Why the Christian Right Is Wrong: A Minister's Manifesto for Taking Back Your Faith, Your Flag, Your Future
"I join the ranks of those who are angry, because I have watched as the faith I love has been taken over by fundamentalists who claim to speak for Jesus but whose actions are anything but Christian."
- Robin Meyers, from his "Speech Heard Round the World"
Millions of Americans are outraged at the Bush administration's domestic and foreign policies and even angrier that the nation's religious conservatives have touted these policies as representative of moral values. Why the Christian Right Is Wrong is a rousing manifesto that will ignite the collective conscience of all whose faith and values have been misrepresented by the Christian Right.
Praise for Why the Christian Right Is Wrong:
"In the pulpit, Robin Meyers is the new generation's Harry Emerson Fosdick, George Buttrick, and Martin Luther King. In these pages, you will find a stirring message for our times, from a man who believes that God's love is universal, that the great Jewish prophets are as relevant now as in ancient times, and that the Jesus who drove the money changers from the Temple may yet inspire us to embrace justice and compassion as the soul of democracy. This is not a book for narrow sectarian minds; read it, and you will want to change the world."
-Bill Moyers
"In this book, a powerful and authentic religious voice from America's heartland holds up a mirror to the Bush administration and its religious allies. The result is a vision of Orwellian proportions in which values are inverted and violence, hatred, and bigotry are blessed by one known as 'The Prince of Peace,' who called us to love our enemies. If you treasure this country and tremble over its present direction, this book is a must-read!"
-John Shelby Spong author, The Sins of Scripture: Exposing the Bible's Texts of Hate to Reveal the God of Love
"This is a timely warning and a clarion call to the church to recover the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to a great nation to resist the encroachment of the Christian Right and of Christian fascism. Many of us in other parts of the world are praying fervently that these calls will be heeded."
-Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Customer Review: Great Insight
This author expresses eloquently and with rational clarity why we "leftward" leaning Christians are so uncomfortable with the unrighteous dealings from the religious right. Well spoken, no minced words, forthright, and full of truth. A worthwhile read for thinking Christians and those who are not Christians and have been hurt by the actions of the religious right.
Customer Review: A Book Not To Be Missed
After the 2004 election, "when half the country felt clinically depressed about the reelection of George W. Bush," Robin Meyers, pastor of Mayflower Congregational UCC Church in Oklahoma City, at the behest of students at the University of Oklahoma, gave a speech to protest the war in Iraq. While his speech reads extremely well, it must have so much better heard live. It is broken up essentially into sentences that begin with "when you," and ends with "you are doing something immoral." Here is one example:
"When you cause most of the rest of the world to hate a country that
was once the most loved country in the world and act as if it doesn't
matter what others think of us, only what God thinks of you, you have
done something immoral."
Reverend Meyers then takes his speech, sentence by sentence, and expounds further on it. With clear, thoughtful rhetoric, he makes his case that the Christian Right is in bed with (my image, not his) the Republican Party, "God's Own Party." He discusses what is wrong with Bush and the GOP's position on religion, the environment, the war in Iraq, civil rights, gay rights, tax breaks for the very rich, the death penalty, etc.
Meyers reminds the reader that this administration is the first "ever not to voluntarily add a single species to the endangered species list," and that the U. S. supplied Saddam Hussein with "poison gas, military advisors, and arms. . . in the 1980s" and that Rumsfeld shook his hand in 1983. Reverend Meyers' discussion on what has been done to language in this country (for example, the term "collateral damage") is frightening beyond words; and again he reminds us that George Orwell's 1984 may be the most prophetic book written in the twentieth century.
Meyers in the final pages of this book exhorts the reader to take back this country and tells us what we must do. He urges us to join nonviolent resistance groups, vote out warmongering politicians, get concerned about the environment, and stop spending on "stuff" we do not need. (After all, when Bush sends volunteer soldiers to fight, he urges the rest of us to go shopping.) Finally, he reminds us that the Religious Right does not have a monopoly on Jesus and that we should judge churches by the Sermon on the Mount, rather than their size and location.
