Recently in Religious Right Category

"But a more apt etymology would involve the “camel’s nose under the tent.” The “overture” — the missionary’s initial bonding with Muslims via discussion of the Koran — is precision-engineered to undermine their allegiance to Islam.

"These missionaries start out by noting that the Koran depicts Jesus and his mother, Mary, in a favorable light. Indeed, they point out, the Koran depicts Jesus as a great prophet and a miracle worker who can even raise the dead. In contrast, the Koran doesn’t show Muhammad himself doing that sort of thing. Hmmm … kind of makes you wonder who the top prophet is, doesn’t it?

"In some cases even the “camel’s nose” image doesn’t do justice to missionary wiliness. “Trojan Camel” might be better; some Christian missionaries call themselves Muslims — or at least muslims — because, after all, “muslim” literally means one who surrenders to God. A few have gone way undercover, growing beards and abstaining from pork.

A fundamentalist pastor, Vincent Fields, was invited to give the opening-day invocation before the New Jersey Senate on December 14.

But instead of giving a standard nondenominational blessing he belched forth invective about lawmakers who would dare to show support for same-sex marriage: "We curse the spirit that would come to bring about same-sex marriage. We ask you to just look over this place today, cause them to be shaken in their very heart in uprightness, Lord, to do what is right before you."

Fields said that he did not intend to speak of “gay-marriage” in his invocation.  Initially he started out praying for wisdom and understanding for the lawmakers.  Then, he says, “The Holy Spirit took over, and I had to pray what he said.”  Fields’ wife said to him afterwards, “You were being nice and tiptoeing and all of a sudden, Boom!”

Fields’ invocation caused quite a stir around the Senate.  Invocations are not supposed to be political or divisive according to Senate President Richard Codey.

Codey said that Fields had overstepped boundaries in his invocation and would not be invited back to offer an invocation in the future.

The right-wing Christian Post, whose motto is (interestingly and somewhat ironically) “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32) jumps to Fields’ defense by comparing him to a long line of ‘godly ministers’ extending all the way back to John the Baptist and the Hebrew prophets.

In his article, Mark Creech draws a connection between Fields and historic religious leaders who ‘made a cultural and religious impact’ by improving the plight of women and slaves, protecting defenseless children and providing humane treatment for prisoners and the poor (early Christian martyrs); by opposing indentured servitude, slavery, prisoner abuse and inequity in healthcare and education (John Wesley); and by working to raise the age of consent for women (William Booth).

Well, knock me down! The mean spirited attempts by Fields, Creech and co. to block equal civil protections for GLBT families seems a far cry from the progressive political engagement they claim as their supposed spiritual heritage. If they are the spiritual heirs of Wesley then I'm Barbara Streisand's love-child. Liberal mainstream Christianity, not the religious right, is the heir to the progressive spiritual tradition of the early evangelicals. Where do you see conservative evangelicals working today for universal healthcare, prison reform or women's rights?

Gay-obsessed right-wing activist Peter LaBarbera also jumped in with lavish praise for Fields. (You know you have arrived at a very special place indeed when you have LaBarbera's support.)

Many of us are intimidated against speaking out on God’s behalf, but the “gay” lobby is quite willing to fill the void — “preaching” at us with its slick but morally bankrupt message that “being gay” is naturally “who they are,” and demonizing Christians as “haters.” They can redefine words all they want, but homosexual behavior will always be wrong, and “gay pride” is direct rebellion against God.

In New Jersey, it’s easy to despair as homosexual activists claim yet another court-assisted victory, and all we have for inspiration is Rev. Fields’ Holy Spirit-led prayer. But the faithful pastor actually points the way back for our nation. Secular studies and catchy sound-bites will not bring a return of God’s blessing, but spiritual revival and repentance will — by bringing about godly humility and a desire to obey His moral laws, and creating a newfound wonder at His marvelous creation, including marriage and the family.

There he goes, pointing out the speck of pride in another’s eye while ignoring the veritable lumberyard in his own. And all in the name of ‘godly humility’.

Thus we bask in the self-congratulatory glow of a right wing media that mistakenly equates ignorance and discrimination with godliness and arrogance with humility.

Apocalypse now. Just in time for the holidays. Take your pick of the following:

• Mel Gibson's latest movie, where America's conquered are fodder for Gibson's latest historically inaccurate depiction of evil,
• Left Behind: Eternal Forces, a so-called 'Christian' video game where you engage in apocalyptic warfare and win points by converting or killing atheists, Catholics, Muslims and Jews, or
• This report on where Western civilization is heading under the enlightened ethical leadership of Chairman Bush and co.
  

