Religious Left/Secular Left= Unholy Alliance?
1 July 2006 by Raindogzilla
“The Stewardship of Our Citizenship
God has blessed America with a tremendous heritage of faith. This light of conviction has guided our nation to her finest moments. Courageous ministers from a variety of denominations should become instruments of God in shaping our country’s destiny. The people from her shores would export hope and freedom to much of the globe. The passion from America’s pulpits helped ignite a new chapter in human history…”
So begins the overview from the Ohio Restoration Project. “Our nation’s founding documents are woven with principles from God’s Word”, they lie through their teeth and go on to use phrases like “dogmatic secularism“, and “secular jihad“(an oxymoron if I ever heard one).
They actually ask, “Can anything be done to stop the harvesting of body parts of unborn children through partial birth abortion?” and there’s so many things wrong with that particular premise that I threw up in my mouth a little.
“It’s time for Patriot Pastors to Pray, Serve , Engage the culture. The Ohio Restoration Project seeks the heart of God and the fellowship of His People in enlisting Patriot Pastors for such a time as this”, the horror show closes.
So, meet Rod Parsley, the guy in the picture;
“I like to say I’m not a Republican or a Democrat, I’m a Christ-o-crat,” declares Pastor Rod Parsley, a supporter of the Ohio Restoration Project and head of a similar venture called Ohio Reformation. His ministry, housed on a sprawling complex in Canal Winchester, includes the 12,000-member World Harvest Church and the non-profit Center for Moral Clarity.
Still, Parsley’s book, Silent No More, features a laudatory blurb by Blackwell. (The book should “make values voters a force that politicians can no longer ignore,” he says.) The tax-exempt organizations can register voters and advocate positions on issues. And the voters recruited by conservative churches are likely to support Republicans by overwhelming margins.
They also are likely to be attracted to Blackwell’s message of staunch opposition to abortion and support of gun-owners’ rights. While Blackwell says his “right-of-center coalition” also includes fiscal conservatives, his candidacy has become something of a crusade for social conservatives nationwide.
Paul Weyrich, a leader of modern conservatism, has paid tribute to Blackwell in commentaries for the Washington-based Free Congress Foundation. Blackwell “believes God wanted him as secretary of State during 2004″ because as such he was responsible for voting operations in a critical state during a critical election, Weyrich wrote. He added: “It is difficult to disagree with that proposition.”
Johnson sees Blackwell as destined for higher things — even transforming American politics by drawing black voters, now the Democrats’ most loyal supporters, to the GOP. If elected, Blackwell would be just the second African-American elected governor in the USA, and the first African-American Republican. Supporters suggest that would make him a natural to be the vice-presidential nominee on the GOP ticket one day.”
Full article is here.
Ah, there’s our Repiglickin gubernatorial candidate, J. Kenneth Blackwell, right in the underpants of these wingnuts- and being kind of obliquely lauded for voter fraud by Weyrich, it sounds like. Maybe it’s just me- throwing up a little again.
Here’s the point:
“More than 30 local pastors last night officially accused two evangelical megachurches of illegal political activities.
In a rare and potentially explosive action, the moderate ministers signed a complaint asking the Internal Revenue Service to investigate World Harvest Church of Columbus and Fairfield Christian Church of Lancaster and determine if their tax-exempt status should be revoked.
The grievance claims that the Rev. Rod Parsley of World Harvest Church and the Rev. Russell Johnson of Fairfield Christian Church improperly used their churches and affiliated entities — the Center for Moral Clarity, Ohio Restoration Project and Reformation Ohio — for partisan politics, including supporting the Republican gubernatorial candidacy of Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell.”
snip.
“Williams and the other signers stressed that they were acting individually and not on behalf of their congregations, whose affiliations include: The American Baptist Churches/USA; the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ); the Episcopal Church in the USA; the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; Judaism; the United Church of Christ; the United Methodist Church; Presbyterian Church, USA; and the Unitarian Universalist Association.
The complaint makes three main allegations:
* That church-sponsored events conducted by Parsley and Johnson have showcased a single gubernatorial candidate — Blackwell.
* That Parsley and Johnson have launched a “partisan-oriented” voter-registration campaign “with the goal of registering 400,000 voters to support Blackwell’s candidacy.”
