Religious Right

Jim Bakker, following the collapse of The PTL Club and a stint in jail for twenty four counts of fraud, seems to be having something of a revival. He has launched a new television program and founded Morningside, a Christian community in Missouri modeled after his failed and fraudulent Heritage USA project (Heritage USA is now the home of Rick Joyner’s MorningStar Ministries).

Now Bakker is out with a new book, “Big Book of History.” Promoting the book on his blog, Bakker explains that the courts and President Barack Obama “kicked God out of schools and eventually we even kicked Him out of the entire nation.” Bakker points to the 1962 Supreme Court case which found mandatory school prayer to be unconstitutional as the moment when America began to reject God and consequently went into decline, an argument made by many Religious Right activists. He goes on to say that liberal politics and secular society made a generation of “kids [who] are self-willed, insolent, and morally depraved,” which he calls a sign of the End Times. Bakker writes that as a result of the Church’s silence, “An anti-christ spirit is masquerading in our world as a champion of human rights”:

How many people do you think understand that rebellious children are a sign of the Last Days? I don’t think too many Christians actually do equate a rebellious generation with the soon coming of the Lord, but that is, in fact, one of the signs. It’s easy to spot the other signs: earthquakes, wars and rumors of wars, famines, pestilences, etc.

…

Isaiah 30:1 NCV “The Lord said, how terrible it will be for these stubborn children. They make plans, but they don’t ask me to help them. They make agreements with other nations, without asking my Spirit. They are adding more and more sins to themselves.”

This is the USA!

We are just as much the rebellious children of God who did not take council with the Lord!

I have a new book that I am making available to everyone that’s called “Big Book of History” that outlines the truth about history from the creation days until today. This is a children’s book, but even adults today need to be reminded about the things in our history that contributed to the situation we currently find ourselves in with this generation of rebellious children.

The following events and timeline are outlined in the “Big Book of History”:

1947 – Pres. Harry Truman declares the U.S. is a Christian Nation.

1948 – Dead Sea Scrolls discovered. Modern State of Israel created.

1962 – Prayer removed from state schools in the U.S. by order of Supreme Court.

1963 – The bible is removed from state schools in the US.

2005 – The Ten Commandments removed from public buildings in the US.

2010 – Pres Barack Obama declares the US is no longer a Christian Nation.

In the last 50 years, we have kicked God out of schools and eventually we even kicked Him out of the entire nation and then wonder why our kids are self-willed, insolent, and morally depraved! In all reality, we have sometimes inadvertently assisted the anti-christ spirit in its ability to proliferate. Even much of the Church seemed to be asleep when all of this happened.

“The people who wrecked swathes of property, burned vehicles and terrorized communities have no moral compass to make them susceptible to guilt or shame” said British journalist Max Hastings in an article titled “Years of liberal dogma have spawned a generation of amoral, uneducated, welfare dependent, brutalized youngsters.” The “liberal dogma” Max speaks about can be further explained in a Christian sense when we go a little deeper: an anti-christ spirit is masquerading in our world as a champion of human rights.

 

Not long after Gov. Rick Perry's "The Response" prayer rally ended, the American Family Association sent out an email to everyone who had registered to attend the event or watch it on line, urging them to support an effort called "Champion the Vote" which seeks to "mobilize 5 million unregistered conservative Christians to register and vote according to the Biblical worldview in 2012."

We didn't know much about the Champion The Vote effort; only that it was an initiative of United in Purpose, which was the group responsible for the Rediscover God In America conference in Iowa earlier this year.

Today, the LA Times provides a bit more information about the organization and reports that United in Purpose is funded by Silicon Valley venture capitalists and Rick Perry supporters seeking to mobilize Christian voters:

The group operated largely out of public sight until last month, when Don Wildmon, founder of American Family Assn., sent an email promoting Champion the Vote to people who had registered to attend Texas Gov. Rick Perry's recent prayer rally.

The Rev. Buddy Smith, American Family Assn.'s executive vice president, said that Wildmon was a friend of [donor Ken] Eldred's, one of the group's financiers, but that the association was not providing it with monetary support.

Eldred, who founded companies such as Ariba Technologies and Inmac, has donated $1.1 million to Republican candidates since 2005, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, and is now raising money for Perry's presidential bid.

But he said in an interview that Champion the Vote did not have a partisan agenda.

"I have the audacity to believe that we can be an influence on both parties," Eldred said. "I personally believe that someday we're going to stand before God, and he's going to pull out a ballot and say, 'How did you vote in this election?' And there are going to be people who say, 'Why do you care about that, God?' And he's going to say, 'Because I created that country and I put you in charge.'"

He declined to say how much money he was putting into the project, except to note: "It's not cheap, I can tell you that."

