Beware Trojan Horses

I want to call attention to a couple of excellent blog posts related to the ominous seeping of religion into the United States.

The first is  “Portland’s Unholy Alliance of Evangelicals and Progressives,” by C. August at Titanic Deck Chairs.  The article notes the recent incursion of evangelical Christianity into one of the most left-leaning, “progressive” cities in America: Portland, Oregon.  That the evangelicals are “less preachy” than is typical may help them deliver their message to a largely secular audience, but C. August puts his finger on a more fundamental reason.  The deeply religious are gaining a foothold in this secular city because of the intellectual and moral vacuum of modern “liberalism.”  With no strong philosophical grounding of their own, the secular left gives way to the zealous newcomers.  Furthermore, the altruism at the heart of Christianity is completely consistent with the left’s statist policies, so this is a natural alliance.

Another great article is actually a series of posts by Elan Journo of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights.  In part 1 of “D’Souza’s Trojan Horse,” Mr. Journo identifies the outrageous tenor of Dinesh D’Souza’s book, The Enemy at Home, and sees beneath the contorted logic and outright falsehoods (which are bad enough) an insidious agenda: "a thinly disguised attempt to establish religion as the central integrating principle of American society.”  In part 2 of the article, Mr. Journo captures the essence of D’Souza’s viewpoint, which differs from jihadist Islam only in degree, not in kind.  Future installments of the article are forthcoming.

Both pieces highlight a point that I have been emphasizing in my posts; both conservatives and “liberals” are anathema to liberty.