LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY thornewilder)

hmmm...

"Sexual abusers usually start with a con job. They offer to sit and talk, to rub a shoulder, to comfort... and then they get brutally abusive, often overpowering and subduing the victim.

We know a few things about people who have been abused as children-- they tend to become abusers themselves and, if sexually abused, they tend to become sexualized. This means they tend to become the seducers, with the parent or relative who started the sexual abuse and with others. It's a defense mechanism-- a way to take control of an otherwise horrible situation.

Research has shown that religious fundamentalists are more likely to come from families where sexual abuse has occurred. We know about the widespread abuse by Catholic priests.

I want to be clear that I have no problem with Jesus, his teachings or the Christian faith. I have problems with the monsters in the church who abuse the teachings of Jesus and people's faith in Jesus to abuse and take advantage of their congregants. What did Jesus say about them?

David McDonald reports, on his website,"

"In 2001, I heard the Evangelical radio show "Focus on the Family", hosted by psychologist and author Dr. James Dobson, discuss a crisis among Pastors of non-Catholic churches. They reported that 21% of Evangelical/Protestant pastors had had inappropriate sexual contact with members of their congregations. Sixty percent (60%) of Evangelical pastors, most of whom are married, have a problem with pornography. In a 1984 study, 76% of pastors knew of another Evangelical pastor who had sexual intercourse with a parishioner."

Read the entire article

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_rob_kall_051111_bush_supporting_evan.htm

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY kalibex)

"It is imperative that we get a Christian influence back into our nation’s schools. This can be done legally and we are compelled to do so."

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY kittynboi)

Two book on the subject of dominionism and dominionist groups that I enjoyed, but can't completely recommend as they are both rather out of date, are Close Encounters With The Religious Right, by Robert Boston, and Facing The Wrath, by Sara Diamond. They're good and thorough, but the first was released in 1999-2000, and the other in 1996, are very out of date. But they ARE good for historical reference, and knowing where these people came from. Bostons book in particular gives a more or less decent history of how these groups rose up. Another one that seems largely devoted to that topic, how these groups rose up in the late 70s, is, damn, I can't recall. Its called "In Gods Name" or something to that effect. Its by the same publisher as Close Encounters. It's more focused on how these groups rose to power.

Another one is an old but good book called American Militias, though it may be out of print. It's largely about the militia movement, though one chapter details the connections with more well known dominionist groups, and how new world order conspiracy theories, racism, homophobia, conspiracism, and other beliefs that often form the foundation of far right militias intersect and are shared by more conventional dominionist groups.. (Conventional meaning groups more akin to "ordinary" political groups.)

But the best, by far, is called Too Close For Comfort:Right Wing Populism in America, by Chip Berlet. It gives the entire history of right wing populism in America, starting in the day of Francis Bacon and going up to the 21st century. Some may object to it being about "right wing", as if all right wing populism is dominionist, but lets not kid here. Anyway, it details everything, from anti mason and anti clericalism and political parties based on these in the 1800s, to the rise of the religious right, and how "mainstream" right wing populist and political groups have connections to dominionists, "reconstructionists", militias, the extreme far right, etc. It also explores the mindset of these groups, as well as just their histories and political activites, which gives it a more timeless quality than the other books I've listed. Its a thick book. 350 pages, another 150 or so of notes and references.

Some good resrouces are as follows.

Skeptical and Humanist publisher Prometheus Books publishes a lot of books on the subject of dominionists, separation of church and state, and the religious right.

http://www.prometheusbooks.com/index.html
http://www.prometheusbooks.com/groups/group_38.html


Some individual titles that I think look interesting are;

http://www.prometheusbooks.com/catalog/book_63.html
http://www.prometheusbooks.com/catalog/book_64.html
http://www.prometheusbooks.com/catalog/book_1569.html
http://www.prometheusbooks.com/catalog/book_629.html

I hope this all doesn't seem too ad-like. I don't work for this publisher. XD

Anyway, I think those last two in particular would be good reads for this group. Degree Mills are often employed by dominionist "experts", especially the anti evolution crowd. I think it would be helpful if we knew more about this phenomenon and were able to more easily spot potentially fake credentials.

The Dobson book is a few years old, I think, but I also think its very important, since Dobson has emerged as the leading religious right spokesperson these days.

The other books I mentioned...

The history of right wing populism one is the work of Chip Berlet, of the Political REsearch Associates group, a group that monitors hate groups and extremist right wing groups. In the past few years, they have given much focus to dominionist groups. I see a link to his blog on the left, but not one to his groups website; http://publiceye.org

They have some good documents on the site that seek to reveal how dominionism is influencing the GOP and current policy, both dmoestic and foreign.

Sunfell said he/she would like it if we had regular book reviews. That would be nice, but I have a slightly more ambitious idea. What about our own reading group of sorts? Every month or two we pick out a relevant book on the topic that none or most of us have no read, and we read it, then have a discussion post on it?