Religious Right Watch

The Pundits and the Dominionists | Religion Dispatches

[L]ook at the influence of Christian Reconstruction; how has it impacted the style of the conservative Christianity that makes up the religious right—which is not to say that if I can show influence that that means that the leaders of the religious right really embrace every aspect of it.

Clearly we all seek to shape society along lines we think is best. Reconstructionists themselves  hold a view of knowledge that says that there are really only two possible worldviews (a biblical one and a humanist one that comes in several varieties) and that both worldview are in a conflict for dominion (so in their view “we” are fighting for it too). 

Its not that Rushdoony’s views of the biblical punishment for homosexuality have become widely accepted. The real influence is much more subtle: it’s in the now-multiple generations who have grown up in Christian schooling and Christian home schooling for which he laid philosophical, theological and legal foundations—Bachmann's legal education is but one example of that. The influence plays out in the many Americans who see history and science as theology, promoting “Christian American history” and opposing evolution as an explanation for human origins. 

Granted Americans have always had a sense of themselves as what Ernest Lee Tuveson called  A Redeemer Nation, but David Barton invokes that telos in a much more literal way than those before him.

And it was shocking when, in 1980, Ronald Reagan said he supported teaching what he understood to be the biblical account of creation alongside evolution in schools. Today all of the viable candidates for the Republican nomination hold this view.

These broad cultural changes have developed, in part, from a longterm strategy adopted by the Reconstructionists (what Doug Phillips calls multigenerational faithfulness), the most important component of which is the education of children (theirs and insofar as is practical other peoples’ as well).

It is not fearmongering, paranoia, or religious bigotry to try to understand their goals and strategies. In fact, it’s irresponsible not to.

via www.religiondispatches.org

Rick Perry Signs Anti-Gay Marriage Pledge Before Mingling With Virulently Anti-Gay Activist

On Friday, meanwhile, Perry signed the National Organization for Marriage's pledge that would, among other things, commit him to support sending a federal marriage amendment to states upon becoming president.

But the icing on the cake could come this weekend, when Perry is set to mingle with one of the most virulently anti-gay activists and prominent social conservative donors in his home state.

The event, officially labeled a "call to action," will feature a retreat at a Texas Hill Country ranch. Among the event's hosts will be David Barton, an evangelical leader and founder of the organization WallBuilders.

Barton is most commonly known for holding revisionist historical views, specifically regarding the history of civil rights. But his incendiary stance on LGBT issues has made him an object of intense concern for both progressives who monitor right-wing figures and for Republicans who support gay rights. Most recently, when the state of New York legalized same-sex marriage, Barton argued that anti-gay groups should proverbially "scalp" the four Republican state senators who had backed the bill. He added some choice words for Ken Mehlman, the former RNC Chairman turned LGBT activist, as well.

“I want to see pro-family guys scared straight that are squishy on this issue, and if we can’t take out these four Republicans and the Majority Leader in New York, we will have opened a huge door for Melhman and his kind to come in and start rewarding these guys for going against pro-family stuff, and you just can’t let that happen," Barton said on his radio program, WallBuilders Live. "No disrespect to our Native American friends, but this is where you hang a bloody scalp over the gallery rail. You hang these four Republican scalps over the Senate rail and every other Republican senator looks up and sees those scalps and says, ‘my gosh, I’ll be hanging up there beside them if I don’t stay with this pro-family stuff.’ And that’s exactly what has to happen.”

via www.huffingtonpost.com

Michele Bachmann Was Inspired By My Dad and His Christian Reconstructionist Friends -- Here's Why That's Terrifying

Frank Schaeffer, son of the conservative evangelical theologian and thinker francis Schaeffer, writes that Michele Bachmann a Reconstructionist

schooled – literally – by some of that obscure movement’s leading thinkers, including my father.

The evangelicals have shaped the politics of a secular culture that barely understood the religious right, let alone the forces within that movement that gave it its edge. The Americans inhabiting the wider (and more secular) culture just saw the results of Reconstructionism without understanding where those results had come from—for instance, how the hell George W. Bush got elected and then reelected or why Michele Bachmann was into home schooling long before she was into trying to become president in order to turn America into a homophobic theocracy.

If you feel victimized by modernity, then the Reconstructionists have the answer in their version of biblical interpretation. Reconstructionists want to replace the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights with their interpretation of the Bible.

via www.alternet.org

A very muscular brand of Christianity | The Guardian

After 2,000 years, the Messiah is getting a makeover.
.....
The macho Jesus movement has been bolstered by books like No More Mr Christian Nice Guy and The Church Impotent – the Feminisation of Christianity. But it's artist Stephen Sawyer, whose paintings of the Son of God as a tattooed biker and boxer have captured the imagination of Christian men searching for a more manly role model.

As Kentucky-based Sawyer, 58, points out: "I scarcely think Jesus could have overturned the tables of the money-lenders and driven them from the temple if he was a wimp. The model I use for my paintings is a surfer guy who's built like a brick shithouse."
.....
According to recent polls, the ratio of women to men worshippers in this country is 65% to 35% – and too much girliness is getting the blame for the gender imbalance.

Hence the rising number of conferences and sermons aimed at men that present a more muscular version of Jesus, along with the continuing success of Christian lad's mag Sorted.

via www.guardian.co.uk

A new "Jesus is a hawt!" aesthetic? Arguably, not so new insofar as in the 1400s and 1500s, Jesus was sometimes depicted, in part as an evocation of Christ as the New Adam, as a prototypical man, "The Man," as it were. 

Ecce Homo,* Man of Sorrows (c. 1525) by Flemish artist Maerten van Heemskerck is one of several extant examples (this particular one is now at Bob Jones University, Greenville, South Carolina) of religious imagery in which Christ's virility and, perhaps, more symbolically his resurrection from death, is indicated, albeit in a literally shrouded manner.

