via: Tom Paine  - Bill Moyers tribute to James Dunn at the Wake Forest Divinity School. I pulled out the lighter hearted paragraphs because the truths of history are heavy.

James Dunn and Bill Leonard are Baptists. What kind of Baptist matters. At last count there were more than two dozen varieties of Baptists in America. Bill Clinton is a Baptist. So is Pat Robertson. Jesse Jackson is a Baptist. So is Jesse Helms. Al Gore is a Baptist. So is Jerry Falwell. No wonder Baptists have been compared to jalapeno peppers: one or two make for a tasty dish, but a whole bunch together will bring tears to your eyes.

Many Baptists are fundamentalists; they believe in the absolute inerrancy of the Bible and the divine right of preachers to tell you what it means. They also believe in the separation of church and state only if they cannot control both. The only way to cooperate with fundamentalists, it has been said, is to obey them.  James Dunn and Bill Leonard are not that kind of Baptist. They trace their spiritual heritage to forbearers who were considered heretics for standing up to ecclesiastical and state power on matters of conscience. One of them was Thomas Helwys, who, when Roman Catholics were being persecuted by the British crown, dared to defend the Catholics. Helwys went to jail, and died there, for telling the king of England, King James – yes, of the King James Bible – that “Our Lord the King has no more power over their [Catholic] conscience than ours, and that is none at all.”

via Jordon Cooper - Andrew Sullivan looking at why President G.W. Bush poll numbers won’t go lower - the  Myth of Bush Loyalty.

Part of this may be due to the fact that Bush is personally a nice guy. Many people like him too much to tell him what a shambles his presidency has become to his face. An alternative theory to explain the mystifying deference and persistent fear is that the Bush presidency is based on religious adherence, not political judgment. Karl Rove has accelerated the transformation of the GOP from a party of limited government and individual liberty to one of Christianist fundamentalism and big government largess. The party is now essentially a religious grouping with some business interests glommed on for the ride - and a retinue of sleazeballs and lobbyists gleefully in the rear. If your career is related to that party, then any criticism of the president, regardless of the grounds for that criticism, is deemed indistinguishable from congregants taking on a fundamentalist pastor. It’s forbidden. You will be cast out of the church. His authority is rooted in his faith; to question it is to question religious authority.