"During the years of the Third Reich, every German carried with them a document that had to be on their person at all times. It was not a driver's license, not a passport, not even proof of citizenship but a record of their racial heritage as attested to by their pastors and their baptismal certificates. Baptism had once stood as a sign of equality. In the Third Reich, baptism became a dividing line - between heroes and heretics, between compassion and catastrophe." - Narrative introduction to Storm Troopers of Christ: Baptism and the Jews in the Third Reich

[update: I originally posted this essay in early 2008. Recently, Steve D.Martin, author of the 59-minute documentary below, originally titled Storm Troopers of Christ: The Jews and Baptism in Nazi Germany, renamed and publicly released the documentary, which chronicles the long-overlooked complicity of German Protestant clergy and theologians in supporting Hitler's rise to power, in demonizing Jews, and even determining the official racial heritage of Germans, a life and death decision.]

If you're the parent of young or teenaged kids, you're probably concerned about bullying. It's one of those unpleasant facts of life that just about everyone who has children must eventually confront.

Since children spend much of their time in school, these institutions are the focal point for anti-bullying efforts. Thankfully, the national conversation over this issue has become a lot more serious in recent years, and many schools have adopted anti-bullying policies.

These are the perils of tearing down the wall of separation of church and state, and Mitt Romney, of all people, should know better.

Before Clint Eastwood stole the show at the GOP convention by arguing with an invisible President Obama (an empty chair), Jeb Bush touted private school choice in Florida. The state has the largest corporate tax credit program in the nation, part of a privatization of public education agenda now supported by Romney. Later in the evening Romney delighted the GOP convention audience by mocking the concept of rising seas, something that could have come right out of the pages of the textbooks used in many of the now publicly-funded private schools using curricula from A Beka Book, Bob Jones University Press, and Accelerated Christian Education.  Read the rest of the article to find out what mocking global warming has to do with mocking Mormonism, and why Romney should resist pandering to this worldview.

[note: a related story, from Religion Dispatches editor Sarah Posner, covers Samuel Rodriguez' appearance at the Republican National Convention from outside the frame of his participation in C. Peter Wagner's New Apostolic Reformation]

On Tuesday, the opening night of the Republican National Convention was brought to a close with a prayer from a "stealth" apostle who along with Sarah Palin (whom he calls a "kindred spirit") is part of a rising radical politicized charismatic Christian tendency that one of the architects of the modern religious right warns is on the verge of becoming a "Christian Jihad".

Many evangelical Christians, especially politically conservative ones, might be shocked by the tenor of the attack that "Born Again" author and Christian conservative icon the late Charles Colson -- who was deeply respected and beloved by many on the evangelical right -- recently launched against Ayn Rand and her followers in the GOP: especially because among those ranks, Colson indicated, was Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan. Colson noted his friend William F. Buckley's effort to purge such "crypto cultists" and "cranks", including Ayn Rand and her followers, from the conservative movement.

In his 2012 book, Christian Broadcast Network's David Brody mapped out a 16-year timeline for achieving a "Teavangelical Utopia," the phrase he uses to describe a Tea Party/conservative evangelical takeover of politics.  Brody also describes Mitt Romney's efforts to cultivate Christian Right leaders as early as 2006. Many of these same leaders were working feverishly to find an Anybody-but-Mitt candidate to rally behind in the primaries earlier this year. Where do the Teavangelicals go from here, and how does the Romney-Ryan ticket fit into their agenda?

[Updated] Following is a short video highlight from the Tea Party and Religious Right pre-GOP convention rally held at the River Church in Tampa last night (Sunday, August 26).  The 5-hour live-streamed event began with a Prayer Rally for America's Future, featuring Michele Bachmann, David Barton, Phyllis Schlafly and other Religious Right leaders, and ended with  Tea Party Unity Rally 2012, headlining Bachmann, Herman Cain, Tea Party leaders and Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz representing Mitt Romney.  The Sunday night church service held in between the two segments of the rally was led by Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne, a controversial televangelist and major figure in the "Holy Laughter" movement.  The video below of the Tea Party Rally Master of Ceremonies, Rusty Humphries, captures the religio-political tone of the gathering.

Leading up to the 2012 election, prominent conservative evangelicals such as former Nixon hatchet-man turned born-gain Christian Chuck Colson, apparently worried that a possible VP pick for the upcoming election was deeply in thrall to Ayn Rand's ideas, began to drop loud hints that Christians who followed Ayn Rand were in the thrall of "anti-Christian" ideas. And it was true; Ayn Rand's ideas have been credited with inspiring the Church of Satan.

