Religious leaders playing court with political leaders. Political leaders playing court with religious leaders. Common people paying taxes both to religious leaders and to political leaders. Fathers passing religious power on to sons and nephews. Religious leaders using funds meant for upkeep, charity, and such to enrich their own pockets.

This is not (intended to be, at least) a description of America in 2007 AD. This is a description of a small Roman province in the Middle East, right as Passover approached in a year when a man named Caiaphas was high priest and his father-in-law Annas was providing secondary leadership.

This was the scene just before Christianity was born as a distinct faith. It was also when Christianity failed to learn two lessons.

The hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church appears to be losing its grip on Latin America.  The opposition leftist PRD(Democratic Revolution Party) and the centrist PRI(Institutional Revolutionary Party, introduced a law into the Mexico City Legislature that would allow elective abortion up to the 14 the week of pregnancy,  Apparently, the law is likely to pass.

"The age of warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of leadership....a leadership of intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition. The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of compassion and common sense, of intellect and creative imagination, and of empathy and understanding between cultures." - William Fulbright

Chuck Missler seems silly. But religious ideologues with nutty ideas can be quite politically effective. One has even started a national lobby for apocalyptic war in the Middle East.

[NOTE: This story has been through several revisions - in the first version, I came on very strong with accusations about Time's story. I was deeply irritated to see key themes and talking points of the American religious right appearing in Time Magazine cover story, especially given the wealth of other stories that Time chose not to highlight, such as tensions in the Mideast and the regional Saudi-led peace initiative that Ehud Ohlmert has spoken enthusiastically about or the scandal over US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' involvement in the firing of US federal prosecutors deemed insufficiently loyal to the Bush Administration. Time Magazine hasn't opted to highlight those issues in its new issue but, instead, has presented Americans with what in the end is an endorsement of Bible classes in American schools.

I have chosen to re-post this critique as an entirely separate version, V.2.0

The following critique of Time Magazine's April 2, 2007 cover story, "Why We Should Teach The Bible In Public School",  does not concern the teaching of the Bible in public schools per se - I am not taking a position pro or con on that in my analysis. That's a subject for anaother day. My analysis, below, concerns the Christian right ideology packed into the cover story, inadvertently or not, of Time's current edition now before millions of Americans.

Time Magazine's new April 2, 2007 issue features a cover story entitled "Why We Should Teach The Bible In Public School". In the story Dave Van Biema, Time's senior religion correspondent, has constructed a narrative that sounds mild, reasonable, and evenhanded but advances an agenda, perhaps inadvertently, that is none of those things [ see Time Magazine Cover Story Promotes Christian Supremacy ]

"Why We Should Teach The Bible In Public School" starts off with a description of a Bible class at a Texas high school. By Time's favorable depiction, the class appears non-threatening....

I recently discussed an article from Mother Jones magazine, that reported on the religious right youth group, Teen Mania's Battle Cry project. The group is midway through a long schedule of events, some quite large. The remainder of thier schedule is below. Stadium events are in bold.  

Details are available at the Battle Cry web site.    

Further background at Acquire the Evidence.

San Francisco, CA  March 9-10
Norfolk, VA   March16-17
Muncie, IN   March16-17
Nashville, TN   March23-24
Miami, FL   March23-24
Dallas, TX   March30-31
Winston-Salem   March30-31
Detroit, MI   April 13-14
Kansas City, MO   April 20-21
Portland, OR    April 20-21
Denver, CO    April 27-28
San Diego, CA    April 27-28
Pittsburgh, PA    May 4-5
Tacoma, WA    May 4-5
Baltimore, MD   May 11- 12
Des Moines, IA   May 18-19

Blogging has a lot in common with playing the slots. We spend endless hours researching, writing, and then refining what we've written before pulling the lever one more time by hitting "submit." Most of the time we're lucky just to break even, but once in a while we hit the jackpot.

While driving home from work, I often listen to news radio and catch up with what has happened during the day. Last Thursday afternoon, KRLD 1080 alerted me to an upcoming story that already sounded familiar.

