2007-05-24

The rises and falls of the religious right: Spong on Falwell

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Spong discusses Jerry Falwell’s place in the history of America’s religious right; and “optimistically” sees the beginning of the decline of Bush administration’s popularity and the influence of the religious right to the Terry Schiavo scandal.

Podcast and Transcript available at Radio National’s The Religion Report.

Spong laments the constant theme of religious anger, using the bible to denigrate others, in the history of the rr — and sees the current abortion and homosexual battles as the latest in a long line of targets that go back to women’s rights, blacks, heretics and Jews.

He links certain crises in American political-social life as triggers for the rise of the influence of the rr.

I say Spong speaks “optimistically” of the decline of the rr — but it seemed to me more like he sees it coming and going in regular waves on a seashore — but is the overall tide turning?

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