Subject: Re: Mostly Off topic.. who am I kidding? Completely Off topic
From: Jim Rovira (jrovira@drew.edu)
Date: Thu Jun 27 2002 - 01:48:27 EDT
Ashcroft, John O, is Assemblies of God if you want to have something to
go on in your attacks :). You should have a field day considering the
AG gave us Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart. I used to participate in a
message board that had a young woman that grew up in the church he
attended -- knew him for years, knew he was in politics in some way,
but never knew what he did exactly. Just an average guy who went to
church.
I don't think he perceives that he's eroding liberties. I think he has
a pretty conservative view of leadership that doesn't pan out very well
in mass culture...making him an easily accessible media target. A
conservative media target, by the way, is desperately needed these days
as Newt has been ousted and Rush just isn't in the news anymore...I can
just hear the NYT saying, Praise JEEEZUS for John Ashcroft, our new
Great White Punching Bag :).
I'm not particularly fond of AG attitudes toward leadership and
accountability -- leaders tend to be accountable to other leaders and
not to the people they're supposed to be serving. That's a tendency,
though, not a rule. Part of the problem stems from the fact that the AG
is so decentralized -- each church is an individual entity. The local
denominational leadership can pull ordination papers, but they can't
pull a pastor out of a church -- only the church deacon board can do
that. But at the same time, accountability is held as pretty important
and the best and brightest of the AG I've seen have actually been pretty
humble. The AG, historically, has drawn from a racially, economically,
and socially diverse crowd and has tended to be forward thinking in a
lot of ways even in spite of itself. Some of the most conservative
people I know did some serious race-relations building work in the South
in the 50s and 60s, and they suffered for it too.
Not what you'd expect from a conservative movement. I think if you pay
close enough attention and look past stereotypes even Ashcroft may
surprise you.
Jim
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