As we enter into the season of overheated and half-baked claims about the desacrilization of the Jewish and Christian holiday season, led by Bill "War on Christmas" O'Reilly -- it is worth offering one small bit of perspective.

The war on Christmas is said to be perpetrated by "secularists," of various sorts -- people who are in other contexts (and amidst many other rediculous and unsupported accusations) said to be driving people of faith from the public square.

Scapegoating of the secular is part of a transcendent politics of the Religious Right, and a variant of that old time McCarthism -- baiting everyone with whom they disagree as advocating a 'godless' agenda. From McCarthite screeds against "godless communism" to contemporary Coulterisms about "godless liberalism" there is a tradition of American conservatism that is as despicable as it is antithetical to the spirit of Christmas and to religious pluralism in our constitutional democracy.

Daily Kos: Diarist John Campanelli shows what's wrong with next-generation Religious Right leader Huck's take on gay rights.

Buzzflash:  Bill Berkowitz surfaces the deep background on Bush's latest director of Faith Based Inititiatives.

The Washington Post: The Family Research Council calls on Gov. Schwarzenegger to cease his "innappropriate post-election behavior."  

"(Schwarzenegger) has acted contrary to the rule of law and has helped foment an environment of lawlessness (one protest produced 15 arrests), intimidation, and racism. Condoning street protests and supporting judicial activist scams to overturn a popularly approved state constitutional amendment approaches advocacy of anarchy... Gov. Schwarzenegger is playing a dangerous game, and it needs to stop. Now."

Associated Press:  

"...few are writing obituaries this week for the Christian right, which has been wrongly considered dead after setbacks like the demise of the Moral Majority and crumbling of the Christian Coalition.

White evangelicals remain a large, loyal and organized Republican voting bloc that delivered Tuesday for John McCain but could not offset the battery of factors working against Republicans in 2008.

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Robert Jeffress, pastor of historic First Baptist Church in Dallas, delivered a recent sermon on the state of the country.  He entitled the message, "America is a Christian Nation".  In his sermon he frequently quoted fellow Texan David Barton.  Barton, who advocates that separation of church and state is a myth, is having a huge influence in the state rubbing shoulders with Governor Perry and frequenting religious right gatherings.

Just over a year ago, Sgt. Brian Kresge of the website Jews in Green had nothing but praise for Mikey Weinstein, founder and president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF). Kresge even made a point of noting, in the introduction to an interview he had done with Weinstein, "He speaks in the easy manner of a seasoned grunt, and it's not affectation, it's genuine affection for the service members he seeks to serve now" and "If his statements come across as vituperative or pugilistic, one only has to look at what is at stake to understand why." Kresge also expressed his admiration for the generations of military service of Weinstein and his family, writing, "Weinstein's motivations are absolutely genuine. He's a man who clearly loves the Constitution and this country. His family has over 128 years of combined service in the armed forces. He is a graduate of the Air Force Academy."

Some right-wing members of the clergy are getting upset over the election of Barack Obama. I mean really getting upset.

The story about the Roman Catholic priest in Greenville, S.C., who told parishioners that if they voted for Obama they could not receive communion has been all over the Web. (He has since been reined in by his superiors.) Less reported is a story from California about an Obama-bashing priest who stands accused of assaulting a reporter.

Daily Kos:  A diarist discusses how black conservatives will be trotted out to attack Barack Obama on behalf of the GOP. Included is a remarkable profile of culture warrior of the Religious Right, Rev. Eugene Rivers of Boston. Another diarist reports on the Religious Right-generated inquisitional prosecution of Kansas abortion provider George Tiller. Turns out that a key member of the state's prosecution team has been arrested a dozen times during clinic protests. This is what government by Religious Right looks like.

Perrspectives: John Perr reminds us how Huck the Avuncular is an old fashioned Culture Warior:  

While Huckabee during the 2008 primaries claimed to be a "uniter" ("We've got to be the united people of the United States"), in 1998 he was anything but. Written the wake of a Jonesboro, Arkansas school shooting, Huckabee laid virtually of all of America's ills at the feet of everyone - and everything - he hates:

"Despite all our prosperity, pomp, and power, the vaunted American experiment in liberty seems to be disintegrating before our very eyes."

