Submitted by Brian Tashman on Tuesday, 8/23/2011 1:22 pm
During the The Jim Bakker Show on August 12, Jim Bakker and self-proclaimed prophet Cindy Jacobs both claimed to have prophesied the September 11th terrorist attacks. Jacobs added that her Apostolic Council of Prophetic Elders, which is composed of leaders of the New Apostolic Reformation, and colleague Mike Bickle also prophesied the attacks. Bickle, the founder and director of the International House of Prayer, was an emcee and organizer of Rick Perry’s The Response prayer rally (which Jacobs also endorsed). He previously prophesied that Oprah Winfrey is the harbinger of the Antichrist.
Bakker, the founder of PTL Club who is best known for his financial and sex scandals, said that he prophesied the September 11th terrorist attacks in 1999 and claimed that the attacks were God’s judgment on America because God “let his hand down of protection for those planes to come in to hit those buildings.”
Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Friday, 8/19/2011 2:35 pm
We have written before about the utter pointlessness of trying to have any sort of debate with Bryan Fischer because he categorically refuses to engage in any sort of rational discussion.
Fischer's standard practice is to develop one talking point and then - literally - refuse to deviate from that talking point, no matter what.
So you have to hand it to Alan Colmes, who keeps taking up the thankless task of trying to actually engage Fischer and get him to explain the outrageous things that he says, like that God wants men to be president.
Colmes had Fischer on his radio program last night, ostensibly to discuss this issue, but Fischer fundamentally refused to say anything beyond parroting talking points, repeatedly saying the same phrases over and over to every follow-up question Colmes asked. Fischer kept defensively insisting that he was answering the questions being put to him and accusing Colmes of being "obnoxious and repetitive" for trying to get him to actually offer up a legitimate answer - it is truly unbelievable:
Jackson: It’s one thing to be in a church preaching all these messages, seeing people shout and whatever it is. But it’s another thing to command the attention of the nation, and then begin to tell these folks, ‘we vote too.’ We don’t just dance and sing, we vote. And some of what you’re doing has to be accountable to us, the people of God. There really is no separation of church and state. In God’s mind, the word of the Lord should impact everything that happens out there in the state. So time and time again we got folks who want us to say our place is just behind these four walls. But Jesus came not to take sides, but to take over.
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Tuesday, 8/16/2011 2:22 pm
Televangelist James Robison hosted Daniel Lapin of Toward Tradition on today’s program Life Today. Lapin is promoting his new book, “Thou Shall Prosper: Ten Commandments for Making Money.” Lapin should know something about making money, as he was intimately tied to disgraced lobbyist and convicted felon Jack Abramoff (a past chairman of Toward Tradition) and his illegal financial schemes. The Washington Post reported that Lapin and Abramoff used Toward Tradition to funnel bribes from a gambling company to a top aide of then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Abramoff later became rich through his illegal lobbying practices – he and a business partner received over $82 million from the Indian casino firms they defrauded – before ultimately pleading guilty to charges of “fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials.”
Today on Robinson’s show, Abramoff’s close friend Lapin told Robinson that “money is a spiritual measure of what you have done for other human.” Accordingly, Abramoff must be one of the most moral, ethical and spiritual men in Washington.
But there are others with ties to Perry who were not involved in this effort and therefore never made it on to our list ... people like Jerry Boykin who believes that George Soros and the Council on Foreign Relations worked to collapse the economy in order to help Barack Obama win the election and that passage of healthcare reform legislation is really just cover for Obama to establish a private Brownshirt army loyal only to him:
I vaguely recall having seen clips of Boykin talking about attending Gov. Perry's inauguration in January 2011 and have been trying to track it down for the last week or so but have been unable to find it. But today I stumbled across a different video of remarks Boykin recently delivered at something called the Gideon Media & Arts Conference where he proudly asserted that he is intolerant while praising Rick Perry for being one of the few political leaders who are willing to stand up for Biblical truth and revealing that he met with Perry recently as part of a private meeting the Governor held in June with right-wing leaders:
Submitted by Peter Montgomery on Sunday, 8/14/2011 1:26 pm
On Sunday, after a disappointing defeat in Iowa's Ames Straw Poll, Tim Pawlenty withdrew from the presidential race, saying that "the audience, so to speak, wanted something different." What Iowa Republicans want, at least according to the straw poll results, is Michele Bachmann, who many pundits agreed had bested Pawlenty in a harsh exchange at last week's GOP debate. Just hours before he dropped out of the race, Pawlenty's campaign emailed supporters with a claim that he was eager to continue the fight, a fundraising pitch, a new video title "The American Comeback Begins," and a bravado that seems to have lasted about 12 hours:
Hello Friends -
I want to congratulate Congresswoman Bachmann on her victory in today's straw poll. I'm also very proud of the work my campaign has done, and I appreciate their hard work. As I've said all along, we needed to show progress to do well, and we did just that. This is a long process to restore America -- we are just beginning, and I'm eager for the campaign.
