Christ's Militia - How Evangelical Protestantism came to dominate America

Gary B. Nash in the Boston Review gives a history lesson of three major American church leaders. There is an interesting contrast to the two dominant church leaders in Boston around the same time - Ballou and Channing. Not much of a contrast in Hosea Ballou's case - he was a traveling backwoods preacher to start. The secret to spreading the word is to encourage people to spread the word.

I am thinking about religion today as I read a couple things and then more and more on this domination by right Christians.

The first is that a US federal court has ruled that freedom of religion can be limited to Judeo-Christian monotheism. A county government, or presumably any public body, can ban opening prayers from other religions. This will be appealed.

The second is that the GOP takeover of fundy churches has lead to a church banning members for voting Democratic. So what, you might say - churches can determine who their members are. Ahh, but to get tax-exempt status a church, or any tax-exempt group, has to refrain from endorsing specific candidates for public office. This is to enable the taxpayers to know that they are not subsidizing campaign activities. Democrats can take action on this. Local activists or a sharp reporter have already gotten the word out.

Last is the liberal editor of America's major Catholic thought magazine America has resigned with the elevation of the new pope. He had urged the selection of a pope who would allow more open debate.

And then, of course, Kansas is about to mandate teaching creationism again.

Adding yet another instance, this post started with just two, - Judge rules against Sex Ed in Maryland. Technically it is now only under review for ten days. Some of the class content sounds like a more recent edition of the sex ed class I taught. They probably don't have the movies and film strips of people having sex though. I agree with SF writer Mack Reynolds, the best thing for America right now would be mandatory summer camps for all kids - in the nude. It would give the parents a break and eliminate a lot of the worst sexual hang-ups in the future.