"Abortion, environmentalism, AIDS, pornography, drug abuse, and homosexual activism have fragmented and polarized our communities."

"It is now difficult to keep track of the vast array of publicly endorsed and institutionally supported aberrations - from homosexuality and pedophilia to sadomasochism and necrophilia."

Of course, Mike Huckabee's extremism hardly ends there... Huckabee called for the quarantine of AIDS victims, advocated a faith-based U.S. Constitution, predicted victory over Islam at the End of Times, declared wives should graciously submit to their husbands, credited God for his rise in the polls, undermined the teaching of evolution, offered faith-based pardons for prisoners, called on Americans to be "soldiers for Christ" in "God's army," equated homosexuality with bestiality, and so much more that the chattering classes reviewing Do the Right Thing will conveniently forget.

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In October, Russell Michaels, host of the London-based television series CinePolitics, contacted Natalie Zimmerman (the writer/producer of SILHOUETTE CITY) about focusing an episode on our film.

Here's the result (it aired on Nov. 12):

[NOTE: If the above video doesn't display properly in your browser, use this alternate link]

One never has to look far to illustrate the way the the so-called culture wars remain at the center of our political life, and are likely to remain so for the forseeable future.

There is an excellent post over at Daily Kos today that illuminates the once dark secrets of the Missouri governor's office.  Among the revelations emerging from the release of  thousands of emails is the way that Republican Governer Roy Blunt's chief of staff coordinated -- on the taxpayer's time and the taxpayers dime -- with Catholic leaders and religious right anti-abortion groups to attack Democratic Attorney General Jay Nixon (now governor elect) who was Blunt's likely Democratic challenger.

Time reports that Mike Huckabee has a book coming out - and it looks as though the fiasco of Pastor John Hagee's endorsement of McCain still has some legs to it, as Huckabee questions the spiritual intregrity of Christian Right leaders who backed rival Republican candidates:

Many conservative Christian leaders, who never backed Huckabee despite their holding very similar stances on social issues, are spared neither the rod nor the lash. Huckabee writes of Gary Bauer, the conservative Christian leader and former presidential candidate, as having an "ever-changing reason to deny me his support."

...He calls out Pat Robertson, the Virginia-based televangelist, and Dr. Bob Jones III, chancellor of Bob Jones University in South Carolina, for endorsing Rudy Giuliani and Romney, respectively. He also has words for the Texas-based Rev. John Hagee, who endorsed the more moderate John McCain in the primaries, as someone who was drawn to the eventual Republican nominee because of the lure of power. Huckabee speaks to Hagee by phone before the McCain endorsement, while the former Arkansas Governor is preparing for a spot on Saturday Night Live. "I asked if he had prayed about this and believed this was what the Lord wanted him to do," Huckabee writes of his conversation with Hagee. "I didn't get a straight answer.

For some reason, there is a sudden flurry of interest on American websites in Stojan Adasevic, the Serbian former abortionist who became a pro-life advocate some years ago. Adasevic explains that he had a change of heart following a series of strange experiences, beginning when he was a student:

Stojan Adasevic will never forget the day he was organizing the filing cabinet in the doctors' room. He was a medical student at the time... A number of gynecologists entered the room. Paying no attention to the student crouched over a pile of papers in the corner, they began swapping stories about their medical practice...As the gynecologists went on discussing [one] woman's history, Stojan, who had been listening in, suddenly stiffened. He realized that the woman under discussion -- a former dentist at the nearby clinic -- was his mother.

There followed dream encounters with Thomas Aquinas. Now an Orthodox Christian, Adasevic sees reproductive rights as a conspiracy:

the feminists' agenda did not really seek to free women from the hands of illegal abortionist, but rather, their aim was to assist the biologic destruction of Christians. When the enemies of Serbian people could not manage to destroy us by other means, they decided to do it by biologic means...they don't fight at all to free women from the hands of illegal abortionists, but, in fact, they fight for the biologic destruction of Orthodox and especially Serbian people. (1)

The Catholic Right, Part Seventy-two
In the wake of the passage of California's Proposition 8, I was left wondering how such a forward-thinking state could simultaneously help propel an African-American to the White House while denying gay people the dignity of marriage equality. I was also left wondering about the misplaced priorities of a vocal and increasingly belligerent faction of the hierarchy, and how that faction and its allies are adversely affecting both American Catholicism and the greater society.