* That Parsley and Johnson have been behind efforts to distribute “biased voter education” materials aimed at solidifying voter support for Blackwell.”
That’s the point, right there. The moderate religious are almost as offended by these asshats as I am- and that’s saying something. I’ll let Pasturd Johnson sum it up for me. “It’s sad to see the religious left and the secular left forge an unholy alliance against people of faith,” Johnson said.
They don’t like it when we team up with the moderate religious, y’all. And what they don’t like, we definitely should.
1 July 2006, on 11:54 pm
Great post, Raindog-
This shit pisses me off more than anything else with church life in America. A fundamental ignoring of basic universal human values (honesty, humility, care for your fellow man) is rife in so many churches on the right. I sincerely hope that SCOTUS some day strikes down all tax exemptions and breaks, particularly on land use and taxes, for ALL American religious groups, including deceptively religious PACS like the huge one Focus on the (fucked-up) Family has.
It amazes me how so many everyday people can allow an organization or the guy with the loudest mouth in their church to help them extinguish their consciences.
2 July 2006, on 12:00 am
P.S. Tell me about the General’s new banning at my place. And your thoughts on World Cup stuff, too.
2 July 2006, on 12:19 am
This crap really gets under my skin. The RR are in for a rough time (I hope) This election season. In one way they have provided the fuel that will be used to prove to reasonable people that the RR is not to be trusted.
Has anyone seen this?
http://www.churchofreality.org/wisdom/history_of_the_church_of_reality/
The antidote for what ails you.
2 July 2006, on 10:16 am
Yeah, I remember in the ‘04 election, or just after, some Baptist church in North Carolina kicked out all the congregants who’d dared vote for Kerry. Ostracization and shunning for the new millenium. At Baptist church when I was a sprout- and was already well on my way to my current philosophy, I watched the congregation dissolve into warring factions with some of the most mean-spirited sniping and maneuvering I’ve seen to this day. Considering the jesus I had read about wouldn’t have had any patience for such behavior, I pretty much decided they were all full of shit and began to instigate even more drama with a wellplaced word or tale told.
Of course, maybe that’s the way they reproduce, one splitting into three, with all three still thriving today. Which would make churches, like, single-celled lifeforms. Works for me.
It’s some sort of weird, upside down reality. The good guys call the IRS on the bad guys and, yet, the bad guys scream about the moral highground, about this so-called “War On Religion”, their suddenly not a mental disorder persecution complex all but making martyrs of Parsley and Johnson- all with some 85% of America at least somewhat religious(hard to be oppressed by an insignificnt minority, you know).
Liberalism has always been about universal morality, not the subjective hateful kind espoused by the fundies. That moral highground must be retaken, well, not retaken cause it is ours but the thinking of many has been so twisted by the rhetoricians of the right it’s like they see us through turd-colored glasses and those need to be broken.
As it stands right now, wrong though it may be, morality is explicitly linked to religion, to the bible, to god. Wasting time kvetching over that particular point is nonproductive given the urgency of the situation vis a vis America’s future both at home and abroad. There’s so much to do- and so much of Chimpy’s mess to undo, that it’s really irresponsible of us not to organize and fight side by side with our liberal and moderate religious brethren.
The Revolution will be televised so long as there’s a missing blonde, teenaged girl involved!!
2 July 2006, on 11:24 am
RDZ Says: There’s so much to do- and so much of Chimpy’s mess to undo, that it’s really irresponsible of us not to organize and fight side by side with our liberal and moderate religious brethren.
Organize — that’s the key word. I remember last year that the state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage was unfortunately overwhelmingly approved by the voters in Texas. The really odd thing to me was that in many precincts African-American voters, and especially church-going African-American women voters, outnumbered the Rethuglican white voters by large margins. Gov. Perry apparently had gotten a network of people to call ministers, especially minority members, to get those congregrations to go out and vote almost en masse to approve the ban on gay marriage. These minorities, Hispanics and blacks, didn’t see the issue as one of civil rights, but as a religious one.
So somehow we have to mobilize and organize this “unholy alliance” to get up off their duffs and go vote. Unfortunately, not enough of the people who have nothing against gay marriage and other such issues care enough to go vote. Something has to change.
