On September 18, 2006 The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins made its debut. Dawkins makes the argument against the irrationality of believing in a God. Dawkins especially reserves his ire for evangelical Christians as well as a piece about Islam.
On the next day, Sept. 19, 2006, Sam Harris' Letters to a Christian Nation: The End of Faith appeared. It basically runs Evangelicals over the coals and especially the Christian Right for trying to establish a theocracy of their own religion.
On January 9, 2007 American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America by Chris Hedges appeared.
Hedges tries to show how the Christian Right operates simlarly to the fascist movements in Italy and Germany in the 1920s and '30s. He points out that these movements masked the full extent of their drive for totalitarianism and were willing to make concessions until they achieved unrivaled power. Just as Hitler used the severe econmic crises and social chaos of Germany in the 1920's and 30's, Hedges beleives that it will take just one more national crisis on the order of September 11 for the Christian Right to make a concerted drive to destroy American democracy. He calls the Christian Right "the American heirs to fascism."
While some things in these books are worth looking at, the overall tone is getting more severe. I don't recall books like this before, although there were some that had elements of what is contained in these more current ones.
Stay tuned for more thoughts on this subject in the days to come. Included will be my comparison of what happened in Germany to what is happening today....but from another view from Hedges. I will also discuss the Christian Right and why the persectution is for the wrong reason. Although this might only be it's first stages, I believe that.....................
The persecution has begun.
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3 comments:
Diane,
Atheists aren't the problem. They've been around all this time, too. The early part of the 20th century was rife with books like these by the likes of Bertrand Russel and others.
These books aren't very nice, apparently. (I haven't read any of them, but I've read Dawkins.) However, Christians must be careful, especially in the political arena. We have a reputation for ignoring the poor at the expense of the rich, being too pale, stale and male, trying to re-make high school science classes based on a particular interpretation of scripture that not even all conservative Bible scholars accept, and unquestionably supporting torture in the name of anti-terrorism, to name a few of the items we are accused of. Some of this reputation, and some of the criticism, may be deserved. Perhaps we haven't concentrated on influencing the world, one-on-one, and showing the love of Christ,as we should have. I know I haven't.
Thanks for posting this. I found it through the Christian Carnival.
Martin,
Stay tuned for further posts on this subject because I had intended to hit exactly what you have pointed out.
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