There's no place like Rome, toto...

I'd heard plenty of stories about Ratzinger being gay. I once had an interesting discussion with a (former) Catholic theologian on the very subject. But I didn't know Papa wore pretty red shoes from Prada.

Hat tips to Pam Spaulding and my friend Brenda.

It’s always tempting to characterize religious leaders like James Dobson and Pat Robertson as wingnuts, mere fruitcakes who aren’t meant to be taken seriously. To do so would not only be dangerous but would ignore the facts that (a) millions take their every word quite seriously and (b) they have a lot of influence in the corridors of power, much of it behind the scenes.

They don’t care if their opponents mock them. For them it is par for the course to be ridiculed repeatedly in the public square by ‘Godless liberals’. This is a sign of their supposed righteousness and the justice of their cause. And it removes the need to engage in serious dialogue with their opponents based on empirical evidence and established standards of truth telling.

In Religion Gone Bad, Soulforce founder Mel White makes a strong argument that powerful religious right leaders are not at all stupid. They know that a lot of what they say (about homosexuals, for instance) is utter crap and flies in the face of accepted truth. They keep on saying it regardless because their word makes it true for their countless followers. Telling lies in the name of Jesus galvanizes the troops and greases the fundraising coffers.

The latest such example is Dobson's shameless attack on Mary Cheney and Heather Po in the December 18 issue of TIME Magazine. In an article entitled 'Two Mommies Is One Too Many', Dobson makes the blatantly false claim (which he must know to be a complete sham) that “the majority of more than 30 years of social-science evidence indicates that children do best on every measure of well-being when raised by their married mother and father.” He goes on to say that same-sex parent families are “another untested and far-reaching social experiment”.

The social science evidence, far from corroborating Dobson’s views, completely disproves them. Years of research data have overwhelmingly demonstrated that the gender of parents has no bearing whatsoever on the developmental wellbeing of children.

Soulforce is mounting a petition drive to ask TIME Magazine to check Dobson’s facts on gay and lesbian parenthood. They quote Dr. Christopher Martell, President of the Society for the Psychological Study of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Issues at the American Psychological Association (APA):

Over and again the data show that a loving and safe home environment is important, not the gender of the parents. The mainstream research is so clear on this matter that the American Psychological Association's resolution on Sexual Orientation, Parents, and Children, which was adopted by the APA Council of Representatives in July, 2004, states: "the APA supports the protection of parent-child relationships through the legalization of joint adoptions and second parent adoptions of children being reared by same-sex couples."

The American Psychological Association, one of the world's largest mental health organizations, would not have supported the protection of legalized adoption by gay and lesbian parents if the data had suggested that children were at risk in such households.

TIME Magazine should require that contributors such as Dobson refrain from making misleading statements, or they should contextualize such statements by printing them alongside evidence from credible, peer reviewed research.

Sign the petition here.

An article concerning the religious right by Alexander Zaitchik on AlterNet got me thinking about biblical literacy. And about the religious right’s ongoing efforts to substitute a form of studied ignorance variously referred to as ‘absolute values’ or a ‘Christian worldview’ in place of a genuine program of biblical literacy.

Zaitchik points to the growing acknowledgment among luminaries of the right concerning the ‘systemic crisis’ of ‘functional Biblical illiteracy among the flock.’ He quotes recent research by the evangelical polling outfit, the Barna Group:

In August of 2005, Barna reported that less than ten percent of born-again Christians held what he termed a "Biblical worldview." Based on his survey, very few grasped the nuances of scripture or believed in "Absolute Truth" any more than their secular counterparts; the "Body of Christ" had been infected with the virus of relativism, a wasting disease.

"Although most people own a Bible and know some of its content," reported Barna, "our research found that most [professed evangelicals] have little idea how to integrate core biblical principles to form a unified and meaningful response to the challenges and opportunities of life."

This is not particularly startling, in that it confirms my own experiences as a youth in various evangelical and pentecostal churches, as well as my current experience in a liberal church. Not a lot of people actually read the Bible in any depth, let alone study it or develop an ability to engage in critical conversation about its contents.

The latter ability is what I would define as genuine biblical literacy. Knowledge of proof texts and so-called ‘biblical values’ (i.e. dogma) does not, in my mind, constitute literacy, any more than the ability to memorize multiplication tables or recite prime numbers constitutes numeracy.

