Twin brothers Jason and David Benham, the sons of anti-abortion zealot Flip Benham, were slated to host a new reality program this fall on HGTV called "Flip It Forward." After a batch of their homophobic, anti-choice and anti-Muslim statements came to light, the network decided to drop the show.

However, there's no need to cry for the Benham twins as they are rapidly ascending the evangelical conservative Christian martyrdom ladder, recently occupied by Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson and Chick-fil-A's Dan Cathy.

Unlike the National Football League, which took a small but significant step forward towards inclusiveness with the drafting of the openly (and proudly) gay Michael Sam, several Archdioceses around the country are taking giant leaps backwards.

Last September, Pope Francis made what many considered to be an extraordinary statement when in an interview "he criticized the church for putting dogma before love, and for prioritizing moral doctrines over serving the poor and marginalized," The New York Times reported. Throughout his first year, Francis has clearly been concerned with expanded the church, not further contracting its membership.

It appears, however, that Archdioceses in Cincinnati, Ohio, Oakland, California, and the state of Hawaii have either not gotten the message or are being just plain ornery. Those districts are demanding that their teachers at Catholic schools pledge fealty to Catholic doctrine in their actions inside and outside the workplace.

This is the latest in an anthology of Talk to Action posts examining Neo-Confederates and exposing their sometimes theocratic agendas.

Four Democratic candidates have filed papers with Maryland's Anne Arundel County Board of Elections, to campaign and raise contributions jointly as the Democrats for 33 slate, and to call out their Neo-Confederate opponent who is running as a Democrat.

In the course of his long career Pastor John Hagee has been chasing the end of times, beating a muscular pro-Israeli drum, establishing the world's largest pro-Israel organization, and accumulating extraordinary wealth. Now, with Blood Moons rising, his End Times war chest is bubbling over.

Before your head explodes at the thought of yet another story about an End Times-inflamed preacher, consider this. Not only does Pastor Hagee preside over the mega-church, Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, but he also heads a multi-million-dollar media empire. Not only is he a powerful political player within the Republican Party, but he has established significant political connections in Israel. The faithful have lapped up many of the more than 30 books he has written, including: "Earth's Final Moments," "From Daniel to Doomsday: The Countdown Has Begun," "Can America Survive?: 10 Prophetic Signs That We Are The Terminal Generation" and "Jerusalem Countdown," which was made into a not-very-well-received movie. I think you get the general themes of Hagee's oeuvre!

Perhaps his most significant accomplishment, however, came in 2006, when Hagee founded what is now the largest pro-Israel religious-based lobbying group in the world, the 1.3 million member Christians United for Israel (CUFI).

Everyone has probably experienced a Honey Maid graham cracker sometime in their lifetime. Last month, Nabisco, the company that makes Honey Maid Graham Crackers, as well as Oreos, Chips Ahoy, Nilla Wafers and an assortment of other well-known cookies and crackers, came up with an extraordinary family-positive/gay-positive advertisement. And "traditional values" conservatives went, well ... crackers.

Ironically, at the end of the day, the graham cracker dust-up may in fact benefit both the folks at Nabisco, and its chief critics, the American Family Association's One Million Moms.

If you don't think religion-themed films are trending, consider this: As of this past weekend, Noah, now in it's second week in theaters, has brought in more than $72 million at the box office; God's Not Dead, more than $32 million in three weeks, and Son of God, more than $58 million in its sixth week in theaters.

Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins are no dummies. And neither is Paul Lalonde. They understand that the first attempts at turning LaHaye and Jenkins' mega-best-selling Left Behind series of apocalyptic novels into a film franchise fell flat. Although three Left Behind films were made, there was little interest -- except amongst the most enthusiastic End Timers -- little buzz generated within the filmmaking community, and not much doing at the box office.

