Not trying to be insensitive to someone's faith

[Horse with no Name]

But growing up--I remember evangelicals being the laughingstock of most religions.
Holy Rollers, etc.
How did they acquire the power?
Or did I just grow up in a very sheltered life where my parents told me they were all just a bunch of nuts?

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. They offer certainty.

Some people will pay an awful lot for that. So they do.

It's all about the benjamins.

[blogbear]

2. They are loud, shrewd, and manipulative..They also like to play

persecuted to score points with would-be sympathizers..

[Duncan Grant]

3. Follow the money.

Not to be too cynical here but it's about the money. The "rollers" bought their access to power and like a virus they've replicated and corrupted everything they've touched.

[Cleita]

4. These particular Christian Churches are nothing more than

businesses for collecting money. They sell salvation and anything else their victims want. Most of the preachers are very rich and live high on the hog from money donated by well-meaning but gullible people.

[mitchum]

18. You are right. They are nothing but grifters and charlatans.

[moggie]

5. Insensitive, bah!

All opinions should be open to question, and that includes religious opinions. Don't tiptoe around their feelings. After all, if their faith is worth anything, it won't be harmed by your opinions.

[komplex]

6. You mean other than organization.

Before Roe v. Wade there was a synergy between "The Left" and religion. First, The left's purge of those who oppose abortion rights naturally drove out all the Evangelicals. And in addition, as your post clearly shows, the left has nothing but contempt for the evangelicals.

Second, the GOP actually treats the Evangelicals with Respect. While the GOP is short on results, they are long on promises to the Evangelicals.

What used to be a diverse group, has become a monolith. And a single voting block is greater than the sum of it's parts. We won't get the Bob Jones U folks, but we can peel off a couple of layers. (chek out the www.bullmooseblog.com for more about the evangelicals).

[gumby]

9. The left didn't purge those who oppose abortion rights.

The abortion issue was specifically and strategically politicized by neo-fascists (Viguerie, Phillips, Weyrich, McAteer, Falwell) to split the Democratic Party. This is documented history.

Fomenting latent racism, sexism and homophobia in fundamentalists is NOT "respect," it's exploitation for personal and political gain.

The dominionist voting machines only give the impression (and, sadly the results) of a seeming monolith.

[komplex]

10. Yep, it's always the GOP's fault...

Look at the data
1978
292 Democrats 125 Pro-lifers.
Now
204 Dems 28 Pro-lifers.

To think that the only way to get the evangelicals to vote Dem is to play racism, sexism and homophoia is more of the same thinking from Democrats. Talk to a few of them, they are a lot more complex than you think.

[Tesha]

12. 125->28? 'Just shows that some people can become educated. (NT)

[komplex]

13. Well, if that's the way you think.

Throw the poor under the Bus because your minority is the "educated" minority.

[snowbear]

14. wow...

Komplex.. uh... :o

... oh nevermind.

I'll keep that thought to myself.

[komplex]

21. Really would

Welfare "reform" have happened if the Dem's controlled congres in the 1990's?

[gumby]

20. I never mentioned the "GOP"

or "evangelicals." You seem to be talking to your anti-abortion self.

[NAO]

7. The Swift Advance of a Planned Coup - Rise of Evangelical Dominionists

Take a look at the article cited below, "The Despoiling of America". Their is a very consciuously planned, deliberate stratetgy that they have been following that has set them up to sieze control of the US government. Their plan, forumulated and broadcast on Pat Robertson's 700 club over 20 years ago, has been all come to fruition, with only the final stage - control of the Judiciary - left to complete the coup.

Take a look at the footnotes in "Despoiling". Transcripts from the 700 club in the 1980s, with exact dates and quotes, document the plan exactly as it has unfolded since 1980 and exactly how we see things right now. It is very sobering.

The Despoiling of America: How George W. Bush became the head of the new American Dominionist Church/State
http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/TheDespoilingOfAmerica.htm

The Swift Advance of a Planned Coup: Conquering by Stealth and Deception - How the Dominionists Are Succeeding in Their Quest for National Control and World Power
http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/TheSwiftAdvanceOfaPlannedCoup.htm


Fundamentalist Radical Clerics such as Falwell, Dobson, and Robertson are not merely medieval throwbacks or misguided religious hacks. They are part of a well organized subversionary movement known as "Dominionism". Dominionism constitutes a serious threat to American Democracy. These Radical Clerics have developed and are executing a detailed plan to gradually replace the free, secular democratic society of the United States with a Theocracy.

