There’s no proof that the regiments T.S. refers to is infringing or harming anyone else. While there is plenty of proof that the opponents of Christianity, have their own religious affiliations bent on the militant conversion of the non-believers. Going by intellectual honesty, one is forced to believe the side with the more justifications holds sway.

These concerns aren’t mine alone.

You said you’re not that familiar with Kevin Phillips’ research into the church and state merger. As luck would have it, he wrote an op-ed in yesterday’s Washington Post.
addressing it.

As someone who’s been fascinated by this (and reading about for a very long time), it’s refreshing to see someone with such clout making such observations.

This is what he wrote:

“Today, a leading power such as the United States approaches theocracy when it meets the conditions currently on display: an elected leader who believes himself to speak for the Almighty, a ruling political party that represents religious true believers, the certainty of many Republican voters that government should be guided by religion and, on top of it all, a White House that adopts agendas seemingly animated by biblical worldviews.

Indeed, there is a potent change taking place in this country’s domestic and foreign policy, driven by religion’s new political prowess and its role in projecting military power in the Mideast.”

http://www.annistonstar.com/opinion/2006/as-insight-0409-0-6d07q0954.htm

I’m familiar with his thesis and understand fully how he came up with such claims.

You dont have to agree with Phillips, but one thing is clear: Such concerns are not simply the product of paranoid, religion-hating lefties.

A lot of really smart and capable people sense this shift.

As far as the End Times go, if a 2003 poll in Time magazine is correct, 59% of Americans believe in the Rapture, and 45% believe that the anti-Christ is currently among us.

Those numbers seems high, but even if they’re accurate, it’s no big deal. People can believe whatever they like, provided their beliefs don’t infringe on mine.

I was raised Catholic and we dont rely heavily on the Book of Revelation or the Rapture. The Jesuits who taught me were rather found of education and of the existence of true faith.

While I’m grateful for my experience, I realize that it is mine, and not others’. That is the nature of non-fundamentalist thought, though, no?

What troubles me (if leaked e-mails are true)is the allegation that End Times zealots have been consulted by the White House to make sure that official U.S. policy comforms with Biblical prophecy.

That suddenly makes it my business.

I realize that a lot of people are praying for Armageddon, but, if the end of the world truly is God’s plan, why the need to actively make sure it occurs?

And while I’m not so sure about the nature of prophecy, I do, however, believe in self-fulfilling prophecies.

For that, and other reasons, I am unwavering in my belief that religion and politics do not, and should not, mix.

I think it’s great to get back to values. To the person speaking of end-timers, if you don’t believe, it’s your problem, right? I’m not worried. The Prophecy is being fufilled in a timely manner. The signs are increasingly present. Hopefully, you will also be included in the Rapture.

Is that ‘fundumentalist’? Great!

To the non-Faithful, keep speaking out against the Faith and embrace the false prophecies (Dan Brown and others). You will see what happens.

John McCain can’t even take care of his constituents in Arizona, inundated with spanish linguistics in school. McCain can’t get the nomination because nobody trusts him.

Another person that doesn’t trust McCain

Some religions like environmentalism or Islam are okay, Carter didn’t get hit for it. If you are a good public speaker or demagogue like Kennedy, then religion isn’t so much of a problem. It’s only when it doesn’t sound right, that people see a weak spot and attack.

Some people want to disenfranchise a part of the political spectrum, but I wonder why they seek to do so. It’s like saying people can’t get elected if they can’t get the vote of moderates. Well, duh. That’s how the world works, and it is how the world should work.

Why count on others to decipher what Sullivan is saying? He clairifies his own position on his blog today: http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/04/christianism_a_.html

“Or the smarter answer, “Maybe, but theology isn’t my area; all I know is that threats to the American republic from Iraq, Iran, or anywhere else will be met with steadfast resolve.” –Patrick

The point is that President Bush can’t say that without alienating a large percentage of his base. Why do you think John McCain is changing his mind about Jerry Falwell?

McCain won’t get the party’s nomination without catering to the evangelical vote. That is the new reality.

Consider: “Do you believe current events in the Middle East are signs of the apocalypse?”

Possible answers are yes, no, or maybe, but each requires context (in spite of what Phillips claimed) or it’s simply fodder for partisan traps.

