A fairly well organized group of fundamentalist Christians are trying to take over this country and establish what amounts to a theocracy. They have grown powerful enough within recent years to be able to influence national elections—as we have seen recently. And as we have also seen, they are involved in local politics as well, most obviously lately in local school boards. trying to get their agenda (school prayer, "intelligent design," no sex-ed, etc.) taught in schools. Their war-cry is "America is a Christian country!" and they keep claiming that the Founding Fathers were all Christians when this is not the case at all. Some were, some weren't, and they took pains to establish a solid separation between the church and the state. Which, it apparently needs to be pointed out—yet again—was one of the major reasons many Europeans immigrated to this continent in the first place:    to escape religious oppression and persecution.

This attempt to turn this country into a theocracy is obvious to anyone who simply pays attention to the news. To keep denying that this is exactly what is being attempted is a bit ridiculous, because many prominent Christian fundamentalists have said so, in so many words. Those who deny this must either be blind to what's been happening, or be in on the effort and trying to divert attention so it can go forward unimpeded.

Bill Moyers is only one of a growing number of liberal Christians who are trying to stop this dangerous trend. Another is former president Jimmy Carter, whose own Baptist church withdrew from the Southern Baptist Leadership Conference when it started dictating dogma and political positions to its member churches (arrogating to itself the position of a sort of "Baptist Vatican") in direct violation of long-established Baptist beliefs. Yet another is the Rev. Jim Wallis, author of God's Politics : Why The Right Gets It Wrong and The Left Doesn't Get It, editor of Sojourners Magazine, and writer of many articles such as "Dangerous Politics," in which he exposes the Bush administration's attempts to regulate morals and get religiously based Constitutional amendments passed. Still another is retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong, also author of many books including Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism : A Bishop Rethinks the Meaning of Scripture.

I could supply a whole bibliography of books and articles of this kind, written by people who are right in the middle of it and are in a position to know.

You can't just dismiss Bill Moyers. But he is only one voice among many liberal and progressive Christians who have had it with the Fundies claiming o speak for all Christians and who are no longer going to allow them to do it without voicing some very loud protests. These people are very tolerant of other viewpoints and it takes a lot to get them riled up, but they finally are!

Don Firth