LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This past weekend, there was a conference (reported here by Frederick Clarkson) that was entitled "Taking Back the Gates". It was a conference aimed at Christian businessmen. The homepage blurb reads:

CONSIDER THIS…

* What would happen if a Godly influence owned CNN, FOX News or the New York Times? (In the 1880's the New York Times was the leading pro-life voice in America referring to abortion as "child killing" - It has since changed hands!)
* What if Christians owned the stadiums and arenas in town and a lot more real estate?
* What if 1 in 8 websites offered help and hope to the world instead of posting pornography? (Source: www.internetfilterreview.com)
* The portals of power (gates of the city) have been captured by the enemies of the gospel and have now been turned on us, assaulting our liberties and stealing our children.

WANT TO TURN BACK THE TIDE?

The Center for Reclaiming America, the Monitor reported, "aims to increase its 500,000-strong 'e-mail army' to 1 million, and to encourage Christians to run for office. It has plans for 12 regional offices and activists in all 435 US House districts. And a new lobbying arm in Washington will target judicial nominations and the battle over marriage."

"'If they don't vote our way, we'll change their view one way or another,' executive director Gary Cass tells the group. As a California pastor, Dr. Cass spearheaded efforts to close abortion clinics and recruit Christians to seek positions on local school boards. 'We're going to take back what we lost in the last half of the 20th century,' he adds."

The title of Cass' Cedarville talk is: "Winning the Culture Wars."

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This article talks about Christians preferring their own media to that of the mainstream:

Christians flocking to religious media

BY COLLEEN MCCAIN NELSON
The Dallas Morning News

DALLAS - (KRT) - When FamilyNet reported on the recent Miss Universe pageant, the Christian TV network edited out footage of the swimsuit competition.

When World magazine wrote about a church embroiled in controversy, the Christian publication noted that the "mainstream media had badly garbled the story."

And when the Christian Broadcasting Network covered founder Pat Robertson's trip to India, a reporter matter-of-factly described miracles that had been delivered.

In the world of Christian news, you'll find a biblical perspective on the day's events and a notable lack of skin and celebrity gossip.

"We're sort of the goody-two-shoes network," said Lorri Allen, news director for FamilyNet.

Some Christians say that's exactly what they want. Many are turning to religious media for their news, and they're finding a growing number of outlets - from TV newscasts and magazines to radio shows and Web sites.

Sacred media is more trustworthy than its secular counterparts, some churchgoers say. Christianity is a worldview, they say, and religious news outlets provide an alternative for those who reject mainstream media.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY ellid)

"This American Life" in Western Massachusetts is currently broadcasting the church/state episode.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

One of the dearly held goals of the religious right has been the silencing of public radio and television as part of their theocratic march into power. Along the demonization of women and gays, and the forcing of their beliefs into schools under the guise of 'Intelligent Design', the silencing of any non-partisan "immoral" (see the new FCC crackdowns that have become law) or educational broadcasting is one of the ways they can bring this country to heel.

The battle has begun in earnest with the House targeting the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and sharply reducing their funding. They've already added 'ombudsmen' to monitor the content of public radio and television, and this is the next step towards the goal of 'zero funding' they covet. ( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Today's Diane Rehm Show is about evangelism at the USAF academy. It'll be archived soon, and is worth a listen.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This weeks segment, not archived yet, is called "Godless America". Read about it here. When the segment is archived, I'll post a link to it. It's good listening.

Godless America
At a time when House Majority Leader Tom Delay calls for enacting a "Biblical worldview" in government, when Christians are asserting their ideals in the selection of judges, in public school science classes and elsewhere, This American Life spends an hour trying to remember why anyone liked the separation of church and state in the first place. Julia Sweeney, among others, gives a full-throated defense of godlessness. Julia's faith began to crack after reading Biblical passages like the one pictured here, of Abraham about to cut the throat of his beloved son, Isaac. Broadcast the weekend of June 3-5 in most places, or available via RealAudio next week.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Today's Fresh Air with Terry Gross will have the pastor of the Dominionist Coral Ridge church as well as Fredrick Clarkson (author of Eternal Hostility) on as guests. This should be a very interesting program.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This NPR series is now complete, and available for listening.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This should be interesting: NPR started a multipart series that addresses the insistence of the Christian Right that we are a Christian nation. The series continues this afternoon on "All Things Considered" and concludes tomorrow morning. It will be interesting to see what conclusion they come to.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This AlterNet article is very interesting. (This is a repeat of a post below, but a better copy- without the strange typographical errors.)

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY britzkrieg)

Neal Boortz is a right-wing talk-radio host based here in Atlanta. He is an unmitigated asshole; after all, that's the persona he's going for. He spews vitriol and sometimes tells outright lies because, as he freely admits, that attracts listeners he can "play commercials for." He bashes Democrats at every turn. Same old, same old, mostly.

Nevertheless, I found this in his show notes for April 25:

...the Republicans had a bit of a setback in this particular battle yesterday. I'm referring to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's little satellite broadcast to churches across the nation. The telecast was billed as an event to denounce Democrats as "against people of faith." This "against people of faith" line is a nicer way of saying "anti-Christian."

( There's lots more )

Yes, it's taken out of context, but there you have it. Maybe Boortz can become a force for Good as well as Mammon.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY britzkrieg)

My husband just got back from running an errand, and he caught a bit of the Rush Limbaugh show. Apparently Rush said something like, "Democrats are accusing all Republicans of being 'Dominionists.'" Does anyone have any details on this rant? Has he used this word before?

My husband also heard something about Pat Robertson resigning his leadership of a Christian organization (the Christian Coalition?) so he won't distract from the man destined to lead the "true American Christian church" -- George Bush. Does anyone have any details on this?

Edit: The Pat Robertson resignation is apparently old news. I don't see a quote about him calling Bush the head of a "true American church," though. I'll keep looking. It's possible that Rush is accusing "liberals" of making this claim.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This AlterNet article talks about the religious right's gobbling up of low power FM translator licenses. They tried to take the translator licenses from our Public Radio station, but we actually prevailed.

Here's an excerpt:

For years, media reform activists have fought valiantly to force the FCC to issue licenses for low power radio stations. Their dream: to create a space on the radio dial for true locally produced community programming, untainted by the profit considerations of large media conglomerates. Low power radio would finally give voice to those who needed it most: people of color, low-income communities, local organizations.

Five years after their victory, community radio has become the bastion of Christian programming. LPFM is being squeezed off the radio dial by religious broadcasters who are gobbling up FM frequencies at an astonishing speed. Their weapon of choice: low power translators.

While much of the media coverage of rightwing groups and low power radio has focused on low power licenses -- they represent about half of the applications (344) for the FCC low power licenses -- these broadcasters dominate low power frequencies primarily by acquiring translator licenses.

Translators, which range in power from 10 to 250 watts, were created by the FCC to help boost signals of existing stations in areas where the terrain can hamper their signals. Christian broadcasters use these translators to transmit programs from their bigger full-power stations. Unlike commercial stations – which can only have a translator within the receivable range of the full-power "parent" station – non-commercial groups such as religious broadcasters can place their translators at any distance and feed them via satellite or other means. As a result, one full-power station can be used to broadcast programming across a number of states, vastly extending its reach, especially in rural areas. And the more translators take up low power frequencies in a community, the less room for local radio stations on the FM dial. More importantly, Christian radio networks can gain access to small communities without having to produce any local programming -- since the FCC forbids translator stations from airing such programming.

The end result: community radio is literally being crowded off the radio by religious broadcasters.

The most notorious of the Christian broadcasters who abuse translator licenses is Calvary Chapel of Twin Falls, Idaho, which owns only 34 full-power radio stations, but transmits programming to 361 translators across the country from its flagship station, KAWZ.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Media Transparency, who watches, among other things, 'faith-based movements' published a very interesting article about Christian broadcasting and its players. 'Christian persecution' was the main theme.

