It's good to see more people waking up to the dangers of the Christian fundamentalists and their political goals. Other articles in Salon have pointed out that President Bush and the Republican leadership are doing their best to create a one-party security state; this one begins to show the connection to the theocracy that the Christian right wants it to be. Hopefully enough of us will wake up to the danger to prevent it. This past spring, many true conservative Americans saw the Schiavo mess, and realized their politics had been hijacked. They began to speak out against the alliance between political conservatives and the Christian right. Look back over the articles, letters, and blogs related to the whole affair, and you can see the depth of their outrage and betrayal. If we could get a coalition of these real conservatives and the other targets of the fundamentalist right, e.g. Gays, Jews, non-fundamentalist Christians and political liberals, we could stop them.

I'd also like to remind us of the other articles that have come out recently in Salon about the fundamentalists and their "war on Christianity" victimization mentality and political strategy. Criticizing the Christian fundamentalists is not anti-Christian. Pointing out their political and social goals and agenda are not a war on Christianity. The letter writers who proclaim otherwise are perpetuating the victim mentality/strategy. We have Fox news to do that for them. Here we need and want the facts and info to cut through the spin, and a place to debate ideas, not attempts to silence our liberty and intellectual integrity.

One last note: Ms. Montague, if you believe that the Christian fundamentalists are not going to go apocolyptic against Jews, you haven't been paying attention to them. Check out their websites and newsletters and read up on their plans for those they deem unchristian or not Christian. You'll find plenty of reasons to be afraid of their planned theocracy. You as a Jew, and I as a gay man, have no place in their Rapture and their New Jerusalem. Their oft-stated goal is to make America a Christian nation, a New Jerusalem here on earth. If you're not their definition of Christian, you're not included. Please do not mistake their intentions or their goals.

This is not about the Jews, although they will be the canaries in the coal mine when things get worse. This is a warning for everyone who cherishes democracy and diversity. And equivocating about this subject is gravely dangerous. The right wing church has already done serious damage to America's image in the rest of the world and they don't care. Most Christians don't agree with religious extremeism, nor are they intolerant, but they are strangely passive when it comes to the Christian right. And for Jews to take the radical Evangelicals as allies defies reason. When we look across the seas and when we read history it is absolutely clear how dangerous religious fundamentalism is. Yet we are turning a blind eye here at home. The Taliban, and Al Quaida, and Hezbolah, and even the fringe Israeli radicals may be extreme examples of religion run amok. But it doesn't take long if those who know better don't speak up. It is time to defend our Bill of Rights and get religion out of government and government out of religion.

Lots to complain about here, from the standpoint of a conservative Christian, even though I don't think much of the loudest voices of the religious right. The article is weakly researched, based on only a couple of Jewish leaders, and a comment by an Evangelical that may or may not apply in the context of the point argued. The piece does indeed--as others have noted--portray the religious right as monolithic. There are more than 200 denominations of Baptists alone in the country. C'mon people.

As for the comments...

Anybody from the positive commenters know the difference between Evangelical and Fundamental? Any of you PERSONALLY KNOW anyone from either?

The full implementation of the political agenda of the Religious Right would turn the clock all the way back to... oh, about 1958. Except for advances against racism. And except for women in the workplace and women's rights in general, other than abortion. Please deal in specifics, not fear-mongering.

"'There is an arrogance in their efforts to pull every institution toward Christianity,' says Foxman." If you think a point of view is right, you try to promote it. The question is HOW. Can anyone name any voice in the Religious Right that doesn't advocate working within the bounds of representative and constitutional government?

And does anyone think that any law that was actively resisted by even 1% of the population could be enforced? Get real.

The fear of (hope for?) a "backlash" rests on the assumption that the Jewish-Christian alliance is essentially political rather than theological. Generally, it's not, as many posts recognize. So decide which way you want it, but follow through with the implications.

Judaism does not proselytize. Evangelical Christianity does. This is a cause of much tension between the two. It needn't spell intolerance by either side.

These posts are some of the most hateful I have read on the web. Substitute the word "Jew" for "evangelical" and one would be tempted to believe that many of them came from a neo-Nazi site.

Michelle,

Your article is absolutely spot on. When I came to your statement:

"Why the silence until now? Part of it has to do with Israel. Christian Zionism, inspired by end-times beliefs that make the return of Jews to Israel a precondition for the second coming, has made American evangelicals the world's staunchest backers of Israeli hawks. (Their Jewish allies usually choose to ignore the fact that the Christian Zionist's apocalyptic scenario ends with unsaved Jews being slaughtered and condemned to hell.) But while evangelicals support Israel for their own eschatological reasons, there have been threats, implicit and explicit, that such support might weaken if Jews oppose their domestic agenda too aggressively." I knew this would be a very important article.

Below their cuddley, warm exterior the Christian right grows more dangerous by the hour. Their "apoclyptic scenario" states that all who are born again will be saved while the rest of us will be forcibly converted or tortured unto death. The Jews are high on the list but all of the rest of us, from Judeo-Christian Humanists on down, are slated. The "so called "Rapture" will pluck up the Bornies to a huge stadium in Heaven from which those who are "saved" will revel in their fifty yard-line seats as they watch Satan torment those who remain below on earth. What kind of people are these?

But Bornies won't wait for the Rapture. They'll move things along before that. All of the old scapegoats will be trotted out. Jews, Humanists, Liberals, Taoists. You name them. Remember, Mel Gibson's implicit message was the same as that Air Forced cadet. The Christian Falange is going to finish its Evangellical,hidden agenda, but not so hidden, really. Auschwitz.

Stay with this subject, Michelle. It may well be the pivot of 21st century history.

Thank you