September 2006 Archives

Chip Berlet has an excellent piece on Talk To Action concerning the frightening direction culture war scapegoating is taking these days with the religious right. He is discussing the recent 'Value Voters Summit' orchestrated by the Family Research Council:

The Christian Right has regrouped and launched a new offensive in the ongoing Christian Right Culture War. Gay marriage and the "homosexual agenda" are the primary tactical scapegoats ...

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins suggested the nation was under attack from without and within, which was a theme throughout the conference. The domestic forces of Satan--secularists, liberals, homosexuals, feminists, abortionists, p o r nographers--are the subversives within; while the barbaric terrorist Islamic fascists are the external enemy. Godly "values voters" should remember how they felt on 9/11, and then go into the voting booth and vote to prevent the Democrats from having the opportunity to appoint more activist judges who are wittingly or unwittingly in league with the evil forces of darkness.

As I have said before on this blog, gay is the new Jew as far as the radical religious right is concerned. Gays have come to epitomize all that is evil, representing a threat to Godly sanctity that must not only be resisted, but eliminated altogether.

Time and again speakers at the conference made it clear that gay marriage was the key battle in the campaign to protect religion, (and thwart the plans of the Devil). Gay marriage, we were told, will spread like a disease across America from the source of the infection--Massachusetts and its cabal of activist judges.

But the fight against gay marriage and civil unions should be viewed for what it is: the thin end of a wedge, merely a starting point for drawing battle lines and testing the water to see what the citizenry will accept.

If the theocrats succeed in having enough 'Godly men' (i.e. fundamentalist or fundamentalist-controlled Republicans) elected to positions of power throughout the country, a Federal Marriage Amendment will be the least of our problems. The rhetoric will continue to ratchet up and the consequences will become ever more grave.

Will the true confessing church please stand up and be heard?

Religion Gone Bad: The Hidden Dangers of the Christian Right

by Mel White

I mentioned this book by Mel White when I received the advance publicity. Now that I've read it, I recommend everyone read it, whether you're Christian or not, gay or straight or whatever.

Anyone who thinks the religious right is a mostly benign but eccentric manifestation of conservative religion need look no further to be disabused of that idea.

I refuse to call it the 'Christian right' any longer, for it is neither Christian nor right in its refusal to follow the commands of Jesus. In its immense wealth, devoted armies of supporters, and totally malignant agenda for US and world domination, this movement is definitely eccentric but anything but innocuous.

White traces the development of this movement and its growth in influence through the particular prism of its apalling and utterly inexcusable treatment of LGBT people. Drawing on sociological research into the roots of fascism, he explores the uncanny and extensive parallels between historical fascist movements and the spirit of fascism masquerading as 'Judeo-Christian' morality.

A few months ago I linked to a similar analysis on hatecrime.org, which identified parallels between Nazi anti-Jewish speech and religious right anti-gay speech. If you haven't looked at this before, I urge you to. From their own mouths, the leaders of the religious right have declared homosexuals to be their number one enemy and have declared holy war on 'homosexuals' and the 'homosexual agenda'. If you take a look at the historical comparisons, the so-called 'homosexual agenda' is lifted almost directly (even if not consciously) from ther playbook of the Nazis.

White doesn't really ask this question outright, but it's hard not to: What is the difference today between moderate-to-extreme Islamic mullahs who preach death to Jews and Westerners in their mosques and whose words incite others to hateful violence, and 'Christian' fundamentalist clergy who preach death to gays and lesbians from their pulpits and whose words also incite others to acts of violence?

There is none.

Again, if you don't believe Falwell, Robertson, Dobson, Keyes and others are literally preaching death to gays and are actively working for our elimination from the face of the earth, read this book. It is full of direct quotes from the sources. The 'homosexual' in America is being caricatured and maligned in exactly the same way as the Jews in Europe were seventy years ago.

Religious fundamentalists are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to fight gay civil rights around the globe. I even read today of the Australian-based Exclusive Brethren, a small group that hitherto eschewed political involvement for a spirit of radical separatism from the modern world, nop lavishly funding political war chests on the basis of this one single issue.

We may wake up one day to find we have won the war against the terrorists out there but have allowed ourselves to be enslaved by a different terror in our midst. Violent speech inevitably leads to violent acts, and violent acts to a state of violence. We have already seen this with abortion clinic bombings and the increase in hate-fueled murders of innocent GLBT folk.

