Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

People For the American Way - Texas: “Patriot Pastors” for Perry, 2006

Texas is home to a pioneer of pulpit-based politics, Rick Scarborough, the former minister of First Baptist Church in Pearland and a long-time ally of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Scarborough’s efforts to “mobilize” pastors in politics go back at least as far as 1996, when he ran an ultraconservative-insurgency campaign for president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. (He lost.) In his book that year, Enough Is Enough, Scarborough described his success in creating a local political machine around his church, strongly urging his congregants to run for office at all levels: “At this writing, three members of our church serve on the city council. . . Four of our members serve on the school board. The city manager is a member of our church. The police chief is a member of our church. The assistant district attorney of Brazoria County is a member of our church. . .”[27]…

By 2004, Scarborough created his own network of “Patriot Pastors” to lead evangelicals to the polls for the 2004 election, and expanded it to at least 5,000 by the time Texas voters ratified a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in 2005. “One of my goals in life is to give the Republican Party courage,” he told The Washington Post during the debate over the “nuclear option” to push through Bush’s extremist judicial nominees.[29] At the same time, Scarborough’s Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration worked in Washington to push Bush’s judicial nominees, organizing a conference timed around the death of Terri Schiavo at which DeLay urged the impeachment of judges, and other speakers suggested execution.[30]

John Bazemore, AP

Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue and his wife, Mary, pray for rain for their drought-stricken state during a vigil in Atlanta Tuesday. “It’s time to appeal to Him who can and will make a difference,” Perdue said.

Georgia Governor Prays for Rain By GREG BLUESTEIN,
AP, November 13, 2007

ATLANTA (Nov. 13) — Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue stepped up to a podium outside the state Capitol on Tuesday and led a solemn crowd of several hundred people in a prayer for rain on his drought-stricken state.

“We’ve come together here simply for one reason and one reason only: To very reverently and respectfully pray up a storm,” Perdue said after a choir provided a hymn.Georgia and its neighboring states are caught in an epic drought that threatens public water supplies. Perdue has ordered water restrictions, launched a legal battle against the release of water from federal reservoirs and appealed to President Bush.

“It’s time to appeal to Him who can and will make a difference,” Perdue told the crowd.

The hourlong event was billed as an interfaith ceremony but only three Protestant ministers joined Perdue, who is a Baptist, and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle.

Nearby, some 20 demonstrators from the Atlanta Freethought Society staged a protest against the holding of a religious observance at the seat of state government.

Meteorologists said earlier this week there was a slight possibility of rain Tuesday, but less of a chance of precipitation was predicted for the rest of the week.

“I believe in miracles,” declared Pastor Maurice Watson of Beulahland Bible Church. “How about you?”

GreenvilleOnline.com -Local News-Bob Jones III endorses Romney for president - 10/16/2007

Dr. Bob Jones III, chancellor of the fundamentalist Christian university that bears his name, is looking past his religious differences with Gov. Mitt Romney and endorsing the Mormon for the Republican nomination for president, he told The Greenville News today.

“This is all about beating Hillary,” Jones said. “And I just believe that this man has the credentials both personally and ideologically in terms of his view about what American government should be to best represent the rank and file of conservative Americans.

“If it turns out to be Guiliani and Hillary, we’ve got two pro- choice candidates, and that would be a disaster.”

Asked whether Romney’s religion was a stumbling block for him, Jones replied, “What is the alternative, Hillary’s lack of religion or an erroneous religion?

“As a Christian I am completely opposed to the doctrines of Mormonism,” he said. “But I’m not voting for a preacher. I’m voting for a president. It boils down to who can best represent conservative American beliefs, not religious beliefs.”…

“As Christians we should not endorse a cult member as our president,” Wayne Owens Sr., a self-described rank-and-file conservative Christian said in an e-mail to The News. “Bob Jones’ basic premise is in error. It is not about beating Hillary. It’s about doing what is right.”

usafa.af.mil

The famous Air Force Academy cadet chapel, once a place of nondenominational worship and reflection, seems to have become a focal point of evangelical indoctrination and conversion.

Antoon, The Cancer From Within, Truthdig, November 7, 2007

Forty-two years ago, at the age of 18, I took the oath of office on my first day as an Air Force Academy cadet. The mission of the academy was not only to train future leaders for the Air Force but for America as well, because, in the end, most academy graduates do not serve full military careers. The honor code became an integral part of everyday life. These are the values that I, and most graduates of the 1960s and early ’70s, took with us from our four years at the academy.