I'm encouraged by our progress, and I'm so thankful for the thousands of Iowans who showed their support for my candidacy by voting for me in Ames. Don't miss my remarks at the straw poll earlier today including our latest video.
We are now moving onto the next phase of our campaign. Over the coming weeks we will be visiting New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida while continuing to grow our already strong ground game in Iowa.
Mary and I will never forget your continued support, words of encouragement, and friendship. But we need YOUR help to take the message that resonated in Iowa to the rest of the country. Can I count on you for a special “Victory Contribution” of $25, $50, $100 or even $250, to commemorate our strong showing in Ames?
We’ve completed an important first step on the road to the Republican nomination and, ultimately, the White House. We can’t do it alone, and I need your support to continue the journey.
Sincerely,
Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Friday, 8/12/2011 3:38 pm
Earlier we posted a new piece by Bryan Fischer in which he questioned "whether it’s a good idea for women to get involved in the rough and tumble of politics."
In that piece, Fischer didn't come right out and say that he didn't think a woman should be president, but then he talked about the issue on his radio program today and made it quite clear that that is exactly what he thinks.
Fischer took calls from listeners, almost all of whom felt that it is inappropriate and unbiblical for a woman to be president, with callers after caller asserting that women are just too emotional to be in such positions of authority. Toward the end of the first hour, a woman named Robin called in and suggested that the fact that America is even in a position of potentially having a woman president is a sign that America is under a "curse" because that is what God does to those lands that are in his "disfavor."
This prompted Fischer to give his own views on the issue, which he was quite careful to articulate are his alone and do not reflect the views of the American Family Association, as we explained that God has put men in charge and that only as a last resort would God "send a woman to do a man's job":
If you look at the Scriptures, I believe it's clear that God has designed men to exercise authority in the home, in the church, in society, and in government. So let me repeat that - that is my personal take on what the Scriptures indicate about the way God has designed man and woman to work: God has designed men to exercise leadership and authority and headship in the home, in the church, in society, and in government.
Now then the question becomes what if God can't find any men with the spine and with the testicular fortitude to provide the kind of leadership? Well, what he'll do is He'll send a woman to do a man's job.
Submitted by Peter Montgomery on Friday, 8/12/2011 2:48 pm
People For the American Way is preparing to move its headquarters to another location in Washington, D.C. , after more than 20 years in the same space. That has meant a monumental effort to sort through decades of accumulated paper and figure out what to do with video recordings in more formats than you could imagine – and endless save-or-toss decisions.
Fortunately, earlier this year PFAW’s huge library of primary source materials on the Religious Right political movement was transferred to the University of California Berkeley’s Center for the Comparative Study of Right-Wing Movements, where it will be more accessible to scholars and journalists. But even still, preparing for the move has meant weeks of memory-triggering moments while plowing through file cabinets and finding hidden stashes of materials.
