On Saturday, I received a letter from my old acquaintance Ralph Reed.

Reed, you might recall, ran TV preacher Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition throughout the 1990s. After leaving the group, he started a political consulting firm that became mired in the Jack Abramoff casino lobbying scandal. He also tried unsuccessfully to launch a political career and even wrote some political potboilers.

In the summer of 2011 several journalists and bloggers wrote about the obvious dominionist views, history and involvements of several major Republican politicians -- notably Religious Right favorite, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas.  Dominionism (generally the idea that Christians of the correct sort, should dominate all aspects of society, including in politics and government) has been the main ideological engine of the Christian Right for decades, and continues to be more the case rather than less.  We should not have been surprised when the journalists and bloggers who had been writing about these things were the subject of a high profile smear campaign -- some of us by name, others of us by implication.

This profoundly animating, theocratic ideology cuts both ways for the Religious Right and aligned politicians. Dominionism has benefited the movement -- which aspires at once to religious transcendence, cultural control and political power.  But it is also controversial, even within evangelicalism, and rightly concerns people who believe in such basic civic values as respect for constitutional democracy, religious pluralism and separation of church and state -- not to mention reproductive rights and LGTB civil rights.

I mention this because denial about dominionism -- which in its way is as preposterous and pernicious as denial about climate change -- and the accompanying smear campaign, may very well repeat itself.  Major Republican figures like Rick Perry and Gov. Sam Brownback (R-KS), each have significant dominionist entanglements that may very well work both for and against them going into 2016. And they are probably not the only ones.  

Since Pope Benedict announced his resignation  only one of the potential successors  (Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi) offers hope for a more moderate papacy. So while conservatives are unlikely to be disappointed, prominent American Catholic neo-con Michael Novak is rooting for Cardinal Timothy Dolan of the Archdiocese of New York.  Indeed, if Novak's one man dream team were to ascend to the Chair of Saint Peter, neo-conservatives like Novak would have the ability influence world events beyond their wildest dreams.  

Religious Right groups spend a lot of time beating on church-state separation. TV preacher Pat Robertson once called that constitutional principle "a lie of the left" and said it comes from the old Soviet Constitution.

Not to be outdone, Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association asserted that Adolf Hitler invented church-state separation.

Dinesh D'Souza  put together the documentary 2016, which is about President Obama's vision for America.  D'Souza, president of King's College in New York City, has a history of bashing the current President.  Dinesh's conclusions provide a belief system for Religious Right operatives.  This work reminds me of the movie, The Clinton Chronicles, which made its way around the nation.  Southern Baptist's Richard Land was honoring an East Texan at the time who was encouraging churches to show this video for Sunday Night church services.

This post seems as relevant today as it was when I first posted on May 6, 2008. -- FC

Jill Lepore has a wise and erudite article in The New Yorker about four recent books about the Founding Fathers and their approach to religion and government.  All four books debunk Christian nationalism, and Lepore takes a whack at a little historical revisionism from Tim LaHaye along the way herself.  But most importantly, Lepore has a useful and illuminating take on the tricks history plays on us, as various of us attempt to press characters from history to score contemporary points.

Remember Rick Warren? This mega-church pastor (whom I once referred to as "Jerry Falwell in a Hawaiian shirt" during a cable news interview) has been working hard to make himself a national figure, with mixed results.

Back in 2008, Warren, who leads Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., and authored the best-selling book The Purpose Driven Life, hosted a forum during which he interviewed presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain on their views on how religion and public policy ought to interact. Warren was subsequently invited to offer a prayer during Obama's first inauguration and promptly alienated lots of Americans by including references to Jesus.

Even the slickest practitioners of PR sometimes slip-up -- and reveal a dark side of their client.  Consider the case of Christian Right leader Rev. Samuel Rodriguez.  

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has been in the news for  calling on Republicans to "stop being the stupid party."  Paradoxically, the young governor may embody the stupidity he wants his party to get over.

Its Evolution Weekend -- the eighth annual discussion and reflection on the relationship between religion and science held in hundreds of churches and other houses of worship around the country and the world. Organizers say "that those claiming that people must choose between religion and science are creating a false dichotomy."  

The Religious Right has succeeded in dominating public discourse on the intersection of science and religion for a long time now. Among many other things, seesaw battles have been waged in many states over the teaching of creationism or intelligent design; and faith based "abstinence" programs as against thoughtful, comprehensive sexuality education.

But beyond the courtroom and legislative theatrics, and conflict-driven media coverage, mainstream science and religion have been getting organized. Those who posit that religion and science are inherently in conflict are two sides of the same counter productive framing of the argument. Most Americans understand, believe and accept that faith and science are not necessarily in conflict. Those who support religious pluralism and sound science and science education are natural allies against the religious supremacism, Christian nationalism and crackpot science of the Religious Right.

In addition to celebrating the remarkable efforts of Evolution Weekend, it is worth recalling two thoughtful approaches to the compatibility of religion and science were coincidentally published in 2008.

One of the obstacles to effective reporting, scholarship, and political conversation about the Religious Right, is the Manichean false framing of the religious vs. the secular when it comes to matters of separation of church and state, and such issues as LGTB and reproductive rights.  This most often takes the form of pitting conservative Christianity vs. non-religion, or even anti-religion. Of course, the framing fails, whether it is used by conservative Christian or non-religious partisans, because most people are neither one of those. And while there are times when such dualism is a useful kind of discussion, it is too often applied to situations where it is not only grossly inadequate, but a distortion of the matters at hand that make honest discussion and evaluation of the facts difficult if not impossible.

That's why I was glad to see MSNBC feature a discussion of abortion and religion with a prochoice minister on the staff of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. It is notable in part because it is so rare, and underscores the cramped and frequently distorted nature of our national conversation.  

I continue to be amazed that in the year 2013 our nation continues to grapple with the issue of access to contraceptives, a matter most advanced nations laid to rest long ago.

On Friday, the Obama administration made another attempt to address the concerns of conservative religious employers who say they don't want to provide birth control for employees. Once again, it's not going well.