The Religious Right And The Republican Party

[teresaq]

http://www.theocracywatch.org/

[teresaq]

http://www.theocracywatch.org/appeal2.htm

[teresaq]

http://www.au.org/resources/brochures/the-religious-rights-war-on-lgbt-americans/

[teresaq]

http://www.religiousrightwatch.com/

[olger]

For years we thought that the conservative party in America would usher in the time of the end, but recent developments among the liberal party in America reveal a controlling spirit that rivals or exceeds that of the conservative element. We are in for fascinating times, and the only way out of this turmoiled planet is going to be straight up.

stay faithful,

g

[teresaq]

You have a lot of opinions you share in your drive-bys, Olger. Do you think, for a change, you could start posting something that would back up those opinions?

Preferably on a thread regarding that issue. This is about the religious right, The Republican party and politics.

[phkrause]

I absolutely agree teresaq, from as far back as I can remember this has been being said. The only thing that has changed as far as the religious right is concerned is there name. I rmember reading an article just a few years ago about how they have actually become the republican party. What I mean by that is, that instead of trying to solisit(sp) the republican party they are running for the senate and house as republicans and when they become the majority than they can do whatever they want. Unlike Olger I don't agree that the democratic party will do anything. I do agree with him that things in this country are headed in that direction, but this has been happening for many, many years not just the past two years.

[teresaq]

I agree it has been happening for several decades now, I have been watching it.

It seems to me the "religious right" have been manipulating religious conservatives all along. Easy enough to do when people sincerely want to do what is right.

[phkrause]

I agree it has been happening for several decades now, I have been watching it.

It seems to me the "religious right" have been manipulating religious conservatives all along. Easy enough to do when people sincerely want to do what is right.

[Parade Orange]

really OLGER?

how come most SDA's i know are republicans?

and SHANE

would u please give the anti gay rhetoric a rest

its all fear from u

[teresaq]

really OLGER?

how come most SDA's i know are republicans?

and SHANE

would u please give the anti gay rhetoric a rest

its all fear from u

I would ask how come SDAs belong to any party? I can see voting for what one believes to be right, I can't see belonging to any political party of this world.

Joh 17:16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

[Parade Orange]

SHANE i can come to u at any angle with this but for right now i will say this and i hope u dont cast it aside and turn the wheels in your head regarding what im going to say

when the protestants and catholics join the state in legislating sunday laws

it will automatiacally fold in all the moral laws we can muster

DOES THAT MAKE SENse?

the gay rights will collapse entirely

people will let this happen out of fear and ignorance

gambling

prostitution

drinking?

i dont know!

but we are talking about extremes in laws to restrict everyone

the constition to be disabled?

rights?

freedoms?

worship?

it will all be controlled

they gays right now are taking the ball and running with it

and it will be to ruin when religious ferver reach a fevered pitch

gays will either run into the closet with fear of religios/political persecution

or die

in the last days u will get what u want

u can rent out to a nice hetero couple who have vanilla sex

and maybe u can watch to make sure

GOD have mercy!

[Dr. Shane]

I would ask how come SDAs belong to any party? I can see voting for what one believes to be right, I can't see belonging to any political party of this world.

Yes, I agree. That is why I am independent and often vote a split ballot.

[Dr. Shane]

in the last days u will get what u want

u can rent out to a nice hetero couple who have vanilla sex

The issue has nothing to do with anyone's sexuality. It is about control.

God wants us to try and win people's hearts and minds.

The devil wants us to use the civil government to force others to do what we want them to.

Both the extreme Left and the extreme Right use the devil's tactics of riding the beast.

[teresaq]

Back to the topic,

http://www.religiousrightwatch.com/

Quote:

Gingrich, Perry privately address pastors' group: Gingrich and Perry privately addressed a pastors' group in Orlando - OrlandoSentinel.com

Clipboard01A California-based Christian activist group sponsored a meeting of Florida pastors in Orlando this week featuring private speeches from Republican presidential candidates Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich and production of a political-activism video.

Participants in the meeting Thursday and Friday disclosed little about the event or the group behind it, United in Purpose. The group's spokesman was not available.

The appearances by candidates at the event, dubbed The Florida Renewal Project, also were shrouded in secrecy.

via www.orlandosentinel.com

Also from the article:

Stemberger said Thursday that more than 800 Florida pastors were expected. He said their expenses were being paid by private donors he could not identify.