[Bill Dallas, chief executive of United in Purpose,] a former real estate developer who said his Christian beliefs deepened while he was serving time at San Quentin State Prison for embezzlement, declined to identify the other venture capitalists financing the project, but described them as "men of deep faith." He said the group had an annual budget in the millions of dollars.

Over the next 10 years, United in Purpose aims to mobilize 40 million out of the estimated 60 million evangelicals in the United States to vote. To locate them, the organization has assembled a detailed database that pairs voter registration records with consumer information that identifies, among other things, subscribers to faith-based magazines, members of NASCAR fan clubs and people on antiabortion email lists ... The organization has already seen some early success, registering 268,000 new voters in Nevada, New Mexico, Texas and Colorado in 2010 by working with churches affiliated with the Sacramento-based National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, said the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, that group's president.

So the AFA paid for Rick Perry's massive public prayer rally and then used the mailing list generated by the event to generate support for Champion the Vote,  which is an effort that is being bankrolled by a donor who is currently fundraising for Rick Perry's presidential campaign ... but the prayer rally was "non-political," just as this entire enterprise is "nonpartisan"?

As we noted a few weeks ago, Jim Garlow has become the face and leading activist on behalf of the Alliance Defense Fund's "Pulpit Initiative," which encourages pastors to speak out on political issues and even endorse or oppose candidates during their sermons in a direct challenge to the IRS.

Yesterday, Garlow was a guest on James Dobson's radio program where he outlined just what sort of sermon he plans to preach on "Pulpit Freedom Sunday" to urge his congregation not to vote for candidates that do not share his values and then compared the effort to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian who resisted the Nazis and was ultimately put to death:

Garlow: But here's the kind of phrasing that I would likely use on that Sunday. I would say the following candidates have the following positions as ti relates to abortion, as it relates to the definition of marriage, as it relates to their view of that national debt - because the national debt is a moral issue, thou shall not steal from future generations. And, that being the case, here's the following candidates that hold these various views of these three and perhaps many other topics.

Having said that, here's what the Scripture teaches specifically about that. And, after I go through that, as fully-devoted followers of Jesus Christ, we would not want to elect individuals - given the fact that the Bible has a great deal to say about economic, or life principles, or the definition of marriage in a scriptural context - we would not want persons who are in defiance of God's will in positions of authority over us. What fully devoted follower of Christ would want to defy God's will for how national and community life is to be ordered according to the Scripture?

Dobson: It essentially comes down to "use it or lose it," right? we've had rights in the past and we were willing to allow the IRS and the government to silence us and we didn't complain. Or not enough complained. Or not enough defied the order, which is just unconscionable when you consider we're drawing our information for our understanding and interpretation of the Scripture and the somebody in Washington can tell me that I can't say that? That's what happened in Sweden, it's what's happening in Canada and in other parts of the country. This is a movement that threatens the very life of the church. And, man, I'm preaching it now Jim and I'm not even a pastor.

Garlow: April the ninth, 1945, a man was stripped of all his clothes, taken outside and hung by a piano wire. His name was Dietrich Bonhoeffer. We celebrate how great that man was and what an incredible human being he was and the martyr he became. Why do we celebrate his life? It is because he was a man of God who refused to succumb to the powers of the government that tried to control what he would do and say in the pulpit and in his ministerial and pastoral life. And so we're attempting to see, before it's too late, before it's too late in America, to raise up a generation of Dietrich Bonhoeffers.

One of the things we are constantly hearing from Religious Right leaders is that we are in, or will soon be in, "the next great awakening."  What that means, nobody ever really explains but it seems to entail millions of people becoming dedicated Christians and then voting for Republicans who will outlaw abortion and gay marriage and taxes.

The question of how we will actually know that we are in the midst of "the next great awakening" also goes unexplained ... but on "Prophetic Perspective on Current Events" yesterday Rick Joyner gave us a hint: NFL games would be canceled because all the players and fans would be too busy attending revival meetings, but the stadiums would not be empty because they "were built for revival, the owners just didn't know it."

Watch:

Janet Porter has, in many ways, been at the center of the merger between the "mainstream" Religious Right and the Dominionist prophets and apostles of the New Apostolic Reformation.  In fact, it was through Porter's participation in the "Convergence 2010" event, where she prayed that Christians would take control of the media, that we first became aware of the likes of Cindy Jacobs. 

Since then, Porter has gotten progressively more involved with the movement - so much so that she lost her radio program due to her embrace of Seven Mountains Dominionism.

