As many of you know, I am now recovering at home after two weeks in the hospital and some harrowing experiences. I am feeling much better, and I expect will be posting regularly soon.  -- FC

Through the grey tinted glass at the end of the hospital hallway, I could see the last of the peak fall color. Bright yellow, red and orange leaves in the distance. Probably maple. There is nothing like Fall in New England.

I was recovering from treatment for "massive pulmonary embolisms," (blood clots in the blood vessels affecting my lungs) at Bay State Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts. (Bay State is a major regional teaching hospital.)  I had had a procedure (via a catheter up through a vein in my leg) to remove some of them, dissolve others, and to install a filter in my vena cava to collect any others that might turn up before they could kill, or leave me permanently impaired.  A retired doc said, snapping his fingers, I could've "gone, like that."

I was fortunate.

Stumping for her new autobiography, Sarah Palin has made a round of interviews with high profile media figures such as Oprah Winfrey and Barbara Walters. In the Walters interview Palin justified her support for expansion of Jewish settler enclaves on Israel's West Bank with a strange prediction. Walters asked, "Now let's talk about some issues - the Middle East. The Obama Administration does not want Israel to build any more settlements on what they consider Palestinian territory. What is your view on this ?" Palin responded, "I disagree with the Obama Administration on that. I believe that, um, the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon because the population of Israel is going to grow. More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead."

Why might Palin's prediction come to pass ? In the 1920's and 1930's, rising anti-Semitism was propelled, in part, by conspiracy theories alleging that Jewish bankers such as the Rothschild banking family controlled both the German and world economies through the manipulation of global money markets. Leaders in Sarah Palin's religious tendency have for years been promoting extremely similar conspiracy theories. Some of these allege that the Rothschild banking family heads an international conspiracy that dominates much of the world economy and controls the U.S.economy through the Federal Reserve.

Remember all the talk last summer about the mysterious "C Street house" in Washington, D.C.?

The structure, owned by a clandestine evangelical Christian organization known as "The Family," was in the news because some politicians tied to it got caught up in embarrassing sex scandals.

Three years ago, in an essay in The Public Eye magazine, I outlined how the neoconservative and Religious Right campaign to divide and conquer the historic mainline Protstant denominations has been underway for more than a quarter century. Led and organized by the Washington, DC-based Institute on Religion and Democracy, conservative "renewal" groups, have pitted Christians against one another, while seeking schism, and ultimately neturalization of the progressive social witness of the churches. Neoconservative Catholics and evangelicals, and conservative foundations -- outsiders with no history of membership in, or any legitimate interest in the internal functions of the churches -- have taken a disproportionate role in underwriting and coordinating these attacks.

Now the progressive think tank Political Research Associates (which publishes The Public Eye) has issued a major study that advances our understanding of this campaign by detailing the African connection. Globalizing the Culture Wars: U.S. Conservatives, African Churches and Homophobia documentes the role of IRD and related renewal groups in seeking to mobilize African Christians against the mainline denominations of which they are members

It's no secret that I'm not a fan of the Religious Right. Through my work at Americans United, I've opposed this movement for 22 years and have written three books challenging the Religious Right's perspective.

I don't believe that everyone who holds Religious Right views is a bad person. But I would be remiss in my duties if I failed to point out that, increasingly, many in the Religious Right are telling big, fat, honking lies. This is a shame, because it makes it impossible to have a civil exchange of views in the public arena.

In the final weeks of the 2008 presidential election, one of the religious leaders closest to Sarah Palin hinted that the Alaska governor might soon get an unexpected career boost... from a terrorist attack.

Independent charismatic Christianity vexed the McCain campaign throughout the 2008 campaign, first in the debacle that followed John McCain's decision to accept a long-sought political endorsement from Texas megachurch pastor John Hagee, when an anti-Semitic 2005 sermon by Hagee surfaced, then through infighting between Sarah Palin and McCain campaign staffers.

