The Weird Split in American Protestantism

The following is an exchange today with a West Bank friend -- the wonders of the Internet that allow us to chat around the globe. Ed Kent

EAK. We have had this weird split in American Protestantism going back some time to the division between the Eastern intellectual traditions and the emotive mid Western revivalism that felt challenged by it. The Civil Wars led to a further division between the Southern (racist, slave defending) version of the emotivist vs the northern abolitionists, which you probably picked up doing your researches. Bush is an odd case, as his father came from the northeast and Bush seems to have picked up the southern 'born again' stuff. Now the eastern version is fading as religious belief dissipates, leaving the perverted version to fill the void -- presumably similarly to what has been happening in the other major world religions. Too bad you could not have done your studies in NYC where we get along without such for the most part. Have a daughter who has been deeply distressed by the mindless conservatism of neighbors
in the Buffalo, NY area who is moving back to the city with her family this summer to be with sane people again. Best, Ed

P.S. I may be overly optimistic, but I think support of the current Israeli madness is waning - and among my Jewish friends and colleagues as well as others. Only the hard-line pro Israel types seem to be frantically fighting back. Hope I am right.

Khalid Amayreh wrote:

You are right Ed. I wrote a Master thesis when I was in the states and I meticulously examined Falwell's and Robertson's oversimplification of Protestant Christian theology. Those people would take a specific Biblical verse (usually from the Old Testament) out of context and use it to make sweeping judgements.

I used to discuss this with some of the fanatical Protestant clergymen, but to no avail. One of them, a guy from Texas, went as far as saying that the "best place to make witness for Christ these days is to assist in making bombs in Israeli munitions factories."

Besides, others, like Pat Robertson would go as far as condoning genocide against Palestinians, even including Christian Palestinians, on the ground that God ordered and sanctioned the extermination by the early Israelites of Cannanite tribes in the holy land upon the former's entry into "Promised Land."

Falwell, in his book The Fundamentalist Phenomenon actually claims that God has two peoples: spiritual people (the Protestants) and an ethnic people, the Jews.

It is really sad that Falwell and ilk have succeeded in galvanzing tens of millions of people to their quasi-cultic theology which I believe has nothing to do with the substance of the message preached by Jesus.

It is probably this pseudo religion and pseudo theology that eventually gave us George Bush who is probably the most conspicuously ignorant and unethical President in America's history.

Khalid

EAK posted to lists:

Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2006 9:57 AM
Subject: Progressive Shift Among Evangelicals

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2006/07/09/old_time_religion/

Harvey Cox (Harvard Divinity) is a reputable Protestant theologian:

http://www.hds.harvard.edu/faculty/cox.html

Here he offers a competent brief survey of the evangelicals -- both the exploitative right wingers (Falwell, Dobson et al) and the younger generation of progressives reemerging in the William Jennings Bryan mold.

The only minor disagreement that I would have with his article is the suggestion that Billy Graham was a benign figure. He was on the face of things, but set going precisely the right wing currents of the Falwells and others with his vast oversimplifications of the Christian Gospels. I was a student of Reinhold Niebuhr who was deeply distressed by the destructive potentials being unleashed by Graham and saw its manifestations first hand when I happened to take a student summer job with NYC's Protestant Council which had been taken over by out of town Graham trustees who were promoting anti civil rights and other reactionary agendas. Such was well known by the major Protestant denominations in the city -- Presbyterians and Episcopalians who refused to contribute to it financially, but who did not expose its fraudulent activities either. The executive director of it at the time I worked there, an Albany slumlord, was murdered by a tenant a few years back. The current Protestant Council is now a small office, entirely liberated from this ugly past.

P.S. Jim Wallis founder of Sojourners and the best known of the progressives: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Wallis nevertheless
manifests some moralistic aspects of the Bryan era, e.g. opposition to abortion. --

"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is
legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
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