Paul Broun

On today's broadcast, James Dobson interviewed Ralph & Danielle Drollinger, longtime friends of his who run an organization called Capitol Ministries, an organization that hosts regular Bible studies for, and ministers to, Members of Congress.

Among the members listed as sponsors on the organization's website are Todd Akin, Michele Bachmann, Paul Broun, Trent Franks, Louie Gohmert, Sue Myrick, Mike Pence, Tom Price, Lamar Smith, Joe Wilson and various others.

Danielle was actually a former employee of Focus on the Family before Dobson helped her get a job as a staffer for a Congressional committee in Washington DC.  After she and Ralph were married, they started Capitol Ministries with the intention of creating a nationwide "farm system" to cultivate conservative Christian candidates at the state and national level.

And, as Ralph explained, thanks to the rise of the Tea Party, all sorts of Religious Right candidates have been elected to Congress "under the radar":

Dobson: Tell us, very quickly, about the exciting thing that is happening with now thirty five new Evangelicals and people that love Christ have come to the House of Representatives primarily. That's almost doubled the number of people who were there before.

Drollinger: Today, I think with the new class in were up to probably sixty Evangelicals now holding office. And what's really interesting about this - just to analyze it for a second - is with the entitlement program runaway, there's been a pendulum swing that has risen the Tea Party. And the Tea Party is this huge voter block that is bigger than, say, our old Religious Right voter blocks because it's all kinds of people that are trying to elect fiscal conservatives to save the country economically. And when you elect a fiscal conservatives with this big engine called the Tea Party, you typically get a social conservative ...

Dobson: And often a Christian.

Drollinger: That's right. And so now we've got this flood of new believers that have snuck in under the radar. And before, the secular media would always shoot our horses in the corral before they got out on the track. And now they've all snuck in under the radar and through the guise of being fiscally conservative they've rallied huge voter bases. They get elected and they happen to be believers and they're saying "let's fuel a movement for Christ in the nation's capital."

Drolling went on to explain that at a recent Bible study for members of Congress, he taught on the issue what the Bible says about entitlement programs and mentioned that he also makes these studies available in printed form for Members who cannot make it to any particular study session.

And indeed he does, as there are twleve year's worth of such studies posted on their website.

So what exactly is Drollinger teaching members of Congress? Just that "America's bankrupting entitlement policies stem from bad theology" - namely, the Social Gospel, which is an "aberrent" and "heretical" theology that is a "perversion, or a corruption of what the Bible actually teaches":

It follows that the way a legislator understands God via his or her theology, or lack thereof, will determine their ideology in both personal and policy formation ... If the Social Gospel is unfounded in Scripture, such thinking and ideology should be soundly rejected. Why? Whenever an individual or society veers from the owner’s handbook, the way therein always proves detrimental.

...

[N]owhere in Scripture does God assign the specific responsibility to Government to provide entitlements for its citizenry, whereas Scripture does assign specific entitlement responsibilities to various individuals and other institutions (as previously seen in this study). Again, one could argue that since Scripture does not prohibit Government from directly aiding the poor that such is biblically permissible. But to the degree any institution engages in responsibilities outside of its biblically-explicit God-ordained role(s) is the same degree to which it becomes inefficient and wasteful. 1 Peter 2: 13-14 states the specific role of Government is this: “Reward those who do good and punish those who do evil.”

The misunderstandings and supposed scriptural justifications for enormous government-based entitlement programs stem not from Christianity but from another misguided religion. Outside the explicit ordinances of the Scriptures, it follows that direct governmental provisions of entitlements lead not to selfsufficiency but by and large the ruin of both the individual recipient and the nation’s treasury.

May God grant you, our nation’s leader’s great wisdom to transition our policies to biblically-informed positions relative to best helping the poor and bereft—people whom you and I love and people whom God loves.