Of course, conservative Christian leaders mostly want their flock to be fluent in carefully prescribed ‘values’ and ‘worldview’, dogmatic assertions which are taken by faith (and by aid of proof-texting) to rest on a ‘biblical’ foundation. Anything that suggests the use of critical method or non-circular hermeneutics is seriously frowned upon. The vast majority of evangelicals don’t know their Bible largely because they’re brought up to read it not as sacred literature but as a source of proof texts and magical formulas for spiritual success. Little wonder ignorance abounds.

I think another reason for the lack of interest is that under such dogmatic oversight, faith becomes largely cultural for so many people. In an environment where every question is already decided, where the Bible is the source of all authoritative dogma and not a living conversation with and about God, really reading the Bible becomes a chore, like high school poetry.

Hear the air of desperation in the following comments by James Dobson, who has now invented a Bible ‘boot camp’ to try to anchor conservative Christians into a more dogmatic approach to their faith:

"Only by understanding the immutable truth claims of Christ," says Dobson in The Truth Project's promotional video, can Christians successfully defend against the "postmodern worldview" in which "God does not exist," "the family is defined as any circle of love," and "homosexuality is the moral equivalent of heterosexuality."

"If we capture and embrace more of God's worldview and trust it with unwavering faith," says Dobson, "then we begin to ... form the appropriate responses to questions on abortion, same-sex marriage, cloning, stem-cell research and even media choices." But the real prize is bigger than any one issue. By fully embracing Truth, religious conservatives can "recapture Western Civilization," which they "invented but have lost."

Hmm… God doesn’t have a ‘worldview’, Dr Dobson. It’s just your view of the world superimposed upon God.

A lot of ink has been spilled over the story of Ted Haggard’s resignation amid revelations of sexual impropriety.

There is much chatter about abuse of power, the vulnerability of religious leaders in general, whether mega-church ministries set themselves up to fall in such spectacular ways, what are the warning signs, and so on. The center of gravity for these speculations is The Haggard Story, a supposedly sordid drama of lust and betrayal played out in four acts: Act I ‘The Pedestal’, Act II ‘The Scandal’, Act III ‘The Fall’ and in closing, Act IV ‘The Recovery’.

Liberal magazine The Christian Century covers the story in its November 28 issue with an editorial and accompanying news piece that more or less follow this boilerplate. The ‘scandal’ is framed as a fall from grace, a turn toward ‘sexual or chemical addictions’ accompanied by power-fueled hypocrisy.

But why is it that Haggard’s sexual liaisons with a male prostitute are framed in this manner? Forget for a moment that this is how Haggard himself and his charismatic cohorts have characterized it. Why should we view his situation as a personal ‘fall’ rather than as emblematic of a greater struggle going on within the church today – the struggle for equality, acceptance and ministry for all GLBT Christians?

Forget for a moment the sordid hype. Isn’t the real scandal here the way in which Haggard, even now, is still unable to come to terms with his sexual identity and accept himself as a beloved child of God, just as he is? That such a respected and surely learned man of God, who must have ministered grace to thousands of others, can not find within himself that same free gift of grace?

It’s a scandal that un-biblical sex-negative dogma has such a sway over much of the church that even liberal journals like The Christian Century can’t call a spade a spade. The lies that forced Ted Haggard to live a double life and pushed him toward dangerous and self destructive activity are the same lies that threaten the sanity, safety and wellbeing of millions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people every single day.

The real scandal is that people are still forced to live this way in the twenty first century. The same lies are pushing Ted Haggard and thousands of others into so-called reparative therapy, which itself is a Great Lie and serves only to deepen the scandal and worsen the pain.

What we need is a non-scandalous response to a scandalous situation. Gay spiritual leaders have, as far as I can tell, reached out to Ted with grace and sincerity.

The Colorado Springs Gazette quoted Rev. Nori Rost, MCC clergy and founder of spiritual justice advocacy group Just Spirit, as saying “I feel a lot of sympathy for Ted. Having been a pastor, you live in a fishbowl anyway. It must be very painful for Ted and his family.”