2 July 2006, on 11:41 am
Asses of Evil: Blackwell and Parsley. This is so not a good time to be in Ohio. Oh why did I move back here.
Good post, Zill, but oh so depressing. Wouldn’t you think the non-rightwinger IRS folks would welcome an end to tax-exemption for religious orgs? They’d be able to collect so much money (so much more than they’re hassling me for). But I guess it’s politically incorrect to attack anything the church wants these days.
Beginning to read John Dean’s “Conservatives without Conscience.” So far, excellent. Didn’t know Liddy publicly threatened to kill him. Wish I had such an exciting life!
2 July 2006, on 12:31 pm
Ahh, Rod Parsley. Why did I know he would be involved with illegal electioneering? You ever see this guy in action? He has a nationally broadcast show on TBN (Trinity Broadcasting) right along side the crazed millenialist in Texas, John Hagee.
Oh, and everyone’s favorite, Pat Robertson and the 700 Club, is on too.
The Center for Moral Clarity even has a LOBBYIST that they regularly trot out on other TBN programs.
I hate lobbyists.
I feel for the Ohioans on here. You have a major problem with this guy, because this whole thing will feed right into their persecution complex.
2 July 2006, on 1:27 pm
MoeNeigh says:
So somehow we have to mobilize and organize this “unholy alliance” to get up off their duffs and go vote. Unfortunately, not enough of the people who have nothing against gay marriage and other such issues care enough to go vote. Something has to change.
What I don’t understand is why these very same people you mention, like the young urban punk rock bike messengers who live in my neighborhood, will go riot at a WTO conference but won’t actually go to the voting booth. Someone once said to me that if every disenfranchised person in America, from the pissed off middle-class suburban white kid to the poor urban black man, just went and voted at the same time, there would never be a Repuglican elected again. It sounds idealistic, but the numbers stand behind that. The enemy is small compared to the vast number of people who are just getting through their lives. Problem is, the enemy is highly motivated.
2 July 2006, on 1:44 pm
I’m all for teaming up with the religious left, by the way. I have no moral qualms with them whatsoever. Go see the wall of remembrance at the Interdenominational AIDS Memorial Chapel at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco and it will break your heart. Heck, inside the little side-chapel itself, the altarpiece was designed by Keith Haring two weeks before he died. Why gays still need a church that mostly shuns them I haven’t a fuckin’ clue, but that particular church certainly doesn’t. All are welcome there and at many congregations of a number of denominations here in S.F.
BTW, World Harvest Church sounds like something out to turn the world’s poor into Soylent Green.
2 July 2006, on 2:05 pm
BTW, World Harvest Church sounds like something out to turn the world’s poor into Soylent Green.
Sean,
I think it’s more about cheap labor, but if the world’s food supply did start running low, I wouldn’t put it past these nutjobs to pull that.
They do it with cows already! (or at least they used to. Mad Cow put a stop to that)
2 July 2006, on 2:55 pm
Catherine, the Asses of Evil- Parsley, Johnson, and Blackwell- come complete with a clown in Bob Taft and his ever shrinking poll numbers. The abovementioned ministers united against these scumbags do my heart good, as do Taft’s job approval, Noe’s coin scam, Ney’s legal problems, and the national trend towards dissatisfaction with Iraq and with Bush and the GOP, in general. I would have preferred Hackett to Sherrod Brown but I’ll campaign my ass off for Sherrod and for Ted Strickland against Blackwell.
Hopefully, we can take back Ohio and the Congress at the same time in November. Of course, Blackwell is still the Secretary of State so we’ll probably have to bring in Carter and the UN to insure a fair election. Otherwise, I might just join KidKawartha in Canuckistan.
DRB, If they eat each other at the World Harvest would it be Mad Sheep Disease that results?
MoeNeigh, the old expression; “the squeaking wheel gets the grease” seems to apply here. Only folks on the fringes seem inclined to get really loud about things that piss them off. This sometimes makes that fringe the only thing impressionable people ever hear- to wit, Faux News, the Dysfunctional Erection, Rush Limbaugh, etc.
I think there’s a large group of people who’s temper threshholds just don’t exist or that are inhumanly high. How else to explain that a mob of villagers wielding pitchforks and torches hasn’t stormed the White House already? More moderate, more civil folk are not inclined to protest maybe only out of decorum but they need a wake-up call.