Among the random bits of right-wingalia I stumbled across:
a letter from Jerry Falwell urging his supporters to call Congress and oppose sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa in order to prevent a Communist takeover (an accompanying 16-page “Fundamentalist Journal – Special Report” included a Falwell interview with the foreign minister saying that the West “has been doing the work of Moscow.”);
a 1990 Christian Coalition leadership manual that includes the assertion that the relationship between employers and employees should be based on Bible verses telling slaves to obey their masters, no matter how harsh;
a 1982 PFAW report on the Religious Right’s efforts to use the Texas textbook process to foist their ideology on American students nationwide (sound familiar?);
books and campaign plans for the takeover of America by once-obscure Christian Reconstructionist figures who are now in the news thanks to the frightening ascension of followers like Glenn Beck and Michele Bachmann;
candidate questionnaires from Religious Right groups in the 1980s demanding to know whether politicians would support across-the-board tax cuts, a reminder that the Religious Right has been pushing Tea Party economics for a long time;
a lavishly produced press kit for the 2006 opening of the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky, where a disturbing number of Americans have flocked to be mis-educated about biology, geology, and history; and
in honor of Rick Perry’s recent prayer rally in Houston, a 1985 campaign flyer from the "Straight Slate" of candidates for Mayor and City Council, warning that Houston “has become the Southwest capital for homosexuality and pornography” and insisting that “We must not allow Houston to become another San Francisco!” (Current Houston Mayor Annise Parker, who was sworn in last year, is a lesbian who parents three children with her partner.)
It’s also been a reminder that the Religious Right has been declared dead more often than Freddy Krueger, usually by someone who is focusing on one organization in disarray or one election defeat for conservatives. But as our current political climate makes clear, the Religious Right and its political and economic allies have built a massive infrastructure of national and state-level think tanks, legal and political organizations, radio and TV networks, universities and law schools, and elected officials they have helped put into office at all levels of government. They aren’t going anywhere. And neither are we – well, just a few blocks across town.
Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thursday, 8/11/2011 11:28 am
Last week, GOProud announced that Ann Coulter would be joining the organization’s Advisory Council as Honorary Chair where her official title would be "Gay Icon."
Coulter's willingness to serve in this capacity has created utter confusion for the hosts of the American Family Association's "AFA Report" where Fred Jackson, Ed Vitagliano and Buster Wilson were left wondering just how on earth Coulter can do this and still consider herself to be a Christian:
Vitagliano: Ann Coulter is hard to read but if you're a Christian, I think you should take more care to tailor your commitments in things like this to your Christian views. I don't know whether she just hasn't thought this through or what, but this is kind of disappointing to me.
This is not an issue, I don't think, that you clown around with. This is a very serious issue. I know she likes to laugh, she likes to have fun with her politics, but this is not an issue that you clown around with. It has serious real-world repercussions.
Jackson: I think it begs the questions then Buster: how must Ann Coulter feel about the authority of Scripture? How can you join a group like this and allowed to be called the honorary chair and gay icon of the group and still feel comfortable calling yourself an evangelical Christian? There's a gap there in the reasoning.
Wilson: I don't know. It raises a huge red flag for me. The Bible has got to be the standard and it's not.
Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Monday, 8/8/2011 5:07 pm
On today's radio broadcast, Bryan Fischer explained that the strength of our military is entirely dependent upon the Christian strength of the nation and declared that "men of Christian faith" need to be in positions of authority within the military because God will give them winning battle plans:
Our military strength is a function of our spiritual strength. We can have the strongest and mightiest military in the world in terms of guns and ammunition and tanks and soldiers, but if we are not spiritually strong as a people, we can be defeated, we can and will suffer defeat. So it is absolutely critical for us who care about this nation, who care about the United States, to say "look, we have got to be spiritually strong as a people if we are going to be militarily strong."
That's why it is so important that we have in the military men of faith, men of Christian faith, who are in touch with God and with the spirit of God. Because when they come together to formulate battle plans, their minds are going to be quickened by the Holy Spirit of God and under his nudgings, his promptings, they're going to be able to develop battle plans that are going to lead to victory on the field of conflict.
Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Saturday, 8/6/2011 6:43 pm
For those of you who had better things to do with your time then spend seven hours on a Saturday watching the extended Christian Rock-jam session that was Gov. Rick Perry's "The Response" rally, we put together a short video featuring the appearances by all of your favorite Religious Right and elected leaders, including Perry, David Barton, Tony Perkins, Penny Nance, Gov. Rick Scott, Gov. Sam Brownback, Jim Garlow, John Hagee and finally even a quick shot of Perry giving some love to Don Wildmon of the AFA, the founder of the SPLC-designated hate group which footed the bill for this prayer event:
Submitted by Miranda Blue on Friday, 8/5/2011 7:14 pm
Updated 8/5/2011
On August 6, Texas Gov. Rick Perry will host The Response, a “prayer rally” in Houston, along with the extremist American Family Association and a cohort of Religious Right leaders with far-right political ties. While the rally’s leaders label it a "a non-denominational, apolitical Christian prayer meeting," the history of the groups behind it suggests otherwise. The Response is powered by politically active Religious Right individuals and groups who are dedicated to bringing far-right religious view, including degrading views of gays and lesbians and non-Christians, into American politics.
