I'm posting a link of all known Avengelical/dominionist groups who are specifically:

a) either blaming/targeting NOLA victims or
b) more specifically have made statements to the effect that Hurricane Katrina is "God's wrath" or otherwise some form of divine retribution or "cleansing" of the NOLA area.

I am wishing to document this because, among other things, much press is given to Islam's version of Avengelicals and Iraqi insurgents claiming Katrina is God's Wrath, but very little on our *own* Avengelicals in the US claiming the same thing. I think it'd be enlightening if people could see waht they are stating publically or what has come out (in regards to what is being said in their own flocks).

Needless to say, what is being said to their own flocks and what isn't making the press is probably worse.

Anyways, the list:

( Scumbags all, playing the ultimate game of 'blame the victim' )
( Indirect condemnation by dominionists )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

In this speech repeated on Salon.com, Bill Moyers talks about the religious bullies that threaten America's religious freedom. Here are some excerpts:

Hostages to fear

The bullies using Sept. 11 to threaten America's religious and moral freedom must be opposed with a stubbornness to match their own.

Editor's note: This article is excerpted from Bill Moyer's address at the Union Theological Seminary in New York on Sept. 7.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Bill Moyers

Sept. 11, 2005 | At the Central Baptist Church in Marshall, Texas, where I was baptized in the faith, we believed in a free church in a free state. I still do. My spiritual forebears did not take kindly to living under theocrats who embraced religious liberty for themselves but denied it to others. "Forced worship stinks in God's nostrils," thundered dissenter Roger Williams as he was banished from Massachusetts for denying Puritan authority over his conscience. Baptists there were a "pitiful negligible minority," but they were agitators for freedom and therefore denounced as "incendiaries of the commonwealth" for holding to their belief in that great democracy of faith -- the priesthood of all believers. For refusing to pay tribute to the state religion they were fined flogged, and exiled.

In 1651 Baptist Obadiah Holmes was given 30 stripes with a three-corded whip after he violated the law and took forbidden Communion with another Baptist in Lynn, Mass. His friends offered to pay his fine for his release but he refused. They offered him strong drink to anesthetize the pain of the flogging. Again he refused. It is the love of liberty, he said, "that must free the soul."

Such revolutionary ideas made the new nation with its Constitution and Bill of Rights "a haven for the cause of conscience." No longer could magistrates order citizens to support churches they did not attend and recite creeds that they did not believe. No longer would "the loathsome combination of church and state" -- as Thomas Jefferson described it -- be the settled order. Unlike the Old World that had been racked with religious wars and persecution, the government of America would take no sides in the religious free-for-all that liberty would make possible and politics would make inevitable.( This is a must-read! )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

From the LA Times:

Strategizing a Christian Coup d'Etat

A group of believers wants to establish Scriptures-based government one city and county at a time.
By Jenny Jarvie
Times Staff Writer

August 28, 2005

GREENVILLE, S.C. — It began, as many road trips do, with a stop at Wal-Mart to buy a portable DVD player.

But Mario DiMartino was planning more than a weekend getaway. He, his wife and three children were embarking on a pilgrimage to South Carolina.

"I want to migrate and claim the gold of the Lord," said the 38-year-old oil company executive from Pennsylvania. "I want to replicate the statutes and the mores and the scriptures that the God of the Old Testament espoused to the world."( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY wolfsinger2k)

In my perusals of various "old documents", I ran across a reprint of a lecture  titled "Protestant Menace To Our Government", given by L.K. Washburn to the Ingersoll Secular Society at the Investigator Hall in Boston, MA on 1/27/1889 concerning an attempted passage of a Congressional bill establishing Sundays as an official Christian church day and imposing other regulations with the bill.

