What's Christian About the Christian Right?

They rail on about Darwinism. They argue for Creationism rather than evolution. They claim to be devout adherents to the Bible, particularly the New Testament, and worship Jesus.

Why, then, is the fundamentalist Christian Right so goddamned fond of Darwinism when it's social Darwinism?

Here's the thing. Real Christians are economic progressives. The teachings of Jesus are incredibly progressive. But these cheap hustlers and fixers and scam artists who pass themselves off as Born Again turn their backs on that Jesus stuff, rationalize it away and dive, head first, into the Old Testament at every opportunity especially when it comes to the killing arts - war and death - and, of course, money.

Yet, on the other side of the pond, British Christians are a lot different than their North American brethren. As David Sirota writes, the Brits like their Christianity with a lot more Christ and a lot less hypocrisy.

"...a new report from the British think tank Demos, ...found that in England 1) "religious people are more active citizens (who) volunteer more, donate more to charity and are more likely to campaign on political issues" and 2) "religious people are more likely to be politically progressive (people who) put a greater value on equality than the non-religious, are more likely to be welcoming of immigrants as neighbours (and) more likely to put themselves on the left of the political spectrum."

"Here in the United States, those who self-identify as religious tend to be exactly the opposite of their British counterparts when it comes to politics. As the Pew Research Center recently discovered, "Most people who agree with the religious right also support the Tea Party" and its ultra-conservative economic agenda. Summing up the situation, scholar Gregory Paul wrote in the Washington Post that many religious Christians in America simply ignore the Word and "proudly proclaim that the creator of the universe favors free wheeling, deregulated union busting, minimal taxes, especially for wealthy investors, and plutocrat-boosting capitalism as the ideal earthly scheme for his human creations."

"...Of course, many Americans who cite Christianity to justify their economic conservatism may not have actually read the Bible. In that sense, religion has become more of a superficial brand rather than a distinct catechism, and brands can be easily manipulated by self-serving partisans and demagogues. To know that is to read the Sermon on the Mount and then marvel at how anyone still justifies right-wing beliefs by invoking Jesus."

So that explains it.   We're led by a gang of unbelievers, apostates, heretics, the Damned.   They've perverted their proclaimed religion and what could be a more logical next step than to pervert our democracy and our political institutions?

The Fundamentalist Dominion of Canada

Another warning that our federal government is "beholden to a religious agenda averse to science and rational debate."

This time it's Andrew Nikiforuk writing in the latest Tyee.

Any Canadian listening to the news these days might well conclude that the Republican extremists or some associated evangelical group has occupied Ottawa. 

...transparency and full disclosure has become the issue of paramount importance. To date, Harper has refused to answer media questions about his beliefs or which groups inform them. If he answered media queries about his minority creed (and fewer than 10 per cent of Canadians would call themselves evangelicals) he'd have to admit that he openly sympathizes if not endorses what's known as "evangelical climate skepticism."  

No one knows this fossil fuel friendly ideology better than Dr. David Gushee, a distinguished professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University and a Holocaust scholar. The evangelical Christian is also one of the drafters of the 2006 Evangelical Climate Initiative. It declared climate change a serious threat to Creation that demands an ethical Christian response.

But that's not the wing of the evangelical movement that Harper listens to. Given his government's pointed attacks on environmentalists and science of any kind, Harper would seem to take his advice from the Cornwall Alliance, a coalition of right-wing scholars, economists and evangelicals. The Alliance questions mainstream science, doubts climate change, views environmentalist as a "native evil," champions fossil fuels and supports libertarian economics.

Nikiforuk reviews what have come to form the 7 tenets of evangelical climate skepticism described by Dr. David Gushee, professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University:

1. Disdain for the environmental movement
2. Distrust of mainstream science in general
3. Distrust of the mainstream media
4. Loyalty to the party
5. Libertarian economics as God's will (God is opposed to government regulation or taxation
6. Misunderstanding of divine sovereignty (God won't allow us to ruin creation)
7. Unreconstructed Dominion theology (God calls on humans to subdue and rule creation)

In the end of the interview, Gushee summarized the purpose of this new evangelical Republicanism: "God is sovereign over creation and therefore humans can do no permanent damage... God established government for limited purposes and government should not intervene much in the workings of a free market economy... The media is overplaying climate change worries... The environmental movement is secular/pagan and has always been a threat to American liberties...

Reading this article and other treatments of our Furious Leader's radical fundamentalist creed you have to wonder if Canada doesn't have its very own Jim Jones installed in 24 Sussex Drive.