• Texas Freedom Network: Yet Another Historian Corrects David Barton.
• Justin Elliot: Koch Industries: We Don't Fund Tea Parties (Except For The Tea Parties We Fund).
• Sarah Posner: The Lord Is My Insurer.
• Think Progress: GOP Rep. Paul Broun Admits To Illegally Sending Back An Incomplete Census.
• Raw Story: Tucker Carlson’s ‘non-ideological’ news site sponsors Tea Party bash.
• Media Matters: Myths and falsehoods surrounding the judicial nomination of Goodwin Liu.
• Finally, do not ask Rep. Steve King about his justification of the suicide plane attack on an IRS building:

Justine Sharrock has a long article on The Oath Keepers in the latest issue of Mother Jones that notes the organization's ties to Tea Party and 9/12 activists and, by extension, figures like Ralph Reed, groups like the Eagle Forum, and members of Congress: 

Founded last April by Yale-educated lawyer and ex-Ron Paul aide Stewart Rhodes, the group has established itself as a hub in the sprawling anti-Obama movement that includes Tea Partiers, Birthers, and 912ers. Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, and Pat Buchanan have all sung its praises, and in December, a grassroots summit it helped organize drew such prominent guests as representatives Phil Gingrey and Paul Broun, both Georgia Republicans.

There are scores of patriot groups, but what makes Oath Keepers unique is that its core membership consists of men and women in uniform, including soldiers, police, and veterans. At regular ceremonies in every state, members reaffirm their official oaths of service, pledging to protect the Constitution—but then they go a step further, vowing to disobey "unconstitutional" orders from what they view as an increasingly tyrannical government.

...

It was while volunteering for Ron Paul's doomed presidential bid that Rhodes decided to abandon electoral politics in favor of grassroots organizing. As an undergrad, he had been fascinated by the notion that if German soldiers and police had refused to follow orders, Hitler could have been stopped. Then, in early 2008, SWAT received a letter from a retired colonel declaring that "the Constitution and our Bill of Rights are gravely endangered" and that service members, veterans, and police "is where they will be saved, if they are to be saved at all!"

Rhodes responded with a breathless column starring a despotic president, "Hitlery" Clinton, in her "Chairman Mao signature pantsuit." Would readers, he asked, obey orders from this "dominatrix-in-chief" to hold militia members as enemy combatants, disarm citizens, and shoot all resisters? If "a police state comes to America, it will ultimately be by your hands," he warned. You had better "resolve to not let it happen on your watch." He set up an Oath Keepers blog, asking soldiers and veterans to post testimonials. Word spread. Military officers offered assistance. A Marine Corps veteran invited Rhodes to speak at a local Tea Party event. Paul campaigners provided strategic advice. And by the time Rhodes arrived in Lexington to speak at a rally staged by a pro-militia group, a movement was afoot.

...

Rhodes has become a darling of right-wing pundits. In a column last October, Pat Buchanan predicted that "Brother Rhodes is headed for cable stardom." Glenn Beck has cited the group as a "phenomenal" example of the "patriot revival movement," while Lou Dobbs declared that its platform "should give solace and comfort to the left in this country." Conspiracy-radio king Alex Jones even put an Oath Keepers segment, including footage of the Lexington speech, on his hit DVD Fall of the Republic. "I can't stress enough how much your organization is scaring the globalists," he told Rhodes on his show.

...

On the conference's final day, National 912 Project chairman Patrick Jenkins stepped up to talk about the National Liberty Unity Summits his group was organizing in cooperation with Oath Keepers. They would provide a chance, he said, for patriots to forge a common agenda and a plan to carry it out. At the first summit, in December, attendees included representatives of groups from FairTax Nation to the Constitution Party to Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum. On hand were Ralph Reed Jr. (former director of Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition and recent founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition), Larry Pratt (head of Gun Owners of America), and Tim Cox (founder of Get Out of Our House, an organization praised on Fox News for its goal of replacing business-as-usual incumbents with "ordinary folks"). Most notable were representatives Broun and Gingrey, who according to summit organizer Nighta Davis have expressed willingness to introduce legislation crafted by summit attendees. (So, Davis says, have Steve King [R-Iowa] and Michele Bachmann [R-Minn.]. None of the representatives agreed to comment for this story.)

