Sunday, July 16, 2006

How to build a THEOCRACY...Dangerous....

From Reuters:

Megachurches Build a Republican Base
By Andrea Hopkins, Reuters

LANCASTER, Ohio (July 16) - It's not Sunday but Fairfield Christian Church is packed. Hundreds of kids are making their way to vacation Bible school, parents are dropping in at the day-care center and yellow-shirted volunteers are everywhere, directing traffic. In one wing of the sprawling church, a coffee barista whips up a mango smoothie while workers bustle around the cafeteria.

Thousands gathered last year in New York for a Billy Graham event. The Evangelical Christian movement is the fastest-growing faith group in America.

"There are people here from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day -- sometimes later," senior pastor Russell Johnson says as he surveys the activity.

The 4,000 members of Fairfield Christian are part of the growing evangelical Christian movement in middle America. In a March survey, a quarter of Ohio residents said they were evangelicals -- believing that a strict adherence to the Bible and personal commitment to the teachings of Jesus Christ will bring salvation.

The fastest-growing faith group in America, evangelical Christians have had a growing impact on the nation's political landscape, in part because adherents believe conservative Christian values should have a place in politics -- and they support politicians who agree with them.

In that March survey, more than 82 percent of the Ohio evangelicals who attend church at least once a week said they approve of bringing more religion into politics.

"Christians stepped back too far. I prayed in school but my kids can't pray in school," said volunteer Lisa Sexton, 42, a Bible school volunteer. "I should have spoken up earlier."

Political analyst John Green said evangelical growth has had a major political impact in Ohio, a key swing state that narrowly decided President George W. Bush's election victory in 2004.

"Evangelical Protestants have become much more Republican in recent times, although 40 or 50 years ago more of them were Democrats," said Green, director of the University of Akron's Bliss Institute of Applied Politics.

"There was a particular intensification of evangelical links to the Republican Party during the Bush administration in 2000 and 2004."

God and Politics

Sexton believes every word in the Bible, rejects evolution theory, and supports the Iraq war, the Republican Party and Bush -- in part because he is a born-again Christian.

Wrap...

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