I was passing through CNN the other day and saw an article about the four ways we’re still fighting the Civil War. There was one striking part about the article, where writer David Goldfield (whose new book is called America Aflame) talks about how the rise of evangelical Christianity before the Civil War, where “thousands of Americans repented of their sins at frontier campfire meetings and readied themselves examines evangelical for the Second Coming. They got war instead. Their moral certitude helped make it happen.”
Goldfield adds that evangelical Christianity "poisoned the political process" because the American system of government depends on compromise and moderation, and evangelical religion abhors both because "how do you compromise with sin.”
"The erosion of the center in contemporary American politics is the most striking parallel between today and the time just before the Civil War," Goldfield says.
Today, I think we are seeing history repeat itself. The Tea Party is filled with people who basically see everything in black and white terms, and have no desire to compromise to anything.
As Steve Gilliard once said, anyone who is not an evangelical needs to “stop looking for an accommodation with the right. They want none from us.”
The question remains as we progress towards the 2012 elections, how much more the evangelical Christians will tilt, divide and send us over the proverbial cliff because they cannot, will not compromise?
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