If the American Taliban have their way, LGBT people won't merely be pushed back into the closet but will be permanently made second or third class citizens, or worse.

White concludes, however, on an inspirational note. In founding Soulforce, his own journey has been transformed through developing an understanding of the teachings of Jesus, Gandhi and Martin Luther King concerning non-violent resistance to evil. Hatred and violence cannot be overcome by more hatred and violence, even violence of speech.

Non-violent resistance, or soul force, says White, is the only path to overcoming this spiritual and physical violence. Jesus taught us this truth, but Gandhi and MLK showed us how to live it.

Personally, I find it hard not to repay violence against me with at least thoughts of violence (if not real acts). But this leaves us at 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth' and the world is no better for it. By hating those who hate us, we feed the cycle of violence (or negative kharma if you like).

I think Mel White and Jesus are onto something here. It won't be easy putting it into action, to repay violence with non-violent resistance, to stand up to oppressors without using the tools of oppression. But perhaps it is the only way.

Today I was browsing through the exhibits at the conference when I stumbled upon an interesting new product called Layered Voice Analysis (LVA).

LVA is software that analyzes 129 frequency parameters found in the human voice and provides an emotional/psychological profile of the speaker. It shows, for example, when a subject is being deceptive, excited or stressed.

To illustrate LVA's capabilities, the vendor had set up a large plasma screen showing the software running alongside a clip of Bill Clinton's now famous debate with Mike Wallace on Faux News.

As Clinton was speaking, the word "Truthful" continually flashed on the screen, punctuated occasionally by "High Levels of Stress". Who said telling the truth was easy? On several occasions when Wallace interjected or responded, the word "Inaccuracy" would flash on the screen.

I'm not making this up. I only watched a couple of minutes but found the demonstration fascinating. Now when can I buy a set-top box version to attach to my TV?

Of course, for watchers of Faux News, you wouldn't need to invest in this technology. Just place a sign on top of your set that says, "Lies, Damned Lies and Lying Liars" and you'll be set.

More on the very real similarities between fundamentalisms — Christian and Islamic.

The current issue of The Christian Century has an article by United Methodist minister Paul Jeffrey on the difficulties faced by NGOs providing earthquake relief in Pakistan. The local director of Church World Service (CWS) describes some of the measures that have had to be adopted by western aid agencies in order to avoid showing disrespect to local tradition and culture, while still providing urgently needed relief.

Interestingly, the foreign influence that causes the most trouble with the locals is not western secularism or feminism, but conservative evangelical Christianity. Operations such as Samaritan's Purse, whose leader Franklin Graham has attacked Islam as a "very wicked and evil religion", seem all to ready to exploit the earthquake victims and their suffering as an opportunity to evangelize.

Blatant proselytizing mixed with religious intolerance can be volatile for all involved. Such an approach to aid is not only inflammatory, but can well endanger other Christian and western aid groups and damage good relations NGOs have taken years to build with local communities.

In the article, Jeffrey observes two interesting parallels between fundamentalist Islam and fundamentalist Christianity.

Firstly, both types of groups have flourished under US taxpayer funding. Islamist extremists got their headstart under Reagan with billions in US funding channeled through the Pakistan security forces. Based on what I learned this weekend on terrorist funding, such groups still manage to draw funding (albeit limited) through USAID by posing as legitimate charities. On the other hand, Christian fundamentalist organizations have in recent years been the primary recipients of hundreds of millions of dollars in grants to "faith-based" initiatives. In both cases much of the funding was and is diverted to proselytizing, political activity and other questionable ends.

Secondly, in troubled theaters like Pakistan and Iraq, both groups of extremists continue to foster discord among the ordinary people, posing a challenge to real relief efforts. Jeffrey quotes Marvin Pervez of CWS commenting how you hear the same type of shrill jeremiad coming from both the local church and the mosque, "as if the clergy and the mullahs exchange notes."

Another parallel is how fundamentalists of both persuasions will try to appear reasonable and compassionate in their efforts to win hearts and minds to the cause. For instance, Hezbollah is known for its charity and welfare work in Palestine. Various groups affiliated with al-Qaeda are known for the support for widows and families of suicide bomb 'martyrs'.

