US Mainstream Churches vs GOP Christian Blitzkrieg
Monday, 10 April 2006, 12:50 pm
Opinion: Bob Fitrakis
Are Mainstream Churches Finally Standing Up To The GOP’s Hateful “Christian” Blitzkrieg?
by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
April 9, 2006
From:
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2006/1916Right-wing church movements have been a staple of American politics since well before the 1692 witch trials at Salem. But only in the past few decades has the extremist church served as the grassroots base for a new breed of corporate totalitarianism. That unholy union has been nowhere more powerful than here in Ohio, and it has finally provoked a response from the state’s mainstream churches.
With huge torrents of cash from Richard Mellon Scaife, the Ahmanson family and other super-rich ultra-rightists, the fundamentalist church has formed the popular network that has spawned the Bush catastrophe. The totalitarian alliance between pulpit, corporation and military is unique in U.S. history.
With contempt for the Constitution, and unholy opposition to separation of church and state, ultra-rich ultra-right preachers like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, self-proclaimed messiahs like Rev. Moon, and sanctimonious errand boys like Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist, have turned America into a “Christo-fascist” empire whose twice-unelected executive claims Divine right to rule. When it comes to their views on violence, empire, greed and intolerance, these are the most un-Christian men in America. It’s no accident that George W. Bush’s first words about the war to follow 9/11 had to do with a “Christian Crusade” against Islam. And, instead of consulting his father, a former President, W. chose to consult “a higher father.”
That this evil network of mega- churches, cults and electronic Elmer Gantrys would prove profoundly corrupt should also come as no surprise. These are the moneychangers that Christ kicked out of the temple. The ultra-orthodox cash flow from Jack Abramson to “godly” legislators like Tom DeLay and Ohio’s Bob Ney has suffered not the slightest diversion toward true spirituality. The movement even has its own sex symbol in Ann Coulter, the “Harlot of Hate” who reaps huge sums in places like Ohio’s World Harvest Church for talking nasty while dressed in mini-skirts that would get minors arrested off urban street corners.
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http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0604/S00102.htm