It is no surprise to the Talk2Action community that the U.S. Christian Right did not fold up its tents and head home when the Uganda legislature failed to pass the 2009 "Kill the Gays" bill giving the death penalty for something called aggravated homosexuality. Instead, U.S. groups are expanding their presence in sub-Saharan Africa, as a new report, "Colonizing African Values," by Political Research Associates' Kapya Kaoma documents.
Just how far out politically is the Roman Catholic hierarchy these days?
Pretty far out, I'm sorry to say. In fact, it has come to this: Several prominent prelates have lauded William Donohue, the belligerent head of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and author of a new book.
Historically, serious Latter- Day Saints and Christians considered themselves members of two different religions. The former Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention hosted a resource center for winning converts or protecting oneself from cults. Mormons were classified as a cult.
If you are a certain New York Times best-selling author, and up and coming evangelical leader named Eric Metaxas, the regulation requiring employer insurance packages to require contraception coverage smacks of Nazi era legislation, and God really wants us to do better than we did against the Nazis this time. Read all about it in my essay at Religion Dispatches.
Should Chick-Fil-A be known for its extensive ties to, and funding of, some of the most aggressively anti-gay groups in America, as well as its role in catalyzing the national "Protect Marriage" (by fighting same-sex marriage) movement -- or should the fast food chicken chain be regarded as an exemplar of the spiritual value of "gratitude"?
According to a project under the aegis of the Yale Center For Faith and Culture called the Spiritual Capital Initiative, that's funded with almost $1.9 million dollars from the John Templeton Foundation, it's the latter: gratitude.
Bust out the burqa! Stash your safety razor! Islamic law is just around the corner.
So says the latest far-right conspiracy theory that's making the rounds. Word is that a band of Islamic zealots has somehow infiltrated the upper echelons of the federal government - no doubted aided and abetted by the secret Muslim in the White House - and will be imposing shariah law just about any day now.
Speakers at the annual Christians United for Israel (CUFI) summit, held July 16 - 18 in D.C., included Michele Bachmann keynoting the Night to Honor Israel and David Barton keynoting the donor banquet. Bachmann is in the news this week for her claims that Hillary Clinton's deputy chief of staff is part of a Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the U.S. government, a conspiracy theory hatched at the Center for Security Policy. The CSP is led by Frank Gaffney, also a speaker at the CUFI summit. Barton is the author of The Myth of Separation, and a leading proponent of revisionist histories claiming America was founded as a Christian nation.
Despite the end times prophets, Christian nationalists, and conspiracy theorists headlined at CUFI's national and local events, some Jewish leaders continue to partner with the organization. The Israeli ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, and Sen. Joe Lieberman were in attendance at the CUFI summit and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke via satellite.
You wouldn't recognize him on the street and he definitely isn't a household name, but the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, the President of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference is more than ready for his close-up.
With the country's demographics rapidly changing and immigration no longer on the back burner -- but not quite on the front one either -- Rodriguez is becoming more influential with both sides of the political aisle, has been in regular contact with Team Romney, and is drawing ever so much closer to a number of conservative Christian evangelical leaders.
Last year, concern about Gov. Rick Perry and Rep. Michele Bachmann's relationships with a variety of dominionist thinkers and political actors was gaining traction in the media. Rachel Tabachnick was on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. There were major articles in The New Yorker,The Texas Observer, and The Daily Beast. Perry's massive pre-presidential campaign prayer rally attracted major media attention, and some of us noticed that the event was organized by the dominionist associates of C. Peter Wagner, the leading figure of the New Apostolic Reformation, and that Wagner himself was present.
All this was accompanied by a sustained barrage of articles and op-eds in mainstream and right-wing media (which in retrospect, seems orchestrated) variously claiming that the role of dominionism was exaggerated or didn't exist; and that those of us who have written about these things were all kinds of terrible. We heard from, among others, Ross Douthat and Michael Gerson at The New York Times and The Washington Post, respectively and in syndication beyond. Charlotte Allen sneered about it on the Los Angeles Times op-ed page. Lisa Miller at The Washington Post published as ill informed a piece as has ever been written on the subject. (I responded here.) The worst of the bunch was Mark Pinksy's screed in USA Today -- in which he compared the work of several Jewish writers to some of the worst anti-Semitic smears in history. Then Jim Wallis of Sojourners of all people picked sides and piled on. Writing at The Huffington Post he also denounced of those of us who write about dominionism -- and recommended Pinky's smear to boot!
Enough was enough. So some of us wrote an Open Letter to Jim Wallis. He never responded, nor did any of the other perps. (Except Pinksy who in comments at Talk to Action, stood by his smears and refused to apologize when Chip Berlet pointedly called on him to do so.) The story was widely picked up on and discussed around the blogosphere.
We stood our ground and declared that we refused to be silenced or intimidated -- and the smear campaign stopped as suddenly as it started. I've reposted the Open Letter below as a reminder of how far some people will go to suppress important information and analysis that does not comport with their various agendas.
Back in 2003, a general in the U.S. Army named William G. "Jerry" Boykin got himself in hot water because he had a habit of appearing, often in full uniform, before meetings of right-wing evangelicals and making intemperate comments about Islam.
During one appearance in Oregon, Boykin opined that Islamic extremists hate the United States "because we're a Christian nation, because our foundations and our roots are Judeo-Christian."
"Christian nation" pseudo-historian David Barton is on the defensive. It's a place I've wanted to see him for a long time.
If you're just joining us, Barton is a Texas Religious Right activist who makes his living peddling a revisionist history of America designed to prove that the country was founded to be a Christian nation.
It has been my experience over the past 30 years of doing research and writing about the Religious Right and various of its components, that most of us are resistant to learning much about it. We seize on slogans and cheap name calling as a substitute for actual knowledge and processing that knowledge in ways that are intellectually, politically and reportorially useful; or indeed to change the way we think about the Religious Right and the things we do in response. This resistance to knowledge about matters of great consequence, things that may jeopardize things that we hold dear, is an astounding dimension of our public life. And yet many of us wonder how the Religious Right continues to exercise such power in public life.
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