In a November 6 press release, Soulforce urged “compassion for Haggard and accountability for the National Association of Evangelicals.” Executive Director Jeff Lutes said

Rev. Haggard is just one more tragic example of how lives are destroyed by the lies about gay and lesbian people perpetuated by the NAE, the Religious Right, and both the Protestant and Roman Catholic Church. Taught by the church to hate himself, the only option from his point of view was to lead a psychologically and spiritually damaging double life marked by denial and self-destructive behavior. Rev. Haggard is a victim of religion-based bigotry that regularly demeans and demoralizes gay and lesbian people and refuses to acknowledge that we are part of the American fabric, and that many of us form loving families and practice a deep faith in God.

Our community's anger at Rev. Haggard's hypocrisy is completely understandable. However, my hope is that our community will take the high road and extend an olive branch of friendship and support when he is ready to fully come out as a gay man. Dobson and the others will counsel him to bury, deny, and repress his sexuality even deeper than before. They will wound his spirit, and he is going to need our prayers and our compassionate message that God loves him, affirms him, and calls him to live his life openly with honesty and integrity.

Soulforce subsequently launched a campaign for LGBT and allied people to write letters of concern and compassion to Haggard. Apparently over three hundred people from different walks of life have written to him, many addressing themselves as people of faith coming from a conservative Christian background having once struggled with denial and being in bondage to anti-gay misinformation.

Some on the right might no doubt characterize such words and acts as part of some ‘homosexual agenda’ to exploit Ted Haggard’s sad circumstances for political ends. To accept such a viewpoint would be to fail to see the heartfelt concern of ordinary people who genuinely care about what the man and his family are going through. Unlike the fear-and-power mongers on the religious right, many of us know all too well what it is like to be on the receiving end of judgment and condemnation.

In the current issue of Newsweek there is a series of articles on 'The Politics of Jesus.'

In a lead article that dissects the growing rifts within evangelical ranks, Newsweek writer Lisa Miller parses evangelicals into the classic categories of conservative, moderate and progressive. She asks, 'How much do they have to show for the decades of activism? And if they are to turn from what Roger Williams called "the garden of Christ's church" to fight the battles of "the wilderness of the world," what should those battles be?'

In my view, there is no real 'politics of Jesus'. The issue is not whether God votes Republican, Democrat or Green. Nothing in Jesus' life, ministry or death suggests support for specific political parties or partisan positions. Jesus was not apolitical but anti-political (in the sense that the things of Caesar were definitely not the Kingdom of God).

There is much to be said for Greg Boyd's position that while Christians should engage vigorously in the public and political spheres, Jesus Christ transcends democratic politics — and it cheapens the gospel to suggest that there is a 'politics of Jesus' or a distinctly Christian political position.

Miller compares the culture war scaremongering of religious leaders like James Dobson to a much different message from suburban Kansas megachurch pastor, Adam Hamilton:

He was helping his 14,000 members parse the parables in Matthew 13—the wheat and the weeds, the good fish and bad. "Our task is not to go around judging people—Jesus didn't do that," he tells NEWSWEEK. He encourages his congregation to vote, he says, but when they do they're neither predictably Republican nor Democratic. On the issues, many are increasingly frustrated with the war in Iraq; they're conservative on abortion, but they "express compassion" for homosexuals. The religious right has "gone too far," says Hamilton. "They've lost their focus on the spirit of Jesus and have separated the world into black and white, when the world is much more gray." He adds: "I can't see Jesus standing with signs at an anti-gay rally. It's hard to picture that."

The fact that evanglicals are finding more nuanced positions on social issues and returning to the core of Jesus' social justice teachings should not come as a surprise. It should also not be seen as some sort of 'swing' to the left, as some commentators seem to posit. As Miller points out:

Some Christians, exhausted by divisive wedge politics, are going back to the Bible and embracing a wider-ranging agenda, one that emphasizes reaching out to the poor and disenfranchised.

I see this more as a spiritual issue than a political one. Evangelicals are coming out from under the shadows of a fundamentalism they have been unrighteously shackled to for the past two to three decades. As the Moral Majority and Christian Coalition flounder, as Focus on The Family and minsitries like it become more and more extreme and single-issue obsessed, people are beginning to ask what any of that has to do with the gospel.

My favorite personal Bible is my faux-leather bound version of Eugene Peterson's The Message. Embossed on the front cover is a small bird-like face, underneath which is one word: THINK. The emergence of intelligent thought in a young person is a sign of a maturing outlook. I'm sure it's the same with today's evangelicals.

I can't say I'm surprised by recent revelations concerning Ted Haggard.

