Why the Religious Right Will Fail

What’s wrong with the agenda of the Religious Right? After all, how can you protest against protecting the unborn and how can a moral person support homosexuality? The religious right is for Family Values and against the evils of Hollywood. How can they fail? Because they already have.

I attend a conservative Evangelical Church and for the most part my fellow parishioners are little different, morally at least, from the evil liberals they loathe so deeply. During my stint in evangelicalism I have witnessed half a dozen messy divorces, adultery, fraud and larceny. Issue of unplanned pregnancy, homosexuality and pornography are probably rare but they happen and are too scandalous to discuss.

In my liberal household we do not watch R-rated movies (OK, confession, I have a copy of Blade Runner) nor do we permit our kids to play T (Teen) or M (mature) rated video games. I have family in combat in Iraq and I don’t need my kids simulating what may actually be happening to our loved ones. However, nearly every good, Bible believing friend that my children play with lives in a home with a wonderful selection of R-Rated videos and the most violent video games imaginable. Explaining to my children that we don’t find exploitive sex and human suffering and death to be acceptable forms of entertainment is difficult when my kids point out that “All the other Christians are doing it!”

In short, the very lifestyle that is promoted and may soon be legislated by James Dobson and Dr. D. James Kennedy is often lacking in the homes of their supporters.

I would find the case for conservative Christian values compelling if these values were actually being practiced by its advocates. Gays are an easy target, you generally won’t find them in Evangelical churches so you don’t need to worry actually confronting them. As for the rest society’s evils, knock on any Christian door.

If Christians who are possessed of the Holy Spirit and motivated by a deep love of God can’t abide by their own rules, what insanity makes them think that an increasingly secular society will? A social agenda founded on hypocrisy has little chance of success.

My advice to conservative Christians, Focus on Your Own Families.