What would Jesus do? Really?

[tapati]

Alessandro Camon has written an excellent essay published today in Salon entitled: Rescuing Jesus. He put into words many of the things I've been thinking and other progressives have been saying about the religious right's use of Jesus to sanctify political ideas that he undoubtedly would disagree with.

Comments

Re: Interesting article!

[tapati]

I've always been a believer in religious tolerance and at first my reaction to the so-called culture war was to think that we simply needed to explain ourselves better, to demonstrate tolerance, and to show respect for the right wing Christians' right to their beliefs.

Then I started reading some of their blogs a few months ago and saw that some subset of them really do believe that any separation between Church and State should be abolished and that some religions shouldn't be allowed, and that this should be factually a Christian State. (I think that if they get what they want they'll find that the new battle will be over which brand of Christianity.)

So now I think it's important to distinguish between the saner evangelicals who still do value religious freedom and tolerance and are more moderate in their views--even court them as voters--while defending ourselves vigorously from the fanatic fringe.

A neat trick, if we can pull it off!