Theocracy
Face to faith
Fissiparous evangelical Christians are now being reunited by hatred, says Giles Fraser
Saturday February 17, 2007
The Guardian
Evangelical Christians are always falling out with each other, splitting to form new churches and splitting again - all sides denouncing the others as having betrayed the true gospel. Monty Python got it spot-on: it's the People's Front of Judea versus the Judean People's Front. The only thing that can reunite the factions is something they all hate more than they hate each other. The idea of a gay bishop in faraway New Hampshire is an enormously useful tool of unity for otherwise fractious conservatives. They purchase their togetherness with the suffering of gay Christians, especially in places such as Nigeria, where the church is egging on a violent and aggressive homophobia. It's textbook scapegoating.And once they have raised the threat level, they can begin to settle old scores. Again and again, evangelical bishops are popping up to declare theological martial law, insisting with glee that now is the time to prune liberals from the church. They know that neither the church nor marriage is under threat by what two Christian men or two Christian women might just happen to do with their bits in the privacy of their bedroom. No, this is all about church politics. For hard-core evangelicals, this manufactured crisis is a golden opportunity to create new rules to oust the progressive voice from the church, perhaps even to crown Archbishop Peter Akinola as, de facto, the new Anglican pope. Thus evangelicals have a vested interest in keeping an atmosphere of crisis going as long as possible. The best way to mount a coup is to get everybody panicky and confused - and then emerge as a strong leader, the only one able to impose order.
Gee, isn't this the Republican "Southern Strategy" all over again?