Land is saying that “we don’t need government sponsored religion”, since in that instance, the government thinks they own it. They “squeeze the life out of it”. And I think to myself (and , blog it) and so what are you proposing? Isn’t there a mass Christian right movement to impose the Religious Right’s platform upon the nation? And not only that, “squuezed out” are issues of social justice, environment, etc.

He’s calling upon Abraham Lincoln, using a stance Lincoln took on slavery. But , as I observed in the previous post, Lincoln’s theology would have him blackballed by the present SBC.

Now he mentions Martin Luther King, Jr. and his stance against injustice. Land’s spiritual predecessors were King’s most vocal enemies, and certainly King’s WHOLE DREAM exhibits countercultural movement that is considered blasphmemy bythe present leadership. “Too Anti-american” because he dared to QUESTION the all mighty God-rdained wisdom of the government (as long as that US government is run by an administration that is “approved” bythe Christian right. There was a deafening silence on the Romans passage used to say that we should “defer” to the magistrate.

I wish we could bring Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King back to speak to us about what’s happening in America today. The Chrisitan Right would be calling for their heads. Of course, the same could be said about Paul the apostle, and Jesus himself. The Christian Right fails to identify their own “doctrinal systems” as the same kind of blockage to “hearing the Word” as the Jewish doctrines and systems so protected by the Scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ day; so protected and absolutized that they were unable to separate the very being of God from their interprtation of the traditon.

This is exactly why its so hard to find a Church that I feel is not being idolatrous today. Civil Religion is rampant, and you almost have to find a radical left Church to escape it. I suppose a lot of my views would be called radical left by the radical right, but I am so apalled at the compromises and heresies of the current Church. There is scarcely any “Prophetic voice” coming from it about the deception of the myth of redemptive violence. What once was a “charactersitic” of Christians (“nonviolence”) is now banished from international relations, and the Christian Right Churches rabidly defend the Bush administration’s claims that we are proclaiming right by bombing Iraq. Even people who do not neccessarily oppose such campaigns of bombing in all cases were against it on the basis of lack of evidence, and recommending more investigation and more time to solve the problem by other means. For the Bush administration , it was a matter of rushing to meet a timetable, that from the looks of it, was looking for an excuse to move in and carry out a campaign of “stabilizing and conquering and taking control” of the region. (The “Pax Americana manifesto” that was blogged about back when the Iraq plans first began to unfold). The Bush administration had this invasion in mind before Sept. 11 ever happened. It was an easy deception to campaign for the invasion using fearof terrorism as fuel.