Dinesh D'Souza  put together the documentary 2016, which is about President Obama's vision for America.  D'Souza, president of King's College in New York City, has a history of bashing the current President.  Dinesh's conclusions provide a belief system for Religious Right operatives.  This work reminds me of the movie, The Clinton Chronicles, which made its way around the nation.  Southern Baptist's Richard Land was honoring an East Texan at the time who was encouraging churches to show this video for Sunday Night church services.

This post seems as relevant today as it was when I first posted on May 6, 2008. -- FC

Jill Lepore has a wise and erudite article in The New Yorker about four recent books about the Founding Fathers and their approach to religion and government.  All four books debunk Christian nationalism, and Lepore takes a whack at a little historical revisionism from Tim LaHaye along the way herself.  But most importantly, Lepore has a useful and illuminating take on the tricks history plays on us, as various of us attempt to press characters from history to score contemporary points.

Remember Rick Warren? This mega-church pastor (whom I once referred to as "Jerry Falwell in a Hawaiian shirt" during a cable news interview) has been working hard to make himself a national figure, with mixed results.

Back in 2008, Warren, who leads Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., and authored the best-selling book The Purpose Driven Life, hosted a forum during which he interviewed presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain on their views on how religion and public policy ought to interact. Warren was subsequently invited to offer a prayer during Obama's first inauguration and promptly alienated lots of Americans by including references to Jesus.

Even the slickest practitioners of PR sometimes slip-up -- and reveal a dark side of their client.  Consider the case of Christian Right leader Rev. Samuel Rodriguez.  

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has been in the news for  calling on Republicans to "stop being the stupid party."  Paradoxically, the young governor may embody the stupidity he wants his party to get over.

Yesterday the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a formal statement reacting to the Obama administration's latest effort at compromise on birth control. To no one's surprise, the bishops rejected the proposal.

As you might recall, federal regulations have been issued under the Affordable Care Act concerning what the types of coverage that health care plans must include. Contraceptives are, of course, on the list.

Its Evolution Weekend -- the eighth annual discussion and reflection on the relationship between religion and science held in hundreds of churches and other houses of worship around the country and the world. Organizers say "that those claiming that people must choose between religion and science are creating a false dichotomy."  

The Religious Right has succeeded in dominating public discourse on the intersection of science and religion for a long time now. Among many other things, seesaw battles have been waged in many states over the teaching of creationism or intelligent design; and faith based "abstinence" programs as against thoughtful, comprehensive sexuality education.

But beyond the courtroom and legislative theatrics, and conflict-driven media coverage, mainstream science and religion have been getting organized. Those who posit that religion and science are inherently in conflict are two sides of the same counter productive framing of the argument. Most Americans understand, believe and accept that faith and science are not necessarily in conflict. Those who support religious pluralism and sound science and science education are natural allies against the religious supremacism, Christian nationalism and crackpot science of the Religious Right.

In addition to celebrating the remarkable efforts of Evolution Weekend, it is worth recalling two thoughtful approaches to the compatibility of religion and science were coincidentally published in 2008.

One of the obstacles to effective reporting, scholarship, and political conversation about the Religious Right, is the Manichean false framing of the religious vs. the secular when it comes to matters of separation of church and state, and such issues as LGTB and reproductive rights.  This most often takes the form of pitting conservative Christianity vs. non-religion, or even anti-religion. Of course, the framing fails, whether it is used by conservative Christian or non-religious partisans, because most people are neither one of those. And while there are times when such dualism is a useful kind of discussion, it is too often applied to situations where it is not only grossly inadequate, but a distortion of the matters at hand that make honest discussion and evaluation of the facts difficult if not impossible.

That's why I was glad to see MSNBC feature a discussion of abortion and religion with a prochoice minister on the staff of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. It is notable in part because it is so rare, and underscores the cramped and frequently distorted nature of our national conversation.  

I continue to be amazed that in the year 2013 our nation continues to grapple with the issue of access to contraceptives, a matter most advanced nations laid to rest long ago.

On Friday, the Obama administration made another attempt to address the concerns of conservative religious employers who say they don't want to provide birth control for employees. Once again, it's not going well.

The ubiquitous Rev. Samuel Rodriguez is back in the news. Rodriguez who is president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (which seems to exist primarily as a vehicle for promoting Rodriguez in public life) is also a leader in Conservatives for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, and of course, immigration is currently one of the hottest issues in the nation.

But National Public Radio's syndicated program Latino USA has a segment this week (in which I make a brief appearance) profiling the prominent evangelist. It raises questions about his ostensibly non-partisan and moderate public image, and suggests that he may be not only more Republican and more conservative than he would like to appear to be, but that he is not nearly as representative of Latino evangelicals than he is often presented in the media as being. Indeed, Rodriguez's view that Hispanic immigrants might be he salvation of Christian America and the conservative movement was heartily endorsed by none other than Pat Robertson.

The PBS show Independent Lens, which airs a different original documentary film every week is featuring The Revisionaries, the Religious Right's efforts to transform public education in Texas beginning on Monday, January 28, 2013. Local broadcast dates and times will vary. Check your PBS station schedule.

President Obama's Second Inaugural Address accomplished something I have not seen any other major politician even try:  To make clear that the Religious Right does not own the definition and meaning of the Declaration of Independence.  

This was an important moment because the Religious Right has increasingly relied on the Declaration as a source of justification for their views, since having lost the argument that God is in the Constitution and that separation of church and state is not.