Are We About To Be Blamed?

Reading this morning's "New York Times," I noticed a book review for American Theocracy. Kevin Phillips, the book's author, contends that America faces three threats: oil addiction, Christian fundamentalism, and the national debt. Of course what troubles me is the middle item, and Phillips' conflation of fundamentalism, orthodoxy, and theonomy. He fears the emergence of a Taliban-like society, where women are denied basic rights, and the separation of church and state has been removed.

What makes all of this important is Phillips himself. He is no leftwing radical, but a former member of the Nixon administration, who has had enormous influence, based primarily on the uncanny accuracy of his predictions, made in the sixties and seventies. He coined the phrase "Sun Belt," and predicted the rise of the Republican party as the population shifted from the Northeast to the South and West. Sure enough, people did move to warmer climes, and the Republicans have dominated politics for the last thirty years. Now Phillips is fearful, and he lumps orthodox Christians, specifically Southern Baptists, in with a mix of radicals, fringe groups, and other threats to America.

Is this the beginning of an intellectual demonization of Christianity? The church in America has always been sneered at by the elites, and ridiculed by the intelligentsia, but now it has been linked with oppression, war, and the erosion of civil rights. For some reason, I catch a whiff of the scapegoat in the air - the opportunity to destroy any form of Christianity which is not a toady to left-wing culture and political agendas. In other words, you may believe in Jesus, but keep your dangerous gospel to yourself. Such is not a living faith, but a sad pantomime of God's unchanging truth.