The Christian right is neither.

Harvey Wasserman has written an article entitled, "If Jesus returns, Karl Rove will kill him". I have been amazed for some time at how the right wing can claim to be followers of Jesus all the while taking no notice of what the man actually taught. Please don't be taken in by the hate-filled bigots who presume to speak for Christianity. Do read this article. It exposes the hypocrisy with biting clarity. Here's an excerpt:

In large part through the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus came to be viewed as Divine because he spoke eloquently for a gracious, loving God.

Karl Rove, Tom DeLay and their ilk believe George Bush and his corporate-fundamentalist minions speak to and for a very different kind of God, one with characteristics at war with those described by Christ.

Bush-Rove's Divinity is a nasty dictator, defined by hate and greed, intolerance and hypocrisy.

Christ kicked the moneychangers out of the temple. Rove-DeLay's Republicans have enshrined them.

Christ spoke of a God of compassion and joy. Today's so-called Christian fundamentalists worship one of greed-driven warmongering totalitarianism. The only way to salvation, they say is THEIR way, through a spiteful God that hates all Jesus preached.

It's bad enough that the right-wingers have turned the noble word "liberal" into an insult. They are also framing the word "Christian" to mean intolerant, judgmental and legalistic. There are still some of us, however, who believe that calling ourselves "Christian" has at least something to do with being faithful to what Jesus actually taught and stood for.