Faith and Action

The Christian Defense Coalition, Faith and Action and Pro-Life Nation, which is a division of Operation Rescue and led by Troy Newman, is planning to “encircle” the Supreme Court in order to pray that the justices rule the health care reform law unconstitutional. The prayer rally, dubbed “Justice at the Court,” is set to be held on March 25, the day before oral arguments in the health care case begin.

Supreme Court officials expect the Obamacare case to be the biggest one at the Court since Bush v. Gore in 2000.

If the President's health care legislation is declared unconstitutional, it would end taxpayer subsidized abortions and unjust and immoral mandates forcing religious institutions to cover abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization in their health coverage for employees.

Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, Director of the Christian Defense Coalition and one of the organizers of "Justice at the Court", states;

"We are calling people from all America to come to Supreme Court and 'encircle it with prayer' from March 25-28 as we cry out to God for justice, human rights and religious freedom.

"Sadly, the President's Health Care legislation crushes religious freedom and liberty with unjust mandates on faith institutions and forces taxpayers to pay for abortions.

"We will be praying that Obamacare is declared unconstitutional so Congress can put forward health care legislation that will respect religious freedom, protect human life and honor the principles of our Constitution.

"When Roe v. Wade was decided, the Christian community was detached and uninvolved. We want to make sure that is not the case this time as we challenge people of faith to publicly pray and speak out with boldness and passion."

• International Burn a Koran Day has been canceled.
• Which makes the trip by Faith and Action and the Christian Defense Coalition to Florida rather moot now, doesn't it?
• Bryan Fischer continues to demonstrate just what a tremendous asset he is to the American Family Association.
• Rick Scarborough has joined the line-up at WorldNetDaily's Take Back America Conference.
• Rep. Steve King of Iowa, Rep. Tom Price of Georgia, author John R. Lott, and Kris Kobach will speak at the annual Eagle Forum Leadership Conference this weekend.
• The Christian Coalition sure is web savvy.
• The Family Research Council wants pharmacists to refuse to stock the new emergency contraceptive pill, ella.
• Finally, it looks like Mike Huckabee's daytime TV program did not fare too well: "Needless to say, there is no reason to believe The Huckabee Show will return at a later time."

Now that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearing has been set to begin on July 13, you know what comes next: Rob Schenck has to anoint the room with oil.

David Brody reports:

The Christian group "Faith and Action in the Nation's Capitol" has made its way to Capitol Hill and Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor might be interested in what they did. They blessed the doors of Senate Hart Building Room 216 with prayer and oil because they believe this will be the room most likely used for her confirmation hearing which begins July 13th.

Here is the video Faith and Action has posted of Schenck in action, along with an alert the organization is sending out to its members:

You probably heard the news that US Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy has set the start date for confirmation hearings surrounding Judge Sonia Sotomayor as President Obama's nominee to the United States Supreme Court. They will begin Monday, July 13, and probably last through that week. I waited for that announcement before making one of my own:

A firm foundation of prayer has been laid for this confirmation process. Wednesday morning, June 3, about 8:00, I went to the US Senate Hart Building across the street from our ministry center where the last two Supreme Court nomination hearings took place. Once there, I proceeded to Committee Room 216, the very same chamber where we have held numerous prayer and worship services over the years. This will most likely be the venue for the Senate hearing.

I went to the hearing room doors, and, following biblical and long-held Christian traditions, anointed them with oil as a symbol of consecration, or a setting apart for God's purpose. In respect for Judge Sotomayor's strong Catholic background, I used oil specially formulated for this purpose. It was also blessed by a Catholic priest at the St. Francis Monastery here in Washington, DC.

As I prayed, I touched the doors in three spots, making the sign of the cross. I prayed for God to superintend over the entire confirmation process and mark them with truth because Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life," and He prayed to His Father, saying, "Thy Word is Truth." Of course, in the end, we always pray that God's will be done.

There is so much we can do as part of this enormously consequential exercise, including letting our senators know how we feel about this nomination. Nothing, though, is as important as prayer. I invite you to join me in praying as often as you can during the entire hearing process beginning Monday morning, July 13.

I will keep you informed.

Your missionary to Capitol Hill,

Rev. Rob Schenck
President
Faith and Action in the Nation's Capital

This is the first time Schenck has done this sort of thing alone, as he has traditionally been joined by Patrick Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition in the anointing ceremonies they carried out before the hearings for John Roberts and Samuel Alito and the inauguration of President Obama.

