The entire story is at http://www.abpnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4230&Itemid=9
By the 1970s, many Christian conservatives had rightly decided that the counterculture revolutions of the previous decade had taken a moral toll on the country. Something, they reasoned, had to be done about it.
What started as an effort to give a voice to the “silent majority” quickly grew into something more -- a political force that in time would impress its will on the American political landscape.
Coming of age politically in the late 1980s and early 1990s and having been one who identified himself both as conservative and Christian, I easily made the ideological connection between the two adjectives. I became a self-identified member of the Religious Right.
Enamored with the take-America-back-for-Jesus crowd, I forsook the timeless words of conservatives like Edmund Burke, who asserted the importance of the rule of law, tradition and social order; and Russell Kirk, who affirmed divine revelation and the links between property and freedom. Instead, I opted for what was then the modern-day political philosophy offered by Ralph Reed, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell.
The downside wasn’t that I became any less conservative, but that I became less Christian. Perhaps it was a personal weakness or a lack of grounding in my faith, but my Christianity during that time became more of an outward expression of political involvement and less about the inner transformation of a life that comes only through a relationship with Christ and self-reflection, study of the Scriptures and prayer.
I could quote you chapter and verse from books claiming that America was set apart and founded as a distinctly Christian nation ordained by God himself for his chosen (American) people. At the time, I gave little credence to the fact that even though many of the nation’s founders were strong men of faith, most of their exhaustive references to the Sovereign Creator were political language born out of the tactical need to appeal to a higher power -- one that reigned over the sovereign who sat on Great Britain’s throne.
It is also an unarguable fact that faith, specifically Christianity, played a role in our country’s birth.
Nonetheless, the founders understood that government wasn’t a tool to carry out God’s will. Instead, most realized that fallen and imperfect humans were susceptible to overreaching and vulnerable to greed and corruption. So they declared independence, formed a government and divided its power among those who would govern in order to protect the very freedoms and rights that had been trampled by King George.
By the 1970s, many Christian conservatives had rightly decided that the counterculture revolutions of the previous decade had taken a moral toll on the country. Something, they reasoned, had to be done about it.
What started as an effort to give a voice to the “silent majority” quickly grew into something more -- a political force that in time would impress its will on the American political landscape.
Coming of age politically in the late 1980s and early 1990s and having been one who identified himself both as conservative and Christian, I easily made the ideological connection between the two adjectives. I became a self-identified member of the Religious Right.
Enamored with the take-America-back-for-Jesus crowd, I forsook the timeless words of conservatives like Edmund Burke, who asserted the importance of the rule of law, tradition and social order; and Russell Kirk, who affirmed divine revelation and the links between property and freedom. Instead, I opted for what was then the modern-day political philosophy offered by Ralph Reed, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell.
The downside wasn’t that I became any less conservative, but that I became less Christian. Perhaps it was a personal weakness or a lack of grounding in my faith, but my Christianity during that time became more of an outward expression of political involvement and less about the inner transformation of a life that comes only through a relationship with Christ and self-reflection, study of the Scriptures and prayer.
I could quote you chapter and verse from books claiming that America was set apart and founded as a distinctly Christian nation ordained by God himself for his chosen (American) people. At the time, I gave little credence to the fact that even though many of the nation’s founders were strong men of faith, most of their exhaustive references to the Sovereign Creator were political language born out of the tactical need to appeal to a higher power -- one that reigned over the sovereign who sat on Great Britain’s throne.
It is also an unarguable fact that faith, specifically Christianity, played a role in our country’s birth.
Nonetheless, the founders understood that government wasn’t a tool to carry out God’s will. Instead, most realized that fallen and imperfect humans were susceptible to overreaching and vulnerable to greed and corruption. So they declared independence, formed a government and divided its power among those who would govern in order to protect the very freedoms and rights that had been trampled by King George.
) a career in politics. Lord knows we need them there - well don't we??