But now Porter is back, pushing her radically anti-choice "Heartbeat Bill" in Ohio and her effort has won the support of everyone from Rick Perry to Michele Bachmann.  And next week Porter will once again be bringing self-proclaimed "prophets" like Lou Engle and Rick Joyner together with Religious Right activists like Wendy Wright and Rick Scarborough, this time to press for passage of her bill: 

Come to the event that will signal the beginning of the end of abortion in America! We've reserved the Ohio Statehouse Atrium (downtown Columbus, Ohio) on Tuesday, Sept. 20, to greet the Ohio senators as they come back from their summer recess. This is an event you will tell your children and grandchildren about! We will begin the day with prayer from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. with Pastor Dutch Sheets, author of "Intercessory Prayer," and Lou Engle of the Call. The rally begins at 11 a.m.



Several of the senators will be speaking, along with the who's who of the pro-life movement, beginning with the founder of both Ohio and National Right to Life, Dr. Jack Willke. Also speaking will be Joe Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League, Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America, Troy Newman from Operation Rescue, Dr. Rick Scarborough of Vision America, Dr. Jim Garlow of Renewing American Leadership, Rick Joyner of the Oak Initiative, Phil Burress of Citizens for Community Values and Timothy Johnson of the Frederick Douglass Foundation.


With conservative politicians and groups trying to ‘reclaim feminism’ for the Right, it is no surprise to see the notoriously anti-feminist Concerned Women for America jumping on the bandwagon. Concerned Women for America claims it was founded by Beverly LaHaye, whose husband is Religious Right leader Tim LaHaye, to counter the National Organization for Women because “She knew the feminists’ anti-God, anti-family rhetoric did not represent her beliefs, nor those of the vast majority of women.”

LaHaye has said, “Feminism is more than an illness. It is a philosophy of death.” But now, CWA insists that it is actually restoring feminism to its original purpose: to better enable women to serve their husbands.

Janice Shaw Crouse of CWA told the Christian Post that feminism was initially a Christian movement until it “was taken over by lesbians.” According to Crouse, real feminist women in the workplace “don’t view their job as a career or they don’t see themselves as career women – they see themselves helping their husbands.”

Incidentally, Crouse is a PhD who has built a career working as an antifeminist – she is an author and former presidential speechwriter and currently directs CWA's Beverly LaHaye Institute. Her daughter is the president of Americans United for Life:

“For many years, both secular and religious feminists operated with the same definition of equality,” says Crouse. “Then somewhere in the last 30 years that changed. Feminism was taken over by lesbians, by those who wanted quotas and abortion on demand.”

…

“Christian women do not like workplace quotas because Christian women don’t like the idea of being forced into the workplace – Christian women like choice, the option of going into the workplace or not,” says Crouse.

Part of the workplace tension between Christian women and secular feminists relates to how both groups define success. A Christian woman tends not to seek accolades or advancement solely in the workplace but instead views her work as part of her calling as a wife and mother.

“In general, Christian women are not in the workplace for power, they are there because they have some challenge, some very fulfilling responsibility,” adds Crouse. “Many Christian women choose to work part time, to bring in some extra income to help the family, but they don’t view their job as a career or they don’t see themselves as career women – they see themselves helping their husbands. It’s a completely different perspective from modern secular feminists, a fundamental disagreement and a different worldview about what it means to be a woman.”

Conservative activists continue to vehemently attack Chaz Bono and ABC over Bono’s upcoming appearance on Dancing With The Stars. Both Bono, a transgender man who has completed female-to-male gender transition surgery, and Carson Kressley, who is openly gay, have been the subject of attacks from Religious Right activists who warn that the two are “LGBT rights advocates and promote this destructive lifestyle.”

Today, Media Research Center president Brent Bozell is out with a column slamming ABC for casting Bono and Kressley. Bozell charges that “the entire transgender propaganda movement is confused”, and says that nothing will ever make “make Bono a real male.” “Nowhere in any of this celebration is the hard reality,” Bozell writes, “Despite ‘his’ low voice, and his sideburns and his awful decision to amputate his own breasts, Bono remains a woman”:

If Chaz Bono were going to perform the entire season as a man, with no reference to "his" actual gender, then ABC wouldn't be offering that LGBT educational opportunity. It is why no one should have any doubt that Chaz Bono is going to be instructing America about the need to overcome their "transphobia" -- on the show and everywhere else.

On ABC's "Good Morning America" on Sept. 6, the network used the opposition of the American Family Association, AFA, as a foil to promote the show. "It's made me realize I'm really glad I'm doing this because America really needs to see this," Bono said. "You know, it just kind of shows why for me it's important to be on the show, because so little still is known about what it means to be transgender, and there's so many just completely inaccurate stereotypes and thoughts that people have."

Four days earlier, ABC put on gay publicist Howard Bragman to call the AFA a "hate group" inspiring "hate opinions on email" that are like "people writing on a bathroom wall." AFA may as well write on bathroom walls. It's not getting a lick of airtime on ABC.

