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 - Jesus Would Denounce these Right-Wing "Christians"To paraphrase the Reverend Charles Kimball, I am puzzled and saddened by those "Christians" who stand firmly opposed to all or nearly all that Jesus stood for, such as those Catherine Crier warns us about in CONTEMPT. Crier describes the machinations of various right-wing "Christian" groups to take over the Federal Judiciary, with the aim of forcing all Americans to submit to their version of "Christianity" as the supreme law of the land. Non-Christians, including even the majority of those who consider themselves Christians (such as Episcopalians and United Church of Christ members) who don't subscribe to fundamentalism, would become second-class citizens or worse. (Some even advocate the death penalty for those who refuse to convert to fundamentalism.) If and when they accomplish their aims, it will be a criminal offense to be a feminist or a homosexual, to obtain or perform an abortion, or to possess any birth control device or medication. Public schools would be required to indoctrinate all children in the approved "Christian" religion. Some have criticized Crier for lack of footnotes and bibliography, saying that for lack thereof nothing she says should be taken seriously. Nonsense! Just because she doesn't cite the evidence doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Any interested reader could google any subject she mentions. Some works she could have cited include: Kimberly Blaker: The Fundamentals of Extremism: The Christian Right in America Robert Boston: Why the Religious Right Is Wrong About Separation of Church and State _____: Close Encounters With the Religious Right: Journeys into the Twilight Zone of Religion and Politics Bill Press: How the Republicans Stole Religion: Why the Religious Right is Wrong about Faith & Politics and What We Can Do to Make it Right Rabbi James Rudin: The Baptizing of America: The Religious Right's Plans for the Rest of Us Charles Kimball: When Religion Becomes Evil: Five Warning Signs (The sentence I paraphrased at the beginning is on page 208.) Barry W. Lynn: Piety & Politics: The Right-Wing Assault on Religious Freedom One thing Crier should have done but didn't is mention explicitly that not all evangelicals subscribe to the unAmerican agenda Crier is warning us about. One such is Jim Wallis, whose excellent books God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It (Plus) and Living God's Politics: A Guide to Putting Your Faith into Action detail his faith, which is much closer to what Jesus advocated. watziznaym@gmail.com Rating:  - Another Christian LumperMs. Crier shows her lack of understanding of the intracacies of Christianity and puts forth a brutish view. For example on page five she refers to it as "Born again Christianity". That may seem like a knitpick on something that isn't a big deal, but it absolutely is a big deal. If you only have a shallow understanding of the person you are talking about, how much of what you say about them is going to be accurate? It's similar to how the majority of Americans of WW2 believed the stereotypes about the Japanese as being the mindless bad guys, not that the Japanese were a sophisticated deep thinking people themselves, but there were many wrong assumptions about them that certainly did not help in dealing with them, for example, dropping atomic bombs on them. Though she tries to make a Christian take-over a scary issue, 1) she is being a hypocrite as Jesus himself points out, "How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." - Luke 6:42. 2) As our secular government itself has shown, having laws based on opinions, even if influenced by the Bible, and subject to the interpreter and moods of the masses does not lead to better government, it leads to a more corrupt one. 3) She assumes president Bush Jr. is truly a Christian, despite his hypocritical behavior, such as his poor effort to prevent millions of Christians being slaughtered over the years by Muslims in Sudan and other countries from occurring. He's sent no troops to help them. So much for being truly concerned. And Pat Robertson who she cites as a bad guy, seems more to be on her side with his comment that the Chinese gov. has an excuse to force abortions on its citizens. 4) She also doesn't realize that Bible's laws are superior to the Constitution's, because they are based on absolute truths, the Constitution however is based on OPINIONS of what the founders think ARE PROBABLY absolute truths. It's a big difference because the Constitution then is subject to subjective interpretation. And guess what, the founders said they wanted it that way, and stated that the Constitution wasn't meant to be the final word. So ironically, tho Crier tries to scare her readers with altered Ammendments made to favor Christianity, the founders themselves did not oppose changing the Constitution to suit the whims of the people. 5) She also stupidly promotes democracy, despite democracy proving itself to be a failure in our country's history repeatedly, example: Bush Jr. came to power. Blind. 