Nikiforuk's piece is a timely and important warning to us all.  I strongly urge you to read it in its entirety.   If you missed the link about, you can access it here.

Radical Religious Conservatism Has Little Place for the Real World

I keep trying to believe the radical religious right isn't a threat but that isn't working.

A study just released by Baylor University goes a long way to explaining the twisted thinking of our exalted Ruler, Steve Harper.  It suggests that fundamentalists believe that Adam Smith's "hidden hand of the marketplace" is actually God's hand.   In other words, God has control of the economy, we don't need to worry about it.   Here are a few gems from the survey:

"In today's United States with high levels of unemployment ande vastly expanding wealth inequality, belief in God's plan sustains belief in the fairness of our economic system and our ability to eschew government assistance to stem the tide of our economic woes."

"Although strong belief in God's plan supports the American Dream, it also supports the contrary belief that personal economicd status is predetermined.   For these respondents, perhaps the idea is that the American Dream is possible for those who work hard and have ability, but only some people are meant to possess those qualities."

"Even though Americans who believe strongly in God's plan earn less and have less education, they are most likely to believe that the United States' economic system is fair without government intervention.  Specifically, Americans who believe strongly in God's plan are much more likely to believe:

-The government is intrusive
-Healthy people don't deserve unemployment benefits
-Anything is possible through hard work
-Success = Ability"

The Baylor study is full of twisted gems like that.

About one in five Americans combine a view of God as actively engaged in daily workings of the world with an economic conservative view that opposes government regulation and champions the free market as a matter of faith.   This is how Professor Froese explained it to USA Today.

"They say the invisible hand of the free market is really God at work," says sociologist Paul Froese, co-author of the Baylor Religion Survey, released today by Baylor University in Waco, Texas.

"They think the economy works because God wants it to work. It's a new religious economic idealism," with politicians "invoking God while chanting 'less government,'" he says.

"When Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann say 'God blesses us, God watches us, God helps us,' religious conservatives get the shorthand. They see 'government' as a profane object — a word that is used to signal working against God's plan for the United States. To argue against this is to argue with their religion."

Most (81%) political conservatives say there is one "ultimate truth in the world, and new economic information of cost-benefit analysis is not going to change their mind about how the economy should work," Froese says.

Does that sound familiar?   We don't need science or statistics to tackle issues such as global warming or crime and punishment.   That sciency stuff isn't going to change our minds when we have the Ultimate Truth on our side.

The Deadly Disease of Religious Fundamentalism, a Timely Warning

It's time we stopped treating religious fundamentalists - Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Hindu, whatever - as essentially benign and off limits under our democratic notions of freedom of religion.   Religious fundamentalism breeds violent extremism, terrorism.   It is imbued with characteristics and traits that both enable and encourage extremism.

Religious fundamentalism is not strictly religious, not at all.   It is also a social and political movement that seeks "imposative" reform.  It exists to impose a narrow religious, social and political order.   It is not interested in democracy.   It rejects tolerance and liberalism.  There are powerful reasons it takes root and flourishes in the far right.

I have been doing a fair bit of reading on religious fundamentalism and so it came as no surprise to learn of the handiwork of Anders Behring Breivik, a Christian fundamentalist.    It came as no surprise to read that a Christian fundamentalist had calmly butchered scores of innocents for nothing more than their peaceful beliefs.

You can learn more about creeping fundamentalism in books such as Phillips' American Theocracy, Bacevich's The New American Militarism, Hedges' American Fascists, McDonald's The Armageddon Factor, and many others.   However I think the best scholarly treatment of the causal link between radical religion and violent extremism is a paper by Douglass Pratt, Terrorism and Religious Fundamentalism:  Prospects for a Predictive Paradigm, 2006, published in the University of Marburg Journal of Religion which can be found, in PDF format, here.

At page 8, Pratt explores twelve key factors, common to all fundamentalist religions, that "...move a fundamentalist mindset from the quirky to the critical, from atavism to aggression,  from benign eccentricity to socially endangering activity."

Terrorism and Religious Fundamentalism is a genuine eye-opener and a must-read for any progressive.  It's only 15-pages in length and deserves to be read in its entirety.   Do yourself a favour and follow the link above.

In case the link isn't working, try this:  http://www.uni-marburg.de/fb03/ivk/mjr/pdfs/2006/articles/pratt2006.pdf

Is Israel Abandoning Democracy?

Israel is something of a pressure cooker waiting to explode. What it values most, its identity as a Jewish state, is under an existential, demographic threat. There are but two ways to relieve the dangerous pressure, neither of them acceptable in Western society.

