Ederlyn found "The Crusaders" from www.rollingstone.com. It is so stereotypically paranoid of Christians and Christianity that it is almost funny. It is also somewhat true in places, especially as it talks about Evangelicals and not about Catholics. D. James Kennedy is quoted saying
Our job is to reclaim America for Christ, whatever the cost. As the vice regents of God, we are to exercise godly dominion and influence over our neighborhoods, our schools, our government, our literature and arts, our sports arenas, our entertainment media, our news media, our scientific endeavors -- in short, over every aspect and institution of human society.
Sound scary? It is a little, these are Evangelicals, they would certainly be tempted to have a Puritanical approach to their domination. But at the same time, in some respect, it is true. While I do not think we can entirely dominate society, we certainly can, and should, influence it. We certainly can, and should, help shape the direction it takes. Our decent into relativism is in large part our own fault, the fault of Catholic clergy and Catholic people to stand up for the absolute truth we hold from our forefathers in faith.
The author worries that they do not think the "separation of church and state" is constitutional. He would be surprised, I think, to realize how recent an invention it is. The Evangelicals are absolutely right when they say that the First Amendment was meant to shield religion from government, not to shield government from religion. Remember, our founding fathers had just suffered the government oppression of their dissident (but still largely Protestant) beliefs. Remember also that the famed Spanish Inquisition, it was the secular side of governance that executed people. In the much more sane, less corrupt versions across Europe, the threat of torture was 1)largely formal, not actual, and 2)incredibly in line with societal norms at the time (which are not our norms now). The Protestants in England however, set up the Star Court, and similar, to enforce the particular form of Anglicanism that the throne happened to espouse that generation. The pilgrims, and others such as William Penn's Quakers, came to escape that. Remember also, that several states were by and large (and I believe formally as well), theocracies. Connecticut especially so. The First Amendment had no issue with this, rather it was designed to prevent federal interference with it. The author says we want activist judges. I suppose it looks that way to someone who takes secularism and materialism as a given. But our founding fathers were not secular in mind set. Patrick Henry, John Adams, George Washington, and many others, in the papers they have left for us, emphasize the importance of religion for a just society time and time again.
The author worries about the school systems as well. He mentions a court case in California, but does not give me the name, and I am not familiar with it. But remember, until recently, it was not uncommon to release the children during the school day to go to their parishes for religious education. And once upon a time, the "main stream" protestant faith was taught in public schools, and only the Catholic and Jewish children even needed to be released. Today, we teach no religion. Or more accurately, we teach materialism. This is really what the debate over "Intelligent Design" is about. Not about a strict interpretation of Genesis (which may or may not be good science, it mostly is not, but it might be possible to do good science on such a theory, but that too is a separate issue), but about whether or not Darwin's theory and its modifications will alone hold sway, will be taught as fact or dubious theory. Materialists (I suspect this author would number among them) want it to be taught as fact. Any rational person should admit it really has very little support in evidence. Many of us think there are better explanations coming from design even where a seven day creation is not accepted. He worries that we resist efforts to "tolerate" homosexual activity. We know they do not want us to simply ignore it, they want us to accept it as normal — which we are theologically opposed to doing. I would tend to believe, however, that the author does not take a theologically based line of reasoning as legitimate though. He likely thinks that only reasoning coming from materialists can be valid.
He claims that once Rep. Walter Jones would have been laughed out of Washington for claiming that the ass ult on preachers having, and teaching, that the faith has, must have, an impact on the politics of the faithful is both real and an ass ult on the United States itself. Perhaps that is true, I do not know. I do know that once you would have been chased out of Washington for suggesting that preachers should not. I highly doubt he admits the ass ult is real (reference the threats to revoke such church's tax free status) but asserts it is not problematic. Maybe I give him too little credit however, maybe that is his real opinion, perhaps he is, in fact, that hostile to religion.