Who knows what 'dark' secrets and goings-on plague the lives of many religious right leaders? I suspect that the 'moral' issues that so obsess many of these (mostly) middle aged men wield such a unique and powerful fascination that often they find it impossible not to blur the lines between concern and involvement.

What is strange, but also perhaps less than surprising, is Haggard's apparent reluctance to part with the full truth of the story. Why not lay all his cards on the table? What is it about powerful men when they fall that they still have to hedge their confessions with statements like "I didn't inhale" or "It was just a massage"?

I'm sure the psychologists have better answers than me to that question.

I once saw a fake pamphlet entitled Heterosexuality: It's Causes and Cures. The point of it, of course, was to parody the way in which most anti-gay literature (if it can even be called literature) sets up and knocks down a straw man (the 'homosexual agenda') using fear, exaggeration and distorted statistics.

Interestingly, a Google search for information on the causes of heterosexuality reveals that heterosexual identity is largely defined in terms of what it is not, i.e. homosexuality. It could even be argued that self-defined heterosexuality is at best a form of subtle homophobia and in some extreme cases a matter of acute homosexual panic...

But I digress. 

In any case it's refreshing to see a new publication by Jim Burroway entitled The Heterosexual Agenda: Exposing The Myths.

Heterosexuals would have you believe that the heterosexual lifestyle is perfectly normal. They will tell you that their lifestyle choice should be the benchmark for society. But a closer look shows that their lifestyle isn’t as safe or as desirable as heterosexual militants say it is.

Jim parodies the anti-gay literature genre with subtlety and refinement, with extensive footnoting to illustrate the method as well as a step-by-step guide to how it's done.

... my parody is aimed squarely at the select few who hold themselves up as leaders and protectors of faith and values, who claim to command an army of “values voters” and to speak on behalf of all Christendom, while reducing everyone else to mere statistics.

These leaders use statistics the way a drunk uses a lamppost: for support, not illumination. They have shown surprisingly few qualms about distorting the facts beyond all recognition, just like I did when I wrote this parody ...

Most of these organizations exist to promote Judeo-Christian values around the world. But in their zeal to demonize gays and lesbians, they refuse to set forth the truth plainly. Instead, they blatantly ignore one of our most important values: You shall not bear false witness.

If you want to gain an understanding of how hate-speech is supported by propaganda that is in turn legitimized by fake social science, then read this booklet. Highly recommended.

Hat tip to Ex-Gay Watch.

Chip Berlet has an excellent piece on Talk To Action concerning the frightening direction culture war scapegoating is taking these days with the religious right. He is discussing the recent 'Value Voters Summit' orchestrated by the Family Research Council:

The Christian Right has regrouped and launched a new offensive in the ongoing Christian Right Culture War. Gay marriage and the "homosexual agenda" are the primary tactical scapegoats ...

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins suggested the nation was under attack from without and within, which was a theme throughout the conference. The domestic forces of Satan--secularists, liberals, homosexuals, feminists, abortionists, p o r nographers--are the subversives within; while the barbaric terrorist Islamic fascists are the external enemy. Godly "values voters" should remember how they felt on 9/11, and then go into the voting booth and vote to prevent the Democrats from having the opportunity to appoint more activist judges who are wittingly or unwittingly in league with the evil forces of darkness.

As I have said before on this blog, gay is the new Jew as far as the radical religious right is concerned. Gays have come to epitomize all that is evil, representing a threat to Godly sanctity that must not only be resisted, but eliminated altogether.

Time and again speakers at the conference made it clear that gay marriage was the key battle in the campaign to protect religion, (and thwart the plans of the Devil). Gay marriage, we were told, will spread like a disease across America from the source of the infection--Massachusetts and its cabal of activist judges.

But the fight against gay marriage and civil unions should be viewed for what it is: the thin end of a wedge, merely a starting point for drawing battle lines and testing the water to see what the citizenry will accept.

If the theocrats succeed in having enough 'Godly men' (i.e. fundamentalist or fundamentalist-controlled Republicans) elected to positions of power throughout the country, a Federal Marriage Amendment will be the least of our problems. The rhetoric will continue to ratchet up and the consequences will become ever more grave.

Will the true confessing church please stand up and be heard?

Religion Gone Bad: The Hidden Dangers of the Christian Right

by Mel White

I mentioned this book by Mel White when I received the advance publicity. Now that I've read it, I recommend everyone read it, whether you're Christian or not, gay or straight or whatever.

