In Reply to: Tyranny of Evangelical Christianity posted by moonshiner on June 05, 2006 at 18:47:56:
The writer fails to make a clear distinction between Evangelical Christianity and Christian nationalism. Evangelical Christianity is a diverse movement with deep roots in many mainstream churches. Within that context, Christian nationalists are a minority and obvious extremists.
IMO, the polarization that the author attributes to Christian nationalists is really the work of very clever political strategists like Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, and Lee Atwater. At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, I think it's the political and economic elites in this country (not the religious leaders) who have marshalled the forces of populist movements like Christian nationalism. When the elites decide such folks no longer serve their purposes, there will be a sharp decline in their importance as a socio-political movement. Christian nationalists have always been around; they've just gotten more attention in recent years as a strategic wedge group.
One of the biggest problems with Christian nationalism is that it is fundamentally racist. When it comes to Evangelicals as a socio-political force, African Americans make up a sizeable constituency that are likely to actively oppose Christian nationalism.
So, did you intend to open a backdoor onto the subject of politics through a provocative post about Evangelical Christianity that's really about Christian nationalism?