Disquieting statistics in the second part of this entry from The Raven.
There is a tremendous dammed-up need for some kind of real religion in this country. I think the statistics Raven quoted make that clear. But the fundamentalist Christian right - which is supplying or trying to cultivate that need presently – cannot meet it. As a political movement, I think it would collapse within a couple of years of achieving any significant power.
Among all the spiritual currents within Christianity, fundamentalism is closest in spirit to the first-century Zealots. Jesus rejected their political program then, and now. According to some interpretations – not necessarily scholarly ones – Judas was a Zealot whose disappointment at Jesus' refusal to lead a political rebellion led to the betrayal recorded in the gospels.
The fundamentalists – with George W. Bush at their helm – want a political version of the Kingdom of God on earth. But they cannot have it. Governments – like corporations – have no soul or spirit, and cannot worship. Jonah was sent to the people of Nineveh, not to their government. Jesus came, according to the New Testament, to save sinners – not their representative assemblies or bureaucracies.
A government composed entirely of Christians might just possibly govern a little better than a government of non-Christians. But if it did, that would be providential. Without that Divine Providence, it would destroy itself within weeks of taking power. And with that Providence, any government of reasonably good men will do just fine.
The church has been through this already. Seventeen centuries ago, when the emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, the State became Christian. That was a disaster. The persecutions continued, but the persecutors, instead of lions, were other Christians.
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