In light of former Sen. Rick Santorum's recent silly declaration that “the words ‘separation of church and state’ is not in the U.S. Constitution, but it was in the constitution of the former Soviet Union. That’s where it very, very comfortably sat, not in ours” -- it seems like a good moment to to repost Chris Rodda's classic discussion of some of the complications and distortions of history regarding separation of church and state. -- FC

Author Chris Rodda explores historical background to church/state separation, especially in relation to the work of Christian Embassy (link to Talk To Action coverage). The original controversial Christian Embassy promotional video, along with further coverage, can be found at the Jews On First website ]

When my first article appeared last week, I didn't get a chance to introduce myself, so I'd like to do that now, and also to thank Bruce Wilson for inviting me to contribute here at Talk to Action. I am the author of a book called Liars for Jesus: The Religious Right's Alternate Version of American History, Volume 1. This is the first of what will be a three volume series of books, two on the religious right history lies related to the founding era, and an eventual third volume on the church/state separation battles of the nineteenth century. Free sample chapter PDF

Of the three things listed in the line at the top of the page - "Reclaiming Citizenship, History and Faith" - my focus will be on the reclaiming history part, bringing attention to the historical misconceptions and revisionism that go hand in hand with many of the current issues being covered by others here. So, while Frederick Clarkson, in his recent article When Mainstream Media Miss the Point, brings up The Christmas Wars: Religion in the American Public Square, a discussion presented by the Pew Center on Religion and Public Life, to point out the evasion by the panelists of a reporter's question about the current issue of the Christian Embassy, I'm going take a look at a few of the historical inaccuracies that I noticed while reading the transcript of this event. These inaccuracies came from both panelists, Michael Novak of the American Enterprise Institute, and Jon Meacham, managing editor of Newsweek and author of American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation. I will address those from Novak in a separate article, but want to begin with one from Meacham regarding James Madison's opinion on tax-supported chaplains, the most relevant to the issue of the Christian Embassy.

It may be surprising to learn that America's twenty-first century "War on Christmas" - spearheaded by Fox News' Bill O'Reilly and the ultra-conservative American Family Association -- has as its antecedents the anti-Semitic ravings of industrialist Henry Ford, the right-wing conspiracy mongering of the John Birch Society, and the anti-immigration blustering of Peter Brimelow.

When the Obama administration was young, threats against the president were common, and sometimes quite public. One notorious such incident was that of Rev. Steven L. Anderson of Tempe, Arizona, who in 2009 not only repeatedly asked his parishioners to pray that God take out the president, but also encouraged a member of his congregation to openly carry an automatic weapon outside the arena where the president was speaking in Phoenix.  

Unsurprisingly, Anderson is back in the news -- this time calling AIDS a judgement from God and that the cure is to execute gay people as he said God called for in the Book of Leviticus.

When Stand Up Sunday was convened by Mike Huckabee in Houston it was to feature the leading spokesmen for the Religious Right agenda.  The meeting ended with the keynote presentation from former area pastor Rick Scarborough.  Rick followed the President of the Southern Baptist Convention and famous area pastor Ed Young on the platform.  He was the obvious choice to draw the apparent conclusions and drive home the motivation to carry out the agenda of the group.  Updating what Rick believes about the nation is important for those who follow this national cultural event.  At the meeting in Houston Rick passed out several books about what he holds as American historical truths.  Readers might be interested in what he wrote.

For the past few years, Americans United has been sparring on and off with a former Navy chaplain named Gordon James Klingenschmitt.

Klingenschmitt first came to our attention when he insisted that he had a right to pray in Jesus' name at official events, even though his superiors had urged him to use more inclusive invocations.

The remarkable and growing alliance between conservative Catholicism and protestant evangelicalism was on prominent display at a recent event at the Vatican. My colleague at Political Research Associates Cole Parke, reported that the conference, the  "Humanum: An Interreligious Colloquium on the Complementarity of Man and Woman" featured "similar themes and many of the same faces [as the 2009 American Christian Right manifesto, The Manhattan Declaration] further solidifying the conservative Catholic-Protestant alliance against LGBTQ people and reproductive justice."

The "War on Christmas" is becoming as American as police shootings of unarmed Black men, drones striking weddings in Afghanistan and the revolving door at the Defense Department. While Fox News' Bill O'Reilly and the American Family Association may be some of the 21st century's chief promulgators of the "War on Christmas," interestingly enough, it was the far-right John Birch Society that followed in the footsteps of Henry Ford, who, Daniel Denvir wrote in Politico last year, "was an avid proponent of the idea that someone - or more precisely, some group - was waging a war on Christmas."

This is a crosspost of an op-ed I recently published at LGBTQ Nation.  -- FC

Christian right undermines marriage equality with religious supremacism

FREDERICK CLARKSON
Senior Fellow, Political Research Associates

As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once said, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." That vision of history's progression has been well illustrated by the past year's landslide of advances for marriage equality.  And as we move closer to a more just society, the nature of the opposition is revealed in the nature of the backlash.

The Christian Right has been operating on multiple fronts to stop--or at least limit--the scope of the advance of marriage equality, including seeking to enable business owners, civil workers, and elected officials to openly discriminate against LGBTQ couples by co-opting the progressive principle of religious liberty.  

Over the years, you may have become familiar with Jews for Jesus, the organization that was founded more than forty years ago, and focuses on converting Jews to Christianity. It is less likely, however, that you're acquainted with Messianic Jews, who, although relatively small in numbers, are establishing relationships with Christian Zionists and have the potential to become a more influential political force.

One under-reported result of the 2014 elections was the rise of Neo-Confederate politics in the U.S. This included the election of unabashed apologist for the Confederacy Michael Peroutka, who was elected to Maryland's Anne Arundel County Council; and Joni Ernst, a proponent of nullification and secession, who was elected to the United States Senate from Iowa. It has also resulted in divisions on the Christian Right as well as in the wider Republican Party.

It may not seem possible, but Jimmy Swaggart's son Donnie is making his father look pretty darned good. In the late 1980s, the Reverend Jimmy Swaggart, one of the most watched and wealthiest televangelists of his era, was involved in one of the Religious Right's most memorable and salacious sex scandals; he was caught with a prostitute in a hotel room located along New Orleans' notoriously sleazy Airport Highway. His tearful apology has become a YouTube classic. Some twenty-seven years later, Pastor Donnie Swaggart is raving about gays and lesbians wanting to behead Christians. Some one needs to find this guy a prostitute!

Catholic Right pizza mogul Tom Monaghan and his Ave Maria School of Law are back in the news.  Journalist Eleanor Bader has a new article at Truthout about theocratic communities in the U.S. and the challenges they pose to separation of church and state. She focuses most of her attention on the theocratic town that surrounds Ave Maria School of Law.  

Our own Frank Cocozzelli has been writing about Monaghan's empire for years (here and here) at Talk to Action, as well as in the wider context of the Catholic Right in The Public Eye magazine.

Bader continues the story at Truthout.  Its an important read.