Joe Knippenberg has a very useful post on efforts by Democrats to reach out to religious voters. Of particular interest is the article by Peter Steinfels to which Joe links. Steinfels used to be religion editor at the New York Times, and for all I know he still is. His wife, Margaret Steinfels, was editor of the liberal Catholic journal Commonweal (again, she still is as far as I know). Like Joe, I take issue with some of Steinfels conclusions, but all in all he has a pretty sober take on the impact of conservative evangelicals on American politics.
One thing of note, I happen to discuss the issue of "Christian Reconstructionism" last night with a friend who is very much in tune with evangelical currents. My question was essentially whether there are evangelicals who think their actions can bring on the Second Coming of Christ and thus the "end times." The answer was that there are some, but these are an extremely small number. Evangelicals generally fall into two camps. The pre-millenialists (the "Left Behind" crowd) believe that things will get much worse before the Second Coming and there is nothing we can do about it. The post-millenialists believe things will get better and indivuduals may have some role to play in fulfilling God's plan of creating a "Heaven on Earth" before Christ comes to judge. But all in all, they don't actually think their actions will bring about the Second Coming. The question occurred to me because of this article (subscription may be necessary) in the New Republic about Iranian President Ahmadinejad who apparently believes that the 12th Imam will reveal himself when believers irradicate all the evil doers. Now that's dangerous theocratic thinking. Here's the important part of the New Republic article:
The Basiji's cult of self-destruction would be chilling in any country. In the context of the Iranian nuclear program, however, its obsession with martyrdom amounts to a lit fuse. Nowadays, Basiji are sent not into the desert, but rather into the laboratory. Basij students are encouraged to enroll in technical and scientific disciplines. According to a spokesperson for the Revolutionary Guard, the aim is to use the "technical factor" in order to augment "national security."
What exactly does that mean? Consider that, in December 2001, former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani explained that "the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything." On the other hand, if Israel responded with its own nuclear weapons, it "will only harm the Islamic world. It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality." Rafsanjani thus spelled out a macabre cost-benefit analysis. It might not be possible to destroy Israel without suffering retaliation. But, for Islam, the level of damage Israel could inflict is bearable--only 100,000 or so additional martyrs for Islam.
And Rafsanjani is a member of the moderate, pragmatic wing of the Iranian Revolution; he believes that any conflict ought to have a "worthwhile" outcome. Ahmadinejad, by contrast, is predisposed toward apocalyptic thinking. In one of his first TV interviews after being elected president, he enthused: "Is there an art that is more beautiful, more divine, more eternal than the art of the martyr's death?" In September 2005, he concluded his first speech before the United Nations by imploring God to bring about the return of the Twelfth Imam. He finances a research institute in Tehran whose sole purpose is to study, and, if possible, accelerate the coming of the imam. And, at a theology conference in November 2005, he stressed, "The most important task of our Revolution is to prepare the way for the return of the Twelfth Imam."
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