Environment

One of the things I find most entertaining about the Religious Right is their vehement opposition to any effort to broaden the so-called “evangelical agenda” to include anything beyond the Right’s core anti-gay, anti-abortion agenda and their constant attempts to justify their rigidly narrow focus.  

Starting back in 2006 after the GOP got thumped in the mid-term elections and the media stopped talking about “values voters” and began to write about the emergence of a “new evangelical” movement, right-wing leaders were telling anyone who would listen that religious efforts to help the poor or protect the environment were all well and good but were just way less important than opposing gays and abortion:

"It's not a question of the poor not being important or that meeting their needs is not important," said Paul Hetrick, a spokesman for Focus on the Family, Dobson's influential, Colorado-based Christian organization. "But whether or not a baby is killed in the seventh or eighth month of pregnancy, that is less important than help for the poor? We would respectfully disagree with that."

When Rev. Joel Hunter was tapped to take over the Christian Coalition, he ended up leaving his position before he even began because they wanted to have

with his efforts to broaden the Religious Right’s agenda and then, in 2007, when the National Association of Evangelicals’ Richard Cizik stared working on issue of climate change, right-wing leaders including James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Don Wildmon, Gary Bauer, and Rick Scarborough demanded that he be

because they were afraid that it would end up undermining their old-school agenda:

More importantly, we have observed that Cizik and others are using the global warming controversy to shift the emphasis away from the great moral issues of our time, notably the sanctity of human life, the integrity of marriage and the teaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children.

But what angers the Right even more than that is Democratic efforts to reach out to religious communities and voters.  The Religious Right has always hated and attacked such efforts, regularly accusing Democrats of “hijacking” faith to promote an ungodly agenda because, you guessed it, it takes away from their own efforts to use religion to bolster their own narrow agenda:

Tom McClusky, vice president of government affairs for the Family Research Council, an influential conservative lobbying group, said he objects to the Democrats' approach. He said it is morally problematic to equate poverty issues, as serious as they are, with abortion.

"It's not that, as Christians or as people, we shouldn't be helping out those who need it," he said. "But when it comes right down to it, if you're never born, you're not going to be poor. If you're not born, you're not going to be afflicted with illnesses. They're trying to say there's some sort of equivalency when it comes to these issues. I personally think that's wrong."

Can’t argue with that, I guess.  You can’t be poor or sick if you were never born, and so FRC is committed to making sure that you are born so that you can then be poor and get sick, at which point … well, you are on your own because those aren’t thing that they really care about.

I mentioned the return of the Texas Restoration Project a few months ago and then promptly forgot about it. Fortunately, the folks at Talk 2 Action have a better memory than I do and actually attended the event and provide an inside report.  

Back when he was running in the GOP primary, Mike Hucakbee praised right-wing pseudo-historian David Barton as perhaps "the greatest living historian on the spiritual nature of America's early days."  But it seems that, since dropping out, his opinion of Barton has only increased because he is now calling him the "single best historian in America today": 

According to candidate Mike Huckabee, history revisionist David Barton is the best historian our country has to offer the nation. Barton's best seller, The Myth of Separation of Church and State, violates the basic tenets of the Baptist faith Huckabee was ordained into and is still a member. This view by Huckabee about Barton was uttered at the Texas Restoration Project meeting in Austin, Texas, October 9-10th. Helping to host and speak at the event were Barton, Huckabee and Governor Perry - the state GOP official. On a first-to-call basis, the pastors of the state's churches, as well as their wives, were invited to come and stay free of charge in a $250/night Hilton Hotel room. Over 1,000 showed up, and it was announced that several hundred more wanted to attend, but could not because there was no room for them. Perry sits atop a state platform that wants to pull the nation out of the U.N., abolish the U.S. Department of Education, appeal minimum wage and do away with Social Security. Not to mention the platform affirms giving state money to religious schools and wants to dispel the myth of separation of church and state.

