From NPR:
Randall Balmer has written several books. He says he expects his latest to get him in a fair amount of trouble with the evangelical community.I listened to an interview with Randall Balmer today (July 5) since Michael Medved is a Jew he did not want to discuss the Christian theological aspects of Balmer's book. I don't really know his stand regarding Evanglicals there but his political material seems rather typical of the political liberal.
As SDA's I think we will be hearing more from this author from both sides of the SDA world. The SDA political liberal will use this book to try to show how the religious right is destructive to America and the SDA conservatives will be using this book to show that the religious right is out to take away our freedoms and begin persecution of true Christians and impose the coming Sunday Laws.
Since I have not reviewed the book I can't debunk it now, though in the interview he showed very little evidence to support his positions. What was most interesting was when Michael Medved asked Balmer if he thought that America in the 1950's was a theocracy. His answer: "we were probably pretty close in some ways, yes."
So when you hear people like this talking about the religious right bringing theocracy to America, just remember that to such people as Balmer America in the 1950's was a theocracy. So he is not just talking of the Puritan pre establishment of the American constitution period of America. To him much of the American history was a theocracy. Hear the short clip here
1 comment:
Good for America is too subjective, are they better then progressive secularists definitely are the better then communists or gay rights activists, yes probably. But whether some group is better then some other group is not really the issue. That is only a view based upon some one's political or religious perspective and that perspective may be skewed. So the issue is not what will someone do in the future because we don't know what they will do, the issue is what are they doing now. If they are doing something wrong now then that should be what someone attacks not the idea that someday they will take my freedom away.
Is the Religious Right allowed to define Christianity? Only if you let them. If you disagree with their definition then they do not define Christianity anymore then the Liberal Christian does. Groups join together because they have mutual interests and ideas, they are not forcing anyone to join them so why be afraid of their freedom. In the market place of ideas you can put up a stall that says don't buy from stall x because I don't agree with them. But stall x is still open for business.
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