In fact, a spokesman for The Response has said that while non-Christians will be welcomed at the rally, they will be urged to “seek out the living Christ.” Allan Parker, a right-wing activist who participated in an organizing conference call for the event, declared in an email bearing the official Response logo that including non-Christians in the event "would be idolatry of the worst sort."
Perry told James Dobson that the rally was necessary because Americans have “turned away from God.”
The following is an introduction to the groups and individuals who Gov. Perry has allied himself with in planning this event.
The American Family Association
The American Family Association is the driving force behind The Response. Founded by the Rev. Don Wildmon in 1977, the organization is based is best known for its various boycott campaigns, promotion of art censorship, and political advocacy against women’s rights and LGBT equality. The organization also controls the vast American Family Radio and an online news service, in addition to sponsoring various conferences frequented by Republican leaders, including the Values Voter Summit and Rediscovering God in America. The AFA today is led by Tim Wildmon, Don’s son, and its chief spokesperson is Bryan Fischer, the Director of Issues Analysis for Government and Public Policy and host of its flagship radio show Focal Point.
Fischer routinely expresses support for some of the most bigoted and shocking ideas found in the Religious Right today. He has:
said that the anti-Muslim manifesto of the right-wing Christian terrorist who killed dozens in Norway was “accurate.”
Other AFA leaders and activists are just as radical:
AFA President Tim Wildmon claims that by repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell President Obama shows he “doesn’t give a rip about the Marines or the Army” and “just wants to force homosexuality into every place that he can.”
AFA Vice President Buddy Smith, who is on the leadership council of The Response, said that gays and lesbians are “in the clasp of Satan.”
The Response’s leadership team includes five senior staff members of the International House of Prayer (IHOP), a large, highly political Pentecostal organization built on preparing participants for the return of Jesus Christ. In a recent video, IHOP encouraged supporters to pray for Jews to convert to Christianity in order to bring about the Second Coming. IHOP is closely associated with Lou Engle, a Religious Right leader whose anti-gay, anti-choice extremism hasn’t stopped him from hobnobbing with Republican leaders including Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann and Mike Huckabee. Engle is the founder of The Call, day-long rallies against abortion rights and gay marriage, which Engle says are meant to break Satan’s control over the U.S. government. One recent Call event featured “prophet” Cindy Jacobs calling for repentance for the “girl-on-girl kissing” of Britney Spears and Madonna. Perry's The Response event is clearly built upon Engle's The Call model.
Engle has a long history of pushing extreme right-wing views and advocating for a conservative theocracy in America. Engle:
IHOP’s founder and executive director, Mike Bickle, who is an official endorser of The Response, like Engle pushes radical End Times prophesies. In one sermon, he declared that Oprah Winfrey is a precursor to the Antichrist.
The International House of Prayer, incidentally, remains locked in a copyright infringement lawsuit with the International House of Pancakes.
Tony Perkins
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, is a co-chairman of The Response. At the FRC, Perkins has been a vocal opponent of LGBT equality, often relying on false claims about gay people to push his agenda. He:
denied that there was a correlation between anti-gay bullying and depression and suicide, saying instead that gay and lesbian teens know they are “abnormal” and “have a higher propensity to depression or suicide because of that internal conflict";
One of the most prominent members of The Response’s leadership team is pastor Jim Garlow. The pastor for a San Diego megachurch, Garlow has been intimately involved in political battles, especially the campaign to pass Proposition 8. Garlow invited and housed Lou Engle to lead The Call rallies around California for six months to sway voters to support Proposition 8, which would repeal the right of gay and lesbian couples to get married. He claims Satan is behind the “attack on marriage” and credits the prayer rallies for the passage of Prop 8. He said that during a massive The Call rally in San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium “something had snapped in the Heavenlies” and “God had moved” to deliver Prop 8 to victory.