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Huckabee and good buddy David Barton were up next, and between sessions provided photo opts for admiring pastors. Huckabee said this was a spiritual, not a political meeting, and he preached to the crowd. In spite of the get out the vote drive and lamenting of the false concept of separation of church and state, the mixture of pulpit and ballot continued … Huckabee introduced his friend David Barton as a man God raised up for the moment. Mike knew of no other man in the country having such a great impact on the land.

Next, Barton did his Christian-nation thing and stated the Bible had something to say about minimum wage and estate taxes. Evidently, that meant the text was against them both. A common religious right position in voter guides is that minimum wage is immoral. Barton told several stories of heroic Revolutionary War pastors who left the pulpit and led the men of the church into killing English troops. He lamented that this is what is needed today to restore the nation: That is, motivated and active pastors who lead out. Barton then said that separation of church and state, which he stated - is not in the Constitution - and only applies to the state interference in the church - a common religious right position.

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Voter guides from Barton's organization were placed at the tables where we sat. There was a sign-up sheet to list name, email and church information. Morning speakers reminded us that the glory of God has been lost in the nation, and the Bible and prayer have been expelled from schools. The key question was what the church would do about these things. Barton proceeded to defend his position that the two key issues of the election centered around abortion and gay rights. He said the Bible taught that these were the key priority issues and poverty, environment, justice, civil rights and the prospect of an unjust war all sat as minor ethical issues compared to the other two. He explained that in the past few elections, laws have been enacted by Christians to limit abortions. That was - he admitted - until the 2006 elections. He conceded pro-life forces lost ground. His conclusion was that a get out the vote effort in 2008 could reverse this. David stated that what a person believed about abortion defined how one would vote regarding all other legislative issues. Barton reminded the group that judicial appointments will define our culture. He then explained to the pastors that for the past 50 years government has told pastors what to say in the pulpit. The Texan then complained that the government did a terribly inefficient job of helping the poor. It would better for the churches to hand out this money and do drug and prison rehab. He restated, "The church has got to be involved in the election." 

We weren’t there so obviously we don’t know exactly what Barton’s presentation was like, but if you want to get a sense of how Barton typically uses his biased history of America to promote the Religious Right’s political and electoral agenda, you can watch him do so here.

During the GOP primary, we kept hearing about the emergence of a "new evangelical" movement that cared about issues beyond the standard anti-gay, anti-abortion right-wing agenda and were repeatedly told that Mike Huckabee was the most high profile example of this new type of leader.  

As we pointed out then, and have continued to point out, that was a dramatic oversimplification and fundamentally misleading.  Because, when you get down to it, people like Mike Huckabee are in fact fully aligned with the traditional Religious Right agenda and, as Dan Gilgoff smartly notices, inevitably revert to form when it comes crunch time:

Remember back to the Republican primaries, when Mike Huckabee campaigned as a new kind of evangelical candidate, adding issues like the environment, education, and poverty to the hot-button agenda of God, guns, and gays?

That big-tent Huck seems to be in much shorter supply now. An email the Arkansas governor just sent out soliciting donations for his political action committee--whose beneficiaries include John McCain and Sarah Palin--asks fors $5 for each of these five red meat issues:

1. Protection of Human Life 2. Traditional Marriage 3. Tax policy that doesn't punish people for working, but rewards them 4. 2nd amendment rights 5. Supreme Court and Federal Court judge selection

So much for all those professed concerns about poverty, the environment, and human rights. 

The Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins was on CNN earlier today setting out a new test for the McCain campaign regarding how they respond to the issue of Sarah Palin’s pastors, her anti-gay church, and her Pentecostal faith.

Considering that McCain eventually ditched Rod Parsley and John Hagee when he grew uncomfortable with having to explain and defend their views, Perkins warns that the Right will be keeping a close eye on how McCain responds to questions about Palin, waiting to see if they will try to downplay the issue and back away or whether they will “move towards the base “and “run to their strength":

Roberts: For a couple of decades, she was a member of the Pentecostal Assembly of God church. Six years ago, she changed to the Wasilla Bible Church. I read an article in which one of her former pastors suggested [the McCain campaign] may be playing down her faith because there may be some misunderstanding about her Pentecostalism. What do you think about all of this? 

