It's quite as if they had all taken Sociology 101 and actually paid attention. Of course Moynihan was right ... except for the implication that American society NEEDED to be saved from itself.

The movement is still essentially reactionary (in the good sense of the word).

If courts were not purging faith from the public square, overriding referenda (CA) and legislative law (MA) banning gay marriage, declaring the "right to privacy" of a 13 year old trumps parents right to know if their child seeks an abortion (FL), knocking down Federal law limiting the ability of children to access porno on the internet and outlawing computer generated child porn, banning the Boy Scouts from leasing land in a public park (San Diego), cloaking a Christian Cross with a tarp while appeals are heard to prevent it from being demolished (CA-Mojave Cross) the movement would be a fraction of the size it is today.

Evangelicals seek to prevent and restore rather than control.

For the most part.

"As the vice-regents of God, we are to bring His truth and His will to bear on every sphere of our world and our society. We are to exercise godly dominion and influence over our neighborhoods, our schools, our government ... our entertainment media, our news media, our scientific endeavors - in short, over every aspect and institution of human society."

That's not what he's saying David. This is a program for control. Anyone who thinks he's going to exercise godly dominion over me better heed the "I shoot trespassers" sign.

Kennedy is a far right whacko, I wonder why it took OJ so long to write about him. I try not to cry "theocracy", but there is no other way to describe what this cornflake is calling for.

Christians have only recently gotten so seriously involved in politics -- and it was abortion that forced their hand. Most of my wife's American relatives have only now begun voting Republican. It wasn't long ago that the social welfare issues had them voting Democrat. Remember Jimmy Carter?

Besides, Robert, the U.S. is a "theocracy".

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

Robert:

The notion that if a theocracy were imposed your little sign would stop anyone is rather quaint.

> Anyone who thinks he's going to exercise godly dominion over me better heed the "I shoot trespassers" sign.

Better drink lots of coffee, then, because it's only a matter of time before they come in the night to plant a nativity scene and a Ten Commandments memorial in your front yard...

Suggests any people of faith will have undue influence or create a theocracy are absurd. From the founding and all during the 19th C there were calls for America to be officially declared a Christian country. As we know, they all came to nothing.

For a decade now I've been involved in voter registration and then getting those registered to the polls. The message, I've found, needs to be tailor to different groups as their objections vary.

Most intractable problem I've faced with evangelicals is getting them to vote at all. Took four years for my fundamentalist neighbor to finally break down and vote. Think he finally got sick of me suggesting he vote more than anything else. Many evangelicals are not of this world and shun politics. When they do change their mind, there is no doubt where they stand but getting them there is difficult.

Liberal protestants (my family tradition) are difficult to convince to vote conservative. Their excuse is "they all do it..there is no difference between the parties...everyone is no good." When I ask why, then, they vote Democrat, I receive a blank stare.

Catholics are mixed. Those who vote liberal do so out of family tradition, union membership and a concern for social justice (not realizing how far left the Democratic party has taken that concept). Constituent services are important with Catholics too. Liberals excel in this field. Rosa DeLaura, for instance, is wonderful in this regard. When one phone call to her solves the problem a parent or grandparent is having with Medicare or Social Security, DeLaura's position on partial birth abortion is rationalized away.

Note: my comments are anecdotal and limited. I make no claim my experiences represent the views of a majority of evangelicals, liberal Protestants or Catholics.

They certainly don't represent the Catholics on this board and virtually all the Catholics I've met on the internet.

Randall, if you think that Kennedy and his ilk are happy with how this "theocracy" is currently being run, you haven't read his words very closely. Dominion Theology is not about living peacably as equals with citizens of other faiths, it is about seizing the reigns of secular power and imposing Old Testament law, including capital punishment for homosexuals, idolaters and heretics.

David, I have no doubt about your experiences of evangelicals, but as I mentioned above, Kennedy is not a poster child for that group.

OJ, they would get me in the end, but not before I send a few martyrs to the Pearly Gates. In the end the only garantee that I can rely on to secure my freedom will be my willingness to fight for it.

How is it that you gush over democracy and freedom in one breath and promote the anti-American ravings of dregs like Kennedy in the next? Are you so taken in by any show of religiosity that you are unable to critically examine what someone actually says or stands for?

Robert:

Sure, you'll be the one who resists...

We require a reaction as strong as Kennedy's to reverse the 20th Century.

and the 19th century, and the 18th, ..and the 17th, and the 16th, and the 15th, and the 14th.

OJ, you're either for democracy based on the consent of the governed, or you're not. Don't use cute tricks to hide what you are for. You want theocracy, not democracy. Just admit it. The two are irreconcilable.

"Sure, you'll be the one who resists..."

Well, it won't be you, that's for sure. Too bad, they'll come for you too. Once they read how you've endorsed just about every theological point on the map at one point or another, you'll end up in the doc on heresy charges. Theocratists always eat their own.

Theocracy would be preferable to modernity, but we needn't settle.

And, no, I don't put much stock in democracy.