Christian Right

McChurch Abuses the Tax Man

2008-03-13T19:31:00.001-05:00

Senator Backs Televangelist Probe

By ERIC GORSKI – 1 day ago

DENVER (AP) — The Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee has thrown his support behind an investigation of allegations of lavish spending and lax oversight at a half-dozen "prosperity gospel" Christian ministries.

Sen. Max Baucus of Montana joined with Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa in urging cooperation from four ministries questioned by Grassley in early November, according to a statement Wednesday from the Iowa senator's office.

Three of those ministries have pledged to fight the inquiry. The follow-up letters from the two senators gave them a March 31 deadline for turning over the requested information.

Having Baucus on board is crucial for any potential bid to seek subpoenas forcing answers from uncooperative ministries. Grassley critics, including Creflo Dollar, one of the ministers not cooperating, have portrayed the senator as a renegade who has no real power because his party is in the minority.

The follow-up letters do not mention subpoenas specifically but express hope that the requested information can be obtained "without resorting to compulsory process."

Some ministries have said Grassley's inquiries about private planes, oceanside mansions, board oversight and involvement in for-profit businesses should be handled by the Internal Revenue Service, but the latest letters cite the Finance Committee's jurisdiction measuring the effectiveness of tax-exempt policy, saying that role is distinct from the IRS job of enforcing existing law.

"This ought to clear up any misunderstanding about our interest and the committee's role," Grassley said. "We have an obligation to oversee how the tax laws are working for both tax-exempt organizations and taxpayers."

All the targeted ministries say they follow IRS rules governing churches.

So far only one ministry, led by St. Louis-area author and speaker Joyce Meyer, has "cooperated substantially" and turned over information, Grassley's office said.

Another, headed by Texas-based faith healer Benny Hinn, has indicated cooperation but so far has answered just five of 28 questions, Grassley's office said. A Hinn spokesman said Wednesday the church intends to answer all of Grassley's questions "in a timely fashion" and looks forward to a "speedy and cooperative resolution."

Neither Meyer nor Hinn were among those receiving the follow-up letters.

The letters were sent to Dollar and Bishop Eddie Long, both of the Atlanta area, and Kenneth Copeland, whose ministry is based at Newark, Texas.

All three have pledged to fight what they portray as an attack on their religious freedom. Some have expressed worry that private information, including salaries and the donors' identities, would be made public.

The letters from Baucus and Grassley say the committee is willing to work with them to protect confidential information.

A fourth letter went to Paula and Randy White of Tampa, who recently divorced and have said little publicly. Grassley's office said representatives of the Whites have indicated they will cooperate and their letter does not set a deadline for a response.

While Grassley has emphasized he is not interested in theology, Copeland and Dollar in particular have questioned whether he is targeting the ministries' shared prosperity theology. That teaching says that God wants people to flourish financially and spiritually.

The investigation has divided the broader evangelical community, with some worrying about the potential for stricter regulations on all religious nonprofits. Others praise it as an overdue check on a corner of the movement that preys on the vulnerable and thrives despite years of negative publicity.

Ken Behr, president of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, a voluntary group that sets financial standards for its members, said Wednesday that he has been contacted by "a few" of the ministries about the prospect of joining and one is applying to the council.

Behr said that for privacy reasons he couldn't identify the groups, which if they join would be required to disclose detailed reports about their income and spending and meet other standards.

Behr said he is encouraging the targeted televangelists to try to comply "while there is an offer of confidentiality being extended" by the Finance Committee for any materials provided.

"If it comes down to subpoenas," he said, "it won't be private anymore."

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McBush Seeks Absolution from McChurch

2008-03-12T20:23:00.001-05:00

Seeking Allies in Support for War, Bush Turns to Religious Broadcasters

Bob Allen
03-12-08

President Bush chose religious broadcasters as the first audience for a series of speeches linked to the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq next week and a progress report next month to Congress by Gen. David Petraeus.

"The decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision early in my presidency, it is the right decision at this point in my presidency, and it will forever be the right decision," the president said Tuesday at the National Religious Broadcasters convention in Nashville, Tenn.

The president at one point appealed to theology to defend his Iraq policy.

"We undertake this work because we believe that every human being bears the image of our maker," he said. "That is why we are doing this. No one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave. People of all faiths and all backgrounds deserve the chance at a future of their own choosing. That's what America believes."

He also said religious broadcasters can help "those who are on the front lines and those who struggle against evil" through prayer.

"I appreciate the fact that you pray for our troops and their families," the president said. "And I appreciate the prayers that you have directed my way. And I feel your prayer, and I can't tell you how meaningful they have been to help Laura and me do our job. And I can report to you this, that the prayers of the people have affected us and that being the president has been a joyous experience."

"I wish religious broadcasters would introduce the president to Jesus' teaching for Christians to pray for their enemies," said Robert Parham, executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics. "He seems to have missed the Christian imperative to love our enemies, especially whenever he justifies his preemptive war against Iraq and appeals to religious conservatives for their support."

"On the other hand, perhaps he knows Jesus' teaching and knows religious broadcasters don't pay any attention to the Sermon on the Mount," Parham continued. "Either way, he diminishes authentic faith, but he wrongfully uses theology for political gain and warmaking."

Bush told a supportive crowd of Christian communicators that conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq are different arenas in the same war against forces responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

"Some seem to believe that one of these battles is worth fighting and the other isn't," he said. "In other words there is a good war and a bad war."

But Bush said enemies "are fighting hard in both countries to seize power and impose their brutal vision."

"The theaters are part of the same war, the same calling, the same struggle," he said. "And that is why it is essential to succeed."

Bush said anyone doubting the importance of victory "need only imagine what would happen if we were driven out of Iraq before the job is finished."

"What would happen if they seized territory to be able to have safe haven?" he asked. "And what would happen if they seized oil fields and used wealth to attack America and our allies? These are vicious people, who know no bounds of humanity. They would not hesitate to murder. It is essential for our citizens to understand this. And that is why this war must be fought, and that is why this enemy must be defeated."

"I wish I didn't have to talk about war," Bush told religious broadcasters. "No president wants to be a war president, but when confronted with the realities of the world, I have made the decision that now is the time to confront, now is the time to deal with this enemy, and now is the time to spread freedom as the great alternative to the ideology they adhere to."

Bush also pledged to veto any attempt by Democrats in Congress to reinstate Fairness Doctrine regulations repealed 20 years ago requiring balance to controversial views on public airwaves.

"For some in Washington the only opinions that require balancing are the ones they don't like," he said. "We know who these advocates of so-called balance really have in their sights--shows hosted by people like Rush Limbaugh, James Dobson or many of you here today."

"By insisting on so-called balance they want to silence those they don't agree with," the president said. "The truth of the matter is they know they cannot prevail in the public debate of ideas. They don't acknowledge that you are the balance."

Bob Allen is managing editor of EthicsDaily.com.

McChurch Veering Left?

2008-03-10T19:10:00.000-05:00

Baptist leaders shift on climate change

By Rachell Zoll

ASSOCIATED PRESS

03/10/2008

NEW YORK — In a major shift, a group of Southern Baptist leaders said their denomination had been "too timid" on environmental issues and had a biblical duty to stop global warming.

The declaration, signed by the president of the Southern Baptist Convention among others and released today, shows a growing urgency about climate change even within groups that once dismissed claims of an overheating planet as a liberal ruse. The conservative denomination has 16.3 million members and is the largest Protestant group in the United States.

The signers of "A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change" acknowledged that not all Christians accepted the science behind global warming. However, the leaders said that current evidence of global warming was "substantial" and that the threat was too grave to wait for perfect knowledge about whether, or how much, people contribute to the trend.

"We believe our current denominational resolutions and engagement with these issues have often been too timid," according to the statement. "Our cautious response to these issues in the face of mounting evidence may be seen by the world as uncaring, reckless and ill-informed. We can do better."

No one speaks on behalf of all Southern Baptists, who leave decision-making to local churches. Yet, the signatories represent some of the top figures in the convention.

Among them are the denomination's president, the Rev. Frank Page of South Carolina; two former presidents, the Rev. James Merritt of Georgia and the Rev. Jack Graham of Texas; and the Rev. Ronnie Floyd of Arkansas, who helped conservatives solidify control of the denomination in the 1970s and 1980s. More than 35 people signed the statement.

Even before Monday's statement, religious activism on climate change had broadened beyond just liberal-leaning churches. The 1993 "Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation" became a guiding document for the Evangelical Environmental Network. The Rev. Rich Cizik, Washington director of the National Association of Evangelicals, became a prominent environmental advocate. Polls of younger evangelicals have found that they consider environmental protection a priority.

But many of the most conservative Christians, including some Southern Baptist leaders, remain skeptical, and vigorously challenge evangelical environmentalists.

The last Southern Baptist statement on global warming was approved at the denomination's 2007 annual meeting. It questioned the belief that humans are largely to blame for climate change and warned that increased regulation of greenhouse gases would hurt the poor.

Pitched Battle for McChurch

2008-03-04T10:15:00.001-05:00

www.washingtonpost.com

By David Kuo
Sunday, February 24, 2008; B01

Who will govern the new religious right?

History may look back at this Republican primary season and judge that answering that question -- not determining the nominee -- could be its greatest significance. Even if Sen. John McCain wins the race for the White House, he's likely, at his age, to be a one-term, caretaker president. But a newly reconstituted religious right will be helping determine who wins the presidency for decades. So whoever ends up heading it will potentially enjoy a much more powerful position.

That there's now a pitched battle for the soul of the religious right is a horrifying thought to Republican leaders long familiar with the old religious right, a hierarchical group dominated by larger-than-life figures who'd anointed themselves Jesus's political representatives. But that movement is withering at the top and in revolt at the grass-roots.

Jerry Falwell and D. James Kennedy, two of the most formidable religious right leaders of the past quarter-century, have died. Evangelical stalwarts James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family, and Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson are moving ever closer to retirement. Meanwhile, a slew of self-appointed political shepherds are becoming politically marginalized and out of touch with an increasingly independent evangelical flock.

Just look at this primary season. Even after Robertson endorsed him, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani got a paltry 2 percent of the evangelical vote in Iowa and an only slightly less measly 3 percent in South Carolina. Despite endorsements from leading figures on the right including Paul Weyrich and Bob Jones III, Mitt Romney could never overcome anti-Mormon sentiments, especially among Southern Baptists.

And Fred Thompson's campaign sputtered out despite enthusiasm from leading evangelicals who were confident that they knew where their sheep were going. Particularly misguided was Richard Land, head of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, who gushed last July, "I have never seen anything like this grass-roots swell for Thompson. I'm not speaking for Southern Baptists, but I do believe I have my hand on the pulse of Southern Baptists and I think I know where the consensus is." Wrong.

But saying that the old religious right is passing isn't the same as saying that the political movement of theologically conservative Christians is dead. Far from it.

Evangelicals are still the largest single voting bloc in the country. Demographersand political scientists agree that 10 to 20 years from now, there will be more self-described "born agains" in the United States than there are today, for simple reasons: Evangelical Christians are more likely to have larger families and more likely to bring new converts into the faith.

But what will this new religious right look like? And who will lead it? Here are some predictions.

It will probably be more progressive -- but not liberal. A late July online poll of 1,000 evangelicals from Beliefnet.com found that 60 percent identified themselves as part of a political movement interested more in "protecting the environment, tackling HIV/AIDS, alleviating poverty and promoting human rights and less on abortion and homosexuality." Among the issues most concerning them were reducing poverty, improving health care and education, and stopping torture.

Their progressivism, however, only goes so far. Seventy percent still said that ending abortion was important or very important; almost 50 percent opposed same-sex marriage.

That some evangelicals are enthusiastic about a more compassionate politics isn't new. After all, in 2000, a relatively young evangelical governor with a powerful story of personal redemption ran for president. He talked about poverty and education and reminded conservatives that government could be used for good, constructive purposes. I even recall that he pledged $8 billion a year in funding for faith-based charities.

What's new is how widespread social justice issues are in the evangelical world. Leading New Testament theologian N.T. Wright, a conservative, says that the greatest moral issue today is not abortion but the economic inequality between the United States and Europe and the developing world.

A trip to Africa that I recently took with a dozen evangelical writers underscored the evolution in evangelical thinking. Our group included men and women of varying ages, races and political orientation united by a common, orthodox evangelical theology. Some of us were long-time social justice advocates, but for many in the group -- especially those who were politically conservative -- it was a new and passionate cause. The most conservative among us were not about to vote for Barack Obama or Hillary Rodham Clinton, but they were vocal about demanding social justice policies from their conservative candidates.

It isn't likely to be Democratic -- yet. For all the talk about evangelicals moving to the Democratic Party, early evidence of this is scarce. Poll after poll has shown extreme evangelical distaste for Clinton, and there is scant statistical evidence to suggest that evangelicals are rushing to Obama.

