Robert S. McElvaine

"A wonderful archbishop of Canterbury once said that it is a mistake to believe that God is chiefly, or even mainly, concerned with religion."

"It would be easy to argue on the basis of the teachings of Jesus that “Christian capitalist” is an oxymoron."

"Science follows evidence; political science follows opinion; religious science follows myth and is therefore no science at all."

"News Flash: Self-indulgence is not what Jesus taught."

"Here is the fundamental message of the fun-damentalists: Say “Jesus” and then you don’t have to do Jesus."

"Both the Christian Right and the Muslim Right condemn freedom, seek to impose rules from their highly selective reading of their holy book on everyone, believe in theocracy, want to keep women subordinated, generally oppose the modern world, believe killing “infidels” is part of God’s plan—the list of agreement goes on and on. About the only things they disagree on are what name to call the God they distort and who the infidels are."

"Those who promote this “no faith at all” do not follow Jesus; they lead him around in directions they want to go, using him as an advertisement for their political, social, and cultural agendas, which generally run counter to his. The “Christian” Right has reduced Jesus to the ultimate celebrity endorsement."

"America is simultaneously the most professedly Christian of the developed nations and the least Christian in its behavior."

"Actually, though, there is an all-out war on Christianity under way. Its generals include—in addition to Coulter and, prior to his dishonorable discharge from the Army of ChristianityLite, Haggard, and, until his death, Jerry Falwell—Pat Robertson, James Dobson, and the whole Unheavenly Host of televangelists and megachurch moneychangers posing as preachers who have expropriated the moral assets of Jesus and turned them to their own purposes and their own profit. They never met a dollar they didn’t like. They prefer profits to prophecy and pretend that Jesus did, too. They favor the rich over the poor and invert Jesus to contend that he did, too. They favor war over peace and lie by saying that Jesus did, too. Thus do they make war on Jesus while disingenuously complaining that others are making war on Christianity."

"They are so certain that they know God’s mind because they equate their own minds with that of God."

"Much as the Nazis created an “Aryan Jesus” because the real Semitic Jesus was not to their liking, the Lite Christians have created an American Jesus or a Muscular Jesus or a Consumerist Jesus because they don’t like the real nonviolent/turn-the-other-cheek/love-your-enemy/meek-shall-inherit-the-earth/easier-for-a-camel-to-go-through-the-eye-of-a-needle-than-for-a-rich-man-to-enter-heaven/drive-the-moneychangers-from-the-temple Jesus. They simply re-create Jesus in their own image."

"That is the essence of ChristianityLite. Its standard for what to take literally from a putatively inerrant Bible boils down to this: Anything that doesn’t seem too difficult is to be taken literally. The rest of it? Give me a break! All that stuff about turning the other cheek and loving our enemies and being nonviolent and helping the poor—some damned liberal subversive must have sort of, like, infiltrated that stuff into the Bible, you know?"