LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This interesting article talks about the Christian broadcast industry- "How evangelical Christians are creating an alternative universe of faith-based news."

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

It's apparent that the Dominionists have hoist their Jolly Roger, and shown their true colors- and people around the country are starting to awaken to the monster in our midst.

The Rutland Herald has an editorial on "Religious Bullying".

The New York Times talks about Bill Frist's 'religious war'.

Here's a refreshing voice of reason- a Presbyterian minister at William and Mary.

And I seem to have stumbled upon a potential solution- or at least a potentially powerful means of pushing back against the assault the Dominionists have mounted upon our lives and freedoms and faith. I bought "The Isaiah Effect" (by Gregg Braden) a year ago, but hadn't yet read it. While searching for a book about Fundementalism, I found it sitting on top of the book I sought. Instead of reading "Casting the First Stone", I felt compelled to start reading "The Isaiah Effect". I'll talk a little more in depth about it when I finish it, but for those of you who are metaphysically, or prayerfully inclined, I highly recommend this book. And I just started it. We can reshape the world. We can stop this darkness and reseed the light. And we can do it in a powerful and nonviolent way.

Oh, and let's add Chuck Currie's blog to our small, but growing collection of Christian voices of reason. Like The Slacktivist, Currie sees through the Dominionist smoke screen. He is also a minister of the United Church of Christ, who had that ad about religious inclusivity that was banned by the networks for being too 'controversial'.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY kalibex)

Now Rolling Stone gets the word out.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY hummingwolf)

Via rssworldmag: Evangelicals for government power?

The Gospel is simply not reducible to the institution of laws amenable to Christian morality. And a disproportionate emphasis on such laws tends toward a position that is inimical to Christianity. Yet the perception often remains that the way the church is to “engage culture” is primarily, if not solely, through public policy.

Beyond these theological problems lies a prudential question of the wise use of political power. In the broad area of decency standards, this third problem flows out of the coercive nature of governmental power.

While Christians maintain the influence to form policy in a certain area, the laws are likely to remain in accord with Christian morality. The danger is that once the power of such regulation of speech and free expression has been ceded to the government, it is nearly impossible to get it back. And it is almost certain that the current season of Christian political influence will eventually wane.

Today perhaps the antics of a Howard Stern will be outlawed by increased governmental regulation. But tomorrow it may well be that simply reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans will be prohibited as hate speech, indecent, or otherwise intolerant. We have already seen threats of this in other countries. In the words of Jesus, “All who draw the sword will die by the sword” (Matthew 26:52 NIV).

Via religionnewsblo: Christians hear call to widen their focus

Evangelical Christians are God's wing of the GOP.

President Bush invites their leaders to the White House. Magazine covers feature their faces. Talk-show hosts put them on the air.

But some leading Christian thinkers are questioning the evangelicals' priorities. Will partisan politics mute the church's prophetic voice — the courage, as intellectual Edward Said put it, to speak truth to power? Are evangelicals so focused on abortion and same-sex marriage that they are forgetting Christ's injunction to care for the sick and minister to the downtrodden?

A number of authors and essayists — both liberal and conservative — now are calling on Christians to form a biblically based, big-picture vision of how America should look.

And they are finding an audience.

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."

It's also called 'swarming'. It's really scary to see 'swarming' in action. Read the entire article- it's quite interesting.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This article from Insider Magazine goes into great depth and detail about the roots and shoots of today's Dominionist movement and how it is tangled in with the US Government.

It's a long read, but worth your time.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Media Matters talks about a new free tabloid in the DC area which was bankrolled by a mysterious and very conservative right wing billionaire:

On February 1, a free daily tabloid arrived on newsstands and in mailboxes in the Washington, DC area: the Washington Examiner. The new paper is owned by Denver billionaire Philip F. Anschutz, an Evangelical Presbyterian who has bankrolled numerous ultra-conservative causes and has donated at least half a million dollars to Republican committees and political candidates. The Examiner's first three editorials all took hardline conservative positions.

