Religious Right Watch

"Paleontologists brought to tears, laughter by Creation Museum"

From the article:

"It's sort of a monument to scientific illiteracy, isn't it?" said Jerry Lipps, professor of geology, paleontology and evolution at University of California, Berkeley.

"Like Sunday school with statues... this is a special brand of religion here. I don't think even most mainstream Christians would believe in this interpretation of Earth's history."
.....

Daryl Domning, professor of anatomy at Howard University, held his chin and shook his head at several points during the tour.

"This bothers me as a scientist and as a Christian, because it's just as much a distortion and misrepresentation of Christianity as it is of science," he said.

Ralph Reed Redux?

From Rob Boston on Talk To Action:

[Ralph] Reed is returning to what he knows best: running a Religious Right group. U.S. News blogger Dan Gilgoff has the scoop. Reed has formed a new organization he calls the Faith and Freedom Coalition.

"This is not your daddy's Christian Coalition," Reed boasted in an interview with Gilgoff. "It's got to be more brown, more black, more female, and younger. It's critical that we open the door wide and let them know if they share our values and believe in the principles of faith and marriage and family, they're welcome."

Abortion & Apocalypse

Chip Berlet, taking a look at "Abortion, Apocalypse, and 'Killing for Life,'" writes:

Those of us who have tracked clinic violence over the past two decades have long known of the militant anti-abortion subculture that ebbs and flows with the political moment. There are two factors that are central to this movement. One is that many of them believe in a vast conspiracy to destroy the country and defame God led by liberal secular humanists and other subversive swine.... The other is the role of aggressive apocalyptic belief among certain Christians on the Political Right. These folks read the Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins "Left Behind" series of novels as if it were a roadmap to future history. More than 70 million sold.

On Talk To Action, follow Bruce Wilson's posts about the June 4-5 live broadcast of Rediscovering God in America, which will feature among others leading Republican politicians and anti-gay and Christian martyrdom activist Lou Engle.

(Image: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Viktor Vasnetsov, 1887; click to enlarge).

Common Ground: Winning the Battle, Losing the Culture War

Chip Berlet writes in "Common Ground: Winning the Battle, Losing the Culture War,"

Obama’s Notre Dame speech seemed to reinforce the “common ground” school, which adopts Christian Right frames in the name of compromise. But a careful look at the numbers reveals that Democrats have more to gain by articulating a strong moral message—whatever the content—than by watering down the message in an effort to appease conservative Christians.
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I first became alarmed about Democratic Party backpedaling on these issues when Howard Dean, chair of the Democratic Party, came to the 2007 Daily Kos conference in Chicago. Before a crowd composed primarily of progressive or left-leaning Democrats, Dean spoke of reaching out to evangelicals mentioning just one name: the Rev. Rick Warren. While Warren may, as he appears, be a nice guy, he is certainly not a progressive. He is at best a moderate (with some baggage about gay people, especially in Africa). A buzz went around the conference typified by blogger Pam Spaulding who wrote: “I respectfully refuse to consider women’s rights and gay rights as a commodity to be traded for votes from evangelicals.”

Frank Schaeffer apologizes for contributing to Dr. Tiller's murder

Frank Schaeffer writes in "How I (and Other "Pro-Life" Leaders) Contributed to Dr. Tiller's Murder,"

The same hate machine I was part of is still attacking all abortionists as "murderers." And today once again the "pro-life" leaders are busy ducking their personal responsibility for people acting on their words. The people who stir up the fringe never take responsibility. But I'd like to say on this day after a man was murdered in cold blood for preforming abortions that I -- and the people I worked with in the religious right, the Republican Party, the pro-life movement and the Roman Catholic Church, all contributed to this killing by our foolish and incendiary words.

I am very sorry.

Multiple right wing movements influence violent anti-abortionists

Chip Berlet:

Scott Roeder, suspected in the slaying of Dr. George Tiller, and John C. Salvi III, who in 1994 killed two health workers and injured several others in a Boston anti-abortion rampage, share a connection to the right-wing Patriot movement--a collection of groups and individuals with one foot in the anti-tax movement and another in organized White Supremacy.

Read more.

(Image: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, by Albrecht Dürer, ca. 1497–98; click to enlarge)