6) She also makes an issue of born again Christians on page 12, which is bizarre since she clearly isn't using the Biblical definition, and if using the dictionary definition, is basically saying, "Beware of those Christians who renewed their faith". What the ****? Why would they be particularly dangerous? Of course there are legitmate concerns like overstepping what is moral, but no one is perfect, no secular government has shown itself to be perfect, but rather murderous (like the Soviet Union and China, and that includes the U.S.A..) The solution, contrary to this book, to having a good government, is having the Bible as law, because it is absolutely true and good, and every decent person knows Jesus would make the best president, who would dare say he wouldn't? Rating: - Important Wake Up Call About The Right Wing Extremists Seeking To Take Over Our Judicial System In "Contempt" Crier does an outstanding job of exposing the danger being posed by right-wingers, especially the Religious Right, in their attempt to take over the court system in America. She discusses the absurd statements and actions of well known evangelical nut cases such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. But she also talks about lesser known religious extremists who are using their power to influence the political process. For example, James Kennedy, who would like to turn America into a Christian theocracy just as Muslim extremists, in countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia, have created oppressive societies based on Shar'ia law. I believe that our strong American tradition of freedom and civil liberties, based on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, will prevent these religious fanatics from ever taking over. Yet no potential American future is more frightening to me than a so-called "Christian Nation" being run by fundamentalist demagogues. In other chapters of the book, Crier manages to explain our complicated federal court system with impressive clarity, thus turning a potentially dry subject into highly readable material. She also discusses others powerful right wing organizations. For example, the Family Reseach Council, founded by James Dobson, whose primary foucs is on overturning Roe V. Wade. Their president, Tony Perkins, once paid $80,000 [...] leader David Duke to obtain his mailing list. Another disturbing entity is the Federalist Society, which includes Supreme Court justices Antonio Scalia and Clarence Thomas as members. Recent Supreme Court appointee John Roberts also served on one of their steering committees. The Federalist Society are a group of right wing lawyers and judges. They believe in the "Constitution in Exile" ideology which embraces a "State's Rights" philosophy that would do away with federal protections for the environment, education, civil rights and even the national minimum wage law. Another recent Supreme Court appointee, Samuel Alito, is also a supporter of this doctrine. Of course, Roberts and Alito were both nominated by W. Bush. If the Republicans win the next presidential election the Court will likely be even further dominated by more of these right wing extremist judges. Crier also explores the history of the Constitution and Bill Of Rights and how they were intended to prevent our civil liberties being taken from us by religious zealots as well as their intention to protect religious minorities from government tyranny. She discusses the beliefs of the Founding Fathers, who were mostly either non-Christian Deists or tolerant Unitarians. They were also staunch rationalists, influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment, and would be appalled by the current threat to our American system of government being posed by the irrational dogma of these right wing fundamentalists. Crier's book is a powerful alarm, seeking to warn us about those who would take away our hard won freedoms. Rating:  - Thought ProvokingAfter reading this book, I did additional research on many of the organizations and think-tanks mentioned (a real eye-opener, make no mistake). The style of writing is a bit too "stream-of-consciousness" and repetitive but quite thought-provoking, nonetheless. Rating:  - Okay book, a little shallow and repetitiveThis book has some interesting points, and I think for those just wanting quick examples to lightly debate this side of the issue, it is okay. My complaints with the book are the lack of a substantial, legitmate argument, repetitious phrases and examples, and the overall layout of the book. I really dislike the "sub" chapters within some of the main chapters; they were distracting and seemed to make the text incoherent. For example, chapter 14, which is rather short, is split into four different subjects and each seems like a brief article written for some other publication and just inserted into the text. I was disappointed in the lack of footnotes, documentation, and references. Also, there are an annoying number of errors. Oh, and I don't really like books with the author posed on the front, but i could have overlooked that if the book was substantive. I expected a lot more from a judge. I was expecting some legitimate arguments. My guess is this book was rushed to press to coincide with the supreme court nominations occurring at the time.
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