Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Clark at DefCon has a short report with links to two Washington Post articles on the "War Against Christians" conference in Washington.

I think the response of the Rev. Robert M. Franklin, a minister in the Church of God in Christ and professor of social ethics at Emory University, to the convention and its tone is right on mark:

"This is a skirmish over religious pluralism, and the inclination to see it as a war against Christianity strikes me as a spoiled-brat response by Christians who have always enjoyed the privileges of a majority position."

Jeremy Leaming, at Wall of Separation has a post on the conference as well, also based on the Washington Post clips.

For two days at a hotel ballroom in Washington D.C., a couple hundred Religious Right activists gathered to yet again bemoan American politics and popular culture and their place in it.
The adage that the country is going "to hell in a hand-basket" was literally and figuratively employed throughout the conference, dubbed "The War On Christians and The Values Voter in 2006." The event was pulled together by Vision America, a Religious Right outfit headed by Texas preacher Rick Scarborough.

As The Washington Post's Alan Cooperman reported  the "War on Christmas" has morphed into a "War on Christians"... The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United [for Separation of Church and State's] executive director, told Cox News Service, ""This 'war' is nothing real. The fact is, Christians in America are a cultural majority, and they are an extremely powerful group. But what you have here are second-tier preachers who are hoping to hit the big time, desperately hoping for a national spotlight...."

Pastordan and Jeffrey Feldman have discussions of the conference and the Christian Right's "Persecution Complex" at Street Prophets. For a different take, see Carlos' post, Rediculously Backward Christians?, at Talk to Action.)

DefCon has also has launched a series of monthly on line "book club" events available on streaming audio over the internet. The kick-off speaker was Esther Kaplan, who blogs at Talk to Action.

Listen to her interview with Clark and emailed questions from participants. It's an exceptionally good conversation. Highly recommended.

On March 24th, author and advisory board member Esther Kaplan joined DefCon for the first in our series of DefCon Book Club chats. Esther is the author of "With God on Their Side: How Christian Fundamentalists Trampled Science, Policy, and Democracy in George W. Bush's White House."

According to Amy Goodman: "'With God on Their Side' provides frightening detail on the depth of power wielded by openly bigoted evangelical extremists, and the real impacts they have had on policies from abortion rights to medical research to the basic separation of church and state. Classic muckraking at its best."