Palin's new autobiography Going Rogue, and the numerous Palin media appearances accompanying the book's release, has provoked a fresh outburst of hostility, especially from McCain campaign head Steve Schmidt - who declared Palin's book to be "all fiction". In June, Schmidt warned that if Palin were nominated as the 2012 GOP presidential candidate the result would be "catastrophic."

Fueling Schmidt's obvious hostility may be an astonishing but little noticed September 2008 "prophecy" from Palin's prayer group leader of almost two decades, Alaska evangelist Mary Glazier, that seemed to envision John McCain winning the 2008 election but then being killed soon thereafter, tragically, in a terrorist attack that would leave Palin to succeed McCain as president.

As JTA News has just reported, John Hagee's Christians United For Israel (CUFI), which represents many millions of American Christian Zionist evangelicals, has formed an official alliance with the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, led by the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez. In May 2008, video first posted on this website publicized a controversial late 2005 sermon in which John Hagee declared, "then God sent a hunter. A hunter is someone with a gun, and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter." As Hagee voiced those words, he pantomimed a Nazi aiming a rifle at Jews. Controversy over the statement led presidential candidate John McCain to renounce Hagee's political endorsement. Recently John Hagee has launched a campaign to rehabilitate his public image.

The NHCLC, which claims to represent over five million Hispanic charismatic Catholics and ten million Hispanic evangelicals, has since 2003 had a partnership with the National Association of Evangelicals, which has claimed to represent almost thirty million evangelical Christians. There is considerable membership overlap among these respective spheres of leadership and so the recent alliances are far from surprising. What is curious, however, is the fact that while some consider Texas megachurch pastor John Hagee to be an extremist and part of an old-guard, dwindling cadre of fundamentalist leaders, Samuel Rodriguez has been identified by some in mainstream media as one of a group of alleged "new evangelical" moderates.

In posting on his blog site, recently installed Archbishop for the Diocese of New York, Timothy Dolan, accused The New York Times of anti-Catholicism. Apparently His Eminence equates any discussion of Church affairs as anti-Catholic bigotry.  

But if Archbishop Dolan were concerned about real examples of anti-Catholicism, he ought to address the teachings of Religious Right activist Pastor John Hagee.''

Even while protesting that he isn't trying to kill health care reform, House Representative Bart Stupak (D-Mich), who has incurred the wrath of the pro-reproductive rights American left and female Democratic Party supporters and so risked sabotaging current health care reform efforts  by forcing an anti-abortion amendment into the recently passed House health care bill, has vehemently denied being a member of "The Family":  a fundamentalist Christian association set up in the 1930's as a union-busting enterprise and which later worked to undo Roosevelt's New Deal.

But Stupak has lived for at least seven years in a well-appointed Washington DC row house that's registered as church, has its own chapel, and is run by the Family's chief nonprofit entity, the Fellowship Foundation; 990 tax return forms submitted by that foundation indicate  the very function of the 'C Street House', and similar area houses run by the Fellowship Foundation, is to provide lodging for people in the Family's ministry. As its 2005 990 Federal tax return explains, "[the Fellowship Foundation's] Room & board income relates to persons in ministry reimbursing the foundation for expenses incurred for supplying living accomodations. [sic]"

So according to the Fellowship Foundation's tax returns, the man who inserted the Stupak-Pitts amendment into the House health care bill is a "minister" in the Family. Family members, according to World Magazine, journalist Jeff Sharlet, and other sources are known to refer to their Fundamentalist Washington association as a "Christia mafia."

When political pundits talk about the power of religious groups to affect public policy in Washington, most tend to focus on the Religious Right.

Indeed, during the presidency of George W. Bush, Religious Right groups flexed a lot of political muscle and won numerous victories on Capitol Hill.

The Uganda New Vision reports the latest on David Bahati, the MP behind the proposed draconian "Anti-Homosexuality Bill"; he was among attendees at a recent prayer meeting for parliamentarians, after which (emphasis added)

...eight MPs were selected to be in the servant leadership team for Parliament for three years.