Lawmaker wants to pay women for choosing adoption over abortion

A proposal by state Sen. Dan Patrick would pay pregnant women $500 for choosing adoption over abortion.

The anti-abortion Houston Republican said Senate Bill 1567 would provide an incentive to forgo abortion, but critics questioned whether such payments would be viewed as baby selling or coercion.

That story sounded so familiar because I had posted it online in the wee hours of that very morning.

My mother was a public school teacher. My sister is a principal at a nonprofit high school for troubled teenagers. My wife teaches art in a public high school. Unsurprisingly, I think public schools are very important, crucial even, but I'm in good company.

Thomas Jefferson believed public schools were key to the success of American Democracy, and Dick DeVos probably believes that as well. In fact, that might be the very reason DeVos is trying to destroy public schools.

This is not a conspiracy theory - there's a long term plan, funded by AmWay/Quixtar fortune scion Dick DeVos, WalMart-fortune Walton family members, and others. The scheme seeks to undermine public education through the "school choice" movement, through the spread of charter schools and school vouchers, even, some argue, through the "No Child Left Behind" act.

Indeed, here's a handy website where you can read the latest moves in the war on public education... in your very own state.

According to the article this man is a friend to the current pope. This is from Naples news which offers a wealth inside dirt on Ave Maria, if you google the site specifically. Anyway, here is a portion of the article.

Top Ave Maria official dismissed By Daily News staff Originally published 2:55 p.m., March 21, 2007 Updated 4:41 p.m., March 21, 2007 The provost at Ave Maria University, once a student of the current pope, has been asked to resign his position immediately. Provost Joseph Fessio sent an e-mail shortly after 2 p.m. today to members of the Ave Maria community, saying he been asked to resign and leave the campus immediately. His brief e-mail reads: "To the Ave Maria University community: I have been asked to resign my position as provost and leave the campus immediately. I will miss Ave Maria and the many of you whom I hold dear. Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J."

If you scroll down, there is some interesting statements in the comments sections about what those differences might be. I found this comment to be particularly interesting.

Posted by bicoastal (anonymous) at 4:01 p.m. on March 21, 2007 (Suggest removal) AMU needs more money. ------------------------------------ School's slow growth prompts funding plea Costly tuition prices, lofty academic and maturity requirements and an inching accreditation process could stall the growth of Collier County's most ambitious project. In a recent letter to Ave Maria University supporters, Provost Joseph Fessio wrote that enrollment and retention numbers at the stringent, private Catholic college are low. The problems are contributing to "a probable added deficit," which he referred to as a "crisis." "It isn't that we did not plan for it," Fessio wrote in a letter, dated Oct. 18. "But as a situation unfolds, the problem (or sometimes even a crisis) becomes crystal clear." AMU needs more students. The ideal growth of the school and 5,000-acre town, to be located between Immokalee and Naples in eastern Collier County, depends on it. After disclosing a laundry list of problems the school has with recruitment and retention, Fessio made a serious plea to potential donors to fund merit and need-based scholarships so more students could have the opportunity to attend. "To that end, I'm starting a task force of Regents to raise money precisely for scholarships that will help us increase our enrollment and retention," Fessio wrote. "Without such a scholarship fund, we are going to incur deficits over the next few years which will be unsustainable." www.naplesnews.com

I think this is interesting because it indicates that wealthy opus dei members are just too narrow a customer base to sustain a university or a town. Not that this will phase the church hierarchy. Santorum seems to still believe his message has appeal dispite massive defeat. Anyway, if McCloskey and Monohan seriously want the church to dwindle down to just people who want to go to ave maria, they might end up with no church at all.

A Ugandan journalist offers a few sceptical observations concerning the upcoming visit of some US evangelists to the country:

A Palm Beach Post report on Sunday makes it crystal-clear that, as far as abortion is concerned, Florida - along with many other states - has already erased the separation between church and state by using public money to fund religious anti-abortion clinics.