Well, the KKK were Christian, but so was their opposition. 100 years ago, and even 50 years ago in the US, you would be hard pressed to find ANY idealistic group that wasn’t using God and Bible quotes to back what they were fighting for. That was just the nature of the country, and still is to a large degree. As far as groups on the cusp of advocating violence against gays or abortion doctors, I haven’t seen that. That still seems to be the lone whackjob not listening to his authorities. I’ll say more on that later.
I don’t know who you mean, but I would assume he would profess to be, yes. I haven’t heard of any non-religious folks that get that worked up about abortion, even if they happen to oppose.
I don't think I would advocate either extreme, my point is that "Question authority!" or "Fall into line!" are both sets of advice that attempt to change human nature, which means they are a waste of time. There will always be a few leaders, a hoard of followers, and a few rebels. I don't think any of the three can be said to be 'doing it right' inherently, without first looking at what exactly they are leading, following, or rebeling against. I can't say that the world would be better if it had more followers, more leaders, or more rebels. I think it's much more productive to analyze particular belief systems that people may choose to follow, than to analyze [i]the act of following[/i]. Make sense?
Yes, you have a good point there- one can be accepting of homosexuals, or of sex before marraige or all sorts of things, and still fall under the broad tent that is "Christianity". Is the Church of Christ un-Christian? I don't know enough about them, but from what you say here, I would say they are in the same boat as Young-Earth Creationists, they are Christians who happen to be wrong. I would consider the thing they are wrong about to be more important than the thing the YECs are wrong about.
Well, I believe that (though I'm not married to the idea), and I'm not a Young Earth Creationist.
It depends, first, on how we view the follower. I think those sorts of labels are situational- a person may be a born leader at the office, but choose to be a follower when it comes to religion, because he doesn't have the time or interest to study the relevant information. I think there are very few people who are leaders or followers or rebels in all things.
In general, I think the current situation is the answer to your question- various groups who see people under the wrong leader do what they can to get their own message out, to lure people away from those wrong leaders. The truth does have a certain appeal to it, and you can pull people away from cults and extremist groups often with a liberal application of it.