Jeff Sharlet (of The Revealer, among other things) has written a lengthy piece for Harper's Magazine about how Christian fundamentalism views its relationship with American politics and history. You may disagree with some of his observations--keep in mind that Sharlet is writing from the perspective of a non-fundamentalist looking at the movement from the outside, trying to understand it--but the article is a thoughtful one and raises a lot of good issues.
A lot of the theology-mixed-with-patriotism that Sharlet notes is genuinely disturbing, and as is often the case when I read this sort of account, I'm left wondering exactly how widespread this sort of "Christian patriotism" really is. If it were not a fairly widespread phenomenon, it would not be receiving the sort of attention it's been getting lately, and Sharlet is certainly not making this stuff up. But on the other hand, I have interacted with a lot of culturally conservative Christians in my life (I am one myself), and few if any of them would endorse the fundamentalist ideas described in Sharlet's article. Am I just out of the loop?
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