Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

But Joan goes on to nail the disingenuousness of many conservative evangelical leaders when it comes to the theocratic intentions, or implications of thier movement:  

October 28, 2005, NBC aired "In God they trust -- NBC's Tom Brokaw goes inside the world of Christian Evangelicals." Brokaw interviews Ted Haggard, President of the National Association of Evangelicals representing some 45,000 churches. Haggard makes a claim I've heard often: "We're not talking about theocracy."

Here's the interview with Brokaw's very subtle, ironic response.

Ted Haggard: Well, I think all of us have a responsibility to advance God's will through government.  But we are in a pluralistic society. We're not talking about theocracy.  We're not talking about some group of religious leaders dictating to the government how to write law.  I'm not a power broker. I don't call presidents. I don't harangue the White House.

Brokaw: You don't have to call him. He calls you.

Haggard: I'll be talking to the White House in another three and a half hours.

At the end of the program, Haggard repeats his claim that he does not want a theocracy.

Haggard: There's no one that's leading the mega-church movement or involved in the mega-church movement that is in favor of a theocracy. None of us are for that. We're all defenders of freedom and liberty for all.

Joan thinks maybe Haggard

hadn't heard the Reverend Rod Parsley tell his congregation at the World Harvest Church, located just outside Columbus, Ohio:

"Americans must be "Christocrats" -- citizens of both their country and the Kingdom of God -- And that is not a democracy; that is a theocracy. That means God is in control, and you are not. more." In fact Rod Parsley, who has preached at Ted Haggard's New Life Church in Colorado Springs, is unusually candid. Leaders of the Christian Right shy away from the word "theocracy" for good reason. It's a loaded term associated with repressive political regimes such as the Taliban or the Islamic Republic of Iran. It's hard to imagine that well-meaning leaders of the Christian Right could be leading the United States down a path to a Christian fundamentalist theocracy.

Joan has the goods on other Christian Right leaders who say they don't want a theocracy, but ya know, really, they kinda do.

This is important stuff for many reasons. One is framing. Are we really going to allow a theocratic movement and its leaders to claim they are not theocrats?  Are we going to allow them to claim that they are the avatars of the true intentions of the framers of the U.S. Constitution?

I'll stop there and let it sink in. Read Joan's whole piece. And think about it. When is a theocrat not a theocrat?And how can you tell?