Christianity in America suffers a huge blow

I predicted it last year and it's coming to pass, according to Newsweek and Kathleen Parker that is:

Newsweek - While we remain a nation decisively shaped by religious faith, our politics and our culture are, in the main, less influenced by movements and arguments of an explicitly Christian character than they were even five years ago. I think this is a good thing—good for our political culture, which, as the American Founders saw, is complex and charged enough without attempting to compel or coerce religious belief or observance.

It is good for Christianity, too, in that many Christians are rediscovering the virtues of a separation of church and state that protects what Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island as a haven for religious dissenters, called "the garden of the church" from "the wilderness of the world." As crucial as religion has been and is to the life of the nation, America's unifying force has never been a specific faith, but a commitment to freedom—not least freedom of conscience.

At our best, we single religion out for neither particular help nor particular harm; we have historically treated faith-based arguments as one element among many in the republican sphere of debate and decision. The decline and fall of the modern religious right's notion of a Christian America creates a calmer political environment and, for many believers, may help open the way for a more theologically serious religious life.

Parker - Is the Christian right finished as a political entity? Or, more to the point, are principled Christians finished with politics?

These questions have been getting fresh air lately as frustrated conservative Christians question the pragmatism -- defined as the compromising of principles -- of the old guard.

One might gently call the current debate a generational rift.

The older generation represented by such icons as James Dobson, who recently retired as head of Focus on the Family, has compromised too much, according to a growing phalanx of disillusioned Christians.

Pragmatically speaking, the Christian coalition of cultural crusaders didn't work.

For proof, one need look no further than Dobson himself, who was captured on tape recently saying that the big cultural battles have all been lost.

In the past two decades or so, Christianity in America seems have been taken over by a group of folks who talk about power and used phrases like "taking America back for God."

That last phrase always makes me laugh. If God truly wanted America per se, He would take it. He doesn't need any help to further His will.

But basically Christianity in America has lost its grace. There is no more humbleness, or the idea that you are serving a Higher Power and your trust is in His will and not your own.

Too many people have replaced the image of God with one of their own and have made Christianity into a religion of exclusion rather than inclusion. Jesus did not say "pick up your Cross and follow me and you will get a nice car, a nice house, 2.5 children and a Republican in the White House every four years."

When have organizations such as the American Family Association, Concerned Women for America or the Family Research Council actually dealt with relevant problems such as homelessness, lack of educational opportunities, or other issues that aren't geared to the so-called cultural war?

Hopefully those who want to truly follow God will take the hint and divest themselves from these phony Christian groups.