Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Missionary Zeal in Iraq vs. Old-Time Religion

Andrew Sullivan's Quote for the Day:
"[T]he Iraq War will stand for a long time as a monument to the potential excesses of evangelical thinking - and when it comes to our foreign policy, I hope the next GOP President partakes of a little less of Bush-style missionary zeal, and a little more of that old-time conservative religion," - Ross Douthat, on how evangelicalism has changed conservatism in the Bush era.
Nicely said.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I wish more and more of my friends on the religious right would take a look again at the WWJD focus (actually it came out of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, a very mainline group) ... and turn it a few degrees and see what Jesus DID do ... his harshest criticism was aimed at the entrenched, institutional "church" of the time, its bombastic leaders, its holier-than-thou priesthood, its narrowly focused and uncaring followers ... he challenged them (and us?) to care for his children, to feed them and clothe them and give to the poor ... he hung out with the lost, the lonely, the losers, the left behind ... he ate left overs ... he dined with whores and thieves, those who were outcast from THE CHURCH ... what is our church doing these days? Its acting just like they acted, doing just what they did, ignoring needs and addressing wants, preaching one thing (glory and wealth) and practicing another (accumulation of power and the imposition of orthodoxy) ... both of which Jesus railed against, and neither of which is "Christian" ... so this American Christian Patriot waits and watches for a voice from Christianity to speak out and sing out for the Children of God and to silence the voice of greed, fraud, corruption, anger, and hate that is, in many denominations, the institutional "Church"