....of the religious right:


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...es-defeat.html


US religious Right concedes defeat
America's religious Right has conceded that the election of US President
Barack Obama has sealed its defeat in the cultural war with
permissiveness and secularism.


By Alex Spillius in Washington
Last Updated: 4:18PM BST 10 Apr 2009
US religious Right concedes defeat
Barack Obama takes the Oath of Office as the 44th President of the
United States Photo: REUTERS

Leading evangelicals have admitted that their association with George W.
Bush has not only hurt the cause of social conservatives but contributed
to the failure of the key objectives of their 30-year struggle.

James Dobson, 72, who resigned recently as head of Focus on the Family -
one of the largest Christian groups in the country - and once denounced
the Harry Potter books as witchcraft, acknowledged the dramatic reverse
for the religious Right in a farewell speech to staff.

“We tried to defend the unborn child, the dignity of the family, but it
was a holding action,” he said.

“We are awash in evil and the battle is still to be waged. We are right
now in the most discouraging period of that long conflict. Humanly
speaking, we can say we have lost all those battles.”

Despite changing the political agenda for a generation, and helping push
the Republicans to the Right, evangelicals have won only minor victories
in limiting the availability of abortion. Meanwhile the number of states
permitting civil partnerships between homosexuals is rising, and the
campaign to restore prayer to schools after 40 years - a decision that
helped create the Moral Majority - has got nowhere.

Though the struggle will go on, the confession of Mr Dobson, who started
his ministry from scratch in 1977, came amid growing concern that church
attendance in the United States is heading the way of Britain, where no
more than ten per cent worship every week.

Unease is rising that a nation founded - in the view of evangelicals -
purely as a Christian country will soon, like northern Europe, become
“post-Christian”.

Recent surveys have suggested that the American religious landscape has
shifted significantly. A study by Trinity College in Connecticut found
that 11 per cent fewer Americans identify themselves as Christian than
20 years ago. Those stating no religious affiliation or declaring
themselves agnostic has risen from 8.2 per cent in 1990 to 15 per cent
in 2008.

Despite a common distaste among evangelicals for the new Democratic
president, who is regarded as at best a die-hard, pro-abortion liberal
and at worst a Marxist, a serious rift is emerging among social
conservatives in the wake of his election victory.

A growing legion of disenchanted grassroots believers does not blame
liberal opponents for the decline in faith or the failures of the
religious Right. Rather, they hold responsible Republicans -
particularly Mr Bush - and groups like Focus on the Family that have
worked with the party, for courting Christian voters only to betray
promises of pursuing the conservative agenda once in office.

“Conservatives became so obsessed with the political process we have
forgotten the gospel,” said Steve Deace, an evangelical radio talk show
host in Iowa who broadcast a recording of Mr Dobson’s address, which he
said had appeared on Focus on the Family’s website before disappearing.

Mr Deace added: “All that time spent trying to sit at the top table is
not time well spent. Republicans say one thing and do another.”

In the southern Bible belt, many like the Rev Joe Morecraft, head of a
small Presbyterian church near Atlanta, judge that the Christian
movement failed not because its views were unpalatable for moderates and
liberals, but because “it was not Christian enough”.

A deserter from the Republican Party, he said Christians had been
corrupted by politics and needed to return to the basics of local social
work and preaching the gospel, rather than devoting their “energies to
getting a few people elected”.

He is not alone in questioning how evangelical leaders such as Mr Dobson
could spend a career campaigning against abortion and then eventually
support a candidate like Senator John McCain, who has dubious “pro-life”
credentials.

Ray Moore, president of Exodus Mandate, a South Carolina-based group
which organises home-schooling for Christian children, said: “Political
involvement by Christians is not wrong, but that’s all the big groups
did for 25 years. They were more concerned with fund-raising and
political power than they were with our children’s welfare.”

“It’s a failed movement,” he said. “We will end up like England, where
the church has utterly lost its way.”

Michael Spencer, a writer who lives in a Christian community in
Kentucky, said the religious Right had suffered from its identification
with Mr Bush, the most unpopular president in living memory, and the
extremist rhetoric of some on the religious Right.

One of the more notorious outbursts was the Rev John Hagee’s assertion
that the deadly Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was God’s judgment on New
Orleans for hosting a gay parade.

In an online article in the Christian Science Monitor that has became a
touchstone for disaffected conservatives, Mr Spencer forecast a major
collapse in evangelical Christianity within ten years.

“Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and
political conservatism. This will prove to be a very costly mistake,” he
wrote.






--
"John H" wrote in message
...

Please note that Interstate 90 will be closed this weekend across
South Dakota. This closure will allow the Federal Government free
access to haul a 200 ton piece of coal to Mt. Rushmore so that
President Obama can be added to the Presidents on the monument.
--
John H

--

John Herring, rec.boat's resident racist.

(Tip of the hat to Don, who reposted this gem so I could see it.)

Poor Harry.. While most here are enjoying the day with our families,
celebrating a wonderful event. Harry is crying for attention, begging
for someone to engage him... What a hateful miserable little man...

wrote in message
...
Poor Harry.. While most here are enjoying the day with our families,
celebrating a wonderful event. Harry is crying for attention, begging
for someone to engage him... What a hateful miserable little man...

Well, next to you, that is .........

And then, comparably, he's a right nice gentleman .........

At least he says what he is thinking and means it. Unlike you, who whine
and snivel uncontrollably ...........

On Apr 12, 3:21*pm, wrote:
Poor Harry.. While most here are enjoying the day with our families,
celebrating a wonderful event. Harry is crying for attention, begging
for someone to engage him... What a hateful miserable little man...

He's not little, he's a big fat nasty glob of fat.