Influential evangelical leaders mobilized institutional machinery against Muslim-Christian dialogue

Evidence

Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, found no need to apologize for the War on Terror or to confess any sins “against our Muslim neighbors.” It was all quite confounding to him: “For whom are we apologizing and for what are we apologizing?” Dobson’s Citizen magazine criticized the Yale Letter for claiming that the two faiths shared a deity, and for showing weakness and endangering Christians. Apologizing for past violence against Muslims would make Christians in Muslim countries more vulnerable to violence, he reasoned. Focus on the Family urged like-minded critics to register their displeasure with the NAE and included the NAE’s PO box for their convenience. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 510

Categorization

• XREF: Shows the organizational apparatus (Dobson, Focus on the Family) deployed against moderates, central to Du Mez’s account of how the militant strand enforced itself institutionally. — connects to: Religious-right leaders openly seek dominance over all American institutions — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 220