Chad, [a Southern Baptist missionary stationed in Madrid, Spain,] .. says it is a tough place to share the gospel and when he approaches people, a typical response is, "Oh, we already know about all that. We don’t need it."
The region is marked by "a spiritual deadness that you can’t believe," Chad notes. "To me it’s the hardest mission field on the planet right now. .."
The American missionary believes Europe can be viewed as a sort of bellwether for the future cultural and spiritual scene in the U.S. "Living in Europe," he says, "I see Europe as probably 50 years ahead of where the U.S. is going spiritually. In Madrid, the Spanish equivalent of the House of Representatives just legalized same-sex marriages."
What has descended on Western Europe, Chad asserts, is "just a spiritual darkness. …
Western Europe’s Darkness Foreshadows America’s Spiritual Decline
how many generations has it been now that we have pretty conclusive proof that we are kin w/ apes, having descended from the same stock? i’d say that, given current events here, legions of us monkeys in america are a lot more than 50 years behind the curve.
Posted by: b real | May 31 2005 21:13 utc | 2
Send the Jesuit brothers in (aka stormtroopers)
Posted by: Friendly Fire | May 31 2005 21:38 utc | 3
Poor Chad, anyone who doesn’t share his brand of spritual dogma is “spiritually dead.” Sickening!
Posted by: Anonymous | May 31 2005 22:06 utc | 5
LOL! i can only hope chad is correct, and the US is that close to reality. i don’t believe it.
maybe i should move to spain.
Posted by: lenin’s ghost | May 31 2005 22:20 utc | 6
I would like to find out if the other American barflies agree with me — the United States has become much much more fundamentalist in the last 20 years. I grew up in the Bible Belt, in South Carolina, but people who talked or even thought like this were very rare. And this was in a place where Southern Baptists, hardly the most liberal denomination, were the single largest group.
We seem to be headed into a full-scale cultural war here in the States. That may sound dramatic, but the gap between the fundies and the moderns is almost unimaginable. There are those who understand evolution and genetic engineering, who know that the universe is about 14 billion years old and that we can only account for about 10 percent of the matter in it — and those who believe that every word of the Bible is literally true. And that last group is getting bigger. What seems to be disappearing rapidly are people like my grandmother and father — religious, but accepting and even enthusiastic about science, and not seeing any contradiction between the two.
The problem appears to me to be that while we Children of the Enlightenment are perfectly willing to allow the fundies to believe whatever they want to, as long as they leave us the f@#k alone, our mere existence disturbs the fundies. The US is probably nowhere near having people kill each other over religion, but there is some seriously weird shit in the air.
Incidentally, I’ve had the chance to spend a fair amount of time lately in probably the least religious, most secular place in Europe, Amsterdam. The Dutch allow everything that will condemn us to Hell — prostitution, marijuana, gay marriage, euthanasia — and nobody goes to Church. Oddly enough, there’s much less violent crime than in the good ol’ US of A, I see women walking the streets of downtown A’dam alone at night, the trains run on time, and people apparently love their children, because I see parents with their kids everywhere. By any reasonable measure, the sanest and most livable societies in the world are also those with the lowest participation in organized religion, like Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden.
Maybe I’m just Jeremiah crying in the wilderness, but I’ve got a bad feeling about how things are developing here. I may sound like a broken record, but we’d all better review what we know about the SA, the Stahlhelm, and the Reichsbanner. This could get really ugly.
Posted by: Aigin | May 31 2005 22:24 utc | 7
Aigin: How funny, also born and raised in SC, but now living as a “Yankee” in NJ. People were just as religious then, but definitely kept it more to themselves and I grew up as a holy roller Baptist. When I visit SC now, I would never dream of living there; even my relatives scare the hell out of me. There is one huge cultural divide in this country about religion, science, etc., and I can’t see any common ground to reach any kind of compromise, especially as the evangelicals hold a take-no-prisoners view of their “philosophy”. I have no idea where things will end up, but they don’t look good. I still remember driving through FL last year and seeing a billboard with the following: “Thank God for George and Jeb Bush”. I still want to throw up when I think about it.