"There are persons that made it possible for them to come and have accommodations here and have their meals taken care of. There's no charge to the pastors," Stemberger said.

In addition to hearing Perry and Gingrich, the pastors came to participate in "Champion the Vote," a nationwide campaign seeking to register an additional 5 million Christian-conservative voters this fall.

For that campaign, Stemberger, the pastors and other participants, including Dallas, were producing a DVD video on the potential voting power of Christian conservatives. The video is to be distributed for a nationwide coordination of church and house parties on Nov. 12 called "One Nation Under God."

[Parade Orange]

SHANE i will say this and then drop it

legislating sunday laws is legislating morality

it aint going to be the only moral law enforced

why dont u thunk on it for awhile

sorry go back to topic

[Dr. Shane]

I voted for Obama and his association with Reverend Wright did bother me a little because Wright is such an extremist. I figured that Obama probably just went to that church so that he would gain networking connections and find political opportunities - which he did. Wright's church is very active in the community and would be a great place for someone with political ambitions to network. As President, Obama's foreign policy has not been governed by the type of radical theology found in Wright's church so I think I was right in my belief that he was there for the political opportunities and not the theology.

[teresaq]

which link are you responding to?

[CoAspen]

Quote:

"religious right"

I have to laugh! The above statement is self explanatory...it can apply to anyone, politics has nothing to do with it, a red herring if you will. The pharisees were the 'religious right' of their day. I read 'religious right' everyday through out the forum threads! It is simply a shortened version of "I am religiously correct, I have better understanding"!!!

[Overaged]

PO; you are correct about that point. There will be, there are, other laws being enforced.

[Overaged]

Can someone tell me please; what is meant by "left" or "right" in politics? It is something I hear a lot, but never did figure out what is meant by.

[Aliensanctuary]

Are Left and Right related to Liberal and Conservative? Liberal means, I think, tax more, spend more, more government control, more welfare. Conservative means, I think, tax less, spend less, less government control, less welfare.

[teresaq]

I'm thinking people are not realizing which forum they are posting in. This is the Religious Liberty Forum and the topic of this thread has to do with what is going on to unite church and state.

Other opinions should be posted in the Politics Forum.

Perhaps Administration would not mind moving the political discussion to that forum where the libs and cons can "duke it out"?

[phkrause]

I would ask how come SDAs belong to any party? I can see voting for what one believes to be right, I can't see belonging to any political party of this world.

Joh 17:16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

teresaq I couldn't agree more. There are very few that actually vote based on there concious(sp) and what's best for all instead of one party or the other.

[skyblue888]

Here is an article that was published 30 years ago in These Times, an adventist magazine, pp.9-13 (March 1981)

WAKE UP AMERICA

On CBS Evening News, August 22, 1979, Robert Grant, Leader of the Christian Voice, a California-based Christian movement, declared, "We get the feeling that American people, Christian people, are just plain sick and tired of the way trends are going. They're sick and tired of immorality in government. Theyr're sick and tired of being betrayed. Thery're sick and tired of having their moral convictions trampled underfoot by political-by professional politicians. And they're just ready to stand up and have their voice heard."

Terms such as "holy war" (Chicago Tribune), "A war of Christianity versus godless humanism" (Washington Star), and "New force in American politics" (New York Times), speak for themselves.

Pat Robertson, founder and host of "The 700 Club," and president of CBN TV Network, challenges Christians to get into the political arena so we can "place this nation under God." For "we have, together with the Protestants and the Catholics, enough votes to run the country. And when the people say, 'We've had enough,' we are going to take over."

Churches that were split asunder now stand at war with an enemy. "The threat to the family has caused leaders of various denominations to put aside their sectarian differences and, for the first time in decades, agree on basic principles worth fighting for."

In a June, 1979, letter to the 700 Club members, Robertson urged, "Unless Christians desire a nation and a world reordered to the humanistic/hedonistic model, it is absolutely vital that we take control of the U.S. Government away from the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations." He also speaks in the same letter of turning to God "to galvanize Christians to political action."

James Robison, chairman of the committee to get prayer back into public schools and perhaps the most fiery evangelist in America today, wrote, "Are you not sickened and disturbed at what is happening in this great country God has given us? I am urging you to join me as a mighty army marching to turn this nation back to Christ." He is taking his program, "Wake up, America. We are All Hostages," all over the country, just as Jerry Falwell, president of the Moral Majority, is airing his program, "America, You're Too Young to Die." These programs stir the people across the land, mobilizing them into an all-out attack against liberal politicians.