Times may be changing, however, with younger evangelicals leading the way across the aisle. When a recent poll by Relevant, a magazine targeting evangelicals under 25, asked respondents who they believed "Jesus would vote for," a plurality said Obama. They also said they thought that Bill Clinton was a better president than George W. Bush has been and that illegal immigration was the most important issue facing the next president. "Young Christians simply don't seem to feel a connection to the traditional religious right," says Cameron Strang, the magazine's founder and publisher. "Many differ strongly on domestic policy issues -- namely issues that affect the poor -- and are dissatisfied with America's foreign policy and the war."

The new movement is likely to be more spiritually cautious and politically shrewd.

As Bush's presidency has foundered, evangelicals have started to take spiritual stock of their passionate support for their evangelical pastor in chief. First came the retreat. A review of Federal Elections Commission data from last fall revealed that only 30 percent of those who gave campaign money in 2004 contributed this time around to the campaigns of McCain, Huckabee, Romney, Guiliani or any of the other GOP candidates.

More significantly, preachers galore started telling their congregations to just say no to partisan politics. At the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., the pastor who succeeded the uber-political Ted Haggard has declared his pulpit "politics free." In Minnesota, evangelical mega-church pastor Greg Boyd preaches that the radical life of a Christian doesn't include politics. Meanwhile, evangelicalism's biggest star, Rick Warren, is decidedly absent from domestic politics, preferring to spend his time working on HIV/AIDS in Africa.

Bush's fall from grace has also highlighted a spiritual reality as evangelicals have begun to sense just how damaging the fusion of Bush and Jesus has been to the perception of our Christian faith.

Beliefnet's poll revealed that a third of all evangelicals now believe that Christian political activism is "damaging to Christianity." This isn't an isolated poll. As Christian pollster David Kinnaman writes, "The number of young people in our culture who now embrace unflattering perspectives about Christians and politics is astounding. Three-quarters of young [non-Christians] and half of young churchgoers describe present-day Christianity as 'too involved in politics.' " Twenty percent of all evangelicals believe that adopting a conservative Christian political agenda has helped destroy the image of Jesus Christ.

For a community of believers such as evangelicals, for whom sharing Jesus's life-giving message is an essential part of life, this is a shock. It's evidence of misplaced priorities, of focusing far more on the city of man than on the City of God. So as evangelicals reengage this election cycle, they are doing so with increased political shrewdness. In Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan and South Carolina, no candidate won a majority of evangelicals. They no longer want a pastor in chief.

Which makes Mike Huckabee just the man to lead them.

Several weeks ago, an evangelical friend said to me that he thought Huckabee wasn't really running for president -- he was running to be the next Pat Robertson. At first I scoffed at the notion. But the more I've watched Huckabee and thought about it, the less silly the suggestion has sounded.

In 1988, Robertson ran for president and then ended up launching the Christian Coalition, the most influential religious right organization in history. Robertson's run brought more than a million new evangelicals to the polls and to his mailing list, which he handed over to a brilliant young political operative named Ralph Reed. And the rest is history.

So it's not impossible that when Huckabee is done not being the GOP nominee, he might just sit back, look at his list of donors and the gaping hole in leadership on the religious right and decide it's not so bad being king . . . maker.

David Kuo, former deputy director of the White House Office on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, is the author of "Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction."

dkuoblog@mac.com

"Of the Writing of Books, There Will Be No End"

2008-01-29T21:00:00.000-05:00

Authors plumb American politics for God's sake

By Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY

Ever since phrases such as "values voters" and "God Gap" were coined during the 2004 presidential election, authors from the spiritual and political left, right and center have been writing about faith and politics. Now, in time for the 2008 campaign, there's a raft of new titles by preachers, politicians, pollsters and partisans, historians, sociologists, journalists and more. USA TODAY scans some of the new and upcoming titles.

The Future of Faith in American Politics

By David Gushee, a Southern Baptist, professor of Christian Ethics at McAfee School of Theology, Mercer University

Gushee makes a scholarly but accessible argument for recognizing an evangelical "center." Its agenda is broader than the so-called religious right on moral issues, less driven by the anti-poverty, anti-war stance of the evangelical left, and most focused on consensus issues such as the environment.

Excerpt: "We have to grow up — past conspiracy theories, demagoguery, single-issue voting, partisan seductions, mudslinging, and God-and-country conflations and confusions. We have to get past one-sided voting guides, political handicapping in the name of Christ, endorsements or quasi-endorsements from the pulpit …"

Culture Shift: Engaging Current Issues With Timeless Truth

By the Rev. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, widely considered the intellectual voice of the nation's largest Protestant denomination

Mohler takes a hatchet to secularism (one chapter is titled "The Post-truth Era") to make a short, sharp case — drawing on a wide range of historical, academic and pop-culture sources — for why public law must be based in Christian morality. He argues conservative Christians should be engaged in bringing the message of the Bible's "absolute truth" into public policy.

Excerpt: "We cannot buy into the cherished myth of autonomous individualism and we cannot compromise with a worldview based on the assumption that truth is relative or socially constructed."

Founding Faith: Providence, Politics and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America (in stores March 11)

By Steven Waldman, co-founder of Beliefnet.com

Did the Founding Fathers intend the United States to be a Christian nation? Waldman, who leans toward James Madison's vision of "tolerance and pluralism," says both the left and right are often wrong or short-sighted. He moves forward from the Founders to examine the impact of the Civil War in extending all liberties, including the separation of church and state, from the federal to the state levels.

Excerpt: "Those who are angry that God has been 'kicked out' of the public schools shouldn't blame the ACLU or, for that matter, Thomas Jefferson — but Abraham Lincoln and General Grant. The decisive blow against prayer in school came when Lee surrendered at Appomattox."

Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite

By D. Michael Lindsay, assistant professor of sociology, Rice University

Lindsay interviewed 360 prominent evangelicals to examine how their religious perspective, once shunned by the cultural mainstream, became so influential in church life, politics and business. He says evangelicals represent two streams: the simple, pragmatic populist approach taken by figures such as Focus on the Family's James Dobson, and the new "cosmopolitan evangelicals" such as the Rev. Rick Warren.

Excerpt: "Cosmopolitan evangelicals have greater access to powerful institutions, and the social networks they inhabit are populated by leaders from government, business, and entertainment. As one leader described it, this is 'move-the-dial Christianity'…"

The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon in America

By David Domke, communications professor at theUniversity of Washington, and Kevin Coe, who teaches American politics and mass media at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Domke and Coe dissect the public rhetoric of politicians to show how they have used religious signals in vocabulary, biblical references and moral arguments to drive their political agendas from the New Deal era to the new Congress in 2006. Through massive data including word count charts, the authors find both Republicans and Democrats make "calculated, deliberate, and partisan use of faith." They predict this God Strategy will adapt to the rise of "religious centrists" to reach "both devout believers and the broader citizenry."

Excerpt: "Whether religious or political, Americans are always looking for a savior."

Red Letter Christians: A Citizen's Guide to Faith & Politics (in stores Friday)

By the Rev. Tony Campolo, an American Baptist associate pastor in west Philadelphia, and a sociologist active on the "evangelical left"

Christians who rely on Jesus' own words (printed in red letters in some Bibles) should be politically active but not tied to any party, says Campolo. In short chapters, he sprints through hot topics of the times, from gay rights to gun control to campaign finance, mulling what Jesus and the Hebrew prophets would say.

Excerpt: "What differentiates Red Letter Christians from other Christians is our passionate commitment to social justice — hence, our intense involvement in politics."

The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post-Religious Right America

By the Rev. Jim Wallis, theologian and founder of Sojourners, a faith and justice network based in Washington, D.C.

Wallis, the voice of the progressive evangelical left, follows up his 2006 best seller, God's Politics, with a look at how believers from the political left are now challenging the religious right on public policy, particularly on poverty, the Iraq war and the environment. His book, laden with anecdotes, claims this groundswell of progressive believers could accomplish social transformation that mere politics cannot deliver.

Excerpt: "So many people are fed up with both parties, deeply alienated by the corruption and hypocrisy that now dominate politics, yet are ready for serious public engagement on the issues that stir their deepest values and convictions."

A New Kind of Conservative

By the Rev. Joel C. Hunter, pastor of Northland, a non-denominational megachurch in Longwood, Fla.

Hunter is firmly conservative on abortion, homosexuality and most other issues on the religious right platform. But he splits from the right, calling it polarizing, limited, intellectually shallow and politically ineffective. He says the strength of the "Christian citizen" is in "individual spiritual maturity above group political fixes," in service rather than in political power.

Excerpt: "Unless Christians can be taught to explain their values and their voting decisions in an intellectually credible way to those who disagree, they will not create understanding, let alone growth."

Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2008-01-28-god-and-politics_N.htm

Huckabee - First Choice Among Rubes

2008-01-01T13:33:00.000-05:00

Huckabee defends Christmas ad, jokes about subliminal message of white cross

Updated: 3:59 PM ET Dec 18, 2007

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee on Tuesday defended his Christmas ad amid suggestions that the ordained Baptist minister had gone too far mixing religion and politics.

The ad, which is airing in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, shows Huckabee in front of a Christmas tree as he says, "Are you about worn out by all the television commercials you've been seeing, mostly about politics? Well, I don't blame you. At this time of year sometimes it's nice to pull aside from all of that and just remember that what really matters is the celebration of the birth of Christ and being with our family and friends."

Huckabee is courting evangelical voters and other religious conservatives in his bid to win the Iowa caucuses Jan. 3. In Texas for a fundraiser, he said the ad was a harmless holiday greeting even though it excludes other religions.

"If we are so politically correct in this country that a person can't say enough of the nonsense with the political attack ads could we pause for a few days and say Merry Christmas to each other then we're really, really in trouble as a country," Huckabee said.

Catholic League president Bill Donahue said Huckabee went beyond wishing people a joyous holiday. Donahue said he was especially disturbed by the cross-like image created by a white bookcase in the background of the ad, saying he believed it was a subliminal message.

"What he's trying to say to the evangelicals in western Iowa (is): I'm the real thing," Donahue said Tuesday on Fox News Channel's "Fox and Friends. "You know what, sell yourself on your issues, not on what your religion is."

Huckabee said the bookshelf is just a bookshelf and shrugged off the controversy: "I will confess this: If you play the spot backwards it says, 'Paul is dead. Paul is dead.'"

He was joking about the Beatles' recording of "The White Album" and the urban legend that if a portion of the album is played backwards, the words "Paul is dead" is heard, a reference to the very much alive Paul McCartney.

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/80772

Republican Litmus Test for President

2007-12-12T21:06:00.000-05:00

December 9, 2007

Fear and Faith

A Mormon’s Ultimate Doorbell

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

IT is probably not to his advantage that Mitt Romney’s clean-scrubbed, youthful presence so readily reminds voters of those earnest Mormon missionaries knocking on their doors.

If it were almost any other church, a missionary past would most likely be an asset for a presidential candidate. To have spent two years in mission work after high school is a sign of early and admirable idealism, commitment and strength of character.

But to many American Christians, those friendly Mormon missionaries embody exactly what they fear and resent about Mormonism. And Mr. Romney, after nearly a year of graciously sidestepping invitations to a theological duel, may have engaged it despite himself last week by giving a speech on faith the likes of which hasn’t been heard since John F. Kennedy took on voters’ fears of Catholicism in 1960. While Mr. Romney uttered the word “Mormon” only once, he jump started the discussion about what makes Mormonism problematic for some Americans.

From the start of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in upstate New York 180 years ago, missionaries have been spreading the message that Christianity lost its way and Mormonism restores the Christian church to its rightful path. The first prophet of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, essentially threw down the gauntlet to the other churches. He was killed at the hands of a mob.

But the prophet begat apostles, and their converts begat converts — energetic, courageous types who ventured as far as Hawaii, England, Brazil and Tonga to evangelize. Today, the church counts more than 12 million members, of whom about 5.5 million are Americans. Internationally, about 70 percent of Mormons are converts.

Mormons are still but a drop in the bucket of 2.1 billion Christians worldwide (Mormons say they are Christians, a point of contention for their Christian critics). Nevertheless there are some Christians who foresee a Mormon tidal wave, and they picture Mr. Romney riding its crest — even though he has repeatedly said he would not use his office to advance his faith.

“His candidacy alone has been a long infomercial for the Mormon cult,” said Bill Keller, an evangelist in Florida who runs an Internet prayer network. “As president he’s going to carry the influence of that office, not just here but worldwide, and there’s no denying it’s going to lead people to check out that religion, which according to biblical Christianity, will lead them ultimately to hell.”

Mike Licona, the director of apologetics and interfaith evangelism at the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, is publishing a three-part series on what he sees as errors in Mormon teachings. The most troubling, he said in an interview, is the Mormon concept of multiple gods, and the belief that men can become gods of their own worlds.

The church has walked a fine line for years between emphasizing what it has in common with traditional Christianity and not shying away from its distinctions. (The church’s own explanations of its beliefs, of course, differ from those of its detractors.) Realizing that having a Mormon run for president would raise questions, the headquarters in Salt Lake City posted explanations of church history and doctrine on its Web site. The church does not endorse candidates.

