"Justice" Sunday III
The Washington Post article has an article, “Christian Right Mobilizes For Judge: Conservative Tilt Sought on Bench,” covering yesterday’s fundamentalist festival over Alito’s nomination, Justice Sunday III. The article quotes Greater Exodus Baptist Church (Philadelphia PA) pastor Rev. Herbert H. Lusk II, who it described as “a Bush supporter whose organization has received more than $1 million in federal grants under the administration's Faith Based Initiative” as saying:
"My friends, don't fool with the church because the church has buried a million critics. And those the church has not buried, the church has made funeral arrangement for."
I don’t know what passes for sermons at his church, but that sounds rather like a threat. Who does he consider to be “church critics?” Atheist groups? The ACLU? Everyone on the Left? As Andrew Sullivan observes:
Every now and again, you see the violent and intolerant subtext of fundamentalist Christianity - especially with respect to their opponents - emerge into the mainstream daylight.
With all due respect to Sullivan, fundamentalist violence and intolerance is hardly a “subtext” these days. As anyone on the pro-choice side of the abortion debate will attest, the Right’s propensity for violence has been out in the open for years. It’s well past time for religious moderates to publicly condemn this kind of rhetoric, before the wingnuts start terrorizing “church critics” with faux anthrax mailings, pipe bombs, and random assassinations.