{"id":3349,"date":"2008-03-20T00:20:40","date_gmt":"2008-03-20T00:20:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2008\/03\/civility-4.html"},"modified":"2008-03-20T00:20:40","modified_gmt":"2008-03-20T00:20:40","slug":"civility-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/03\/civility-4.html","title":{"rendered":"Civility 4"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(Say the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jesuscreed.org\/?p=3425\">Jesus Creed<\/a> morning and evening during Lent.)<br \/>\nChp 4 of Os Guinness, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&amp;location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FCase-Civility-Why-Future-Depends%2Fdp%2F0061353434%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1204510044%26sr%3D1-2&amp;tag=jescre-20&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325\">The Case for Civility<\/a><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jescre-20&amp;l=ur2&amp;o=1\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" style=\"border:none !important;margin:0px !important\" \/><\/em>, could be called a &#8220;civil screed&#8221; against the Religious Right. It is not too harsh; it never falls for the uncivil, but the chp univocally calls the RR to the bar for a civil warning.<!--more|inline--><br \/>\nWhat points does Guinness make?<br \/>\nHe wants America to draw upon its roots and to discover a renewal, but Guinness knows the problem: a fall of public man (and woman). That is, public discourse has sunk to an all-time low. It has learned to trade in negation and demonization of the opponent.<br \/>\nThe Religious Right has fallen for this rhetoric,  and it is the target of this kind of rhetoric. &#8220;Today&#8217;s puritan,&#8221; Guinness observes, &#8220;is the person who is haunted by the thought that someone somewhere may possibly have breathed up a prayer in the public square&#8221; (91).<br \/>\nIn the hardest hitting section in this book, and the next chp will hit at the left, Guinness says the Religious Right is its own worst enemy.  &#8220;I am appalled by the way the RR attacks its fellow believers and demonizes its enemies&#8221; (92).  &#8220;I am angered by organizers of the RR who play the victim card and appeal openly to Christian resentment&#8221; (93).  Such appeals are &#8220;foolish, ineffectual, and downright anti-Christian&#8221; (93).<br \/>\n&#8220;Many in the RR are more obviously fundamentalists than they are Christians&#8221; (94).<br \/>\nThe RR has politicized faith.<br \/>\nAnd, the RR has consistently exhibited one glaring problem: &#8220;It has never articulated a clear public philosophy, or a common vision for the public good&#8221; (102). A journalist once told Guinness: &#8220;The RR talks of justice, but it sounds like &#8216;just us'&#8221; (103).<br \/>\nGuinness sees the RR as the best argument for its opponents, the most powerful factor in its own rejection, and a prime reason for the repudiation of religion in America (103). They are &#8220;generating the greatest backlash against the Christian faith in American history&#8221; (104).<br \/>\nSay &#8220;no to a sacred public square&#8221; is the theme of the chp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Say the Jesus Creed morning and evening during Lent.) Chp 4 of Os Guinness, The Case for Civility, could be called a &#8220;civil screed&#8221; against the Religious Right. It is not too harsh; it never falls for the uncivil, but the chp univocally calls the RR to the bar for a civil warning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":298,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-public-issues"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Civility 4 - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/03\/civility-4.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Civility 4 - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"(Say the Jesus Creed morning and evening during Lent.) Chp 4 of Os Guinness, The Case for Civility, could be called a &#8220;civil screed&#8221; against the Religious Right. It is not too harsh; it never falls for the uncivil, but the chp univocally calls the RR to the bar for a civil warning.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/03\/civility-4.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-03-20T00:20:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jescre-20&amp;l=ur2&amp;o=1\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"xscot mcknight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Civility 4 - Jesus Creed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/03\/civility-4.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Civility 4 - Jesus Creed","og_description":"(Say the Jesus Creed morning and evening during Lent.) Chp 4 of Os Guinness, The Case for Civility, could be called a &#8220;civil screed&#8221; against the Religious Right. It is not too harsh; it never falls for the uncivil, but the chp univocally calls the RR to the bar for a civil warning.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/03\/civility-4.html","og_site_name":"Jesus Creed","article_published_time":"2008-03-20T00:20:40+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jescre-20&amp;l=ur2&amp;o=1"}],"author":"xscot mcknight","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/03\/civility-4.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/03\/civility-4.html","name":"Civility 4 - Jesus Creed","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/03\/civility-4.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/03\/civility-4.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jescre-20&amp;l=ur2&amp;o=1","datePublished":"2008-03-20T00:20:40+00:00","dateModified":"2008-03-20T00:20:40+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/9c0db2eaf4d047d76276f907b62843f0"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/03\/civility-4.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/03\/civility-4.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/03\/civility-4.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jescre-20&amp;l=ur2&amp;o=1","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jescre-20&amp;l=ur2&amp;o=1"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/03\/civility-4.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Civility 4"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/","name":"Jesus Creed","description":"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith for today","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/9c0db2eaf4d047d76276f907b62843f0","name":"xscot mcknight","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/1f0\/1f0cb0f88d1f99f6e05597a2de7f1949x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/1f0\/1f0cb0f88d1f99f6e05597a2de7f1949x96.jpg","caption":"xscot mcknight"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/author\/xscot-mcknight"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/298"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3349\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}