Larry King Asks What To Do About Religious Fascism

The Reverend Barry Lynn, Executive Director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, appeared on Larry King's CNN program tonight and I thought his opening statement was not only profound, but a succinct analyst of the problem.

"I am a reverend and in the United Church of Christ. And I take that very seriously. But I also take very seriously my obligation, in that role, to promote my faith through voluntary efforts, to try to persuade people to believe as I do and not to try to use the government to compel people to believe as I do."

CNN's Christiane Amanpour (I thought she was prettier before the nose job.) was there to promote her upcoming three night, three part, six hour CNN special "God's Warriors, Fighters for Faith," a report on religious fundamental extremism around the globe. In her quest for peace, she asked an intriguing question.

"But the key point is that the extremists, those who are fundamentally committed, are much more energized and therefore much more active and much more politically successful. That's the reality, and that's the question I was trying to ask. In fact, all of you, how do those majorities who would prefer to see peaceful co-existence, whether it be in Judaism, whether it be in Islam or in Christianity, how do they get their voices heard, and how do they act within the framework of the political dynamic that they find themselves in?"

I thought Reverend Barry Lynn's final statement proved as encouraging as his first. He took on small minded Evangelical pastor John MacArthur, who appears to approve of defining what is absolute christianity for everyone.

Pastor John MacArthur: "The other thing is, you have all kinds of people who are not fundamental, biblical Christians now talking like Christians because they see some political ground to be gained by that. I mean, the latest reports on all the candidates now, everybody sounds like a Christian. Everybody sounds very religious. This is unacceptable because now we've allowed any kind of definition to religion, to God, to Christianity. So I think that part of the Christian emphasis is fading fast."

Rev. Barry Lynn: "Yeah, one of the problems is, if we start to define outside of our own religion anybody who's more conservative than we are, as we just heard, or anybody's more liberal, I'm not really a Christian because I'm not a biblical literalist. Maybe Hillary Clinton isn't and John Edwards aren't because they didn't talk about religion before and now they are as candidates. I think this is the kind of division that does not help us as Christians. It doesn't help Muslims among themselves. It's one of the many things that divides and makes it very difficult to have the kind of dialogue that we might use to find common ground, common values and move forward."

Full Transcript - CNN.com Larry King