I was originally going to write this series of articles in tandem with a partner however I have decided to move ahead on my own. I hope I am up to the challenge. What I will attempt to do is provide some history to understand the Religious Rights beliefs and behavior, but will concentrate more on current activities of the people and organizations of the Religious Right so that you will be able to identify them and their players. I have found this to be extremely beneficial when watching various newscasts. It is amazing how many people who have a hidden agenda in any given subject are brought in to the discussions as “subject matter experts”.
It is my hope that when I have finished, I will have shown you a comprehensive picture of all the different factions and how they are ultimately connected. I will give you a bit of history because that is important in understanding their beliefs and practices but will also help to unravel the secretness of their current day plans.
Their plans really started to gel back in the 70’s with the Moral Majority and The Christian Coalition and their push to insinuate themselves seriously into the political arena. While The Family has worked the political scene for over 60 years, the religious right is fairly new to the scene in comparison. While they came on to the scene at different times, their beliefs and intentions are one and the same. At best, there is a very blurry line between them, but make no mistake they are working in conjunction to dominate the world at large.
What I plan to do is to break it down in to several mini articles, and these articles will be:
The History of the Christian Right
The Mindset of Christian Evangelicals
The Players, Their Organizations
How these Organizations Impact America and the International Community
The Consequences of their Influence/Reference Material
Wish me luck as I try to relay to you all I have learned through months of research and clicking on link after link to dig deeper in hopes of uncovering the truth. And that truth is that these people are insinuated into every facet of our lives with a mindset of Dominionism and forcing their brand of religion on ultimately the Global community at large. My first article of the series will be out this coming Wednesday, March 10, 2010.
I also want to give a big thanks to Adlib for helping me to name the series. I am not having problems with content but was stuck on what to name the series. Anyway, thank you Adlib, I knew your creative mind would come through for me.
Hi Sue! And hello to all my friends! I have missed you all and apologize for my abrupt withdrawal into my own problems. I will not go into detail, but suffice it to say, I found that I had to “take a break” from politics. I believe it was literally making me sick. One can only feel just so much frustration when dealing with some of these issues without it taking its toll…the bane of passionate people who care deeply!
Adlib dropped me a most kind email a couple of days ago and I replied, saying that I would return…just not sure when. Well, I’m back, for what it’s worth.
Sue, I feel like a grade-A heel for dropping the ball on this. I am so happy to see that you have continued to dig and I look forward to reading your articles. As I dug deeper into “the Family”, I was astounded and appalled at the influence that these people have on our government. Their reach pervades every agency, even the Supreme Court. Kudos to you for keeping up the good fight!
I am gradually “recovering” and even allowed myself to watch the news yesterday and today. I am even slightly encouraged to hear of the letter in the Senate supporting the public option! Maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel…and it’s not that on-coming train!
Love to you all…it is good to be back among the living!
Welcome back Emerald!!! 😀
Emerald! So great to see you again! And believe me– I get it, no explanation necessary.
Em!!! It’s so good to see you back! I’m glad you gave yourself a sabbatical. It’s a wise person who recognizes when some time for retreat and reflection is needed.
I know there are days when I have literally gotten migraines over trying to juggle more than I, in reality, was ready to cope with. Our bodies have a way of saying: enough!
Anyway, I’m so relieved that you chose to come back. Sometimes the laughter around here is the best medicine, and lately we’ve been indulging in a lot of medicine!
Welcome back Em. Not to worry, I would have gone ahead with it and actually now that I have put out two articles in the series, I am finding it easier. Perhaps I won’t cover The Family in detail and when you feel up to it you can take that one on.
Believe me I have my hands filled with all the groups I found by clicking link after link. It takes you deeper and deeper so I am going to cover a bit on the family but really want to highlight as many of the groups as I can. They multiply like cockroaches.
And so glad to see you back. Take it easy. Take it from me, I limit the news I watch and stay completely away from PuffHo these days. Our friends here keep us updated and it is a natural to add something I run across in the OT category now so we all participate.
Everyone needs a break Em but it’s great you are back. 😎
I have not watched the talking heads or any TV political news for months now. If you want the news it’s literally at your fingertips now so why wait for someone to tell you what the news is when you can find out for yourself.
I just hope your break had a very positive affect on you.
Sue good luck and look forward to the first installment….
Just want to wish you all a good night and be safe.
My kitty food for the week has just arrived and I could do with a small crane to help me lift it into the kitty food cupboard, so off I go.
Take care.
