[This is the 4th in the series Religion and Science: A Beautiful Friendship]

Man is a creature who makes pictures of himself, and then comes to resemble the picture.  - Iris Murdock

The title of Mark Twain's What Is Man? poses a question that humans have pondered for millennia. Our species modestly calls itself Homo sapiens--Man, the wise. We've also been dubbed Man, the builder; the tool maker; the game player; and the talker. Twain himself argued that man is a machine, Homo machinus.

[This is the 3rd in the series Religion and Science: A Beautiful Friendship]

It is not instruction but provocation that I can receive from another. 
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

[This is the 2nd in the series Religion and Science: A Beautiful Friendship]

My parents were not church-goers, but they thought their children should be exposed to the religious perspective. So, until we graduated from eighth grade, they made my brothers and me attend a Presbyterian Sunday School.

[This is the 1st in the series Religion and Science: A Beautiful Friendship]

[The 21st] century will be defined by a debate that will run through the remainder of its decades: religion versus science. Religion will lose. – John McLaughlin, TV talk show host
 

This is the first of an intended series of short pieces documenting the promotion in Africa, by leaders in the New Apostolic Reformation, of the anti-witchcraft ideology that is endemic to the NAR. The series is grouped by country.

A powerful, cultic religious order whose founder and clergy are accused of sexually abusing minors; admissions of children born out of wedlock... As is often the case, Talk To Action articles written years ago are now suddenly relevant to the news cycle.

Back in June 2009, TTA contributor Frank Cocozzelli wrote a story titled CBS's Go To (Rightwing) Catholic Guy--about Thomas D. Williams, the far-right Catholic spokesperson who has just announced (as covered in the NYT and the Catholic News Agency), that he is leaving public ministry after admitting to fathering a child out of wedlock.

From early 2008 into late 2009, Father Williams, author of such works of religious moralism as Knowing Right From Wrong (2008, Thomas Nelson, Inc.), made multiple appearances on CBS with Katie Kouric, Jeff Glor, and Maggie Rodriguez, on the Early Show. As Cocozzelli described,

"The go to guy at CBS News for all-things Catholic is one Father Thomas D. Williams.  Never heard of him?  Well, if you watch The Morning Show's Maggie Rodriguez or the CBS Evening News's Katie Couric you may very well see Fr. Williams appear live via satellite from Vatican City. But "the Tiffany Network" will also probably fail to disclose that Fr. Williams is also a member of the Legion of Christ, a reactionary order that is squarely aligned with American movement conservatism and that espouses the most conservative of Catholic views on bioethical issues such as LGBT equality, abortion and stem cell research.

[...]

...[T]he Legionaries of Christ is a secretive, ultra-conservative order with a troubling past and an uncertain future.  Its activities have been restricted or it has been banned outright in at least eight American dioceses for practicing cult-like control over its members. Archbishop Edwin O'Brien of Baltimore was going to expel the organization until the Vatican stepped in and asked that that he instead engage in a dialogue with the group's superior general. Still suspicious of the group's activities (Archbishop O'Brien has accused the Legionnaires of  "blind allegiance, lack of "respect for human dignity for each of its members,"" as well as "heavily persuasive methods on young people"), the Baltimore archbishop keeps the Legionnaires on a very tight leash.

And then there are the sex scandals of the Legionnaires' founder, Father Marcial Maciel. Maciel had been accused of pedophilia since the 1950s and again in the 1970s. Originally to have been found innocent of the earlier charges, the Vatican reopened the investigation to the later incidents. In 2006 the Vatican forced Maciel into retirement addition and subsequently died in 2008.  A year after his death the news surfaced that he had also fathered a child.

The group's influence is significant in part because it targets wealthy and influential individuals for recruitment."

The bigger scandal here isn't so much the issue of the sexual transgressions of powerful Catholic religious order members but, rather, the fact that far-right wing religious pundits, whether Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, or from other religious traditions, who show deep disrespect for pluralism, are getting widespread exposure through mainstream media.

In a subsequent story on Thomas D. Williams, CBS, Rev. Thomas D. Williams and the Theoconning of America, Cocozzelli examined that issue, writing,

"Last week I discussed the disturbing worldview of  CBS's go-to rightwing Catholic guy, pundit Rev. Thomas D. Williams, a member of the far right Legion of Christ. This is part of a larger trend that merits further discussion.

Neoconservatives and their theocon allies have had considerable success in getting us to see the world through their eyes; and each other as solely as all good or all bad; enemy or friend. These distortions often contribute to grotesque distortions of fact being presented as given truths.