Perkins: Obviously people, the polling data would suggest people want a leader or leaders that believe in God [and] pray, and I think there's some sense that there's a greater accountability there. But I think the campaign, John, is at a critical point. John McCain made an incredible selection. He has turned around the campaign that I think was moving south, and there's enthusiasm, excitement and hope among social conservative voters.

But ... the next few days, next couple of weeks will be very critical because just as you pointed out, her faith has become an issue. It's being attacked, being used as a weapon against her and people are watching. It will be very important how the McCain campaign handles this. If they become defensive and run from it and try to hide the fact that there is this element of faith, then I think it's going to turn off social conservatives, evangelicals, orthodox Christians. 

But if they say, "Hey, why should someone have to check their faith at the door” and move towards the base, I think it's going to energize, you know, the socially conservative voters more. It's very important how they deal with this in the next few days.

Roberts: You say people are attacking her because of her faith. Are they attacking her or asking legitimate questions, such as when she said at the Assembly of God church back in June. ... [Palin] talked about U.S. troops in Iraq, and she put it this way: "Our national leaders are sending them out on a task that's from God." Even some Pentecostals say that could taken to mean that the U.S. is in a holy war with the Muslim world.

Perkins: I think there are things said in the context of the church that we saw with … you know … what Pastor Wright said.  People said “you know, that was the conditioned in the environment in which he was in.  I think in some ways they went overboard, but I think it's important that you see where these convictions lead her on policy issues, and I think that is part of the scrutiny that she will undergo from socially conservative voters.

Roberts: Do you have any idea at this point about how her faith will inform how she governs?

Perkins: No. There's not a lot of evidence in Alaska other than, you know, she's conservative. I mean there's not -- you can't point to a lot of policies that people can say [she adopted] because she's a conservative evangelical.  You don't see a lot of that. I think what people are looking for from the McCain campaign is: He's made a great selection. He has their attention. He's built hope and enthusiasm. Are they going to move away from this faith element? Are they going to move away from, you know, the base trying to keep her from being too aligned with him or going to run to their strength?

That will be a critical decision they make in the next several days.

We’ve written a few posts recently arguing that the main difference between Rick Warren and the more traditional right-wing figures like James Dobson is primarily tone.  While Warren talks a great deal about expanding the evangelical agenda to cover issues such as the environment and poverty, that agenda is founded on the standard anti-gay, anti-abortion ideology.

As Warren himself regularly points out, “people think because I’m trying to expand the agenda that I’ve left the prior agenda. I have not.”  And that agenda, as he spelled out explicitly in his 2004 pre-election email, comes directly out of the right-wing playbook:

But for those of us who accept the Bible as God's Word and know that God has a unique, sovereign purpose for every life, I believe there are 5 issues that are non-negotiable. To me, they're not even debatable because God's Word is clear on these issues. In order to live a purpose-driven life - to affirm what God has clearly stated about his purpose for every person he creates - we must take a stand by finding out what the candidates believe about these five issues, and then vote accordingly.

Here are five questions to ask when considering who to vote for in this election:

1. What does each candidate believe about abortion and protecting the lives of unborn children?

2. What does each candidate believe about using unborn babies for stem-cell harvesting?

3. What does each candidate believe about homosexual marriage?

4. What does each candidate believe about human cloning?

5. What does each candidate believe about euthanasia - the killing of elderly and invalids?

Around that time, Warren was poised to become the nation’s new Jerry Falwell, but chose a more moderate seeming path in an effort to broaden his reach without, of course, moderating his agenda.  And so he continues to sell his right-wing views while hiding behind a veil of moderation and civility. 

At least that is what he was doing heading into his faith forum last weekend – now that it’s over, it looks like Warren has all but given up the even pretending:   

'Overhyped." That's how the Rev. Rick Warren describes the notion that the evangelical vote is "up for grabs" in this election. But what about the significance of the evangelical left, I asked the pastor of Saddleback Church after his forum with the presidential candidates last weekend. "This big," he says, holding his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart.

