The old guard is wondering if `the younger generation will heed the call' while the young Turks have other things on their minds besides abortion and same-sex marriage

These days, you can hardly stumble out of your doorway to pick up your daily newspaper, open a news magazine or log on to the Internet without encountering news of a meeting, conference, or book signing party, and a spate of articles with the theme "Whither the Religious Right?" or to put it more bluntly, "Is the Religious Right Dead?"

While an engaging debate for political junkies, we'll know that the subject has reached the kitchen tables of America when a copy of Real Simple or Sports Illustrated arrives in my mailbox featuring a cover stories with headlines like "From Woodstock to Ted Haggard: Twenty-Five Ways to Clean Up a Really Big Mess," or "Has the Religious Right Been on Steroids for the Past Two Decades?"

Until that happens, this debate over the Religious Right's status visa via this mortal coil will remain "inside baseball."

Fred Clarkson, a veteran journalist, co-founder of Talk2Action, and the author of the 1997 book "Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy" - one of the earliest, and still essential, books on the movement -- observed recently that "It seems that every few weeks someone who ought to know better announces that the religious right is dead, dying, or irrelevant."  

At Street Prophets, Pastordan colorfully noted that "a lot of the people writing about it would rather put roses on its grave than send a get-well card."

Billing himself as a "former terrorist" and a "peace activist", Walid Shoebat, who has described Islam as a "satanic cult", has over the past several years toured Europe and America painting Islam as a religion bent on violent conquest and intent on the killing of Christians and Jews and, bearing that message, Shoebat has appeared on an astonishing range of mainstream media forums. According to Shoebat's website, he has made four appearances on CNN and twelve on Fox, and Shoebat's full list of appearances on radio, TV and personal speaking appearances is extensive. Among those, Walid Shoebat has been a regular at Texas Megachurch Pastor, Christians United For Israel founder John Hagee's "A Night To Honor Israel" events, was at CUFI's July 2007 Washington conference and is currently scheduled to appear this summer at CUFI 2008 along with US Senator Joseph Lieberman. Hagee has also produced an extended video interview in which he queries Shoebat about his alleged terrorist background. But a March 30 investigative report from The Jerusalem Post casts considerable doubt on the veracity of Shoebat's account of his alleged 'terrorist' background and indicates Walid Shoebat may even be guilty of fraud. Shoebat, along with two other self-designated "ex-terrorists" (now born-again Christians), was paid $13,000 dollars, some of it USAF Academy money, to appear on a panel at a United States Air Force Academy conference on terrorism which, according to the organizers of the event, would be packaged into a report to be delivered to members of the US Congress.

The Kampala Monitor reports:

Dr [Rick] Warren said that homosexuality is not a natural way of life and thus not a human right. "We shall not tolerate this aspect at all," Dr Warren said.

Warren was speaking in support of Ugandan Anglicans who intend to boycott the forthcoming Lambeth Conference, and this harsh rejection of tolerance for gays and lesbians may have serious consequences in a country where homosexuals face harrassment and and the threat of imprisonment.

President's brother flaks for Moon organization in Latin America while his curriculum on wheels is being investigated by the Education Department's inspector general  

Over the past several years, Neil Bush, the younger brother of President George W. Bush and the son of former President George H.W. Bush, has made several international trips of behalf of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's assorted enterprises. In late February, Bush called on Paraguay's president while in the country as a guest of a business federation founded by the Rev. Moon.  

A source in the Paraguayan president's office, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that Neil had met with President Nicanor Duarte "along with a delegation from the Universal Peace Federation," a group associated with Moon. According to its website, the UPF "is a global alliance of individuals and organizations dedicated to building a world of peace, a world in which everyone can live in freedom, harmony, cooperation, and co-prosperity for all."

Meanwhile, back home, late last year, a number of news reports confirmed that the U.S. Department of Education's Inspector General was looking into "allegations that federal money is being spent inappropriately on technology sold to schools" by Ignite!Learning, a company founded by Neil Bush.    

note: video may be slow to load but it's well worth the wait. For selected, bizarre footage of Moon at Washington dinner party, 1997, see inside

Part of my job involves reading Religious Right fund-raising mail and newsletters. It's like stepping into some Bizarro World where up is down, black is white, and truth is determined not by factual evidence but by whatever the Maximum Leader says.

The Family Research Council's Washington Watch is a good example of this. It's always entertaining.