• In a move that surprises nobody, the Family Research Council is welcoming Tony Dungy's invitation to join the President's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, saying they "hope President Obama will be open to the counsel he offers on behalf of millions of other Bible-believing Christians [and] hope the Faith Council will work to channel pro-family policies."
• Sarah Palin has been dropped as keynote speaker at the GOP's annual Senate-House Dinner in Washington on June 8 and replaced by Newt Gingrich, but she'll still be attending the Vanderburgh County Right to Life dinner in Evansville, IN on April 16th.
• Faith and Action has posted video of Rob Schenck's remarks at yesterday's PreNDA press conference, while Frank Pavone and Alveda King have also come out in support of the legislation.
• RNC Chair Michael Steel says the GOP needs to be more "unconventional [and] unpredictable" while one-time supporter Ken Blackwell says that if the Republican candidate doesn't win the special election in New York state's heavily Republican 20th district, the defeat will be "devastating" for Steele, though he is not sure if it'll result in Steele's ouster because "it is as hard to get rid of an ineffective chairman of the RNC as it is to get rid of a bad teacher in the New York City public schools."
• Finally, a poll conducted by Deseret News/KSL-TV found that 63 percent of Utahns favored the action taken against state Sen. Chris Buttars for his anti-gay rant, while only 31 percent opposed it.

Over the last few days, we've written several posts about an upcoming meeting at the White House between Joshua DuBois, head of the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and representatives of Concerned Women for America, the Family Research Council, and other right-wing groups.

Now, in his daily video update, Faith and Action's Rob Schenck reveals that his organization is also trying to set up a meeting with DuBois.

Schenck explains that he has a busy day ahead of him, entailing a meeting with Tim Goeglein, the former Bush Administration aide who was forced to step down after admitting to plagiarism and was recently hired by Focus on the Family to be their chief lobbyist in DC and with whom Faith and Action shares office space. He then has a meeting with the Salvation Army and then another meeting with the leaders of a new Congressional Prayer Caucus and finally a reception with "Christian members of Congress."

Then, around the 2:50 mark, Schenck reveals that they will also be talking to the White House today about a meeting with the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives and Josh DuBois.  After a bit of rambling, Schenck says that Christian conservatives are losing credibility because when the opposition says or does the right thing, they are reluctant to commend them.

Schenck says he is "finding some stuff that is really good here and I've quoted President Obama recently on his statement that marriage is reserved for a man and a woman. Hey, I 've got to applaud that and I'm using it and I'm complementing him on it and, in fact, using it to reinforce our argument that the sanctity of marriage requires that it be reserved for a man and a woman, exclusively."

Interestingly, before the election the Obama campaign was supposed to participate in an event hosted by Schenck and his group but pulled out at the last minute, which turned out to be a smart move, as Sarah Posner explained:

The meaning of the Declaration of Independence was supposed to take center stage at a forum for religious outreach representatives from both presidential campaigns yesterday, but the lunchtime crowd of conservative activists and congressional staff at the Capitol Hill Club was instead treated to a lineup of speakers tossing out apocalyptic rhetoric about Barack Obama.

The event was sponsored by the Capitol Hill-based Faith and Action's Reese Roundtable, an annual luncheon about the moral meaning of the Declaration of Independence. Faith and Action's motto is "bringing the word of God to bear on the hearts and minds of those who make public policy in America." One of its goals is to "restore the moral foundations of our American culture" through placing Ten Commandments displays in public buildings.

Faith and Action's Rob Schenck, a perennial religious-right adviser and gadfly, moderated and wasted no time in lambasting the Rev. E. Terri LaVelle, the Obama campaign's senior religious adviser, who had committed to attend but cancelled at the last minute. "A snub!" protested Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America.

With McCain's conservative-coalitions director Robert Heckman looking on, and at one point chiming in that Obama's recent faith and values outreach was a "colossal flop," Obama was portrayed by speakers as a figure of evil and doom. No one came right out and called him the Antichrist, but the apocalyptic message was clear.

Bernie Reese, the octogenarian founder of the Reese Roundtable, said, "I grew up during [the] days of Hitler; we've almost got a blueprint to what brought Hitler to power. He rode in on an economic crisis and promised the moon to the middle class. He was a man who had glittering rhetoric; he could sit in the room and have his audience in his hand." Alveda King, niece of the civil-rights icon and an adviser to Priests for Life, the militant anti-abortion group, said abortion in the African American community had been done "deliberately, by genocide." We're "beyond chastisement," she went on. "We're in judgment."

"Lord," prayed Johnny Hunter, an African American pastor who gave the benediction, don't let us elect someone who might "bring this nation down."

The Obama campaign didn't want to be seen with Schenck and Faith and Action during the election—good choice—and let's hope that nothing has changed since then.