"I give people Ayn Rand, with trappings"
--- Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan (to Kim Klein of the Washington Post, 1970), as cited on page 2 of Contemporary Religious Satanism: A Critical Anthology, by Jesper Aagaard Peterson (Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2009)

"Ayn Rand, more than anyone else, did a fantastic job of explaining the morality of capitalism, the morality of individualism." --- Congressman Paul Ryan, 2009 official Ryan For Congress video ad.

"My great friend, the late Bill Buckley - one of his greatest contributions to modern conservatism was his effort to purge it of cranks and crypto-cultists and for Buckley, Ayn Rand and her followers certainly fit that description...  [Ayn Rand's] patently anti-Christian ideas seem to be gaining steam... powerful committee chairmen on Capital Hill make their staffers read her tracts." --- former Nixon Administration member Charles Colson, May 2011 installment of his "Two Minute Warning" video series, titled Atlas Shrugged and So Should You

He tried to warn them. To no avail. So in 2012 the late Chuck Colson's nightmare scenario came to life. How many prominent conservatives have praised Ayn Rand's books? I've lost count. It's odd, because among relevant academics and also among LaVeyan satanists, it is taken for granted that Ayn Rand's ideas played a major role in the creation of the philosophy behind The Church of Satan. Some even credit one specific section of Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged as having provided the intellectual template for The Satanic Bible [see my handy quote base, below].

As it happens, a certain Wisconsin Congressman who became a topic of national conversation in 2012 has also cited that very section in Atlas Shrugged, as one of his key philosophical guiding lights [quote base, again].

The Republican Party is meeting in Tampa this week to formally nominate Mitt Romney as its presidential candidate. The convention was supposed to get under way today, but there's a big problem: Tropical Storm Isaac. Florida officials have declared a state of emergency as the storm, which is expected to be a Category 2 hurricane by the time it makes landfall, bears down on the Gulf Coast.

This had led several people to ask: Why is Pat Robertson sitting on his hands?

Akin is not an anomaly in today's Religious Right.

Todd Akin has been in Florida this week at the Council for National Policy convention discussing his political future with Ralph Reed and other Religious Right leaders. While the GOP's top brass is running from Akin, he has been defended by, among others, the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins and American Family Association's Bryan Fischer.  Joining in the fray is Georgia-based American Vision, led by Christian Reconstructionist Gary DeMar.  

If you think Akin is extreme, take a look at DeMar's anti-abortion agenda.

The Republican Party is putting a Catholic face on the kick off of the Romney-Ryan campaign for the White House.  The face is none other than Cardinal Timothy Dolan, President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops who will give the closing prayer at the Republican convention in Tampa.

While Dolan's appearance broadly implies that  he supports Romney's candidacy, it serves as a distraction from something the Republicans would rather we not know; or if we do, forget; and for those of us who will never forget, help ensure that we are never heard.  Thirty years ago Mitt Romney sought the financial backing of those who bankrolled the murder of priests, nuns and an archbishop.

Ruby Sales and the Struggle between
Empire Christianity and Liberation Christianity.

Anders Behring Breivik, convicted for his 2011 terror attacks in Oslo, Norway, sees himself as a Christian Warrior. Breivik grabbed many of his Islamophobic and anti-socialist conspiracy theories off the Internet. These theories are still promulgated by right-wing groups in the United States, especially Christian Right ideologue William S. Lind, formerly director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism at the Free Congress Foundation.

The recent attacks on a Sikh Temple near Milwaukee, an Islamic Mosque in Joplin, Missouri, and the Christian Right Family Research Council in Washington, DC, illuminate a central tension within Christianity. Progressive Christian activist Ruby Sales calls this the struggle between Empire Christianity and Liberation Christianity.

The former represents an apocalyptic view built around subjugation of enemies and use of violence. The latter sees the apocalypse bringing justice and peace.

Sales wants to:

unveil the lies of White Christian Conservatives so that Black folk understand that these lesbian and gay hating folk come out the same tradition of the people who threw Emmett Till's body in the Tallahatchie River. Their teachings birthed and fermented the hatred that poisoned the minds and spirits of the killers of Samuel Younge and Jonathan Daniels.