It's a theme repeated down through all of recorded history: Theists try
to convince themselves that their land has been taken from them and that
their gods want them to "reclaim" their land from the hands of
the demonized enemies they create to justify themselves. To not do so
angers their gods and causes floods, famine, and no end of bad things.
America is the most Christianized country in the world, suffering under
the "honor" of having the most number of Christian churchers per
capita of any other nation. Despite this problem -- indeed, because of
it -- radial Christians demand that more Christianization is needed. The
irony of their unamerican, unconstitutional bigotries being touted as
"TRUE Americanism" never seems to be internalized by these nuts.
Associated Press, April 11, 1998
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - What has happened to America? asks the Rev. D.
James Kennedy, surrounded by red, white and blue bunting in an imposing
sanctuary familiar to viewers of his TV preaching on ``The Coral Ridge Hour.''
A local judge in Alabama is sued for displaying the Ten Commandments in
his courtroom, Kennedy laments, ``while the president is apparently engaged in
seeing how many of those commandments he can break.''
``God's will for this nation will be done,'' he assures conservatives
from across the country on the final day of a conference called Reclaiming
America for Christ. ``Twenty-six other empires have risen, and all have
fallen.''
His message resonates throughout the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church,
where worshippers open with ``God Bless America.'' At the end of the service,
on the final notes of ``America the Beautiful,'' a huge American flag unfurls
over a cheering congregation.
This Easter, conservative activists are finding special meaning in the
commemoration of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Like the earliest
Christians, they feel like voices in the wilderness of a nation that they
believe worships secular gods in media, education, government no less powerful
than Mithras or Adonis or the assorted gods of first-century Rome. And they
compare America to the ancient Roman Empire, crumbling from within, from moral
weakness.
Out of frustration, many conservative evangelicals are heading beyond
party politics, taking places on school boards and on picket lines, to
influence public policy on such issues as abortion, school prayer and same-sex
marriages.
``You might say the hot new idea is the civic gospel,'' says John Green,
a political scientist at the University of Akron in Ohio. ``Christians have a
special responsibility to create a civil order that nurtures moral lives.''
Actually the idea is a conservative twist on an older tradition. At the
turn of this century, liberal evangelicals, shocked by the excesses of
capitalism, gave rise to the ``social gospel'' movement, shifting religious
focus from the church to the streets, establishing a tradition for the civil
rights struggle.
In the recent past, politics appealed to evangelicals even across party
lines. They helped elect a born-again president, Jimmy Carter, in 1976, and
influenced Ronald Reagan's victories in 1980 and 1984. In 1994, with the
election of a Republican Congress, many thought their years of hard work
through grassroots organizations such as the Christian Coalition had paid off.
But to the dismay of many conservatives, Republican congressmen seem more
interested in economic than social issues. ``The bottom line is (the GOP) they
said they would do some things and they haven't done them,'' says Jim Woodall,
executive director of Concerned Women for America. ``You don't get passionate
about balancing a budget.''
When GOP presidential candidate Bob Dole kept his distance, and
evangelical agendas went unfulfilled in the new Republican Congress,
evangelicals felt betrayed. ``They haven't seen any movement on the big issues
they really care about,'' UA's Green says. ``Given what they've done for
Republican candidates, they'd really like to see more.''
And Republicans will take notice, evangelical activists and outside
observers predict.
At the very least, Green says, religious conservatives should have veto
power over the next GOP presidential candidate. But they are looking beyond,
with rumblings of a third party or a wider political base.
It is one thing, analysts say, to argue for the common good based on
morality formed by religious beliefs, and another to ``reclaim America for
Christ.''
Such language, says Steven Bayme, Jewish communal affairs director of the
American Jewish Committee, will exclude conservative Jewish activists who
share concerns as political allies. ``When the language becomes exclusively
Christian, Jewish groups become at best ambivalent, at worst hostile.''
Less willing to trust traditional routes, conservative evangelicals are
looking beyond Republican headquarters. Indeed, here at this conference, and
in mass movements such as the Promise Keepers, they talk increasingly about
grassroots ways to effectchange on those issues, from abortion to same-sex
marriages, that they care about.
At the Florida conference, the Rev. Dennis Tegtmeier, a Lutheran chaplain
at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, was still disappointed with ``the
buckling of knees,'' in a Congress that did not override Clinton's veto of
late-term abortion.
Major organizations of evangelical activists felt the backlash. Christian
Coalition revenues dropped from $27 million in 1996 to $17 million in 1997.
``I think it's disillusionment. We were all paying the price for the
Republican Congress' apostasy,'' says Donald Hodel, president of the Christian
Coalition.
Evangelical women, Woodall says, are no longer joining Concerned Women in
waves, as they did when President Clinton was first elected and the
organization signed 10,000 new members a month.
Elsewhere in the country, there is relative satisfaction. The economy is
good, unemployment is low, purchasing power is up. Even a president embroiled
in allegations of sexual harassment and financial wrongdoing can get high
approval ratings.
But here, and around the circuit of evangelical political revival
meetings, there is America in moral decline. ``We're going to self-destruct,
the way I see it,'' says Edward Marcinski of New Britain, Conn. ``Laws have no
correlation with the laws of the Creator.''
In sessions on grassrootspolitical activism, Marcinski's colleagues
identified those issues that concerned them most, with answers on worksheets
repeating ``abortion, prayer in schools, and the homosexual agenda.''
But many suggestions for action sidestep the Republicans, running instead
from ``Impeach the Supreme Court'' to commercials for Christ during the Super
Bowl.
Bill McKale and his wife, Melanee, planned to return home to Vancouver,
Wash., to distribute election guides, attend school board meetings and make
sure people at Faith Bible Fellowship vote. But what for? ``All the stuff that
the ACLU is against,'' she says.
To recover from withering backlash against congressional inaction,
evangelical leaders pin their hopes on the McKales and other first-timers at
the Florida conference.
For many evangelicals, political activity is a divine calling. At the
Florida conference, the 1,400 activists pledge allegiance not only to the
American flag, but also to the Christian flag and to the Bible.
In the 1830s, when French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville traveled
through America, he discovered that religion was indispensable to democracy.
That point, according to the religious broadcaster Kennedy, was that America
is great because America is good.
Today, Kennedy tells conservative activists, one no longer can say
America is good. For him, however, it's no time to give up.
``There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come,'' he
says, ``and the idea of reclaiming America for Christ has definitely come.''
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Evangelicals Vow To Reclaim America
By David Briggs
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