Frances Kissling has an important essay at Salon.com, in which she outlines what's wrong with President Obama's appointment of Alexia Kelley as the head of the faith based office at the Department of Health and Human Services. The office, Kissling writes, has a budget of more than $20 million for family planning grants to faith based and community groups, and "includes oversight of the department's faith-based grant-making in family planning, HIV and AIDS and in small-scale research into the effect of religion and spirituality on early sexual behavior."  

As it turns out, this appointment epitomizes the problem of creeping Religious Rightism in the Democratic Party.

[ed: see end of story for video] People for the American Way's Kyle Mantyla has picked up on an important aspect of the June 5, 2009 Virginia Beach Rock Church event, co-hosted by Christian martyrdom proponent and TheCall founder Lou Engle, that attracted possible 2012 presidential race aspirants Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee. Apparently the legal confine of TheCall's 501(c)(3) nonprofit structure, which only allowed Lou Engle to make public calls, from onstage before audiences of thousands, for acts of Christian martyrdom, was too restrictive for C. Peter Wagner's aspiring "Prophetic Elder" Engle. As Mantyla describes in his PFAW post [with accompanying video - see PFAW link, above],

The goal of Engle's Call to Action is to "redefine voting" for the next generation as a "prophetic act" and train them that they don't vote Democrat or Republican but vote "moral absolute truths," creating a mass army of young, motivated Christian voters who will pledge never to vote for a candidate who is not anti-choice, thereby creating a "spiritual revolution [and] training a generation to seize technology and turn the tide"

Then Newt Gingrich assumed the position.

On Friday, June 5, 2009, at an event featuring aspiring politicians Mike Huckabee and Newt Gingrich that was broadcast over the global media networks of GodTV, a rising leader in the rapidly reconfiguring Christian right who has publicly called for acts of Christian martyrdom, prayed over and blessed Huckabee and Gingrich: TheCall founder Lou Engle.

The  June 5, 2009, Rock Church event has received some media notice but coverage -which has noted Newt Gingrich declared Americans are "surrounded by paganism", and that he and Mike Huckabee made stump speeches calling for Christian conservatives to become more involved in electoral politics- has almost wholly missed the significance.

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 like those of us who read Talk to Action.

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. Christian bookstores, especially on the Internet, are well stocked with Christian conspiracist literature as well as Christian apocalyptic literature. Sometimes they are the same book.

When you combine conspiracy theories that demonize a scapegoat with an aggressive form of apocalypticism, you have a volatile mix--one that throughout history has generated violence and murder.

Chip Berlet, Senior Analyst at Political Research Associates, and I were on Democracy Now with Amy Goodman this morning discussing the assassination of Dr. Tiller, his alleged assailant Scott Roeder and the religious and political movements that support and give rise to antiabortion violence.

We were preceded by the pseudonymous manager of clinic in Kansas City that had reported to the FBI that Scott Roeder had twice super glued the locks at his clinic in the previous week, and that they did not arrest him. He believes that if the FBI had acted, Dr. Tiller would be alive today. He was followed by Dr. Susan Robinson, who flew to Wichita monthly to work with Tiller. She describes the inadequate attention by police to the routine crimes of antiabortion protesters.

To watch or listen to the show or to read our portion of the rush transcript (which you will also find on the flip) -- click here.

Condemn the murder of Dr. George Tilller? Absolutely! Is condemnation enough? Not on your life!

Sometime during the day after the assasinastion of Dr. George Tiller, I received another condemnation of the murder in my in-box.

This one was from Faith In Public Life, an organization working hard to establish "common ground" amongst conservative and liberal religious leaders. (Thus far, I have generally been agnostic about "common ground" efforts.)

The headline read "Religious Leaders Seeking Common Ground on Abortion: Condemn George Tiller's Murder, Say Act Offends Us All"

What followed was a condemnation of the murder. I was sorry to see that it didn't go nearly far enough.

While everyone on both sides of the abortion issue seems to condemn the murder of George Tiller, few admit the malignant effects of "baby killer" rhetoric

In the immediate aftermath of the murder of Dr. George Tiller, words came flowing forth from every conceivable direction. The media reported, longtime anti-abortion activists "condemned," but few apologized for years of hate speech directed at Tiller.