My choice for the title of the book I just read is the "Unsatisifed Womb".  This is one of the sub titles found on pg. 111 in the work . The actual title is BE FURITFUL AND MULTIPLY, by Nancy Campbell.  Vision Forum in San Antonio, Texas published the book in 2003.  It is on its fourth printing.  Doug Phillips wrote the forward to the book reminding the reader that the first commandment in the Bible is to be fruitful and multiply. pg. 7  Doug stated that the sin of Onan in the Bible was that of failing to impregnate his brother's widow.  This was a capital offense.  Doug states that God is against people who refuse to do what is their own nature, that is to reproduce. pg. 9  Phillips says that the influnce of evolutionism and eugenics has caused Christians to embrace the notion of child prevention.  The church, Doug says, has been swept up in this evil self deceiving vision of birth control. pg.s 10-11.

Several days I ago I received a bulk email from Charisma magazine, featuring a message from its publisher, Stephen Strang. Strang - one of Time magazine's "25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America" -  has worked tirelessly to assimilate the neo-Pentecostal movement into the wider Christian right, with supernatural interpretations of current affairs that turn critics of George W. Bush into enemies of God. As he explains in the email:

I believe prayer and spiritual warfare brought about shifts in prior political campaigns--such as the narrow win in Florida for George W. Bush during the recount in 2000. Prayer was also responsible for the installation of certain Supreme Court justices when their appointments appeared to be politically unlikely.

The main focus of his email, however, is to endorse a message from God supposedly revealed to neo-Pentecostal leader Chuck Pierce during a night-time trip to the toilet - a message which declares that next two months will be "the most rearranging, realigning months that we have ever known in the history of this generation".

In 2001, a young man in Michigan named Joseph R. Hanas was arrested for possession of marijuana. He pleaded guilty and was told he could avoid prison by entering a drug rehabilitation program.

The program Hanas ended up in is called Inner City Christian Outreach. It is sponsored by a Pentecostal church. Hanas is Catholic, and upon his arrival at the program, his rosary and prayer book were confiscated. He was told Catholicism is a form of witchcraft and that he would not be allowed to see a priest.

After seven years both Democratic presidential candidates express support for and reservations about Republican religious patronage system

With the days of his administration numbered, President George W. Bush is working to shore up what was intended to be the centerpiece of his domestic policy agenda, his faith-based initiative.

However, unlike the much ballyhooed event that launched the program in January 2001, its seventh anniversary passed relatively quietly. On January 28, during his final State of the Union address, Bush urged Congress to permanently institutionalize the faith-based initiative. A day later, at the "Jericho" prisoner reentry program in Baltimore, Maryland, Bush said that when he came into office in January 2001, many "religious and community groups were providing effective assistance to people in need," but the federal government was not helping these groups do their work.

Now, through his faith-based initiative, the government is.

Washington, D.C.-based tax-exempt "non-partisan" Republican think tank celebrating three-plus decades of saying no to government and yes to privatization, deregulation, wars, intervention and 'traditional family values'

In November, President Bush told a Heritage Foundation audience that while he only had 14 months left in his presidency he was going to be "sprinting to the finish line." Bush complained about the Senate being slow to confirm Michael Mukasey for attorney general, urged Congress to make the Protect America Act permanent, and blasted "MoveOn.org bloggers" and "Code Pink protesters."

He wrapped up his speech by saying that he believed a president of the United States will come to the Heritage Foundation 50 years from now and say "Thank God that generation that wrote the first chapter in the 21st century understood the power of freedom to bring the peace we want."

Will he host a television talk show or head a movement; will he be a vice presidential candidate or this generation's Jerry Falwell, albeit way more funny

Now that his presidential run is over, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee ought to be wary of taking too much time off. After all, if "Idleness is the root of mischief" - a maxim traced back to Chaucer's 1386 "Tale of Melibee" -- or to put it more colloquially, "Idle hands are the devil's workshop," then Huckabee best get busy getting busy.

As Ripley might say, Believe it or not, the man has a barrel full of options.

If at first glance Huckabee doesn't strike you as the future of talk teevee or as the head of conservative Christian evangelicals, take another look. From out of a pack of uninspiring Republican Party presidential candidates Huckabee, practically single-handed livened up a god-awful GOP primary season with self deprecating humor, quirky quips, country-boy charm, and a batch of old time rock and roll guitar riffs.  

Not to mention a belief system that pre-dates Chaucer!

All-in-all, Huckabee's had a rather spectacular fifteen minutes. Why shouldn't he want -- or expect -- more?