<a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/lemuel_washburn/protestant_menace.html">Full text</a>

The section referring to the Bill in question:

"Let me read enough of the text of this proposed law to show how far the Christian Church would go to save its institutions. The bill, which is expected to become a law, was introduced in the Senate of the United States by Mr. Blair, on the 21st of May, 1888. It was read twice, and referred to the Committee on Education and Labor. On December 18th, 1888, it was ordered to be reprinted. This bill is entitled; A bill to secure to the people the enjoyment of the first day of the week, commonly known as the Lord's Day, as a day of rest, and to promote its observance as a day of religious worship." It reads as follows: --

"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in, Congress assembled, --
That no person, or corporation, or agent, servant, or employee of any person or corporation, shall perform or authorize to be performed, any secular work, labor, or business to the disturbance of others, works of necessity, and mercy, and humanity excepted; nor shall any Person engage in any play, game, or amusement, or recreation to the disturbance of others, on the first day of the week, commonly known as the Lord's Day, or during any part thereof, in any territory, district, vessel, or place subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States........

See. 2. That no mails or mail matter shall hereafter be transported in time of peace over any land postal-route, nor shall any mail matter be collected, assorted, handled, or delivered during any part of the first day of the week."

There are certain provisos which are not important to our purpose. Sections 3, 4, and 5 relate to commerce between the States and with the Indian tribes; drills, musters and parades; and the payment and receipt of wages. Sec. 6 refers to such labor and service as are not deemed violations of the act, but says that "the same shall be construed so far as possible to secure to the whole people rest from toil during the first day of the week, their mental and moral culture, and the religious observance of the Sabbath Day."

The rhetoric is amazing.

This section in particular:

"Here is a deadly blow aimed at religious liberty in this country. Such a bill as this is the attempt of religious despair. Any endeavor to explain it on the ground of public necessity, or in the interest of public morals, is the veriest hypocrisy. Who demands such a law as this bill proposes? What is it demanded for? Have not the people who wish to go to church on Sunday the liberty to do so? Does any one deny them this right? Does any one object to their going or try to stop them? "

and:

"Let us ask the Protestant Christians of the United States, who are working to get their religion endorsed by the Government, if they are suffering from political injustice, if they are victims of political wrongs? Are they singled out among the inhabitants of this country for legislative afflictions? Are they compelled to observe against their convictions any particular day of the week as sacred above another? Is their property taxed unjustly; taxed to support a worship which they cannot join and a religion which they cannot accept? Are their children compelled by the laws of the State to listen to the reading of religious books which are obnoxious to them. Do they hear prayers in our legislatures that are offensive to their ideas of right? The necessary and just demand is not for the Government to give further aid to the Protestant Church, but to stop the immunities which this church now enjoys. In view of the many wrongs and evils which others have to bear on account of the privileges granted to this church, every Christian should hang his head in shame and blush with guilt before the American people. The truth is this: The Protestant churches of the United States want to control our Government for the advantage of their religion. They already have secured enactments in all of our legislatures which give them power to injure in mind and estate those who do not accept the Christian faith. Yet in face of this fact, and in face of the National Constitution, which says that Congress shall not prohibit the free exercise of religion, there is a movement among the Protestant party for greater ecclesiastical authority.

We cannot be blind to the efforts being made by Christian fanatics, nor can we see such attempts to weaken our political Government and strangle our political liberty without a protest. That the people who are seeking for religious power in this country are honest and sincere in their endeavors, is not any reason why our citizens should stand idly by and see their political institutions overthrown, and the freedom won by the patriots of the Revolution destroyed by the bigots of the Christian Church. "

Scary that this was only 116 years ago - barely over 100 years since the founding of this nation.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

A NYT article about Christian pressure on North Korea:

Christian Groups Press Bush About North Korea
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

MIDLAND, Tex., Aug. 8 - Tens of thousands of fans of all ages gathered over the weekend for the annual three-day Rock the Desert Christian music festival screamed for hit bands like Mercy Me and Pillar and kicked Hacky Sacks by a creek renamed the Jordan River and a small pond called the Dead Sea.

Between the Prayer Tent and an abstinence-promotion booth, however, worshipful revelers also stumbled into a more sobering pavilion, the North Korea Genocide Exhibit.