WorldNetDaily introduces a new book by Hilmar Von Campe, aged ex-Hitler Youth member turned evangelical speaker and author:

Because it has abandoned moral absolutes and its historic Christian faith, the U.S. is moving closer to a Nazi-style totalitarianism, warns a former German member of the Hitler Youth in a new book.

"Every day brings this nation closer to a Nazi-style totalitarian abyss," writes Hilmar von Campe, now a U.S. citizen, and author of "Defeating the Totalitarian Lie: A Former Hitler Youth Warns America."

Von Campe sniffs out Nazism everywhere: Obama? "I would classify him as a nonbeliever who pretends to be a Christian, similar to the National Socialist 'German Christians' who used the Christian language to promote their Nazi ideology." The ACLU? " I think the ACLU is distributing Nazi philosophy." Elian Gonzalez? "The Miami raid reminds me of the time when the discrimination of the Jews started in Nazi Germany". The ill-considered disruption of a minuteman lecture at Columbia university? "Hitler had storm troopers who would shut up the opposition. And, that is what these people were trying to do, the same thing." Muslims? Take a guess...

After posting a Short Takes item about liberal Catholic writer E.J. Dionne's call to capitulation on reproductive rights, I went on to develop it into a more detailed discussion over at Daily Kos.  But that discussion also belongs here.

Various Beltway Insiders and Professional Pundits are saying that president elect Obama should not undo the various anti-abortion executive orders issued by the Bush administration. They say doing this would avoid pissing off prolifers and show that he is governing from the middle and that it will make it easier for Congress to move his anti-poverty agenda.

It is a seductive argument, but I believe it is also wrong and if Obama falls for it -- will be correctly viewed as an error of historic proportions -- not only politically, but in terms of the human costs of continuing horrific policies of the Bush administration.

Mother Jones features a photo essay of students from Patrick Henry College -- which was founded by Religious Right leader Michael Farris as higher ed for the homeschooled.

Street Prophets: Pastordan fingers a Hierowanker.

Washington Post:  E.J. Dionne, like other confused Washington Insiders, argues that the best way for Obama to find common ground on abortion is to capitulate to the demands of religious right anti-abortion activists.  Dionne says he should not betray his prolife supporters -- and betray his pro-choice supporters instead. Dionne says Obama should govern as the "cultural moderate he promised to be. He should not lose his chance to make cultural warfare a quaint relic of the past." Apparently Dionne did not read the major news accounts of the Catholic Bishops meeting in Baltimore where fresh antiabortion attacks on Obama and Dionne-endorsed common grounders were launched -- with the promise of more to come.

Associated Press:

BALTIMORE - The nation's Roman Catholic bishops vowed Tuesday to forcefully confront the Obama administration over its support for abortion rights, saying the church and religious freedom could be under attack in the new presidential administration.

In an impassioned discussion on Catholics in public life, several bishops said they would accept no compromise on abortion policy. Many condemned Catholics who had argued it was morally acceptable to back President-elect Obama because he pledged to reduce abortion rates.

And several prelates promised to call out Catholic policy makers on their failures to follow church teaching. Bishop Joseph Martino of Scranton, Pa., singled out Vice President-elect Biden, a Catholic, Scranton native who supports abortion rights.

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The interview I taped with Welton Gaddy today will air on his Air America radio program State of Belief on dozens of stations and the XM satalite radio network this weekend. Day and times vary. Information on how to listen, including times for web casts, can be found here. The occasion was to talk about my new book, Dispatches from the Religious Left:  The Future of Faith and Politics in America, but naturally, as people who have been deeply involved in these subjects for many years do -- we dived into all of the inter-related subjects with gusto.

[image, right: Sarah Palin with naked pancakes on head, by celebrated pancake painter Dan Lacey]

Try a Google search on "Sarah Palin, naked". You'll get over 2 million results, probably more than you could check out during the course of the rest of your life. Now, try a search on "Sarah Palin, theocrat": less than 200,000 hits. That proves what you probably already would have guessed: sexual titillation sells better than political extremism, even when that extremism is of a brand which asserts that the "godly" should seize the wealth of the "godless". The fact that a video in the public realm showed, endorsing Sarah Palin, a prominent leader of a movement advocating a form of theocratic socialism whose adherents were told to seize the wealth of unbelievers was, apparently, not at all noteworthy.