In the hours following the murder and the subsequent condemnations from Religious Right leaders, I remembered Jerry Falwell's notorious post-9/11 remarks, blaming feminists and the ACLU, among others -- and the uncomfortable flip-flopping that followed. It was clear that his comments represented what he was thinking. Yet it was also clear, as he tried to backtrack and apologize, that he realized he had monumentally goofed.

I was reminded of those wretched Falwell maneuverings on Monday evening while watching Frank Schaeffer -- the son of the late Francis Schaeffer, one of the founding fathers and most revered figures on the Christian Right - point out during his appearance on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show that the condemnations of Tiller's murder issued by leaders of the Christian Right seemed forced and empty.

As Christian Newswire just announced four hours ago, "Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, Lou Engle, Ron Luce and others link up this week to inspire people of faith to reclaim the Nation's spiritual foundation." The event will be broadcast over GodTV, a Christian media network founded in 1995 which claims to be able to reach hundreds of millions globally.

On Sunday May 31, 2009 late-term abortion doctor George Tiller was allegedly gunned down in the lobby of his Wichita, Kansas church by a man, Scott Roeder, who had ties to the racist wing of the militia movement. The next morning CBS's Jeff Glor reported, "We did speak with the accused shooters' ex-wife yesterday. She said she was not surprised this happened and that she believed Roeder wanted to be a martyr for the cause."

If the event goes as planned, Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee will appear, only days after Tiller was slain, with a man who has publicly agitated against George Tiller and called for Christian martyrs to stop legal abortion: Lou Engle of TheCall.

While the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) is extremely pleased by the announcement that President Obama is replacing Army Secretary Pete Geren, a man who is clearly among those who view the current wars as a religious struggle, we have grave concerns about nominee John McHugh, whose record in Congress indicates that he is no friend of the protections guaranteed by the First Amendment, a standpoint that could have serious ramifications with respect to the already crumbled wall between religion and the military, and further weaken the right of our soldiers to be free from government sanctioned religious coercion and discrimination.

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.

This overlapping set of alliances goes back over ten years to the height of the armed citizens militia movement which emerged from the broader Patriot movement, a longstanding part of right-wing reality in the United States.

Dr. George Tiller, a Kansas abortion provider, was shot to death in church Sunday morning. Is it so hard to say that this was a heinous act that should be condemned by all reasonable people?

Apparently it is for some. Religious Right theocrat Randall Terry reserved space at the National Press Club yesterday to opine that Tiller got what he deserved.

[UPDATE: Lou Engle, who publicly calls for acts of Christian martyrdom is slated to appear along with Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee this coming Thursday June 4 at 8.30pm and Friday June 5 at 8am, on GodTV - which claims a broadcast of hundreds of millions worldwide.] On Sunday May 31, 2009 Kansas City late-term abortion doctor George Tiller was allegedly gunned down in the lobby of his church by a man, Scott Roeder, who had ties to the racist wing of the militia movement. The next morning CBS's Jeff Glor reported, "We did speak with the accused shooters' ex-wife yesterday. She said she was not surprised this happened and that she believed Roeder wanted to be a martyr for the cause." The antiabortion, pro-Christian martyrdom of TheCall founder Lou Engle, whose personal website still features a post attacking Tiller, has up until now received little scrutiny.

At Lou Engle's November 1, 2008 pro-Proposition 8 anti-gay marriage TheCall San Diego event Engle and his disciples called for acts of Christian martyrdom against legalized abortion. In the early 1980's, KKK and Aryan Nations strategist Louis Beam helped popularize a tactic known as "leaderless resistance" in which high profile propagandists would incite terrorist acts carried out by autonomous individuals and cell groups. Lou Engle's inflammatory TheCall antiabortion rhetoric conforms with Beam's tactic; Engle merely incites.

