{"id":79,"date":"2003-05-11T17:22:13","date_gmt":"2003-05-11T17:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2006-09-28T12:07:47","modified_gmt":"2006-09-28T12:07:47","slug":"the_red_and_the_blue_apologies_to_stendahl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=79","title":{"rendered":"The Red and The Blue (apologies to Stendahl)"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this morning’s L.A. Times (intrusive registration required, use ‘LAExaminer’\/’LAExaminer’), a fascinating column<\/a> by Joel Kotkin and Karen Speicher on a growing crisis within mainstream American religion:<\/p>\n

The war in Iraq exposed many continuing fissures in U.S. society, but none more evident than the divide between the clerical establishment and the laity. The gap presages more fragmentation in the structures of religious faith in this historically devout global power.
\n…<\/b>
\nVirtually the entire leadership of every mainstream Christian faith – from the Roman Catholic Church, the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ and the National Baptist Convention to the United Methodists, as well as the National Council of Churches – adamantly opposed the war against Iraq from the outset. Like many on the secular left, religious leaders denounced the conflict as one of U.S. aggression and needless destruction, and likely to evolve into a long, bloody conflict.<\/p>\n

In contrast, the people in the pews, for the most part, were among the strongest backers of President Bush’s goal of ousting Saddam Hussein. According to a prewar poll conducted by the Pew Research Center and Forum on Religion and Public Life, more than 60% of mainline Protestants and Catholics favored attacking Iraq; greater than 75% of evangelical Protestants supported a military effort.
\n…<\/b>
\nWhat is most disturbing for the future of mainstream religion in America, Roof suggests, is the lack of a middle ground between evangelical fundamentalism and the increasingly out-of-touch clerical elite more united with one another’s common vision than with their parishioners’.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Particularly note the last quote, look around at pretty much any national institution, and check your gut to see how closely it applies.<\/p>\n

Here at Winds of Change, the comments section to this<\/a> post has some interesting discussion that further expands on this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this morning’s L.A. Times (intrusive registration required, use ‘LAExaminer’\/’LAExaminer’), a fascinating column by Joel Kotkin and Karen Speicher on a growing crisis within mainstream American religion: The war in Iraq exposed many continuing fissures in U.S. society, but none more evident than the divide between the clerical establishment and the laity. The gap presages […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}