Anyone who thinks the religious right is a mostly benign but eccentric manifestation of conservative religion need look no further to be disabused of that idea.

I refuse to call it the 'Christian right' any longer, for it is neither Christian nor right in its refusal to follow the commands of Jesus. In its immense wealth, devoted armies of supporters, and totally malignant agenda for US and world domination, this movement is definitely eccentric but anything but innocuous.

White traces the development of this movement and its growth in influence through the particular prism of its apalling and utterly inexcusable treatment of LGBT people. Drawing on sociological research into the roots of fascism, he explores the uncanny and extensive parallels between historical fascist movements and the spirit of fascism masquerading as 'Judeo-Christian' morality.

A few months ago I linked to a similar analysis on hatecrime.org, which identified parallels between Nazi anti-Jewish speech and religious right anti-gay speech. If you haven't looked at this before, I urge you to. From their own mouths, the leaders of the religious right have declared homosexuals to be their number one enemy and have declared holy war on 'homosexuals' and the 'homosexual agenda'. If you take a look at the historical comparisons, the so-called 'homosexual agenda' is lifted almost directly (even if not consciously) from ther playbook of the Nazis.

White doesn't really ask this question outright, but it's hard not to: What is the difference today between moderate-to-extreme Islamic mullahs who preach death to Jews and Westerners in their mosques and whose words incite others to hateful violence, and 'Christian' fundamentalist clergy who preach death to gays and lesbians from their pulpits and whose words also incite others to acts of violence?

There is none.

Again, if you don't believe Falwell, Robertson, Dobson, Keyes and others are literally preaching death to gays and are actively working for our elimination from the face of the earth, read this book. It is full of direct quotes from the sources. The 'homosexual' in America is being caricatured and maligned in exactly the same way as the Jews in Europe were seventy years ago.

Religious fundamentalists are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to fight gay civil rights around the globe. I even read today of the Australian-based Exclusive Brethren, a small group that hitherto eschewed political involvement for a spirit of radical separatism from the modern world, nop lavishly funding political war chests on the basis of this one single issue.

We may wake up one day to find we have won the war against the terrorists out there but have allowed ourselves to be enslaved by a different terror in our midst. Violent speech inevitably leads to violent acts, and violent acts to a state of violence. We have already seen this with abortion clinic bombings and the increase in hate-fueled murders of innocent GLBT folk.

If the American Taliban have their way, LGBT people won't merely be pushed back into the closet but will be permanently made second or third class citizens, or worse.

White concludes, however, on an inspirational note. In founding Soulforce, his own journey has been transformed through developing an understanding of the teachings of Jesus, Gandhi and Martin Luther King concerning non-violent resistance to evil. Hatred and violence cannot be overcome by more hatred and violence, even violence of speech.

Non-violent resistance, or soul force, says White, is the only path to overcoming this spiritual and physical violence. Jesus taught us this truth, but Gandhi and MLK showed us how to live it.

Personally, I find it hard not to repay violence against me with at least thoughts of violence (if not real acts). But this leaves us at 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth' and the world is no better for it. By hating those who hate us, we feed the cycle of violence (or negative kharma if you like).

I think Mel White and Jesus are onto something here. It won't be easy putting it into action, to repay violence with non-violent resistance, to stand up to oppressors without using the tools of oppression. But perhaps it is the only way.

More on the very real similarities between fundamentalisms — Christian and Islamic.

The current issue of The Christian Century has an article by United Methodist minister Paul Jeffrey on the difficulties faced by NGOs providing earthquake relief in Pakistan. The local director of Church World Service (CWS) describes some of the measures that have had to be adopted by western aid agencies in order to avoid showing disrespect to local tradition and culture, while still providing urgently needed relief.

Interestingly, the foreign influence that causes the most trouble with the locals is not western secularism or feminism, but conservative evangelical Christianity. Operations such as Samaritan's Purse, whose leader Franklin Graham has attacked Islam as a "very wicked and evil religion", seem all to ready to exploit the earthquake victims and their suffering as an opportunity to evangelize.

Blatant proselytizing mixed with religious intolerance can be volatile for all involved. Such an approach to aid is not only inflammatory, but can well endanger other Christian and western aid groups and damage good relations NGOs have taken years to build with local communities.

In the article, Jeffrey observes two interesting parallels between fundamentalist Islam and fundamentalist Christianity.

