[Futurework] Cultural Wars 3 (was Jihad 2004)

[Karen Watters Cole]

Last in a series.  Now mind you, I am not trying to persecute Christians, many of them believe everyone is right now, but I am pursuing with journalistic vigor and from personal background something that I feel grabs people much more passionately than economics and most policy in the political arena.  If you thought environmentalists were conducting a near jihad against corporations and vice versa, this is more powerful in its ability to compel solidarity, like Keith was suggesting about the close blood kinship of leaders in Saddam’s regime.   Of course, religious moral values should be a foundation of a civil society, a building block.  I’m just opposed to living in a theocracy.  My image of the wall between church and state is not like the one being constructed in Israel today, huge concrete blocks topped by barbed wire, but more like Jefferson’s brick serpentine wall, strong, functional and enhancing the landscape.   From a news portal called www.christianheadlines.com I noticed a story at www.agapepress.com about a FLA attorney preparing Xns for cultural wars, and this is what appeared:   Christian Attorney: Conference Equips Believers for Culture War By Allie Martin, October 24, 2003 FORT LAUDERDALE, FL (AgapePress) - A Florida attorney who specializes in defending the civil liberties of Christians says a two-day conference taking place in that state will help believers defend their constitutional rights. For the next two days, thousands of Christians from around the country will attend the "Reclaiming America for Christ" conference at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale. They will hear from a host of speakers involved in Christian activism on areas such as the pro-life movement, civil rights for believers, and the true homosexual agenda. ????? …The Christian attorney is convinced the conference can make a big difference for those willing to get involved in the culture war.  "I think it equips folks to go back home because it gives them information about what's happening in their area," he says. "Even though many of the people are well aware of what's happening in America, they may not be fully aware of all the landscape. But more importantly, they become additionally aware of what they can do to impact their communities." The conference wraps up on Saturday evening. Among the featured speakers are Dr. D. James Kennedy, Dr. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, and Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore.  http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/10/242003e.asp If you are interested in checking on a good site and broadcast, try Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, an ecumenical site.  It’s where I started yesterday, exploring in cyberspace, searching for the link to the broadcast’s story about the Florida medical intervention.  A Loyola Marymount Univ. ethicist made this simple but clear statement: ABERNETHY: So in such a case, what are the ethical issues, the major ones? Dr. WALTER: “The major ones would be the value of human life. Some people want to grant an absolute value to life so that there is an absolute obligation to preserve that life. I think a number of people in society consider life a very fundamental value, but recognize that it is a relative good and, therefore, we have not absolute obligations to preserve it. “ By the way, here’s an editorial from the Ft Worth Star Tribune, blasting Jeb Bush’s intervention in the Florida case, which also sees this as political pandering.  And we are just getting warmed up.  Medical Meddling: FLorida's Right to Die Fiasco.  As a practicing Catholic, no one doubts Gov. Bush’s personal religious beliefs, but this is not expected to withstand judicial review, so the effort by the Florida GOP is vote insurance.  Who’s being manipulated the most?  The pro-life absolutists or the family in this case?  What are the affects after the headlines disappear?  At R & E N, I also learned about a secret biological testing program during the Cold War on drafted Seventh Day Adventists, who are pacifists, called Whitecoats; and how Muslims coordinate the beginning each year of Ramadan.  See http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/.  - KWC