It is critical that people become aware of the extreme agenda these people have for the United States and ultimately for the world. The results of the 2004 Presidential Election were not a fluke or something that was drummed up over a period of months. It has been in planning for over 20 years, and what we are seeing take place now is, in the words of Katherine Yurica, "the swift advance of a planned coup".

[Lexingtonian]

8. There's a lot of money and power in Lost Causes

because the people who sign up want to fight for their beliefs. And there are Lost Causes to which 90% of the population signs up at first, and only 10% remain undeceived.

Transition to the Modern condition has been very hard on many people; lots of them don't succeed, especially if they come from the more privileged classes. They were brought up with hard notions of Divine Order Of The World that survive from early Christianty or pre-Christianity (or, other traditional organized religion, or ideologies)- about race, gender, American history, religious groups, ethnic groups, marriage, sexual behavior, class, political obedience, and how to (mis)understand the Constition and how to (mis)understand their Scripture.

We're not in Kansas (the agrarian age condition) anymore, or Chicago's packing industry or the lower East Side slums (industrial age condition), to a large extent. Or their respective upsides, the Go West Young Man Settlement legend or the Gilded Age. The last piece of that is the Mayberry Ideal, where people supposedly lived in a world with all the advantages of agrarian life (life in a fertile Garden) while having all the good services and gizmos of industrial age life- electricity, automobiles, policing, white collar jobs and working conditions, whitewashed churches, prosperity, health care, intact but autonomous families, and white people as the people who mattered- without attendant costs evident. But even Mayberry had an overt price, which was essentially unquestioned obedience to The Government- who were nice Mayberry people like yourself, far off, doing the best that they could in a world normal Mayberry inhabitants could not really imagine very well.

A lot of people were told by their churches and politicians that joining up with them, into groups called things like The Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition, they could keep on living to the Mayberry Ideal- or better, become part of the rulers of Mayberry- because there were problem people trying to come in from Outside and ruin it, and using Government to ruin things. And that's we all became The Brady Bunch...oops, maybe not....

[Bridget Burke]

11. It's more complex than that.

The discrimination you learned growing up was mostly economic--the people in the big white church making fun of the people in the little churches out in the country. The people in the little churches might have worship styles offensive to more uptight WASPS, but they did not invent the Dominionist movement.

You've already been given some information--there's more here:

www.theocracywatch.org

Fundamentalists were not always politically minded; some still aren't.

Evangelism is practiced by people of numerous faiths, some major & others minor. They want to preach their religion but many do NOT want to remake the USA in its image.

Keep on laughing at the redneck snake-handlers. The real snakes have TV shows, slick websites & friends in the Bush administration.

[Just Me]

15. Well, I just remember them making a spectacle of themselves,...

,...and scaring the living crap out of me.

Of course, I was young. I've been to numerous fundamentalist churches and I don't feel frightened by their practice (and none preached how folks should vote).

[Wheezy]

16. yes...

...but as with any generalization, I think there are exceptions to the rule. For instance, Tony Campolo considers himself a Radical Evangelical (his most recent book is called "Speaking My Mind"). I respect his POV, though he's not quite as radical as I'd like. However, it's the evangelicals who act like a$$es that get the media attention and make it tough for the decent few.

I think a lot of evangelicals are so 'firm' in their faith that they forget or refuse to question it as society changes. That could be fear or ignorance. Or utter stupidity.

[mitchum]

17. Even in the deep south in the late 60s and 70s, they were considered nuts

[Malva Zebrina]

19. I am watching and observing the breakdown of Christianity

and it is not only the evangelical extremists literelists, but also the Catholic church extremists who impose PUNISHMENT upon those who do not vote according to what the priests and bishops have decided is official dogma ie, the abortion issue or the gay marriage issue, while the war issue, the unjust murders of thousands upon thousands, was ignored and tacitly approved.

I find it interesting to watch as the infighting escalates, but am really becoming irate at the attempts to take over a government that in it's institution KNEW the dangers of such a thing as a theocracy.

In other words, any religion that attempts to impose it's religion on all who inhabit this country, is corrupt and immoral imo and I feel threatened by that.

I do not feel threatened by religion per se, if one wants to believe and does so without trying to impose that on others, politically. Do NOT threaten others with overturning just laws because it does not fit YOUR religion.

But, the draw of money , imo, affects them all.