They included Ruth Tuma, Alice Alaso, Beatrice Lagada, Moses Ntahobari, Capt. Grace Kyomugisha, Benson Obua, David Bahati and the East African legislative assembly MP, Maj. Gen Mugisha Muntu.

The prayer meeting was run by Dr. Fred Hartley, president of the College of Prayer International. This organisation is based in the USA (Georgia) and has numerous campuses around the world.

From Warren Throckmorton's blog:

STATEMENT FROM PASTOR RICK & KAY WARREN REGARDING ACTIVITIES OF MARTIN SSEMPA IN UGANDA

Martin Ssempa does not represent me, my wife Kay, Saddleback Church, nor the Global PEACE Plan strategy. In 2007, we completely severed contact with Mr. Ssempa  when we learned that his views and actions were in serious conflict with our own. Our role, and the role of the PEACE Plan, whether in Uganda or any other country, is always pastoral and never political. We vigorously oppose anything that hinders the goals of the PEACE Plan: Promoting reconciliation, Equipping ethical leaders, Assisting the poor, Caring for the sick, and Educating the next generation.

Throckmorton is himself a conservative Christian, but he has been forthright in his opposition to the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill under consideration in Uganda and backed by religious leaders such as Ssempa. In a recent article published in the Uganda Independent, Throckmorton noted the story from John's Gospel of the woman taken in adultery:

James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family (FOF), is not a happy camper these days.

 "What is happening in Washington right now is my greatest nightmare," Dobson said during a recent radio broadcast. He opined that everything he has worked on for 25 years is "coming apart.... It's unbelievable what's taking place."  

Special Focus:  Christian Zionism

Following are a list of articles on Christian Zionism that have been posted on Talk2action.org over a period of several years along with other supplementary material.  The articles are listed in chronological order starting with the most recent.

Christian Zionism has been defined as support for the state of Israel by Christians based on biblical beliefs.  However, in the context of these articles, the term Christian Zionist is limited to those activists who view Israel and Jews through the paradigm of their biblical prophecy narratives and are working to move the hands of the prophetic clock.  The following articles document the paradoxical narrative of Christian Zionism and the activism of leaders and organizations including John Hagee and his Christians United for Israel. [see full story for links to articles]

On Tuesday November 3rd, voters in Maine can either vote yes or no on "Question One," a potential people's veto of recently enacted legislation a recent bill that established the right of homosexual couples to marry.

While the Bishop of Portland, Richard J. Malone, has weighed in heavily with his opposition to marriage equality, he is not the only Catholic making his voice heard on the ballot measure. Many other Pine State Catholics are speaking out for marriage equality and just as importantly, in defense of maintaining a pluralistic American society.

Hagee's controversial sermons are again an issue in the aftermath of Elie Wiesel's appearance at Hagee's church.  This was further escalated after Max Blumenthal commented on Hagee at the recent J Street conference.  I attended the conference and was present when Blumenthal spoke at a blogger's session, which was not part of the official programming.  Ron Kampeas, writing at JTA, as well as others, appear to be confused about the sermon and publicity that led to rejection of Hagee's endorsement by John McCain. The assumption that there were two different sermons, given on different dates, allowed Hagee to avoid more controversy about his less than totally truthful apology to ADL's Abraham Foxman.  There are equally important issues about this and other Hagee sermons that are worth revisiting, including the incomplete coverage of Hagee's anti-Catholic conspiracy theories. Hagee's "Mystery Babylon" conspiracy theory targets Catholics but, coincidentally, is a conspiracy theory that is also used by white supremacist to target Jews.

First, the sermon quote widely publicized during the presidential elections was from a 2005 sermon.

As The Economist's Democracy In America blog notes , support for Israel doesn't preclude anti-Semitism:

Bigotry comes in many forms, and can easily be set aside for the right reasons. Marcus Garvey found common cause with the Ku Klux Klan, for instance: they both wanted to keep their respective races pure. Loving racial or theological purity is both easy and juvenile; it is a rejection of the world as is in favour of a perfect world that can never be.

