Interesting analysis at DailyKOS of the manner in which politicians and political preachers misdirect the conservative Christian community into supporting positions that seem unBiblical, in the name of God.

From the analysis, I got a feeling of just how powerful the social-peer-pressure must be in the evangelical community. I imagine the pressure to adopt the party line is SO powerful among evangelicals nowadays - considering that the celebrity preachers speak with one voice, and their views are repeated by the media giants like Limbaugh-Hannity-Coulter et al.

I understand that the evangelicals might feel that their soul is threatened if they disagree with the preachers. Or, if they express a moderate view, their friends and neighbors accuse them of becoming possessed or of losing their faith, or of becoming Communist or something. (Hey, I recall an evangelical telling me once that he disliked the Beatles because they were “Communists.”)

The peer pressure in the evangelical community must be so very powerful that, if you are a Democrat, you probably keep it secret.

I get this “Cult Vibe” when I hear George W. Bush and his high profile religious media supporters speak about how they think God put Bush in the White House, and how God told Bush to go to war, or God punished America with 911 attacks, (and of course the attacks on real science). I could go on and on and on and on, but I won’t.

Be in lockstep with the mullahs (the celebrity preachers), show blind allegiance (you don’t hear any meaningful dissent from within the evangelical ranks, do you?), or else be rebuked as the enemy and cast aside (declaring other branches of Christianity to be false religions).

Anyway, the article excerpted below makes use of scriptural reference, and so some of the opinions the author expresses can be double-checked if anyone so desires.

Enjoy the debate!

Daily Kos :: Why Are Some American Christians So Bloodthirsty?
4. feel they dare not oppose this or any war because talking about peace, objecting to war’s human cost, or even referring to the United Nations has become associated in their minds with the Antichrist and eternal damnation, thanks to fictional works based on Thessalonians such as the Left Behind books and video..

5. have been convinced by right-wing preachers, authors and radio hosts.. to shift their allegiance away from Jesus’ teachings about merciful behavior .. to the more pro-violence, pro-war values espoused by various non-Gospel biblical writers.

Moral Relativism: In War, Anything Goes
But most importantly, conservative Christianity in the U.S. has succumbed to that which it has, in decades past, most rigorously warned against: moral relativism. By restricting any discussion of morality to sexual behavior, right-wing politicians have obliterated the once-central Christian teaching[s].. Cleverly “working the room,” pro-war politicians have infiltrated churches to such a degree that killings and torture are no longer within the province of morality. When morality is only about sex, no aspect of war - even the killing of entire families - can arouse criticism, much less condemnation.(1)