
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 9, 1993                   TAG: 9306090299
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

CHURCH BUILDING TYRANNY OF HATE

COLONIAL BAPTIST Church in Blue Ridge has formed a group called Concerned Christian Citizens to fight against what the pastor, Don Eade, calls "moral, spiritual and ethical decay." As a former member of this congregation, I must speak out against the continuing politicization of Christianity within that church community and society as a whole, particularly in fairly poor, rural, conservative areas of the South.

Having grown up within that church and knowing the mixture of good and evil all churches contain, I am not shocked that this fundamentalist congregation has chosen to form a political group to lobby public officials to do what they think is right. And I am not surprised at the issues that the group has chosen: A ban against gays and lesbians in the military, abortion and television censorship are the first issues mentioned in the flier I received. What shocks and disgusts me is that Eade and the group legitimize the politics of their organization using their religion.

As a patriot, I am concerned about the political gobbledygook that the fundamentalist right continues to portray as truth. They forget who they are. I possess a religious tract stamped with the name and address of Colonial Baptist Church and published by Jerry Falwell less than 30 years ago, which offers what it calls "biblical proof" for the "inferiority of the Negro."

Now that the fundamentalist right cannot use such blatant racism to build their tyranny of hate (as opposed to Jesus Christ's Kingdom of God), they use homophobia, sexism and the alienation our society generally feels as vehicles for self-aggrandizement.

Most mind-numbing of all in a pamphlet from this church group was the sample letter to President Clinton. It contained the line, "My prayer is that this letter will encourage you and affirm your desire to make your decisions based upon biblical truth." Clinton was elected to do what he thinks is the will of the people, not of God. Our nation rises and falls together: not just Christians but Jews, Buddhists, Mohammedans, agnostics, atheists and plain old nonreligious people have a right to be a part of the plurality that rules this nation.

DAVID R. BOBBITT

CHARLOTTESVILLE

by CNB