Good night, Kalima– and all. I have to turn in now too. What a night!
Afternoon here Cher. Sleep well and take care. Good night.
Afternoon K. God my Arthur is eating like he’s pregnant or something. I never had a cat that ate so much. I put him on some “diet” cat food with more greens and stuff but he stinks up the whole townhouse when he uses his litterbox. I don’t know what to do. I should have not named him after King Arthur because he thinks he’s Henry the VIII.
Hi yourself K, I hadn’t logged off yet, the cupboard looks daunting.
Have you checked for tapeworms, I suppose you have, it is sometimes a cause of overeating.
Now I’m ready to log off. See you later.
Oh yeah it’s just him packing it in and it shows. The problem with the “diet” food is he likes it so much he eats almost twice as much. I guess our always having some food in their bowl approach is just not working for Arthur. The only problem is Penny does not eat enough. She’s never been over 9 lbs while Arthur is getting close to 24 lbs. Arthur is a big cat and at 19-20 lbs he looks normal but the extra few lbs show.
KQ – the only hope is taking up any food after meals. And then you have to live with the pitiful meowing of a clearly starving cat. If that negatively impacts Penny – if she’s a nibbler – then that won’t work. I guess I’d go back to the un-diet food and see if ironically he eats less. I have two cats with the same problem – the male is a Maine Coon BUT is also porky – and have no real solution. I think mine does need to be checked for worms, but it sounds as if King Arthur is just a glutton. Hard to control =- good luck!
Thank you all for your kind words, but it is Sue who is doing all the heavy lifting on this series! I get to sit back and coast. My hat’s off to you, Sue! I can hardly wait to read it all!
I find the religious insights of everyone, lapsed or practicing Catholic to Agnostic marvelous! I think I’ve said before – despite my job, I do not belong to a church. Spirituality and, more important, moral decency, are not confined to a religion or to religion as a whole. I think you all would find my allies in my world totally in sync with each and every one of you and would not give a rip if you did or did not believe in God. Because, among othe things, who can REALLY say who/what God IS? I tend to come down on the side of whoever said once that the only honest thing you CAN be is Agnostic. So I’m a hopeful agnostic but with a real commitment to the teachings of, yes, Jesus, Maimonides, Buddha, Muhammed (pbuh), MLK, Jr., Gandhi, A.J. Muste, and even that old reprobate, Bertrand Russell. And I find Oscar Wilde and Groucho Marx useful, too. The United Church of Christ has a seris of slogans. One is “Don’t put a period where God only put a comma.” It’s on their banners and in their churches. The author of the comment? Gracie Allen. Enlightenment is everywhere.
Difference between us and “them” (besides the fact I never EVER owned that much make up) is in the BEST T-shirt slogan I ever saw:
“Lord please deliver me into the company of those searching for the truth, and save me from those who have found it.”
I love that t-shirt quote.
Keats said,
‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,’
Makeup lesson with Tammy Faye Bakker
Can you imagine being so hollow that your identity revolves around false eyelashes? Wow.
I haven’t seen eyelashes that length since the black and white photos of the Mary Quant “Swinging Sixties” make-up and what a very untidy make-up bag.
Can anyone remember the last time your nails were that long after washing, cleaning, scooping out kitty litter, washing up dozen of cat plates after your own, scrubbing loos etc??
Kalima, my nails do not remotely resemble those.
As much as I ridiculed her and disliked her brand of Christianity, when I saw her before she died, it was one of the saddest sights I’ve seen. This poor, desperate person. Here she was, literally dying, and still couldn’t give up her version of vanity. If Vanity is a mortal sin, this personifies why it is is thought to be, for me.
I warn you, this is Tammy Faye on Larry King and it’s painful.
http://gingersnaps.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/tammy-faye-07-18-07.jpg
I saw that when I was still at HP and was rather shocked by the profanity used by some of the posters there. It was a literal free for all about her suffering and it left a bitter taste in my mouth as I then still believed that I was on a “Progressive” site.
Is it even a HUMAN site? Sheesh.
Not for a very long time. I think that they didn’t let anyone comment on threads about people sick or dying for a long time. It was always just “Comments Closed” as if this would ever improve their image. 🙄
Holy shit.
I notice the same irony from the most Christian right politicians. They are dressed in war suits, often, but clearly concerned about looking appealing. It’s always perplexed me, on many levels. I think it has more to do with the propensity to authoritarian conformity to standards of beauty in a repressed form. In cases like this and Crouch, obviously, overcompensated and a whole different level of some sort of psychological manifestation.