***

Anschutz has a history of supporting socially conservative causes. According to a recent Post article, Anschutz's family foundation gave James Dobson, the founder of the conservative Christian organization Focus on the Family, an award for his "contributions to the American Family." The Post noted that according to the foundation's website, Focus on the Family works to "counter the media-saturating message that homosexuality is inborn and unchangeable" and that one of the group's policy experts referred to abortion as an example of when "Satan temporarily succeeds in destroying God's creation." Further, as the Post mentioned, Anschutz contributed $10,000 in 1992 to Colorado Family Values in support of the group's efforts to pass a state constitutional amendment to invalidate state and local laws that prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation. (The referendum passed, but the United States Supreme Court struck it down as unconstitutional.) According to the Post, "Anschutz's money helped pay for an ad campaign that said such anti-bias laws gave gays and lesbians 'special rights.'"

In May 2003, the Orange County Weekly reported that other Anschutz Foundation beneficiaries include the Institute for American Values, which according to the Weekly "campaigns against single parenting," and Enough is Enough, which "promotes Internet censorship." The San Francisco Chronicle noted on February 20, 2004, that Anschutz also funds Morality in Media. As Media Matters previously noted, the Institute for American Values also receives funding from the conservative Bradley and Scaife foundations, as well as grants from the John M. Olin Foundation, another major financer of conservative organizations. Enough is Enough and Morality in Media have also received funding from the conservative Castle Rock Foundation.

Anschutz has also made significant financial contributions to Republicans. The Washington Post described Anschutz as "an active Republican donor" stating that "he, his companies and members of his family have given more than $500,000 in campaign contributions to GOP candidates and committees" since 1996. Variety noted in its October 4, 2004, edition that Anschutz has supported "a number of Republican political candidates, including John Ashcroft and Peter Coors."

Read the entire article. It's a taste of things to come.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY rialian)

===I posted this in my journal, and it was suggested that I post this here as well.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
The Washington Examiner will have pages of interest to Northern Virginia, Maryland and the District. The Denver-based Clarity Media Group, owned by reclusive billionaire Philip Anschutz, says the Examiner will use a tabloid format and cater to people with limited time to read newspapers.

The Washington Examiner replaces three suburban newspapers Clarity purchased last year from Journal Newspapers, Inc.

Forbes on Philip Anschutz

Philip Anschutz: Horatio Alger Association

New owner is reclusive, a conservative Christian

Weblog: Narnia Film to Theaters in 2004

San Francisco Examiner Now Owned Anti-Gay Activist Philip Anschutz!!

The Man Who "Sees Around Corners"

===Interesting...

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Dr. Dobson, who started a real mess with his SpongeBob debacle, digs himself even deeper as he attempts to set the record straight.

The video, which millions of children will soon see, features nearly 100 favorite cartoon characters that kids will instantly recognize, including not only SpongeBob, but also Barney the Dinosaur, the Muppets, Dora the Explorer, Bob the Builder, Winnie the Pooh, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Jimmy Neutron and Big Bird. The video itself is innocent enough and does not mention anything overtly sexual. Rather, it features the children’s cartoon characters singing and dancing along to the popular disco hit "We Are Family."

But while the video is harmless on its own, I believe the agenda behind it is sinister. My brief comments at the FRC gathering were intended to express concern not about SpongeBob or Big Bird or any of their other cartoon friends, but about the way in which those childhood symbols are apparently being hijacked to promote an agenda that involves teaching homosexual propaganda to children. Nevertheless, the media jumped on the story by claiming that I had accused SpongeBob of being "gay." Some suggested that I had confused the organization that had created the video with a similarly named gay-rights group. In both cases, the press was dead wrong, and I welcome this opportunity to help them get their facts straight.

I want to be clear: the We Are Family Foundation — the organization that sponsored the video featuring SpongeBob and the other characters was, until this flap occurred, making available a variety of explicitly pro-homosexual materials on its Web site. It has since endeavored to hide that fact (more on this later), but my concerns are as legitimate today as they were when I first expressed them in January.