Likewise, on the Christian right you see furious opposition to women's reproductive choice and gay civil rights dressed up for the media and general public as compassionate "concern for the unborn" and for the "protection of marriage". But behind closed doors the real agendas of keeping women "in their place" and eliminating the homosexual 'problem' are openly discussed.

Ralph Reed does the same thing in his recent debate with Jim Wallis on God's Politics Blog. Among various other misrepresentations, he even manages to characterize the fundamentalist obsession with Israel (based on its belief in the end-times, which culminates in Israel's ultimate and horrific annihilation at Armageddon, as foretold by fundamentalist eschatology) as a social justice issue.

Pam Spauling noted a similar trend on her blog today, where she discussed Jerry Falwell's comparison of Hillary Clinton to Satan during private remarks to like-minded pastors at the Value Voters Summit. Falwell is an extremist and works closely with others who can be considered even more extreme than he is, but he likes to come across to the general public as a genial defender of the faith. Mel White has documented at length, in Religion Gone Bad, how these ideologues will say one thing in public, trying to sound as reasonable as possible, whilst uttering dark invective to foot soldiers when they suppose the media aren't paying attention.

The point of all this is not to attempt to equate Jerry Falwell or Franklin Graham with Osama bin Laden. To compare isms is not to equate them, nor to suggest moral equivalency between one kind of outrage and another. In any case, charges from the right of 'moral relativism' do not successfully detract from the validity of observations that similar dynamics appear to be at work in both.

I'm in San Diego for six days, attending a professional development course and then a security conference. The course, on the use of open source data mining and intelligence, is fascinating. Two young terrorism experts are sharing research techniques and case studies with the class.

While the background material is radical Islamic terrorism post-9/11, the foreground methodological lessons are what really interest me. They can be applied to the study of (and defense against) other types of threat.

Two examples that come to mind are organized internet fraud (something that concerns me from time to time in my daytime employment) and American fundamentalist theocrats (a threat that increasingly keeps me awake at night).

It's also interesting and sobering to learn that think-tanks, independent media and individual bloggers are probably more adept at this type of intelligence gathering than the FBI or CIA. The two experts leading the class, for example, are wunderkind hardly out of college.

It's not that it involves rocket science — anyone with a laptop and an internet connection can become a terrorist (or terrorist hunter) these days. It seems to have more to do with passion and freedom to experiment, the latter apparently not being a trait that is either much cultivated or supported with resources in parts of the classified intelligence community. At least that's the impression I get.

Looking forward to day two. 

Ralph Reed blames the media for creating a "straw man" that "religious conservatives focus on one or two issues or somehow believe that other issues lack a moral component."

In a response to Jim Wallis on God's Politics, Reed says he believes there is no disagreement between religious liberals and conservatives that "there are many issues of moral concern beyond marriage and abortion."

Reed speaks of

the tendency to focus on controversy over healing and reconciliation. Where religion and politics intersect, the media spotlight generates more heat than light. If a religious leader speaks out on gay rights, media coverage is extensive and often sensational. But when Franklin Graham helps tsunami victims or the Southern Baptist Convention assists Hurricane Katrina victims, there is scant press coverage. So we must do more to raise the profile of works of compassion outside the prevailing stereotype that defines religious folk engaged in public life.

Granted that evangelicals, including religious conservatives, are active in areas of social concern. Yet further on he reinforces the so-called "straw man" when he confesses that abortion and homosexuality are central concerns of religious conservatives:

In our own time, issues of life are prominent in our politics, especially since Roe v. Wade. Religious conservatives did not create this issue and did not seek it out to benefit the Republican Party; indeed, most of them were Democrats until the 1980's. But the nation's conscience is unsettled by one out of every three pregnancies ending in the death of an unborn child, and people of faith should address it persistently and prominently. And when the courts began to impose a redefinition of marriage, people of faith were right to speak out consistent with their beliefs and values.

This obsession with a small number of narrowly defined 'moral' issues is not the creation of a sensationalist media. It reflects the active agendas of the majority of religious right organizations. The Christian Coaltion, led by Reed from 1989 to 1997, is a case in point.

According to the Coalition's About Us page, the organization's primary focus involves representing the "pro-family agenda", ending "Partial Birth Abortion" and lowering income taxes. "Pro-family" of course is code for anti-homosexual. A glance at their 2006 legislative agenda shows the same priorities along with conservative judicial appointments, tax-exemption for partisan political advocacy, increased media censorship and eliminating the constitutional separation of church and state. No mention of hurricane reconstruction, foreign aid or other "works of compassion outside the prevailing stereotype."

