Jesus ‘Love Bombs’ You

[babylonsister]

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/jesus_love_bombs_you/

Jesus ‘Love Bombs’ You

Posted on Apr 23, 2007


By Chris Hedges

There is a false, but effective, fiction that one has to be born again to be a Christian. The Christian right refuses to acknowledge the worth of anyone’s religious experience unless, in the words of its tired and opaque cliché, one has accepted “Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior.”

The emotional meltdown that leads to the conversion experience—one often induced in crowds skillfully manipulated and broken down by demagogues—is one of the most pernicious tools of the movement. Through conversion one surrenders to a higher authority. And the higher authority, rather than God, is the preacher who steps in to take over one’s life. Being born again, and the process it entails, has far more in common with recruitment into a cult than it does with genuine belief.

I attended a five-day seminar in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where I was taught the techniques of conversion, often by D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries. The callousness of these techniques—targeting the vulnerable, building false friendships with the lonely or troubled, promising to relieve people of the most fundamental dreads of human existence, from the fear of mortality to the numbing pain of grief—gave to the process an awful cruelty and dishonesty. The seminar, which I attended as part of the work I did on my book “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America,” gave me a window into the subtle and pernicious techniques this movement uses to manipulate and control its followers. Kennedy openly called converts “recruits” and spoke about them joining a new political force sweeping across the country to reshape and reform America into a Christian state.

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[Richard D]

1. Very important article

K&R

[CrazyOrangeCat]

2. Thanks, will read later.

[Monkeyman]

3. K&R

[patrice]

4. Jeremy Scahill opens his book about Blackwater by informing us

that the creator of that company of mercenaries is part of a RW Catholic & Evangelical coalition that helped crown Bush in 2000 and 2004. Their express purpose is to get everyone on Earth to accept "Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior" by any means necessary apparently, even murder.

Also notice how everything about this "conversion" is my, me, and mine.

[babylonsister]

6. You should check out Scahill's new book, or go to

Democracy Now's website; he's been interviewed a few times. Unreal what Blackwater is really about; very dangerous imo, for many reasons.

[patrice]

7. Yes. I am reading it. And planning to go to Boulder or Denver

to hear what Scahill has to say on his book tour.

What he describes from the first word on the first page helps to explain experiences I had on phone banks and knocking on doors in 2000 and 2004 that can be described as possibly the result of Religious candidate advocates. I say TAX THE CHURCHES. Look at how Catholic and Evangelical organizations and political activities have profited from Erik Prince, owner of Blackwater! I suspect that Melanie Sloan and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington are also interested in this question, because she has mentioned on AAR the question of religious visitors to the WH in her description of CREW's FOIA request for WH visitor records 2000-2003, which was denied because BushCo classified all WH visitor records.

[patrice]

8. Scahill's book shows us that it IS time to stop mincing words.

It MAY in fact already be too late (e.g. use Google Blogs to query the blogosphere on the topic of Blackwater and see up close and personal its many, many Cheerleaders).

It's time; we've got to stop being "moderate" in our responses and descriptions of what Blackwater represents, because it is just the tip of this EVIL ice-berg!

[babylonsister]

9. I recall from watching Dem. Now, Scahill saying at one point

that Blackwater agents were giving military soldiers orders. Something is wrong with that picture.

[patrice]

10. Personally, I think they are deeply implicated in what happened

at Abu Ghraib; this is one of the reasons the prosecutions have been so light. The officers are untouchable and the contractors are protected.

[Ilsa]

5. "How to Turn Christianity into a Cult" should be the name

of a seminar like this. The outcome isn't "souls being saved" but developing a political movement. I suspect people like Kennedy aren't Christians at all, but power-mongers.