Firstly, both types of groups have flourished under US taxpayer funding. Islamist extremists got their headstart under Reagan with billions in US funding channeled through the Pakistan security forces. Based on what I learned this weekend on terrorist funding, such groups still manage to draw funding (albeit limited) through USAID by posing as legitimate charities. On the other hand, Christian fundamentalist organizations have in recent years been the primary recipients of hundreds of millions of dollars in grants to "faith-based" initiatives. In both cases much of the funding was and is diverted to proselytizing, political activity and other questionable ends.

Secondly, in troubled theaters like Pakistan and Iraq, both groups of extremists continue to foster discord among the ordinary people, posing a challenge to real relief efforts. Jeffrey quotes Marvin Pervez of CWS commenting how you hear the same type of shrill jeremiad coming from both the local church and the mosque, "as if the clergy and the mullahs exchange notes."

Another parallel is how fundamentalists of both persuasions will try to appear reasonable and compassionate in their efforts to win hearts and minds to the cause. For instance, Hezbollah is known for its charity and welfare work in Palestine. Various groups affiliated with al-Qaeda are known for the support for widows and families of suicide bomb 'martyrs'.

Likewise, on the Christian right you see furious opposition to women's reproductive choice and gay civil rights dressed up for the media and general public as compassionate "concern for the unborn" and for the "protection of marriage". But behind closed doors the real agendas of keeping women "in their place" and eliminating the homosexual 'problem' are openly discussed.

Ralph Reed does the same thing in his recent debate with Jim Wallis on God's Politics Blog. Among various other misrepresentations, he even manages to characterize the fundamentalist obsession with Israel (based on its belief in the end-times, which culminates in Israel's ultimate and horrific annihilation at Armageddon, as foretold by fundamentalist eschatology) as a social justice issue.

Pam Spauling noted a similar trend on her blog today, where she discussed Jerry Falwell's comparison of Hillary Clinton to Satan during private remarks to like-minded pastors at the Value Voters Summit. Falwell is an extremist and works closely with others who can be considered even more extreme than he is, but he likes to come across to the general public as a genial defender of the faith. Mel White has documented at length, in Religion Gone Bad, how these ideologues will say one thing in public, trying to sound as reasonable as possible, whilst uttering dark invective to foot soldiers when they suppose the media aren't paying attention.

The point of all this is not to attempt to equate Jerry Falwell or Franklin Graham with Osama bin Laden. To compare isms is not to equate them, nor to suggest moral equivalency between one kind of outrage and another. In any case, charges from the right of 'moral relativism' do not successfully detract from the validity of observations that similar dynamics appear to be at work in both.

Ralph Reed blames the media for creating a "straw man" that "religious conservatives focus on one or two issues or somehow believe that other issues lack a moral component."

In a response to Jim Wallis on God's Politics, Reed says he believes there is no disagreement between religious liberals and conservatives that "there are many issues of moral concern beyond marriage and abortion."

Reed speaks of

the tendency to focus on controversy over healing and reconciliation. Where religion and politics intersect, the media spotlight generates more heat than light. If a religious leader speaks out on gay rights, media coverage is extensive and often sensational. But when Franklin Graham helps tsunami victims or the Southern Baptist Convention assists Hurricane Katrina victims, there is scant press coverage. So we must do more to raise the profile of works of compassion outside the prevailing stereotype that defines religious folk engaged in public life.

Granted that evangelicals, including religious conservatives, are active in areas of social concern. Yet further on he reinforces the so-called "straw man" when he confesses that abortion and homosexuality are central concerns of religious conservatives:

In our own time, issues of life are prominent in our politics, especially since Roe v. Wade. Religious conservatives did not create this issue and did not seek it out to benefit the Republican Party; indeed, most of them were Democrats until the 1980's. But the nation's conscience is unsettled by one out of every three pregnancies ending in the death of an unborn child, and people of faith should address it persistently and prominently. And when the courts began to impose a redefinition of marriage, people of faith were right to speak out consistent with their beliefs and values.

This obsession with a small number of narrowly defined 'moral' issues is not the creation of a sensationalist media. It reflects the active agendas of the majority of religious right organizations. The Christian Coaltion, led by Reed from 1989 to 1997, is a case in point.

According to the Coalition's About Us page, the organization's primary focus involves representing the "pro-family agenda", ending "Partial Birth Abortion" and lowering income taxes. "Pro-family" of course is code for anti-homosexual. A glance at their 2006 legislative agenda shows the same priorities along with conservative judicial appointments, tax-exemption for partisan political advocacy, increased media censorship and eliminating the constitutional separation of church and state. No mention of hurricane reconstruction, foreign aid or other "works of compassion outside the prevailing stereotype."