I really do think these women more often than not have to have had, whether admitted or not, a history of abuse – most likely sexual, as children. It really does fit. This type of, oh, how do I explain it? Sorry, I can’t quite complete the thought. I think someone like Questinia could do a better job of grasping where I’m going with this. I’m definitely getting disturbingly pop-psychology here.
But seriously, it is really sad. And I mean that. I really think they turn to this type of black and white version of religion for the certainty of comfort it provides. Of a male father figure who will always be there and always love them (when I truly believe the teachings of Jesus are much deeper than that, it is a legitimate component). I think they really need it, and I’ve always felt guilty taking that away from people. Of course, when they go to lengths to try to force their beliefs on me, or disparage my beliefs, well – all bets are off to me being a gentleman and simply respecting our differences at that point, when they can’t respect my beliefs.
You might not enjoy this…
That stupid beeyatch. She is why seniors resort to eating cat food. If I could find her, I would rip that wig and the eyelashes and that stupid necklace off her body.
“You have that little bit of grocery money, send it to me I need a roll of toilet paper to wipe up the stink in my house…………….”
As I said I am an Agnostic, not because I am not familiar with Christianity but because I am very familiar with Christianity,religion and biblical history…
I saw Paul Crouch dressed in fatigues using a pointer to point at a Map of Europe with pictures of missiles on it blessing our nuclear war heads… I don’t know if you are aware but Crouch and some of his End Time buddies have connections to Rev. Moon…
Rev Moon? Oh, brother…:eyeroll:
Agreed. She’s about as low as you can go.
That is freaking me out !
OMG. I am just so bewildered about– forget her theology for a minute– WHY does she look like that? I understand the fundie LDS women dressing very conservatively, I get that. But she is trying to look so tarty. And from the 70’s. I see several of her ilk on TV, and what’s the deal? And the men too– all blow dried hair. I am hardly a fashion plate, but I do know what is considered stylish and she is no style I can think of. It is clownish, and I don’t understand who that appeals to in 2010.
Like Tammy Faye Bakker. It must be a sect called the “Floosarians.”
😆 😆 😆
Well, I am sure it’s more frightening to see her first thing in morning without all that!!! 😯
Just thought I would provide the visual…
heh heh heh
“Giving it to God?” she’s wearing half of it on her face. I can’t believe that someone would fall for this even if they were a mile high, 24/7 a day. Before I clicked on the video I thought it was a commercial for garden gnomes.
Pass the “barf” bags please, I need some for my kitties too, they’ve turned “a whiter shade of pale.”
No Cher, this is not fashion now, it’s a leftover from “Dallas.”
😀 And that’s an insult to garden gnomes! It really just baffles me!
It makes me feel physically ill to see and then hear women like this. She is not exactly a spring chicken, she looks and sounds like something out of an early 70’s “B” movie where directors thought that breathless or squeaky voices were cute. Pleeeezze, I hear that over here all the time and have the same reaction.
My apologies to all garden gnomes btw. 🙁
Same here, Kalima. She is like the Joker– or worse, she is like a caricature of women by someone who hates women! She is actually an insult to womanhood! She is like those sick people who are addicted to plastic surgery.
This just occurred to me: Someone who is so plastic herself, who hates her natural state to this degree, is someone who makes religion plastic and phony. She has no clue what authenticity is.
Yes I agree with your “insult to womanhood” and about the plastic surgery, this is what I meant about her “giving to God” and wearing half of it on her face, the money people are stupid enough to give her I mean.
I live in an immature culture where any woman over 25 is considered old, so you can imagine how I react when I see the over 60 year old women on tv, acting and speaking like 20 year olds. It infuriates me that they feel that they have to do this. I throw things at the screen and curse a lot.
I also wondered when it was that “born again” women (we used to hear them say they were “saved”) looked so tarty.
Well, one anti-abortion protester once turned to a group of pro-choice people and told them to F*CK off. When one of the pro-choice people gasped in mock horror, the anti said, “I’m born again. I can do anything I want.”
There you have it. It’s apparently a ‘get out of jail free’ card.
C’Lady– if only it was a get out of jail free, I might reconsider! 😉 Well, they find out about that eventually, huh?
Here’s a funny irony that my non- believer, Chinese husband doesn’t seem to get:
Whenever he talks about these born-agains, he always says, “They’ll be sorry when they are in Hell!”
I keep trying to point out to him that he can’t say he doesn’t believe in God if he believes in Hell. But he doesn’t seem to get that. 🙂
I don’t know, he might be on to something? Maybe there is no judge and we self-select by the degree of our stupid hypocrisy. The world we inhabit perhaps has a trap door that tips open under the weight of self righteousness? Or make up.
Or both.
Well, I believe in God but not in Hell, so I suppose to some that’s an irony too.
I love the trap door idea though! Especially one that opens at too much make-up. 🙂
Is that a spoof or did she actually tell them to give their “little grocery money” to the church?
No it is not a spoof…
You notice she says “give it to God” – but apparently she is the intermediary. What would God do with money? Bet he doesn’t have pockets. Bet she does…
I have seen female impersonators with more restraint
Patsy! So true! 😆
Funny you should mention that…
WOW! I had no idea RuPaul was so tall or that Tammy Faye was so little! And you know, she knew she was a joke, don’t you think?
I mean, how many evangelicals would appear on a transvestite’s show?
Now RuPaul that’s one classy lady.
I watched some of her “RuPaul’s Drag Race” show this weekend because they had a little marathon. It’s the only time I watched it but it was absolutely hilarious.
RuPaul was excellent in “But I’m a Cheerleader”.
It’s fitting he narrated a movie about Tammy Faye, as well.
Oh my size 14!
RuPaul Rocks
Loved the Brady Bunch remakes
RuPaul played Mrs. Cummings in a cameo
I can’t believe she’s 49. Every woman would kill for that skin and bone structure.
Is there some reason she does not move? Will her make up crack or something? It’s very weird. I mean above the obvious weirdness.
Uhmmmm, it’s not a vid… It is a still photo over an audio recording… 😯
Oh thanks to C’lady and BT for that exchange! I laughed so hard the milk came outta my nose!!
It was almost as much fun as pointing out a certain parties grandson must be playing to much Sonic the Hedgehog… 😀
Yes, yes, yes, the purple haired lady! I used to watch TBN ironically in my teen years. Quite frankly, I can’t take it any more. I had a friend who used to live near their studio. Even the outside is full of gaudy gold.
Honestly, and I mean no offense to anyone, but I’m having a bit of an issue with non-Catholics posting that the Catholic Church calls Jews “Christ Killers.”
If any actual honest-to-goodness Catholics want to respond, I will welcome their points-of-view.
I don’t want to hear, “well, this is what I heard…” from non-Catholics.
I understand completely Pepe and agree. I usually keep away from religious threads because my faith is something I have never worn on my sleeve. I think I need a break from this subject too and intend to cuddle a cat.
I am glad you are being straight, Pepe. I never once stated that the Catholic Church, today, in the US, teaches that Jews are Christ-killers. They did historically, and I think on that we can agree. I am terribly sorry if you took it to mean that, because I don’t want to leave anyone with that impression.
What I am saying is that I –and more to the point– my relatives in Poland and Russia– were victims of anti-semitism. I was raised in the US, so I never encountered the worst of it, but my experiences as I recounted here were real. I said earlier that I am not saying the Church in the US still teaches that Jews killed Christ.
And I think it’s best to just drop the subject. I have no terribly strong feelings about this and have no desire to argue about it.
I didn’t make that statement either and I did my best to clarify it…
I don’t dispute that, but you also said “I heard kids I went to school with in LA were also taught this. That’s what I HEARD.”
Maybe they went to a crappy church or maybe their parents were full of it, but I’m telling you that is NOT Catholic doctrine in my lifetime.
Honestly Pepe– I know it isn’t!
No One said it was…
According to this website, the Catholic changed their teaching about Jews in 1965
http://www.religioustolerance.org/jud_jesu5.htm
I think that the whole point is that if this was the case, even before this, we were not taught to blame the Jews for the death of Christ in our schools run by nuns and neither did our families, relatives or family friends ever express this belief.
I spent my fair share of time in Catholic church and I never heard it either. But historically people of the church have made statements and I think there are people out there who for whatever reason are prejudiced. My thought is that is where the term was passsed on. Fanatics will read something like the website I posted and turn it into their own version of the truth or use it for their own prejudices.
That was my point about Hitler and further down about the leader of the cult Aum Shinrikyo before their two sarin attacks here. A total mishmash taken from dozens of other religions and claiming the end “mess” as their own. Both “leaders” when cornered hid in a bunker and the latter in a small space under one of their buildings proving that in the end, they were just crazy cowards.
Merci!
What you did say, is “Kids I knew told me this …”
You want to drop it because you’re wrong and you know it.
