The extreme political Religious Right hasn't given up hope of getting something out of this election. Their latest ploy involves petitioning the parties for a "True Christian" in the vice-presidential slot.

The Christian Anti-Defamation Commission, an organization run by a former staffer of the late Rev. D. James Kennedy, is calling on conservative Christians to sign a petition seeking a "True Christian" vice president.

Gary Cass, who used to lead the Center for Reclaiming America at Coral Ridge Ministries in Florida, told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that he doesn't think either Democrat Barack Obama or Republican John McCain meets his standards for being such a Christian.

"So the best we're going to get out of this election cycle is an evangelical Christian running for vice president," he said.

The group isn't suggesting names but is citing criteria for a perfect candidate, including that it be someone who is against abortion and for defining marriage as "a union between one man and one woman." It plans to send the petition to the presidential candidates.

By "True Christian" they, of course, mean someone who agrees with their particular sectarian-political position, which is a minority position among American Christians. To them, most American Christians don't qualify as true Christians.

Considering these guys are never, ever going to vote for a Democrat, the real point of the petition is to pressure McCain to allow them to name his VP in return for them not staying home in November. More likely, they know McCain will lose and this is just them positioning themselves to argue that it was their lack of support that lost him the election and thus blackmail the Republican Party to cave into the Religious Right's demands even more in the future than it has in the past. The whole business of saying they plan to send their petition to both parties is just cover for tax purposes.

Frank L. Cocozzelli's weekly series of posts on "The Catholic Right" (listed here) includes quite a few posts about Opus Dei.

There's another, similarly ultra-orthodox Catholic religious order he might want to examine in future posts: the Legion of Christ, a "religious congregation of pontifical right" for priests and seminarians, and its associated lay "apostolic movement," Regnum Christi. Like Opus Dei, the Legionaries have a reputation for authoritarianism, secrecy, and courting the rich and powerful.

As amazing as it sounds, dominionists may in fact be fomenting terrorism--not just the domestic terrorism like bombings of women's clinics we normally associate, but the very "Islamist terror bombings" that the GOP loves to use to frighten America into voting a red ticket.

We detailed yesterday on how Christians in Iraq (including communities literally founded by the apostle Thomas) have been targeted due to aggressive prosyletisation by dominionist "missionary" groups; today, we focus on how our soldiers are targeted and becoming targets due to the actions of dominionists...and how some of the very folks targeting both our nation's fighting folks and Iraqis are essentially dominionist rogue agents in the US military's chaplaincy.

The recent incident where a Marine was recently found distributing "Bible coins" promoted by a fundamentalist "Bible church" is, sad to say, far from the first incident of overt prosyletisation in Iraq.

The truth is, this sort of thing has been going on literally since Gulf War I, and ramped up in Gulf War II--and, ironically, has directly threatened the future existence of two of the oldest Christian churches in the world--churches that can literally trace their founding to one of the Twelve Apostles.  Even more disturbingly, most of the worst prosyletisation has been with civilian dominionist groups that target both Iraqi citizens and US military personnel.

We detail the history of dominionist "missionary" efforts in Iraq, and the "dry run" in Lebanon, below.

In what is--sadly--yet another case of the extent of which blatant prosyletisation is tolerated in the modern US military, a recent incident where members of the US Marine Corps were handing out coins to persons in Fallujah with John 3:16 on one side and "where will you spend eternity?" on the other shows that dominionism can even be potentially a risk to national security.

One thing that has not yet been revealed in this incident--which has already led to the suspension of at least one Marine--is  the source of the coins, a fundamentalist "Bible church" which increasingly has embraced both war imagery--and America's fighting men.

A poll that one of the giants on the right, Coral Ridge Ministries, sent to their members gives a revealing insight into their world view.

IN GOD'S NAME is a revealing documentary about how the Alliance Defense Fund is using its tactics to try to restrict abortion in Europe as well as in America.  Watch this trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeTfW8-dCNE

An open letter, from Ray McGovern, a 27-year intelligence analyst with the CIA, to Admiral William J. Fallon, warns of an impending US attack on Iran.