Let's see if other religious right organizations have a broader focus. Take Focus on the Family, for instance. FOTF's five guiding principles includes two broadly social objectives, namely support for traditional marriage (#2) and opposition to abortion (#4). The "hot topics" for families are listed prominently on the home page: Divorce, Military Families, Single Parents, Internet Safety for Kids, P-rnography, Homosexuality, Abortion, Worldview and Culture.

A search of the Focus website turns up 2,199 results for the words "homosexual" and "gay" (more than the number of mentions for "Jesus"), 1,355 for "abortion", 411 for "abstinence", and 363 for that 'p' word my web hosting service doesn't allow me to use...

On the other hand, there are 553 references to "discipline" (the term that made James Dobson a household name), 342 to "compassion", 254 to "mercy", 232 to "minimum wage", 154 to "poverty", 203 to "AIDS", 81 to "Katrina", 39 to "tsunami" and a mere 12 to "Darfur".

I could go on with more examples from other organizations on the religious right, but the data makes one thing clear: media coverage of religious right reflects the movement's own stated priorities. They are obsessed with issues like homosexuality and abortion to the general exclusion of what many mainline Christians would consider other equal or more weighty "moral issues".

Every now and then I come across a rare gem from somewhere on the religious right that simply leaves me dumbfounded by its unintentional irony.

Hence the following surreal quote in the Washington Post from Pope Benedict XVI's biographer, George Weigel. Weigel is responding to outrage throughout the Muslim world following the pope's recent comments in which he quoted a 14th-century Byzantine emperor saying that the prophet Muhammad brought "only evil and inhuman" things to the world:

The over-the-top reaction in the Muslim world simply underscores the truth of what he [the pope] said at Regensburg, which is that unless Islam develops the capacity to be self-critical — unless Islamic leaders take responsibility for saying to their extremists that violence in the name of God is wrong — then there can be no genuine interreligious dialogue.

Such arrogance. A prime example of the pot calling the kettle black. Inquisition, anyone? Witch hunt? Gay seminarian purge?

I don't remember the last time I heard Vatican leadership exhibiting the capacity to be self-critical in relation to any number of its dogmatic pronouncements — especially those condemning family planning and contraceptive use in the third world, or on the "intrinsic moral evil" of loving, committed same-sex relationships. Nor have I witnessed Catholic leaders taking "responsibility for saying to their [own] extremists that violence in the name of God is wrong."

This laughable piece of deflection ties in nicely with a recent article on Christian realism in the Progressive Christians Uniting blog. In it, Peter Laarman highlights Reinhold Niebuhr's insight that

Christians should see the world as it is and act ethically in the light of a clear-sighted realism. For the neoconservatives and for most other Right ideologues, “realism” means understanding how bad they are — all the “enemies of freedom,” “Islamo-fascists,” etc.; yet surely a major part of Niebuhr’s realism entailed understanding our own propensity to sinning, our own capacity for self-deception and hubris. It’s this kind of Christian Realism that is in critically short supply right now.

Laarman ties this lack of self-critical capacity amongst Christians to "the corporate-media mystification bubble". This lack seems to be particularly pronounced (in his view) among American evangelical Christians.

Consumption is a lonely pursuit, but it’s a pursuit that accords perfectly with the high level of small-bore anxiety that rules our culture ...

Consumerism pits me against other consuming monads ... it definitely does not invite us to think collectively about how we will fare in retirement, maintain our health, or gain education for the enhancement of life itself rather than for purposes of workplace competition. This latter way of thinking — thinking about the “we” and doing so with the benefit of critical consciousness — is the business of citizenship, not consumerism ...

The paramount challenge facing progressive Christians, I believe, is developing the courage and the tools needed to puncture the mysification bubble — is finding the capacity open the eyes and awaken the consciences of our fellow Christians and of the body politic as a whole to the suffering and danger all around us.

Mel White has also attributed part of this mystification or blindness to the average church-goer's tendency toward blind faith in their spiritual and secular leaders. If their pastor, pope or president say Islam is an evil religion or homosexuals are destroying the family, then it must be so.

So we wrap ourselves in the mystification bubble while blaming others, not ourselves, for all the evil in the world. Meanwhile, Rome is burning. 