Political junkies continue to pore over the results from last week's election. One question that has been on many minds is to what extent Barack Obama's religious outreach was successful.

The Los Angeles Times has already pronounced the effort a success. "Religious voters helped propel Obama to victory," blared a Nov. 9 headline.

Church & State: American's United Drops a dime on the electioneering of Religious Right churches.  Former Southern Baptist honcho Wiley Drake once again called for imprecatory prayers against AU staff.

Mainstream Baptist: Bruce Prescott surfaces the Sunday sermon of a major Southern Baptist preacher who gets his history from Christian nationalist propagandist David Barton.

Street Prophets: Pastordan finds a terrific debunking of the Conventional Wisdom about the Religious Right and abortion.

State of Belief: I have it on excellent authority that I will be interviewed on Welton Gaddy's show on Air America... soon.

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I honestly believe that Obama's victory offers America not only economic hope, but also hope for changing, for the better, how we talk to one another. To that end, here is a repost of a piece I originally put up in June 2007.

It is my belief that by changing the overall tone to one that is more civil, we stand a better chance of getting our message through to the everyday citizen.

Violations of IRS regulations prohibiting 501(c)3 tax-exempt organizations from endorsing candidates and attempting to influence the political process were rampant in this year's election. These violations, however, are likely to be forgotten now that the election is over, and I, for one, am determined not to let this happen. So, over the next few weeks, I'll be writing about some of the worst offenders, and doing what I can to ensure that these lawbreakers are held accountable for their actions. Topping the list is a ministry that, as Senior Research Director for the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), I've been watching for months -- Revival Fires Ministries.

Back in July, the Muslim World League held a global interfaith dialogue meeting in Madrid. Among those present was former speaker of the Philippine House of Representatives, Congressman Jose de Venecia Jr, who has long-standing links to Reverend Moon. According to the Arab News, Venecia

presented a draft resolution calling on the conference to petition King Abdullah, King Juan Carlos of Spain and Spanish Premier Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to organize a joint Saudi-Spanish request to the UN for an Interfaith Council to promote and oversee "all global, regional and local interfaith dialogues among the great religions, civilizations, cultures, governments... to help resolve politico-religious, sectarian and ethnic conflicts and tensions in various parts of the world."

That hasn't quite happened yet, but the Madrid meeting has led directly to a November 11-13 Saudi-sponsored "Culture of Peace" conference at the UN. This is something which Venecia has also advocated.

The interesting thing about a new fund raising letter from Focus on The Family Action Senior Vice President Tom Minnery isn't necessarily its absurd suggestion that the night of the 2008 presidential election for Focus on The Family staffers watching election returns come in was somehow comparable to living in London "in the most desperate days of World War II - when Great Britain was being pounded daily by Hitler's Luftwaffe."

Now, many political independents and even some Republicans too voted for Barack Obama, and so those voters were, by Tom Minnery's suggestion, akin to Nazis. But many evangelical Christians voted for Obama too, and by Tom Minnery's reasoning those voters, as they filled in ballots with their black magic markets, were like Nazi Luftwaffe pilots dropping 500 pound bombs on London neighborhoods. "Together and with God's help, we can turn these "sterner days" into great days in the history of America!", the fund raising letter concludes. [hat tip to smintheus at unbossed.com]

In the aftermath of Barack Obama's substantial victory over John McCain in the 2008 US Presidential Election Obama's supporters are justifiably aglow and proud of their efforts, the Democratic Party's management of the election and the strength and sophistication of the Obama campaign's ground game. But amidst it all was a peculiar, systemic failure in the election that might seem minor in context of the Democratic Party's triumphal return to the White House and its consolidated control of both branches of Congress. Sarah Palin's religious beliefs and associations should have provoked a national scandal given the possibility that remained, even as of yesterday, that Palin might become, as a vice president, a heartbeat away from the United States presidency.

The lack of scandal is itself scandalous.

Below, in a new 10 minute documentary video, I examine, in the context of its heavily anti-Semitic undertone, the New Apostolic Reformation's recently launched program encouraging and equipping Christians to begin taking control of business and finance: "The Seven Mountains Mandate" (or "7M Mandate").