If such an event occurred, the resulting war with Iran would likely have the overtones of a religious war - between Christianity and Islam. Since it's inception as a website and venture, Talk To Action has featured many stories concerning religious war and religious militarism. Many high ranking members of the US military expect religious war, even apocalyptic religious war, and the three most significant contenders to be next US president have all ventured militarist rhetoric vs. Iran, especially Arizona Senator John McCain, whose parodic singing of  "bomb, bomb Iran", in a VFW hall in 2007, became notorious but who also, on April 2, 2006, to Tim Russert on Meet The Press, stated that a US war with Iran "could be Armageddon". McCain's controversial endorser Pastor John Hagee, whom McCain has also endorsed on numerous occasions, calling Hagee in one instance "widely respected and admired across America", has been militating for a US attack on Iran since the US invasion of Iraq, and Hagee has openly stated and written that such an attack would precipitate a catastrophic war.

McCain and Hagee have co-endorsed each other, and members of John Hagee's Christians United For Israel routinely sing, at every "Night To Honor Israel" event they hold, a joyful-sounding song which, in scriptural terms, refers to Israel's coming, expected destruction. The lyrics in "Blow The Trumpet in Zion", sung at nearly ever Christians United For Israel event, come from the 2nd Book of Joe, below:

Joel 2 (New King James Version)

Joel 2

1 Blow the trumpet in Zion, And sound an alarm in My holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble; For the day of the LORD is coming, For it is at hand:

2 A day of darkness and gloominess, A day of clouds and thick darkness, Like the morning clouds spread over the mountains. A people come, great and strong, The like of whom has never been; Nor will there ever be any such after them, Even for many successive generations.

3 A fire devours before them, And behind them a flame burns; The land is like the Garden of Eden before them, And behind them a desolate wilderness; Surely nothing shall escape them.

4 Their appearance is like the appearance of horses; And like swift steeds, so they run.

5 With a noise like chariots Over mountaintops they leap, Like the noise of a flaming fire that devours the stubble, Like a strong people set in battle array.

6 Before them the people writhe in pain; All faces are drained of color.

7 They run like mighty men, They climb the wall like men of war; Every one marches in formation, And they do not break ranks.

8 They do not push one another; Every one marches in his own column. Though they lunge between the weapons, They are not cut down.

9 They run to and fro in the city, They run on the wall; They climb into the houses, They enter at the windows like a thief.

10 The earth quakes before them, The heavens tremble; The sun and moon grow dark, And the stars diminish their brightness.

11 The LORD gives voice before His army, For His camp is very great; For strong is the One who executes His word. For the day of the LORD is great and very terrible; Who can endure it?

In the YouTube video excerpt below, from the Christians United For Israel "Night To Honor Israel" event July 2007, members of John Hagee's San Antonio Cornerstone Church sing "Blow The Trumpet In Zion" :

IN his 1997 "Prophecy Study Bible" [Thomas Nelson, Inc. 1997] Pastor John Hagee explains his understanding of those verses (2nd Book of Joel, chapter 1, verses 2-11) :

"Joe uses the terrible locust plague that has recently occured to illustrate the coming day of judgment when God will directly intervene in human history to vindicate his righteousness. This will be a time of unparalleled retribution upon Israel (2:1-11) and the whole nation (3:1-17) but this time will culminate in great blessing and salvation for those who trust in the Lord...

It is a time of awesome judgment upon people and nations that have rebelled against God...

The land will be invaded by a swarming army; like locusts, they will be speedy and voracious. The desolation caused by this great army will be dreadful...

Joel ends with the kingdom blessings upon the remnant of faithful Judah." [John Hagee, John Hagee Prophecy Study Bible, pages 1026-1028, emphasis mine]

Following Ray McGovern's letter, below, are Talk To Action stories concerning Pastor Hagee and Hagee's relationship with John McCain.

We are very pleased to welcome Frederick Lane as a guest front pager. He is the author of several books,most recently, The Court and the Cross: The Religious Right's Crusade to Reshape the Supreme Court, which will be published this month. This post is crossposted from Beacon Press's new blog, The Beacon Broadside. -- FC

The Religious Right has successfully spent the last thirty years putting the fear of God into Republican presidential candidates. Those who deviate from the evangelical political liturgy are threatened with the special purgatory of corporate golf games and Viagra ads reserved for unsuccessful Republican nominees. And of all the hymns aspirants are required to memorize, none is more sacred than "A Mighty Fortress Are Strict Constructionists."