Inside, Kang Chol Hwan, a North Korean defector recently summoned to meet President Bush, signed copies of his memoir of 10 years in a prison camp. Drawings by defectors depicted the torture of North Korean Christians. A video, available free on DVD, showed shaky, grainy footage of two public executions.( Read more... )

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-08-04T191725Z_01_N04247382_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-POLITICS-EVOLUTION-DC.XML

And in case the Reuters link goes down:

http://scienceg8.com/a-blatant-flip-flop-by-senator-rick/
http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/08/santorum_vs_san.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4784905 (audio link)

Apparently Rick Santorum (yes, of the vociferous gay-baiting, quoting of Family Research Institute blather about gay/les/bi/trans folks being equal to sheepbuggerers, he who *because* of this ended up with his name becoming an eponym for an, ahem, rather icky byproduct of "rear entry") is now standing up and claiming intelligent design ain't...

I'm not comfortable with intelligent design being taught in the science
classroom. What we should be teaching are the problems and holes, and I
think there are legitimate problems and holes, in the theory of
evolution. And what we need to do is present those fairly from a
scientific point of view. We should lay out areas in which the evidence
supports evolution and areas in the evidence that does not. And as far
as intelligent design is concerned, I really don't believe it's risen
to the level of a scientific theory at this point that we would want to
teach it alongside of evolution.--Rick Santorum, NPR's Morning Edition

It is going to be interesting to see the reaction in the dominionist community (especially since Santorum has been on record before in attempting to push bills for promoting "alternatives to the theory of evolution" being taught in public schools and was possibly one of the most vocal of supporters of "intelligent design" in Congress)--seeing as another dominionist pander-bear, Bill Frist, has been disinvited to attend Justice Sunday II and is being condemned rather broadly in the dominionist community for daring to go against the party line, I expect the reaction probably won't be gentle or welcoming.

It is also very interesting to me that no less than two of the more notorious dominionist-friendly congresscritters are now standing up and saying "No" to the dominionists (and both on matters of science, at that--Frist on the subject of stem cell research, and Santorum on whether "intelligent design" qualifies as a hypothesis (much less a formal theory) in scientific terms--and both after being explicitly friendly to dominionists in *very* related fields beforehand).

One wonders seriously if either they are beginning to feel pressure from the "reality based" community to the effect that they will lose their offices if they give the dominionists one inch more (and are thus now starting to play "pander bear" to the rest of us) or if they are genuinely starting to feel uncomfortable with the dominionist agenda as a whole. It's really hard to know at this point, but the fact that more of the *major* supporters of dominionist legislation are starting to stand up and say "no" (for whatever reason) shows that it *IS* possible to keep the dominionists from winning--either they will start to hit personal comfort levels of politicians (who are not raised in dominionist cults), or the politicians will realise if they keep supporting the dominionists that the rest of us *WILL* vote them out into the street.

Whether it's honest problems of conscience or a matter of rats jumping a sinking ship, it's encouraging. It's not victory (far from it--we still have many dominionist-friendly politicians in office, there are now a generation especially in state and local offices who have literally been raised from birth in dominionist/Christian Reconstructionist cults who are now running for political office, and we still have an executive branch that is for all intents and purposes run by a large dominionist denomination who has had plans for upwards of fifty years or more of dominionist takeover in the name of "delivering the country from Satan") but it does show victory *is* possible if we persevere.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

From Madison Journal:

Bill will try to bar UW from giving out pills

Phil Brinkman Wisconsin State Journal
March 19, 2005
A state lawmaker wants to prohibit clinics serving University of Wisconsin campuses from providing students with birth control pills and devices, contending such services promote promiscuity.

Rep. Daniel LeMahieu, R- Oostburg, said he was outraged when he learned University Health Services, the clinic serving UW-Madison students, had taken out ads in the two campus newspapers suggesting students get advance emergency contraceptive prescriptions before leaving town for spring break.

LeMahieu has begun drafting legislation to prohibit university health centers from promoting or providing the medication, known as the morning after pill. But because the pill is just a higher dose of the contraceptive hormones found in birth control pills, LeMahieu said he also will seek to block the university from prescribing all birth control pills.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Today's Salon magazine has a book review about "Divided by God".

An excerpt:

The trouble with "Divided by God" is that Feldman seems to accept McConnell's legal argument as the actual political motivation of the Christian right. Values evangelicals, in his telling, just want to be heard along with everybody else. "In its most sophisticated and attractive form, values evangelicism is actually a type of mutliculturalist pluralism, professing respect for faith as faith and for cultural tradition as tradition," Feldman writes. "This inclusive vision of a society in which one can partake in the common American project by the very act of worshipping as one chooses is more than broad enough to accommodate new religious diversity that has come about as a result of Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist immigration."

If this is what "values evangelicism" is, then the term is almost meaningless, since it doesn't apply to any of the leadership of the Christian right, the group that's actually fighting the culture wars that Feldman is trying to mediate. Consider, for example, how the Family Research Council -- the Washington spinoff of James Dobson's enormously powerful Focus on the Family -- reacted in 2000 when Venkatachalapathi Samuldrala became the first Hindu priest to offer an invocation before Congress. "While it is true that the United States of America was founded on the sacred principle of religious freedom for all, that liberty was never intended to exalt other religions to the level that Christianity holds in our country's heritage," the group said in an apoplectic statement. "Our Founders expected that Christianity -- and no other religion -- would receive support from the government as long as that support did not violate peoples' consciences and their right to worship. They would have found utterly incredible the idea that all religions, including paganism, be treated with equal deference."

This was not an isolated outburst -- it wouldn't be hard to find enough similar quotes to fill a volume larger than Feldman's entire book. Sure, the Christian right may invite a token rabbi -- often the South African ultraconservative Daniel Lapin -- to its functions to promote an image of ecumenism, but that cannot hide the motivating belief in Christian supremacy, spiritual and political, at the movement's core.

The author of the review, Michelle Goldberg, will be publishing a book next year called ""Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism" which I plan to get and read.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This brilliant and devastating article from Orion Magazine takes a sharp look at today's religious supremacists. Here are some excerpts:

Having damned myself in what we might call "anti-evangelical circles," I'd like to qualify that damnation by stating what the word "evangelical" suggests to me.

Religious laws, in all the major traditions, have both a letter and a spirit. As I understand the words and example of Jesus, the spirit of a law is all-important, whereas the letter, while useful in conjunction with spirit, becomes lifeless and deadly without it. In accord with this distinction, a yearning to worship in wilderness or beside rivers, rather than in churches, could legitimately be called evangelical. Jesus himself began his mission after forty days and nights in wilderness. According to the same letter vs. spirit distinction, the law-heavy literalism of many so-called evangelicals is not evangelical at all: "evangel" means "the gospels"; the essence of the gospels is Jesus; and literalism is not something that Jesus personified or taught.

Nor need one be a Christian for the word "evangelical" to apply: if your words or deeds harmonize with the example of Jesus, you are evangelical in spirit whether you claim to be or not. When the non-Christian Ambrose Bierce, for instance, wrote, "War is the means by which Americans learn geography," there was acid dripping almost visibly from his pen. His words, however, are aimed at the same anti-war end as the gospel statements "Love thine enemies" and "Love thy neighbor as thyself." And "Blessed are the peacemakers." Bierce's wit is in this sense evangelical whether he likes it or not.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

A Colorado congressman threatens Islamic holy sites:

DENVER (AP) -- A Colorado congressman told a radio show host that the U.S. could "take out" Islamic holy sites if Muslim fundamentalist terrorists attacked the country with nuclear weapons.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY britzkrieg)

From GreenvilleOnline.com:

Frank Janoski, his wife Tammy, and their four children... left Bethlehem, Pa., to be a part of the Christian Exodus.

South Carolina may not be flowing with milk and honey, but it looks like the promised land to the leaders of this group, which hopes to relocate thousands of conservative Christian families like the Janoskis from across America to the Palmetto State.

Their aim: to tip the political scales, which they see as already weighted heavily to the right, further in that direction...

The group is recruiting more pioneers for this journey of faith through its Web site and plans to hold a national conference in Greenville in October, which will include information booths of local real estate agents, employers and private schools -- all the nuts and bolts needed for relocation.

The political strategy is to support candidates, first on the local level -- school boards and county councils -- and then on the state level. The Upstate has been chosen as part of the first phase of the relocation program, with a goal of having 2,500 members in two yet-to-be-named counties by Sept. 30, 2006.

Full Story

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY britzkrieg)

From Women's eNews:

The campaign against Planned Parenthood now goes far beyond anti-abortion protests. Led by two national organizations--Life Decisions and STOPP--it features community protests, corporate boycotts and targeting of clinics with weak finances...

With an annual budget of approximately $110,000, Douglas R. Scott, Life Decisions' president, and his staff of three, research and publish "The Boycott List" of companies--usually about 50 or 60 in number--that donate to Planned Parenthood...

According to a March press release, current boycott targets include Adobe Systems, Bank of America, Johnson and Johnson, Kenneth Cole, Levi Strauss, Nationwide Insurance, Prudential, Unilever, Wachovia, Whole Foods and Walt Disney...

Scott claims that 116 companies have withdrawn Planned Parenthood support, pulling $35 million in funds away from the organization...

STOPP, the other thorn in Planned Parenthood's side, is a division of the anti-abortion, anti-contraception American Life League in Stafford, Va., which has a $7 million annual budget. STOPP--short for Stop Planned Parenthood--organizes actions to "defeat" Planned Parenthood, which it describes as "the very head of the Culture of Death in the U.S."

David Bereit, STOPP's new national director, plans to train local community members to oppose Planned Parenthood, as he did in Bryan-College Station, Texas, where, he says, he coordinated 60 churches and 3,000 people to remove Planned Parenthood's education program from schools and reduce abortions at a local clinic by more than 15 percent...

The group publishes a chart of Planned Parenthood clinics where abortions are performed, as well as "The Ryan Report," a monthly newsletter detailing Planned Parenthood activities and local opposition.

Bereirt researches IRS documents of local Planned Parenthood affiliates, hoping to identify those that are weak financially. "If there are active efforts in those towns, those are places where we could have an impact," he said.

STOPP also pushes state legislation to stop any governmental funds from reaching Planned Parenthood affiliates. Nationally, approximately one-third of Planned Parenthood's services are supported by government funding, usually for contraception or health care services for low-income women (abortion is not covered).

Full Article

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Today's Talk to Action blog has another post on debunking Christian Nationalism, which mentions a second "Justice Sunday", this time featuring a bigger celebrity cast, and a harder push to get rid of so-called "activist judges".

Once again, the theocratic Christian Right is making a big show of conflating the notion of "people of faith" with membership in he Christian Right of the Republican party. The rhetoric is a tad less strident, but the message is the same.

But the preach-fest of last time has been replaced with a more dramatic production, that will include three country music stars. Notably Lee Greenwood, the singer-songwriter best known for his patriotic hit, "God Bless the USA." This song has been an anthem at Christian Right rallies for years, and no doubt it will be the emotional highlight of what we can expect will be a carefully choreographed program.

Like last time, religious leaders who do not share the theocratic agenda of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) and his allies can be expected to be outraged. The first to speak out was the Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, President of The Interfaith Alliance:

"Here we go again!" Rev. Gaddy said. "And, this time the imagery and the implications of the message advanced by leaders of the religious right are more offensive, sacrilegious, and undemocratic than those so integral to Justice Sunday I."

"Right now, the most serious threats to the fundamental rights and liberties in our nation are not coming from a lack of God's interest but from a small group of religious right leaders who have assumed the mantle of national religious authorities and seek to impose on the whole nation and its constitution their particular views on religion, the courts, politics, and justice."

"Here we go again," indeed.

Australia also has a growing problem with dominionists, and in fact, from dominionist groups that may sound very familiar to US readers.

Family First (http://www.familyfirst.org.au) is a political party in Australia that, like dominionist groups (such as Focus on the Family) here in the States, practices "stealth dominionism" in claiming publically that it is merely a party focusing on "family concerns".

