By popular demand: Tim Sandefur requests that I weigh in on an article from the Claremont Institute that implies that people who are using Christianity as a justification for their pacifism are merely promoting a "progressive' Christian point of view' that is out of touch with "the traditional American view of Christian theology," citing the religious views of the original founding fathers as an example of what he feels to be proper Christian thinking.

Tim knows my feelings on this issue--I'm the "Mormon reader" who wrote in in response to his last rant on this (My letter is immediately above his comments).

I really hate to see religious groups abused by the right wing in exactly the same way minorities abused by the left wing. Their votes are taken for granted the vast majority of the time, and they are called upon for support at such a time as their beliefs are valuable to the cause--at such times, the more radical and devout they are, the better. However, when their views don't jibe with what the right-wingers want--well, then we need to be a little more tolerant, don't we? Bring our thinking into more modern times? Stop being such hard-liners.

Or, the opposite, as in the article linked to. Ask them what happened to their devotion. Accuse them of following their own ideas rather than "true Christianity."

Christians get played all three ways, depending on the issue.

So basically he's doing exactly the same thing he's accusing the publishers of sojourners of doing--telling people how to be Christians.

The only real "umbrella" he even implies for what constitutes a Christian is "people who believe as the founding fathers believed."

Well, I can buy that. I just hope he accepts my definition of what kind of Christians the founding fathers were, which is, "Christians whose beliefs about Christianity differed enough that they knew to just leave it alone and write a constitution."

It reminds me, actually, of my years at BYU. Ironically, it when I was most surrounded by Mormons that I most often found myself being questioned for my religous beliefs. Whereas "I don't do that. I'm Mormon," had always been good enough answer for my friends growing up, at BYU it drew responses like, "Well, the Prophet hasn't actually made a statement on that," or, "What the guy who said that was really trying to say was . . ." I was stunned to realize how much less understanding the people whose beliefs are closest to yours can be!

As for what kind of Christian this extreme politicizing makes you into--that's covered in one of the first couple chapters of The Screwtape Letters.