This Manichean framing has infected the news media, which in turn functioned as a carrier of the disease...

[...]

...Rev. Williams believes that the only truth that should prevail is traditionalist Catholic orthodoxy, and that this worldview should be favored by and reflected in government.

Williams is a perfect example of the way that pundits pass for reporters, telling us what to think and how to act, while democracy is packaged for us as entertainment. The spectacle of media gladiators and bloviators is glorified over the participation of an informed citizenry. While this critique is not new, less well developed is the increasing role of religious right framed presentation of the news, and the risk of discounting the centrality of religious pluralism as a key to constitutional democracy. One consequence of the creeping theoconism in the media is that we often fall prey to historical revisionism -- the weapon of choice of the Religious Right. Naturally, the narrative that emerges from this history of convenience attacks the very tenets of liberalism, such as religious pluralism as being sinister and evil. Faith and reason are not synonymous, but antithetical entities."

Talk To Action contributor Frank Cocozzelli is author of what may be the longest running and most extensive series of articles available Internet or in print, 221 thus far, on the Catholic Right.

In his 2008 book Dominion! - How Kingdom Action Can Change The World, C. Peter Wagner advocated burning books and artwork in the manner of Girolamo Savonarola and traced his movement's dominion theology through R.J. Rushdoony, acknowledged founder of Christian Reconstructionism. Wrote Wagner, on page 59 of the book,

"The practical theology that best builds a foundation for social transformation is dominion theology, sometimes called "Kingdom now." Its history can be traced back through R.J. Rushdoony and Abraham Kuyper to John Calvin." (Dominion!, Chosen Books, 2008)"

One of the more prominent leaders in the New Apostolic Reformation is holding a conference in June--with a United States Senator as one of the keynote speakers.  

Rick Joyner of Morningstar Ministries is holding a conference  on June 2 at his headquarters in Fort Mill, South Carolina--20 minutes south of me.  The event is  One of the keynote speakers is Senator Jim DeMint.  The event is cosponsored by Joyner's political activism organization, the Oak Initiative, and a religious-right outfit I previously haven't heard about, Freedom Congress.  Indeed, DeMint is a frequent contributor to Freedom Congress' Website.  Other scheduled speakers are Jerry Boykin and Oliver North.

We already knew there was a lot of overlap between the tea party and the religious right.  But this is one of the first instances I've seen where a high-profile teabagger (and yes, that description fits DeMint--he's one of the closest things to a simon-pure teabagger in the Senate) has spoken at a dominionist/NAR event. 

This is a transcript of a sermon on a cassette tape I own, titled "Capital Punishment/Environmentalist Agenda/New World Order", that was given by San Antonio Cornerstone Church pastor and Christians United For Israel head John Hagee in 1992. The transcript is from the "Environmentalist Agenda/New World Order" side of the cassette.

The cassette was packaged as part of a four-cassette series identified as the John Hagee "Teaching Series". Two of the other cassettes have the titles "The Feminist Movement" and "Abortion: The American Holocaust". The fourth cassette, which I can't locate at the moment, was titled, I believe, "The Homosexual Agenda".

I've done best to do an accurate transcription, but there may be occasional minor errors.

The tale of two Colsons, one immersed in sin and one redeemed, is the mainstream press's favorite way of approaching the life of Chuck Colson, who died last Saturday. One needs to stress that this approach does not account for Colson's later commitment to the Christian Right's confrontational  strategy and many of its controversial goals.

Earlier today, American Family Association policy chief Bryan Fischer pretty much shredded whatever pretense he has of being mainstream--or at least what passes for mainstream on the religious right.  On today's edition of Focal Point, he declared that the government has no power to collect income taxes.  Specifically, Fischer argues that the 16th Amendment actually exempts wages and salaries from taxation.  See for yourself.

 

Fischer cited a book by Idaho state representative Phil Hart, "Constitutional Income: Do You Have Any?" which argues that the government basically hoodwinked the states into ratifying the 16th Amendment.  He claims that "income" legally does not include wages and salaries.  Instead, it includes things like capital gains.  The income tax was supposedly intended to ensure that the fat cats of the day would pay their fair share.  However, Fischer argues, regulators illegally changed the definition of income to include wages and salaries.

As it turns out, Fischer is embracing a shopworn tax protester argument--one that has pretty much been demolished by the courts, all the way up to SCOTUS.  Dan Evans' excellent FAQ on tax protester theory has a history of how the courts have rejected this argument out of hand.  If any of Fischer's listeners were to take this advice, they'd not only risk ending up in jail, but making these arguments is pretty much an invitation to get slapped with sanctions.