Most importantly, Garlow is a close spiritual adviser to presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and leads Gingrich’s Renewing American Leadership (ReAL). Garlow is a principal advocate of Seven Mountains Dominionism, and wants to “bring armies of people” to bring Religious Right leaders into public office and defeat their political opponents.
likened homosexuality to bestiality, saying that if marriage equality is upheld “the next court case could conceivably say that if three people wanted to marry or four people or five people or if someone wanted to marry their dog or their horse”;
While Senator John McCain rejected John Hagee’s endorsement during the 2008 presidential campaign for his “deeply offensive and indefensible” remarks, Perry invited Hagee to join The Response. Hagee leads a megachurch in San Antonio, Texas, and is a purveyor of End Times prophesies. Like members of the International House of Prayer, Hagee utilizes language of spiritual warfare and says he is part of “the army of the living God.” He runs the prominent group Christians United For Israel, which believes that eventually a cataclysmic war in the Middle East will bring about the Rapture.
John McCain was forced to disavow Hagee for a reason as the Texas pastor:
claimed that God sent Hitler to be a “hunter” of Jews to usher in the establishment of Israel and “do God’s work,” lamenting that Jews are no longer “spiritually alive.”
referred to the Catholic Church as ‘The Great Whore,’ an ‘apostate church,’ the ‘anti-Christ,’ and a ‘false cult system.’
said that God won’t allow the United States to win wars anymore because “we have allowed the worship of Satanism in the U.S. military.”
James Dobson
James Dobson, an official endorser of The Response, is one of the most prominent figures in the Religious Right. Founder of both Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council , Dobson has been instrumental in bringing the priorities of the Religious Right to Republican politics, including campaigning hard for President George W. Bush. But many of the views that Dobson pushes are hardly mainstream. Dobson:
insists that the Religious Right’s fight against Planned Parenthood is “very similar” to that of abolitionists who fought against the slave trade.
Asked if God had withdrawn his hand from America after 9/11, Dobson responded: “Christians have made arguments on both sides of this question. I certainly believe that God is displeased with America for its pride and arrogance, for killing 40 million unborn babies, for the universality of profanity and for other forms of immorality. However, rather than trying to forge a direct cause-and-effect relationship between the terrorist attacks and America's abandonment of biblical principles, which I think is wrong, we need to accept the truth that this nation will suffer in many ways for departing from the principles of righteousness. "The wages of sin is death," as it says in Romans 6, both for individuals and for entire cultures.”
David Barton
David Barton, an official endorser of The Response, is a self-proclaimed historian known for his twisting of American History and the Bible to justify right-wing political positions. Barton’s strategy is twofold: he first works to find Biblical bases for right-wing policy initiatives, and then argues that the Founding Fathers wanted the United States to be a Christian nation, so obviously wanted whatever policy he has just found a flimsy Biblical basis for. Barton, “documenting” the divine origins of his interpretations of the Constitution gives him and his political allies a potent weapon. Opponents who disagree about tax policy or the powers of Congress are not only wrong, they are un-American and anti-religious, enemies of America and of God.
Barton uses his shoddy historical and biblical scholarship to push a right-wing political agenda, including:
Biblical Capitalism: Barton’s “scholarship” helps to form the basis for far-right economic policies. He claims that “Jesus was against the minimum wage,” that the Bible “absolutely condemned” the estate tax,” and opposed the progressive income tax.
Revising Racial History: Barton has traveled the country peddling a documentary he made blaming the Democratic Party for slavery, lynching and Jim Crow…while ignoring more recent history.
Opposing Gay Rights: Barton believes the government should regulate gay sex and maintains that countries which “rejected sexual regulation” inevitably collapse.
Other Allies
Among the other far-right figures who have signed on to work with Gov. Perry on The Response are:
Rob Schenk, an anti-choice extremist who was once arrested for throwing a fetus in the face of President Clinton, and who allegedly had ties with the murderer of abortion provider Dr. Barnett Slepian.
Loren Cunningham, who is working to mobilize support for the rally is a co-founder of the radical “Seven Mountains Dominionist” ideology. Cunningham says that he received the “seven mountains” idea, which holds that evangelical Christians must take hold of all aspects of society in order to pave the way for the Second Coming, in a message directly from God.
Doug Stringer, The Response's National Church and Ministry Mobilization Coordinator, who blamed American secularism and the increased acceptance of homosexuality for the 9/11 attacks, saying “It was our choice to ask God not to be in our every day lives and not to be present in our land.”