Israel's problem is that, when it overran territories after its creation, it absorbed a large number of Palestinians who chose to tough it out and stay in their homes rather than flee. This is what we now know as the pre-1967 war Israel. Israel's Arab population, however, is growing much faster than Israel's Jewish population and is expected to become the majority in the near future.

If Israeli Arabs become a majority at the ballot box it won't fare well for the Jewish state. Israeli Arabs haven't always been treated very well by their Jewish masters. They're unreliable, potentially the undoing of what Israel is supposed to be. If Israel is to preserve the nation as a Jewish state it either must ethnically cleanse itself of the Arab population or it must impose some form of apartheid rule, designating its Arab people as a lower order of citizen with sharply reduced political rights. Either way, Israel loses its vaunted claim as the only real democracy in the Middle East. It also stands to lose a lot of what remains of its support in the West.

Like any pressure cooker situation, changes are occurring. One of these is a spreading state repression of dissent and protest among Jewish moderates, intellectuals and peace groups. Read more here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/30/israel-military

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/05/israel-protest-feminism-draft

Another ominous development appeared in reports during the Israeli war on Gaza of fundamentalist Rabbis in the Israeli military egging their troops on to cleanse the Holy Land of these pesky Arabs.

The spread of religious fundamentalism into military forces isn't limited to Israel. Christian fundamentalists are increasingly taking the levers of power within the American armed forces. Many of them see America's military as a weapon to advance their idea of God's will. Read this chilling account from Harper's, "Jesus killed Mohammed: The crusade for a Christian military":

http://harpers.org/archive/2009/05/0082488

It wasn't until I read the Harper's story that I discovered the Christian extremists within the US military go straight up to David Petraeus himself. I can't see how any good can possibly come of this.

Why Can't Holy Rollers Keep It In Their Pants?

America's religious nutjobs from Jimmy Swaggart to Jim Baker and many since have acquired a reputation for indulging in seamy pecadillos but this one may take the cake.

Ever heard of Cathedral of the Holy Spirit at Chapel Hill Harvester Church of Decatur, Georgia? No, I didn't think so. Until recently CHSCHHC was just another American megachurch, but now it's become so much more.

It all began when the church's now 80-year old "Archbishop", Earl (naturally) Paulk (I hope that's not pronounced "poke"), and CHSCHHC got sued by former church employee Mona Brewer, who says Earl Paulk manipulated her into an affair from 1989 to 2003 by telling her it was her only path to salvation. Earl Paulk admitted to the affair in front of the church last January.

After confessing to his parishoners about putting it to Mona, Earl swore that she was the only woman he'd ever slept with except for his good wife. Earl also said the same thing, under oath, in the course of a deposition in the lawsuit.

For reasons that are unclear, somehow the Cobb County District Attorney and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation got to investigating Earl's evidence and even got a judge to issue an order for paternity testing.

The subject to be tested? Why, Earl's nephew and the current head pastor of CHSCHHC, 34-year old D.E. Paulk. Even Maury Povich doesn't get anything this good. The results? You guessed it, D.E. isn't Earl's nephew. He's Earl's son. Seems Earl must've plumb forgot about banging his brother's wife way back when but, then again, wouldn't anyone?

By the way, D.E. stands for Donnie Earl. Maybe he'll start going by Earl Junior. He's pictured below in a moment of utter rapture.

Here by the way is the skinny on Donnie Earl from Atlanta's own, Creativeloafing.com:

Most in the congregation don't doubt that Donnie Earl Paulk has the Holy Spirit. He's heir to men who've had the Holy Spirit before him. This -- the plush office, the church academies, the television broadcast and the cathedral -- is his legacy, handed down from 10 generations of preachers and, ultimately, his uncle. Donnie Earl is a megachurch bishop in the making, a creation of the kingdom in which he was reared, and he's got all the right marks: the charismatic stage presence, the devotion of his followers, the eye for Versace suits and the heart for society's outcasts.

But there are other things about Donnie Earl that don't fit. And in the end, those qualities might make him more unimaginably successful than pastors before him. Donnie Earl is progressive where his predecessors were stodgy, young where they were old, hip where they were square. He aspires to host a spot on MTV, produce films, launch a record label and invite Lenny Kravitz to guest preach at his church. Once Donnie Earl takes over the south DeKalb kingdom of the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, with its multi-million-dollar operating budget and its 7,000 members, he plans to extend his reach into a secular entertainment empire.

Praise the Lord and pass the collection plate.