Interestingly, some far earlier depictions of Christ depicted him in a more hermaphroditic manner, which is assumed by many art historians to be an indication of the theology of Christ's salvific actions' sufficiency for--and all his actions relevance to--all of humanity The best example of this is the mosaic above the Arian Baptistery in Ravenna, Italy.

Some of the earliest known depictions of Christ are in the mode of Hermes, who was also symbolized (before Christ was) as a "good shepard," as sage or philosopher in the Greek manner, and as Apollo the Sun God. Examples of all three types of those depictions exist on early Christian funerary art.

*Latin, "Behold, [the] Man."

Federal grant reportedly helped anti-gay marriage effort - Omaha.com

IOWA CITY (AP) — Federal grant money awarded to a social conservative group to provide marriage counseling also helped pay some of its operational expenses while it was leading an anti-gay marriage campaign, according to grant documents obtained by the Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act.

The $2.2 million received by the Iowa Family Policy Center between 2006 and 2010 helped hundreds of Iowans receive education and counseling, according to the documents. But it also paid for part of the salaries of five employees, rent, telephone, Internet and other expenses while the group was fighting legalized gay marriage in Iowa.

A University of Iowa researcher who was a consultant on the grant also told AP the group declined to provide same-sex couples education and counseling with the money.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services officials approved the grant budget, and there's no indication the costs run afoul of federal guidelines. Still, critics said the grant was potentially troubling because it was involved in a high-profile effort to respond to the Iowa Supreme Court's 2009 ruling legalizing gay marriage at the time, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa is investigating. A public backlash led Iowa voters to oust three justices last year.

via www.dealsomaha.com

More at Good As You.

Perry signs pledge on anti-gay marriage amendment - seattlepi.com

Gov. Rick Perry has signed a pledge to back a federal constitutional amendment against gay marriage — a reversal of his earlier position that marriage rights should be left up to individual states.

The Republican presidential hopeful signed the National Organization for Marriage's pledge Friday.

via www.seattlepi.com

Attention Governor Perry: Evolution is a fact

[Darwin's Theory of Evolution by National Selection] is a good theory because of the huge ratio of what it explains (all the complexity of life) divided by what it needs to assume (simply the nonrandom survival of hereditary information through many generations). The rival theory to explain the functional complexity of life - creationism - is about as bad a theory as has ever been proposed. What it postulates (an intelligent designer) is even more complex, even more statistically improbable than what it explains. In fact it is such a bad theory it doesn’t deserve to be called a theory at all, and it certainly doesn’t deserve to be taught alongside evolution in science classes.

via citizenship.typepad.com

Rick Perry's Anti-Science Streak is Nothing New - The Texas Observer

For years, Perry has been saying things that would earn him a 'D' in any college (or high school) science class. He wears his anti-intellectualism on his sleeve like a boutonnière.

And it's more than just words. Perry has packed key agencies, such as the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, with yes men who hold views far outside the scientific mainstream on climate change, toxicology, and environmental regulation. Perry's battle with the EPA, in my view, is as much about anti-federalism as it is pleasing the Tea Party base's anti-intellectual streak.

But, perhaps more interesting, is that Perry doesn't appear to know Texas' official policy on the teaching of evolution in public schools. First, it is plainly unconstitutional to teach creationism in public schools. The courts have been consistent on this question. Most recently, in 2005's Kitzmiller v. Dover, a federal judge ruled that intelligent design can't be taught in public schools because it's tantamount to religion, not science, and thus violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

Second, Texas' official curriculum standards, called the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), requires that each high school student "knows evolutionary theory is a scientific explanation for the unity and diversity of life."

via www.texasobserver.org

Of course, the problem with the TEKS definition is that it does not read "evolutionary theory is the scientific explanation for the unity and diversity of life." There is no other scientific explanation for the unity and diversity of life and the origin of species except by evolution. That is a fact, and is--in fact--the simple conclusion supported by Kitzmiller v. Dover. There are other explanations for the diversity of life and the origin of species, such as Creationism, but they are--by definition--non-scientific. They are not predictive, they do not stand up (and only rarely offer themselves up to peer review), and are not founded ultimately upon scientific data, but rather upon faith suppositions.

Rachel Tabachnick on Fresh Air -- UPDATED on Talk To Action

Text excerpts from the interview on the Fresh Air web site, excerpted at Talk To Action. A couple of highlights below:

On dominionism

"Dominionism is simply that Christians of this belief system must take control over the various institutions of society and government. Some things that make this group unique is that they have some unusual concepts of what they call spiritual warfare that have not been seen before in other groups. Spiritual warfare is a common term in evangelicalism and in Christianity but they have some unique approaches and some unique spins on this that distinguish them from other groups."

On the topics at Rick Perry's rally

"The major topics at these events [are] anti-abortion, anti-gay rights and the conversion of Jews in order to advance the end times," she says. "And this was very visible at Perry's events as these Apostles led all of these different prayers and repentance ceremonies at [his rally].'"

via www.talk2action.org

Libertarian gripe with Rick Perry: Amending the 10th Amendment - Reason Magazine

A Libertarian complaint against now-candidate Gov. Rick Perry:

"Our friends in New York," Perry told GOP donors in Aspen on July 22, "passed a statute that said marriage can be between two people of the same sex. And you know what? That's New York, and that's their business, and that's fine with me. That is their call. If you believe in the 10th Amendment, stay out of their business."

It soon became clear that Perry, who wrote a book championing federalism, does not really believe in the 10th Amendment. In a July 28 interview, he assured Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, that he supports amending the Constitution to declare that "marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman." So much for letting states define marriage as they see fit.

Perry did a similar about-face on abortion.

via reason.com