Dr. Jerry Falwell, minister of the 17,000 member Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, and speaker on the "Old-Time Gospel Hour," claimed to have recruited more than 70,000 ministers on the side of moral majority. He also once said he had been responsible for registering some two million voters for the November, 1980, elections.

Dr. Bill Bright, leader of Campus Crusade, sponsored by the Billy Graham Association, warned, "I believe God is giving us a last chance." Pat Robertson cries out, "If Christians unite, we can do anything. We can pass any law or any amendment. And that's exactly what we intend to do." On television Grant said, "We can do anything. We can amend the Constitution. We can elect a President. We can change or make any law in the land. And it behooves us to do it. If we have to live under law-as well we should-we should live under moral and Godly laws."

And speaking of godly law, Dr. Jerry Falwell, in an interview with Eternity Magazine, showed how the Moral Majority got underway-the largest movement of those pressing for change. "George Gallup said his findings indicate that a whopping 84 percent today in America believe the Ten Commandments are valid for today, so we began putting together that Moral Majority."

PLAN OF ATTACK. Their strategy calls for total mobilization of the 108,000 evangelical ministers and the 110,000 evangelical churches to get a 100-voter turnout in every national and local election.

Their strategy involves long-range plans. Churches have become issue-oriented. Morality and saving America stirs the people. James Robison claims that 70 percent of Bible-believing Christians did not vote in the 1976 national election. And the Chicago Tribune speaks of many as 25 million evangelicals not even registered to vote.

Whichever way you look at it, these people have an overriding sense of urgency. They have almost a messianic zeal to save the nation now before it is too late. Jerry Falwell's letter to me, dated August 18, 1980, is signed off, "Working to Save America."

How much time do they think they have? Life Magazine reports, During dinner with the Governor and first lady of Alabama, Falwell confided, "America had less than a thousand days as a free nation, unless there is divine intervention.'"

This puts urgency into the campaign to make America Christian--as if it must be completed before Christ comes. I attended the James Robison's Greater Chattanooga Crusade on September 21, 1980. He spoke with a tremendous sense of urgency to a capacity stadium packed with people from more than eighty churches in the area. Robison spoke of the 1980's as a 'decade of danger and doom,' with 1980 as the "year of decision which will determine our destiny--whether we survive as a free country." A time bomb ticks away under America. A sense of "time runningout" drives these leaders, and they have already gained results.

MORAL ACTION COMMITTEES, in local churches throughout the country move in high gear. In Alaska they seized control of the State Convention, where only five of the thirty-eight delegates to the National Republican and Convention were not Moral Majority members of those supporting them. The New York Times reports, "In Gainesville, Florida, forty-two members of the Southside Baptist church won seats on the Alachua County Democratic Central Committee in an election to fill fifty-three vacancies.

They discovered that Gene Keith, pastor of Southside, had enrolled for one week in a school of politics run by the Moral Majority. He then returned to Gainesville and entered the September 9 Democratic primary as a candidate for the State senate and persuaded many members to do the same. Eight of those winning seats were formerly Republicans.

The republican Party realizes the importance of this new Right Wing and has sent a full-time worker to initiate and guide the 108,000 evangelical pastors in their political quest. The movement ousted Senator Mike Gravel, of Alaska. The moral voting record of each Congressman and Senator, put out by Christians Voice, could unseat many more leaders in the days ahead.

The Washington for Jesus rally drew between 200,000 to 600,000 people, depending upon which report one follows. Although the crowd numbered considerably less than the hope-for one million, it nevertheless found representatives from every State and outnumbered the turnout to greet Pope Paul II. America for Jesus rallies are planned in every major city in the States for April, 1981. They believe their mandate from God is to make America a Christian nation.

Before last labor Day the voting record of every incumbent was mailed out to evangelicals, and the Sunday before the election there was a mass "leafleting." The church has become a powerful political precinct. The CBS Evening News, August 22, 1979, stated, "There is a ready-made outlet for the born-again lobby: that nation's dozens of Christian television stations, hundreds of Christian radio stations, thousands of cable stations hungry for program material." A new potent political force, whose day has come, moves out to take a nation.

James Dunn, director of the Christian Life Commission of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, said. "We need to be connected with reality. What is their vision? Someone suggested that what they really want--and you can listen to the preaching of the electronic church and hear that what they really want is a theocracy. They don't want a democracy, and if you listen very carefully to the number of times the first-person-singular pronoun is used, they not only want a theocracy but each one of them wants to be Theo!

