Kurt Eichenwald of Newsweek has always been one of my favorite journalists because he is one of these rare types in the MSM who is willing to go after bad people tooth and nail. Usually it's about politics, but today it is about fundamentalist Christians.
Even for him, this article took my breath away at how aggressive it is (although it struck me as kind of odd that he was writing about Christianity). At the very top, he calls right wing fundamentalists:
They are God’s frauds, cafeteria Christians who pick and choose which Bible verses they heed with less care than they exercise in selecting side orders for lunch. They are joined by religious rationalizers—fundamentalists who, unable to find Scripture supporting their biases and beliefs, twist phrases and modify translations to prove they are honoring the Bible’s words.
And it just gets more aggressive from there.
The piece is long and detailed, so the fundies who most need to read it will never do it. All the rest of us, though, (like me) who have to deal with these people need it to arm ourselves against them.
The only thing that disappoints me in the piece is that there is no effort to use history and science to counter some of the ridiculous stuff in the Bible. Everything in it is about the Bible and how the fundies not only don't read it but have no idea what it says. There are also polls showing that evangelicals know less about religion than atheists and that the majority of them side with the messages of the pharisees who Jesus condemned and reject the messages of Jesus.
It does not attack Christians. It merely goes after the hypocrisy of the fundamentalists.
Using the Bible, it shows that the fight to get prayer in school, to attack gays as sinners, to have these giant prayer meetings in football stadiums, setting up those monuments to the Ten Commandments all run counter to real Christianity.
A few major points. Fundamentalists are causing great damage to the country:
With politicians, social leaders and even some clergy invoking a book they seem to have never read and whose phrases they don’t understand, America is being besieged by Biblical illiteracy. Climate change is said to be impossible because of promises God made to Noah; Mosaic law from the Old Testament directs American government; creationism should be taught in schools; helping Syrians resist chemical weapons attacks is a sign of the end times—all of these arguments have been advanced by modern evangelical politicians and their brethren, yet none of them are supported in the Scriptures.
Also:
When the illiteracy of self-proclaimed Biblical literalists leads parents to banish children from their homes, when it sets neighbor against neighbor, when it engenders hate and condemnation, when it impedes science and undermines intellectual advancement, the topic has become too important for Americans to ignore, whether they are deeply devout or tepidly faithful, believers or atheists.
Through a lengthy analysis, he identifies the following people as "sinners" using their own standards: Pat Robertson, Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry and Bobby Jindal. I would have added so many more, but that list makes me smile.
Regarding the fundies who attack others as sinners there is a whole lot, but this was one of my favorite parts (dont read it as him saying being gay is a sin. it's rehtorical):
God doesn’t need the help of fundamentalists in determining what should be done in the afterlife with the prideful, the greedy, the debaters or even those homosexuals. Which could well be why Jesus cautioned his followers against judging others while ignoring their own sins. In fact, he had a specific word for people obsessed with the sins of others. He called them hypocrites.
There is a lot in the piece. I'm going to have a copy at the ready at Christmas dinner, when my fundie sister goes into her usual speech about how gays dont belong in a Christian nation.