If there was one candidate who gave the impression that he could carve his own path to the nomination, it was Senator John McCain. The Senator, after all, is a bona fide war hero whose military service and survival of years of imprisonment is eloquent testimony to his personal courage. Eight years ago, when contesting the nomination with George W. Bush, Senator McCain spoke and acted like a candidate confident he could prevail without kneeling at the altar of religious or political extremism.

This is a follow up to my most recent diary entry.

John Hagee claims 1) that he knows with absolute certainty the will of God (as he told a BBC interviewer in 2003), is 2) sure that he, John Hagee, has a place in heaven ( declared in sermons ), and thinks 3) God will afford him special, personal protection from infectious diseases. In the following video clip, Hagee says God sent AIDS and Bird Flu but that he, John Hagee has a  "policy" which will protect him; in a week-long appearance on Word-Faith televangelist Kenneth Copeland's "Believer's Voice Of Victory" television show, which has a broadcast range reaching millions, John Hagee declared, "Our hope is this, Psalms 91, that no plague shall come nigh that dwelling. I have a policy right in this book, says I'm going to be OK." As he utters that, Hagee smacks his Bible with a self-satisfied thwack while Copeland chimes in with the obligatory "praise God!".

Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi recently went undercover to investigate John Hagee's church and wrote up the experience in an absurdist account, Jesus Made Me Puke, which provides details of a special weekend retreat put on by Hagee's Cornerstone Church and conveys the impression that Hagee's Church has institutionalized a special program of self-improvement via the "guided vomiting" up of the profusion of demons Hagee's followers appear to consider themselves infested by - such as, described by Taibbi, the "demon of anal fissures", the "demon of handwriting analysis" and the "demon of the intellect."

It turns out that our present legal understanding of when a life is entitled to legal protection is consistent with the Old Testament Biblical understanding of when a fetus becomes a 'life' warranting legal protection.  

The following somewhat satirical video is built around a brief excerpt from Texas megachurch pastor John Hagee's 2001 55-minute film "Vanished", which followed the prophetic, premillennial plot line of Tim LaHaye's and Jerry Jenkin's "Left Behind" book and film series so closely that it was produced by the company which made "Left Behind: The Movie".

The 4 minute, 51 second video explores the association, made in the Hagee Ministries film, of Jews with homosexuality, abstract art, conspiracy, satanism, organized crime, and New York City and Europe as historic Jewish power-bases---all associations made in the infamous 1930's-era anti-Jewish Nazi propaganda film [perhaps one of the three most lethal works of anti-Jewish propaganda in modern history alongside The Protocols of The Elders of Zion and Henry Ford's "The International Jew"] that was produced with close supervision by Third-Reich arch-propagandist Joseph Goebbels and which some consider it to be, in effect, authored by Goebbels himself: "The Eternal Jew". "

Watching the PBS miniseries "Carrier" was a revelation, but not always a pleasant one...

Ever looked at something or did something which at the time seemed good and beneficial only to learn that it was not what you thought?  If we could all have the opportunity to live from hindsight.  Perhaps one of the darkest days for Christianity was in early 300 AD (or is it CE now - I can never remember) when Emperor Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire.  Wow!  What an amazing accomplishment that a banned persecuted religion begun by a raddical prophet and continued on by a bunch of ragamuffins could become the official sate religion of the empire in under 300 years.  However, history has shown that this moment was not a bright day for the cause of Christ.

[NOTE: for a related story, see Mai Tai Dogs: Pics Show Bush Administration, McCain-Endorser Hagee Schmoozing at Chinese Restaurant]

I have to admit, on one level it sounds more entertaining than a church full of Unitarians briskly rubbing their hands together (because clapping's been proclaimed "disruptive"), but as a regular fare the chaos described below is a bit much for my tastes, and the huge eschatological, end-times chronologies pastor John Hagee favors using in his sermons, with over life-size images of harlots riding on multiheaded tigers (representing the "whore of Babylon" which is to say "The Apostate Church") are a bit much too. Given the choice, I'd take the Unitarians. That said, the theatrical element here is strong:

About half the men and three-fourths of the women were writhing around and either play-puking or screaming. Not wanting to be a bad sport, I raised my hand for one of the life coaches to see.