This is Bono's year of media activism, complete with a book last spring called "Transition," promoted all over the news channels and with a promotional one-hour Oprah Winfrey Network special called "Becoming Chaz," hailed as the story of a "valiant struggle of a sensitive individual to become who he really is."

Nowhere in any of this celebration is the hard reality. Despite "his" low voice, and his sideburns and his awful decision to amputate his own breasts, Bono remains a woman. It's ridiculous for ABC to argue children won't be confused by this political-correctness crusade. The entire transgender propaganda movement is confused. Indeed, there is a new sexual category to go alongside G, L, B and T --"Q" for questioning.

ABC and the rest of the media universe can do all the pretending they want, but that's not going to make Bono a real male. It's not a completely inaccurate stereotype for people to say so. Silly, old-fashioned me; I'm stuck on human beings made as males and females.

Michael Brown has been hard at work establishing himself among the Religious Right's cadre of militant anti-gay activists with the publication of his book "A Queer Thing Happened to America" and by writing pieces, published by the American Family Association's OneNewsNow, in which he asserts that "gay activism" was responsible for the brutal murder of 15 year-old openly gay eight grader Lawrence King in 2008:

After all, it is gay activists who constantly remind us that LGBT kids are bullied and even beaten up at school. They tell us how dangerous the school environment is for kids who identify as LGBT, and yet at the same time, they praise kids like Larry for coming out at 10. They even want more Gay Straight Alliances in our middle schools, where pre-teens can declare their gay identity to their peers and faculty advisors without their parents' knowledge. Why? So they can become targets of hatred and potential violence? If our schools really are so "homophobic" and dangerous, why not encourage these kids to keep their sexual orientation to themselves until they're in a safer environment?

Some of the teachers in Larry's school, along with his adoptive father, specifically accused former assistant principal Joy Epstein, an open lesbian, of encouraging Larry's flamboyant behavior in order to promote her "agenda." If there is any truth to this, it is not just irresponsible, it is reprehensible. (At the least, there is no indication that she discouraged his pushy, sexual behavior.) How could an experienced educator act in such a way, especially with a boy who had such a troubled history? And is it possible that Larry could have benefited from ongoing counseling about his sexuality? Yet gay activists adamantly oppose any form of counseling that does not affirm homosexuality.

What about the other administrators? Why didn't they prevent Larry from dressing up like a girl when teachers reported to them that it was causing disruption among the students? The official school answer is that California law, passed at the urging of gay activists, prevents discrimination based on gender identity or expression, and so Larry was able to come to school wearing women's accessories and makeup. Was it fair to push this on Larry's classmates, themselves young teenagers sorting through their own issues of sexual identity? Was it fair to Larry?

And what is to be said of this memo sent out to the entire eighth grade? "We have a student on campus who has chosen to express his sexuality by wearing make-up. It is his right to do so." In eighth grade? His "right?" What a travesty! Yet this is a "right" gay activists aggressively fight for, as if this somehow makes our schools "safer" and provides a better learning environment for all the kids. Nonsense.

It is true that Brandon McInerney murdered Larry King in cold blood, but gay activism is complicit in his death.

Family Research Council Action, the political arm of the Family Research Council, just announced that Texas Gov. Rick Perry will address the upcoming Values Voter Summit in Washington. As Religious Right leaders continue to coalesce behind Perry — FRC president Tony Perkins was among those attending a pro-Perry gathering of conservative leaders at James Leninger’s ranch earlier this month — addressing the Values Voter Summit should only help his standing among social conservatives. Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum are the only other presidential candidates who have so far committed to the event. Other Religious Right leaders scheduled to speak include Gary Bauer, Brent Bozell, Mathew Staver, Phyllis Schlafly and Bill Bennett, along with lesser known but radical activists like Lila Rose, Jerry Boykin and Star Parker:

Family Research Council Action (FRC Action) has confirmed that GOP presidential candidate Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) will speak at the Values Voter Summit this October 7-9 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Gov. Perry joins other Republican presidential candidates, including U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) and U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), at the largest annual gathering of pro-family activists in the nation's capital.

The annual event, which is expected to draw 2,000 grassroots activists from across the country, will have a speaker line-up that includes House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), U.S. Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Steve King (R-IA), Dr. Bill Bennett, Mark Levin, Lt. Gen. William Boykin (U.S. Army-Ret.), Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, Erick Erickson, Ed Morrissey, Heritage Foundation fellow Edwin Meese III, Lila Rose and Phyllis Schlafly. The 2011 Values Voter Summit is cosponsored by AFA Action, American Values, The Heritage Foundation, Liberty University, and Liberty Counsel. A presidential straw poll, exhibit hall, book signings, breakout sessions and much more will be packed into this three-day conference. On Saturday evening Family Research Council will award Heritage Foundation fellow Edwin Meese, III with its 2011 Vision and Leadership Award.