Ah, that 'sinister agenda'. And what 'agenda' might that be? The idea that there might be alternate ways of looking at things, and that tolerance can be taught. Apparently, that is the 'homosexual agenda'.

Some of the ripostes he talks about are rather interesting:

Well, this is the story behind the SpongeBob issue that outraged the media. There was a New York Times reporter at the banquet who wrote an article based on my comments. His factual representation was not entirely inaccurate, but it was written in such a way as to imply that it was SpongeBob whom I was attacking. From there, the story rapidly escalated. You won’t believe the way I was described by major news organizations. Here are a few examples:

* MSNBC.com posted a commentary on the matter which read in part, "[T]here is a frightening number of so-called Christians who can be best described as creepy, rigid, arrogant, cruel, know-it-all, pompous, obnoxious and treacherous — better known by the acronym C.R.A.C.K.P.O.T."

* James Carville offered these words of wisdom on "CNN": "You know what I think? I think these people have sponge brains."

* The Los Angeles Times was among the many who mocked my remarks by distorting the truth: "SpongeBob holds hands with his starfish pal Patrick, and likes to watch the imaginary television show ‘The Adventures of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy.’ Evidence enough, to Dobson at any rate, that the guy’s a menace."

* "MSNBC’s" Keith Olbermann, one of the most hostile of the commentators, characterized my account of the situation as the goofiest story of the day. He cited a lawyer for the We Are Family Foundation who said that critics of this effort "need medication." Olbermann then added, "We here found it hard to argue with him." It might not surprise you that when one of my listeners wrote Mr. Olbermann a polite but pointed email in response to his comments, he replied by saying that emails such as hers would be "treated with the lack of respect they deserve." He went on to chastise her, and wrote, "…you might ask yourself if your actions are any different than someone in a cult." And some people still wonder why Americans no longer trust the mainstream media!

It appears that Dr. Dobson and his associates dwell in a parallel universe. Their perceptions of things are notably different than that of the mainstream. And they're defensive, intolerant, and fear-filled, and hostile to all outsiders. Nothing that anyone in the mainstream media says or does is satisfactory to them. Perhaps the best thing to do is to remember this.

Sunfell

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

From the St. Petersburg (FL) Times

Laughing at people like James Dobson and his anti-SpongeBob SquarePants crusade only reinforces the Dominionist belief that the media is Satan's Tool.

Dobson's crusade sends a message the media don't get

By ERIC DEGGANS, Times Op/Ed Columnist
Published January 28, 2005

It is something that draws an easy laugh, especially from journalists: a campaign condemning America's most beloved cartoon sponge.

But James Dobson's high-profile jabs against Nickelodeon's monster hit "SpongeBob SquarePants" are no laughing matter. They are, instead, a textbook example of how powerful evangelical conservatives send galvanizing messages to their faithful that sail over the heads of those who aren't supposed to get it.

Dobson, founder of the Colorado Springs-based ministry Focus on the Family, is a minister whose radio show draws 7-million listeners, a man who helped President Bush win the tough swing states of Florida and Ohio.

A leader this savvy knows the power of the media and likely doesn't believe his attacks will bring down the Sponge-ster, Nickelodeon's most popular cartoon.

But what he can do is mobilize his supporters by relying on three themes the religious right has beaten like a drum for decades: demonization of the media, demonization of liberals and demonization of gay people.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

While this community mainly concentrates on the excesses of the Christian Dominionists, it is clear that they have a rival for the theocratization of the US- the Unification Church. Moonies hold some major media outlets, like the Washington Times (not to be confused with the Washington Post), UPI, and lots of little businesses all over the country. They pretend to be Christian, but on closer examination, they are most definitely not.

This Alternet article talks about their latest sneaky tactic to take over the country: "Tear Down The Cross" ceremonies- desecration disguised as peacemaking.

In Monday's video, Bush declared: "I want to salute a man I respect: Wes Pruden," referring to the Times editor, whose paper frequently publicizes Moon projects that most newspapers would ignore. On December 7 he ran a piece by ACLC Rev. Donnie McLeod, who has argued for the removal of the cross in sermons covered by Unification Church publications.

The cross-disposal theologian wrote: "as the president is now free from the election concerns and can never be reelected, he can now build a legacy for America and the world." ACLC leaders, he said, "are ready to see the president as I see him, a man to God who is truly ready to make the sacrifices and commitments to create a legacy of faith and family that will guide our nation for the next 200 years."

The Washington Times Foundation is slippery to define, an organization with multiple public faces that morphs when convenient into the ACLC and other religious organizations. The Senate coronation, for example, was booked under the name of the foundation, though it was treated as a photo opportunity for the South Korean religious arm of the church, which trumpeted it as the U.S. government's official stamp of approval on plans for the future of Christianity.

A former Times editor, James Whalen, told me that the protean nature of the group makes it easy to involve national-level figures in "showcasing" Moon – yet conveniently allows politicians to claim, for example, that they only dropped by to lift a glass to the awesome investigative reporting of Times reporter Bill Gertz.

And meanwhile, at the other end of the invisible line between mainstream and eldrich, there is the ACLC and its persistence in seeing the Christian cross disposed of like nuclear waste. A month after Easter last year, the group flew holy men from all over the world to a graveside in Israel, where undertakers had draped a cross beneath the blue and yellow flag of Reverend Moon, and buried the cross forever – another casualty at the hands of the armies of compassion.

Spurred on by the likes of Bill O'Reilly, conservatives are outraged at the war against Christianity supposedly declared in department stores' "Happy Holidays" signs. But secularism is one thing, and sacrilege is something else, especially coming from Sun Myung Moon's cult, which indulges dreams of becoming the state religion. The president has built his reputation on being a good Methodist, but he rarely attends church, come to think of it. And he has cozied up to a desecration spree that Tim LaHaye couldn't make up in his "Left Behind" books. Is he what he pretends to be?

So, it is clear that there are many sects to watch out for. The Dominionists are by far the most powerful and most deceitful, but it's clear that the Moonies aren't far behind.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Bill Moyers talks about the onslaught of 'delusional' thinking that has taken over our governent and its leadership. His sharp criticism is a breath of fresh air.

Writing in Mother Jones recently, Bill [McKibben] described how the problems we journalists routinely cover—conventional, manageable programs like budget shortfalls and pollution—may be about to convert to chaotic, unpredictable, unmanageable situations. The most unmanageable of all, he writes, could be the accelerating deterioration of the environment, creating perils with huge momentum like the greenhouse effect that is causing the melt of the Arctic to release so much fresh water into the North Atlantic that even the Pentagon is growing alarmed that a weakening Gulf Stream could yield abrupt and overwhelming changes—the kind of changes that could radically alter civilizations.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Not every Evangelical Christian is supportive of the actions of the "Hard Right". An in-depth article in "American Prospect" talks about these moderate Evangelicals and how they might vote this year.

Some excerpts:

In early February, 60 minutes' Morley Safer portrayed white evangelical Christians as the carnies of American Protestantism. Nine million viewers tuned in and saw shots of vast "megachurch" congregations swaying hypnotically and raising their hands in song. Tacky cinematic renderings of a fiery Armageddon added some dramatic tension. The slick ringmaster of these goings-on, of course, was the Reverend Tim LaHaye, the famous apocalyptic entrepreneur and co-author of the wildly popular Left Behind novels. (The series depicts the end of the world as prophesized in the Book of Revelation.)

Safer eventually turned his attention to Washington, where he declared that "evangelical ... beliefs have already reshaped American politics." As the visages of George W. Bush, Tom DeLay, and John Ashcroft flitted across the screen, the message was clear: The Republican Party has God on its side.

Except that this year, a considerable group of evangelicals just might swing the vote -- in favor of the Democrats. ( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

An interview with Tim La Haye, author of the wildly popular "Left Behind" series. ( Read more... )

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... )