On July 25, despite their being no signs of The Rapture, the Rev. Tim LaHaye slipped off this mortal coil, just days after suffering a stroke. Long before LaHaye, and his writing partner, Jerry Jenkins, teamed up to write the Left Behind series of mega-best-selling apocalyptic novels - which took The Rapture and apocalypticism to the mainstream -- LaHaye was a major figure in the founding and nurturing of the Religious Right.

In 1989, the Unification Church-owned Washington Times newspaper described him as "one of the lightning-rod clergy of the Religious Right." In 2005, Time magazine declared LaHaye as one of the 25 most influential evangelicals in America. At the same time, Time named LaHaye and his wife Beverly -- who founded the conservative Christian Concerned Women for America in 1979 - "The Christian Power Couple."

I just got back from a week-long vacation with my wife and son. We were in Acadia National Park in Maine.

On our second day in the park, I noticed something unusual outside of the Hulls Cove Visitor Center: Three Jehovah's Witnesses were standing outside the center on a patch of grass offering people religious literature. Among them was a magazine explaining the Witnesses' creationist view of how the world came into being.

The term "Political Correctness" was hijacked by right-wing ideologues in the late 1980s to trivialize and disparage concern for basic human rights for people whose race, gender, ability, size, or other attributes were inconsistent with the norms established by straight, White, Christian men.

Before then the term was seldom used other than among Leftist to discuss political ideology.

The idea of claiming there was a Culture War by liberals and leftists against America was formulated over several years by right-wing ideologues Patrick Buchanan, William Lind, and Paul Weyrich.

Many of us know Indiana Governor Mike Pence as a nasty homophobe with a carefully-crafted respectable demeanor. But did you know that In 2006, then Indiana Congressman Mike Pence tried to rally the Christian Right behind a punitive and nasty immigration "reform" program that would have forced all undocumented persons in the United States to leave the country. They would then would have to apply for a return "guest worker" visa from a for-profit private-sector system dubbed (with no apparent sense of irony) "Ellis Island Centers." They could return to the United States after a health screening--and a promise to learn English.

At the 2006 Washington Briefing of the Values Voters Summit, Pence was introduced by Tony Perkins of the Christian Right Family Research Council (FRC) as a "a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican--in that order. "  The Values Voters Summit is the primary national political action training and mobilization convention of Christian Right Republic Party election activists on the state level.

Despite months of hand wringing, public and private condemnations, expressing support for, and endorsing, other candidates, and a close inspection of his miniscule theological underpinnings, many conservative Christian evangelicals are finding their way back to Donald Trump, as nearly four-fifths of evangelicals are now saying they will vote for Trump. According to the Pew Research Center's recent survey, "Evangelical voters are rallying strongly in favor of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump."

Examining the results of the Pew survey, The Christian Examiner's Gregory Tomlin wrote: "Evangelicals aren't just warming to Trump; they're on fire for the candidate." Not everyone has the same view of the survey. In her report, Christianity Today's Sarah Eekhoff Zyistra maintained that evangelicals will vote for Trump, "But they aren't happy about it."

Donald Trump has announced that he plans to put Indiana Gov. Mike Pence on his ticket. This selection signals that Trump, a controversial real estate mogul and reality TV star, is continuing his aggressive courting of the Religious Right, in the hopes of achieving victory this fall.

Whether it will work remains to be seen. In the meantime, here are some things to keep in mind about Pence:

For a half century, a theocratic political movement has been rising in the U.S.  Like any large, successful movement in history, it has a variety of sources and tendencies.  A number of scholars and journalists (including me) have called this movement dominionism. We see it as the driving ideology of the wider Christian Right in the U.S.  But like any movement, it changes over time;  organizations and leaders come and go; and even its ideology evolves.

This year, the political poster boy for dominionism was Ted Cruz.  He lost in the GOP primaries for president to celebrity billionaire Donald Trump -- but he did pretty darn well for a freshman Senator  We have certainly not heard the last from Cruz, and dominionism will continue to be a force in public life regardless of the fortunes of any one pol.

For readers clicking on the first link in Paul Rosenberg's Salon.com interview with Bruce Wilson, here is a link to my recent report (first published here at Talk To Action on June 23rd) concerning Donald Trump's recent meeting with William S. Lind. Below is an image from my report, which shows Trump with Lind and highlights some of the especially disturbing aspects. In the body of this short introduction are the first several paragraphs of my extended report, titled "Trump Meets Man Who Inspired 2011 Terror Attack Deadlier Than Orlando Shooting".

For relevant, detailed academic writing concerning William S. Lind and his theory of Fourth Generation Warfare, see this 95-page monograph by Sociologist and retired U.S. Army intelligence analyst Dr. James Scaminaci, whose extensive writing on this and related matters can be accessed at https://independent.academia.edu/JamesScaminaci.

Over the weekend, The New York Times ran a story about a trend among far-right conservatives in Kansas who call public schools "government schools."

The idea is that a shift in terminology will change opinions. After all, to many people, "public" equals good, while "government" equals bad.

I have noticed a growing trend that is spreading like a prairie wild fire regarding July 4th.  Churches are  celebrating the holiday as never before with renewed fervor and participation.  The larger the congregation, the more elaborate the spectacle.  Military men in full combat gear jump with ropes from church balconies while patriotic songs are presented after scores of hours in preparation.  Larger churches shut down all activities outside of a special service to honor the nation.   Many of these congregations will listen to the words of a new song that repeats its refrain, "One nation under God, there is no separation."  Neil Diamond's "Coming to America", will be sung.  Many are wondering out loud what this has to do with Christian worship.

With the nation embroiled in another hot-button culture war issue -- this time over transgender rights -- a Catholic high school in Burlingame, a small city located south of San Francisco, California, is dead set on doing the right thing. Mercy High, a four-year college preparatory school for girls, which is owned and operated by an order of Sisters of Mercy, has fully accepted a transgender English teacher.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle's Jill Tucker, "The announcement of support ... offers a rare policy position on transgender rights from within an internationally respected Catholic order."

Former Arkansas governor and Religious Right favorite Mike Huckabee has not been having a good year.

Huckabee won the Iowa GOP caucus in 2008 and hoped to repeat that magic in 2016. But he ended up struggling for attention in a crowded field of Republican presidential candidates.