This AP report by Richard N. Ostling
is the most detailed I’ve seen yet about that conference on dominionism and
the religious right at CUNY. Ostling does his best to be fair by rightly
noting that some conservative Christians have taken their own rhetoric too
far of late. But Ostling is clearly put off by the one-sidedness and
extremism of this conference. He’s also quaintly shocked that so obviously
partisan and political gathering is filled with scholars and sponsored by a
university. We’ve heard all the criticisms of the language and political
inclination of religious conservatives. Will we now hear indignation
against The Rev. Bob Edgar, a former Democratic congressman and general
secretary of the liberal National Council of Churches? Edgar strongly
favors religious politicking–except by conservative Christians. And Edgar
believes that the desire of conservative Christians to have fewer activist
judges means that: “This may be the darkest time in our history.” I await
mainstream media outrage over Edgar’s dangerous quest for a liberal
religious theocracy. Note also that Ostling dismisses the link between the
tiny fringe movement of dominionists and mainstream evangelicals.