As they say, read the whole thing.

• Rep. Paul Broun declares Nancy Pelosi to be a "domestic enemy of the Constitution."
• This has got to be one of the most God-centric political ads I think I have ever seen.
• Justice Antonin Scalia doesn't seem to think that a cross is a Christian symbol.
• The Right sure does love Carrie Prejean.
• Will Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger veto Harvey Milk day again?
• Finally, see the Conservative Bible Project in action.

• The Southern Poverty Law Center has released a new report: "They're back. Almost a decade after largely disappearing from public view, right-wing militias, ideologically driven tax defiers and sovereign citizens are appearing in large numbers around the country."
• Be sure to take a look at some of the other crazy things that Orly Taitz believes.
• Sen. Johnny Isakson has now boldly recanted his statement that people who think healthcare reform will lead to death panels are "nuts."
• Rep. Paul Broun declares that Democrats are just waiting to use a pandemic disease or natural disaster as an excuse to declare martial law.
• Rep. Michele Bachmann's son has fallen victim to one of President Obama's "re-education camps."
• What is the deal with conservative politicians in Oklahoma?
• Finally, I was not aware that gay sex spread swine flu while straight sex did not, but apparently that is the case in Malaysia.

• The Right continues to make ACORN it's bogeyman ... and ACORN says bring it on.
• After his arrest, Alan Keyes is heading back to Notre Dame to continue his protesting.
• Will Michael Steele ever stop embarrassing himself?  It sure doesn't seem that way.
• Carrie Prejean told James Dobson that "Satan was trying to tempt me" with the gay marriage question during the Miss USA pageant.
• Will 2010 be "The Year of the Bible"? It will if Rep. Paul Broun gets his way.
• Finally, for all those for whom purity pledges are not hardcore enough, there is another option: the Virgin Lips Movement.

Last week I wrote a post about Rep. Paul Broun, Rob Scheck, and Patrick Mahoney gathering in the Capitol in order to anoint the doorway that Barack Obama will pass through on his way to his swearing in that lead to a post this week vowing to start paying more attention to Broun.  

And so, following through on that pledge, I found this:

Republican Congressman Paul Broun of Georgia told the Associated Press that today's American leadership "needs to serve the Lord Jesus Christ."

But more interestingly, Max Blumenthal has written a good profile of these three men and their mission that contains several bits of interesting information about Broun:

While the Capitol prayer partners appeared earnest in the prayers for the president elect’s success, they have each distinguished themselves from their Christian right comrades by leveling some of the most paranoid imprecations Obama has faced since he arrived in the Senate. On November 10, 2008, a week after Obama’s election victory, Broun took umbrage at the President-elect’s call for a national civilian security force, a proposal also backed by George W. Bush. According to Broun, who acknowledged the possibility that he might be “crazy,” Obama had revealed himself as a radical Marxist Nazi socialist comparable to Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

"It may sound a bit crazy and off base,” Broun told an AP reporter, “but the thing is, he’s the one who proposed this national security force. I’m just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may—may not, I hope not—but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism. That’s exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it’s exactly what the Soviet Union did. When he’s proposing to have a national security force that’s answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he’s showing me signs of being Marxist.”

After seeming to back away from his comments when he was heavily criticized, Broun announced that he was “not taking back anything [he] said.” “I firmly believe that we must not fall victim to the ‘it can't happen here’ mentality,” he declared in a press release. “I adhere to the adage ‘eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.’”

“Mr. Speaker,” Broun announced from the House floor in 2007, “if we take our dishes and try to wash ‘em in our clothes washers we’re going to have problems, and that’s what we’re doing in our society, Mr. Speaker. We’re trying to do things against God’s inerrant word… So I rise today to support the Bible as the basis of our nation.”