Posted by: aw | Jun 1 2005 2:07 utc | 8
“The American missionary believes Europe can be viewed as a sort of bellwether for the future cultural and spiritual scene in the U.S. “Living in Europe,” he says, “I see Europe as probably 50 years ahead of where the U.S. is going spiritually.”
From Chad’s mouth to God’s ear, as they say.
Here on the east coast I feel the culture war too. In college I attended catholic functions at the Newman Center. Then a Republican moderate, I was very aware that I was politically in the minority. The priests were liberal and all the student leaders at the newman center were nice folk-singing granola people. Though different, I was quite welcome and we all got along great.
Today I wouldn’t step foot in any catholic venue because as a liberal convert I do not feel welcome at all. Every catholic church vestibule has literature urging the removal of reproductive rights for all women, catholics and non-catholics. Every catholic school organizes/promotes an indoctrinary “culture of life” week.
It wasn’t like that when I was growing up; the local parish priests encouraged inquiring parishioners to follow their consciences rather than rigid dogma. But that’s all gone now. So help me God, my child will never attend a Catholic School nor celebrate a first holy communion, to the chagrin of our Irish relatives. Thanks to the culture war, I’ve now completely dumped male-supremacism masquerading as religious spirituality. So maybe Chad is right about empty churches 50 years from now; he and his kookie cadre are helping to make it happen.
Posted by: gylangirl | Jun 1 2005 2:58 utc | 9
The US is probably nowhere near having people kill each other over religion
i think that’s part of our track record. religious pretexts were certainly used to justify the genocide against the original inhabitants of this land. or in our mass murders in the phillipines and so on, including the ongoing “crusade” in the middle east. or even in the ideas behind slavery, which was just as lethal to the african as any of the other “heathens” that ran up against the white man made in the image of his god. but if you’re talking neighbor taking out neighbor over their stance on fundamentalism, i agree. fundamentalism is definately more of a front burner issue right now. i’ve never seen these groups posing such a threat and exerting so much control & influence as they do right now. theocracywatch shows us how stacked our political institutions are. when i was a kid, the only threat that the religious right posed that we took seriously was their attempts at demonizing our music. other than that, they were just cultists. however, religious fundamentalism has made recurring appearances throughout the history of the united states of america. the revivalism movements on the frontiers, while maybe limited in overall scale, certainly present a bizarre episode of our history. actually, it’s too bad that the dominionists don’t take up jerking. it’d make it easy to spot them in public.:)
but organized religion has played a role in politics from the gitgo in this country. “At the time of the American Revolution, religious organizations dominated political developments. Churches often doubled as political parties. It is essential, therefore, to recognize responsibility by organized religions for what happened in politics – the bad as well as the good,” writes francis jennings in the creation of america: through revolution to empire. diogenes could probably tell us more about these groups and the roles they played in shaping our culture, but i feel confident in saying that neither any of those groups nor the intermittent fundamentalist outbreaks since the revolution hold a candle to the threat this current movement presents. they’ve got images of angles yeilding broadswords dancing in their noggins. lookout.
Posted by: b real | Jun 1 2005 3:06 utc | 10
The difference between then and now for Fundamentalist/Evangelical beliefs is that, back in the day a person could believe strongly, live a “god fearing” life and still accept that others could also be good, just not saved. Nowadays, the planet has gotten smaller because of transportation and communications. The prospect of global influence and domination, (they don’t call themselves “Dominionists” for nothing), has given the Fundies real visions of Biblically based world power. It’s threaded through everything. Star Wars missle “defence”. Degradation of public schools. The war in the middle east, (gotta reclaim Israel for the second coming and we need oil for the blessed tanks). Europe had it’s fill of the church running things. It’s boring and life defeating. The Fundies can see how their energy and vision petered out over there. If they don’t capture America with all of it’s resources and military might for a power base, why they might just disappear. Thwarting them won’t be painless. But it will be satisfying. And if you don’t hear the sound of bullets clicking into chambers as they contemplate that concept, then you ain’t listening. Apes indeed.
