A GOOD SKATER COVERS THE WHOLE ICE
And what is Christianism if not a progressive [emphasis added], collectivist, statist movement?
is at odds with ...
Althouse and Reynolds and others over the question of whether "Christianist" is an appropriate term to use to describe the fusion of political ideology and religious faith. Greenwald shows that Reynolds and Althouse simply refuse to allow me to deploy a word in a manner that makes sense to me.
...That's why I call "ordinary religious people" Christians and call those who are "trying to bully their way around the political world" Christianists. Is that so hard for her to understand? I've stated it quite clearly from the beginning, but she refuses ...
DOES ONE HAVE TO PUT DOWN PROGRESSIVES TO PICK UP CONSERVATIVES?
I'm not going to step into the middle of Conservatives bickering, but there is no need for progressivism to be put up to cheap shots, from either side. As something that ought to be rejected, "Christianism" is a misdirected hope for religious actuation has both Conservative and Progressive aspects:
[from Clay's article] True, evangelicalism can also be a force of moral conservatism, in insisting upon the permanence of certain moral and ethical desiderata, particularly if those are clearly stated in the Bible. But it can also be a force of profound moral radicalism, calling into question the justice and equity of the most fundamental structures of social life, and doing so from a firm vantage point outside those structures.
Now, if the Conservatives want to excoriate certain aspects of what they perceive to be Bush's true conservative failings, that's their own affair, although I think it is going to be more difficult than face-value might suggest. McClay's article is a very interesting read and provides reasonably nuanced historical perspectives of the "red" tradition, from which to judge Bush's actions, although I find him too broad brush (The World AIDS initiative doesn't seem to me the same as the Shiavo wing-flapping or even the institutionalization of re-distributive, faith-based initiatives and certainly not 'Freedom' in the world, which is/was largely a political backfill by most reckonings or even Social Security Reform).
IF NOT BUSH, THEN WHAT, WHO?
If it's not Bush in particular, but Conservatism in general, then perhaps they ought to start by discerning how it is that Christianists have found such a happy home for so long within the Conservative-alliance.
[AS] ... when a progressive, benign, big government evangelicalism emerges,
I don't know what the legislative references (or Executive actions) to that are. The truth is that Conservatism has distinct statist tendencies, too, including a belief in the primacy of the State in certain matters, the bully pulpit role of the Executive, and more besides.
The hard truth is that, while the Evangelical power-politics-cum-money is a problem for all, the "big government" in the recent past has come from the old-line Conservatives, notwithstanding Presidential veto.
sullylink
