George W. Bush, many US leftists and secularists say, is a religious fundamentalist zealot determined to turn America into a theocracy and/or use his presidency to bring about, and be at the front of, the Battle of Armageddon. Not so, according to this sociological analysis of US Evangelical Christianity. For one, the two aims are rooted in two incompatible Christian Fundamentalist doctrines (reconstructionism and premillenialism). Secondly, Bush belongs to the same religious denomination as Hillary Clinton. (via MeFi)

The connection between Christian commitment and politics has always been pretty strange in this country. Ronald Reagan became beloved of the "religious right" while rarely darkening the door of a church and articulating only vague belief in a vague God, while the church-going, Bible-toting Bill Clinton was despised by them. If there has been a recent American president whose policies were derived relatively consistently from evangelical Christian theology, it would be Jimmy Carter, that Baptist Sunday-school teacher from Plains, Ga. But that's a story for another day.

Mind you, Bush still noisily attempts to tear down the wall between Church and State, ostracises secularists and throws bones to the Religious Right (such as his appointment of bona-fide Fundamentalist nutter John Ashcroft to the Department of Justice and railing against the threat to Truth, Justice and the American Way that gay marriage is), in between mouthing religious catchphrases at the right moments, though chances are, that has more to do with electoral opportunism than religious zeal.

Want to say something? Do so here.

Note to spammers: This comment system applies the rel=nofollow attribute to the poster's URL and all links. Posting links to this page will not improve their search engine rankings.

Display name:
URL:(optional)
To prove that you are not a bot, please enter the text in the image on the right in the field below it.

Your Comment:

Remember my details.

Please keep comments on topic and to the point. Inappropriate comments may be deleted.

Note that markup is stripped from comments; URLs will be automatically converted into links.