Posted by: burro | Jun 1 2005 3:12 utc | 12
@b real,
[“who is my neighbor?”]
There are too many exceptions to the assertion that americans ‘historically’ do not kill each other over religion. You know them. Salem witch trials in the northeast; spanish missionaries murdering native americans; Mormon massacres in the west; Kansas townspeople butchered by neighbors over religious opposition to slavery; and KKK attacks on Catholics and of course on religious african americans and their churches come to mind. There was a revivial of cross-burning a church within the past month! When American soldiers torture and kill defenseless muslim prisoners, the christian theocrats applaud.
The separation of church and state was a brilliant American defense against the spread of European-style religious warfare in the new world. Left to the theocrats, the government will certainly wield its violent power against non-beleivers at home as well as abroad.
Posted by: gylangirl | Jun 1 2005 3:30 utc | 13
@gylangirl – yes, i was stuck on too narrow a vision of fundamentalism. the whole idea of tolerance, which unified the various faiths to come together and create this new government, goes right over these peoples heads. they wallow in hate.
Posted by: b real | Jun 1 2005 4:14 utc | 15
…and should there ever be dictatorship
in those Arrogant States,
I know, without any doubt, that it will wear
a “religious” face.
and it will scream a dream of permanence
upon a fundament
Of broken glass, and rust, and shattered bricks;
in short — excrement!
and it will call itself “holy” and
usurp the Holy’s place;
and it will manifest nothing but
a total lack of taste.
from the southern poverty law ctr’s intelligence report on the extremist christian identity movement:
Recent history has shown that many of those believers are willing to undertake extreme violence. Although Identity was behind crimes committed by the far right in the 1980s and before, the pace and severity of the terror has grown in recent years.
“They see themselves as instruments of the final justice,” says Joel Dyer, author of the 1997 study of the radical right, Harvest of Rage. “In terms of domestic terrorism, that means that Identity believers are given to killing random people.”
…
“The real threat of violence in the United States still stems from Identity teachings. Identity says the war has already started. And you insert those kinds of beliefs into the Patriot movement and you make it 100 times more violent.”
and lest we forget about the murdered doctors and staff at abortion clinics.
algin, you might want to rethink your stmt
Posted by: b real | Jun 1 2005 5:01 utc | 17
The truth of the matter is that the US is fucked no matter what. I see no possibility of evolution without some kind of catastrophic transition. One might say Bush is the symptom, not the cause.
Posted by: Lupin | Jun 1 2005 6:22 utc | 18
The problem with the USA is much like the problem with Iran: nobody likes fundies with nukes!
Posted by: Rene | Jun 1 2005 8:34 utc | 19
It’s a little ironic when you look to what was probably the worst of European religious wars – the Thirty Years War. Something like one third of the population in Germany lost their lives as pro and anti Reformation forces fought to put their man in charge.
Europe learned something from that experience and so agreed the Treaty of Westphalia. No war for regime change.
The very treaty violated by Bush and Blair on their way to Baghdad!
Posted by: John | Jun 1 2005 9:50 utc | 20
US-funded evangelicals are taking off big time in the UK, unfortunately.
However, there’s a big vein of “Huh?” here too, thank goodness. A couple of years back one of my aged aunts, a little old lady living on her own, was thoughtfully targeted by a US evangelical multinational with an offer of a free trip to see their leader. She and her friend living in the same housing block declined it, and referred to him forever after in contemptuous tones as “Looey Palooey”.
I imagine little old Spanish ladies are likely to be just as tough a sell for poor Chad – because if the Catholics haven’t got them already, the left probably has.
(Update: Chad actually might be on Looey Palooey’s payroll as the show hits Madrid at the end of June!)