Now, in the spirit of "pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again," LaHaye, Jenkins and Lalonde have garnered a multi-million dollar budget, and plucked a box-office legend for the lead role, and are poised to take full advantage of the latest flood of religion-themed films.

If you've been waiting for someone to link the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 to The Rapture, thanks to the Reverend Billy Graham's daughter, your wait is over. According to Anne Graham Lotz, the disappearance of the Boeing 777 over the Indian Ocean could be a sign that The Rapture might be around the corner.

Ms. Graham Lotz's Malaysia Airlines theorizing, coupled with her brother Franklin's recent declaration of support for the way Russia's Valadimir Putin is dealing with gays in his country, makes one think that March Madness extends far beyond the nation's premier basketball tournament.

Reports out of Topeka, Kansas, has it that the Rev. Fred Waldron Phelps Sr., is in hospice care near death in a Kansas hospital. I first encountered the Rev. Phelps when I was visiting friends in Kansas in the early 1990s and found out that an old friend, who had died of AIDS in California, was being brought home to Kansas for burial. The family was so concerned that the Phelps Family would find out about her death and picket the funeral that they decided not to publicize details about where and when she would be buried. At the time, Phelps, relatively unknown nationally, was clearly having a huge impact locally.

As of March 3, the Rapture Index ("The prophetic speedometer of end-time activity") stood at 188, tying the record high recorded on February 18, 2013. According to raptureready.com, when the Index hits above 160, it's time to "Fasten your seat belts."

"Wherever we Americans look, the threat of apocalypse stares back at us," Ira Chernus, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder and author of Apocalypse Management: Eisenhower and the Discourse of National Insecurity, recently wrote at tomdispatch.com. "Nuclear extermination and environmental extinction" are grave threats, but they are "crowded out ... by a host of new perils also labeled `apocalyptic': mounting federal debt, the government's plan to take away our guns, corporate control of the Internet, the Comcast-Time Warner mergerocalypse, Beijing's pollution airpocalypse, the American snowpocalypse, not to speak of earthquakes and plagues."

While off the charts apocalyptic scenarios abound and may smell of gloom and doom, they are a Godsend for Christian filmmaker Timothy Chey, making it the perfect time to publicize his recent film, "Final: The Rapture."

"I've seen most of the films about Jesus produced in the past 50 years, and "Son of God" is the best. -- Pastor Rick Warren

Ten years ago, Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" brought in $600 million at the box office. This week, "Son of God," another Christ-centered film, is coming to a Cineplex near you.

It may not garner the massive box office receipts of Gibson's "The Passion," but several high profile evangelical pastors and Catholic Church officials are doing their darnedest to see that "Son of God" becomes the next super-successful Christian flick.

Finely tuned advance work is key to drumming up buzz, both for a film's premiere and its opening weekend, as that first weekend often determines a film's box-office success or failure.

Jamie Coots, a third-generation snake-handling Pentecostal preacher, has handled his last snake. Coots, one of the stars of  "Snake Salvation," a reality show on the National Geographic Channel (http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/snake-salvation/), died Saturday night after being bitten by one of his serpents, and then refusing medical treatment.

According to Christianity Today, "Emergency workers tried to convince the minister's family to let them take him to the hospital, but his wife and son refused."

"He always said, 'Don't take me to the doctor,'" his son Cody Coots told the Herald-Leader. "It was totally against his religion."

Now that Harold Camping, the failed End Times prognosticator, has left this mortal coil, it is up to other conservative Christian evangelicals to carry on the outrageous. And carrying on the outrageous appears to be one of Pastor Robert Jeffress' major talents, albeit doing it in a much more affable way than many of his comrades.

Jeffress has a new book in which he claims that President Barack Obama is paving the way for the Antichrist.

According to the Christian Post's Melissa Barnhart, Jeffress' book, "Perfect Ending: Why Your Eternal Future Matters Today," also "answers people's most pressing questions about heaven and what the end times will look like to Christians and those who do not believe in Jesus Christ."