Wednesday, December 06, 2006

The Political-Religious War in Texas and America


Michelle Goldberg visited San Antonio to declare: "no room for healing the rift between the Christian nationalist extremists and advocates of a secular society."
Goldberg was in San Antonio as a guest of the SoL Center and the Texas Freedom Network on the last leg of her national tour for Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, an in-depth history and analysis of the movement to establish a Christian theocratic government in the U.S. (see: the demonization of homosexuality by megachurch pastors, battles against teaching evolutionary theory in schools, the development of “the abstinence industry,” and the right’s war on the nation’s courts).

Despite recent Democratic congressional victories and falls from grace by conservative leaders such as Tom DeLay and Ralph Reed, Goldberg says the movement has hunkered down strong with a number of diffuse local organizations and, at the state level, “patriot-pastor networks” that use megachurch and church-related organizations as centers for right-wing political organizing.

“This movement is not a religious movement but rather a nationalist political movement that cloaks itself in religion,” Goldberg said.

“It is not synonymous with evangelical Christianity and it does not make up a majority of Americans or evangelicals. It is just that it makes up the most highly organized political group in America until now. For various structural reasons, it has come to dominate the government far in excess of its numbers.”

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