2 July 2006, on 3:21 pm
Yeah, Raindog, …this Parsley dude is certainly NOT [as in the '60s lyrics]…SAGE,…or Rosemary [well, maybe!] and Thyme! Of course, I’m not a chef, either; so, wadoIknow? [sorry!]
I also dug your comment: “Liberalism has always been about universal morality”; and the tie-in to the ‘Revolution’.
I’ll scapegoat using MoeNeigh’s “Rethuglican white voters” comment, for the following bit of off topic, ‘fun reaching…and stretching’, …OK…RAMBLING, …
Hey!, …maybe NOT so off topic? [Like, Parsley DOESN'T fit all of the following shtick?]…
We all know the:
ReTHUGlicans, RePIGlicans, RePUKElicans, RETARDlicans, ReFUCKlicans [...mmm...only after marriage?]
NO?…Sorry!; …and…rambling some more…
[Note: I'm pretty sure these aren't original!...but who's copywriting?]…
So, how ’bout these additions:
ReDUMBlicans, REPELicans, ReBARFlicans, ReSNOTlicans, ReLICKlicans, the ever popular: ReWIPElicans [after licking!], RETREADlicans [Auto industry types?], ReJERKlicans [and the -OFF ones too!], ReWANKlicans [what else!], ReSHTUPPElicans [Yiddish crowd? ], ReFARTlicans, ReLIElicans, ReBLEEDlicans, ReRAGlicans [sorry gals!] …ah, um…OK…I’ll shtuppe! [for now]!
I couldn’t help it!…Something just came over me;…It must be the American July 4th holiday [must scapegoat!]; or,…
I just needed to get that out of my system!
“AARGH!”
“As you were, fiends!…er…friends!…I meant no harm!”
“…and why do I feel you’ve all done this before?…Could it be?…
Deja Fooh, all over again?”
2 July 2006, on 3:45 pm
catherine Says:
July 2nd, 2006 at 11:41 am e
Asses of Evil: Blackwell and Parsley. This is so not a good time to be in Ohio. Oh why did I move back here.
Is Blackwell just Falwell turned black?
2 July 2006, on 5:43 pm
DRB, If they eat each other at the World Harvest would it be Mad Sheep Disease that results?
I think you’ve just solved the mystery of why there fuckers are so damn crazy! For some reaon I keep thinking of Dana Carvey’s Church Lady.
Would it be Mad Sheep Disease? Could it be….SATAN!?!
Have some Mutton with your Dominionist megalomania!
And why is it sheep are good but goats are bad?
Could it be….PENIS!?!?!
2 July 2006, on 6:18 pm
Sean, Blackwell is more Alan Keyes meets Falwell. Oddly, he wasn’t so bad as Mayor of Cincinnati years back but that’s largely a figurehead position with the city council wielding what power there is. Still, Blackwell never publicly aired any opinions like the ones he apparently holds today, which makes me think he’s sold out to these fucks out of political expediency and not out of sincerity of belief.
While we go about organizing and while we’re attempting to take back that moral soapbox from the bigots, we should take care not to mix our electioneering with churching, lest we fall into the same Parsley/Johnson trap- and you know they wouldn’t hesitate a second to call in the IRS on us. I think Sojourners is probably a good place to start. I like Jim Wallis and there’s a lot of good stuff about the morality of ending poverty, for example, on the site.
2 July 2006, on 6:51 pm
I’m still gonna call him Jerry Blackwell from now on.
2 July 2006, on 10:23 pm
He is legally J. Kenneth Blackwell. Could be “Jerry”.
2 July 2006, on 10:36 pm
Apropos of this thread, Bob sends this one along from the Ether:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/070206A.shtml
The problem, though, was the virus, which was money. Money slowly bought power, money slowly won elections that used to be free, money started to be the defining reality of Congress and then the presidency, money began writing and signing the laws, money got judges put on the Supreme Court by the purchased aforementioned, and money made sure those judges made decisions designed to benefit the money. Washington and Franklin would have been horrified to see the way it started to shake out even fifty years after they finished their work, but of course, they were gone by then.
3 July 2006, on 2:05 am
“So somehow we have to mobilize and organize this “unholy alliance” to get up off their duffs and go vote.” ??
