Walter Kirn Quotes

It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it.

In recent years, those who claim to have inside knowledge of what the Creator wants us to think and do have been more common on the right than on the right..

The problem with Bush is that yes, he's religious in a fundamentalist sort of way, they read the Old Testament as a sort of charter for the chosen people to do what they like.

Extremists often derive their inspiration from literal interpretations of texts that should rightly be read not as Associated Press reports from the ancient world, but as theological and literary enterprises requiring independent intellectual assessment.

The traditional religious right's failure to restore public-school prayer or pass an antiabortion constitutional amendment has likely helped fuel the spread of the more extreme dominionist school.

I think the real problem for American religion are those minority of fundamentalists who try to identify political policies with religion.

Mike Huckabee represents something that is either tremendously encouraging or deeply disturbing, depending on your point of view: a marriage of Christian fundamentalism with economic populism.

When religious leaders get involved in elections, it is usually with a reactionary social agenda.

Adherents of the new religious right reject the separation of politics and religion, but they bring no spiritual insights to politics.

To get overprotective about particular readings of the Bible is always in danger of idolatry.

Obstinacy in religious understanding leads to backwardness as in Muslims’, prevalence of violence and intolerance.

Progressive and liberal are Satan's pet words.

All of us must have heard about the people who call themselves the Fundamentalists. Their apparent intention is to drive out of the evangelical churches men and women of liberal opinions…. And now, in the presence of colossal problems, which must be solved in Christ’s name and for Christ’s sake, the Fundamentalists propose to drive out from the Christian churches all the consecrated souls who do not agree with their theory of inspiration. What immeasurable folly!

Science is uncertain. Theories are subject to revision; observations are open to a variety of interpretations, and scientists quarrel amongst themselves. This is disillusioning for those untrained in the scientific method, who thus turn to the rigid certainty of the Bible instead. There is something comfortable about a view that allows for no deviation and that spares you the painful necessity of having to think.

If ever there was a misnomer in the political lexicon, surely 'values voters' is the all-time champ. The use of this term to describe the so-called base of the Republicans' so-called party mainly refers to an extremist, ultra-conservative, strain of so-called Christian conservatives.

The Christian Coalition is still about Christianity, even if it's an idea of Christianity that many Christians might not go along with.

I really believe that anybody on the Left or the Right that tries to invoke the teachings of Jesus to say they should vote for this candidate or that candidate, I think they're stretching Scripture.

Fundamentalist Christians, adhering to what is termed 'creation science,' loudly promote the scientific accuracy of the Bible, but they sift or reinterpret science through the tiny mesh of their ideological filter. Not much real science gets through.

You've got these twenty million people who call themselves the Evangelical Christians who will put their hand up and say, I believe in the devil, I'm against abortion and gay rights, and we have to blow up the world. It's frightening.

Indeed, it's futile to try and use Holy Scripture to support any political position. I deeply distrust anyone who does. Just look at what an Islamic Republic is like.

The left have not the ability to get into reality in any way, shape, manner, or form.

One of the main causes of trouble in the world is dogmatic and fanatical belief in some doctrine for which there is no adequate evidence

In nearly all the matters in which the Pan-German movement was wanting, the attitude of the Christian Social Party was correct and well-planned.

In every religion, there are those who would drape themselves in the mantle of belief and faith only to distort it's most sacred teachings - preaching intolerance and resorting to violence.

No form of theocracy, whether it's manifested in a violent or non-violent form, is ever good for civilisation, and we have to challenge it in civil society as well as we would challenge Christian-based theocracy, or any other form of bigotry.