Faith - American Theocracy
The internet is a-buzz with talk about theocracy in the good ol' US of A.
Joe Carter has a post on how those wacky liberal lefties are mis-using the term and are really only trying to use perjorative words in describing those who have different vieews to themselves.

When those of us on the “religious right” hear such paranoid ranting it naturally elicits a chuckle. After all, more than half of American evangelicals are either Baptists or non-denominational. We don’t even want a centralized church government much less a central government controlled by the church. So where does this silly canard come from?

Powerline gets in on the act, reporting on a conference called "Examining the Real Agenda of the Religious Far Right" which was reporting in the Washington Times

"She compared the Federal Communications Commission's threatened crackdown on indecency on television with the Taliban, the repressive Islamic rulers of Afghanistan who harbored Osama bin Laden's terrorist network until toppled by a U.S.-led invasion."

In Afghanistan under the Taliban, girls weren't permitted to attend elementary school, and large numbers of people were executed before crowds in soccer stadiums. In "theocratic" America, the FCC thinks that women's breasts shouldn't unexpectedly pop into view while millions of children are watching a sporting event. SAME THING! NO DIFFERENCE! These people, by the way, pride themselves on "nuanced" thinking.

Stanley Kurtz from the National Review comments on Harper Magazine's recent focus on "The Christian Right’s War On America".

Traditional Christians are openly excoriated in the mainstream press as evil, fascist, segregationist bigots. Their political speech is placed under legislative threat. Their institutions of higher education are attacked and destroyed. Naturally, America’s traditional Christians are fighting back. They’ve turned to the political process in hopes of securing for themselves a space in which to exist. Weary of being the butt of hatred by those who proclaim tolerance, conservative Christians are complaining, with justice, about the all-too-successful attempts to exclude them from society.

I have also a recent post on similar cries of theocracy in an editorial.

To insist that anyone with religious belief and associated morality is a theocrat is ridiculous. I guess it is quite a concern that someone who disagree's with the writer's morality could get on the judiciary, but instead of trying to use scare words and lowering the discussion to inaccurate perjorative name calling, perhaps we should let democracy take its course and let the people decide. I realise that this writer will never go for that, because he is under the delusion that religious and moral neutrality is possible.

Unlike Joe, I don't think we should be chuckling. The smear attempt needs to be answered with reason and correction before we allow those who despise christian morality are allowed to twist yet another word to their own agenda.
- posted by Alan Grey @ Tuesday, May 03, 2005