We have written about Schenck and his ties to a variety of different right wing groups a number of times, most recently when he, Pat Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition, and Rep. Paul Brown anointed the door at the Capitol before Barack Obama’s inauguration.  While far from a household name, Schenck has seemingly been becoming more influential over the last few years – he met privately with John McCain during the campaign and even received a VIP invitation to McCain’s announcement that Sarah Palin would be his running mate, where he had the opportunity to speak with both of them.  

He also has a history of harassing Democratic politicians, especially former President Bill Clinton, having been arrested back in 1992 for thrusting a fetus at him during the campaign and being stopped by the Secret Service after confronting him outside of the Washington Cathedral in 1996. He was also deeply involved in the early 1990’s in protesting women’s health clinics, including targeting one where a doctor was eventually assassinated.

A few weeks back, Faith and Action's Rob Schenck provided a video update in which he reported that Focus on the Family's new lobbyist to Capitol Hill, former Bush administration aide Tim Goeglein, would soon be sharing office space with them.

Shortly after we highlighted the video, Faith and Action yanked it down, but in it Schenck related how their office was actually the office of several allied ministries as well including the Christian Defense Coalition, Priests for Life, the National Pro-Life Action Center, the Judicial Action Group, and the Life Education and Resource Network.

In fact, there are so many different organization operating out of that office and being run by people with ties to Faith and Action that it is almost impossible to tell them apart.  For instance, Schenck and Christian Defense Coalition Director Patrick Mahoney regularly work together, like when they got together to annoint the door through which Barack Obama would walk on his way to his inauguration.

Priests for Life is run by Frank Pavone, who is also a trustee at Faith and Action, as well as president of the National Pro-Life Religious Council and Pastoral Director of Rachel’s Vinyard.

The National Pro-Life Action Center is run by Paul Schenck, Rob's twin brother, who is Chairman of Faith and Action as well as the Chief Operating Officer for National Pro-Life Radio, which itself was founded by Stephen Peroutka, who just so happens to also be the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the National Pro-Life Action Center.  National Pro-Life Radio's on air broadcasters include Frank Pavone, Paul Schenck, and Rob Schenck, as well as other allies like Day Gardner of the National Black Pro-Life Union and Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice who has his own close ties to Rob and Paul Schenck.

As for Rob Schenck, in addition to being a co-founder of Faith and Action, he is also president of the National Clergy Council. Among the board members of the NCC are Patrick Mahoney of the CDC as well as a man named Gary Dull, who is also an executive board member of Faith and Action.

All of which is a long way of saying that it looks like we'll soon have yet another Faith and Action-related group to try and keep an eye on because Dull is set to announce that he is starting his own new right-wing organization to confront the problem of godlessness in America:

Why is the USA in the midst of a great economic crisis? Why is there so much corruption in government? Why are American marriages breaking up at the rate of nearly 50%? Could it be that there is a root cause that many are overlooking? Could it be that the America we love is facing the judgment of God due to rejecting His laws regarding abortion, same-sex marriages, the public display of God in public spaces, trying to borrow our way into wealth, and the funding of godless programs? It appears that we too often attempt to fix the symptom of the problem, as the root of the problem continues to eat at the very core of the nation.

Today, Faith and Action in the Nation's Capitol, HOPE Ministries of Hickory, NC, and The Way of Truth Ministries of Altoona, PA are announcing the formation of THE FAITH AND FREEDOM INSTITUTE for the purpose of motivating religious, governmental, and community leaders to call our nation back to its basic values defined in historical documents. The vision of TFFI will be to perpetuate true patriotism and generate a genuine desire for biblical values in churches, schools and governmental entities within the USA.

...

Today (March 5) at 4:00 PM, a press conference will be held by the organizers to TFFI at the headquarters of the Faith and Action Ministry at 109 2nd Street, NW Washington (behind the Supreme Court) to explain the mission and objectives of the organization.

As something of a follow-up to my last post, it looks like Patrick Mahoney has found time in his hunger-striking, prayer-vigil-organizing, anti-abortion rally-planning schedule to join a few of his allies for some good old fashioned pre-inaugural anointing:

In a first for presidential inaugurations, Congressman Paul Broun (pronounced BROWN) of Georgia joined the Reverends Rob Schenck (pronounced SHANK) of Faith and Action and Patrick J. Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition, both based in Washington, DC, in a prayer service inside the US Capitol today that included anointing the doorway President-Elect Barack Obama will pass through on his way to the platform to be sworn in as the 44th president of the United States on January 20.

