Illustrating The Joys Of Theocracy

All of the talk lately about the religious preferences of the presidential candidates or their lack of them has me concerned for the direction of the current campaign and the fact that religion has any place in this discussion at all.

Yesterday, while drinking my second cup of coffee and mentally preparing for the second week of moving to a new residence, a letter to the editor of USA Today caught my attention.

One Harold Burnett of Palmdale, California seems to have gotten his evangelical shorts in a wad over an op-ed piece titled "What is a 'real' Christian?" written by Dan Gilgoff in USA Today on May 21. Mr Burnett writes:

I agree with Focus on the Family's founder James Dobson, who seems to believe that a Christian should be the GOP presidential nominee ("What is a 'real' Christian?" On Religion, The Forum, May 21).

If for no other reason, a Christian would balance the power of the left, the atheists and those waging open war against many conservatives.

But where is this real Christian who is willing to run for president? The fact that Mr. Dobson is not considering it illustrates the problem Christians in this country face. It seems there is a perception that real Christians don't get involved in politics. Though we are willing to support someone who meets our conservative criteria, we are not willing to be him.

Could it be that many professing Christians are not real Christians and are afraid of being exposed as hypocrites? It seems to me that a religious conservative is the best we can hope for this time around.

Perhaps, due to my past exposure to various "Christian" denominations, and various experiences with other religious groups, sects, cults, klaverns, whatever, I no longer claim a religious affiliation of any kind and hope to quietly live out my days as far from religious authority, zealotry, bigotry and lunacy as possible.

I think that it was Einstein who said, "If God did not exist, man would have to invent him" or something along those lines.

The Christian Reconstructionist movement has long been one of the driving forces of the contemporary religious right. I reported on this in a study published in The Public Eye in 1994, and expanded on my reporting and analysis in my 1997 book Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy.

Since then the signficance and influence of the overtly theocratic Reconstructionist movement has come to be more widely recognized.

Some of the best reporting in recent years has been done by journalist John Sugg. He has a report out on AlterNet on a major Reconstructionist conference just held in Georgia.

I will feature some highlights on the flip.

IN case you haven't seen this appalling story, here it is. This needs to be confronted. Here's the short version :

After looking over various treatments of this emerging scandal, I've decided I like Richard Bartholomew's best : see Bartholomew's Notes On Religion. The only details I'd add to Richard's account [Talk To Action version], below, are these : two families seem to have fled the Indian River Delaware school district amidst alleged death threats and threats of violence [one family has remained anonymous] : the Dobrich family has sold its home in the town and completely relocated to another area. Further, the Stop The ACLU Coalition also has been doing significant work in the recent campaign accusing the New York Times and the Washington Post of treason, and that, besides being "pleased" by the Indian River outcome, Stop The ACLU is no doubt pleased with its new radio show.

Below is Richard Bartholomew's summary of this story - now on the Daily Kos, Crooks and Liars, Jesus' General, Bartholomew's Notes on Religion, Talk To Action, Jews On First, and Atrios ( at least ). But what will all the outrage stirred up accomplish ? I've proposed a simple plan to undercut support for the "Stop The ACLU Coalition" : the The Shaming Project

Amidst all the hoo ha over the slam dunk decision of federal District Court Judge John E. Jones against presenting intelligent design as science in the Dover, Pennsylvania public schools, it is easy to miss the point. The Dover decision was not only one battle in the struggle over the teaching of creationism and its variants in the schools, but one battle in the much larger and historic war of the worldviews. Even after most of the rest of society moves on, the religious right will never be over Dover.

This essay seeks to explain why.

Every once in awhile, I am going to pop-up with a sampler of some of the more interesting posts at Talk to Action. It's the only place in the world where you can come to learn and talk about the religious right and what to do about it: and only that. As narrow as that may sound, we cover a lot of ground.  

Some of this stuff is not for the uninitiated in thinking and discussing the religious right. The three writers I mention below are worth taking the time to understand, and to consider in formulating your views about the politics of the future.