Sitting on a small stone patio outside the church's "green room," I question him further -- has he heard that the Democratic Party is changing its abortion platform? "Window dressing," he replies. "Too little, too late." But Rev. Jim Wallis, the self-described progressive evangelical, has been saying that the change is a big victory. "Jim Wallis is a spokesman for the Democratic Party," Mr. Warren responds dismissively. "His book reads like the party platform."

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[T]here is a misunderstanding by the media, says Mr. Warren. "A lot of people hear [about a broader agenda] and they think, 'Oh, evangelicals are giving up on believing that life begins at conception,'" he explains. "They're not giving up on that at all. Not at all."

Democrats might want to keep this in mind next week as their convention tries to welcome this "new breed" of religious folks. And as for the notion that younger evangelicals are ready for rebellion against their parents' ideals, Mr. Warren cites polls showing that the younger evangelical generation is even more concerned about abortion than the older one. After the Sunday morning service at Saddleback last weekend, I interviewed 15 random attendees. Only two were Obama supporters, one of whom was a British guy on holiday. Almost all of the remaining congregants mentioned abortion as the most significant issue affecting their vote in November.

So why is most of the press under the impression that Rick Warren, a Southern Baptist, is so different from, say, Focus on the Family president James Dobson? "It's a matter of tone," says an amused Mr. Warren, who seems unable to name any particular theological issues on which he and Mr. Dobson disagree.

As we have noted several times in the past, David Barton of Wallbuilders likes to pass himself off as a historian committed to uncovering “America's forgotten history and heroes, with an emphasis on the moral, religious, and constitutional foundation on which America was built.” In reality, he is a Religious Right activist committed to spreading biased “history” for the benefit for the Republican Party – that is, after all, what they regularly pay him to do.

And so it is no surprise that he is out with a new document [PDF] just before the election designed to “help [Biblical voters] evaluate the candidates”:   

According to the Bible (c.f., Deuteronomy 28; 1 Chronicles 21; 1 Kings 18), a nation’s righteousness is determined by its public policies and how well those policies conform to God’s standards …In America, the only way there will be God-honoring leaders is if God-honoring citizens elect them; so the first and foremost consideration in any election is whether the candidate will advance policies that promote Biblical standards of righteousness.

Barton asserts that while the Bible contains a “comprehensive system of 613 laws delivered through Moses in the Old Testament,” God prioritized what was most important by issuing his “Top Ten” list and that, while things like poverty, environment, health care, immigration, taxation might be important, they were not important enough to crack the top ten and are thus of lesser importance.

So what exactly does God consider the “highest ranking issues directly affecting national righteousness”?  According to Barton, He cares primarily about judges, abortion, gays, and the public posting of the Ten Commandments: 

This election will likely have a greater impact on the nation through the judiciary than any presidential election for the past three decades, for when the next President takes office in January 2009, six of the nine Supreme Court Justices will be at least 70 years old – and five of those six Justices have repeatedly struck down public policies friendly to Biblical values. Therefore, Biblical voters should make their selection for President based first and foremost on the type of judges he will appoint.

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Defending the unborn must continue to remain a priority for Biblical voters. The right to life is the first of the three specifically enumerated inalienable rights set forth in our founding documents, and American government was established on the thesis that certain rights come from God and that government must protect those rights inviolable. Significantly, if a leader does not protect the inalienable right to life, then all other inalienable rights are likewise in jeopardy … where a candidate stands on the issue of abortion is of paramount importance not only for the sake of the unborn but also for the preservation of our other inalienable rights.

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If a candidate is willing to accept, empower, and advance homosexuality, it is a clear indication that he does not embrace the moral absolutes of the Bible … While there are many areas specifically addressed by God’s moral law (e.g., adultery, pre-marital sex, etc.), only homosexuality is currently the focus of favorable political action. Therefore, where a candidate stands on that issue is one of the best indicators of whether he recognizes and embraces God’s moral absolutes.

