LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY idragosani)

This is tangential to main topic of Dominionist Christianity, but may be of interest here.

ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) - A general election on Sunday in this mostly Muslim nation might help answer a divisive question: whether women should be allowed to wear head scarves in official settings and state institutions.

It was a tempest over a head scarf that helped trigger the elections in the first place. Secularists reacted with outrage when the Islamic-oriented ruling party proposed a presidential candidate whose wife covered her head.

Read more

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY idragosani)

In the last election, President George W Bush, a born-again Christian, won the support of the vast majority of evangelicals, while his Democratic opponent John Kerry talked as little as possible about his own Catholicism.

But in the crowded field of candidates this time, it is the Democrats who are finding it easier to describe how their faith in Jesus informs their political beliefs and experience.

Read more

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Mickey Weinstein, a former USAF officer and founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has an interview with Salon Magazine about the "Christian Embassy" embedded in the Pentagon. He is not happy, and we should not be happy either:

We have a systemic problem. You sound like you're too young to remember Robert Redford in "Three Days of the Condor," but the premise of that movie was that there was a CIA within the CIA. We have a virulently dominionist, fundamentalist evangelical Christian element within the Pentagon. [emphasis mine] They would prefer this to be the "Pentecostalgon," not the Pentagon. That's what they would prefer. They're trying to turn the Pentagon into a frickin' faith-based initiative, and that is not what our military is about.

( Court-martial is needed... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY jenk)

David Kuo (the deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives from 2001 to 2003, and the author of “Tempting Faith”) has an op-ed in today's New York Times. He quotes John W. Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute:

Modern Christianity, having lost sight of Christ’s teachings, has been co-opted by legalism, materialism and politics. Simply put, it has lost its spirituality. [...] Whereas Christianity was once synonymous with charity, compassion and love for one’s neighbor, today it is more often equated with partisan politics, anti-homosexual rhetoric and affluent mega-churches.

Evangelicals are beginning to see the effect of their political involvement on those with whom they hope to share Jesus’ eternal message: non-evangelicals. Tellingly, Beliefnet’s poll showed that nearly 60 percent of non-evangelicals have a more negative view of Jesus because of Christian political involvement; almost 40 percent believe that George W. Bush’s faith has had a negative impact on his presidency.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY wyldraven)

:::this decidedly mainstream doctor and administrator says, "I no longer trust FDA decisions or materials generated [by the government]. Ten years ago, I would not have had to scrutinize government information. Now I don't feel comfortable giving it to my patients."

( Read more... )

The new lies about women's health - Glamour Magaizine

If that one is not bad enough:

( Forensic vagina inspectors? )

Pro-Life Nation (NY Times, requires registration, use darkchristian/darkchristian)

courtesy starcat_jewel

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

From the Yurica report:

Grooming Politicians for Christ

Evangelical programs on Capitol Hill seek to mold a new generation of leaders who will answer not to voters, but to God.

By Stephanie Simon
Times Staff Writer

August 23, 2005

WASHINGTON — In the blue and gold elegance of the House speaker's private dining room, Jeremy Bouma bowed his head before eight young men and women who hope to one day lead the nation. He prayed that they might find wisdom in the Bible — and govern by its word.

"Holy Father, we thank you for providing us with guidance," said Bouma, who works for an influential televangelist. "Thank you, Lord, for these students. Build them up as your warriors and your ambassadors on Capitol Hill."( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY gleef)

Does anyone know what's going on in the Utah school system? I've been following the controversy in Kansas and in Dover, PA, but I didn't know of another active "Intellegent Design" push going on in Utah.

From this article:

Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, had earlier suggested he would propose legislation that would enforce the teaching of alternative concepts of human existence. Now he says conversations with the state superintendent of schools have left him confident that teachers who teach the evolution of humanity "will be dealt with."

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

An Alternet article talks about the ecocidal tendancies of fundementalist Republicans.

A Higher Power


Nevertheless, beyond all these more obvious anti-environmental motivations there lies a more deep-seated inspiration. Difficult as it may be to believe, many of the conservatives who have great influence in the Bush administration and now in Congress are governed by a Higher Power.


In his book "The Carbon Wars," Greenpeace activist Jeremy Leggett tells how he stumbled upon this otherworldly agenda. During the Kyoto climate change negotiations, Leggett candidly asked Ford Motor Company executive John Schiller how opponents of the pact could believe there is no problem with "a world of a billion cars intent on burning all the oil and gas available on the planet?" The executive asserted first that scientists get it wrong when they say fossil fuels have been sequestered underground for eons. The Earth, he said, is just 10,000, not 4.5 billion years old, the age widely accepted by scientists.


Then Schiller confidently declared, "You know, the more I look, the more it is just as it says in the Bible." The Book of Daniel, he told Leggett, predicts that increased earthly devastation will mark the "End Time" and return of Christ. Paradoxically, Leggett notes, many fundamentalists see dying coral reefs, melting ice caps and other environmental destruction not as an urgent call to action, but as God's will. In the religious right worldview, the wreck of the Earth can be seen as Good News!


Some true believers, interpreting biblical prophecy, are sure they will be saved from the horrific destruction brought by ecosystem collapse. They'll be raptured: rescued from Earth by God, who will then rain down seven ghastly years of misery on unbelieving humanity. Jesus' return will mark the Millennium, when the Lord restores the Earth to its green pristine condition, and the faithful enjoy a thousand years of peace and prosperity.