Both Bill Moyers and John Selby Spong, two men whose credentials on morality and values are (in my opinion) impeccable, have endorsed this really fine book; they are certainly right about both this most decent man and his book.
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Second Coming: The New Christian Right in Virginia Politics
By the early 1990s, the Christian Right was a force to be reckoned with in Virginia politics. In 1993, former Moral Majority leader Michael Farris won the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor. The following year, Oliver North became the party's candidate for U.S. senator. Both nominations were seen as undisputed evidence of the Christian Right's power in the state's Republican party. Yet, in those years of massive GOP landslides, both candidates lost their elections. These well-publicized campaigns set off bitter tensions between moderate Republicans and Christian social conservatives in Virginia and beyond--and raised new questions about the electability of candidates put forward by the Christian Right.
In Second Coming, Mark Rozell and Clyde Wilcox examine the role of the Christian Right in Virginia Republican politics. After the failures of the national organizations and campaigns of the Christian Right in the 1980s, the movement began focusing its attention on state and local politics. As the home state of the now-defunct Moral Majority and headquarters of the Christian Coalition, Virginia has one of the most visible and best organized Christian Right groups active today.
Building on a history of the Christian Right in Virginia from 1978 through 1992, Second Coming gives a detailed analysis of the 1993 statewide elections and the 1994 senatorial race, all of which attracted national attention. The authors draw on a wealth of sources--mail surveys from delegates to Republican state and national conventions, members of the Fairfax County Republican committee, and members of the Republican central committee; numerous in-person interviews of delegates at the 1993 and 1994 state conventions; and more than 100 in-depth interviews with Virginia Republicans and Christian Right leaders and activists.
Second Coming places Virginia politics in a national context and offers a revealing look at the struggles between Republican party centrists and Christian Right activists. With the struggle for the 1996 Republican presidential nomination well under way, Rozell and Wilcox offer an invaluable primer on the workings of the Christian Right--how its members make their voices heard at party conventions, get out the conservative vote, and make their presence felt in elections with strength far beyond their numbers."
Second Coming provides a superb treatment of the Religious Right in its homeland, Virginia. Treating a single state in which it has had success, the authors explore the Religious Right in all its roles--as political movement, party faction, and interest group--and they focus on tensions within the movement between the more pragmatic and the more purist factions. This book is an essential work for anyone who wants to understand not just the Religious Right, but politics in the United States in the 1990's and beyond. I highly recommend it."--Ron Rapoport, College of William & Mary
"The Christian Right is a potent force in American politics, but nowhere more so than in the State of Virginia. Rozell and Wilcox have done an outstanding job in explaining the Christian Right: who they are; what they want; and why they'll be around for a long, long time."--Richard N. Bond, former chairman, Republican National Committee
"The 'Old Dominion' is the cradle of the Christian Right, being the home state of both Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. Rozell and Wilcox have provided a fascinating and highly readable case study of the movement on its own turf that reveals its origins, present power, and future prospects. The authors answer a pressing question: will the 'second coming' of the Christian Right be a brief visit or a longer stay?"--John C. Green, University of Akron
Customer Review: Picks up where THE DYNAMIC DOMINION leaves off.
PICKS UP WHERE THE DYNAMIC DOMINION LEAVES OFF - in that it was written later. I still, however found it to be an another excellent accounting of the history of Republican politics in the Commonwealth of Virginia. SECOND COMING goes into great detail about the nomination and candidacy of Lieutenant Gubernatorial hopeful Michael Farris in 1993 and US Senate hopeful Col. Oliver L. North in 1994 through the use of hands on research and interviews with many party activists. Though I liked the book very much, I feel that too much emphasis was placed on the oppinions and feelings of people from Northern Virginia and not enough was said about the oppinions and feelings of people from Richmond and Hampton Roads. The basic feeling that I got from the book is that, although Farris and North ultimately lost their elections, their races were relatively close, proving to me that the Religious Right will be a force to reckoned with in Virginia Politics for many years to come.
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