Lou Engle appeared in the Heidi Ewing / Rachel Grady runaway hit documentary Jesus Camp. The Official documentary website states that at Becky Fischer's "Jesus Camp" summer camp, "kids are taught to become dedicated soldiers in God's army and are schooled in how to take America back for Christ." In the film, Fischer states her desire to indoctrinate the children at her camp so that they have the same level of dedication as Hamas suicide bombers. When Fischer's "Jesus Camp" children become young adults, they will gravitate toward Lou Engle's slickly marketed TheCall events, which draw between 20 and 80 thousand people per event and are held in the US and also internationally, in Kansas, San Diego, and Washington DC but also in Australia, Germany, the Philippines, Norway, England, Jerusalem and Brazil [Top, Left: Becky Fischer admires the dedication of Hamas' young suicide bombers. Top, Right: Lou Engle predicts legalized abortion will lead to a second American civil war, TheCall Kansas City, December 31, 2007. Bottom, Left: Lou Engle calls for martyrs, at TheCall San Diego, November 1, 2008. Bottom, Right: Lou Engle, at Jesus Camp, indoctrinates children as future antiabortion movement warriors.].

In the wake of the assassination of Dr. George Tiller, we have already seen a great deal of attention given to the role of inflammatory anti-abortion rhetoric. There will be a continuing debate about this. I don't believe that dedicated people react to sound bites and then go out and kill. But the rhetoric is a reflection of profound beliefs that are ultimately more important than the words used to express them. To many, abortion is murder, and that its practitioners are committing mass murder. This is an important element of the context of our time. Nevertheless, words do matter.

Newly converted conservative Catholic Newt Gingrich is defining U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor as a reverse racist, claiming that her ability to draw upon her heritage as a Hispanic woman makes her a proponent of "identity politics."

But the question I have for the thrice married, twice divorced former Speaker of the House of Representatives is whether Judge Sotomayor should engage in religious identity politics.

To say the least, I suspect that ole Newt would give us a rather interesting answer.

Dr. George Tiller, a prominent abortion provider who has been the target of mass protests, arson at his clinic, attempted murder (shot in both arms) and more, was shot to death while attending church.  The Wichita Eagle reports:

WICHITA - George Tiller, the Wichita doctor who became a national lightning rod in the debate over abortion, was shot to death Sunday morning as he walked into church services.

Tiller was shot just after 10 a.m. at Reformation Lutheran Church at 7601 E. 13th, where he was a member of the congregation. Witnesses and a police source confirmed Tiller was the victim.

This is a story of term that turned up in what, by Religious Right standards, was a mild diatribe issued by the Family Research Council. It was issued in response to a mild call for support for President Obama's health care reform plan by some liberal and centrist religious groups. But it is a story that offers insight into the politics our time as viewed from the window of history. So please bear with me as we take the long view of rhetoric emanating out of the heat of the moment.

The Religious Right did not die, it just went mainstream. That's why it stands to reason that the culture wars are not over and that the battle grounds, leaders, and tactics are changing to adapt to changing times and circumstances. Examples abound in the news, the culture of denial about these things not withstanding.

There is hardly a better example than the accidentally leaked list of Republican Party talking points in response to the Sotomayor nomination:  

[editor: C. Peter Wagner (who named the movement and also helped create it) explains the New Apostolic Reformation. This article was originally published as Chapter 14 of The Transforming Power of Revival edited by Harold Caballeros and Mel Winger. It was reprinted in  Renewal Journal #15: Wineskins (2000:1) [ www.renewaljournal.com ] with the generous conditional copyright extension clause, Reproduction is permitted so long as the copyright remains intact with the text.]

The New Apostolic Reformation (by C. Peter Wagner)

Prolific author of over 40 books, C.  Peter Wagner, describes the emerging church wineskins for the twenty-first century.  This article is reproduced with permission from Chapter 14 of The Transforming Power of Revival edited by Harold Caballeros and Mel Winger.

I will soon complete 30 years as a professor of church growth on the graduate level.  During these 30 years, I have studied countless Christian churches of all sizes, in all kinds of locations, from new church plants to those hundreds of years old, spanning virtually every theological tradition, and rooted in varieties of cultures on six continents.  I have reported my research the best I have known how in an average of one or two books a year.                                

I have never been more excited about a book dealing with church growth than I am about The New Apostolic Churches, from which this chapter is reprinted.  I will begin with a personal testimony of how God has brought me to the place where I am now; it will explain why I am so excited.

