Jonathan Bracewell greatly skews the Christian faith in a frustrated attempt to justify conservatist linking to Christianity. He makes a weak effort to claim that, since he has never been lectured from behind the pulpit.

Conservative evangelicals such as Jerry Falwell have made their political stances public for years. During a sermon, Falwell promised that “the four million evangelical Christians who did not vote in 2000 will unite behind President Bush.” In fact, one of Falwell’s religious groups, called the Old Time Gospel Hour, retroactively lost its tax-exempt status in years past because the group used ministry resources to support congressional candidates.

Bracewell also identifies divorce and gay marriage as leading to the downfall of Christian values in the United States. What Bracewell fails to mention is that under the First Amendment of the Constitution, the United States declares that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Marriage licenses are issued by the state, not the church (I thought that was obvious). Churches are free to not recognize these licenses, or ban couples from their congregation who receive them.

While Bracewell is quick to point out the one disputable disparity between liberalism and Christianity on the topic of abortion, he ignores the “other kind of killing” that conservative Christians don’t seem to mind. He cleverly leaves out the pro-war side of the “Christian Right” (67 percent of evangelical Christians supported invading Iraq, more than any other bloc of active voters) probably in the hope that Christian conservatives don’t think of “collateral casualties” as innocent human beings being killed by 100 times the physical agony that a fetus receives from a standard abortion.

My guess is that he skipped over Matthew 5:2-12, the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, which says, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

Tyler Barrett

Freshman

Political Science