[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by jammies

This is naive in the extreme - literal interpretations of the Bible might not explicitly command holy war and genocide, but they don't prohibit them either. The popes had no problem finding theological excuses for Crusades and the stamping out of heretics in genocide, as happened to the Cathars.

Perhaps somewhat naive, but not to the extreme. There are massive differences between medieval approaches and usages of scripture and those that have universally replaced them within the modern world that I believe provide a significant obstacle to legitimating genocide.

Originally Posted by jammies

Did God not kill all the Canaanites to make room for his chosen people? Did God not bring down the aforementioned Sodom and Gomorrah for their sins? To say that a literal interpretation of the Bible precludes anticipating "God's will" is foolish, not only is it entirely possible, there are myriad examples of it through history.

Not really, no. The "myriad examples" to which you refer I understand to predominantly implicate the role of the church in the Crusades, which was not drawn from a literal interpretation of scripture. In actual fact, the model for scripture interpretation that was universally employed before the Protestant Reformation was a sophisticated allegorical hermeneutic. An example of the traditional method that mined scriptural passages for layers of meaning appears in the following letter from 1146 by Bernard of Clairvaux, who is credited as a major catalyst in the Second Crusade:

Originally Posted by "Bernard of Clairvaux

"Besides, brethren, I warn you, and not only I, but God's apostle, 'Believe not every spirit.' We have heard and rejoice that the zeal of God abounds in you, but it behooves no mind to be wanting in wisdom. The Jews must not be persecuted, slaughtered, nor even driven out. Inquire of the pages of Holy Writ. I know what is written in the Psalms as prophecy about the Jews. 'God hath commanded me,' says the Church, 'Slay them not, lest my people forget.'

"They are living signs to use, representing the Lord's passion. For this reason they are dispersed into all regions, that now they may pay the just penalty of so great a crime, and that they may be witnesses of our redemption. Wherefore the Church, speaking in the same Psalm, says, 'Scatter them by thy power; and bring them down, O Lord, our shield.' So has it been. They have been dispersed, cast down. They undergo a hard captivity under Christian princes. Yet they shall be converted at even time, and remembrance of them shall be made in due season. Finally, when the multitude of the Gentiles shall have entered in, then, 'all Israel shall be saved,' saith the apostle. Meanwhile he who dies remains in death."

Originally Posted by jammies

One of the primary dangers of the evangelical right-wing in the USA is their obsession with using military force to reorder the world. The aim of spreading "American values" is not merely coincidental with the evangelical ideal.

I totally agree, but the spreading of "American values" is a world away from holy war and genocide, and I am fairly confident that the rigorously modernistic roots of Western culture tend to minimise the possibility for a shift from one goal to the other.

What is the biggest difference between the medieval religious climate that spawned the crusades and modern fundamentalist America? The former was predominantly illiterate and authoritarian, and fostered an allegorical approach to scripture. The latter is grassroots, hyper literate, and subject to a much more inflexible literalism that governs the meaning of sacred texts.

What is the biggest difference between fundamentalist America and fundamentalist Islam? The latter is both authoritarian and literalistic. It is more like medieval Christianity in that meanings from scriptures are dictated. But it is also simultaneously quite different in that this dogma by fiat is delivered within a much more inflexibly literal framework that proactively sanctions violence.