Very interesting Will, and something I have been thinking a lot about lately. I like the part about athiests and humanists and "moral values."
I get relly sick of the implicit assumption in almost all media reporting that "evangelicals" and other (non-Moslem, of course) religious fundamentalists are more "moral" than the rest of us. Since when did secularists (religious and otherwise) cede the definition of morality to them? If you ask me, it’s pretty damn "immoral" to discriminate against gays and working women, or to force a thirteen year old girl who has been raped by her father to give birth to that child.
What’s more, I don’t find a literal reading of the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, to be a very useful moral guide. Is slavery really so terrific? Is it right to stone someone to death because they gather sticks on the Sabbath? Well, it’s there in black and white.
I also think it's interesting that Rawat and the premies have pretty much abandoned all the jargon, or even the pretense of having any kind of "moral values" whatsoever. In a way, being premie is the ultimate form or self-centered, hedonistic, materialism because all that you are supposed to do is have a nice "experience" and then (wink, wink) think you are special, and to some extent worship Prem Rawat. The word "vacuous" is an understatement. That Rawat has the balls to actually pretend he gives a shit about humanity, including tsunami victims, in any sense other than as PR (no pun intended), to try to reshape his image so he doesn't lose his obsecenely materialistic lifestyle, is kind of astounding.
But in the broader sense, the fact is that people who profess to teach us this kind of strict morality we should be practicing don’t really practice it themselves. I don’t mean merely Bill Bennett, Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingriich, Jimmy Swaggart, Henry Hyde, etc. I mean all of ‘em—or at least most of ‘em. (And just so there’s no mistake, I don’t mind if people want to gamble, fornicate and get high on their own time. Just shut up about the rest of us, please.)
Anyway, don’t take my word for it. The following is borrowed from an article by Ronald J. Sider, professor of theology, holistic ministry, and public policy and director of the Sider Center on Ministry and Public Policy at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is also president of Evangelicals for Social Action. This article is excerpted from his book The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience and appeared in Christianity Today. Sider explains:
Scandalous behavior is rapidly destroying American Christianity. By their daily activity, most "Christians" regularly commit treason. With their mouths they claim that Jesus is Lord, but with their actions they demonstrate allegiance to money, sex, and self-fulfillment.
The findings in numerous national polls conducted by highly respected pollsters like The Gallup Organization and The Barna Group are simply shocking. "Gallup and Barna," laments evangelical theologian Michael Horton, "hand us survey after survey demonstrating that evangelical Christians are as likely to embrace lifestyles every bit as hedonistic, materialistic, self-centered, and sexually immoral as the world in general." Divorce is more common among "born-again" Christians than in the general American population. Only 6 percent of evangelicals tithe. White evangelicals are the most likely people to object to neighbors of another race. Josh McDowell has pointed out that the sexual promiscuity of evangelical youth is only a little less outrageous than that of their nonevangelical peers.
The rest is here
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