Jack Hunter, the racist former aide to both Ron and Rand Paul, now says he wasn't really a racist. He just played one on the radio. Dude's gotta make a living, you see. He claims too, that Ron Paul was shocked, shocked, to learn that the newsletters that were published under his name were filled with racist material for years and years.  Suffice to say, there is much self-serving, revisionist material in Hunter's Politico article, which comes at a time when Rand Paul is actively testing the waters for a presidential run, and Ron Paul is busy building his new career as, among other things a homeschooling text book entrepreneur.

But I want to highlight just one point out of Hunter's rich stew of attempted political redemption.  

It is no secret that Richard Doerflinger - and by extension, his former boss, until recently the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Cardinal Timothy Dolan -- have been building bridges to the farther reaches of movement conservatism. Doerflinger went so far as to exhort Tea Party Republicans to engage in their recent shutdown of the federal government.

A blog post by Lisa Webster co-editor of Religion Dispatches raises an interesting question. She wonders if The New York Times is dumbing down religion reporting. Webster will be writing a series about the debate on the point between Leon Wieseltier of The New Republic and anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann an op-ed contributor to the Times. I look forward to it.  Meanwhile, I was reminded of a one of Luhrmann's Times op-eds from the run-up to the election last year. My response, slightly revised, is reprised below.  This post was first published as Why Can't Secular Liberals be More Like Rick Santorum?  on May 28, 2012. -- FC

Why can't secular liberals be more like evangelicals? That 's the question posed by Stanford anthropologist T.M. Luhrmann in a 2012 op-ed in The New York Times.  She thinks that some evangelicals might find Democratic candidates more attractive if, well, they were more like evangelicals.  But her idea strikes me as the political equivalent of the immortal words of Professor Henry Higgins, in My Fair Lady, "Why can't a woman be more like a man?"  

Happily, Professor Higgins overcomes his perplexity before the show is over.  But bafflement over why another cannot be more like oneself, especially when it comes to politics and religion, continues to bedevil the American experiment in democracy and its most original feature - religious equality under the law and a culture of religious pluralism.  One tiresome trope that interferes with our national conversation on these matters is on vivid display in Professor Luhrmann's essay.

We may never know the full story of the marital infidelity of Doug Phillips, a San Antonio, Texas-based, theocratic homeschooling entrepreneur of national significance.  But one thing is clear: The ripple effects of his disgrace and the dissolution of his Vision Forum ministry will be felt for years to come.  This is because his worldview hinges on the absolute integrity of the marriage bond and in this way he sought to model a vision of contemporary Biblical patriarchy. But the model he has now offered to the world is what the late Calvinist theologian R.J. Rushdoony would have called "treason" against the God-ordained institution of the traditional family.  

It is not clear how closely Doug Phillips adheres to Rushdoony's notions of Biblical Law.  Suffice to say that Rushdoony and his followers assert that the laws of Old Testament Israel are applicable today -- and that adultery was a capital offense.  While not everyone in the Christian Reconstructionist orbit embraces the list of biblical capital offenses, and adultery is not a crime let alone a capital crime in the U.S., the gravity of this offense against Phillips's own view of the family is nevertheless profound.  

I originally posted this in March of this year. Since NBC has taken no action, no effort to disclose Weigel's neo-conservative background. Beyond that, he is clearly out of step with the with the new tone being set by Pope Francis. Hence, the piece bears repeating.

George Weigel, who has frequently appeared on the NBC Nightly News as a "Vatican analyst" in the run up to the Conclave of Cardinals that will select the next pope, has served as a  consultant on Catholic issues to NBC since 1999.  But what NBC does not tell us -- is that Weigel is no ordinary expert.  He is one of the leaders of today's Catholic Right.

I was glad to see that 60 Minutes admitted that their source for what happened during the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, Libya is not credible and retracted their story.   Perhaps uncoincidentally their source was the author of a memoir on the subject, The Embassy House: The Explosive Eyewitness Account of the Libyan Embassy Siege by the Soldier Who Was There,’’ published by Threshold Editions, an imprint of Simon and Schuster which in turn is owned by CBS. (60 Minutes failed to disclose this conflict of interest during the broadcast.)  The editor-in-chief of Threshold, which specializes in conservative and Republican books, is the former GOP strategist, Mary Matalin. Threshold authors include Glenn Beck, Herman Cain, Dick Cheney, Jerome Corsi, Sean Hannity, Stephen Moore and Karl Rove.   Simon and Schuster has recalled the book from stores and suspended publication in the wake of the scandal.  

This episode reminds me of another time when 60 Minutes got a story radically wrong, apparently relying on a conservative activist group as their primary source. The segment was part of the roll out of a new agency of the Religious Right in the Reagan era, the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD).