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Today, secularists have convinced many Americans to accept a compartmentalization of their faith, telling them that it is appropriate to acknowledge God at church, home, or in other private settings but not in public venues. If a candidate holds this position, it means that he is willing to disconnect God from what he does, and the entire nation is put at risk by leaders who compartmentalize faith.  Biblical voters should select leaders who will seek to protect and expand rather than restrict or weaken the opportunity for the public acknowledgment of God and the inclusion of His principles in public venues.

It’s amazing how frequently God’s principles perfectly line up with the Religious Right’s political agenda.

If there is one thing Religious Right activists apparently can’t stand, it’s forums on the role of faith in public life that they don’t control.  As we noted earlier this week, Tony Perkins, Mike Huckabee, and Lou Engle are set to hold a press conference on Friday timed to coincide with joint appearance by Barack Obama and John McCain at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church where they are set to “discuss faith in public life, AIDS, the environment and other issues.”

Now, other Religious Right activists have announced that they are having their own conference call with reporters following the event on Saturday in order to provide the media with “an expanded perspective on how evangelicals see the relationship between faith and public policy” – by which they mean the right-wing perspective:   

Some of the nation's top evangelical leaders – Tom Minnery, Focus on the Family; Bishop Harry Jackson, Senior pastor, Hope Christian Church and Chairman of the High Impact Leadership Coalition; Janet Folger, President and Founder of Faith2Action and national radio host; Phil Burress, President of Citizens for Community Values, among others.

Martha Zoller, Talk Radio World Today Host will be the moderator.

WHAT: Press Conference Call to gauge reaction of conservatives and evangelicals to the Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency, moderated by Pastor Rick Warren. The Forum takes place on Saturday, Aug. 16, 2008 and features Senators John McCain, R-Ariz., and Barack Obama, D-Ill.

WHEN: Press teleconference call takes place at 10:30 EDT/7:30 PDT by calling: Toll-free: 1-888-296-6828. Passcode is: 418647# (announce name and media organization). If you would like to receive speaker bios, transcripts and/or audio versions of the interviews, please email Debbie@NewsGuests.com.

INFO: This press call event provides an opportunity for an informed response to the event at Saddleback Church, thus providing an expanded perspective on how evangelicals see the relationship between faith and public policy. The press conference call will give reporters access to alternative views on each candidate's presentation at the Saddleback Forum.

Details continue to emerge about the meeting last week in Colorado where a large group right-wing leaders gathered and decided to back John McCain, with David Barton telling The Brody File that more than 90% in attendance agreed to support McCain primarily because they abhor Barack Obama and, as we noted yesterday, are really concerned about the future of the Supreme Court :

There were 83 state and national leaders in the room from all over the country. They included heavyweights Phyllis Schlafly, Tim and Beverly LaHaye, Phil Burress, Mat Staver and representatives from Focus on the Family, Concerned Women for America and the American Family Association.

David Barton, President of the conservative WallBuilders group was there too. I spoke with him about the meeting and he tells me roughly 75 of the 83 were on board for McCain at the end of the meeting.  

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They don't want Barack Obama picking Supreme Court judges. That's why the judges issue is very important to this group and they believe McCain will be there on judges. They plan to let their supporters know about it. The "base" may be mobilizing very soon.

Charisma Magazine also provide some inside details, such as the fact that Mike Huckabee’s daughter Sarah was reportedly in attendance and that McCain has apparently been meeting with militant anti-abortion activist Alveda King, which makes sense seeing as she’s been supporting him for months.   

But the culmination of the meeting was the agreement by those in attendance to sign on to something called the “Declaration of American Values” put together by Mat Staver and David Barton.  If this sounds familiar, it is probably because it is a lot like the Values Voters’ Contract With Congress that a similar group of right-wing activists unveiled heading into the 2006 election.  The primary difference between the two is that the new declaration has dropped the laundry list of legislation they wanted to see passed that made up the bulk of the Values Voters’ Contract in favor of vague language about the “sanctity of human life” and the importance of securing our “national sovereignty and domestic tranquility” … almost as if they don’t anticipate that their legislative agenda has any chance of moving forward in the next Congress: