Reply #35: I'm not an evangelical, but a left-leaing person motivated by religion [View All]

[Leopolds Ghost]

I.e. I am a "radical" Christian who thinks organized religion is no more co-opted by the ruling class than any other organization in American society, which is to say, quite susceptible to co-optation.

Evangelicals and other "Great Awakening" religions used to be a primary source of abolitionist, civil rights, and left-libertarian sentiment in the US.

Abortion and Communism were the primary wedge issues that have driven otherwise left-libertarian Evangelicals into the hands of the right. It did not need to happen that way.

The mainline Protestant churches, after losing many of their affluent members during the 1960s social revolt (when many churches and divinity students, inspired by people like MLK, were on the front lines of said revolt) rolled over in the 1970s and became the tools of local DLC type, upper class "socially liberal -- economically moderate" interests.

Southern and Midwestern mainmline churches went the opposite way, succumbing to statism, discrimination, and in some cases betraying their heritage as anti-establishment sects. The Southern Baptist Conference, for example. The Missouri Synod Lutheran church is another example. Too often these sorts of churches were founded on intolerance of some specific group or cause, such as integration or unionism (which used to be huge in rural Appalachia and the midwest); yet I have come to realize this is true of any movement that attracts enough followers to wield influence.

If the Republican party dissolved overnight, the Dems would quickly split into two or more parties as they had to absorb all those voters. If we were lucky things would fluctuate into a more stable arrangement, with, say a Populist pasrty representing the far Northern states and Midwest, a "New Democrat" (big business) party representing the combined interests of the wealthy Democratic and Republican interests who already control things in the big urban states, and the Dixiecrats would be left with Idaho, the deep South, and whatever states tied between the other two. To quote Toombs: "Three-way split!!!"