[update: I've been revisting the subject of the religious right and the birth of anti-environmentalism, and came across this essay I wrote back in 2007. I think it has held up well, and would add little except to mention this recent story of mine : A Majority of Americans 18-29 Years Old Now Believe in Demon Possession, Shows Survey - BruceW]

Last October [2006], I listened to United States Senator James Inhofe as he described, before an audience of perhaps one thousand people, his belief that Global Warming was a hoax foisted on Americans by a conspiracy to create a satanic one-world order....

In the end, faith in science is just that - faith. Have you ever seen a nuclear blast ? I haven't, so how do we know nuclear weapons exist ? We take that on faith in the same way we assume that there's a scientific reason our microwave ovens heat up our cups of coffee ; how do we know microwave ovens aren't driven by magic, from elaborate incantations laid on microwave ovens at the factory in which they are made ? How do we know there's a factory at all ?

Most of the coverage of Billy Graham's 95th birthday was headlined with the participation of Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, Rupert Murdoch, and Ricky Skaggs, and a reminder of the trajectory that Graham's ministry has taken since Franklin Graham took control. It was also a reminder of the diminishing ability of mainstream evangelicalism to ward off the wave of the charismatic and theatrical New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). Sarah Palin's role with the NAR has been covered in detail here at Talk2action.org since 2008, including the numerous prophecies about her vice presidential campaign. But it was an NAR event featuring Ricky Skaggs in 2007 (photo at right) that should have removed all doubt that something very different was taking place in evangelicalism. It featured Skaggs leading 300 men blowing rams' horns, in a video you must see to believe. (Video follows.)

I am republishing this post from 2006 because it provides some context for what might have been one of the most interesting and significant GOP primary contests of 2014. Christian Right activist David Barton was urged by broadcaster Glenn Beck and Texas Tea Party groups to challenge incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) for the GOP nomination in 2014. Barton said he was awaiting a word from the Lord. But apparently it never came. Barton's letter announcing his decision is posted on the Draft David Barton for Senate Facebook page. Even though he is not a candidate himself, he continues to play an active role in Christian Right voter mobilization. -- FC

"I am a positive voice for Vallejo and support Vallejo business expansion. I will find businesses to come to Vallejo! We are a "Destination" and great for tourism. I supported Solano 360 for the many jobs it can bring. Specifically, I'm currently engaging developers and county supervisors to bring a life size Noah's Ark project there" --- Solano County Democratic Party and local AFL/CIO-endorsed candidate for Vallejo City Council Anthony Summers, interview with the Vallejo Times Herald, October 29, 2013

"I was totally shocked when I met Mr. Summers yesterday at the Farmer's Market.  He stated that he was not behind the actual Solano 360 but wanted a "Noah's Ark" development at the Fairgrounds.  In addition, he wanted a "Nazareth scene" for the project.  I was appalled." -- Solano County Sierra Club member Joseph Feller, from the Vallejo Independent, November 3, 2013

In one of the more noteworthy and even historic developments in recent California Democratic Party political history, the Solano County branch of the Democratic Party and a local AFL-CIO have each endorsed a Vallejo pastor, currently running for Vallejo City Council, who a few days ago disclosed that he is negotiating with unnamed developers to bring a life-sized replica of Noah's Ark to Vallejo, California - an economically troubled city only a short commute by boat across the Bay from San Francisco.

Earlier this year, I published a report in The Public Eye about the historic convergence in the politics of the protestant evangelical Christian Right and the Roman Catholic Bishops.  This convergence, decades in the making, fully emerged in the publication of the 2009 manifesto, The Manhattan Declaration, in which more than 50 Catholic Bishops and such familiar Christian Right figures as Tony Perkins, James Dobson and Samuel Rodriguez expressed solidarity to the point of civil disobedience on three interrelated matters: life, marriage, and religious liberty. In that order.

Simon Brown, writing in the November 2013 issue of Church & State magazine, has picked-up on this theme. He observes that far from the Religious Right being dead (as has been so frequently declared by people who really ought to know better) is "alive and kicking" and epitomized by this regenerative alliance.  

Here are a few excerpts.

It's Halloween and time to recall apostle and demon-buster Kimberly Daniels' 2009 warning that "candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches."  The article, originally published in Charisma magazine, was so outrageous that it was scrubbed from Christian Broadcast Network's website due to complaints. But that, and her other demon-busting activities, didn't stop Daniels from being elected to the city council of Jacksonville Florida two years later - as a Democrat.  Charisma republished Daniel's article on the magazine's website on October 30 with the title "Why Celebrating Halloween is Dangerous," but this time with a caveat from the editors.