The rhetoric of those like Mr. Keller is extreme, and his use of the term “cult” naturally offends Mormons and others. But he is voicing feelings shared by Christians in other denominations who fret that a Mormon presidency could attract converts to a faith they perceive as a heretical rival.

One in four Americans tell pollsters they have qualms about voting for a Mormon. Among evangelical Christians, it is one in three — a factor that could have an impact in Republican primaries in states like Iowa and South Carolina. Of course, anti-Mormon sentiment is not exclusive to evangelicals, since Mormon theology is a challenge to all Christian denominations. But evangelicals, as active proselytizers and missionaries themselves, appear to be leading the charge.

“There will always be a segment of evangelical Christianity that doesn’t trust anything Mormons say,” said Richard J. Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary, an evangelical school in Pasadena, Calif. “They don’t even trust it when the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sings ‘Silent Night.’ ”

Dr. Mouw has been criticized by some fellow evangelicals for his continuing participation in a friendly dialogue between evangelical and Mormon scholars. But asked why the hostility to Mormonism is so enduring, he said that there is a “history of nastiness” between the sides that stretches back to Smith’s declaration that the Christian concept of the Trinity — Father, Son and Holy Ghost — was a great apostasy.

“In the 1840’s we immediately responded in kind and accused Mormonism of being Satanic and inspired by the devil,” Dr. Mouw said. “So you have basically 170, 180 years of harsh, angry, denunciatory rhetoric between the camps that has set the whole tone.”

Today there is no armed mob, but there remains a complex brew of fear, ignorance and hostility about Mormonism. The ignorance itself should not be underestimated: it is surprising how many Mormons say they have been mistaken for Amish. Polygamy remains an issue, even though the church disavowed it 117 years ago. Racism is also an issue, since it was not until 1978 that the church opened its priesthood to blacks. But don’t forget that it was only in the 1990s that many Southern churches asked forgiveness for their segregationist stance — and received it.

Christian talk shows and Web sites are now buzzing about Mormonism, discussions glazed with conspiratorial allusions to “what Romney didn’t say.”

Some prominent evangelicals are nevertheless backing the campaign, confident in his declaration that he is running for president, not “pastor in chief.” But all the attention to religious affiliation may undermine that noble approach.

Many voters trying to choose between Mr. Romney and Mike Huckabee may not perceive the contest as governor versus governor. They will see it as grown-up Mormon missionary versus Southern Baptist preacher, and they will not vote for what scares them.

McChurch - Uneasy Over Congressional Inquiry

2007-12-04T16:17:00.001-05:00

Go to Google News

Questions Surround TV Preacher Inquiry

By RACHEL ZOLL – 12 hours ago

Among the many conservative Christians who feel misunderstood by the general public, the six televangelists under investigation by a Senate committee are an embarrassment.

The ministers' on-air faith healings and fundraising, backed by self-serving misinterpretations of Scripture, reinforce offensive stereotypes of greedy preachers and their unquestioning followers, critics say.

But traditional Christians aren't universally celebrating the inquiry. Some are wondering whether the investigation led by Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa is the right way to end any wrongdoing, especially if the result is more government oversight of all ministries.

"We're not representing any of the parties involved, but when I see a senator charging into organizations, wielding this kind of budget ax and laying bare religious figures and expenditures, huge constitutional questions are being raised," said Garry McCaleb, senior counsel at the Alliance Defense Fund, a religious liberty legal group founded by James Dobson of Focus on the Family and other influential evangelicals.

Craig Parshall, senior vice president and general counsel for the National Religious Broadcasters, a trade association, said the questions that Grassley sent the six ministries about their finances were too broad. None of the televangelists is a member of the NRB.

"We don't have any inside information of the financial workings of the six ministries involved," Parshall said. "What we're concerned about is the future of Christian broadcasting and Christian ministries — nonprofit ones — if this inquiry is either broadened or ratcheted up and hearings are held and new legislation is considered."

Grassley, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, has asked the ministries to submit records by Friday on compensation, board oversight and perks — from oceanside homes and expensive furniture to flights on private jets. IRS rules for nonprofits prevent pastors and other insiders from excessive personal gain through their tax-exempt work. Even so, the groups are not legally required to disclose financial information to the Senate.

The ministries under review include Randy and Paula White of Without Walls International Church and Paula White Ministries of Tampa, Fla.; Benny Hinn of World Healing Center Church Inc. and Benny Hinn Ministries of Grapevine, Texas; David and Joyce Meyer of Joyce Meyer Ministries of Fenton, Mo.; Kenneth and Gloria Copeland of Kenneth Copeland Ministries of Newark, Texas; Bishop Eddie Long of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church and Bishop Eddie Long Ministries of Lithonia, Ga.; and Creflo and Taffi Dollar of World Changers Church International and Creflo Dollar Ministries of College Park, Ga.

All the ministries preach a form of Word of Faith theology, known as prosperity gospel, which effectively teaches that God wants believers to be rich. The ministries have said separately that they are committed to following the tax laws, but it is not known whether they will all comply with Grassley's request by the deadline.

"This has nothing to do with church doctrine," said Grassley, who has been investigating nonprofit compliance with the tax code for years. "This has everything to do the with tax exemption of an organization."

But Grassley irked some religious leaders when he quipped about the lifestyles of the preachers under investigation, saying Jesus road into Jerusalem on a donkey, not a Rolls Royce.

J. Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty in Washington, said he believes Grassley has "the best of motives," but his donkey comment gave the impression that the inquiry pits one religious view against another.

"They're supposed to enforce the law evenhandedly without regard at all to religious expression," Walker said. "There is a fear of government theologizing and government overreacting to isolated problems."

Conservative Christians have worked hard for years to avoid this exact type of inquiry. In the late 1970s, then-Sen. Mark Hatfield of Oregon told influential Christians that they should create a voluntary financial watchdog agency to keep the government largely out of their work.

The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability was formed in 1979, requiring its members to fully disclose their finances to donors. None of the six televangelists belongs to the group, according to its president, Kenneth Behr.

Pentecostal leaders and defenders of Christian orthodoxy have also challenged the TV preachers about their lifestyles or beliefs.

Hank Hanegraaff, president of the Christian Research Institute, an evangelical apologetics group in Charlotte, N.C., has written and spoken extensively for more than a decade about what he considers the dangers of teachings by Hinn, Meyer, Dollar and others.

But even he says he has concerns about the impact of the Grassley investigation.

"I can assure you," said Walker, of the Baptist Joint Committee, "that people are watching this very closely."

McChurch - Uneasy Over Congressional Inquiry

2007-12-04T16:17:00.000-05:00

Go to Google News

Questions Surround TV Preacher Inquiry

By RACHEL ZOLL – 12 hours ago

Among the many conservative Christians who feel misunderstood by the general public, the six televangelists under investigation by a Senate committee are an embarrassment.

But Grassley irked some religious leaders when he quipped about the lifestyles of the preachers under investigation, saying Jesus road into Jerusalem on a donkey, not a Rolls Royce.

Pentecostal leaders and defenders of Christian orthodoxy have also challenged the TV preachers about their lifestyles or beliefs.

But even he says he has concerns about the impact of the Grassley investigation.

"I can assure you," said Walker, of the Baptist Joint Committee, "that people are watching this very closely."

McChurch - Caught Between Greed and Need

2007-11-16T10:09:00.000-05:00

God's Economics: Choosing Who Gets What

John McKinnon
11-05-07

Economics is like a game of musical chairs. There are not enough chairs in the world for everyone to have as many as they would like. But rather than play music and race to the nearest chair, we have an auction, and those with the most money buy their chairs while those without are left standing.

Assuming that Earth's resources are scarce (not enough to satisfy everyone's wants, as opposed to everyone's needs) and that there are competing uses for them, economics is essentially about determining who gets what. The dominant economic system in the world today claims the best way to allocate these scarce resources is through the market--supply and demand. Whoever pays the most gets the goods. Hence the rich world spends more on ocean cruises than it would cost to provide safe water to the one billion people going without.

Can this be right? Is there a biblical alternative? Is there such a thing as God's economics?

In fact, the Bible has plenty to say on these two fundamental points. As Christians, we need to know the Scriptures, and speak and live prophetically--challenging the dominant but ungodly ruling paradigms of this world.

So, first, is there not enough to go around? Walter Brueggemann reminds us that God created a world that was ordered, abundant, fruitful and very good, good enough to provide for its inhabitants. Passages such as Psalm 104 celebrate God's abundant provision. As Brueggemann says: "The psalm makes clear that we don't need to worry. God is utterly, utterly reliable. The fruitfulness of the world is guaranteed."

Where did this notion of scarcity come from? Our greediness leads us to always want more and we fear that we will never have enough. In the desert God provided manna for the Israelites to eat. There was enough for everyone. When they followed the myth of scarcity and tried to hoard the manna, it turned sour and rotted. They did not need to continually struggle to get more. God would provide.

Jesus continues the battle against the myth of scarcity. In Matthew 6:24-34 he states that we cannot serve God and money. We cannot spend our lives striving to get more; to "have enough." And we don't need to. "Do not worry," he says. "Look at the birds." (Matthew 6:25, 26).

Luke precedes his version of the same discourse with the story of the Rich Fool: the hoarder who never has enough, who lives his life according to the myth of scarcity (Luke 12:13-21). God calls the man a fool.

Twice in Mark's Gospel we read of Jesus feeding crowds with a few loaves and fish (Mark 6:30-44, Mark 8:1-13), demonstrating through the miraculous multiplication of food the principle that God has provided enough for all.

Paul understood this as well. When discussing his collection for the believers in Jerusalem he highlights God's economics. Though Jesus was rich, Paul says, "Yet for your sakes he became poor, that by his poverty you might become rich" (2 Corinthians 8:9). The aim of Paul's collection was that "the one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little." Paul is quoting from Exodus, from the story of the manna. He understood that God has provided enough; we just need to share.

So, according to the Bible, the world's resources are not scarce, they are enough. But how do we determine who gets what? For many, the laws of supply and demand have found divine approval in a privatized Christianity of individualism and personal freedom. However, God calls us to be a community, a people, a society who collectively live out the values of his Kingdom. Do the original people of God, the Israelites, have anything to teach us on this?

Old Testament scholar Christopher J.H. Wright emphasizes that while we are not to imitate Israel's laws, neither are we to ignore them. They act as a model for us, an example of God's timeless principles of love and justice. Therefore the Sabbath rest, debt cancellation and slave emancipation are relevant biblical principles for Christians. The Jubilee restoration of land is relevant to us.

The Old Testament law recognized that full equality was impracticable. There are many reasons why some people become poor and others rich. These include natural causes (drought, floods) accidents and human sinfulness (greed, oppression and laziness). However, God ensured that the subsequent inequalities are neither permanent nor exacerbated over time. The Jubilee was not about charity but about restoring to families the ability to provide for themselves again.

In Deuteronomy 15, Moses writes that the there should be no poor among the Israelites. There is plenty to go around. However, he acknowledges that things will go wrong ("there will always be poor in the land"). In these cases they are to be "openhanded towards your brothers and towards the poor and needy in your land." Generosity and Jubilee restoration limited inequality and prevented exploitation.

Ownership of land in Israel was never absolute. It was owned by God for the benefit of the people. Its purpose was not profit maximization, but community well being. Similarly, security on loans could not be enforced if people were left without adequate shelter or clothing. In God's economy, people come first. Assets, whether land or finances, exist to provide livelihoods for all, not to create wealth, indifferent to inequality or suffering.

Modern applications of these principles may require some creative thinking, but the principles of restoring opportunity and sharing resources are at the heart of God's economics and are as applicable today as in the ancient world. If we abandon the myth of scarcity and start to live in the truth of God's abundance, then we need not fear generosity and redistribution. God has shown us an economic alternative. Do we have the faith, courage and creativity to live prophetically as God's people in a corrupt world?

John McKinnon is NSW state coordinator for Tear Australia. This article, from Soundings, a publication of the Centre for Christian Ethics, first appeared in TEAR's Target magazine, Issue 4, 2007.

McChurch - Values Voters with No Values

2007-10-21T19:03:00.000-05:00

America's 'Values' Voters Stand Out

Conservative social-issue voters will descend on the nation’s capital Friday to hear Republican presidential contenders and a Democratic candidate speak about their social values. And these social-issue voters have distinctive characteristics such as being religious, Republican and conservative, according to a Pew analysis this week.

Fri, Oct. 19, 2007 Posted: 08:21:50 AM EST

WASHINGTON – Conservative social-issue voters will descend on the nation’s capital Friday to hear Republican presidential contenders and a Democratic candidate speak about their social values. And these social-issue voters have distinctive characteristics such as being religious, Republican and conservative, according to a Pew analysis this week.

