Love your work there Mr Matheson - you provide a shining example of the tolerant understanding side of Christianity, showing it doesn't have to be the aggressive 'fire and brimstone' variety.

I hope that public schools are telling the 'creation bus' to create elsewhere.

At least, as with most things be they political or otherwise, there tends to be a pendulum style reaction. It can already be seen in the declining numbers of churchgoers.
Humanity is a distinctly shortsighted creature, and those who are spruiking the religious card now for political ends will find themselves with egg on their faces when the pendulum swings the other way and a secular period reigns.
I dare say such a secular period will also go to extremes in its rejection of religion before swinging back to a religious point again.

The trick is to enjoy the moments where the pendulum is at the centre, before the extremities kick in.

I agree that fundamentalist Christianity is a disaster both for the church and the society that it seduces. I also agree that ID is a bankrupt ideology and nothing to do with science. However, I am in favour of the idea of church schools and universities, it is just that we do not have the church schools that I can be in favour of. The mainline Protestant schools are part of the church in name only offering only a token Christian presence that is often ill equipped to counteract massive cultural opposition. The large schools are too intent on protecting the interests of their well heeled constituency to allow the gospel to escape into the class room. The low fee schools do not have the leadership or the resources to produce a creditable argument for the Church. Even the Catholic schools fail to turn out students with a deep attachment to Church. One hopes that the Catholic universities will do better.

That does not say that we should give up on Christian education, it is just that it seems that we have forgotten how to do it.

There is something promising for the church in Australia’s secularism. In America religion is in the air all the time and no politician would claim to be an atheist. In Australia the air is relatively clear except for some remarkable anti religious bigotry. This creates a space for true evangelism such as the church encountered in Greek culture in its early stages

Although the observations have merit there is no acknowledgement that we all fall for the three card trick - kids ask the darnest questions. The inherent fault with ID and Creationism is that no such questions are allowed. Now where do you think all these non answered questions will find their way - the web. So unless the conservative coalition can find a way to silence the web then the genie is out of the bottle and no one can put it back in.

Trouble is, TRTL, the pendulum is always moving at its fastest across the centre point, and lingers at the extremes. Unfortunate, isn't it?

As a Christian, I am only slightly more comfortable with extreme Christianity than with extreme anti-Christianity. What I mean by extreme Christianity is what we're talking about here: the [potential] capture of the political machine by the scariest (apocalyptic and oppressive) Christians around.

As you suggest, they don't resemble true Christianity at all (if I'm reading you correctly). I would trust Jesus at the US President's elbow, but I wouldn't entrust many Christians with that kind of influence, myself included.

Neither, of course, would I entrust that influence to anyone else - not a Muslim, not an atheist, not a capitalist, not a socialist .... No-one is neutral, no-one is safe - hence the need for the democratic process to operate at its best. That's what troubles me about the US - it is just barely democratic.

Pax,

An excellent article.
People who send their children to religious schools, particularly the more fundamentalist variety, do not realise the damage the teachers in such schools can do to their children's ability to think clearly. It is fundamentally evil to undermine a child's confidence or inhibit his or her ability seek evidence to support a proposition. I have seen an application for employment as a teacher in a Christian School. The first questions are about beliefs, not about teaching ability! We need to avoid following the USA and instead minimise the evils of fundamentalist religion influence in education, economics and politics.
I have trouble understanding how a person who believes that it is okay to indoctrinate a child can live with him or her self. The Jesuit idea of, "Give me the child until the age of seven and I will give you the man" came from the Dark Ages and belongs in the dustbin. I suggest that any one who reads this article should go to the site below. There, Stephen Law, an author and philosophy lecturer at the University of London, points out how our children could and should be educated to improve their intellectual abilities and their character and future behaviour and well being. All thinking and fair minded citizens should get behind the call for the introduction of a Philosopy for Children approach to education from early primary schooling on. Adoption of such a programme hold out the probability that criminality, drug addiction, and susceptibility to scams would become lesser problems for the coming generation.
http://lawpapers.blogspot.com/2008/02/extract-from-chpt-3-war-for-childrens.html

Sorry_Rivergum... but

<<The inherent fault with ID_and_Creationism is that no such questions are allowed. >>

is total rubbish!

The shoe is on the other foot. Try.. JUST try.. to question 'evolution' and see how you are howled down, mocked, ridiculed and ostracized.

The id agenda is to teach id as ONE of a number of possible interpretations of the evidence.

"ID" also relates to 'origins' about which science has NO definitive answers, thus it is NOT in conflict with 'evolution' apart from denying what the theory of evolution cannot itself determine apart from pure speculation.

SELLS. "Fundamentalist Christianity" is a very loaded statement, and it is really rather shabby to declare it as a 'seductive disaster for the church and society'

Far more accurate would be to say "SOME branches of hyper fundamentalist Christianity SUCH AS.. Fred Phelps and company, are blah blah"

As your statement reads currently, you have vilified ALL Christians who hold to the Nicene Creed. err..doesn't that include 'you' ?

Criticize... berate... rip apart..by all means.. but do it SPECIFICALLY and don't throw 'me' out with the 'fundy' bathwater, because in all likelihood..I might feel a tad uncomfortable.

What irritates me to the nth degree..is where some ratbag extremists (CJ..I mean the 'REAL' ones who blow up abortion clinics and dance on dead gays graves) are used to justify such blanket statements as 'fundamentalist Christians'

If you want to justify that statement....take a page from my own book and PROVE IT from the foundation documents PROPERLY interpreted on which that faith is based.

For a refreshing change, why not talk about 'Christianity' as a faith..I have no quarrel with that.

"Properly" means the natural grammatical context, the historical context and background, and the subsequent qualification of particular texts in the foundation documents which gives the broader meaning of the idea, and in the immediate (and most innocent) period of the growth of a movement. In Christianity's case, it would be the early church, take the first 300 yrs to be fairly safe.

Do the same for any faith and I'm happy that it is 'properly' interpreted.