Posted by: Dismal Science | Jun 1 2005 12:32 utc | 21
Air Force Academy Watch:
Cadet e-mail casts shadow on bias policy
The Air Force Academy’s top cadet commander, who graduates today, sent an e-mail to all underclassmen Tuesday making more than a dozen references to the Bible and several to Jesus.
The e-mail comes as the academy says it is vigorously addressing claims that it favors Christianity and as an Air Force task force prepares a report about the religious climate at the school.
…
The cadet, senior Nicholas Jurewicz, said he attended the academy’s special religious sensitivity training this semester but “didn’t think” to delete religious references before sending the message, a farewell note that went to roughly 3,000 freshmen, sophomore and junior cadets.
…
The 22-page attachment contains dozens of quotations on leadership, challenge, war, attitude, love and faith. They’re from a range of authors and famous people, including Erma Bombeck, Plato, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mohandas Gandhi, Isaac Newton, George Patton, Dwight Eisenhower and William Shakespeare. Also included are a sprinkling of selections from the Bible, Old and New Testaments.
Jurewicz, asked why he thought it important to convey messages about religion, said, “I’d rather not talk about that.”
…
IN THE E-MAIL
From Isaiah: “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles.”
From Galatians: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so you will fulfill the law of Christ.”
From Philippians: “But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
“Jurewicz, asked why he thought it important to convey messages about religion, said, ‘I’d rather not talk about that.’”
Padding his resume?
Posted by: beq | Jun 1 2005 14:28 utc | 23
The spiritual arrogance of the American fundamentalist knows no limits.
Europe is resistant to these rediculous calls to faith because Europe knows how it all ends
As if the Crusades had never happened
As if the Inquisition had never happened
As if the Wars of Religion had never happened
As if the Rise of Facism and its alliance with “traditional faith” had never happened.
Look at what happens when Christian faith is married to power.
America will learn.
On top of it all based on a proper reading of the Gospels I would say the the secularists are the true Christians and the Fundamentalists are the heretics. They have turned Christianity into some sort of Old Testament Worshipping cult with values and views more in tune with the Hebrews of 1000 BC than the values of Christ. Rene Girard has a whole argument on this that I found very convincing in the second half of his book Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World.
Posted by: Scott McArthur | Jun 1 2005 16:47 utc | 24
The current situation in the USA is untenable. The US economy is propelled by the Housing Bubble financed by ARMs and no equity mortgages and skyrocketing federal debt.
There are not enough US troops to pacify Iraq and impose a political settlement. The Bush Administration has continually risked rolling the dice one more time. Iran has to be next. Once Israel starts the bombing campaign, the Revolutionary Guard will come to the aid of fellow Shiites in Iraq and the Straits of Hormuz will be closed. Gas lines and a fighting withdrawal, all at once.
Today’s Volunteer Army all have friends and buddies who are dead and maimed. More when they go on their third tour. When they realize that once again the Iraq War was all for nothing, hell is going to pay. Since the evangelist cults have infiltrated the military and control talk radio, it is the atheists and liberals who will be blamed for the defeat and energy crises.
The combination of economic collapse, energy crises, and stabbed in the back paranoia has to result in Civil War II. However, it will be much more like the Cavaliers verses the Round Heads than Antebellum South versus the Industrial North. There are those who state that the USA is so addicted to cable TV that the atheists, gays and communist liberals will be rounded up one by one and eliminated without a whimper, but as American, I say, Hell No.
Posted by: Jim S | Jun 1 2005 16:55 utc | 25
Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM) The interest payment is a set amount above the prime rate. Absolutely no problem if interest rates remain low for the term of the loan. Except, the ballooning US federal debt and trade deficit must at some point cause an increase in the interest rate which will correspondingly balloon the monthly mortgage payment. Foreclosure becomes likely if the housing was bought on speculation or if the family income doesn’t correspondingly increase to make the mortgage payments.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 1 2005 18:15 utc | 27
@Colman ARM = Adjustable Rate Mortgage. When the housing bubble bursts, property values will plunge and interest rates will go from less than 4% (currently for ARMs) to 15-20% The shit will hit the fan for folks with these mortgages. They also probably can’t declare bankruptcy thanks to recent legislation and banks will forclose on a lot of property. 1929 all over again – maybe?
