"I don't see anything of hatred or demagoguery in Bill Moyers."

I wanted to respond to this before, but I wanted to look into it further -- ask around a bit among those I know -- run an informal poll.

A demagogue is an unprincipled public speaker who will twist truth to gain advantage. Moyers has (as I understand it) a post-graduate degree in some form of religious studies. If not a degree then, like me, he at least has some hours of post graduate studies in religion.

But when he can rile the troops -- give you all some red meat to feed the already growing fear you have of Christians to enforce your wish that the Christian conservative should be disenfranchised, he paints a picture of fundamental(ist) Christians in a manner that, with his education, he should know is inaccurate, misleading.

I was raised in a church that taught a rapture and an end of times with Jesus returning. I have had pastors from the leading evangelical seminaries in the country (Dallas, Trinity, etc). I can assure you that I was never taught that there was anything that we, as believers, would, could, or should do that could bring on or hasten the return of Jesus.

Yet there's Moyers, talking about these fundamentalists with which he's familiar. And though he should know better (I'm sure he does), he carefully characterizes these Christians as typical, in order to scare you, and inflame you against Christianity, and make Christians seem even more kooky (if that's possible) as a raging cult out to hasten armegedon.

I have know fundamentalists and evangelicals all my life -- read their books, their periodicals, listened to their sermons, met them in their fellowships, been related to them. I've yet to meet one that thinks that anything we could, would, or should do would hasten the end of times. I've met MANY who think we are at the end of times, but I've never met one who thinks that we could bring them to any different conclusion.