Here’s my quote:
“Kids I went to school with in LA were taught that. Now, whether they heard it in Church, I don
I guess my frustration is that I feel that people who never attended Catholic Church, never went to Catholic Sunday School, never went to Catholic School somehow think they know what Catholicism is about.
Look, Catholics have not had to put up with anything remotely close to what Jews have had to throughout history. In fact, throughout history Catholics have been some pretty evil fucks. But, in modern history, Catholics have had to put up with a lot of crap in the U.S. and Canada, a lot of discrimination, etc. A lot of evil shit with abuse by priests, etc. So, I get deeply, deeply frustrated with non-Catholics thinking they actually have a clue of what Catholicism is about. I was frustrated by your statement of “Kids I went to school with in LA were taught this.” Well, you don’t know where that came from, and that statement was to me an indictment of the entire faith.
In a weird way, a lot of Catholics feel like the only people allowed to criticise Catholicism are Catholics.
OK, I don’t want to fight, and I respect you. But, you offended me.
Pepe I agree 100% that the only people who have the right to criticize a religion are those in it– or maybe those who have grown up in it but at some later point, left it. But certainly it is NOT ok from someone outside a religion to criticize it. And really and truly– I am not criticizing Catholicism.
And I am glad that you explained your feelings so that I could respond. And I also now realize that because the Church has come under criticism in North America, you are rightfully upset about that. That is something that as a non-Catholic I wasn’t aware of.
And I respect you too, Pepe. Are we OK now? I know I am.
OK. 🙂
I’m also not oblivious to the fact that conflicts still exist between the official Roman Catholic church and Jewish people. Just recently the Pope had to explain himself for accepting a conservative bishop back into the church who denied the Holocaust.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1084209.html
There are always conflicts with religions because in the end many of them think their beliefs are the most righteous. All I can do is relate my personal experience with the Catholic church I went to and it was always very friendly with the Jewish community. Even more so that with the Protestant community to be honest. Living in NE NJ we always had a relatively large Jewish community and I personally treasured that fact.
Cher knows I can be pretty biased towards Israel and other Jewish causes because of my life’s experiences which include our churches openness to the Jewish community.
Absolutely, KQ– more forgiving than I am on occasion. Please see my apology to Pepe and any other Catholics who I might have offended above.
I also meant to say you have every right to comment because it does not matter what end of the discussion you come from, everyone’s opinions should be heard.
I had one Catholic aunt who said antisemitic remarks that really shocked me the last time I visited her before she died. I frankly don’t know where that came from because I’ve never heard my father or other aunts and uncles say anything antisemitic. Prejudices come from all places and people with very similar experiences act quite differently as adults.
Excellent subject for a series and I’m looking forward to reading it greatly. The religious right is using a strategy that is centuries old and not unique to the Christian faith though most of us are more familiar with the history of Christianity. The Roman Catholic church was the biggest political entity guiding western culture for over 1,000 years from the end of the Roman empire to Reformation. In many ways that control over people’s lives and thought processes stymied progress back then like the religious right is doing today. Combining religious beliefs with political beliefs is an incredibly powerful tool for controlling people and the right knows that and uses religion as a political weapon. I just watched 1984 again last night and the “thought police” are mostly wearing crosses these days.
Allow me to say I am not trying to offend anybody or their beliefs… I am an Agnostic, though that was not always the case…
There have been several questions posed here on these threads and one was about End Time Evangelicals and their beliefs about Jews and the term “Christ Killer” was used… I did my best to answer it accurately… The term Christ Killer is related to Killers Of Christ and whether you were taught in Catholic School or not or whether you ever heard associated with the Catholic Church or not doesn’t mean it didn’t originate in the Early Catholic Church… It did…
I am not speaking of what you heard or have heard from Catholicism in your lifetime… The persecution of Jews by the Catholic Church began long before the Spanish Inquisition and is well documented…
I wasn’t taught about Martin Luther and “Jews and Their Lies” in my Protestant Sunday Schools or in Public Schools… I am sure all of us have learned that there was loads of historical information not taught to us or was just BS…
I am looking forward to Sue’s articles and the vigorous debate it will initiate…
I acknowledge the Catholic church did horrible things to the Jews historically, but honestly, I never, ever, once heard this Christ Killers stuff in Sunday school. Not once.
The majority of Catholics the world over haven’t either Pepe.
Not for the last 100 years, at least.
No, not for the last 100 years and I’m not quite at 100 yet, but halfway there. 🙂