Cindy Jacobs, self-proclaimed “prophet” and endorser of The Response, who famously insisted that birds were dying in Arkansas earlier this year because of the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
C. Peter Wagner, an official endorser of The Response, is one of the most prominent leaders of the New Apostolic Reformation, a controversial movement whose followers believe they are prophets and apostles on par with Christ himself (other adherents include Engle, Jacobs and Anh). Wagner has advocated burning Catholic, Mormon and non-Christian religious objects. He blamed the Japanese stock market crash and later the devastating earthquake and tsunami in the country on a traditional ritual in which the emperor supposedly has “sexual intercourse” with the pagan Sun Goddess.
Che Ahn, a mentor of John Hagee and official endorser of The Response, who endorses “Seven Mountains” dominionism and compares the fight against gay rights to the fight against slavery.
John Benefiel, a self-proclaimed "apostle" and official endorser of The Response, who claims the Statue of Liberty is a "demonic idol" and that homosexuality is a plot cooked up by the Illuminati to control the world's population, and that he renamed the District of Columbia the “District of Christ” because he has “more authority than the U.S. Congress does.”
James “Jay” Swallow, official endorser of the rally, who calls himself a “spiritual warrior” and hosts “Strategic Warriors At Training (SWAT): A Christian Military Training Camp for the purpose of dealing with the occult and territorial enemy strong holds in America.”
Alice Smith, who advocates "spiritual housecleaning" because demons "sneak into" homes through everyday objects.
Willie Wooten, a self-proclaimed “apostle” who claims that God is punishing the African American community for supporting gay rights, reproductive freedom and the Democratic Party.
Pastor Stephen Broden – Broden, an endorser of The Response, has repeatedly insisted that a violent overthrow of the U.S. government must remain “on the table.”
Timothy F. Johnson – Johnson, a former vice-chairman of the North Carolina GOP, was elected to that post despite two domestic violence convictions and still unresolved questions about his military service and educational record.
Alice Patterson – Patterson, a member of The Response's leadership team, insists that the Democratic Party is controlled by a "demonic structure."
Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Wednesday, 8/3/2011 4:53 pm
Bryan Fischer can't seem to decide whether he loves Right Wing Watch or hates us.
One day he is praising us for helping him to spread his message but then starts complaining that we are cyberstalking and waging jihad against him.
And nothing better demonstrates Fischer's schizophrenia regarding RWW than his statement today where he again accused us of cyberstalking him while simultaneously thanking us for posting clips that feature "exactly the soundbite that I want them to use":
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Wednesday, 8/3/2011 4:14 pm
Harry Jackson, the anti-gay preacher and face of the Religious Right’s efforts to stop marriage equality in Washington D.C. and Maryland, appeared on Trinity Broadcasting Network’s flagship show Praise The Lord where host Phil Munsey lauded the right-wing preacher as a “Prophet of God.” During the interview, Jackson predicted that a “great awakening” and “reformation” is coming to America “when those who are saved begin to prophesy in the halls of Congress and the legislatures.”
Jackson discussed his belief in the radical “Seven Mountains” dominionist ideology, which calls for fundamentalist Christians to identify specific individuals to take power in the seven cultural mountains of society: business, media, education, arts and entertainment, family, religion and the church, and government. Jackson said that God was going to raise up such figures, saying God is “gonna raise up some disciples, like the guy that went to the great Apostle Paul when he was basically the Osama bin Laden of his day.”
Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Tuesday, 8/2/2011 10:34 am
On his radio program yesterday, Bryan Fischer spent a good bit of time explaining how central Christianity has been to America's success as a nation and warning that secularists are "ruining this country." That is why, Fischer explained, Gov. Rick Perry's upcoming "The Response" prayer rally is so important; because it is an effort to unify politics and Christianity and establish the "sound spiritual policy" without which America has no future:
In the last forty to fifty years, for the first time in our history as a nation it is secular fundamentalists - that is, those who reject transcendent truth and transcendent values - they are the ones that are running this country. They are running this country and they are ruining this country because they are rejecting the transcendent truths and transcendent moral values of the Judeo-Christian tradition. They are rejecting the spirit of Christ and they are rejecting Christianity. But Christianity is the secret to our success. America is what it is, it is what it has become, because of the spirit of Christ and the spirit of Christianity.