Worst-case scenario is “yes, and I’m doing everything I can to hasten Armageddon”– that’s the answer given by the president of Iran, with a curtsy to the so-called “twelfth imam”– but the the president of Iran never worries about church/state separation.

One could also say “Yes, they are signs of the apocalypse, but I’m a politician, not a theologian, and I try to act in the best interests of the United States as I’ve sworn to do. Period.”

Or the smarter answer, “Maybe, but theology isn’t my area; all I know is that threats to the American republic from Iraq, Iran, or anywhere else will be met with steadfast resolve.”

Or, “No, I don’t believe that. I know some people do, and I respect their views, but when I sit down with Condi or the Joint Chiefs, we go over the Presidential Daily Briefing, not the Book of Revelation.”

No, but Carter shocked the country when he said he “lusted in his heart.”

A person who is NOT religious would never get elected in this country. A recent poll by the University of Minnesota found that Americans rate atheists “below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in “sharing their vision of American society.” Luckily, atheists only account for 3% of the American population.

There was paranoia over Jimmy Carter, however, but it has nore to do with his ties to organizations like the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the Trilateral Commission, which became “hot topics” during the 1980 presidential primaries,

Back then, candidates for the Republican nomination (save George Bush and John Anderson) clamored to prove they weren’t associated with either entity.

According to the History Channel, not only did Ronald Reagan repeatedly express a distrust of these organizations, but promised that CFR and Trilateral Commission member George Bush would not be offered a position in his administration.

During the Republican Convention, Reagan broke his promise — and tradition. Making a late night dash from his hotel room to the convention floor, following televised speculation on a Ronald Reagan/Gerald Ford “co-presidency,” he said: “I know that I am breaking with precedent to come here tonight and I assure you at this late hour I’m not going to give you my acceptance address. But in watching the television at the hotel and seeing the rumors that were going around and the gossip that was talking place here. It is true that a number of Republican leaders . . . . felt that a proper ticket would have included the former president of the United States, Gerald Ford, as second place on the ticket. . . . I then believed that because of all the talk and how something might be growing throughout the night that it was time for me to advance the schedule a little bit. . . . I have asked and I am recommending to this convention that tomorrow when the session reconvenes that George Bush be nominated for vice president.”

Andrew Sullivan is hositle or befuddled by religiosity? I dont think so.

Ditto for Jimmy Carter.

You may can say a lot of things about the former President, but he is certainly not hostile to religion. Even so, this is what he said on Dec 5, 2005:

“Thomas Jefferson, one of our Founding Fathers, said that we should build a wall between the church and state. That wall is being deliberately and ostentatiously, not secretly, broken down. . . ”

In short, Religiosity simply does not belong in government.

In the 1960s, when John Kennedy’s Catholicism had people up in arms, people seemed to understand that.
But there has been a shift. A rather noteworthy shift.

The “Emerging Republican Majority” author and former GOP Strategist Kevin Phillips has bluntly stated that “[T]he Religious Right and the would-be theocrats are the danger now.” Phillips’ latest book “American Theocracy” was also the basis for a question posed to Mr. Bush in Cleveland recently when a reporter asked, “Do you believe this, that the war in Iraq and the rise of terrorism are signs of the apocalypse?”

It took Bush five minutes to answer, when a simple “Yes or No” would have sufficed. Why? As Phillips later pointed out, with 45% of Americans now believing that the Antichrist is already on earth, Bush risks alienating a large segment of the population, regardless how he answers. “He can’t answer the question weather or not he believes in Armageddon or it’s happening in the Middle East,” Phillips told Lou Dobbs. “He’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t.”

Is Phillips befuddled by religiosity? I dont know. But before the war in Iraq, former Nixon aide Charles Colson, who is most certainly not hostile to religion, said the following:

“Some wonder if the president might be influenced by evangelical teachings that envision an end-of-the-world battle between Israel and its enemies. It would be dangerous for a president to take a particular theology like that and apply it to world events.”

Long before that, James Madison said:

“The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.” (1803)

The danger of melding church and state is obvious. While the Village Voice may be hostile to any form of religion, the e-mails the paper uncovered, proving that the Bush adminstration consulted with End Times zealots before setting policy, are nevertheless alarming.