God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It

by Jim Wallis

I got word that Jim Wallis and Sojourners will be launching the God's Politics Blog next Monday. The first week will feature an online debate between Jim Wallis and Ralph Reed, so that should be interesting.

Jim is a progressive evangelical who has spoken out on the way in which the religious right has hijacked the Christian message. How the right has replaced that message with a narrow political agenda that has little to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ, and in fact often contradicts Christ's own teaching and example.

Jim's New York Times bestseller, God's Politics, has been characterized as the "book that changed the conversation" on faith and politics in the U.S.

Jim believes it's time for the monologue of the Religious Right to end and for a real dialogue to begin. And I agree. So visit the new blog and read daily posts by Jim and a host of other noted commentators on progressive faith and politics, including Amy Sullivan, Brian McLaren, Obery Hendricks, and Tony Campolo.

And if you haven't read the book, get a copy of that too.

According to USA Today, the so-called 'homeland security' business (aka the military-industrial-security complex) is now worth $59 billion a year. That's how much governments and businesses spend to 'thwart terrorosts', whatever that term means in practice. Homeland security is bigger than the motion picture and music industries.

The big winners?

• The usual lineup of military contractors: Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Ericsson, etc.
  
• Accenture, a $15 billion a year services company headquartered in Bermuda.
• The biometric industry and other whiz-bang technologies with limited or unproven effectivess.
  

Are we getting any value for all these billions?

Consultant Doug Laird, who worked for the U.S. Secret Service and was Northwest Airlines' security director, criticizes the Department of Homeland Security for awarding so many contracts to large corporations.

In general, he says, the contractors oversell the security value of their goods and services. Further, he says, the government exercises inadequate oversight.

"The DHS has pretty much given them an open check to supply products and services," he says.

Often, the large corporations "have no idea about" the work that needs to be done, Laird says. "In my opinion, it's a total rip-off."

The question on everybody's lips: Has the world become any safer? 

"We live at the center of the network of cosmic influences as we live at the heart of the human crowd or among the myriad of stars, without alas, being aware of their immensity. If we wish to live our humanity and our Christianity to the full, we must overcome that insensitivity which tends to conceal things from us in proportion as they are too close to us or too vast."

—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

A Council of Bishops, Elders and Christian Leaders committed to equal rights and inclusion for all will meet in Dallas beginning September 10 to address religious discrimination against LGBT people, and how to counter it.

Over 30 faith leaders from across the United States will assemble as part of the three-day event to worship, pray and strategize on how to remove homophobia and hate from our churches, and replace them with hospitality, justice and equality for all.

The gathering will be hosted by DignityUSA, The Fellowship, Institute for Welcoming Resources and the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (UFMCC). Goals of the meeting will include:

• Form a Council of Christian churches that are dedicated to reclaiming their faith based on the Gospel of inclusion, justice and love.
• Make public statements on Marriage Equality; Parental Adoption and Foster Rights for LGBT families; and address other pressing social justice issues for LGBT families such as peace, immigration and the Iraq war.
• Develop a collaborative coordinated strategy for moving LGBT rights forward within our Christian traditions - through growing the number and strength of "welcoming and affirming" congregations, reaching out to those rejected and alienated by churches, planting new churches, and creating "fellowships" of supportive congregations and clergy.

Rev. Rebecca Voelkel, one of the lead organizers of the Council, is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ:

Certain religious groups have aggressively sought to define their agenda in the public's mind, through publicity and lobbying, as the Christian agenda. On the contrary, there is a growing movement of Christian clergy who reject this agenda, for whom bigotry and exclusion have no place in the Church.

It might be more appropriate (and more inclusive) to say that a growing movement of Christian laity reject the religious right's agenda. What excites me is that initiatives like this reflect not only the view of a handful of religious leaders, but are indicative of a groundswell of grassroots support — not only in the mainline liberal churches but increasingly within the evangelical movement.

"I am the vine; you are the branches." - John 15:5

A reminder today on how all things are ultimately connected. I just finished reading Donald Spoto's The Hidden Jesus: A New Life (review forthcoming) in which he talks frequently of the interconnectedness of all things in Christ. I also happened to be humming the tune to a cheesy piece of contemporary Christian music I heard the other day for the first time in decades, "A friend's a friend for ever" (if the Lord's the Lord if them).