There are still quite a number of Americans who believe that the last two election victories were stolen. It’s hard to motivate people to vote when they have no faith in and a lot of good reason for not trusting the system.
They also need to see some difference between the parties. A lot of young people I talk to really believe it doesn’t matter who gets in, that corruption is everywhere and the wealthy have all the power with no will to change the status quo. Look at the recent pay raise voted by Congress for themselves while the minimum wage increase was voted down.
3 July 2006, on 2:32 am
Lynda: Agree and disagree. Historians may never put it in the textbooks because it belies the pure idea of our supposedly exemplary democracy, but it is quite possible that this administration has never been legitimately elected. To right-wingers who call that paranoid, I just say: fucking learn to read. I won’t do the research for you, the writings are out there, and they aren’t even all left-wing. Shit went down in Ohio just like it did in Florida.
But regardless, I still say this: there still is a difference. Al Gore never, ever would have waged preemptive war on Iraq as a response to Sept. 11. We would be living in a totally different reality now had he been president when the attacks happened. I truly wish that reality had come to pass.
3 July 2006, on 7:40 am
“We would be living in a totally different reality now had he been president when the attacks happened. I truly wish that reality had come to pass.
Yeah, a totally different reality, reality itself as opposed to this fantastical, ascientific delusion spun by Rove and swallowed hook, line, and sinker by the Judith Millers, the Bob Novaks, the Tim Russerts, and the Chris “Tweety” Matthews’- representing the mainstream media.
Pres. Gore would have invaded Afghanistan with enough troops to completely vanquish the taliban and to scour the cave riddled mountains along the Pakistani border for bin Laden. He would have actually entered into bilateral talks with N. Korea. He would never have lumped Iran into some ridiculous “Axis of Evil”, thereby allowing- and encouraging, the reform movement among the students and young folks there to blossom rather than die off in a blaze of enmity towards the US.
Pres. Gore would have signed us immediately on to Kyoto and launched an Apollo program for alternative fuels. He would have appointed qualified folks to positions of authority…ah, shit, what a pointless exercise.
3 July 2006, on 7:51 am
“It’s hard to motivate people to vote when they have no faith in and a lot of good reason for not trusting the system. “
Agreed Lynda, that’s why we have to get voters out both among our base and among disenfranchised moderate repugs. We’ve got to win by margins too significant to be tinkered with. We’ve got to continue to investigate Diebold and their handydandy machines with no paper trail. We’ve got to watch Repug State Attorneys General for too broad felon lists expunging innocent dems from voter rolls, for faulty and inadequate voting gear in inner city polling stations, or for actually changing the physical location of said stations without notifying voters.
I was kind of kidding before when I suggested Jimmy Carter and the UN be brought into FL and Ohio to monitor the proceedings but it sounds like a good idea to actually do it- that and it’d give the tinfoil-hatted brigade a pure hissy fit.
3 July 2006, on 8:15 am
I remember the first time I heard of Al Gore. The Simpsons made a few jokes portraying him as a sensible, restrained intellectual type who was big on foresight and when I heard he was running for president I thought ‘Now that’s the kind of person I want to see running the U.S.’ Then, Bush.
3 July 2006, on 11:04 am
OT, but a fun holiday fact. The Huff Po reports that Ann Coulter is trying to get her address expunged from the Palm Beach records. So far no luck, as this is a treat reserved for judges and other officials, victims of domestic abuse, etc. Hee, isn’t that special. . . .
3 July 2006, on 1:16 pm
World Harvest Church
For some reason every time I see that name I remember the Rod Serling show about the Aliens who wanted to serve humanity. Their book was a cookbook.
So what does the Harvest church collect besides money and hatred for others?
Is it not a shame how uneducated ministers can lead thousands down paths that detriment their lives..
3 July 2006, on 1:24 pm
RDZ said:
He would never have lumped Iran into some ridiculous “Axis of Evil”, thereby allowing- and encouraging, the reform movement among the students and young folks there to blossom rather than die off in a blaze of enmity towards the US.
Yes, this saddens me very much. The very people who had once taken over the U.S. embassies were now pushing for democratic reform and reconnection with the west. With that one speech, the dipshits re-radicalized that country.