I, as did many graduates, underwent pilot training followed by tours of duty in Vietnam. Like military men and women of today, we did our best to become technically competent and professional leaders. Never, during my four years at the academy and subsequent pilot and combat training, was the word warrior used; nor, whether as a cadet or officer, did I ever encounter “Christian supremacist” rhetoric.

In April of 2004, my son, after receiving a coveted appointment to the United States Air Force Academy, asked me to accompany him to the orientation for new appointees. This 24-hour visceral event changed my life forever, and crushed my son’s lifelong dream of following in my footsteps.

The orientation began with a one-hour “warrior” rant to appointees and parents by the commandant of cadets, Brig. Gen. Johnny Weida. The fact that the word warrior had replaced leadership was a signal of what was to follow. I later learned that cadets, to determine when a new record was established, had created a game in which warrior was counted in each speech Weida gave.

My son and I then made our way to the modernist aluminum chapel, where I expected to hear a welcome from one or two Air Force chaplains offering counsel, support and an open-door policy for any spiritual or pastoral needs of these future cadets. In 1966, the academy had six gray-haired chaplains: three mainline Protestants, two priests and one rabbi. Any cadet, regardless of religious affiliation, was welcome to see any one of these chaplains, who were reminiscent of Father Francis Mulcahy of “MASH” fame.

Instead, my son’s orientation became an opportunity for the academy to aggressively proselytize this next crop of cadets. Maj. Warren Watties led a group of 10 young, exclusively evangelical chaplains who stood shoulder to shoulder. He proudly stated that half of the cadets attended Bible studies on Monday nights in the dormitories and he hoped to increase this number from those in his audience who were about to join their ranks. This “invitation” was followed with hallelujahs and amens by the evangelical clergy. I later learned from Air Force Academy chaplain MeLinda Morton, a Lutheran who was forced to observe from the choir loft, that no priest, rabbi or mainline Protestant had been permitted to participate.

I no longer recognize the Air Force Academy as the institution I attended almost four decades earlier. At that point, I had no idea how invasive this extreme evangelical “cancer” had become throughout the entire military, that what I had witnessed was far from an isolated case of a few religious zealots.

Social conservatives fracture as Robertson endorses Giuliani, McClatchy Washington Bureau, November 7, 2007

WASHINGTON — Televangelist Pat Robertson endorsed Rudy Giuliani’s campaign Wednesday, a surprising embrace that underscored the divisions among Christian conservatives about the field of candidates for the Republican presidential nomination.

By itself, Robertson’s support of the former New York mayor was an unusual partnership between a Christian conservative who once blamed the 2001 terrorist attacks on American sins such as abortion and a social liberal who supports abortion rights and gay rights.

But coming the same day that another prominent Christian conservative — Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas — endorsed Sen. John McCain of Arizona, and two days after influential conservative Paul Weyrich endorsed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, it was a fresh sign that one of the most influential blocs of voters in the party remains splintered.

“The Christian paradox: How a faithful nation gets Jesus wrong” by Bill McKibben (Harper’s Magazine), October, 2005

For many Christians, deciphering a few passages of the Bible to figure out the schedule for the End Times has become a central task. You can log on to RaptureReady.com for a taste of how some of these believers view the world—at this writing the Rapture Index had declined three points to 152 because, despite an increase in the number of U.S. pagans, “Wal-Mart is falling behind in its plan to bar code all products with radio tags.” Other End-Timers are more interested in forcing the issue—they’re convinced that the way to coax the Lord back to earth is to “Christianize” our nation and then the world. Consider House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. At church one day he listened as the pastor, urging his flock to support the administration, declared that “the war between America and Iraq is the gateway to the Apocalypse.” DeLay rose to speak, not only to the congregation but to 225 Christian TV and radio stations. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “what has been spoken here tonight is the truth of God.”

Lisa Miller: OnFaith on washingtonpost.com

“Perfected Jews” may have been Coulter’s version of saying “completed Jews,” which in some conservative evangelical circles means Jewish converts to Christianity. The phrase came into the mainstream in the 1960s and 1970s, when it was popularized by groups like Jews for Jesus who claimed they could retain their Jewish identity and practice while at the same time believing in the divinity of Jesus (a claim that most mainstream Jewish theologians find ludicrous). For them, “completed” made better sense than “converted,” because in their view they weren’t abandoning their Jewishness. Today these same people use terms like “fulfilled Jews” or “believing Jews.” “By believing that Jesus is the promised Messiah of Israel, we’ve been completed in our Jewish identity by embracing the hope of our people,” says David Brickner, executive director of Jews for Jesus. The term “completed Jews” has filtered into the evangelical world. In 2001, the Christian addiction-treatment group Teen Challenge came under fire when an executive there said in a Senate hearing that some Jewish clients became “completed”–or Christian.

