Gene Lyons: Embattled faith needs enemies for focus

[robbedvoter]

First, fundamentalist Christianity is an embattled faith, requiring an everevolving enemies list to keep its focus. One year it’s Satan worshippers, "secular humanists" the next. Panic over supermarket bar codes allegedly harboring the Mark of the Beast yields to worry that Harry Potter novels may seduce America’s youth into witchcraft. This year’s enemy is Democrats. Even secular pundits have taken up the cry. The soulless pseudo-sophisticates of Boston and Seattle, we’re told, must henceforth take moral instruction from backwoods Mississippi.
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http://moose-and-squirrel.com/gene/gene.html

[checks-n-balances]

1. Great article - thanks for posting!

This mindset has been the bane of my existence as a mainline Protestant, and now, as thinking Americans, it is also OURS.

[Ranec]

2. Isn't this the case for a lot of republicans

My wife was commenting just the other day about how angry the rightwingers seemed. "Shouldn't they be happy. They won!"

But I think anger and outrage are the emotions that motivate them.

And it seems like it is a culture that they view as "permissive" that causes this anger. It isn't hard to imagine feeling powerless to change the world against constant onslaughts of dreck from cable television. Heck, I feel the same way, just about Fox"news" and not "The Simpsons."

What to do about it? How can we change the progressive message to make people feel like they have voice in a society that more and more feels like it is out of control?