Marcus Garvey wanted to resettle New World blacks in a "homeland" in Africa. Christian Zionists think God wills it that all Jews on Earth move "back" to Israel. The Economist's citation, of the strange alliance between Marcus Garvey and the Ku Klux Klan, resonates well with a thought experiment I've recently sketched out...

The Christian Broadcasting Network has caved in to scoffers and mockers and scrubbed a blog post which explained the dangers of Halloween - specifically, that "most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches", and that this is a time of "sex with demons" and "rape and molestation of adults, children and babies", among much else.

The post was by Kimberly Daniels and taken from Charisma magazine, although much of the skeptical reaction has been at the expense of CBN's president, Pat Robertson. Regarding Halloween as demonic is common among Charismatic and neo-Pentecostal churches (and Evangelicals in general are not very keen on the celebration), and it is no surprise to read that she has links with C. Peter Wagner. It is interesting, though, to see elements of conspiracy theory, harking back to do the debunked "Satanic panics" of the 1980s.

We here at Political Research Associates are calling on Pastor Rick Warren to denounce a bill now being debated in Uganda that criminalizes homosexuality. Why? Because despite the nice things he is now saying about gays here in the United States, to his friends in Africa he is promoting the nasty homophobia of our homegrown culture wars.

Pro-Life* Democrats in Congress played a "magnificent" role in blocking health care reform during the Clinton administration. And, under the "courageous" and "smart" leadership of House Pro-Life Caucus leader, Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak, with the support and prayers of Republicans categorically opposed to the Democratic Party's health care reform effort, the Blue Dogs may be able to do it again.

That's what Stupak's caucus co-chair Chris Smith (R-NJ) told the audience at a "townhall" panel event on Friday September 18th at the Family Research Council Action's Washington DC 2009 Values Voter Summit [see attached video and transcript]. Another Republican at the event, Tom Price (R-GA), suggested that lockstep GOP opposition to health care reform affords the Blue Dogs "an opportunity to show some backbone" and "stand up to their leadership to say 'no more will we allow this travesty to go on.'"

In an October 29 op-ed for The Hill, Stupak protests, "[r]ecent news articles have reported that I am trying to "kill" healthcare reform, but that couldn't be further from the truth."  In his Hill op-ed, Bart Stupak writes, "[o]ur healthcare system is broken and I believe reform is necessary." As usual, the devil is in the details.

Earlier this month I criticized some offensive comments about health-care reform made by Richard Land, the top lobbyist for the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).

Land, speaking to the Christian Coalition of Florida during a Sept. 26 banquet, blasted President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats, remarking, "I want to put it to you bluntly. What they are attempting to do in health care, particularly in treating the elderly, is not something like what the Nazis did. It is precisely what the Nazis did. Let's remember, the first 10,000 victims of the Holocaust were not Jews, they were mentally handicapped German children who were gassed and burned in ovens because they were considered to have...lives unworthy of life."

Dear Mr. Wiesel,

Your years of tireless campaigning for human rights and against anti-Semitism have earned our deepest respect. For this reason we have written the following letter in hope that you will reconsider your support of events sponsored by John Hagee's Christians United for Israel. We realize that the outward show of support for Jews and Israel, on display at Hagee's CUFI events, can be very enticing but there is another aspect of Christian Zionism which we believe runs strongly counter to Jewish and Israeli interests.

On October 7, 2009 the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on the constitutionality of a seven-foot cross currently standing in the Mojave National Preserve in San Bernardino County, California. Erected by veterans of the First World War in 1934, the religious symbol has become a significant bone of contention in the ongoing effort to define the proper separation of church and state. But beyond the basic issues of constitutionality, the occasion has provided a fresh platform for two members of the Catholic Right -- Bill Donohue and Associate Justice U.S. Supreme Court Antonin Scalia to spew some extraordinary, and extraordinarily revealing, expressions of religious supremacy.

This is Part Three in a series of articles on why we need J Street, and a new perspective on the meaning of "pro-Israel."  Link to [Part One] and [Part Two.]