The truth is that Family First was founded by multiple heads of the Australian branch of the Assemblies of God and is increasingly regarded as a de facto political wing of the AoG in Australia (a bit of backgrounder; generally the AoG is the biggest non-Catholic/non-Anglican church in Australia, certainly the largest pentecostal one by far).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_First_Party has info (pro and con) on this particular dominionist group.

http://www.abc.net.au/central/stories/s1218591.htm has a commentary from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, including statements by a member related to "deliverance ministry" as practiced within the group/denomination (specifically telling people to tear down liquor stores/beer stores and Moslem mosques to "pull down Satan's strongholds").

http://www.crikey.com.au/articles/2004/09/21-0001.html has information ergarding the links between Family First and AoG (and further firming up the fact that it is in fact de facto a political wing of the denomination).

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/15/1097784045621.html also has another report on the group, including a telling statement where the public face slips and the "private face" shows:

Fielding is not the only one to be gagged: all hopefuls were disendorsed as party candidates after the election to prevent them speaking on behalf of Family First. Harris admits the decision was partly due to the conduct of some representatives during the poll campaign.

A volunteer was disciplined for answering "yes" when asked whether Family First backed lesbians being burned to death.

(In my experience, at least in the group I walked away from...yes, they would have supported lesbians being burned to death, and a lot more people besides :P More info on the particular quote in question: http://atheism.about.com/b/a/117359.htm)

The AoG has a history of dominionist activity in the US that is quite well documented (known AoG associated dominionists in the US government include ex-Attorney General John Ashcroft, the main advisor on religious issues to George W Bush, and Admiral Boykin; as far as dominionist orgs themselves, many local branches of dominionist groups like AFA are in effect run by persons in AoG churches) and the church itself is a heavy practitioner of "deliverance ministry"--a form of dominionism that states that everything outside the church group is infested with demons (and all ills are the result of demonic influence) and that people must "take dominion over Satan" and "tear down Satan's strongholds" in all areas including takeover of the government--dominionism and the prevailing "demon haunted world", especially in AoG churches practicing "Third Wave"/"Brownsville/Pensacola" type theology, are very much two sides of the same helix). John Ashcroft, interestingly, was an example of how this is often done in practice (both in his political views and his "eccentricities" such as annointing areas with Wesson oil and covering up Lady Justice's boobies). The AoG also has a known history of "stealth evangelism" and in fact considers it completely acceptable and desirable. (For the record, I am a walkaway from an AoG church, so I do know of what I speak.)

The AoG has also, almost since its inception, heavily targeted other countries--especially in South Korea and in Australia. Australia in particular has given press regarding scandals among AoG churches, many involving involuntary exorcisms and diversion of funds. In fact, many exit counselors in Australia are beginning to consider the AoG in and of itself a coercive group (which would fit the experiences of myself and other walkaways from that denomination). (http://www.geocities.com/hotsprings/3658/ has a good page on this in general) This is something that the US has exported to Oz, and they are having to deal with it as a result...

Interestingly, there are indications of at least sympathies betwen the Australian dominionists and the American ones (aside from the AoG being heavily involved in both): http://au.messages.yahoo.com/news/top-stories/17610/ Howard, the present PM of Australia, is also heavily influenced by dominionists including Family First (see article below); furthermore, Family First has stated publically that American dominionists are whom they take example from (http://neovox.cortland.edu/vox/vox_100/vox_100.html) and at least one documentary has commented on the "heavily American flavour" of Family First (http://reviews.media-culture.org.au/article.php?sid=1175)

There's also evidence they're (much like the dominionist groups that are heavily AoG and Southern Baptist influenced here in the US) using explicitly sectarian tests for things like refugee status: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/apr2005/refu-a04_prn.shtml (And people WONDER why I say Oz is *NOT* an option for people who may need to make refugee plans in the event the dominionists *do* take over completely.)

Anyways, this is posted to show that the same people who are causing the problem in the US are now trying to cause similar problems for other countries, and that it is NOT a problem of the US alone. Countries *IN GENERAL* and people *in general* are going to need to take much more of a proactive stance to make sure people like this never get *in* office, and also to make sure regulations are passed and *enforced* to make sure the crossing of religious and political lines doesn't happen. We do *not* need a "Christian Taliban" in Oz or the US.

