Another of the goals of the Christian Coalition reads as follows:

Passing Congressman Walter Jones' "Houses of Worship Free Speech Restoration Act," H.R. 235. HR 235 was introduced to liberate clergy from the muzzle imposed by the absolute ban on all speech that may be regarded as "political," and thereby enable them to speak out on all vital and moral [emphasis mine] and political questions of the day. It will free houses of worship from the fear and anxiety and uncertainty created by the threat that the IRS will impose financial penalties or revoke tax-exempt status altogether.

This act is a double edged sword- it is meant to permit pastors to promote political candidates, but it is also meant to permit speech that, to many, may also provide further cover for religious leaders on the Christian right who engage in hate speech under the guise of 'moral questions'.

Religion is under attack.

Let me be more precise: moderate and progressive religious voices and traditions are under attack from a strident, right-leaning, theocratic minority that has found a way to spin vitriol into virtue.

Believing the ends justify their means, they harbor fantasies about an end that -frightening in its scope - is not unwilling to leave anything in its wake. Well funded, strategically adroit, politically connected, and evangelically zealous the radical right has sunk its teeth into moderate and progressive institutions and ideologies with no intent to let go until all enemies have been vanquished, and Jesus himself can return in all his glory.

"Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got til it's gone?" sang Joni Mitchell in her song, Big Yellow Taxi.

Talk to Action is about defending and advancing those things we hold to be important in our society -- before the religious right and their allies errode them away. And that includes the key allied institutions that make many of those things possible. The National Council of Churches and it's member denominations have been at or near the forefront of every major social reform for a century. The African-American civil rights movement and women's rights, for example, would not have advanced so far, so fast -- if very much at all -- without them.  But those churches have been under sustained assault by reactionary elements for two decades.

At Talk to Action, we have a few things to say about that.

A couple years ago, Bobby Welch, then president of the Southern Baptist Convention, wrote a book for Christian "Holy Warriors" entitled, You, The Warrior Leader.  The cover displayed a soldier in camouflage and highlighted medals that could be won for valor in battle.

Baptist Press admitted that Welch and Broadman-Holman Press (the SBC's Press) were trying to "capitalize" on the country's spiritual interest in time of war.

The weekend Wall Street Journal ran an excellent front page story profiling Wheaton College assistant professor Joshua Hochschild, who was fired from his job after he converted to Catholicism. At question was Wheaton's requirement that all full-time faculty sign a statement of belief in "biblical doctrine that is consonant with evangelical Christianity," including biblical inerrancy, belief in Satan, and more. In a truly troublesome trend, such statements of faith have become more and more common, from institutions of higher education to professional associations to social service providers. As the Journal reports, some 400 U.S. colleges consider an applicant's religion during the hiring process. Evangelical Christian colleges, in particular, are in the midst of a hiring boom, with faculty growing by more than a third since 1991--and each of those new jobs is set aside for the like of mind.

[ By Andrew J. Weaver and Fred W. Kandeler ] Sixty Minutes executive producer Don Hewitt appeared on the December 2, 2002, edition of Larry King Live (CNN) and was asked whether he regretted any shows that he had done in his 36-year career. Hewitt named only one, the 1983 60 Minutes double segment on the National Council of Churches and World Council of Churches. Hewitt told King that;

"We once took off on the National Council of Churches as being left wing and radical and a lot of nonsense. And the next morning I got a congratulatory phone call from every redneck bishop in America and I thought, oh, my God, we must have done something wrong last night, and I think we probably did."

The broadcast on CBS's 60 Minutes entitled "The Gospel According to Whom" began with Roman Catholic priest, Richard John Neuhaus, saying, "I am worried - I am outraged when the church lies to its own people." The camera moved from an offering plate in a United Methodist church in the Midwest to images of the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and then to marchers in Communist Red Square. The lengthy segment over and over suggested that the National Council of Churches (NCC) was using Sunday offerings to promote Marxist revolution.    

My introduction to Christian Reconstructionism came in 1986, when Reconstructionist leader Gary North interviewed Paul Pressler for one of his "Fireside Chats."  At the time, North's name was foreign to me, but Pressler's was familiar.  Paul Pressler was the architect of the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention.

[To hear a 3.45 minute podcast (mp3 file) of North and Pressler discussing Pressler's background and experience , click here and give it time to download]

Before North interviewed Pressler, SBC fundamentalists had long denied that their movement was an organized political effort to take over the Convention.  Such denials were no longer possible once Pressler had spoken publicly about the success of their strategy.

As I listened to North's interview of Pressler, I began to worry about the goals and intentions of the person who suggested that Pressler's strategy to takeover the SBC could be a model for how "conservatives" could take over other organizations.