BTW read Andrew Bacevich’s “The New American Militarism” (Oxford U Press, 2005) for a very reasoned view of the Christian Right’s influence on the U.S. military, and a thorough condemnation of the train wreck that US policy has become. This book, written by a conservative former military officer (Vietnam vet and former commanding officer of the very gung-ho 11th Cav) and PhD now teaching Int’l Relations at Boston University is an incredible indictment of US military and foreign policy by someone who is normally not on this side of the fence – very well-argued, very prescient….and very scary.
Posted by: McGee | Jun 1 2005 18:22 utc | 29
coleman, ARM’s became very popular once the interest rate became so low. for years fixed notes were standard. but once the rates dipped banks started pushing the arms and encouraging people to go for them by locking in an initial 5 year low fixed before they became adjustable. also people were lured in who might not qualify for the standard fixed w/ a decent rate. it’s a trap. banks didn’t want to have to lock in for 30 yrs at the low rate understandably. one of the reason things are shaky right now is that 5 year period is approaching. the next few years many of those notes are going to turn adjustable.
Posted by: annie | Jun 1 2005 18:55 utc | 30
another thing,”When the housing bubble bursts, property values will plunge and interest rates will go from less than 4% ” i think this may me the cart before the horse. when the interest rate increases and the 5 yr period on the notes jack the monthly payment, droves of people are going to be trying to get out of the market at the same time before they face foreclosure. this will turn it into a buyers market and create a housing bubble. the only thing that can stave this off is the interest rates remaining low. impossible for the long term.
Posted by: annie | Jun 1 2005 19:01 utc | 31
Chad, thank you. You have filled me with renewed zeal, to resist you and your sick ilk wherever you try to find believers of your bullshit.
Take your invented god and put him (he’s male, right?) to rest. Here’s to the Enlightenment!
Right, thanks. That’s how almost all mortgages work here. In fact, fixed rates are a relatively new thing. Same as the UK. 30 year fixed rate? You’d be lucky. The new thing here is a tracker mortgage, which is fixed at EURIBOR – the european inter-bank offer rate (the rate banks lend to each other at day-to-day) – plus a margin, so your rate changes every day. On a normal mortgage the rate would change when the central bank changed rates.
So if the US is 50 years behind Spain, does that put the US in the depths of the Franco era?
Posted by: sm | Jun 1 2005 20:03 utc | 34
Unable to find the sources refferred to now, but at Matthew Yglesias a while back:
…a graphic showing the percentage of people who attend religious services at least once a week [..] American led this list with 45% of its citizens attending services at least once a week. Jordan was right behind at 44, Egypt and Morocco at 43, Turkey at 38, Saudi Arabia 28, and Iran 27
Posted by: DharmaBum | Jun 1 2005 22:54 utc | 35
@DharmaBum – the stats I have seen on the US attendence show a big difference between people who SAY the attend a service and people who really DO? Any numbers out there?
I was also raised in the south as a southern baptist, and I would NEVER raise my children in the south. where I live is bad enough, but I live in a blue oasis surrounded by reds. this is the only place in the state I would live, and I do think about moving in the future (difficult issues with my kids, but if repukes take over where I live, I don’t wanna be here.
I also have raised my children to really, really question religious beliefs…most especially fundamentalist beliefs. I’ve explained to them problems with literalism, etc. in order to give them information to counter the evangelical nature of fundies. My ex is a European Catholic, which means he is an atheist who maintains the traditions of godparents…which is really a sort of family bonding thing. half his sibs had their kids do first confirmation, half not.
His parents totally lost their faith in the church when they were told they could not use birth control (1960s) even tho his dad was often out of work and they really struggled and his mother lost one child at birth and really struggled with her last child’s birth.
