DOES THE GOP USE/ABUSE EVANGELICALS? --(amended 10/8)

Mudrake said that evangelicals are "pimped" by the GOP --meaning, I guess, that we are "used" just for our votes and that the GOP could care less about our issues.

My answer to that was as follows: Professional party big wigs may "pimp" the prolife Catholics and evangelicals, as he says, knowing this is a large voting bloc they need. BUT they gave us born again Condi Rice, more than 2 pro-life Supreme Court justices, an evangelical presidential speech writer for awhile, several sincerely pro-life senators and representatives and Christians in Congress. (Read Chuck Colson's Born Again--and how a group of Congressmen prayed for him and led him to faith in Christ by giving him C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity to read.)

By the way, I believe Geo Bush's Christianity is real. He ALSO gave us the faith-based initiative possibility, which has helped poor churches have programs for needy people, though there were too many strings attached for evangelicals. He compassionately tried to rescue all the AIDS victims in Africa --which is money down a rat hole if they don't change their promiscuous ways via abstinence education which has reduced new AIDS cases in one nation where they use it. And finally, Geo Bush started out with regular Bible studies and prayer optional for staff in the White House --as a Jewish biographer of the Bush White House pointed out.

I still say, history will reveal that he wasn't wrong about Iraq and not the cause of our economic woes. But he was not able to shrink entitlements --or say no to any group with its hand out because of their own choices (the mortgage and wall street bail-outs.)

Bush vetoed tax- supported stem cell research on abortion victims. Pro-life folks prevented abortions funded by the military health system; the party gave us equal access legislation in the schools, some conservative and God-fearing judges at various levels, SOME successful resistance to the ACLU's war on national monuments, Ten Commandments, religious mottos, etc. and some restrictions on abortion at state and federal level.

The GOP stands for parental rights and vouchers for educational choice, very important to evangelicals.

Because the other party is strong in opposition, it's hard for GOP leaders, sincere or not, pimping or not, to accomplish much re the social issues. GOP majorities have never been that great in Congress that they could reverse Roe, e.g.

It doesn't help when the young evangelical voters are weak on worldview, and unaware of the history of the battle between conservatives and liberals, the conservative gains and losses, having been steeped in liberalness at the secular u's.

Of course, many religious folks have been democrats by family history --believing the democrat party to be the party of the common man, the laborer, the poor. But talk about pimped, the Democratic party really is the party of liberal elites, atheists, God-haters, Christian -haters, and leftwing radicals --THEY lead that party more than evangelicals lead the GOP.

Evangelicals are so busy with family and church; political involvement is difficult. It's hard to find good candidates among these people --because they do prioritize family and church and that keeps them 100 per cent occupied, in addition to their jobs. But there are evangelical republicans who have made our voice heard so loudly, that Mudrake thinks we are the biggest threat to the planet, advocating fundamentalist theocracy. He's wrong, of course.

He thinks we should be denied free speech in the name of separation of church and state and by his view of "hate speech" --which is any speech that says some behaviors are sins; i.e. preaching the Bible on moral matters. HIS is the dangerous thinking, contrary to the First Amendment, threatening to religious freedom.

I swear he would throw me in a North Korean prison for daily beatings --as this one dear Christian lady experienced (Voice of the Martyrs' latest magazine.)
So vitriolic he gets.

Whether or not all the GOP leadership agrees with evangelicals, I will vote for them because they are the pro-life party. I can't vote for people who think abortion is a woman's right and want to fight for that right. It tells me a lot about their respect for God -- that their respect for Him is not enough that I should want them heading our country.

I prefer a president who might actually pray and be heard by the ruler of the universe. As we are going to need the help of God to keep our ship of state afloat.

As for the budget crisis --the greed of the CEO's --often democrats --and the greed and corruption of the lenders (so many grads of liberal education), the decline of ethics in business, the careless spending of the whole nation resulting in credit card debt, I blame the liberals who have wanted our people to lack faith in God --which lack of faith allows for corruption everywhere. Christianity is salt and light --we ought not erode it by public policies nor engender hostility toward Christendom, as Mudrake does. Does he want to live next door to people who determine right and wrong based on their personal desires? instead of eternal truths? I guess he does.




"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible

Andrew Sullivan vs. Barb: Whatever happened to the GOP?

"Andrew Sullivan is the editor of the New Republic and the blogmeister of The Daily Dish. Openly gay, Sullivan is a major conservative voice in U.S. politics and he is angered that his GOP party has been taken over by neoconservative Christians, especially the fundamentalist evangelicals. Sullivan states, "The new divide between the left and the right is the separation between state and church and the fusion of religion and government." He also says that he is trying to "rescue" modern U.S. political conservatism from "the current [Christian] fundamentalist supremacy" that now dominates it." Source: PoliticsinMudville.blogspot.com
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Liberal Democrat of Toledo says Sullivan is "an honest conservative. I can deal with the open, and honest conservative; he puts his cards on the table. As can be seen often in this blog, I have great difficulty in dealing with the so-called Christian conservative whose agenda is held between the two covers of the ancient Hebrew text."

I would ask LD, "Why is one 'whose agenda is held' in the Bible less HONEST than an Andrew Sullivan? It's not a "dishonest conservative" to whom LD objects; it IS, as he admits, the Bible Believing Christian conservative --who is no less honest just because he believes.

I had personal email correspondence a few times with Andrew Sullivan on the topic of his homosexuality. It was a cordial conversation and he does have a book on that subject as well. He is respected by conservatives because he is STILL conservative, even though he is homosexual --and he is a very bright and intellectual fellow. But he also is lost if he doesn't accept the fact that God did not create him to live with a man as he does. Like any homosexual, he was damaged in his sexual orientation, first by outside influences, and secondly, by his own choices.

His sins are no different than anyone else's. We all have sinned. The problem lies in not recognizing sin for what it is --and not believing the book--thus not repenting.

But it's not DISHONEST to put one's faith in The Book, L.D. It's not dishonest to believe that God made us male and female for HIS purposes --that we might replenish the earth. He forbade us to short-circuit our potential by having sex with our own sex.

As for the fundamentalists commandeering the Republican Party. No, the Liberals just got very licentious in their views --so that the parties were no longer similar in our definitions of morality. It used to be that a Democrat would share the same moral views as a Republican. They agreed that girls were girls and boys were boys and they should marry each other. They agreed that people ought to marry before they live together. They agreed that if they got the baby before the wedding, they had better hurry up and get married. They agreed that porn and sex clubs were bad for a community. They agreed that TV and movies shouldn't cross certain lines in nudity and foul language. They agreed that constitutional rights did not include a right to abortion. They agreed that prayer in school was a good thing, along with giving out Bibles for graduation. They agreed that the Christmas creche should be in the public square and that the Bible was a respectable book, that the Golden Rule was good for all.

So who was it, anyway, who got ahold of the DEMOCRATS? Because THEY are the ones who changed --and all the orthodox believers in God jumped the fence to the party that was still saying abortion mattered; sexuality matters; religious freedom in the public square and respect for the nation's Christian roots --matter.