attitudes, coalitions, changing times <fwd>

[Guest guest]

--- Begin Forwarded Message ---

Bruce Bawer, author of A Place at the Table has written a profoundly important

book wherein he delineates how rigid fundamentalistic beliefs are shifting the

political " center " within US politics.

His book Stealing Jesus makes clear the central role played by " The Law " and its

enforcement by fundamentalists. If they, as a determined minority, acquire power

on a national level -- far beyond what we see in Kansas and in many school

boards -- then many changes await sexologists and people who do differ from

fundamentalistic either/or sexuality.

Bawer's analysis provides background for critiquing the following news item:

11.6.99 in The Denver Post, p7a

Suspect in slayings cites 'creators law'

Redding, Calif -- One of two brothers accused of killing a gay couple in July

told a newspaper he shot the men because he believed their homosexuality

violated God's law.

" I'm not guilty of murder. I'm guilty of obeying the laws of the creator,

"

, 31, told The Sacramento Bee in a jailhouse

interview Thursday. (AP)

>From http://www.amazon.com reviews of Bawer's book:

Stealing Jesus : How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity

by Bruce Bawer

Our Price: $11.20

You Save: $2.80

(20%)

Availability: Usually

ships within 24 hours.

Paperback - (November 1998) 352

pages

Reviews from http://www.amazon.com

In 300-odd pages, Bruce Bawer has opened a floodgate of incisive religious

criticism that will

reverberate across the American political scene. He has put into eloquent and

decisive language what many mainline Christians and non-Christians have quietly

suspected but been unable to verbalize--namely that Fundamentalist Christianity

is barely Christian at all. A Baptist theologian says he is " not interested in

who Jesus was. " Pat on argues the Golden Rule as Jesus's justification

that " individual self-interest is being a very real part of the human makeup,

and

something not necessarily bad or sinful. " In page after page, Bawer reveals a

so-called Fundamentalist movement that readily displays a blatant disregard for

the most salient message of the

Gospels: selfless love and service to all. As for the significance of this

revelation in the face of the ballooning presence of Fundamentalist Christians

in American politics, readers will have to decide for

themselves.

The New York Times Book Review, Walter Kendrick

Stealing Jesus may prove of value simply for its clear exposition of what

today's American " fundamentalists " believe and want to do. Bawer's readers will

no longer be able to greet that term with a condescending smile. The Church of

Law, as he convincingly demonstrates, does not debate, and it takes no

prisoners.

[other reviews deleted but viewable online]

eof

--- End Forwarded Message ---

----------------------