Nearly half (43 percent) of Republican voters, many of whom are conservative Christians, say social issues will be very important in their vote for president – a higher proportion than the general public who care more about the Iraq war and domestic issues such as the economy and health care, according to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

But Republican social-issue voters differ in many ways even from other GOP voters. For instance, they are more religious and more conservative than other Republicans. This group is also somewhat less likely than others in their political party to express a positive view of current Republican frontrunner Rudy Giuliani.

According to Pew, white evangelical Protestants compose 37 percent of all Republican voters and a majority (55 percent) of Republican social-issue voters. Smaller percentages consists of white mainline Protestants (13 percent) or white non-Hispanic Catholics (14 percent).

Republican social-issue voters are more likely to be involved in church activities with seven out of ten attending religious services at least once a week – or nearly double the rate of other Republican and Republican-leaning voters (39 percent).

However, social-issue voters tend to be less educated and less affluent compared to overall Republican voters. Half of them (51 percent) said they are part of the working class, compared with 38 percent among other Republican voters. Social-issue voters also were more likely to be women (52 percent) than among other Republican voters (42 percent).

More strikingly, a full 80 percent, or four-in-five social-issue voters, say they are politically conservative, a level 20 points higher than among other Republican voters (58 percent).

In particular, social-issue voters are much more conservative than other Republicans and Republican-leaning voters on issues such as abortion, stem cell research, and gay “marriage.”

More than eight in ten (81 percent) social-issue voters oppose legalized abortion in most or all cases, with 41 percent saying abortion should be illegal in all cases. There was less consensus among other Republicans with only 42 percent saying abortion should be illegal in all or most cases.

In terms of allowing homosexual people to “marry,” over 90 percent of social-issue voters are opposed, with 70 percent strongly opposed. In comparison, only 63 percent of other Republicans are opposed, with only 29 percent strongly opposed to gay “marriage.”

A marked difference of 41 points between Republican social-issue voters and other Republicans separate those from each group who said they are strongly opposed to gay “marriage.”

Meanwhile, two in three social-issue voters oppose stem cell research compared to 38 percent of other Republicans.

On the candidates themselves, social-issue voters and other Republicans tend to have similar views on the current Republican presidential contenders with the exception of former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani. A ten point difference separates the two groups with other Republicans tending to have a more favorable view of Giuliani (88 percent v. 78 percent).

Fred Thompson is the current favorite among social-issue voters with 90 percent of this group having a favorable view of the former Tennessee senator.

President George W. Bush is also viewed favorably by 86 percent of social-issue voters.

“Though social-issue voters clearly are distinctive in several ways, the exact nature of their impact on the GOP nominating process is unclear,” Pew noted. “Whether they will unite behind a particular candidate, and how this might affect the Republican nomination process and ultimately the general election, remains to be seen.”

Participants of the Oct. 19-21 “Values Voters Summit,” sponsored by the Family Research Council, will feature the qualities described in Pew’s recent survey.

Those at the values voter summit will look for a candidate who shares similar values, which for most include pro-life, pro-marriage, and pro-family principles.

The event is said to be the largest nationwide gathering of values voters and will feature all the Republican presidential candidates as well as Democratic contender Bill Richardson. It also provides a straw poll that will be announced late Saturday of who social conservatives are currently leaning towards.

Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council, predicts at least one candidate will emerge from the Values Voter Summit with major support from social conservatives, who thus far have failed to rally behind a single candidate

Jennifer Riley
Christian Post Reporter

McChurch - "America Saves!"

2007-10-05T08:08:00.000-05:00

The Founders Intended A Christian, Not Secular, Society
By Michael Medved
Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Senator John McCain’s recent comments about America’s heritage as a “Christian nation” ignited an ill-tempered blast of self-righteous condemnation – a reaction that highlighted the widespread misunderstandings, distortions and downright ignorance surrounding the nation’s founders and their view of religion’s role in society.

Asked a question about a recent poll that showed 55% of the public believing that “the Constitution establishes a Christian nation,” McCain responded: “I would probably have to say yes, that the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation. But I say that in the broadest sense. The lady that holds her lamp beside the golden door doesn’t say, ‘I only welcome Christians.’ We welcome the poor, the tired, the huddled masses. But when they come here they know that they are in a nation founded on Christian principles.”

The National Jewish Democratic Council, a partisan group affiliated with the Democratic Party, denounced McCain’s remarks as “repugnant.” The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) said that the Arizona Senator’s comments went “against the traditions of American pluralism and religious pluralism and inclusion.” The general counsel of the mainstream American Jewish Committee declared that “to argue that America is a Christian nation… puts the very character of our country at stake.”

Meanwhile, Charles Haynes, senior scholar at the Freedom Forum’s First Amendment Center, made the most sweeping and profoundly misleading comments. Regarding the poll that provoked the McCain controversy in the first place, he noted that its results “suggest that a great many people have deeply misunderstood the Constitution. The framers clearly wanted to establish a secular nation…”

Like so many other commonly held convictions about the role of faith in the nation’s founding this politically correct contention isn’t just confused and unfocused; it is, rather, appallingly, demonstrably and inarguably wrong.

In order to put today’s church-state controversies into proper perspective, we must first clear-away some of the ubiquitous misinformation that pollutes are present public discourse. Honest historians and fair-minded observers will acknowledge eight undeniable and sometimes uncomfortable truths:

1. THE FOUNDERS NEVER “WANTED TO ESTABLISH A SECULAR NATION.” In fact, they repeatedly and insistently averred that the survival of liberty and the prosperity of the United States required a deeply religious society and a populace passionately committed to organized faith. In his Farewell Address of 1797, President Washington (who had also served as presiding officer of the Constitutional Convention) unequivocally declared that “reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle…Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” His successor as president, John Adams (also known as “The Atlas of Independence”) wrote to his wife Abigail in 1775: “Statesmen may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand.

A patriot must be a religious man.” Thomas Jefferson, who disagreed with Adams on so many points of policy, clearly concurred with him on this essential principle. “God who gave us life gave us liberty,” he wrote in 1781. “And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God?” Jefferson’s friend and colleague, James Madison (acclaimed as “The Father of the Constitution”) declared that “religion is the basis and Foundation of Government,” and later (1825, after retiring from the Presidency) wrote that “the belief in a God All Powerful, wise and good…. is essential to the moral order of the World and the happiness of men.”

Far from insisting on a “secular nation,” the founders clearly believed that any reduction in the public’s fervent and near universal Christian commitment would bring disastrous results to the experiment in self-government they had sacrificed so much to launch. Elias Boudinot of New Jersey, who served as President of the Continental Congress in the last stages of the Revolution (1782-83 wrote: “Our country should be preserved from the dreadful evil of becoming enemies of the religion of the Gospel, which I have no doubt, but would be the introduction of the dissolution of government and the bonds of civil society.”

2. THE FOUNDERS DIDN’T EVEN WANT A SECULAR GOVERNMENT, AS WE UNDERSTAND THAT PHRASE TODAY. John Marshall, the father of American Jurisprudence and for 34 epochal years (1801-35) the Chief Justice of the United States, wrote: “The American population is entirely Christian, and with us Christianity and Religion are identified. It would be strange indeed, if with such a people, our institutions did not presuppose Christianity, and did not often refer to it, and exhibit relations with it.” His colleague on the court (1796-1811), Justice Samuel Chase, delivered an opinion (Runkel v. Winemill) in 1799 declaring: “Religion is of general and public concern, and on its support depend, in great measure, the peace and good order of government, the safety and happiness of the people. By our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion, and all sects and denominations of Christians are placed upon the same equal footing, and are equally entitled to protection in their religious liberty.” These judicial opinions make clear that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment never constrained early judges from classifying the United States as an enthusiastically Christian society.

In fact, the same Congress that approved the First Amendment gave a clear indication of the way they understood its language when, less than 24 hours after adopting the fateful wording, they passed the following Resolution: “Resolved, that a joint committee of both Houses be directed to wait upon the President of the United States, to request that he would recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceable to establish a Constitution of government for their safety and happiness.” It never occurred to this first Congress in 1789 that their call for a government sponsored day of “thanksgiving and prayer” would conflict with the prohibition they had just adopted prohibiting “an establishment of religion.” Not until the infamous Everson decision of 1947 did the Supreme Court create the doctrine of a “wall of separation between church and state,” quoting (out of context) from an 1802 letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association. President Jefferson created the image of the wall in order to reassure the Baptists that government would never interfere with their religious life, but he never suggested that religion would have no role in government. In 1803, in fact, Jefferson recommended to Congress the approval of a treaty that provided government funds to support a Catholic priest in ministering to the Kaskaskia Indians.

Three times he signed extensions of another measure described as “An Act regulating the grants of land appropriated for Military services and for the Society of the United Brethren for propagating the Gospel among the Heathen.” Jefferson also participated every week in Christian church services in the Capitol Building in Washington DC; until 1866, in fact, the Capitol hosted worship every Sunday and, intermittently, conducted a Sunday school. No one challenged these 71 years of Christian prayer at the very seat of federal power: given the founders' endorsement of the positive role of organized faith, it hardly inspired controversy to convene worship at the Capitol. In fact, at the time of the first Continental Congress, nine of the thirteen original colonies had “established churches” – meaning that they each supported an official denomination, even to the point of using public money for church construction and maintenance. These religious establishments – clearly in contradiction to the idea of a “secular government” – continued in three states long after the adoption of the First Amendment. Connecticut disestablished its favored Congregational Church only in 1818, New Hampshire in 1819, and Massachusetts in 1833.

Amazingly enough, these established churches flourished for nearly fifty years under the constitution despite the First Amendment’s famous insistence that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Their existence reflected the fact that the founders never wanted to secularize all of government, but intended rather to allow the states to handle religious issues in their own way while avoiding the imposition of any single federal denomination on the diverse, often quarreling regions of the young nation. Joseph Story, a Supreme Court Justice from 1811 to 1845 (appointed by President Madison) and, as a long-time Harvard professor the leading early commentator on the Constitution, explained the First Amendment with the observation that “the general if not universal sentiment in America was that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the State so far as was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience and the freedom of religious worship.

An attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation. The real object of the First Amendment….was to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment which should give to a hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government.” As Stephen Mansfield comments in his invaluable book on the Establishment Clause, “Ten Tortured Words,” Justice Story’s “understanding of the meaning of the First Amendment should be taken as definitive.”

3. EARLY SETTLERS DID NOT FLEE ENGLAND AND BUILD NEW WORLD COLONIES IN ORDER TO ESTABLISH “FREEDOM OF RELIGION.” For the most part, those Colonists motivated by religious conviction more than a desire for financial gain wanted to establish faith-based utopias that would be more rigorous and restrictive, not less zealous, than the Mother Country. The Puritans behind the original New England colonies (Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire) and two later states (Vermont and Maine) wanted strict enforcement of Sabbath rules, mandatory attendance at worship services, tax money to support religious seminaries (prominently including Harvard and Yale), and other rules befitting a “Christian Commonwealth.” If anything, they distrusted the Church of England for its backsliding, corruption and compromises rather than its vigorous imposition of religious standards. Other denominations (Quakers in Pennsylvania, Catholics in Maryland) founded their colonies not to create secular or diverse religious environments, but to provide their own versions of model communities and denominational havens. Among the original colonies, only Roger Williams’ Rhode Island made a consistent priority of religious tolerance and pluralism.

4. THE REVOLUTIONARY GENERATION DID NOT FIGHT TO ESTABLISH “RELIGIOUS FREEDOM” OR A SECULAR SOCIETY. The favored marching tune of the Continental Army wasn’t “Yankee Doodle” (which achieved its wider popularity only after the Revolution) but “Chester,” adapted from a beloved church hymn by Boston composer William Billings. Its words proclaimed: “Let tyrants shake their iron rods/And slaver clank her galling chains/We fear them not, we trust in God/New England’s God forever reigns.” The army’s Commander in Chief felt no discomfort at all with this explicitly religious rhetoric. In 1776, for instance, General George Washington issued the following message to his troops: “The blessing and protection of Heaven are at all times necessary, but especially so in times of public distress and danger. The general hopes and trusts that every officer and man will endeavor to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier, defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country.”

Two years later, Washington proclaimed: “The commander in chief directs that Divine service be performed every Sunday at 11 o’clock, in each brigade which has a Chaplain….While we are duly performing the duty of good soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of a patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of a Christian.” The war emphasized a long standing difference between America and Europe noted by the leaders of the Patriot faction, future visitors like Alexis de Tocqueville, and even contemporary pollsters and demographers; the United States has always displayed greater religious intensity and fervor than Great Britain or the other nations of Western Europe.

5. THE FOUNDERS WEREN’T ATHEISTS, AGNOSTICS OR SECULARISTS; THEY WERE, ALMOST WITHOUT EXCEPTION, DEEPLY SERIOUS CHRISTIANS. The comments of John Adams might count as typical of the Revolutionary generation. In a July, 1796 diary entry, the then-Vice President of the United States declared: “The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity and humanity….” He strongly supported the use of tax money in Massachusetts to support church construction and religious instruction. Dr. Benjamin Rush, signer of the Declaration of Independence and leading Colonial physician, in 1800 wrote sketches of his colleagues in the Continental Congress in which he evaluated them based on their personal religiosity.