When you take a deep breath, you see that from a Christian perspective, the term “completed Jew” makes a certain kind of sense. For Christians, Jesus is the Messiah prophesied in the Pentateuch. He is the risen Lord and the way to salvation. For a Christian, the Torah is just half of the story. For a Jew, the Torah is the whole story; the phrase offends some Jews because it implies that without Jesus, they are incomplete or imperfect.

Here, then, is the question that underlies Coulter’s mouthing-off: why should I, a Jew, be offended because Coulter or any other Christian believes that her religion is superior to mine? The difference between Jews and Christians is 2,000 years old and rests on this fundamental: Christians believe that Jesus is the Messiah. Jews believe the Messiah is yet to come. Each group believes at some basic level that theirs is the right, best path, or they would choose a different one. In a nation that protects the religious freedom of all with all its might, at a time in history when Jews in America may proclaim their own religious truth without fearing for their lives, why not imagine a polite way to talk about our differences instead of pasting them over or throwing rhetorical bombs? The problem with Ann Coulter is not, in this particular case, that she thinks her way is more perfect than mine but that she incites and revels in hate talk for profit. Nobody’s perfect, least of all Coulter–and I’m not worried about what she thinks about me.

Raised arm of evangelical woman praying, by Christopher Morris/VII

Evangelical Movement, Presidential Election of 2008, New York Times, October 28, 2007

The hundred-foot white cross atop the Immanuel Baptist Church in downtown Wichita, Kan., casts a shadow over a neighborhood of payday lenders, pawnbrokers and pornographic video stores. To its parishioners, this has long been the front line of the culture war. Immanuel has stood for Southern Baptist traditionalism for more than half a century. Until recently, its pastor, Terry Fox, was the Jerry Falwell of the Sunflower State — the public face of the conservative Christian political movement in a place where that made him a very big deal.

With flushed red cheeks and a pudgy, dimpled chin, Fox roared down from Immanuel’s pulpit about the wickedness of abortion, evolution and homosexuality. He mobilized hundreds of Kansas pastors to push through a state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, helping to unseat a handful of legislators in the process. His Sunday-morning services reached tens of thousands of listeners on regional cable television, and on Sunday nights he was a host of a talk-radio program, “Answering the Call.” Major national conservative Christian groups like Focus on the Family lauded his work, and the Southern Baptist Convention named him chairman of its North American Mission Board.

Alex Koppelman, The Christian right vs. Giuliani | Salon News, October 19, 2007

Appearing on Fox News’ “Hannity & Colmes” shortly after news of the first meeting to discuss the possibility of a third-party candidacy in the event of Giuliani’s nomination, James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family, stood up strongly against co-host Sean Hannity, who noted that a third-party conservative challenge could produce a Clinton presidency. Questioned about the impact a Clinton administration would have on the courts, compared with Giuliani’s promises to appoint judges who would be acceptable to social conservatives, Dobson was dismissive. “It will be terrible, Sean,” Dobson said of the possibility that Hillary Clinton could make appointments to the Supreme Court. “But you’re taking Rudy’s word on his intention to appoint strict constructionists to the Supreme Court, and I would like to remind you that he has a terrible record in New York of appointing judges.”

In an interview with Salon, Janet Folger, the president of Faith2Action, said she didn’t support the idea of a third-party run, preferring former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who she believes will win the Republican nomination and the presidency. However, she warned that it’s her belief that even without a third candidate in the mix the nomination of either Giuliani or Mitt Romney would guarantee Republican defeat in the general election. “Hillary et al. will have an activated, motivated base, while our people at most will go pull a lever, then go home and take a shower,” Folger said. “They won’t do the heavy lifting necessary, and everyone involved in politics knows that it’s the pro-lifers who hammer in the signs and man the phone banks. We’re the ones who are most highly motivated because we’re the ones who want to stop the killing.”

Tim Rutten, Coulter’s anti-Semitic comment too dangerous to ignore, Los Angeles Times, October 13, 2007

Earlier this week, Coulter went on “The Big Idea,” a talk show aired on CNBC, the cable channel devoted to business news. Its host, Donny Deutsch, is a preternaturally affable businessman who invites successful people on to talk about how they turn their ideas into money. Coulter was there to describe how she had — in our vulgar commercial argot –”branded” herself. At one point, Deutsch asked her what an ideal country would be like, and she replied that it would be one in which everyone was “a Christian.” Deutsch, who happens to be Jewish, protested that Coulter was advocating his people’s elimination. She responded that she simply hoped to see Jews “perfected” through conversion to Christianity….