And then I get a comment on this blog from an old friend from high school. Our lives took remarkably different trajectories for 25 years, and then happened to collide once again through this blog. Attitudes and tempers have matured. Two people who perhaps once had little to talk about are now able to converse, again.

I suspect that the lives of all we have ever known, as well as those unknown to us, are closer to ours than we think. WHile we all walk different paths, which sometimes can seem to be lonely, we're all connected to one another through the same source. we shouldn't be surprised when these connections pop up in the moist unexpected ways.

Perhaps if Jesus were incarnated today, he might also have said, "I am the network; you are the nodes." We are never separate from one another or from God, except in our perceptions. Admittedly, in today's world perception can seem to be everything. But really it's not.

Can we have the faith to believe that all things have a tendency to work together for the good for those who love God and are called according to God's purpose?

I was reading the story of Iowa mother Noreen Gosch, whose 12-year old son Johnny was abducted in 1982. As the 24th anniversary of his disappearance neared, somebody left two photographs at her front door of Johnny bound and gagged, apparently taken within hours of his abduction.

I have no idea how credible the stories are concerning how and why Johhny disappeared (you can read them here). But what struck me was the absolute perserverance of this woman in the face of tremendous loss for the past two and a half decades. She helped change the law in Iowa, and was instrumental in setting up the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. She has never given up hope not only for her own son but for those many other children that go missing each year.

I thought of Noreen as I was reading some of the parables of Jesus last night. The story of the widow who searched for the lost coin. That of the father whose son wandered off and squandered his inheritance and lost everything he had. That of the shepherd who sought the lost sheep. The man who wanted to purchase the pearl of great price.

The widow kept searching until she found that precious coin. The father never gave up hope that his lost son would return, and celebrated joyously and extravagantly when he did. The shepherd risked his flock and livelihood, all that he had, to go after the one sheep that was lost. The man sold all that he had in order to obtain the precious pearl.

Not simply memorable stories, these parables give us insight into the extravagant heart of God. Jesus tells us stories about widows and fathers and shepherds and others who never give up seeking that which is lost, to show us the way God is toward us. Over and over again in the gospels Jesus describes a God who is not harsh and judgmental, not one who accounts for our every fault and failure, but one who is overflowing with love and compassion for every one of us and who never, ever gives up on us for a moment.

God is like all these, and God is like Noreen Gosch. Only infinitely more so. As Paul says to the Romans, nothing in all the universe will ever separate us from the love of God. Not adversity, not war, not suffering, not intolerant bigots. This is the message of Jesus, the true gospel that shines in the darkness and sorrow of this world.

Saturday's Star Tribune has an interview with Randall Balmer, evangelical author and professor of religious history at Columbia University.

Well, thank God Katherine Kersten doesn't write for the religious pages... if she did, I'm sure that instead of this fine piece we'd be getting yet another installment of her argument as to why "Minnesotans" (by which she presumably means we taxpayers) should for "the common good" foot the bill for renovating the landmark Catholic Cathedral of St. Paul. Which sounds remarkably like an argument for the establishment of religion by the state, but I digress...

Balmer's new book is Thy Kingdom Come: How The Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America: An Evangelical's Lament. Not a book Ms. Kersten would enjoy reading, I imagine.

On the historical legacy of evangelicalism, now abandoned by the religious right:

I am a traditional evangelical Christian in that I honor the teachings of Jesus as well as the noble legacy of evangelical activism in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Evangelicals throughout most of American history engaged in political and social activism on behalf of those on the margins of society. I'm thinking here of the antislavery movement, the temperance crusade (a progressive cause in the 19th century), public education, advocating equal rights for women and trying to mitigate the effects of predatory capitalism around the turn of the 20th century. Only relatively recently, with the rise of the religious right in the late 1970s, have evangelicals drifted toward the political right.

So, yes, I am a traditional evangelical; it is the right-wing zealots of the religious right who have hijacked my faith. They have taken the gospel, the "good news" of the New Testament, which I consider lovely and redemptive, and turned it into something ugly and punitive.

On the absence of outrage from the religious right concerning the use of torture in the war in Iraq:

I happen to think that's morally reprehensible. These are people who claim to be "pro-life," who profess to hear a "fetal scream," yet they turn a deaf ear to the very real screams of fully formed human beings who are being tortured in our name ...

I suspect that when Jesus asked us to love our enemies, he probably didn't mean that we should torture or kill them. 