About Sam Adams of Massachusetts he wrote: “He considered national happiness and the public patronage of religion as inseparably connected; and so great was his regard for public worship, and the means of promoting religion, that he constantly attended divine service in the German church in York town while Congress sat there, when there was no service in their chapel, although he was ignorant of the German language.” About Sam’s cousin John Adams, Rush wrote: “He was strictly moral, and at all times respectful to Religion.” Of Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Rush observed: He was not less distinguished for his piety than his patriotism. He once objected to a motion for Congress sitting on a Sunday upon an occasion which he thought did not require it, and gave as a reason for his objection a regard of the commands of his Maker.” Rush praised his Pennsylvania colleague James Wilson who “had been educated for a clergyman in Scotland and was a profound and accurate scholar,” and Charles Thompson as “a man of great learning and general knowledge, at all times a genuine Republican, and in the evening of his life a sincere Christian.”

Of course, many of the Founding Fathers held religious beliefs that challenged the Orthodoxy of their day, but they continued the assiduous study of the Bible (as a lifelong passion in the case of Jefferson and Franklin) and showed little sympathy for the excesses of the French Revolution with its denunciation of Christianity of proclamation of a new “Age of Reason.” Even the most radical of the Founders, pamphleteer Thomas Paine, would fit more comfortably with today’s religious conservatives than with the secular militants who seek to claim his as one of their own. This restless Revolutionary traveled to France to take part in their Revolution and wrote a scandalous book “The Age of Reason,” which proclaimed his “Deism” while attacking traditional Christian doctrine—a position that alienated and offended virtually all of his former American comrades (including many who have been mistakenly identified as “Deists” themselves). Nevertheless, in 1797 he delivered a speech to a learned French society insisting that schools must concentrate on the study of God, presenting his arguments with an eloquent insistence on recognizing the Almighty that would delight James Dobson of Focus on the Family, but mortally offend the secular militants of the ACLU.

“It has been the error of the schools to teach astronomy, and all the other sciences and subjects of natural philosophy, as accomplishments only; whereas they should be taught theologically, or with reference to the Being who is the author of them: for all the principles of science are of Divine origin,” Thomas Paine declaimed. “Man cannot make, or invent, or contrive principles. He can only discover them; and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author.

When we examine an extraordinary piece of machinery, an astonishing pile of architecture, a well executed statue or a highly finished painting where life and action are imitated, and habit only prevents our mistaking a surface of light and shade for cubical solidity, our ideas are naturally led to think of the extensive genius and talents of the artist. When we study the elements of geometry, we think of Euclid. When we speak of gravitation, we think of Newton. How then is it, that when we study the works of God in the creation, we stop short, and do not think of God? It is from the error of the schools in having taught those subjects as accomplishments only, and thereby separated the study of them from the Being who is the author of them.” In short, even the least religiously committed of the founders wanted to approach public education in a manner that would deeply offend today’s uncompromising separationists, and those who ludicrously claim that the designers of our Constitution intended a “secular nation.”

The ludicrous indignation about Senator McCain’s recent remarks remains an expression of both ignorance and intolerance, and a mean-spirited refusal to recognize the simple truth in his statements. The framers may not have mentioned Christianity in the Constitution, but they clearly intended that charter of liberty to govern a society of fervent faith, freely encouraged by government for the benefit of all. Their noble and unprecedented experiment never involved a religion-free or faithless state but did indeed presuppose America’s unequivocal identity as a Christian nation.

The Founders Intended A Christian, Not Secular, Society
By Michael Medved
Wednesday, October 3, 2007

McChurch - For Sale, Once Used Presidential Candidate

2007-10-04T18:09:00.000-05:00

The FundamentaList (No. 2)
Pressure mounts to rally 'round a GOP candidate (but which one?), Christians atone with cash on Yom Kippur, and how the White House has angered some of its faith-based grant recipients.

Sarah Posner | September 26, 2007 | 1. Christian Right Feels Pressure to Pick a GOP Candidate

While Mitt Romney was courting Michigan's monied elite, Mike Huckabee missed his coach flight and couldn't afford the charter jet to Mackinac Island to join him. No matter. Huckabee had just won the straw poll at the Palmetto Family Council in South Carolina, and he was continuing to feel the evangelical wind at his back.

Frank Page, president of the Southern Baptist Convention and pastor of a Southern Baptist church in Taylors, South Carolina, told me in an interview this week that Huckabee's candidacy is gaining steam, and that there "are a growing number of people who are convinced that he is a viable candidate." Huckabee, Romney, Rudy Giuliani, and John McCain have all met with Page, recognizing his influence as the leader of the country's largest Protestant denomination and the single biggest component of the conservative evangelical right. Page, who explained to me his comments reflected the views of conservative evangelicals generally and not just Southern Baptists, said that all the candidates, except Huckabee, "struggle with understanding where we [evangelicals] come from, but they all very much want that vote." Page added that in contrast to 2000, when evangelicals were both "more comfortable and more confident" with Bush early in the process, the field remains unsettled.

"In the last few weeks and even days, [conservative Republicans] are starting to get nervous that every dollar that's spent to try to get votes away from your Republican colleague in a primary is a dollar that won't be available to fight Hillary," Oran Smith, president of the Palmetto Family Council, told me. "[People] are starting to get nervous that it's got to come together pretty soon."

Eyes are still on James Dobson, whose influence, Smith said, has been magnified with the deaths this year of televangelists Jerry Falwell and D. James Kennedy. (Smith politely downplayed the influence of Pat Robertson, but a few months ago another insider put it more bluntly when he told me that many evangelicals consider Robertson "an asshole.") According to his allies, Dobson "wants to be a kingmaker, but there isn't a top-tier candidate he can get behind." Last week's leak of a Dobson e-mail eviscerating Thompson's positions and campaign skills must have bolstered Dobson's fragile ego when, a few days later, David Brody, author of the Christian Broadcasting Network's must-read Brody File blog, reported that evangelical support for Thompson was "in question."

On Monday Huckabee held a "Vertical Day" on his campaign Web site, a 24-hour event designed to attract more online support for his candidacy. One important guest-blogger for the candidate, who stopped short of an outright endorsement, was Newt Gingrich.

While Giuliani has been shunned by conservative evangelicals altogether and Romney is riding with Robertson protégé Jay Sekulow, John McCain seems to have only gotten traction with Armageddon lobbyist John Hagee and his Christians United for Israel (CUFI). McCain, along with Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, asked Hagee to share "a word of encouragement" at South Carolina's Citadel Military Academy this week, and "to declare that we the American people believe in victory in Iraq." When not appearing with McCain this week, Hagee busied himself by organizing CUFI activists to join in the protest against the appearance of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the United Nations, and to deluge the White House with e-mails and phone calls to urge the placement of Iran's Revolutionary Guard on the Specially Designated Global Terrorist List.

2. Parsley Propagandizes Hate Crimes Bill as Anti-Christian

Rod Parsley is one of the players on the Christian right seeking to fill the vacuum left by the aging old guard, and his roots in the emerging neo-Pentecostal wing of the movement are evident in his new slick, souped-up PR effort, which he kicked off with this spring's release of his latest culture war manifesto, Culturally Incorrect. Parsley continues to position himself (and his Center for Moral Clarity) as the bridge between the Bible and the Beltway. He has been using his daily television broadcast to rail against the Matthew Shepard bill, now pending in the Senate after passing the House in May. Along with Bishop Harry Jackson, Parsley claimed that the bill -- which would add sexual orientation and perceived sexual orientation as a protected group to federal hate crimes legislation -- would unconstitutionally "censor" pastors from preaching on allegedly biblical injunctions against homosexuality. Urging his viewers to sign a petition "to protect the Gospel in the USA," Parsley said, "My heart is burning as I consider the consequences of this assault on Christianity."

3. Legal News Round-Up: School Prayer; Gay Marriage; and Planned Parenthood

Today marks the annual See You at the Pole event, during which Christian students gather at the flagpole to pray together before the bell at public schools across the country. Voluntary, student-initiated prayer is constitutional, but Jay Sekulow, president of the American Center for Law and Justice, distributed a letter to schools in which he advised teachers, administrators, and parents to participate as well. Watch your step, countered Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. "Sekulow's analysis reflects wishful thinking, not legal reality," said AU's Executive Director Barry Lynn. "Public school officials need to be extremely wary of his unsolicited legal advice." Besides, if Sekulow and his allies were being fully honest that all they want is voluntary, student-led prayer, instead of school sanctioned-prayer, Lynn added, they wouldn't be trying to "slip teachers, administrators, and parents in under the radar and have them participate in prayers."

In other legal news, the Maryland Court of Appeals last week upheld the state's ban on gay marriage. The Christian right Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) lauded the victory, but urged continued vigilance: "It remains critical for voters not to be lulled to sleep by this victory. It is crucially important that Americans support state marriage amendments, and, ultimately, a federal marriage amendment."

And in Missouri on Monday, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction preventing the implementation of restrictive regulations that would effectively shutter all but one of the state's abortion clinics. In his ruling, the judge hinted that while he may rule some parts of the law unconstitutional, others may well pass muster. ADF, which represents the state Department of Health and Human Services, declared victory.

4. It's Yom Kippur, Atone With Some Cash!

Reflecting a growing trend among the country's hottest televangelists to "celebrate" the Jewish holidays, neo-Pentecostal starlet Paula White was begging for cash in honor of Yom Kippur on her television program and Web site. For preachers like White and John Hagee who preach the prosperity gospel, the recognition of these holidays is often tied to a plea for money. (Much more on this will be in my forthcoming book, God's Profits.)

White, who markets herself as a "life coach" and recently announced she and her husband are divorcing, urged her followers to "honor God's sacred covenant" by making "your best offering." For an offering of $60 or more, you could get a miniature ornate ark of the covenant -- just what God wants on the Day of Atonement.

5. Faith-Based Substance Abuse Treatment Providers Mad As Hell

A small but boisterous crowd gathered last week outside the Old Executive Office Building, and they were angry and frustrated with the White House -- but it wasn't what you might expect. The members of this group were all grant recipients under the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiative's program to combat substance abuse.

An earnest and dedicated bunch, they had traveled from as far away as Texas to take part in a Compassion in Action Roundtable, discussing current trends in substance abuse treatment. But what a White House spokesperson called a "technical glitch" resulted in invited participants' deletion from the list of persons cleared to enter the building.

The people I spoke with were avowedly good Christians, but they weren't feeling very forgiving. Enthusiastic about sounding off to me, several of them complained that the event had been badly organized, resulting in them being forced to make last-minute (and therefore more expensive) travel arrangements to attend. For one man from New Jersey, who asked that his name not be used, the debacle seemed to reinforce his unflattering view of how government functions. He complained that the payout of grants through the Faith-Based Initiative had been overly politicized -- but not, as David Kuo wrote in his tell-all White House memoir, as a sop to the religious right. Instead, this fellow grumbled that there was political favoritism in the disbursement of the money through block grants to the states. (He provided a window into his political soul when I asked him to elaborate on his concern about many of his clients' lack of health insurance. His response? "I am of a different political persuasion than Mrs. Clinton.")

Eventually everyone got cleared to enter the building. Except for me, because Lord knows how the White House feels about the press.

Next week: What happens when Pat Robertson's television crews follow Giuliani and Romney on the campaign trail; American evangelicals in Jerusalem; and whether the Christian right can be swayed on global warming.

Sarah Posner is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in the Prospect, The Washington Spectator, AlterNet, and other publications. Her book, God's Profits: Faith, Fraud, and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters will be published by PoliPoint Press next

McChurch - Rejecting the Sword of the Spirit

2007-10-04T15:58:00.000-05:00

Blackwater's Prince Has GOP, Christian Group Ties
by Corey Flintoff Sara D. Davis Blackwater

CEO and founder Erik Prince. Associated Press
NPR.org, September 25, 2007

NPR.org, September 25, 2007 · With more than $800 million in contracts, Blackwater USA, led by Erik Prince, is among the biggest companies providing armed guards for U.S. officials and government contractors in Iraq.

Prince, the heir to a Michigan auto-parts fortune, has close ties to the Republican Party and conservative Christian groups. He began his career with a stint as an officer in the U.S. Navy SEALs, and co-founded Blackwater in 1997 with other former commandos. His family's wealth made it possible for the then 27-year-old Prince to fund the Blackwater start-up with his own money.

Prince and his firm have drawn scrutiny from members of Congress after Blackwater guards were accused of opening fire on civilians in Baghdad in an incident that left at least nine people dead.

Blackwater has said that its employees were defending a State Department convoy and denied that they had done anything improper, though Prince has made no public statement on the issue. The Iraqi government threatened to expel the company from the country, but after four days, Blackwater was allowed to resume its activities guarding State Department personnel.

