From review of book:
How the Republicans Stole Christmas: The Republican Party's Declared Monopoly on Religion and What Democrats Can Do to Take It Back
Doubleday, 288 pp., $23.95 by Bill Press
Review by Bill McKibbin in the Christian Century, November 1, 2005
. . .Press makes it pungently clear that ours was not founded as a Christian nation—that, indeed, Jefferson (who published his own edition of the Gospels, eliminating all references to Christ's divinity) and Madison (who opposed having chaplains in Congress and accepted them in the military only if they were volunteers and received no government funds) would quickly be blackballed if they even thought of running for office today. Though he accomplishes it a little crudely, Press deserves credit for standing straight up to the religious right where it is most vulnerable—in its hijacking of Jesus and his message for purposes that run counter to almost everything he stood for.
"But that doesn't end the argument. One reason religious conservatives have had success is that they have appealed to the latent idea that something in our culture is not working. They have paraded a series of unlikely scapegoats (feminists! gay people! biologists!) as targets for this unease. It's necessary but not sufficient to defend such groups; it's more important to acknowledge that something bad has happened to our society.
"That something, more visible than usual in the wake of Katrina, is the breakdown of community. Americans, most data suggest, feel more isolated and less satisfied with their lives than at any time in our history. We have bought into the idea—promulgated most effectively by the business interests that are the ironic other half of the Republican base—that we should think of ourselves mostly as individuals, never as part of some larger kingdom; that we should resent the claims of others, who probably just want to score Louis Vuitton handbags anyhow.
If the hard-right march of the ultraconservatives is to be turned back, it will only be with a revived vision of a more connected community where we look out for each other's needs—for health care, for education, for security, for community. When someone finally offers that vision, it will split off the uneasy-but-goodhearted from the hateful and the greedy, and our politics will start to bend back toward the mi"ddle. And maybe even toward the gospel."
How the Republicans Stole Christmas: The Republican Party's Declared Monopoly on Religion and What Democrats Can Do to Take It Back
Doubleday, 288 pp., $23.95 by Bill Press
Review by Bill McKibbin in the Christian Century, November 1, 2005
. . .Press makes it pungently clear that ours was not founded as a Christian nation—that, indeed, Jefferson (who published his own edition of the Gospels, eliminating all references to Christ's divinity) and Madison (who opposed having chaplains in Congress and accepted them in the military only if they were volunteers and received no government funds) would quickly be blackballed if they even thought of running for office today. Though he accomplishes it a little crudely, Press deserves credit for standing straight up to the religious right where it is most vulnerable—in its hijacking of Jesus and his message for purposes that run counter to almost everything he stood for.
"But that doesn't end the argument. One reason religious conservatives have had success is that they have appealed to the latent idea that something in our culture is not working. They have paraded a series of unlikely scapegoats (feminists! gay people! biologists!) as targets for this unease. It's necessary but not sufficient to defend such groups; it's more important to acknowledge that something bad has happened to our society.
"That something, more visible than usual in the wake of Katrina, is the breakdown of community. Americans, most data suggest, feel more isolated and less satisfied with their lives than at any time in our history. We have bought into the idea—promulgated most effectively by the business interests that are the ironic other half of the Republican base—that we should think of ourselves mostly as individuals, never as part of some larger kingdom; that we should resent the claims of others, who probably just want to score Louis Vuitton handbags anyhow.
If the hard-right march of the ultraconservatives is to be turned back, it will only be with a revived vision of a more connected community where we look out for each other's needs—for health care, for education, for security, for community. When someone finally offers that vision, it will split off the uneasy-but-goodhearted from the hateful and the greedy, and our politics will start to bend back toward the mi"ddle. And maybe even toward the gospel."
posted by Paschal Baute at 9:47 PM
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