I have had to deal with overt and aggressive evangelism in the workplace, and it was very difficult for me, especially since I was in the military and simply could not vote with my feet (quit). I had no legal recourse, either. I had to put up and shut up.

I'm a longtime Salon subscriber, and it has always been gratifying to see your magazine cover things like the Religious Right, as well as other subjects. I'd love to see an article investigating the covert takeover of low power FM stations all over the US by evangelical broadcasters.

I look forward to the new article. It's great to have you here, Michelle.

by Lorie Johnson on Wed Nov 23, 2005 at 12:42:59 PM EST

CEAI (Christian Educators Association International) is a dominionist "parallel economy" alternative to the National Education Association that is heavily promoted by dominionist groups:

http://www.namb.net/educators (promotion by National Missions Board of the Southern Baptist Convention)
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/7/afa/292003b.asp (AFA promotion)
http://www.cccu.org/resourcecenter/resID.935,parentCatID.224/rc_detail.asp (from a certification mill for dominionist colleges)
http://www.nehemiahinstitute.com/csa.php (from a dominionist education site in a rollcall of groups almost entirely consisting of accreditation mills for dominionist school programs)
http://www.blessedcause.org/PressRelease/Christian%20Educators%20Association%20International.htm (from a hardline dominionist website)
http://www.educationpolicy.org/files/paynea.htm (from a pro-dominionist, anti-public-schools site: their links section is a who's who of dominionist groups)
http://www.raiseyourhand.us/leadershipteam.html (a "prayer gang" led by CEAI's executive board; deeper in the website it admits it's a CEAI front group that has as its goal dominionist indoctrination of every child in the US (http://www.raiseyourhand.us/aboutus.html))
http://www.crosswalk.com/news/religiontoday/1357601.html (via Salem Communications-owned crosswalk.com, press release from Answers in Genesis)

CEAI itself seems to be one of the oldest dominionist groups, right up there with Full Gospel Businessmen's Fellowship International (http://www.ceai.org/about.htm), and (after a bit of digging around in the website) it's actually quite obvious CEAI was founded as a similar effort to FGBMFI targeting public school teachers (http://www.ceai.org/fabout/history_part2.htm).

CEAI was formerly known as the National Educators' Fellowship; http://pages.zdnet.com/trimb/id22.html details how they've had a long history of blatant prosyletisation to kids in schools (and in case you doubt they're blatantly dominionist: http://www.ceai.org/fmembers/teaching_tips/tt_halloween.htm has links to pages claiming Halloween is satanic and encouraging placing Bible verses in the sacks of kids going "trick-or-treat"-ing)).

by dogemperor on Wed Nov 23, 2005 at 12:57:28 PM EST

I'm worried about, and not clear on how to respond to, is this attempt to polarize every bit of our public life along religious lines.

I think this expresses the concern of a lot of us.

The Dominionist attempt to "Christianize" the culture is polarizing and divisive.  If we don't find a way to restore some civility in public life, sooner or later the conflict will escalate beyond the level of rhetoric.

It would help if "Evangelicals" would go back to working on converting people instead of focusing on re-claiming a culture.  Culture has little or nothing to do with being a Christian.

by Mainstream Baptist on Wed Nov 23, 2005 at 01:46:13 PM EST

When I hear a fundamentalist relative start complaining about the "anti-Christmas" conspiracy over the holidays this year, I'm going to bring up Ford and the Birch Society and see if they know anything about the legitimacy of those complaints. ;-)

by Karen on Wed Nov 23, 2005 at 06:56:11 PM EST