Republican, Christian Ties

Prince grew up in Holland, Mich., where his father, Edgar Prince, built Prince Corporation, an auto-parts company that based its success on novel products, such as the lighted vanity mirror for car window visors. The elder Prince was a close friend and supporter of Christian evangelists, such as James Dobson of Focus on the Family, as well as a contributor to the Republican Party. He was an early benefactor of the Family Research Council.

Erik Prince was accepted to the U.S. Naval Academy, but dropped out after three semesters. He later told the Virginia-Pilot newspaper that he loved the Navy but disliked the academy. He finished his schooling at the Christian-oriented Hillsdale College in Michigan.

Prince later rejoined the Navy through Officer Candidate School and qualified for the SEALs. He served about three years, but left the service early after his father's death in 1995. The family sold the business shortly afterward to Johnson Controls for more than $1.3 billion.

Prince has rarely given interviews to the news media. In an email question-and-answer exchange with the Virginia- Pilot in 2006, he wrote that his Navy experience convinced him of the need for a company that could provide advanced training to military personnel and civilian contractors.

The organization rapidly grew into nine companies, providing everything from bomb-sniffing dogs to drone reconnaissance aircraft. Some of the teams that guard U.S. officials in Iraq are provided by Blackwater Security Consultants, which backs them up with helicopters and specially built military-style armored vehicles. The company's light-weight "Little Bird" helicopters, with gunmen hanging out the side doors, are a familiar icon of Blackwater's presence in Baghdad.

Prince has been a steady contributor to the Republican National Committee, giving more than $200,000 since 1998. He also has supported various conservative candidates, including President Bush, Sens. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Rick Santorum (R-PA), Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), and indicted former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX).

Other members of Prince's family have been active in Republican politics. His sister, Betsy DeVos, has served as chair of the Michigan Republican Party, and her husband, Dick DeVos, was an unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor of Michigan in 2006. Dick DeVos, a member of the conservative family that co-founded Amway, succeeded his father as president of that company.

Prince serves as a board member of Christian Freedom International, a nonprofit group that provides Bibles, food and other help to Christians in countries where they face persecution.

Prince's first wife died of cancer in 2003. They had four children together. Prince also has two children with his second wife.

McChurch - Losing Their Pagan Support

2007-09-27T09:36:00.000-05:00

Christian Right looks to rebound

By Eric Gorski - Associated Press
Monday, September 24, 2007 - Web Link

September 22, 2007

Headed into the 2008 election season, Christian conservatives are weary. Their movement has lost iconic leaders and the Republican presidential field is uninspiring. But they may have found hope in a trailer on the campus of Bell Shoals Baptist Church.

There, in Annex Room No. 3, Ruth Klingman nods as a leader in Florida's pro-family movement describes how gay marriage would open the door to other "aberrant forms of marriage." He holds up a printout of "polygamy pot lucks" as evidence.

Yes, Klingman says afterward, she will do her part to pass a constitutional amendment cementing marriage as a union between one man and one woman in this presidential swing state.

The first Family Impact Summit had minted a new activist _ tangible results from three days of talks and workshops meant to replenish the roots of the Christian right.

Organized by a scarcely known Tampa-area Christian group and ending Saturday, the summit sounded a back-to-basics theme: that evangelicals are called to be active citizens to combat threats from the left; that the work must involve not just national advocacy groups but local people and pastors; and the fight requires patience and persistence.

That last sentiment is a reminder of the challenges facing the Christian right.

Activists lost key allies in Congress when the Democrats retook Congress in 2006, movement pioneers Jerry Falwell and D. James Kennedy died this year, and there's apathy over the current crop of GOP presidential candidates.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/22/AR2007092200684.html

Message to Dobson and McChurch: "So What?"

2007-09-26T10:33:00.000-05:00

Thompson Shrugs Off Dobson Criticism
By PAUL J. WEBER – September 19, 2007 DALLAS (AP) —

Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson on Thursday shrugged off harsh criticism from James Dobson, saying he has friends who likely know the influential Christian leader and they hold him in high regard.

In a private e-mail obtained by The Associated Press, Dobson accuses the former Tennessee senator and actor of being weak on the campaign trail and wrong on issues dear to social conservatives.

"Isn't Thompson the candidate who is opposed to a Constitutional amendment to protect marriage, believes there should be 50 different definitions of marriage in the U.S., favors McCain-Feingold, won't talk at all about what he believes, and can't speak his way out of a paper bag on the campaign trail?" Dobson wrote.

"He has no passion, no zeal, and no apparent 'want to.' And yet he is apparently the Great Hope that burns in the breasts of many conservative Christians? Well, not for me, my brothers. Not for me!"

Questioned about the e-mail during a campaign appearance in Texas, Thompson said: "I really have no comment.'"

Thompson, who sounded at times unsure of the e-mail's authenticity, said he has never had the pleasure of meeting or talking with the Focus on the Family founder.

"If in fact this e-mail ... reflects his views, so be it," Thompson said. "I have a lot of friends who I think are friends of his who have a high regard for me, and I'm very proud of that."

The founder and chairman of Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family, Dobson draws a radio audience in the millions, many of whom who first came to trust the child psychologist for his conservative Christian advice on child-rearing.

Gary Schneeberger, a Focus on the Family spokesman, confirmed that Dobson wrote the e-mail. Schneeberger declined to comment further, saying it would be inappropriate because Dobson's comments about presidential candidates are made as an individual and not as a representative of Focus on the Family, a nonprofit organization restricted from partisan politics.

McChurch - Taking Hate to a New Level

2007-09-24T08:34:00.000-05:00

Is Blackwater a Black Hole?

September 24, 2007

by Stan Moody

As private security force, Blackwater, breaks into the news with the recent killing of 11 Iraqi civilians and accusations of illegal arms smuggling, a little-anticipated feature of the War on Terror surfaces. Refer to this feature as “collateral damage” if you will, but the bottom line is that engagement in war produces effects that ripple down through the innocents for generations.

I believe that we will be tasting the stagnation of Blackwater long after our troops return from Iraq and Afghanistan. We are creating a revolutionary force in America, founded on the principles of patriotism but answering to no other authority than the Almighty Buck.

Blackwater exists today because we simply do not have enough troops to prosecute our engagement in the Middle East. It is beginning to appear in hot spots in America, such as Katrina-devastated New Orleans, under the guise of keeping order. It is the privatization movement run amok. It is perfectly legal.

The great irony is that while our nation is engrossed in a campaign to disband militias funded by Syria and Iran, it is doing so with our own private militias – some 180 or more of them operating in the Iraq theatre. Their strength in Iraq is estimated at from 20,000 to 50,000 contract soldiers, although the numbers and their mission are kept from the scrutiny of Congress. How many and what they are doing is a matter of guesswork for those whom we have elected to represent us.

It is not the hundreds of millions of dollars in cost that ought to concern us. We will spend the money either way – private or public militias. What ought to concern us is that we are creating a monster that will impact the lives and liberties of Americans for generations to come.

We are creating a well-trained, well-financed bootjack army available to the highest bidder. On the Blackwater web site, it is claimed that some 50,000 have gone through their training regimen and stand ready for the call. Those who insist that, “It is better to kill them over there than to have them kill us over here,” will find that we will bring our killers back home, ready and eager for new assignments.

Spread that over the 180 or more “private security firms” already in operation, and it is easy to see how in the near future there will be at our beck and call here in the United States hundreds of thousands of well-trained killers available to squelch one of our most treasured rights – the right of free speech and peaceful protest. These contract killers are not restrained by such inconveniences as the Military Code of Justice or the constitutional limitations on search and seizure imposed on our public police forces. Their indiscretions can be quickly followed by a public apology.

These soldiers of fortune are hired, not by the Defense Department, but by our State Department, under an obscure program called Wordwide Personal Protective Service (WWPS), formed to provide protection to our diplomats. With 50,000 or more of these contract soldiers now engaged in Iraq, one has to wonder how many diplomats we have there who need protection. 5,000? 10,000? Diplomacy not appearing to play a significant role in the outcome, is it possible that these contract civilians are being hired for one mission but being assigned to another?

Blackwater’s founder, reclusive Eric Prince, is no stranger to money. The brother-in-law to Rich DeVos, founder of AMWAY and recent gubernatorial candidate in Michigan, Prince is a multi-millionaire in his own right, having inherited a fortune from his entrepreneur-dad, automotive supply king, Edgar Prince. The family has a long history of heavy involvement in conservative Republican causes centering on privatization initiatives such as school vouchers, tuition tax credits and charter schools. Prince is a board member of Christian Freedom International, a non-profit group helping persecuted Christians around the world in 47 countries but curiously missing from one of the most oppressed regions - the West Bank of the Jordan River.

All of that is fine until it follows the natural progression of evolving into a power base that encroaches into the lives and liberties of Americans under the conviction that we as a nation must be wrenched back on course.

When patriotism and political ideology contract for government services, what is created is a monster for power and control, the antithesis of liberty.

Blackwater is well-named. You cannot see beyond its surface. What lies beneath the surface, however, can be fatal.

McChurch - You Go, Mikey!

2007-09-19T12:55:00.001-05:00

Military Sued Over Religious Freedom

By JOHN MILBURN – 18 hours ago

FORT RILEY, Kan. (AP) — A soldier whose superior prevented him from holding a meeting for atheists and other non-Christians is suing the Defense Department, claiming it violated his right to religious freedom.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan., alleges a pattern of practices that discriminate against non-Christians in the military. It was filed Monday to coincide with the 220th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution.

The lawsuit names Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Maj. Paul Welborne as defendants.

According to the filing, Spec. Jeremy Hall, a soldier assigned to Fort Riley's 97th Military Police Battalion, received permission to distribute fliers around his base in Iraq for a meeting of atheists and non-Christians.

When he tried to convene the meeting, Hall claims, Welborne stepped in, threatening to file military charges against Hall and block his reenlistment.

Attempts to reach Welborne through an Army spokesman weren't immediately successful.

Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which is helping Hall with his lawsuit, said it is the first of many.

"We're going to expose the pernicious practice and pattern of these massive violations of the Constitution," Weinstein said. "That we had to go to this extent is just a heinous disgrace that defies any possible explanation."

Lt. Col. Jonathan Withington, a Defense Department spokesman, said that he wasn't aware of the lawsuit but that the military places a "high value" on the right of military personnel to practice their faith.

"It is DoD policy that requests for accommodation of religious practices should be approved by commanders when accommodation will not have an adverse impact on military readiness, unit cohesion, standards or discipline," he said.

The lawsuit claims Hall was forced to "submit to a religious test as a qualification to his post as a soldier."

Hall and the foundation are asking the court to block Welborne from establishing "compulsory religious practices" and order Gates to prevent Welborne from interfering with Hall's free speech rights.

Since its founding in 2005, the foundation has received nearly 6,000 calls from men and women in the military raising concerns about violations of religious freedom, Weinstein said.

Most callers, he said, were Christians concerned about coercion from superior officers trying to push their beliefs.

Weinstein this year threatened to sue over what he and others called anti-Semitic Bible studies posted by the Fort Leavenworth Command Chaplain's Web site. The documents, first posted in 1999, were removed after Weinstein's foundation raised complaints.

Separately, seven Army and Air Force officers, including four generals, face possible punishment for violating ethics rules by helping a Christian group in the production of a fundraising video.

A Pentagon inspector general's report released this month found the officers were interviewed in uniform and "in official and often identifiable Pentagon locations."

The report found that none of the officers received approval from superiors to participate in video interviews in an official capacity or in uniform. Air Force and Army officials are reviewing that report.

On the Net:

Military Religious Freedom Foundation: http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org
Fort Riley: http://www.riley.army.mil

McChurch - Going Sinless in the South Carolina Primary

2007-09-18T15:22:00.000-05:00

Thompson Finds South Carolina `Ain't Beanbag'

By Albert R. Hunt

Sept. 17 (Bloomberg) -- The waiting for Fred is over; Harry Cato is on board.

Fred Thompson entered the Republican presidential race earlier this month and was immediately endorsed by Cato, 49, an influential South Carolina state legislator who had been courted by the other candidates. He was taken by Thompson's Tennessee roots and down-home charm. ``He reminds me of my granddaddy,'' he says.

Cato, a middle-of-the-roader by South Carolina Republican standards, likes the 65-year-old Thompson's ideological profile. ``He's a conservative,'' Cato says while sitting in the office of the trucking-supply company he runs in Travelers Rest, South Carolina. ``But I'm not looking for a zealot.''

Ten miles away, in the heart of the far right of the South Carolina conservative movement, Steve Jones, the president of Bob Jones University, says Thompson is one of a few Republican candidates who would be welcome on the campus. The other major contender, he says, would be Mitt Romney, although some at the fundamentalist Christian college are ``having a hard time getting over'' that candidate's Mormon religion.

A Bloomberg/LA Times poll last week shows Thompson narrowly ahead of Rudy Giuliani in South Carolina, with John McCain well back in third and Romney, even with an extensive advertising campaign, stuck in single digits.

