UnRighteous Anger

Glad to see the angry, divisive and hate-filled beliefs and rantings of the rabid right wing are finally getting some exposure. Of a similar right-wing hate fest at the 1992 GOP convention, conservative George Will remarked that indecent exposure can be of the mind as well as the body. And so it is.

Then, as now, much of this anger and hate is fundamentally religious in nature, or at least, religious profession is a strong correlate of it. Among religious fundamentalists, Roman Catholic as well as Protestant, hate, resentment and divisiveness are key features of doctrinal thought. Sure, religious leaders have tried at times to dress itself up in more palatable sounding garb, emphasizing God's Grace, or Love, or how God sets them Free. But at its core, religious fundamentalism is inherently exclusionary, divisive and eliminationist. As for the latter, consider the doctrine of Hell or any theory of the End Times. And as for God's Grace and Love, well, most of the time what fundamentalists really mean when they mention those words are God's Love and Grace towards themselves, not to those outside "the faith".

So the religio-political rantings and ramblings of some of Christianism's unfinest is pretty par for the course, and the kind of stuff many of them are used to reading in their church-sponsored texts or hearing from the pulpit. It's only natural that this kind of stuff will begin to form the basis of the congregant's political and social expressions.