An excerpt:

...Plummer wasn't opposed to having religious extremists subvert a greater society. His critique of Islam, couched in the language of spiritual warfare, was only meant to cast it as Christianity's most dangerous competitor. The Christian Right's dominionist intentions, a theme of the convention, were particularly in evidence at a seminar called, "Taking Over Cities For Christ: The Thousand Day Plan."

The seminar was led by Raul Justiniano, the Bolivian president of the Confederation of Ibero-American Communicators (COICOM), NRB's Latin American counterpart. Like a counter-revolutionary version of Che Guevara, the goateed Justiniano laid out his three-year plan to "invade" Latin American cities one by one by establishing cells in local churches and spreading outwards to "take possession of all parts of the city."

In the past decade, Justiniano has plastered Latin American cities with apparently non-religious billboard advertisements soliciting people to evangelization centers, saturated local media with Christian-themed commercials and films, and hosted stadium-sized revivals across the sub-continent. All in all, he claims to have won millions of souls through 61 "invasions" in six countries.

"Christian media is the air force and the church gives us people on the ground to mobilize our troops," Justiniano explained. "People will take notice and those are your targets. Everyone will be networked in eventually."

Like Justiniano, Olivia Gans was fluent in the language of cultural counter-revolution. A chipper, middle-aged woman leaning against an orthopedic cane, Gans manned the booth of America's oldest and largest anti-abortion group, the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC - website). While the much of the Christian Right's leadership uncompromisingly demands a reversal of Roe v. Wade, NRLC has quietly shifted its focus from overturning Roe to what Gans calls, "changing the culture."

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY davidkevin)

Last night Bob Wells of KJSL-AM radio here in St. Louis said that Oprah Winfrey was not a real Christian, but believed in a demonically inspired false Christianity, listing his reasons why. Here is the text of an e-mail I sent him afterward.


Bob, I love the inverted 1984 Newspeak universe in which you live.  Not.

A God Who condemns 90% of His creation to eternal fire and punishment, a God Who proclaims love as evil and war as good, Who proclaims hatred to your brother and sister humans who perceive Him differently than your interpretation, is the scriptural God.

A God Who loves his creation and proclaims a Gospel of Redemption, a God Who doesn't care who you love as long as love and decency toward your brothers and sisters is in your heart, a God Who proclaims mercy and charity, that's a really a demon in disguise.

The God of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy Who proclaims Death and Murder to those who violate the least of His laws, to the point of striking dead someone who tried to keep the Arc of the Covenant from being despoiled by grabbing it before it could fall onto the ground; a God Who killed for the attempt to practice primitive birth control (Onan), a God Who said it was okay to sell your daughter into slavery for money; a God who thought it was a cool trick to make His prophet believe that he had to murder his own son in a bloody ritual sacrifice; a God who tortured his servant Job, murdering his family, afflicting him with painful illness, destroying his wealth for a whimsical test, that's the True God.

The God of the Sermon on the Mount, Who said to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, pray in private, comfort the widowed and imprisoned, that's the demons talking.

The God Who wishes to take Dominion over others, to rule by the sword and the gun over even those who do not acknowledge Him, that's the real God.

The God Who said "My Kingdom is not of this world" and "render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's", that's the God of demons.

It's terrible to live in either sheer, unadulterated terror or false righteousness under a God like that. I know, I lived under the first as a child, seeing God through a glass darkly.  Now I've put away childish things.  I wish you could, too.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY swisscelt)

So far, "Daily Links" has focused on the more overt and radical elements of the Christian Taliban. While the dangers such elements present to our society are obvious, it's easy enough to dismiss such elements with a yawn. After all, they're the lunatic fringe, right?

Not necessarily. To kick off June's "Daily Links", I'd like to examine how the Christian Taliban is evident even in the mainstream. Our first item is Clear Channel Communications.

( Read more... )