"Anointing with oil is a rich tradition both in the Bible and in the history of the US Capitol," said Rev. Schenck. "Oil symbolizes consecration, or setting something apart for God's use. George Washington used oil during the dedication of the US Capitol. We used oil today to set apart the walkway and doors that will be the literal right of passage for Barack Obama as he ascends to the highest office in our land."

Rep. Broun spoke during the 10-minute prayer service, delivering a short sermon-like talk on the need to obey God and His will, and for the future president to do what is right. Rev. Schenck read Bible passages and applied sacred oil to the doorposts of the arched doorway leading out of the Capitol and onto the inaugural stage, immediately in front of the riser where Obama will stand with Chief Justice John Roberts who will administer the Oath of Office. Rev. Mahoney, who is undertaking a 21-day fast and daily prayer schedule for Mr. Obama across the street from the White House, read an inaugural prayer by Dr. Billy Graham delivered 40 years ago.

You might recall that, a few years ago, Schenck and Mahoney also anointed the seats and doors in the Senate rooms where John Roberts and Samuel Alito held their confirmation hearings ... so at least they are being bipartisan about it.

For months, rumors have been swirling around that Barack Obama is secretly a Muslim.  One would think that these sorts of rumors would be easily quashed by his seemingly straight-forward declarations that he is, in fact, a “devout Christian [who has] been a member of the same church for 20 years [and prays] to Jesus every night.” 

For the most part, these rumors have been dismissed by anyone willing to look at the evidence or take Obama’s words at face value.  But for those with a religious/political agenda to advance, it turns out that the simple question of Obama’s faith is really, really complicated.  

Case in point: 

Missionary to Capitol Hill and Evangelical leader Rev. Rob Schenck (pronounced SHANK) takes on the thorny question of Barack Obama's religious identity in a new video blog posting called Faith and Action Live! which will post today, March 5, at 1:00 PM (EST) at www.faithandaction.org.

…

In his video blog, Rev. Schenck discusses Senator Obama's public profession of Christian faith, his Muslim background and the view of the Islamic world on what defines a Muslim.

Schenck apparently fancies himself an expert on the topic because he “has been at the forefront of a series of religious dialogues between Evangelical leaders and their Muslim counterparts” and his “adult daughter has for the last year lived among Muslims while directing a private school in the desert of North Africa.” 

Schenck reports that last year he “sent a research assistant to Chicago to investigate Obama's relationship to his church, the Trinity United Church of Christ, where until recently Obama's spiritual mentor, Dr. Jeremiah Wright, was pastor” and emerged with a report that found “Obama's Christianity woefully deficient.” 

At the time, Schenck seemed willing to accept that Obama was a Christian, but now Schenck is growing concerned that Obama may in fact be a Muslim because, as he put it, the issue is really how the Muslim world defines being Muslim.  As he sees it, Muslims inherit their religion from their parents, specifically their fathers. Thus, to be born of a Muslim father makes one a Muslim.  By Schenck’s analysis, Obama has a Muslim father and a Muslim name and while he may now proclaim himself a Christian, the question remains whether he is really just an apostate, infidel, or unfaithful Muslim rather than a non-Muslim.

For his part, Schenck declared that he has no reason not to take Obama “at his word” regarding his Christianity  … and then proceeded to question the legitimacy and depth of his faith, saying “The question becomes: How serious, how profound is the religious commitment that Barack Obama has made" considering that the United Church of Christ to which he belongs has strayed dramatically from “historical, Biblical Christianity … from historic, moral Christian instruction.”  Schenck also says it is interesting that Obama claims to “pray to Jesus” rather than “pray to God in Jesus’ name” and takes issue with Obama’s claim that his views on topics like civil unions and abortion don’t make him any less of a Christian, saying that “he owes the public a further explanation of that and most certainly religious people.”   

Schenck declares that what religious affiliation a political figure claims is less important that what positions they espouse and promote – and when it comes to Obama, this issues is vitally important because not only is he a bad Christian, he might also be a unwitting Muslim:

“Obama has said quite plainly that he is a Christian.  It is true that he is a member of a Christian church, that he did in fact walk the aisle and kneel beneath a cross.  He has told us that he prays every day to Jesus.  Muslims certainly do not pray to Jesus.  They do not kneel at the foot of a cross.  They do not join churches.  They do not make a public statement such as “I am a Christian, a devout Christian. They don’t do that.  Based on that, I would have to conclude, no, he is not a Muslim.  And yet the question haunts us: how does the Muslim world see that?  How does a Muslim religious authority see that? Would a Muslim religious authority say he was born of a Muslim father, therefore he remains a Muslim.” 

The issue of Obama’s faith is, according to Schenck, an “extremely important question that demands to be asked more and in greater depth” – one that he is pressuring Obama to discuss with him “face to face.”