“People who want this country to remain a white-dominated country have lost. They have completely and utterly lost the battle and they can never win it . . . (They) feel that this is no longer the country that their Christian white forefathers built, that they have been robbed, that this isn’t the world they grew up in and that they are very, very frightened.” Southern Poverty Law Center legal counsel Mark Potok, quoted by Leonard Pitts, Jr., September 18, 2009
Moscow’s Doug Wilson hates the SPLC because it has linked him, his ministries, and the neo-Confederate movement with the rise of right-wing hate groups. I love the SPLC because it has linked him, his ministries, and the neo-Confederate movement with the rise of right-wing hate groups. As Christians, Wilson and I ought to have a lot in common, but here’s an example of things we just don’t seem to see the same way.
I challenge you to line up the teachings of Christ with the actions and words of the Hateful Right. Follow the Tea Partyers and sign-wavers and suspicion-mongers if you want, but let’s stop pretending theirs is in any way a true Christian movement.
SPLC said “that this isn’t the world they grew up in and that they are very, very frightened.”
Well, if they are frightened, the sensible thing would be to put their fear to rest rather than stoking them.
By making them out to be some variety of vicious monster is hardly going to assuage their fears.
If you claim to understand them, you had better act on those insights.
Comment by Ashwin — September 18, 2009 @ 7:05 pm
So we ought to legitimize fear borne of bigotry and hate? How far should Obama supporters go to assuage their fears when many of the things they’re terrified of are frightening not because of specific, rational policies — just an overwhelming desire to defeat this man, with or without the blood of “tyrants” or “patriots”?
Keely
Comment by Keely Emerine Mix — September 18, 2009 @ 8:40 pm
KMM: “So we ought to legitimize fear borne of bigotry and hate? “
It is not legitimizing it if you recognize it. You look it in the face and say those fears are unfounded. And you look the people holding these fears in the face and say: “Brother, you can do better than this.”
And then see how things unfold.
But instead if you say: “You wicked monster! That is just like you to say things like that. I look forward to the day when you and your ilk go extinct!” you are not helping matters at all. In fact you are making them worse.
Comment by Ashwin — September 18, 2009 @ 10:06 pm