My family is mostly fundie, and still in the south. We don’t talk too often anymore since Bush was elected, but there were always things we couldn’t talk about.
I told my sister (who would have guardianship over my children in the event of both parents’ death) that I did NOT want her to take my children to a fundie church if such an event occurred.
I haven’t said to my kids that there’s no god, but have said there are lots of ideas about god. I could not raise my children in any religion because of the misogynistic nature of every monotheism…and I really do not like organized religion in any form anyway…which would probably mean I’m a unitarian if I felt like I had to attend a church.
My local PBS station has started having all sorts of religious programs on it. When they do the next fundraiser, I’m going to call and tell them why I”m not contributing (Moyers, the head of the CPB working for a DJ who was a big McCarthy apologist way back when…)
Fundie pressure is pervasive in the US, to me. Yes, I could see fighting, real fighting, between people who believe in freedom of conscience and those who want to impose their beliefs. The issues are now being fought in the court of public opinion and in the fundies flexing the muscle they gained when Bush was elected.
Instead of succeeding, I think the upside down U that is more blue than red should tell the red states that they can leave if they don’t like the constitution.
Posted by: fauxreal | Jun 2 2005 1:03 utc | 37
time for yankeeland to split into two states, one religious and one secular (south/north, slavery/non-slavery?).
Posted by: lenin’s ghost | Jun 2 2005 4:11 utc | 38
@b
I Imagine that problem is not restricted to this study, nor to the United States. As long as you measure the same thing everywhere, you can still compare the data.
Managed to find the source: Prospects for Change in Saudi Arabia
Posted by: DharmaBum | Jun 2 2005 8:44 utc | 39
Aigin,
‘ The problem appears to me to be that while we Children of the Enlightenment are perfectly willing to allow the fundies to believe whatever they want to, as long as they leave us the f@#k alone, our mere existence disturbs the fundies. ‘
You’ve said something here that needs to be articulated by a politician during a political campaign, say for Congress in 2006. Something along the lines of :
In the United States of America it is certainly the right of anyone to accept a scriptural tradition as the word of god; it is anyone’s right to prefer unreason to science; to embrace a theory of the direct creation of the human species by an anthropomorphic god, a male god at that. It is anyone’s right to reject all that as a fantastic projection. It is no one’s right to inhibit another’s beliefs, to enforce their own.
The United States of America is not a Christian nation, although there are many American Christians; the United States of America is not a Muslim nation, although there are many American Muslims; the United States of America is not a Jewish nation, although there are many American Jews; the United States of America is not a Buddhist nation, although there are many American Buddhists; the United States of America is not an atheistic nation, although there are many American atheists.
The United States of America is not a religious entity it is a politcal entity. A political entity must by definition reconcile disparate beliefs because it deals in the realm of questions which have answers. The questions which do not have answers, whose answers are taken on faith, are the realm of the religious. The point of intersection betwen the political and religious realms must be the realm of tolerance, if it cannot be the realm of the celebration of differences.
This is the basis on which our nation was founded, on which it flourished, on which it must rise again.
I think you’d be surprised how many Americans will respond favorable to such a statement.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Jun 2 2005 14:03 utc | 40
JFL, well said. That sounds like a good speech for Obama. Anyone, really, but give him a call.
Posted by: beq | Jun 2 2005 14:24 utc | 41
“our mere existence disturbs the fundies.”
Sometimes I don’t even know if I accept that the religious leaders are all that religious. Money and power accrue to the priesthood. Questioning of their dogma and legitimacy endangers the trappings of leadership. It’s convenient that the “King” is somewhere on high looking down. And until He shows up, the priesthood will be happy to look after the flock and the baubles, taking what they most enjoy for themselves. They are disturbed because of our ability to look them in their hollow eyes and say Bullshit.
Posted by: burro | Jun 3 2005 3:14 utc | 42
guaranteed chuckle here – a conservative weekly’s list of the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries
Posted by: b real | Jun 3 2005 4:17 utc | 44