He’s not nearly as well known as Dobson, Falwell, and Robertson, but D. James Kennedy is a major religious right player — and a bit of a nut. As Kennedy told his supporters a few years ago, “How much more forcefully can I say it? The time has come, and it is long overdue, when Christians and conservatives and all men and women who believe in the birthright of freedom must rise up and reclaim America for Jesus Christ…. This is our land. This is our world. This is our heritage, and with God’s help, we shall reclaim this nation for Jesus Christ. And no power on earth can stop us.”
Given this, it came as a bit of a surprise to see that the Rev. Barry Black, the official Senate Chaplain, agreed to appear with Kennedy at an upcoming event in DC Ft. Lauderdale called, appropriately enough, “Reclaiming America for Christ.” Putting aside the question of whether the Senate should have a taxpayer financed chaplain as part of the Senate staff, shouldn’t Rev. Black know to steer clear of a radical fundamentalist TV preacher?
My friends at Americans United for Separation of Church and State (full disclosure: my former employer) thought so. AU Executive Director Barry Lynn sent Black a letter, explaining that “the Senate chaplain’s job is to provide a variety of religious services that recognize the broad diversity of faith in America. Dr. Kennedy’s ministry does not recognize or value this diversity. Rather, he argues that certain types of Christians — those who agree with his interpretation of the Bible — are the rightful owners of the country and that the nation must be ‘reclaimed.'”
In a very pleasant surprise, Black agreed. He’s not longer appearing at Kennedy’s event, and what’s more, he’s bashing the group for hiding its true agenda.
According to the chaplain’s spokeswoman, Meg Saunders, Reclaim America originally invited Black to attend in the fall of 2005 and billed the conference as a generic religious meeting. Saunders explained that Black, who attends a number of conferences each year, agreed to participate because it would not conflict with the traditional nonpartisan, nonsectarian role of the Senate chaplain.
But following a review of the group’s Web site Wednesday, Black determined it was, in fact, both a political and highly sectarian event and quickly informed the organization and Senate leaders that he was not attending.
“He was not happy, particularly in light of the fact that in the beginning … we were not given the full information,” Saunders said, explaining that the original invitation was “very vanilla.”
What kind of religious group tries to mislead a chaplain?
Black had been led to believe the event was “nonpartisan” and “nonsectarian.” Kennedy’s group must have hid the agenda quite well.
According to the group’s Web site, which at press time still listed Black as a speaker, the bulk of the speakers are luminaries of the conservative Christian movement, including author Ann Coulter, anti-abortion activist and Catholic priest Frank Pavone, Focus on the Family’s Tony Perkins and Eagle Forum Founder Phyllis Schlafly, among others.
Topics to be discussed at the two-day conference include “making America safe for the unborn,” “America’s Christian moral heritage,” “Reclaiming America through evangelism,” “How to recruit and mobilize your pastor and church,” “Communicating with grassroots” and “Islam and ‘future Jihad,'” according to the site.
A brochure for the event extols Christians to attend by warning that “the only thing evil requires for its triumph is for Christians to say and do nothing. … Once-silent Christians are standing up, speaking out, and rolling up their sleeves to get involved in the civic life of the nation,” and describes the conference as a way to become “informed and equipped in the campaign to return America to her godly heritage.”
Kennedy’s flagship organization, Coral Ridge Ministries, has long been at the center of the so-called culture wars. For instance, the organization last year produced a video that claimed to show proof that Darwin’s theory of evolution was responsible for the rise of Adolph Hitler and the Holocaust.
Note to public officials everywhere: when you’re invited to an event about “reclaiming America for Christ,” look into the group a bit before agreeing to attend.