On the establishment of religion by the state:

Religion always functions best from the margins of society and not at the centers of power. When it is too closely aligned with the power structure, it loses its prophetic voice.

On faith in God:

 As a person of faith, I decided years ago that I would refuse to allow the canons of Enlightenment Rationalism to be the final arbiter of truth. I elect to live in an enchanted universe where there are forces at work beyond my understanding and control -- and where faith, not empiricism or complex apologetic proofs for the existence of God, serves ultimately as my guide ...

I sometimes describe myself as a "lovers' quarrel" evangelical. By that I mean that I have been, and I continue to be, profoundly shaped by evangelicals and by evangelicalism. I take the Bible very seriously as the word of God, and I believe in the transformative power of Jesus, in part because I've witnessed that transformation both in myself and in others.

On what is "biblical" Christianity:

Would Jesus, who summoned his followers to be "peacemakers" and who invited them to love their enemies, jump at the chance to deploy military forces, especially at the cost of so many civilian lives? Is the denial of equal rights to anyone -- women or immigrants or Muslims or gays -- consistent with the example of the man who healed lepers and paralytics and who spent much of his time with the cultural outcasts of his day?

In the past couple of years I've developed a new respect for cutting edge evangelicals like Balmer, Tony Campolo, Jim Wallis and Brian McLaren. They, along with liberal writers like John Shelby Spong and Marcus Borg, have helped me rediscover a rich and meaningful faith in God. One that has developed in counterpoint to the religious extremism and moral bankruptcy of the religious right and much of what is stands for (and against).

I hope more and more people read books like this. The crux of this issue is much more than a mere disagreement over theology or Christian piety. The religious right has hijacked the Christian faith, and we must understand how this has happened and what to do to take it back -- if we want to be able to continue to live in a world where all people are honored as children of God, where democracy is both a possibility and a reality, where the gospel of Jesus continues to work in and from the margins to transform the world, and where "peace on earth, goodwill among men" is more than a platitude written on Christmas cards.

Religion Gone Bad: The Hidden Dangers of the Christian Right

by Mel White

Focus on the Family Action, James Dobson's lobbying organization, will be holding a vote-your-hate rally at the Excel energy Center on October 3. Featured speakers will be FOTF's James Dobson, the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins, former presidential candidate Gary Bauer and Antioch Bible Church's Ken Hutcherson.

The event is billed as a "rally for the family", but the speaker lineup and blurb on the web-site clearly indicates it is a publicity stunt designed to rally the troops for Dobson's anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-democratic political agenda ahead of the November elections.

Which is why the upcoming release of a new book on the religious right is all the more important. Rev. Mel White, founder of Soulforce, will be in Minneapolis Thursday, September 14 at the Wayzata Community Church, to promote Religion Gone Bad: The Hidden Dangers of the Religious Right.

Mel is a former evangelical insider, having ghost written books for Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson before coming out as a gay Christian. From this background and his work with Soulforce he is uniquely qualified to write this exposé of the American religious right.

The Reverend Mel White, a deeply religious man who sees fundamentalism as "evangelical Christian orthodoxy gone cultic," believes that it is not a stretch to say that the true goal of today's fundamentalists is to break down the wall that separates church and state, superimpose their "moral values" on the U.S. Constitution, replace democracy with theocratic rule, and ultimately create a new "Christian America" in their image.

As he writes, "These are not just Neocons dressed in religious drag. These men see themselves as gurus called by God to rescue America from unrighteousness. They believe this is a Christian nation that must be returned forcibly to its Christian roots."

Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong, in his review of the book, says that Mel lays bare

the fierce anti-homosexual agenda of organized religion from the Vatican to the American television preachers. White paints a frightening picture of what they mean when they call for ‘making America a Christian nation.’ He issues a challenging wake up call both to those who are traditional Christians as well as to those who hold deeply human values. A consciousness-raising, must-read book.

Rev. Paul W. Egertson of the ELCA says the book is

a devastating and documented account of what happens when fanatical religion and fascistic politics hook up in a semi-secret affair that gives birth to spiritual, and sometimes physical, terrorism.

The primary targets of this spiritual and physical terrorism today are gays. But the hatred extends to all who oppose the theocratic agenda. Presbyterian Church (USA) moderator Rev. Jack Rogers calls the book "essential reading for anyone concerned about the health of the church and the future of our nation".

I've already ordered my copy.