And unless we get that back, that is why this prayer event is so critical, that's why it is so important ... it is far, far more important that we have sound spiritual policy in the United States, that we get back to this wholehearted, unapologetic, unambiguous embrace of Christianity. Not just by the people, but by our leaders and that is why Gov. Perry is showing the way. He's a political leader who is demonstrating what [Alexis] de Tocqueville talked about, this unity of politics and Christian faith as the thing that represents the secret source of America's greatness. And unless we get back to that, we have no hope.
It doesn't matter how sound our economic policy is, if we do not get back to embracing the spirit of Christ and the spirit of Christianity we have no future.
In it, Richards lays out the Biblical case for unfettered free market deregulation and claims that minimum wage laws, fare trade practices, and foreign aid are all unbiblical. Richards asserts that it was God who created the free market system and therefore every result of that free market system is "a stunning example of God's providence over a fallen world," meaning that there is nothing wrong with inequality because it is all part of God's master plan.
Today, Richards was the guest on James Robison's television program where Robison positively gushed over his book, calling it "as important of a read as anything anybody is going to read right now apart from the Bible." During the interview, Robison claimed that our country will never work its way out of its economic problems until Christians who understand that "godliness is the solution" are put in charge:
This is my firm conviction. If the church of Jesus Christ does not stand up today and become the light that not only pierces the darkness but illuminates the way, out of the despair and out of the quote 'recession/depression,' whatever you want to call it, if we don't take the lead and put principle leaders in place who understand basic laws of poverty and wealth, who understand the damage that greed can impart to the whole community and all of society, but understand that government is not the solution - godliness is the solution. I don't think we're going to solve the economic crisis without having a kingdom mentality in the lives of Christians where God rules in our heart. You quote [Abraham] Kuyper, a Dutch theologian philosopher who said there is not one square inch on planet Earth that Christ hadn't said "mine" over. That means we're the overseers of it right? That means we're the stewards of what God has entrusted to our watch care.
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Friday, 7/29/2011 10:22 am
Yesterday Tea Party Nation president Judson Phillips sent to TPN members a post by activist Kevin Lehmann titled “51 Bullet-Pointed Facts That Dispute Barack Obama's Identity & Eligibility to be President!” Phillips has consistently praised the ‘birther’ movement, and Lehman’s “facts” were mostly a long list of discreditedclaims about President Obama’s eligibility to serve as president that were put to rest with the release of his long form birth certificate. Lehman’s diatribe against Obama includes accusations that the president is the product of a Hawaiian communist conspiracy and may have been involved in murder. He also republishes the claims of Larry Sinclair, who failed a polygraph test over his claims that he had sex and used cocaine with Obama:
The American public was essentially made nationally aware of Barack Obama following his 2004 speech at the Democratic National Convention. Obama’s emergence into national politics was not a gradual inception. It was a sudden, covert ascendance to power seemingly assisted by foreign-like forces as an assault on vintage American conscience.
…
Based on investigations in the 1950’s and 1960’s, a disproportionate concentration of pro-communist activity was found to have become a part of Hawaiian culture. This is substantiated by an increase in the population and activity of communist sympathizers identified by the House Committee on Un-American Activities hearings conducted after WWII, during the beginning of the cold war between the U.S. and communist Russia. Evidence of pro-communist presence in Hawaii can be found in publications like the Honolulu Record in which one of Obama’s communist mentors, Frank Marshal Davis was a columnist.
…
To date, no administrator, or official of the Obama administration has ever confirmed that Obama was born in Kapi’olani Medical Center.
To date, Obama’s operatives have failed to identify the identity of Obama’s actual birthing doctor.
…
To date, no living eyewitness of Obama birth exists. It is assumed that his birth was witnessed by at least three people including his doctor and his mother. However, no documentation of the birth has been provided containing the name of the doctor or eyewitnesses.
…
Quarles Harris was a key witness in a federal probe into charges that Obama’s passport information was stolen from the State Department, when he was fatally shot in front of a Washington D.C. church. Harris had been working as a contractor at the State Department and was cooperating with federal investigators when he was murdered.
In December, 2007, Donald Young was a choir leader at Obama’s church, First Trinity Baptist, and school teacher, who many believe had carnal knowledge of Obama’s past. Young was found shot to death in his Southside Chicago apartment.
