Christian Carnival LXXV

This week's Christian Carnival is up at Dee Kreidel's place, In the Spirit of Grace.

No Vita ab Alto post this week, but there's still plenty of good stuff.

F'rinstance, here's a good run-down on the Doug Ireland's hysterical screed at Viewpoint. I read Ireland's "The New Blacklist" ealier this week in LA Weekly. Apparently, LA is a sufficiently post-Christian, post-American dwelling place that religious equivalents of the "n-word" can be used freely in the press:

Spurred on by a biblical injunction evangelicals call “The Great Commission,” and emboldened by George W. Bush’s re-election, which is perceived as a “mandate from God,” the Christian right has launched a series of boycotts and pressure campaigns aimed at corporate America — and at its sponsorship of entertainment, programs and activities the Christers don’t like.

The key to those doctrines is what fundamentalist religious primitives call the Great Commission, which is basically an injunction to convert everyone to Christianity. In the Bible (Matthew 28:19-20), it says, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you . . .” The fundamentalist interpretations of these and other texts can be found on evangelical Web sites like Thegreatcommission.com, Transferableconcepts.com and Gospelcom.net. They have incredible motivating power for the religious right, and help explain the vehemence of the Christers’ intolerance of the freedom of others to think or act differently.

"Christer."

Let's turn this on its ear, shall we? "...they have incredible motivating power for the unreligious left, and help explain the vehemence of the Jewboy faggots' intolerance of the freedom of others to think or act differently..." Can you imagine the media Sturm und Drang that would arise if someone--particularly a "Christer" at a big-city newsweekly were to publish such a thing?

Viewpoint tackles Ireland admirably:

Ireland quotes Martin Kaplan, director of the Norman Lear Center at the Annenberg School of Communication at USC, who calls the new "Christer" offensive a drive toward "theocratic oligopoly. The drumbeat of religious fascism has never been as troubling as it is now in this country."

Ireland and Kaplan fear that our government agencies are actually responsive to the people's wishes. This ugly recrudescence of dreaded democracy can only lead to trouble. Once the government starts listening to its citizens where does it stop? Auschwitz?

[E]vangelicals feel they have permission to push their way into public and cultural policy in every walk and expression of life.

Imagine the chutzpah of these "Christers" who think they have the same rights as every other American citizen. Where do they get such an impertinent idea? Haven't they learned that religious people, unless they're liberals, are supposed to keep their opinions to themselves, and let the Left alone to run things and impose its values on the rest of the country?

PS: Here's the bio from Ireland's blog (if there were any lingering doubts about where he was coming from
An Unapologetic Christer