Let's see if other religious right organizations have a broader focus. Take Focus on the Family, for instance. FOTF's five guiding principles includes two broadly social objectives, namely support for traditional marriage (#2) and opposition to abortion (#4). The "hot topics" for families are listed prominently on the home page: Divorce, Military Families, Single Parents, Internet Safety for Kids, P-rnography, Homosexuality, Abortion, Worldview and Culture.

A search of the Focus website turns up 2,199 results for the words "homosexual" and "gay" (more than the number of mentions for "Jesus"), 1,355 for "abortion", 411 for "abstinence", and 363 for that 'p' word my web hosting service doesn't allow me to use...

On the other hand, there are 553 references to "discipline" (the term that made James Dobson a household name), 342 to "compassion", 254 to "mercy", 232 to "minimum wage", 154 to "poverty", 203 to "AIDS", 81 to "Katrina", 39 to "tsunami" and a mere 12 to "Darfur".

I could go on with more examples from other organizations on the religious right, but the data makes one thing clear: media coverage of religious right reflects the movement's own stated priorities. They are obsessed with issues like homosexuality and abortion to the general exclusion of what many mainline Christians would consider other equal or more weighty "moral issues".

Every now and then I come across a rare gem from somewhere on the religious right that simply leaves me dumbfounded by its unintentional irony.

Hence the following surreal quote in the Washington Post from Pope Benedict XVI's biographer, George Weigel. Weigel is responding to outrage throughout the Muslim world following the pope's recent comments in which he quoted a 14th-century Byzantine emperor saying that the prophet Muhammad brought "only evil and inhuman" things to the world:

The over-the-top reaction in the Muslim world simply underscores the truth of what he [the pope] said at Regensburg, which is that unless Islam develops the capacity to be self-critical — unless Islamic leaders take responsibility for saying to their extremists that violence in the name of God is wrong — then there can be no genuine interreligious dialogue.

Such arrogance. A prime example of the pot calling the kettle black. Inquisition, anyone? Witch hunt? Gay seminarian purge?

I don't remember the last time I heard Vatican leadership exhibiting the capacity to be self-critical in relation to any number of its dogmatic pronouncements — especially those condemning family planning and contraceptive use in the third world, or on the "intrinsic moral evil" of loving, committed same-sex relationships. Nor have I witnessed Catholic leaders taking "responsibility for saying to their [own] extremists that violence in the name of God is wrong."

This laughable piece of deflection ties in nicely with a recent article on Christian realism in the Progressive Christians Uniting blog. In it, Peter Laarman highlights Reinhold Niebuhr's insight that

Christians should see the world as it is and act ethically in the light of a clear-sighted realism. For the neoconservatives and for most other Right ideologues, “realism” means understanding how bad they are — all the “enemies of freedom,” “Islamo-fascists,” etc.; yet surely a major part of Niebuhr’s realism entailed understanding our own propensity to sinning, our own capacity for self-deception and hubris. It’s this kind of Christian Realism that is in critically short supply right now.

Laarman ties this lack of self-critical capacity amongst Christians to "the corporate-media mystification bubble". This lack seems to be particularly pronounced (in his view) among American evangelical Christians.

Consumption is a lonely pursuit, but it’s a pursuit that accords perfectly with the high level of small-bore anxiety that rules our culture ...

Consumerism pits me against other consuming monads ... it definitely does not invite us to think collectively about how we will fare in retirement, maintain our health, or gain education for the enhancement of life itself rather than for purposes of workplace competition. This latter way of thinking — thinking about the “we” and doing so with the benefit of critical consciousness — is the business of citizenship, not consumerism ...

The paramount challenge facing progressive Christians, I believe, is developing the courage and the tools needed to puncture the mysification bubble — is finding the capacity open the eyes and awaken the consciences of our fellow Christians and of the body politic as a whole to the suffering and danger all around us.

Mel White has also attributed part of this mystification or blindness to the average church-goer's tendency toward blind faith in their spiritual and secular leaders. If their pastor, pope or president say Islam is an evil religion or homosexuals are destroying the family, then it must be so.

So we wrap ourselves in the mystification bubble while blaming others, not ourselves, for all the evil in the world. Meanwhile, Rome is burning.