…
Of all the sordid stories circulating about Obama’s past, the one told by Larry Sinclair is the darkest. Sinclair posted a YouTube video alleging that he and President Barack Obama engaged in sexual acts and drug use together in 1999, when Obama was an Illinois State Senator. He claims that then-State Senator Obama procured powdered cocaine for Sinclair, and crack cocaine for himself, which Obama allegedly smoked.
Sinclair also alleges that their drug use was followed by sex acts that included Sinclair performing fellatio on Obama. These acts were alleged to take place in a limousine from which Sinclair provided cell phone records to prove his location on the dates in question. Testimony from the limosine driver has never been publicly published. Sinclair was asked to provide “intimate details” about Obama’s physical features which would prove Sinclair’s claims. His testimony has never been published or made public. Sinclair confesses openly that he is a convicted felon having served time for check fraud and drug possession.
SUBMITTED BY: Miranda Blue, Friday 10/07/2011, 12:32pm
The Southern Baptist Convention’s Robert Jeffress, a leading figure on the Religious Right, has announced that he will endorse Rick Perry for president later today at the Values Voter Summit.
Jeffress’s choice of Perry is not hugely surprising – in the past, he has attacked Mitt Romney for his Mormonism, saying, “Even though he talks about Jesus as his Lord and savior, he is not a Christian. Mormonism is not Christianity. Mormonism is a cult” and saying that Mormons “worship a false god.”
In 2010, Jeffress urged Christians to vote solely based on... MORE
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Friday 10/07/2011, 11:10am
While speaking on the American Family Association's American Family Radio about his upcoming appearance at the Values Voter Summit, where he will be introducing Rick Santorum, Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel said that gay rights and marriage equality is one of the gravest threats to the future of Western civilization and freedom itself.
Watch:
Staver: We are facing the survival of western values, western civilization. And I think those survival, whether they win or lose, what will the future of America be will be determined in our lifetime.... One of the most significant threats to... MORE
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Thursday 10/06/2011, 11:36am
Yesterday on American Family Radio’s Today’s Issues, anti-Muslim activist Pamela Geller argued that progressives are embracing Sharia law in the same way they purportedly venerated Stalinism and Nazism. Geller argued that the Nazi Party was actually a creation of the left, and that liberals now want to impose Sharia law in the same way they backed Nazism. Geller is far from the first person to bizarrely claim that liberals support Sharia law or claim that Nazism is a “far-left” ideology. As we’ve previously noted, fascists in fact see the political left as their... MORE
Earlier today we posted a memo examining the views and statements of some of the key speakers and sponsors with whom several Republican presidential candidates will be associating with the upcoming Values Voter Summit.
To accompany that document, we decided to go through our video archives and put together a compilation of past statements made by leaders associated with three of the Values Voter Summit's main sponsors - Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel, and Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association: MORE
SUBMITTED BY: Miranda Blue, Wednesday 10/05/2011, 11:20am
This weekend, nearly every major GOP presidential candidate, along with the top two Republicans in the House of Representatives, will speak at the Values Voter Summit, an annual gathering of the leaders of the movement to integrate fundamentalist Christianity and American politics.
The candidates – Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich – and the congressmen – House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor – will join a who’s who of the far Right at the event. The organizers of... MORE
As we mentioned yesterday, C. Peter Wagner was the guest on NPR's "Fresh Air" where one of the topics discussed was the rise of the New Apostolic Reformation and the role of NAR leaders in Gov. Rick Perry's "The Response" prayer rally.
The audio and transcript of the program has now been made available and it contains lots of interesting revelations.
For instance, host Terry Gross asked Wagner about the presence of NAR-affiliated activists at the event and even Wagner admitted that he was surprised by just how many were involved, speculating that it had a lot to... MORE
Cindy and Mike Jacobs host a weekly television program called "God Knows" where they discuss current events, like how abortion curses the land and how such sins then causes natural disasters.
On the last two episodes, the guest has been anti-gay activist Michael Brown, author of "A Queer Thing Happened to America" who explained that the ultimate agenda of gay activists is to put Christians into jail:
Mike Jacobs: So what is their ultimate goal, Michael? Do they have an agenda that they're marching down a path with?
Brown: There are absolutely gay activist organizations... MORE
