No worries, people ... I basically agree that there are no worries based on your scenario which presumes a theoretical "hammer it out" convention where a socially religious majority holds the equivalent of a "constitutional convention" to define what a future government would look like.
What would be hard to assume would be such a convention's attitude toward the esxisting constitution, it's amendments, "it's Marbury vs. Madison" consequences and separation of church and state - if included - would look like.
However, what seems to have happened historically is that as a society is moved albeit gradually by a vocal minority in the direction of a more prominent religious/moral approach to government, a small but influential minorities have moved - at a critical moment - to usurp the movement toward change. They have in fact accomplished a "coup," if you will, where the gradual movement transforms into a gigantic and rapid great leap.
The "great leap" or "coup" remains an attempt or an experiment temporarily "legitimized" only so long as the control group remains in control.
This seems to be what has happened in all the countries who slipped into some form of theocratic government. Displacing them has not been the inevitable outcome in every case.
And in retrospect, viewing the "coup" of 2000 where an influential minority kept their objectives mostly secret, displacing the philosophical and political power behind the Bush administration proved to be more difficult in 2004 than expected.
That minority had as an agenda
(1) Turning U.S. foreign policy into open imperialism using our military blood as the prime weapon in our arsenal.
(2) The culmination of 60+ years of conservative opposition and effort to repeal the national legislation that came out of FDR's victory, Hoover's defeat which formalized the end of the Gilded Age.
(3) The destruction or disempowerment of labor unions and escalated evolution of market capitalism that with the repeal of all things "New Deal" that came out of the Great Depression, leaves all of us trapped within a social and economic Darwinism.
Conservative activism post-Goldwater accelarated in the 1980's when Limbaugh-like propaganda explode publicly and relentlessly coupled with courtship between the Republican Party and an aroused and agressive Christian coalation began with gradual movement toward acceptance of another "New Deal" regarding American social and political form. Is the attempt succeeding?
That movement - now much more powerfully public and in our national social awareness - was the context of the election of 2000. Had that campaign management's inner circle publicly proclaimed and campaigned by openly advocating the three items listed above, they would have lost the election in 2000. Americans have been sleeping but were not THAT asleep.
Bushco people (political and religious components) in the preceding 4 years RUSHED to make their desired changes as rapidly as possible - all the while finding many ways to hide and obscure those same 3 objectives.
2004 revealed that they had done their work well. We who opposed Bush electorally find ourselves still as the loyal opposition. We remain obligated to stand up and speak out. Only in our most naive state can we just sit back and content ourselves with theological debates around religion as a lifestyle separated from social consciousness.
2004 also finds us facing a political, social and economic philosophy that has revealed itself as more interested in private good than public good.
My worries are not about your pre-Armageddon scenario of theocratice takeover. As a social worker who administers public welfare, works with homeless, aged, under-educated, broken families and individuals, my worries are about where the above 3 objectives are leaving and have left the rest of America.
My worries are about apathy and what it takes to wake up slumbering majorities.
In this regard Liberal Christianity in the 21st Century, which began as an attempt to speak theologically to Bishop Spong's and others' criticisms of contemporary Christianity has become my and others' forum of speaking out about religion, politics and society.
As we should be doing ...