Though he campaigned for reelection in 2008 as “The #1 Congressman on Immigration,” Broun has introduced only one bill since arriving in Washington: a measure banning pornography in the military. “Our troops should not see their honor sullied so that the moguls behind magazines like Playboy and Penthouse can profit,” Broun proclaimed. His spokesman testified to his expertise as an “addictionologist” who is “familiar with the negative consequences associated with long-term exposure to pornography.” Despite such scientific and personal authority, Broun’s bill to protect the troops from pictures of unclad women has gone nowhere.

Given such views, Blumenthal explains, its not hard to understand why he hooked up with the likes of Schenck and Mahoney:

In the early 1990s, Schenck was arrested a dozen times during protests outside women's health clinics and abortion doctors' homes, and was momentarily detained by Secret Service after shoving an aborted fetus in front of Bill Clinton outside the 1992 Democratic National Convention. Four years later, Schenck grew so upset by President Clinton's veto of a bill banning partial abortion that he managed to creep behind him during a Christmas Eve service at the National Cathedral and whisper in his ear, "God will hold you to account, Mr. President.” He was immediately removed from the chapel and interrogated by Secret Service agents.

Schenck spent several months in 1992 picketing the Buffalo, New York, home of Dr. Barnett Slepian, an obscure area abortion doctor that he personally targeted for scorn. Six years later, while cooking dinner for his wife and four children, Slepian was shot to death through his kitchen window by James Kopp, a volunteer at Operation Rescue's Binghamton, N.Y., office. Though Schenck denied knowing Kopp, the two had been arrested together at several clinic blockades.

When Schenck placed flowers at the doorstep of Slepian's office, his infuriated wife returned them with a letter that read, “It's your ‘passive’ following that incited the violence that killed Bart [Slepian] and took away both my and my children's future.”

Schenck attained a new prominence during the George W. Bush era, forging friendly ties with culture warriors like House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Sen. Rick Santorum, and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, who allowed Schenck to hang a Ten Commandments plaque in his office. He even became a golfing buddy of Sen. Orrin Hatch. But DeLay and Santorum are gone from the Congress, victims of their own excesses, while Lieberman and Hatch have become marginalized by the Democratic majority.

Sensing his influence on the wane, Schenck targeted Obama. In January 2007, Schenck described the newly sworn-in senator’s Christian faith as “woefully deficient.” In a March 2008 videoblog, he accused Obama of crypto-Muslim religious sympathies.

Mahoney appeared at Obama’s Capitol Hill office in June 2008 to present his aides with a poster depicting the senator as Uncle Sam, declaring, “I Want YOU To Pay For Abortions.” Mahoney plans to hold an anti-abortion vigil along Obama’s parade route this January 20. “Sadly, President-elect Obama is on the wrong side of history and human rights by embracing the most radical abortion policies of any President in American history,” Mahoney said in announcing the vigil.

A founding member of the hardline anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, Schenck and his allies have engaged in what they call “direct action” to stop abortion by any means necessary. "There's going to be people wounded,” Mahoney, a fellow Operation Rescue leader, declared at a 1993 rally. “It's about whose will shall rule on this planet, God's or man's.”

Unlike David Brody, I am not a journalist and don't regularly get asked to host programs and provide insight on CNN ... so maybe there is some journalistic definition of the word "exclusive" with which I am unfamiliar:

EXCLUSIVE: Video of Pastors Physically Blessing Obama's Inaugural Walkway
January 9, 2009

You have to check out this video. It was sent exclusively to The Brody File.

The video in question is of Congressman Paul Broun, Rob Schenck of Faith and Action and Patrick Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition anointing the doorway President-Elect Barack Obama will pass through on his way to being sworn in next week ... which we posted last week:

Considering that Schenck and company sent out a press release about it on January 7th and then posted the video the same day on Schenck's Faith and Action YouTube page, at which point we and others wrote about it, it's hard to understand how this is in any way a Brody File "exclusive."