Jesus Is Not a Republican

No one can tell the religious whackso off like one of their own who hasn't drank the kool-aid

The Chronicle: 6/23/2006: Jesus Is Not a Republican:

"The evangelical subculture, which prizes conformity above all else, doesn't suffer rebels gladly, and it is especially intolerant of anyone with the temerity to challenge the shibboleths of the religious right. I understand that. Despite their putative claims to the faith, the leaders of the religious right are vicious toward anyone who refuses to kowtow to their version of orthodoxy, and their machinery of vilification strikes with ruthless, dispassionate efficiency. Longtime friends (and not a few family members) will shuffle uneasily around me and studiously avoid any sort of substantive conversation about the issues I raise, and then quietly strike my name from their Christmas-card lists. Circle the wagons. Brook no dissent.
And so, since my chances of being invited back to Edman Chapel have dropped from slim to none, I offer here an outline of what I would like to say to the students at Wheaton and, by extension, to evangelicals everywhere.

Evangelicals have come a long way since my visit to Edman Chapel in 1972. We have moved from cultural obscurity, almost invisibility, to becoming a major force in American society. Jimmy Carter's run for the presidency launched us into the national consciousness, but evangelicals abandoned Carter by the end of the 1970s, as the nascent religious right forged an alliance with the Republican Party." (Read On ^)