George W. Bush
Allow me to introduce Pastor Tom Haggard. He is a 48 year old Indianian, equally as powerful as Dr. James Dobson. His flock at New Life Church in Colorado Springs numbers 11,000 and he is also in charge of National Assembly of Evangelicals whose 30 million members make up the nation’s most powerful religious lobbying group.
Below the fold, his personal manifesto:
‘Worthwhile’ projects are building funds and soup kitchens. “He knows that for Christianity to propsper in the free market, it needs more than ‘moral values’ – it needs customer value.”
And where did Pastor Ted learn his spiritual economics or economic spirituality? from one of his favourite authors:
Tom Friedman.
In fact, Pastor Ted “learned that everything, including spirituality, can be understood as a commodity” and “unregulated trade was the key to achieving worldly freedom” from Friedman. Friedman’s book The Lexus and the Olive Tree is required reading for hundreds of Ted’s pastors.
Pastor Ted is militant like Tom Friedman. He believes “spiritual war requires a virile, worldly counterpart” and that the Bible justifies pre-emptive war.
From SOLDIERS OF CHRIST by Jeff Sharlet, Harpers Magazine, May 2005
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Chris Hedges’ article Feeling the hate with the National Religious Broadcasters in the same Report recalls the words of his ethics prof at Harvard Divinity School.
He gave that warning twenty-five years ago, when Pat Robertson and other prominent evangelists began speaking of a new political religion that would direct its efforts at taking control of all major American institutions, including mainstream denominations and the government, so as to transform the United States into a global Christian empire. […]
Adams said, too many liberals failed to understand the allure of evil, and when the radical Christians came, these people would undoubtedly play by the old rules of democracy long after those in power had begun to dismantle the democratic state. […]
Homosexuals and lesbians, Adams said, would be the first “deviants” singled out by the Christian right. We would be the next.
“We” that’s us, the writers, intellectuals, artists, poets, bloggers. Are you scared yet?
This report gave me the shivers, especially after learning that the president of the USA is being fed Friedman’s ideas by an evangelist pastor
EVERY WEEK.
Read more in this month’s Harper’s Magazine.