I listened to most of the speakers who addressed the National Affairs Briefing in the Reunion Arena, Dallas, August 21,22, 1980. Church leaders of this new political Right Wing spoke, together with some State governors, senators, congressmen, and Presidential Candidate Ronald Reagan. Pat Robertson spoke of God's commission for men to have dominion over the world. Repeatedly speakers referred to Christian influence as "salt" and "light" in this world.

Gary North, director of the Institute of Christian Economics, referred to America as a nation "under the Covenant" from which we have been breaking away since the Civil War. And Jerry Falwell said that America is "a nation under God" to bless the world, having a divine mandate just as Israel did. And a part of that mandate is to protect Israel. Falwell asserted, "We established this nation on the Judeo-Christian state."

All through the speeches I noted a heavy reliance on Old Testament passages and a claim that the gospel is not just the New Testament, but the whole Bible, with an oversimplistic comparison between America and Israel. They challenged christians to awake and wrench back their land from liberals and humanists and to make this a Christian country.

But what about the separation of church and state in he First Amendment? What dit they say of this? James Robinson declared, "There is no possible way you can separate God from government and have a successful government. God is the ultimate authority." Governor William Clemons, of Texas, asserted, "We in the United States strongly believe in the separation of church and state, and this is right. But it does not mean that thinking citizens should not participate in the governement process and exercise their greatest freedom of all-the freedom to vote and choose their leaders."

Then-presidential hopeful Reagan considered that "under the pretense of saparation of church and state, religious beliefs cannot be advocated in many of our public institutions, but atheism can." Reagan went on to say, "The First Amendment was written, not to protect the people and their law from religious values, bot to protect those values from government tyranny."

WE MUST NEVER FORGET that the pilgrims fled from church tyranny--not from government tyranny. We must never forget that the National and Reform Association, at Xenia, Ohio, in 1864, supported a religious amendment to the Constitution and backed Senator H.W. Blair in his 1888 National Sunday Bill in Congress, and Americans were persecuted under Sunday blue laws.

I wrote to H.Edward Rowe, executive director of the Religious Round Table, which convened the National Affairs Briefing that met in Dallas. I asked him, "If it is time for the Moral Majority to let their influence be felt in government, could this also include influencing legistation to make Sunday a day of worship in our country?" His reply was: "Yes."

Bill Gothard's seminar for ministers, held in Washington, D.C., last spring (1980) found Gothard giving forceful backing to the idea of urging Sunday sacredness and acceptance of America as a Christian nation. My ministerial friends in attendance told me of the fervent reception the ministers gave to these concepts.

If the Moral Majority fear the demise of our country unless they influence the state, I fear the demise of our religious freedom if they do. I agree with Stan Mooneyham, editor of World Vision, when he said, "I am as scared of an evangelical power bloc as I am of any other. Worldly power in religious hands-Islamic or Christian-has hardened into more than one Inquisition."

Senator John Darnsworth (R.Montana), an ordained Episcopal minister, warned, "The business of trying to approach matters as a concerned Christian in one thing. It is quite another thing to purport to be the arbiter of political postition in the name of Christ. That's a usurpation of Christianity for political purposes."

George Washington understood the genius of America. The separation of church and state constituted the only way of shutting out the possibility of the tyranny of religion from which the persecuted Pilgrims fled, and offered the only way to which all persecuted people could escape--whether running from religious or political tyranny.

Roland Hegstad, editor of Liberty magazine, in his September 19, 1980, letter to me, expressed it well: "There has never been a time when the majority has been moral. There have, unfortunately, been times when the majority thought it had been moral. I say unfortunately because history is a record not of bad people trying to make other people bad, but of good people trying to make other people good. And when the majority perceives itself as moral, and political, and powerful, and 'called,' the minority is in for a bad time. But was it not Jesus Himself who said, 'The time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think he doeth God service.'" (John 16:2).

______________________

According to acclaimed journalist and television host Bill Moyers,

"True, people of faith have always tried to bring their interpretation of the Bible to bear on American laws and morals ... it's the American way, encouraged and protected by the First Amendment. But what is unique today is that the radical religious right has succeeded in taking over one of America's great political parties. The country is not yet a theocracy but the Republican Party is, and they are driving American politics, using God as a a battering ram on almost every issue: crime and punishment, foreign policy, health care, taxation, energy, regulation, social services and so on."