Current mood:	hopeful
Entry tags:	news

Hoodwinked, Bamboozled Evangelicals
    Another late news item from Miss Dynamite, serious news that may provide more laughs than uprooting terrorists from a pot plantation. Apparently, Evangelicals are coming to realize that politicians will lie to you.

[A]s the Foley cover-up has many evangelical Christians wondering whether the G.O.P. is really in sync with their values, "Tempting Faith" provides the answer: No way.

Kuo, citing one example after another of a White House that repeatedly uses evangelical Christians for their votes — while consistently giving them nothing in return[.]

    So how was loyalty kept? The same way Napoleon kept his troops loyal: status baubles.

Little trinkets like cufflinks or pens or pads of paper were passed out like business cards. Christian leaders could give them to their congregations or donors or friends to show just how influential they were. Making politically active Christians personally happy meant having to worry far less about the Christian political agenda.

    Reminds me of my in-laws, who won't own up to the fact that Jesus wants us to give and give and give. I'm a selfish atheist and I'm more generous than those megachurch fucks elbowing through crowds for better spots at their Billy Graham circle-jerks.

In fact, Christians who voted for Mr. Bush based on his religion, may have ended up hurting the very people Jesus sought to help: the poor.

    I got that sweet line from the article's continuation. Thankfully, Kou really is a Christian.

Part of the problem, he says, was indifference from "the base," the religious right. He took 60 Minutes to a convention of evangelical groups – his old stomping ground - and walked around the display booths, looking for any reference to the poor.

"You’ve got homosexuality in your kid’s school, and you’ve got human cloning, and partial birth abortion and divorce and stem cell," Kuo remarked. "Not a mention of the poor."

"This message that has been sent out to Christians for a long time now: that Jesus came primarily for a political agenda, and recently primarily a right-wing political agenda - as if this culture war is a war for God. And it’s not a war for God, it’s a war for politics. And that’s a huge difference," says Kuo.

    Yes, that 60 Minutes, this goes beyond partisan blogs.