Worldwide Biblical Zionists (WBZ) is a project of World Likud and its evangelical arm, World Evangelical Zionists.  It was developed to aid Christian Zionists who wish to make aliyah (move to Israel) with the stated goal of providing assistance for housing, employment, legal services, and pre-military training. To the right is a graphic of the planned Strategic Biblical Zionist Center.

This is Part Two in a series about the dangers of Christian Zionism, and why organizations like J Street are badly needed to provide a different vision of what it means to be pro-Israel. See Part One here.

There are numerous reasons why the relationship with Christian Zionists "impairs Israel's interests," to borrow a recent comment directed at J Street by the Israeli Embassy. Ambassador Michael Oren is apparently snubbing J Street's upcoming first national conference although he spoke at John Hagee's Christian's United for Israel conference in July.  This is my list of the top ten reasons, based on years of research, why it is John Hagee and Christian Zionist activists who should be viewed as impairing Israel's interests, not moderate and liberal American Jews.  For brevity I have limited examples, quotes, and references for which I have large amounts of supporting documentation.

I recently wrote here and at Daily Kos about the important, but often underappreciated differences between demonization and incivility in our political culture, (with particular regard to the way that the excesses of the Religious Right are often buried under a mound of false equivalence with elements of the left.)  At the time, I had in my the back of my mind my soon to be published interview with David Neiwert, author of the recent book, The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right.  The interview is now posted over at the webzine, Religion Dispatches.  

What follows, is my introduction to our interview:

My recent trek through the Ozark Mountians wound me through a meandering road that opened up to one of the largest entertainment regions in the country. A city on a hill, a new Jerusalem, the nation's prime Christian resort, Eureka Springs, Arkansas. There was a marathon of hotels, cabins and lodges, more than any place I had ever visited. This city, mow famous for The Great Passion Play, was at one time a remote backwoods pocket of poverty with less than a hundred residents. The famous Gerald L. K. Smith saw the potential here and erected a thirty foot statue known as Jesus of the Ozarks. He began work on starting an outdoor play about the final days of Christ. This led to the mega industry built around the play and established by its own presence Eureka Springs as a top vacation spot.

Michael Oren, the Israeli Ambassador to the U.S., is apparently rejecting the invitation by J Street for their upcoming conference.  It should be shocking that the ambassador would reject the invitation to speak to a conference of American Jews coming together in support of Israel, particularly since he was quite willing to speak to John Hagee's Christians United for Israel this past July, a few months after being named as ambassador.   Oren's excuse for snubbing J Street is that the organization could "impair Israeli interests."

[Graphic, above, is from a donor request webpage for Maoz Israel, a Messianic ministry in Israel that includes a Messianic congregation, Hebrew publishing center for charismatic books, and a charitable arm, istandwithisrael.com, that accesses Jews through the donation of millions of dollars of goods.  It is endorsed by John Hagee and other CUFI directors who claim not to proselytize. ]

Back in June, when it was reported on the Time Magazine website that the Obama family had chosen the chapel at Camp David as their home church, I wrote a quick post about Navy chaplain Lt. Carey Cash, the chaplain at Camp David. Although the White House had denied the Time story by the time I finished writing my post, I made no changes to what I had written, with the exception of adding a disclaimer that the White House had denied the Time report that the Camp David chapel had been chosen by the Obamas as their home church. As the Research Director for the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), my concerns regarding what I had discovered about Lt. Cash, a military chaplain who had said of the efforts to Christianize the U.S. military, "First we get the military, then we get the nation," were the same whether he was the president's official pastor or not.

Over the past few years, my Talk to Action colleagues and I have written a great deal about the way that various Washington insiders, among others, have adopted many of the ideas, framing and even the phrasings of the Religious Right. We also confronted such consultantocratic notions that we should not talk about such historic progressive and Democratic Party interests as reproductive rights, LGTB civil rights and separation of church and state so that they could make alliances with alleged moderate evangelicals and Catholics -- some of whom turned out to be not very moderate at all.  The culture war was over, or about to be, or oughtta be, so it was claimed.

But many of us knew better