It's also interesting how the same usual suspects seem to be responsible :P (Now *tell* me again that I'm exaggerating?)

http://www.13wham.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=DD427162-B871-4F38-A532-6ACBD4CA684D

An interesting look into a church that practices "spiritual warfare"...sadly, this is not terribly unusual in AoG and other pentecostal churches into "deliverance ministry"/"spiritual warfare", and it is actually a big part of what is fueling the present dominionist movement (many of them that aren't blatantly Christian Reconstructionist are seeing the fight to establish dominionism as a form of "spiritual warfare", and it is actually implicit in "dominion theology"/"deliverance ministry").

The really sick and scary thing is that the members and attendees don't seem to see any contradiction whatsoever with, say, Christ being a pacifist for the most part (as I recall, the one time Jesus got *really* pissed off was with people who were using the church for their own profit--the moneylenders and people selling sacrifices and such; something tells me he probably would not much like dominionists either, but that's my two pence).

Some general background info:

http://zena.secureforum.com/Znet/zmag/articles/feb95diamond.htm
http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/Psychology/cor/dominion.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_Now_theology (which is actually the flavour of dominionism practiced in churches into the "spiritual warfare" stuff)
http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/exposes/peretti/general.htm
http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com
http://www.mislinks.org/topics/spconflict.htm (includes both "pro" and "contra" links)
http://mmoutreach.org/aberrant/aberrant_main.htm
http://livingpresence.org/cms/terrorism.shtml (how "dominion theology" has inspired bona fide terrorism at times--many of the people who attacked abortion clinics, for instance, were/are under the sincere belief they were "driving out a demonic influence")
http://www.agetwoage.org/Articles.htm
http://www.isitso.org/guide/lexicon.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latter_Rain_Movement

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This article from World Net Daily talks about the desire of certain Christians to have a 'country' of their own:

A year after suggesting possible secession from the United States, a group of Christians fed up with American laws they believe are at odds with the Bible is beginning to move to its target state of South Carolina.

ChristianExodus.org has attracted more than 700 members from across America since WND broke the news of its inception last May, and already a half-dozen families have picked up and transplanted to the Palmetto State.

"A year ago, no one had moved. It was just a project on the board," said Cory Burnell, a financial adviser who is president of ChristianExodus. "Now, it's actually happening. Whether it's a couple of years or 20 years, we're gonna get it done."

That's funny- I thought that Colorado Springs was the Dominionist ground zero. Read more at the site.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This WSW article talks about the 'whitewash of systematic bigotry' perpetrated at the USAF Academy. An excerpt:

If leaders at the US Air Force Academy—which trains young men and women to serve as officers in a branch of the US military—promote and tolerate religious discrimination against non-Christians, and openly espouse evangelical views in the course of official academy functions, this is clearly a violation of these Constitutional protections against the “establishment” of religion.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This article describes an encounter by a Druid couple with an overzealous volunteer policeman:

Tony Gainey and D.J. Gainey said reserve officer Tony Stewart pulled them over because of the bumper stickers on their car. One of the stickers read, "It's a druid thing."( Read more... )

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?

I just want to know one thing: What the heck is a 'godly influence', anyway? No, don't answer that- I know that it's a code word for rich, white, dominionist Christian males. No one else need apply.

One of the speakers at this business conference was Gary Cass, who runs the Center for Reclaiming America, which the Christian Science Monitor describes thusly:

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."

"We'll change their view one way or another..." Is it me, or does that sound like a threat?

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

From Boston.com:

Conservative's popularity may be problem for GOP

Ex-Alabama judge eyes governorship
By Nina Easton, Globe Staff | June 14, 2005

WASHINGTON -- As Republican strategists weigh the party's prospects for 2006 and 2008, they are increasingly worried about a political confrontation with Roy S. Moore, the former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court who became a hero to religious conservatives when he refused to follow a federal court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state's judicial building.

Moore, a Republican who enjoys widespread support in his home state, is poised to run against a vulnerable Republican governor. If he wins, some party strategists speculate, he could defy a federal court order again by erecting a religious monument outside the Alabama state Capitol building. With the 2008 presidential race looming, President Bush would then face a no-win decision: either call out the National Guard to enforce a court order against a religious display on state grounds or allow a fellow born-again Christian to defy the courts.( Read more... )