Meanwhile, Coulter was on the Kevin McCullough radio talk show, making the utterly absurd case that Deutsch somehow had ambushed her. On his blog later in the day, McCullough agreed. Deutsch, he said, “is an angry anti-Christian bigot, looking to make a name for himself by biting into Christian icons.”

Rosner, Is it okay for Ann Coulter to want all Jews to become Christian? - Haaretz, October 14, 2007

DEUTSCH: Christian - so we should be Christian? It would be better if we were all Christian?

COULTER: Yes.

DEUTSCH: We should all be Christian?

COULTER: Yes. Would you like to come to church with me, Donny?

AlterNet: Rights and Liberties: Southern Baptists Seek Laws Making ‘Will Of Christ’ Supreme, October 13, 2007

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the nation’s largest Protestant denomination whose leadership is a bulwark of far-right fundamentalism, is ratcheting up its political operations.

The Christian Index, Georgia’s state Baptist newspaper, recently carried an interesting and unusually frank report on the SBC’s lobbying outpost in Washington, D.C., just four blocks from the Capitol.

“It is in this environment,” says the newspaper, “that Southern Baptists have a significant presence through the ministry of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC). Richard Land, president of the ERLC, visits Washington often from his primary office in Nashville and is wielding an ever-increasing influence in his efforts to make the will of Christ supreme in public affairs.”

Land then insists that all he seeks is “a level playing field.”

“Does that mean,” asks Land, “that false religions have the same rights to express their opinions and their beliefs as we do? Sure. Let them come. I never saw Elijah backing away from a confrontation with the prophets of Baal. He just showed them the power of the One True God!”

Dana Milbank - Guess Who Came to the Evangelicals’ Dinner - washingtonpost.com, October 12, 2007

In the wildly popular “Left Behind” series of evangelical Christian novels, the Antichrist takes the form of the secretary general of the United Nations, sets up an abortion-promoting world government and becomes the Global Community Supreme Potentate.Last night, the National Association of Evangelicals met for dinner at the Sheraton in Crystal City. The keynote speaker? Why, the Antichrist himself.

Actually, the NAE, the umbrella group for the nation’s evangelical denominations, brought in the real U.N. secretary general, Ban Ki-moon of South Korea, not his fictional satanic equivalent, Nicolae Carpathia of Romania. But for the Rev. Richard Cizik, the NAE official who invited Ban, it was just about as daring. Evangelical Christians regard the United Nations’ blue helmets with about as much enthusiasm as Satan’s red horns.

Query for Rev. Coulter: Is the Pope Catholic?, Media Matters, June 7, 2006

In Ann Coulter’s world — as described in her new book Godless: The Church of Liberalism (Crown Forum) — Jews are Christians, but apparently Episcopalians are not.

A footnote on Page 3 of the book reads: “Throughout this book, I often refer to Christians and Christianity because I am a Christian and I have a fairly good idea of what they believe, but the term is intended to include anyone who subscribes to the Bible of the God of Abraham, including Jews and others.” [emphasis added]

Yes, you read that correctly. As far as Coulter is concerned, Jews are Christians. Mazel tov!

As for Episcopalians, they might be disheartened to learn that they will not be welcoming their newly Christian Jewish friends into the brotherhood of Christ, because they don’t quite measure up as a church. Coulter writes on Page 5, “Howard Dean left the Episcopal Church — which is barely even a church — because his church, in Montpelier, Vermont, would not cede land for a bike path.” [emphasis added]

On CNBC’s The Big Idea, Coulter said that “we” Christians “just want Jews to be perfected”, Media Matters, October 10, 2007

During the October 8 edition of CNBC’s The Big Idea, host Donny Deutsch asked right-wing pundit Ann Coulter: “If you had your way … and your dreams, which are genuine, came true … what would this country look like?” Coulter responded, “It would look like New York City during the [2004] Republican National Convention. In fact, that’s what I think heaven is going to look like.” She described the convention as follows: “People were happy. They’re Christian. They’re tolerant. They defend America.” Deutsch then asked, “It would be better if we were all Christian?” to which Coulter responded, “Yes.” Later in the discussion, Deutsch said to her: “[Y]ou said we should throw Judaism away and we should all be Christians,” and Coulter again replied, “Yes.” When pressed by Deutsch regarding whether she wanted to be like “the head of Iran” and “wipe Israel off the Earth,” Coulter stated: “No, we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say. … That’s what Christianity is.