In recent months, Christians of many stripes have been scrambling to distance themselves, their religion, or their God from Republican comments about rape which now fill a  four column "Rape Advisory Chart". Those Christians who see the Bible as an imperfect human document have reason to distance themselves. Those who see the Bible as unique and perfect revelation, essentially dictated by God to the writers, do not. The perspective that God intends rape babies and that rape pregnancies should be allowed to run their course is absolutely biblical.

To understand why Christian conservatives have backed themselves into such a dark corner, one has to understand the actual contents of the "Good Book" and the moral bind that biblical literalism imposes on believers.  

The supposedly non-partisan Family Research Council's legislative arm sent out a clearly pro-Romney e-mail blast the morning of election day. The text was careful, but the embedded link for voter "resource" information led to a right-wing website that made Romney the Godly candidate and Obama the ghoulish candidate.

The e-mail was signed by Tony Perkins. Not the shower guy, but the President of both the Family Research Council and FRC Action. Here is the link: please review our silo of voter resources for information on the presidential as well as state level races.

The e-mail is hardly a surprise, since the FRC's "Voter Guide" is equally biased and ludicrous.

Click on for the text of the e-mail:

There was a time, not so long ago, that religious progressives were told by Beltway Insiders to, well, shut-up about matters of sexual and reproductive justice.  A faux religious left had been manufactured that would handle this, thank you very much.  But as it turned out, many of us would not be silenced.  Time went on, and progressives at the historic Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC) began to find their voices for reproductive justice as never before, focusing less on Washington-based "God talk" and more on living out their values via organizing and empowerment in the great tradition of religious social justice that was so integral to progressive advances in the 20th century.

The Christian Right has, of course, been very effective in the electoral arena for decades. And this year is unlikely to be an exception.  It is long past time that religious progressives who support reproductive rights, LGTB civil rights, and separation of church and state get better organized. This was one of the main arguments of my 2008 book, Dispatches from the Religious Left.  

And now it seems it is starting to happen.

Obama is like Hitler; his healthcare reform legislation includes a provision to create an army of Marxist brownshirt thugs; the hour is late, the church now faces what German churches faced, with the rise of the Nazis, in the 1930s - we must fight now, or never; taxpayers are the Jews for Obama's ovens; stop Obama, or face another Holocaust.

At an October 30, 2012 pastors rally in Tampa, Florida, with the election only days away, prominent Texas Southern Baptist megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress, who in 2011 attacked Mormonism (Mitt Romney's faith) as a cult, informed his audience that failing to stop President Barack Obama from gaining a 2nd term in office would be like failing to stop Hitler and could lead to another Holocaust.

It would be logical to assume the "Support Israel? Fire Obama" yard signs (graphic at right) come from an organization focused on Israel as an issue.  They are not.  The signs are from the nonprofit American Majority, a Tea Party outfit with ties to the Koch brothers.  American Majority has also received substantial funding (over one million dollars in 2010) from a foundation that is headed by a member of the secretive Catholic prelature Opus Dei and shares the address of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM).

For the past few days, my inbox has been overflowing with emails about Peoria Bishop Daniel Jenky.

The Roman Catholic prelate last week wrote a letter that he ordered all priests in his Peoria, Ill., diocese to read during services over the weekend. The missive purports to offer guidance about tomorrow's election.

The Tom Monaghan-linked group Fidelis which has seemingly dabbled in financial fiddling seems to be at it again. It's political affiliate, CatholicVote.org is employing Catholic Right culture war memes to help elect Mitt Romney to the presidency - while also falsely casting economic libertarianism as the basis of the Church's understanding of Social Justice.

We'll talk about that in a moment, but let's first call on Glenn Beck to help us set the stage.

Running again for a seat in the Massachusetts State Senate, Chelmsford, MA Republican Sandi Martinez has aired, according to the Lowell Sun and the Boston Globe, a number of unusual beliefs on the local Chelmsford cable access TV show she once hosted, including the view that 1980s children's shows such as "The Smurfs" and "The Care Bears" can lure children into witchcraft - which, according to candidate Martinez, is promoted in public schools. Martinez has also claimed Christianity can turn gays straight.

Because they start salivating and can't seem to keep their mouths shut when ever they sense an opportunity, a handful of evangelical Christians are claiming that Hurricane Sandy is God's way of showing his wrath on a Godless nation, or as one noted author of apocalyptic fiction wrote; it's God's October Surprise.

"Incest is so rare, I mean it's so rare. But the rape thing, you know, I know a woman who was raped and kept the child, gave it up for adoption and doesn't regret it. In fact, she's a big pro-life proponent. But, on the rape thing it's like, how does putting more violence onto a woman's body and taking the life of an innocent child that's a consequence of this crime, how does that make it better?"

--Republican Congressional candidate John Koster (WA), 10/28/12

Now that candidate John Koster and Newt Gingrich have each so graciously pitched in, with just a few more of these cringeworthy Republican rape statements and there will be enough for a 4-column version of the Republican Rape Advisory Chart. But until then, the new 3-column chart will have to suffice (here's where the chart originated.)

Prominent Southern Baptist Convention Pastor Robert Jeffress is at it again. At an October 30, 2012 pastors rally in Tampa, Jeffress suggested that failing to stop President Barack Obama from gaining a 2nd term in office would be like failing to stop Hitler. Though Jeffress did not directly endorse Mitt Romney's bid for the presidency in the 2012 election, Jeffress stated that while Mormonism is a "cult", at least Mitt Rommey holds "biblical" values - an issue that has been recently contested by pastors and community leaders under the mantle of the North Carolina NAACP, who have criticized Billy Graham's recent controversial support for Mitt Romney and suggested that the religious right's insistence on fighting same-sex marriage and legal abortion misses the Bible's focus on taking care of the poor.

I was listening  to  David Jeremiah, internationally known pastor from San Diego, while driving through Houston to Corpus.  His Sunday sermon from a few weeks back was rebroadcast to have an impact on the nation.  Jeremiah claims he is the one responsible for influencing Billy Graham to take out  full page ads in national newspapers embracing Romney as the Christian's choice.  David Jeremiah gave his view on the coming Presidential election claiming it was Biblically based.