
He later went on to warn of the collapse of the separation between
church
and state in his "American Theocracy".
He noted that the critical component of support for the Iraq war was
coming
from ultra conservative Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, and in that
order. Another feature which unites these three groups is a very high
birth
rate.
Generally how people vote will correlate to demographics, like race,
education, income level, and urban, rural or suburban residency. But
in the
2000 and 2004 presidential elections, no other single demographic
correlated
to how people voted as strongly as did regular church attendance.
Most churches will capitalize on the Born Again Movement, because it
does
indeed sell. It sounds appealing, because it is strident and
positivistic.
It goes over well in the youth ministries, and most of today's pastors
and
church leaders came of age with it.
The original genature of the modern version of it seems to have been
the
Anti-Vietnam War movement. That is, there had long been various
counter
cultural strains in America, but they were smaller scale movements
made up
of genuine non-conformists.
In the 1960's a number of issues came to a peak simultaneously, the
Civil
Rights Movement, the Women's Movement, and the Sexual Revolution. But
what
really raised the intensity level was the movment against the war in
Vietnam.
As a result, these counter cultural strains came out of the margins
and came
to be widely accepted.
But what about the young people who were more conformist, less
radical, and
more tied to the values of the middle class?
This is where the Born Again Movement came in. At some level it is
similar
to the counter culture. That is, it would seem to be against
consumerism,
and against capitalism. Of course, it really does not work that way.
But
it amounted to a way of checking the counter culture, by bringing in
large
numbers of more conservative young people and thus making a counter
pole.
Of course the real dividing issue between the more bohemian counter
culture
and Born Again Christianity will always be sex. But attitudes about
sex are
never that far removed from attitudes about money and property. They
are
really just two sides of the same coin.
Today, most churches will try to capitalize on the Born Again
Movement,
without seeming to realize that they are indeed aiding a pathological
ideology. Its mostly associated with Evangelical Protestantism, but
it is
also in the mainline denominations. It is in the Roman Catholic
church, and
there are strains of militant Judaism which have come up with
something like
it too.
There is a big difference between your spirituality, and my
spirituality,
and your faith or trust, and my faith or trust, and this "I am a
Christian
Movement".
No sensible person would ever read the Old Testament in a prescriptive
manner. Why would anyone read the New Testament that way either?
*****************************
God Helps Those Who Help Themselveshttp://s2.excoboard.com/exco/thread.php?forumid=135167&threadid=2059266
I had mentioned this article once before:
http://www.shalem.org/index.php/res...ive/winter01#04<http://www.shalem.org/index.php/resources/publications/newsletter/new...>
Some years ago I had contemplated "God helps those who help
themselves". I
did this because I knew someone who was deeply deeply committed to
this
view. That is, everything he said and did seemed to come down to this.
And
as far as I could see, for this elderly fool, all it ever got him was
more
self righteous idiocy.
So on a whim, I typed the phrase into google, and I came upon this
article
for shalem.org, by the now deceased Gerald May. I had already taken
favorable note of May's writings.
The phrase represents a type of thinking which I find extremely
offensive.
There is a hypothesis put forward by Humberto Maturana and Francisco
Varela,
the developers of the school of thought known as autopoeisis, a type
of
systems theory.
"Everything said is said by someone."
In my own thinking, I extend it to "Everything said is said by
someone, for
some reason." From the first time I ever heard this, I've always seen
the
primary example of this as "God helps those who help themselves."
Though the statement is generally attributed to Protestantism, really
the
emblem of Protestantism, I know that it is also found in Catholic
circles.
Its a very American notion. Also, Ignatius of Loyola is not one of
your
better spiritual guides.
Your more conformist Jews seem to believe something like it too. I
think its
just a habitual way of thinking, a kind of trick of the intellect.
Banging Your Heart home page:http://s2.excoboard.com/exco/index.php?
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