Welcome to Fifty Shades of Grey week in America. With the controversial movie - based on the mega-bestselling novel of E.L. James -- set for release on February 12 at 8 p.m., in time for Valentines Weekend, several Christian Right organizations are putting on one last burst of boycott. And Deborah Hamilton, of Hamilton Strategies, is knocking out press releases like Barry Bonds hitting home runs after using PEDs.

According to the Washington Posts Cecilia Kang, pre-release "ticket sales" for the R rated film are "booming - particularly in the South." Kang recently reported that the movie's ticket sales "accounted for 60 percent of all Fandango ticket sales this week and has become the highest-grossing R-rated movie in prerelease sales on the movie ticket Web site." The top ten states for pre-release sales are Mississippi, Arkansas, West Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama, Louisiana, North Dakota, South Carolina, Iowa and Tennessee. As of this writing (Monday, February 9) the trailer has been viewed more than 50 million times on YouTube.

During the one and only debate between Republican candidate Ronald Reagan and President Jimmy Carter in the presidential campaign of 1980, Carter went off on Reagan about his record on Medicare. With one superbly delivered line - "There you go again" - Reagan disarmed and deflated Carter, and pretty much won the debate; all the while forever etching a phrase into the political lexicon.

Instead of Reagan's "There you go again," one couldn't help but think "There they go again," while reading reports that the conservative Roman Catholic archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone, is demanding that his archdiocese's Catholic High School teachers adhere to Catholic doctrine in their professional and private lives. Across the Bay, Bishop Michael Barber, who plowed similar ground last year -- to great consternation amongst faculty, staff and parents -- issued a new contract with a little bit of kinder, gentler language.

Right on cue, the right wing is in high dudgeon over comments President Barack Obama made during last week's National Prayer Breakfast that are supposedly anti-Christian and offensive.

The president was pointing out that the terror and bloodshed of groups like ISIS is hardly unique from an historical perspective.

Why should you be interested in the ongoing prattling of the Rev. Franklin Graham? Let me count the ways: 1) He's the son of Billy Graham, the world-renowned evangelist, and that gives him access to a multitude of media platforms; 2) He desperately wants to inherit his father's unofficial title of "America's Pastor"; and, 3) He is considered a highly respected player in the world of conservative Christian evangelicalism.

Graham is also a mean-spirited Christian nationalist, and one of the most consistent voices arguing that Christians in this country are being persecuted, victimized and "excluded from the public square." And, over the past few years, he has carved out a well-deserved reputation as one of the United States' leading religious-based Islamophobes.

Instead of inheriting his father's mantle, Franklin Graham seems to be on the road to occupying the space left by the death of Topeka's anti-gay madman, Fred Phelps.

With Jeb Bush is in full presidential exploration mode, Mitt Romney keeping us all on the edge of our seats about whether he'll toss his hat into the ring yet again, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie taking it on the chin for being a Dallas Cowboy/Jerry Jones fan-boy while awaiting more Bridge-gate investigations to unfold, Dr. Ben Carson patenting the crazy, Ted Cruz being  ... well ... Ted Cruz, Rand Paul being ... well ... Rand Paul, how is Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas Governor and former Fox News Channel talk show host, going to get any play?

The answer is simple: Excoriate President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama for their bad parenting choices in allowing their daughters to listen to the music of Beyoncé, which in Huckabee's new book titled "God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy," he calls "obnoxious and toxic mental poison."

Ever wonder what makes a city bible-minded? According to an annual list put together by the American Bible Society (ABS) and the Barna Group (a Christian-based polling outfit), a Bible-minded city is made up of "Individuals who report reading the Bible in a typical week and who strongly assert the Bible is accurate in the principles it teaches are considered to be Bible-minded."

The list of the most, and the least, bible-minded cities, is based on interviews with over 60,000 people from across the country.

So, which cities topped the list & which cities bottomed out and remain biblically-challenged?

I can't be absolutely certain, but I'm pretty sure that Pope Francis is not walking around with Mao's Red Book stuffed into an inside pocket of his papal robes, or that he's starting a study group for Das Capital. Nevertheless, with the release of a new book titled "Pope Francis: This Economy Kills," the Pope's critics are sure to ratchet up their labeling of him with the "C" word (Communist), and the "M" word (Marxist).

The Christian Post headlined its recent story about the new report: "Communist or Christian? Pope Francis Defends Vatican Report Titled 'This Economy Kills' in Criticism of Global Financial System."

A prominent Christian right radio broadcaster has claimed that the terrorist attacks in Paris was an example of God's use of "idolators" to punish the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, for mocking Christianity. The perpetrators of the murderous attacks on the magazine, and a Jewish grocery store, stated that they were out to avenge the mocking of Muhammad by Charlie Hebdo. While both were at least partially correct in their assessments of the work of the cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo, and while they are not two peas from the same pod, their stated beliefs does make for a strange confluence of religiosity.  

It may be surprising to learn that America's twenty-first century "War on Christmas" - spearheaded by Fox News' Bill O'Reilly and the ultra-conservative American Family Association -- has as its antecedents the anti-Semitic ravings of industrialist Henry Ford, the right-wing conspiracy mongering of the John Birch Society, and the anti-immigration blustering of Peter Brimelow.

For the past few years, Americans United has been sparring on and off with a former Navy chaplain named Gordon James Klingenschmitt.

Klingenschmitt first came to our attention when he insisted that he had a right to pray in Jesus' name at official events, even though his superiors had urged him to use more inclusive invocations.

The "War on Christmas" is becoming as American as police shootings of unarmed Black men, drones striking weddings in Afghanistan and the revolving door at the Defense Department. While Fox News' Bill O'Reilly and the American Family Association may be some of the 21st century's chief promulgators of the "War on Christmas," interestingly enough, it was the far-right John Birch Society that followed in the footsteps of Henry Ford, who, Daniel Denvir wrote in Politico last year, "was an avid proponent of the idea that someone - or more precisely, some group - was waging a war on Christmas."

Over the years, you may have become familiar with Jews for Jesus, the organization that was founded more than forty years ago, and focuses on converting Jews to Christianity. It is less likely, however, that you're acquainted with Messianic Jews, who, although relatively small in numbers, are establishing relationships with Christian Zionists and have the potential to become a more influential political force.