Roberts on "Christers" - Part III

Mark D. Roberts continues his examination of Doug Ireland's LA Weekly piece on "Christers" today.

It would seem, therefore, that Ireland has missed the point of the Great Commission and its impact. He claims that "fundamentalist interpretations of [the Great Commission and other texts] . . . have incredible motivating power for the religious right, and help explain the vehemence of the Christers' intolerance of the freedom of others to think or act differently." I would agree that the Great Commission has incredible motivating power for many Christians, including fundamentalists, evangelicals, and many from mainline denominations as well. But this has very little to do with the social activism of some conservative Christians, like the American Family Association, which is the primary force behind many of the boycotts or threatened boycotts. It's a mistake, theologically, sociologically, and psychologically, to explain the zeal of some "Christers" for social activism by pointing to the Great Commission.

Ireland's only response to date on his blog has been to show some hate mail he got from some kook, laugh at Rober's analysis, and then talk about how he is the intellectual descendant of Tom Paine and Jean Meslier.

The contrast between the two is stunning.

Roberts: calm, rational, reasoned, deliberate, humble, cautious in his conclusions, open to being wrong.

Ireland: irritable, high-strung, uses hyperbole, which does not help move a rational debate forward, angry, accusatory, negative, sarcastic, makes broad assumptions about large groups based on emails from a couple individuals, and makes regular use of nasty labels.