French government agency report claims growing influence of religious sects and cults at UN and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe

A French government agency called MIVILUDES (Mission interministérielle de vigilance et de lutte contre les dérives sectaries -- Interministerial Mission for Monitoring and Combating Cultic Deviancy) recently issued a 199-page report claiming that religious sects and cults are exerting a growing influence in international bodies such as the United Nations.

According to a report at Digital Journal, "A sect is defined here as being any religious organization which can be characterized as employing any of the following methods; Mental destabilization, exorbitant financial demands, a rupture with members' original environment, power in the hands of one person, the invasion of a person's physical integrity, the recruitment of children, antisocial preaching and troubling public order, activities which lead it to be tried in a court of law, using parallel economic structures, attempts to infiltrate the workplace, schools, and public powers."

Many young people these days tend to look at college in a utilitarian light: They ask, "What can I study that will land me a good job and lead to a comfortable life?"

I understand that impulse. But I'd also like to think there are other reasons for going to college - say, to expand your horizons. A good university education should expose you to new ideas and challenge your way of thinking, not just reinforce your pre-existing biases.

     Author Barry Hankins said that J. Frank Norris often had dealings with Gerald Winrod.  Winrod was the "Jawhawk Nazi" who ran for senator from Kansas.  Norris was also special friends with Gerald Smith, the notorious anti-Semite.  Norris once had Smith into his church to preach a series of revival meetings.  Smith's topics he preached on included a Communist plot to deceive Negroes and why Elliot Roosevelt is closer to Stalin than any other American.  One message dealt with a special deal insiders had going to pick Stalin as the next President of the United States.  Norris would part with this branch of the religious right over the issue of Jews.  Norris' view of end of times led him to embrace modern Israel.

Church & State: Rob Boston discusses the transition going on in the leadership of the Religious Right.

Mahablog: Barbara O'Brien discussses the difference between "abortion reduction" and "reducing the need for abortion." (HINT: The first is what you say if you are a Religious Right leader. The second is what you say if you are the president's Domestic Policy Adviser.  The differences are more than in the phrasing.)

Daily Kos: Teacherken discusses a column by James Carroll about the religion and the military.

Street Prophets:  Pastordan discusses a recent poll of mainline clergy which among other things, shows that many are worried that marriage equality laws may require clergy to marry gay couples against their beliefs. Pastordan suggests that the poll must have oversampled "low information"  clergy. I think it showed not so much low, but mis-information.  The anti-equality folks don't talk much about Massachusetts where we have had marriage equality for five years. Nothing like what they predicted has happened here. (Western Civilization hasn't fallen; and God has not punished us. In fact the Red Sox are in first place.) No clergy in Massachusetts has been required to marry anyone against their beliefs. Couples have the right to marry, but they cannot require anyone to perform the service. Its just as it has always been in that regard. But the Religious Right continues to spread the lie that it might be otherwise. People should be more careful where they get their information.

Facebook: Fans of Talk to Action. Facebook:  Dispatches from the Religious Left.  Facebook:  I want to know more about Sarah Palin...  and her view of the Third Wave. Facebook Fish Out of Water Facebook The Clergy Letter Project Facebook: Enough! Basta! Stop Sidewalk Bullying at Women's Clinics!

Just when I thought Bill Donohue head of the Catholic League could not go any lower  he callously downplayed a horrific story of decades of pedophilia and child abuse committed by Irish Catholic priests and nuns.  This, according to a 2,600 page report prepared by an investigatory commission set up by the Irish Government and chaired by a judge of the country's High Court.  

The more things change, the more things stay the same. That's the old saw that comes to mind in light of recent doings at Liberty University, in Lynchburg Virginia; founded by the late Jerry Falwell and currently led by Jerry Falwell Jr.

But before we get to those doings and what they may mean, I want to recall the giddy declarations that the culture wars are over, or nearly so, we have heard for some time, albeit on the basis of scanty, or at least contestable evidence. Prior to that, we heard similary giddy declarations that the Religious Right itself was dead, or nearly so, again based on scanty or at least contestable evidence.  Some have suggested that the debate about such thinking and the "strategy" that stems from it might be little more than a tempest in a teapot. But the  problemwith pooh poohing the significance of the debate is that it is about several strategic premises and the political and policy direction of the Democratic Party.

