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Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear |
| Published: February 21, 2008, 1:45 pm |
| Tags: money, politics, fear, church |
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As Paul Marshall, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem, observes, "When others want power, or when they want to get people to do their will, they play to our fears. 'There's trouble in River City,' was how the Music Man got people to buy his goods. Religious groups are particularly vulnerable to the kind of demagoguery that creates and capitalizes on fear. Many private religious empires in American have been build by religious entrepreneurs who play to people's fears. The airwaves are full of them. Indeed, the fear of hell and fear of the sword have long been favorite tools of evangelism. The conquistadors notoriously converted indigenous peoples in Central and South American at swordpoint, and evangelists in the revivalist tradition have made ample use of hell to scare people into heaven.I recently stumbled on a website selling "Fear God" T-shirts and promoting "shirt evangelism." The website boasts: "The Fear God line of shirts contains bold scriptural truths. You [ Full article ] |
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