"Need . . . a . . . bag," I said as he came over.

He handed me a bag.

"In the name of Jesus, I cast out the demon of handwriting analysis!" shouted Fortenberry.

Handwriting analysis? I jammed the bag over my mouth and started coughing, then went into a very real convulsion of disbelief as I listened to this astounding list, half-laughing and half-retching.

"In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, I cast out the demon of the intellect!" Fortenberry continued. "In the name of Jesus, I cast out the demon of anal fissures!"

Cough, cough!

Meet, through the journalistic lens of Matt Taibbi, writing for the Rolling Stone in Jesus Made Me Puke, the San Antonio, TX, Cornerstone Church: home to Pastor John Hagee, rising new Christian right potentate, lifestyle guru, preacher, spiritual guide, caster out of demons, sex-therapist, dietary consultant, apocalypse-booster and political endorser of the presumptive 2008 GOP political nominee for president - Senator John McCain III.

Sun Myung Moon's end time political front, the Universal Peace Federation had a summit from April 28 to May 2 in Washington DC. The participants took a tour of the Moon owned Washington Times and chartered a plane to go visit George H. W. Bush's library. Once again,  George 41 gave a keynote address in support of Moon's efforts.

John Solomon, the new executive editor of the Washington Times who told C-span viewers recently that the paper does not push Moon's agenda, made an appearance at one function apparently hosted by the paper. (see slide show link below)

Brent Scowcroft and former congressman Earl Hillard also showed up to help Moon subdue the planet.

Over the past four years, I've researched the darkest regions of the Christian right for the non-fiction film Silhouette City. The film tracks the movement of apocalyptic Christian nationalism from the margins of American society to its current presence in the mainstream of public discourse and policy. I began making Silhouette City because, in late 2001, I began to hear echoes of the Christian extremism from my childhood in Arkansas. In order to quiet the ringing in my ears, I immersed myself in the contemporary Christian right - the media, music, ministries, books, personalities and organizational apparatuses. Those familiar with the excesses of the movement (and their opponents) can be excused for collectively yawning in the face of yet another seemingly alarmist diatribe on the subject of crusading religionists, but apocalyptic Christian nationalism doesn't simply lose its adherents because the media narrative has shifted. As the economy continues to slide, the energy crisis becomes palpable and the occupation of Iraq appears indefinite, the potential grows for a major disruption of daily life. A significant percentage of the population (1) sees these looming crises through a specific lens: a belief that humanity is waging the opening skirmishes of a cosmic war between Good and Evil that will usher in the Kingdom of God. Such belief enables an ever-escalating sense of urgency - very real threats to the middle and lower classes (outsourcing, rising fuel and food costs, etc) combine with perceived threats (secularism, homosexuality, ethnic/religious others) to become overwhelming evidence of the tribulations that signal apocalypse.

We have written a great deal about the anti-abortion terror organization, Army of God.

One recent post prompted God Tube to take down videos posted by the proprietor of the Army of God web site, Rev. Donald Spitz.

His local newspaper recently did a short profile:

Dr. James Holsinger, a leader in the IRD-linked Methodist renewal movement has, until now, been best known for his crack-pot anti-gay views. - FC

Dr. James Holsinger, the Bush nominee for Surgeon General  and head of the United Methodist high court has been a major player in a contentious and controversial lawsuit involving UMC money.  In part, the scandal of this lawsuit resulted in Holsinger not running for the church high court again.

Well, that didn't take long.  All the speculation about Alan Keyes finding a home with the rabidly right-wing Constitution Party has quickly come to naught as the CP convention picks radio talk show host, and former CP vice-presidential candidate, Chuck Baldwin, as their nominee for 2008.

The finally tally wasn't even close: 384-126.

So, the even the Constitution Party wasn't buying what Alan Keyes was selling and now they both go their separate ways back into irrelevance.

Well, Florida is at it again.

They're considering a "Christian" license plate.  It's supposed to have a cross and a stained glass window on it with the words "I Believe!" More below the break!