MORE RAPTURE IS CRAPTURE!

Tony Hendra has augmented his original work, by pointing out that progressives everywhere need to stop lumping in all cross wearin' prayer mumblin' do-gooders into the same cesspool with Falwell, Falafel Boy, Dobson and (no God Doesn't even hate) Fred Phelps, and instead, we all need to lock arms and pursue our common desire for our country - that it would provide and care for its poor, powerless, and the planet. You can read the whole article here, but for now, enjoy this little snack:

But here’s the point. These encounters (and others like them) brought home to me a fascinating political reality: the black-white (or red-blue) polarization between Christians and non-believers, a divide we tend to take as gospel, is inaccurate in one very important way. Yes, the general polity has been polarized by the pseudo-Christian fundo right and its Republican enablers. But so has the Christian community itself. Moderate people of faith are just as appalled by the fundo right and the cretin from Crawford’s pandering to them, as Democrats are. More in fact, because they KNOW their Gospels, they KNOW the precious principles that are being twisted, polluted and exploited.

Ever since Karl Rove - and other rightwing strategists like Lee Atwater and Ralph Reed - hijacked the Christian bus for the GOP, there’s been a reactive assumption among Democrats that their party is therefore the party of the secular. We’re never going to make headway with people of faith goes the assumption, so let’s just focus on the great secular center. This is the usual Dem mistake of accepting the right’s definition of terms, choice of battlefield and political analyses.

I’m not sure that the secular center the Democrats now talk so eagerly about galvanizing, is so big anymore. Far more potent and substantial are Christians of various denominations who are deeply alienated by naked war-mongering, murderous neglect of the poor, looting public funds for the super-rich, wanton destruction of the environment and above all by the hypocrisy of doing these things while insisting you’re a Christian.

But instead of respecting and including their natural allies in radical change - what Michael Tomasky brilliantly suggests as a new Democratic ideal of “the common good” - Democrats routinely ignore them or demean them. Moderate Christians may be offended by the fundo right but they’re just as offended by the offhand anti-religious assumptions and utterances of the liberal-left chatterati. Even Tomasky – not one of them - when calling for “Faith in America and its power to do good” hastens to add that it’s ‘not religious faith’

Yet the great thing about Tomasky’s ‘common good’ is that not only is it a classic republican (small ‘r’) principle, it’s a Christian principle, one moderate Christians can embrace whole-heartedly. Consider a central element in his notion of the ‘common good’: universal healthcare. To see ill-health as a profit center is one of the least Christian things imaginable. Yet pseudo-Christians like Frist do. (Perhaps he’s a Fristian?) In a civilized nation, health – meaning freedom from as much sickness as possible through equal access to best available care - is not an option, it’s a human right. Christ killed no-one during his brief spell on earth – but he cured one helluva lot of people. The first thing he did was to practice health-care. Far as I recall, he didn’t charge for miracles.

The ‘morality’ and ‘family values’ which comprise most of the fundo agenda (and which boil down to sexual fears and obsessions) were way down Christ’s list if they were ever even on it. In fact - to be an inerrant Bible literalist for a moment - the only sexual activity Christ specifically proscribed in the Gospels was adultery.

And never forget, o ye homophobic fundo Pharisees, that his 12 best friends were...men.

The bedrock Christian principle according to my understanding of Christ’s teaching, is that no-one’s existence is less precious than mine. That is NOT a Republican or a fundamentalist principle. Quite the contrary. But it is a Democratic one.

The Democratic Party if it’s to survive, has got to become a place where moderate people of faith (of whom Christians are by far the largest bloc) are not just comfortable but welcomed into the leadership. No basic change in the nation’s direction ever took place without a strong religious underpinning. The War against slavery and the civil rights movement will do as examples; or - on the other side of the coin - the Reagan-Atwater-Gingrich-Rove military-corporate counter-revolution.

And LOST has to go get a copy of "The Messiah of Morris Avenue," too!