It is Sunday morning at the First Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.  The famous pastor by the name of J. Frank Norris enters the pulpit carrying a broken quart bottle with him.  It is the early part of the 20th century and the church is relieved that their pastor was just acquitted in court of allegations that he had torched the church.  With fervent passion the preacher is proud in his exoneration from the accusations.  He preaches a sermon from the text, "Thou are weighed in the balances and found wanting."  He tears into the attorney who brought charges against him. The lawyer has just met a horrible death driving his Cadillac on North Main accompanied by a lady companion. His vehicle is full of liquor and is driven head on into the streetcar.  Pastor J. Frank announces to the congregation that in the broken bottle there is whiskey and brains from the lawyer. The story is a splendid portrait of the life and ministry of J. Frank Norris.

For Newt Gingrich, there are so many battles and so little time. With 2012 in his sights, Gingrich has become a one-man GOP band, trumpeting god, guns and the resignation of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

In his most recent "Newt Gingrich Letter," the former House Speaker, who knows from resignations, demanded the resignation of current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He wrote in "Why Pelosi Should Step Down" that, "The case against Nancy Pelosi remaining Speaker of the House is as simple as it is devastating:

The piece's subtitles tell the story:

"From a Question of Memory to a Question of Criminality"

"Pelosi on the CIA: 'They Mislead Us All The Time'

"Why Did Pelosi Escalate the Controversy into a Full Scale War With the CIA?"

"If Pelosi Consented to Waterboarding in 2002, the Bush Policy Is Vindicated"

"Speaker Pelosi Has Made America Less Safe"

Every once in a while, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) stumbles into a story that's so crazy that even we have a hard time believing it's true, and, it just happened again. But, before getting into this story, I would be remiss in not extending, on behalf of MRFF, a sincere thank you to former Navy chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt, without whose recent actions we never would have paid attention to an organization whose members include some of the most bizarre and dangerous chaplains we have ever come across in the U.S. military.

Mega-evangelical Samuel Rodriguez joins with Senator Ruben Diaz to rally opponents to gay marriage.

Years from now - I won't venture a guess as to how many but I am fairly certain by that time the names Carrie Prejean and Perez Hilton will be mere footnotes - when the history of the struggle over gay rights and same-sex marriage is written, there will be plenty of heroes/heroines to be honored, and more than enough villains to go around. Maybe villains is too strong a term; how about anti-gay true believers whose beliefs resulted in real harm? For every courageous couple in Iowa or Massachusetts who, against great odds, have pressed on, there are those that have made it their business to stand (metaphorically for now) in the courthouse doorway.

For now, if you've been following the battle over same-sex marriage and you don't know who the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez or Rubén Díaz are, you likely soon will.

Rodriguez, President of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC), and Diaz, a New York state Senator from the Bronx a Pentecostal pastor in that borough, are two key players leading anti-same-sex marriage forces in New York State.

On Sunday, May 17, while much of the "culture war" crowd was focused on events at Notre Dame University -- where President Barack Obama was heartily welcomed by UND graduates and their families - things were hopping in New York City. Thousands of anti-same-sex marriage activists marched in opposition to Governor David Patterson's gay marriage bill.

In an essay at Religion Dispatches, Talk to Action contributor Chip Berlet has what may be the definitive overview of the debate on the Religious Left about how "common ground" with conservative evangelicals has been pursued in the Democratic Party at the expense of progressive values.  Indeed, Berlet develops what some of us have been discussing here for some time:  that some party operatives and related interest groups have adopted some of the framing and arguably some of the goals of the Religious Right itself; and goes on to say that it doesn't have to be this way.

I know that some of those we have written about here dispute much if not all of we have had to say about these things, but Chip's essay makes a strong case.  And he graciously invites the leaders of Faith in Public Life and those who think as they do  to reconsider in the interests of values we all share -- including separation of church and state, reproductive justice and gay rights.  

Excerpts on the flip.

Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter's decision to retire and return to his farm in New Hampshire has really got the Religious Right's knickers in knots - but also has given movement leaders an opportunity.

President Barack Obama is expected to name Souter's replacement soon, and chances are the Religious Right isn't going to like that person's record.