I feel I owe Eben a note of clarification. I want to make perfectly clear I was using the term "judeo-christian" in the most innocuous way possible. I, too, am completely unaware of its negative connotations so I, too, am looking forward to your elaboration (sorry i digress everyone).

According to wikipedia, the term appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1899. I ran a google search with the term and I went through the first 40 hits and did not come up with one that detailed what Eben was getting at. However, I do not believe wikipedia or google is the end all be all. I am merely writing this to show that, after some cite (or rather site) checking, I chose to use the term because it seemed academically appropriate, rather than insulting. Reviewing the information online, i see a breadth of criticism regarding the term's religiously ambiguous nature, but I do not see anything about the Reagan years.

Eben, as I spent a great deal of time with this term in a history course in undergrad, could you trace a quick history in a little more detail?

-- AdamGold? - 07 Feb 2008