Any scenario for a Thompson nomination must include a win in South Carolina. The former senator and movie actor needs a respectable showing in Iowa and New Hampshire, likely to be the first tests next January. When the race heads to his native South, there is no substitute for victory. (South Carolina Republicans are scheduled to hold their primary on Jan. 19, which they expect to be before any other contest in the region.)

Intense Struggle

As the first likely Southern test, the Palmetto State primary may be important for Democrats, too. More than half the voters in the Democratic contest in the state will be African- Americans, and the struggle for that vote between Senator Hillary Clinton, whose husband is idolized by many blacks, and Senator Barack Obama, the first African-American with a serious chance at the presidency, will be intense.

The stakes are higher for Republicans; no one is ceding anything to Thompson. This was McCain's Waterloo in his 2000 defeat to George W. Bush, and he's made a concerted effort to make amends; Giuliani is gambling that his tough-on-terrorism card is a winner in this security-conscious state, and Romney's campaign believes his conversion to a staunchly anti-abortion position and opposition to gay marriage will strike a chord with the one-third or so of this state's voters who identify themselves as social conservatives.

Republican Stronghold

The best place to gauge sentiment today is the ``upstate'' region, the Republican stronghold in South Carolina. It is centered in Greenville, a city of 75,000 that during the past decade has been transformed from a pedestrian former textile town to a sparkling community with upscale restaurants, downtown parks and waterfalls, and a growing core of professionals and multinational companies.

Conversations last week with dozens of voters in this area underscore the political fluidity: Three out of five South Carolina Republicans say they may change their minds by January.

Lisa Van Riper, a political science professor at North Greenville University and a leader of the social conservatives in the state, says the leading candidates face difficult obstacles.

On McCain, she says, the ``brutal battle in 2000 has not been forgotten'' by many South Carolina Republicans, and he's ``not seen as a team player.'' His support for immigration measures this year also cost him, she says.

Rudy the Democrat?

Giuliani's fiscal conservatism and security credentials play well, she says, but his moderation on social issues like abortion and gay rights is probably a disqualifier: ``On social issues, Rudy would be happier with the Democrats.''

She's met with Romney, likes him, and is puzzled by his low poll ratings. ``It may be some of that is he's from Massachusetts, and some of it is that he's too packaged.''

How about Bible Belt rejection of his Mormon religion? ``I hope that would not be the case,'' she says, ``but I think it could well be.''

Thus, almost by the process of elimination she thinks Thompson is the best positioned: ``He can speak to all three parts of the Republican base: security, fiscal conservatism, and value voters, or social conservatives.''

At a breakfast in Greenville last week, attended by almost 400 South Carolinians, Thompson touched all those political hot buttons. A number of voters raved about his performance and persona. Yet later some acknowledged there wasn't any compelling or memorable message.

Must Do Better

Thompson has stumbled when unexpected issues arise -- his non-attendance of church, the Senate's efforts to intervene in the case of Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman who was brain-dead, or confusion over some of his past lobbying activities.

During these next four months, he has to be more adroit, and on the big stuff he must convince voters he's as much of a leader and tax-cutter as Giuliani, more genuine on social issues such as abortion than Romney, and as steadfast on national security as McCain.

Already others are trying to fill in those blanks. An anti- Thompson e-mail -- questioning both his intelligence and morals - - circulated in South Carolina last week. It has been linked to Warren Tompkins, a shadowy figure who many believe was also behind a smear campaign on McCain and his wife eight years ago.

Tompkins, who worked for Bush then and is with Romney now, says he knew nothing about the e-mail, although it was written on a Web site that was associated with his firm.

If Thompson didn't know it already, American politics ``ain't beanbag,'' as Finley Peter Dunne said more than a century ago. Welcome to the big leagues, Fred.

To contact the writer of this column: Albert R. Hunt in Washington at ahunt1@bloomberg.net .

Last Updated: September 16, 2007 11:33 EDT

McChurch - McCain (An Episcopalian) Prefers to be Called a Baptist

2007-09-17T20:15:00.000-05:00

McCain Says He's Been Baptist for Years
By BRUCE SMITH – September 17, 2007, HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. (AP) —

Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who has long identified himself as an Episcopalian, said this weekend that he is a Baptist and has been for years.

Campaigning in this conservative, predominantly Baptist state, McCain called himself a Baptist when speaking to reporters Sunday and noted that he and his family have been members of the North Phoenix Baptist Church in his home state of Arizona for more than 15 years.

"It's well known because I'm an active member of the church," the Arizona senator said.

While McCain has long talked about his family's and his own attendance at the Arizona church, he appears to have consistently referred to himself as Episcopalian in media reports.

In a June interview with McClatchy Newspapers, the senator said his wife and two of their children have been baptized in the Arizona Baptist church, but he had not. "I didn't find it necessary to do so for my spiritual needs," he said.

He told McClatchy he found the Baptist church more fulfilling than the Episcopalian church, but still referred to himself as an Episcopalian.

Greenville Republican state Sen. Mike Fair, a Baptist who serves as one of McCain's liaisons with the South Carolina religious community, said a person traditionally becomes a full member of a Baptist church by some kind of public expression of their faith, usually by being baptized.

McCain, at a campaign stop at a Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Anderson, said he has made plenty of public expressions of his faith. "I've done that hundreds of times," McCain said, adding he has spoken at length with his pastor at the church and has been told there is no need for him to be baptized to be a full member of the church.

The Associated Press asked McCain on Saturday how his Episcopal faith plays a role in his campaign and life. McCain grew up Episcopalian and attended an Episcopal high school in Alexandria, Va.

"It plays a role in my life. By the way, I'm not Episcopalian. I'm Baptist," McCain said. "Do I advertise my faith? Do I talk about it all the time? No."

McCain does discuss faith on the campaign trail. He regularly tells crowds about a North Vietnamese POW guard who would loosen his bindings while he was a prisoner. One Christmas, the man surreptitiously signaled his Christian faith, McCain says, by making the sign of a cross with his toe in the dirt.

McCain said Sunday he doesn't know how his Baptist faith might affect his showing in South Carolina.

"I have no idea," McCain said, laughing. "I was a member of that church in 2000 and it didn't save me then." McCain lost to George W. Bush in the hotly contested South Carolina primary seven years ago.

McCain made the comments after speaking to about 200 people on this resort island during a stop on his "No Surrender" tour, to push for support of U.S. troops and the president's strategy in Iraq.

Associated Press writer Jim Davenport in Anderson, S.C., contributed to this report.

McChurch - Free to Worship in My Religion Only

2007-09-12T19:13:00.000-05:00

Most think founders wanted Christian USA

By Andrea Stone, USA TODAY

Most Americans believe the nation's founders wrote Christianity into the Constitution, and people are less likely to say freedom to worship covers religious groups they consider extreme, a poll out today finds.

The survey measuring attitudes toward freedom of religion, speech and the press found that 55% believe erroneously that the Constitution establishes a Christian nation. In the survey, which is conducted annually by the First Amendment Center, a non-partisan educational group, three out of four people who identify themselves as evangelical or Republican believe that the Constitution establishes a Christian nation. About half of Democrats and independents do.

ON THE WEB: Read the full poll results

Most respondents, 58%, say teachers in public schools should be allowed to lead prayers. That is an increase from 2005, when 52% supported teacher-led prayer in public schools.

More people, 43%, say public schools should be allowed to put on Nativity re-enactments with Christian music than in 2005, when 36% did.

Half say teachers should be allowed to use the Bible as a factual text in history class. That's down from 56% in 2000. Charles Haynes, a senior scholar at the First Amendment Center, says the findings are particularly troubling during a week when the top diplomat in Iraq gave a report to Congress on progress toward achieving democracy there. "Americans are dying to create a secular democracy in Iraq, and simultaneously a growing number of people want to see a Christian state" here, he says.

Haynes says the Constitution "clearly established a secular nation where people of all faiths or no faith are protected to practice their religion or no religion without governmental interference."

Rick Green of WallBuilders, an advocacy group that believes the nation was built on Christian principles, says the poll doesn't mean a majority favors a "theocracy" but that the Constitution reflects Christian values, including religious freedom. "I would call it a Christian document, just like the Declaration of Independence," he says.

The "scariest" number, in Haynes' opinion, is that only 56% agree that freedom of religion applies to all groups "regardless of how extreme their beliefs are." That's down from 72% in 2000. More than one in four say constitutional protection of religion does not apply to "extreme" groups.

Haynes says many Americans consider Islam extreme, especially since the Sept. 11 attacks. But he says Roman Catholics were viewed that way in the 19th century, and some people still consider Mormons "on the fringe."

"We are seeing the product of years of not teaching the First Amendment at a young age," says Gene Policinski, the center's executive director. "People are applying their own values … rather than educated knowledge" of the Constitution.

Still, he says, support for constitutional freedoms has rebounded from a low the year after 9/11, when 49% said the First Amendment "goes too far in the rights it guarantees." Now, 25% agree.

Other findings:

•Seventy-four percent say public school students should not be allowed to wear a T-shirt with a message or picture that others might find offensive, more than at any time since the survey began in 1997.

•About a third, 34%, believe the press "has too much freedom" — the lowest percentage in 10 years — but most distrust the news media. Sixty percent disagree with the statement that the news media try "to report the news without bias."

Not all questions in the poll were asked every year. The survey of 1,003 adults Aug. 16-26 has a margin of error of +/—3.2 percentage points.

McChurch - Walking the Walk

2007-09-11T15:21:00.000-05:00

Published on National Catholic Reporter Conversation Cafe (http://ncrcafe.org)

We need candidates who are really religious

By Joan Chittister

Created Sep 5 2007 - 14:57

From Where I Stand by Joan Chittister, OSB	September 5, 2007
	Vol. 5, No. 12

The closer the United States gets to choosing a president, the more the event begins to look like a papal election: it's all about religion and little about what religion teaches.

The United States, we love to say -- and Europeans repeat in a kind of incredulous wonder -- is the most "religious" country in the world. Meaning, of course, the most church-going country in the world. Whether or not going to church correlates well with religious values is clearly a debatable subject. To wit, the corporal works of mercy -- as in, feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, house the homeless, visit the imprisoned, visit the sick, and bury the dead. It is on these criteria in Matthew 25: 31-46, however, that Jesus rests his definition of salvation. No small thing for those who considers themselves "religious." No small thing, then, one would think, if a nation -- if a candidate for political office -- were really serious about being "religious."

Point: The corporal works of mercy would, it seems, be a very clear template, a constant standard in such a nation, for the evaluation of a party platform, a legislative program or a candidate's fitness for office by those who consider themselves Christian. You can picture the score card now: Candidate A proposes keeping two of the works of mercy; Candidate B, five of them. Forget the need to count votes. The winner is ...

In the nation in which, they tell us, the last two elections were decided by Catholic and Evangelical Christians, the need to define what we mean when we say we're looking for a candidate with "religious" values is not an idle exercise. Given all our commitment to bible-quoting candidates, how do we stack up as a religious people against the religious principles we're told are essential to Christianity? The answers may make us all think again about what religion really means where politics are concerned.

If "feeding the hungry" is a basic, we're slipping, no matter how much we congratulate ourselves on our virtue. According to Bread for the World, a faith-based movement seeking justice for the world's hungry, over 35 million people -- including 12.4 million children -- live in hunger in the United States. They skip meals regularly or, when they eat, eat too little. Some of them go without food, the report says, for entire days. But hungry children develop more chronic illnesses, suffer more from anxiety and depression, and have more behavior problems than children who eat regularly. Those children we put in our institutions, call them social problems, and hire more police to keep them in line rather than feed them well.

If "clothing the naked" -- sending people into the world with dignity and propriety -- is a work of mercy, we will need legislators who are committed to spending money on education. With the amount of money we have spent on the war in Iraq -- over $449 billion -- we could have provided 21 million four-year college scholarships to young people whose parents are already strained to the financial break-point. That means, of course, that we need legislators who indicate a willingness to spend money on the intellectual future of this country. Then maybe, in the future, we wouldn't have so many wars.

If "giving drink to the thirsty" is a work of mercy, we could be doing something on a national level to save the water supply in this country. We would need legislators intent on controlling the global warming that is turning the southwest into a dust bowl and threatening to swamp property on the coastlands of the United States. We could be putting money into saving the water we have before water is no longer free and the poor cannot afford that either.

If "housing the homeless' is a work of mercy, we could at least match our housing chest with our war chest to provide four million new public housing projects. The U.S. Conference of Mayors "Hunger and Homelessness Survey" of 23 major cities in 2006 reports that 59 percent of those cities report an increase in requests for emergency shelter for families in the past year alone. Almost 30 percent of those appeals went unmet for lack of resources, the report tells us, as we agonize over which political candidate is more religious than the other ones.

If "visiting the sick" is a work of mercy, we might want to ask legislators who are seeking to renew their long-running terms in office why it is that of the 45 million uninsured people, 21 million of them are full-time workers? Whatever happened to the notion that if we worked hard in this country, we could take care of ourselves?

