What would a day be like without it? I just noticed this post by our friend, seminary president Albert Mohler: Lay Liberalism and the Future of Evangelicalism Christian Post 02/03/06.
I won't torment readers (or myself) trying to sort through what "lay liberalism" might mean exactly in the Christian Right view of things. But I was struck here by the way in which fundamentalist terminology about "liberalism" can play into the Republican Party-line constant ranting on FOX News and OxyContin radio about liberal are evil, liberals are evil, liberals are evil.
Protestant fundamentalism in the US has always seen itself menaced by "liberal" churches and "liberal" theology. In fundamentalist terms, "liberal" in theology actually is taken to be evil, if not downright Satanic.
But here's where good sense is in order to remember that the ordinary churchgoer, even in fundamentalist churches, doesn't spend her days worrying over, say, the nuances of the theological doctrine of "justification". And anyone with some reasonable sense and experience of how the world works is normally able to recognize that scamsters, hucksters, thieves and practicitioners of various and sundry bad acts come in all shapes, sizes, ideologies and religions.
Still, fudamentalist rhetoric about the evils of theological "liberalism" is happily conflated by the Chrisitan Right with political "liberalism". So they may process the rants of fine Repubilcans like Mad Annie Coulter or junkie bigot Rush Limbaugh as having a religious resonance that even regular churchgoers in more mainstream churches might miss.
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