The Christian Candidate's Guide to Infidels

[SecularMotion]

A Minnesota-based filmmaker and self-proclaimed atheist won a contest sponsored by the Rick Perry campaign, and his short video was to be shown at one of the evangelical Christian candidate's events over the weekend. Meanwhile, Perry's GOP rival (and fellow Christian) Michele Bachmann indicated on Meet the Press that atheism wouldn't exclude someone from her Cabinet. What's worse from the perspective of a devout Christian—atheism or belonging to another religion like Islam?

Atheism. It's difficult to make blanket statements about the theology of American evangelical Christians, because they don't have a pope to issue statements on the movement's official views. Nor do they have any official religious texts aside from the Bible itself, which predated the modern idea of atheism. Nevertheless, academics who study the movement note without textual evidence that atheism—and the advance of secular culture in the United States and Europe—seems to be a particular bugaboo. To be sure, many American evangelicals have their problems with Islam, but mainstream leaders of the evangelical movement have sought to create understanding between Christians and Muslims, often in very public forums. You may not see as many Christian ministers forging partnerships with Richard Dawkins or Slate's own Christopher Hitchens

http://www.slate.com/id/2301632/