If "visiting prisoners" is a work of mercy, then it is time to think again about how closely religious values parallel our institutional goals. According to Human Rights Watch, September, 2007, "Most inmates [in U.S. prisons] had scant opportunities for work, training, education, treatment or counseling because of taxpayer resistance to increasing spending on prison rehabilitation programs." Clearly, we are a "lock 'em up and throw away the key" society. We send them to prison, do almost nothing to prepare them to live a decent life outside of it, and then wonder why the recidivism rate is as high as it is.

If "bury the dead" is work of mercy, then it is time to increase home health care facilities. According to the National Association for Home Care and Hospice, "one in five U.S. households are involved in home health care for an adult." Nevertheless, in August, Medicare announced proposed cuts of $7 billion dollars to local home health care agencies. Surely we need legislators who are intent on providing caregivers and families the support they need to care for their sick and earn a decent living themselves at the same time.

It's time, it seems, if we're Christian, to judge people the way Jesus told us to judge them: "By their fruits." But if that's the case, then the question is not: What do each of these candidates tell us about how religious they are? The question is: What do each of these candidates plan to do to make the corporal works of mercy a living sign of the Christian tradition in this so-called Christian culture?

In fact, how conscious are we of the silent erosion of each of these works of mercy in the society around us while we define "religion" as single-issue politics? After all, food and education and decent housing and support services are exactly the things that take the strain off families and make abortion unnecessary.

From where I stand, it may well be our own unawareness of the loss of these services that's making it so difficult for us to make a distinction between what is really "religious" about our candidates and what is only religion being used as another kind of slippery election strategy. God save us all from that kind of religion again.

Source URL:
http://ncrcafe.org/node/1296

Links:
[1] http://nationalcatholicreporter.org/fwis/archives
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McChurch - Beyond Issues and Into Church Attendance Record

2007-09-11T12:49:00.001-05:00

Thompson Says He Won't Tout His Religion on Trail (Update2)

By Kim Chipman

Sept. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Republican presidential contender Fred Thompson, who is basing his campaign on an appeal to conservative voters, says he isn't a regular churchgoer and doesn't plan to speak about his religion on the stump.

Thompson, in his first campaign stop in South Carolina, told a crowd of about 500 Republicans yesterday that he gained his values from ``sitting around the kitchen table'' with his parents and ``the good Church of Christ.''

The former senator from Tennessee later told reporters that his church attendance ``varies.''

``I attend church when I'm in Tennessee. I'm in McLean right now,'' he said referring to the Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C., where he lives with his wife, Jeri, and their two young children. ``I don't attend regularly when I'm up there.''

Thompson, 65, said he usually goes to church when visiting his mother, who attends a Church of Christ in Brentwood, Tennessee, outside of Nashville. Thompson said he isn't a member of any church in the Washington area.

Thompson's remarks may not play well with some religious voters who represent a sizable segment of the Republican Party and whose support he has been courting, portraying himself as a ``common sense conservative.'' President George W. Bush received 78 percent of the evangelical Christian vote in 2004 while Democrat John Kerry got 21 percent of that vote, according to the Pew Research Center.

Talking About God

Thompson brought up his childhood church to the crowd yesterday in Greenville and said that God gives him the ``strength and wisdom'' to tell ``the truth.''

He was later asked whether he would commit to talking about God nationwide, not just in a southern state such as South Carolina, where many people identify themselves as evangelical Christians. The former senator said he has a relationship with God and doesn't plan to talk about it widely on the campaign trail.

``I know that I'm right with God and the people I love,'' he said in Greenville. But it's ``just the way I am not to talk about some of these things.''

Thompson's churchgoing habits weren't a problem for at least one onlooker.

Leaning Toward Thompson

``I like where he stands. I like his moral aptitude,'' said Pam Wolff, 61, of Greer, South Carolina, who says she hasn't decided on a candidate though is ``leaning'' toward Thompson. ``Whether or not he attends church every Sunday doesn't matter to me.''

Asked by reporters later to clarify his stance on religion, Thompson said: ``Me getting up and talking about what a wonderful person I am and that sort of thing, I'm not comfortable with that, and I don't think it does me any good. People will make up their own mind about that, and that's the way I like it.''

Thompson, who announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination Sept. 5 on NBC's ``The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,'' campaigned the last five days in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, where the crowds were among the largest and most enthusiastic of the trip.

He spoke about the need for a ``stronger and more unified'' country to withstand a global battle against radical Islamic terrorists who want to bring ``western civilization, primarily the U.S., to its knees.''

Broader War

Thompson said Iraq is just part of a broader war and that without the 2003 U.S. invasion, ``there's no question'' that Saddam Hussein would have ``nuclearized the Middle East.''

So far, Thompson hasn't talked in detail about what U.S. foreign policy would look like should he be elected.

``I'd like him to get a little deeper into specifics,'' said Wolff, a self-described retired homemaker.

Thompson ``has the magnetism to draw people in, and I'm very impressed with that,'' she said.

Two days ago -- standing on the same City Hall steps in Nashua, New Hampshire, where John F. Kennedy declared his presidency 47 years ago -- Thompson was asked how he would make funding of the Iraq war more transparent while also ensuring adequate money in the federal budget for maintaining the U.S. infrastructure.

The Aug. 1 collapse of a Minneapolis bridge that killed 13 people -- the worst U.S. bridge failure in 25 years --``went down because things aren't being paid attention to at home,'' said Cindy Holden, 57, a nurse who asked the question.

In response, Thompson launched into an almost 10-minute answer focused on why it was necessary to overthrow Saddam Hussein. He didn't mention infrastructure.

``I think he lost track of it because he wanted us to understand why he thought what we had done wasn't so bad,'' Wolff said, referring to Iraq.

To contact the reporter on this story: Kim Chipman in Washington at kchipman@Bloomberg.net .

Last Updated: September 11, 2007 11:27 EDT

McChurch - Colorado Megachurches Re-shuffling

2007-08-30T03:54:00.000-05:00

Ted Haggard's Likely Successor Preaches First Sermon

New Life Church congregants packed their Colorado Springs house of worship in the US on Sunday to hear a sermon from the top candidate to replace their disgraced leader, Ted Haggard.

by Lillian Kwon, Christian Today US Correspondent

Posted: Tuesday, August 14, 2007, 9:20 (BST)

New Life Church congregants packed their Colorado Springs house of worship in the US on Sunday to hear a sermon from the top candidate to replace their disgraced leader, Ted Haggard.

"I want to be your pastor," the Rev Brady Boyd told thousands, drawing laughter and applause from the packed auditorium.

It was the first of three Sunday sermons Boyd, a 40-year-old associate pastor at a suburban Dallas megachurch, is to preach for the leadership post of one of the most influential churches in the country. New Life attendance has dropped by around 25 per cent since the fall of their former and very prominent evangelical pastor last year over a sex-and-drugs scandal. Now the megachurch is ready to appoint a new leader and bounce back.

"I don't have any moral failures in my past, no bones in my closet," said Boyd, adding that he was not perfect, according to Rocky Mountain News. "I have sinned, but I am not a failure."

And he has never been unfaithful to his wife, Pam, he said at a news conference later that Sunday.

In his sermon, Boyd listed his "non-negotiable values" that he said he would never give up for money, material goods or weak moments of the flesh, as reported by The Gazette. Those values include following Jesus, protecting and leading his family and being merciful to people.

With positive feedback from congregants, Boyd already looks like he will be taking up the New Life pulpit for good.

“We prayed, fasted and probed. The Lord spoke to us and said this is the man," Mike Ware, one of the church overseers and senior pastor at Victory Church in Westminster, told the congregation, according to The Gazette. “He told me that his most important goal was to make Jesus famous and not himself ... and he also said this was not a career move, but a Kingdom [of Heaven] assignment.”

“We are so excited, we’ve been anticipating this moment – for God to bring us a shepherd,” said Paula Gabriel of New Life, to the local Gazette.

Church leaders acknowledged on Sunday the painful decision they made to bypass Ross Parsley, the associate pastor who served as interim pastor and who many in the congregation hoped would succeed Haggard.

Boyd asked Parsley to stay with him for the next 25 years.

Currently an associate pastor of Gateway Church, another well known megachurch in suburban Dallas, Boyd said he was ready to be a senior pastor even if it means taking up the challenge of rebuilding the reputation of New Life.

"We're here to serve the city. And we're going to win them over," he said, as reported by Rocky Mountain News.

And the Dallas-area pastor clarified that he will not try to fill Haggard's shoes.

"I've been working for 40 years to fill my own shoes," said Boyd, adding that he has deep respect for Haggard who left a great heritage. Haggard founded New Life Church and it has grown to 14,000 members.

The New Life congregation will vote on whether to approve his appointment on 27 August. Boyd needs a two-thirds majority vote.

McChurch - Another One Bites the Dust

2007-08-29T19:28:00.000-05:00

TV station pulls plug on Keller

The televangelist says complaints from local Muslims are to blame.

By SHERRI DAY, Times Staff Writer
Published August 24, 2007

ST. PETERSBURG - For the first time in nearly five years, controversial Christian televangelist Bill Keller is going off the air.

Keller - known for his vitriolic criticism of religious, political and pop culture figures - said Thursday his program was yanked in response to pressure from local Muslims.

Earlier this month, officials from the Council on American Islamic Relations wrote to executives at CBS asking them to investigate Live Prayer with Bill Keller, an hourlong nightly program.

In a May 2 broadcast, the televangelist said Islam was a "1,400-year-old lie from the pits of hell" and called the Prophet Mohammed a "murdering pedophile." He also called the Koran a "book of fables and a book of lies."

CAIR officials asked for equal air time for Florida Muslims to counter Keller's assertions. The show, which aired nightly from 1to 2 a.m., is broadcast on WTOG-TV CH. 44, a CBS-owned station that airs the CW network locally.

"I'm saying nothing now that I haven't been saying for five years," said Keller, who plans to hold his last broadcast on Aug. 31. "Ultimately, it was pressure by CAIR that intimidated these people into taking me off the air. It was not mutually agreeable. They told me they were taking me off the air, period."

But WTOG station manager Laura Caruso said the decision to end Keller's contract was a programming one, made by station executives and the televangelist.

"It really doesn't have anything to do with any special interest groups or anybody in the community," Caruso said. "I think he has a good program, and I wish him all the success in the world."

CAIR claims credit

After speaking with CBS executives, CAIR claims credit for Keller's demise on WTOG. His contract, set to end in December, will terminate on Sept. 11.

"They really based their decision upon our letter," said Ramzy Kilic, CAIR's civil rights coordinator. "They really did not know that Bill Keller was involved with this kind of anti-Muslim rhetoric."

Acting on complaints from bay area Muslims, CAIR officials began monitoring Keller's programs in May.

History of controversy

This is not the first time Keller, 49, has upset religious groups. Since he began his Live Prayer Internet ministry in 1999, he has skewered Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and Scientologists, calling them false religions and cults. He also speaks against abortion, calls Oprah a "new age witch" for embracing diverse religions and says megachurch pastor Joel Osteen is a "gutless wonder."

In May, Keller raised the ire of Americans United for Separation of Church and State when he wrote devotionals on Liveprayer.com saying that a vote for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney equals a vote for Satan. The group asked the IRS to investigate Keller for a possible violation of tax laws, which prohibit tax-exempt nonprofit groups from engaging in partisan politics. Keller, took the debate to a national audience on The O'Reilly Factor, where he sparred with host Bill O'Reilly, who called Keller's words "irresponsible, un-Christian, uncharitable and flat-out wrong."

In his nearly eight years with the Live Prayer ministry, Keller estimates he and his volunteer staff have answered more than 60-million e-mail prayer requests and helped introduce 190,000 people to Christ. Last year, he took the show to a national audience by buying a late-night time slot on the i Network. His national platform lasted only a few months because of lack of financing.

New program in works

Keller remains undaunted. He is a regular guest on the Howard Stern Show and also plans to start a new morning program, Live Prayer AM on WTTA-Ch. 38 in the bay area. Keller says the one-hour live program will feature his trademark sermonettes but also will include lifestyle issues and local secular guests. It is scheduled to air at 7:30 a.m. on Sept. 3.

"I'm going to keep doing what I do," Keller said. "I'm going to bring a biblical message. It is what it is."

Sherri Day can be reached at (813) 226-3405 or sday@sptimes.com

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We need candidates who are really religious

McChurch - Beyond Issues and Into Church Attendance Record

McChurch - Colorado Megachurches Re-shuffling

Ted Haggard's Likely Successor Preaches First Sermon

New Life Church congregants packed their Colorado Springs house of worship in the US on Sunday to hear a sermon from the top candidate to replace their disgraced leader, Ted Haggard.

McChurch - Another One Bites the Dust

TV station pulls plug on Keller

The televangelist says complaints from local Muslims are to blame.

By Eric Gorski - Associated Press
Monday, September 24, 2007 - Web Link