First up from the God Machine this week is a major political defeat for James Dobson and his cohorts, in their effort to drive diversity of thought from the evangelical movement.
The board of the National Association of Evangelicals has rebuffed leaders of the Christian right who had called for the association to silence or dismiss its Washington policy director because of his involvement in the campaign against global warming.
Prominent Christian conservatives like James C. Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family, and Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, had sent a letter to the association’s leaders this month accusing the policy director, the Rev. Richard Cizik, of “using the global warming controversy to shift the emphasis away from the great moral issues of our time,” which they defined as abortion, homosexuality and teaching children sexual morality and abstinence.
Board members say that the notion of censoring Mr. Cizik never arose last week at their meeting in Minnesota, and that he had delivered the keynote address at their banquet.
The board of the National Association of Evangelicals also voted, 38 to 1, to denounce the Bush administration’s policies towards suspected terrorist detainees, stating that these policies exceed the “boundaries of what is legally and morally permissible.” The board went on to unanimously reaffirm the NAE’s three-year-old platform, which includes priorities such as the environment, human rights, and poverty, all of which the religious right found objectionable.
“There’s one Lord, but not just one issue,” said one board member, the Rev. Paul de Vries, president of the New York Divinity School. “I am as much against abortion as Jim Dobson and the others, but I want that baby to live in a healthful environment, inside the womb as well as outside of the womb.”
If they keep this up, the drive to change the political meaning of the phrase “religious issues” may work after all.
Next up, the religious push-back against Congress’ lone non-believer.
We talked the other day about Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) who became the first member of Congress in U.S. history to acknowledge that he doesn’t believe in any supernatural beings. I was anxious to see how the religious right responded to having one nonbeliever out of 535 members of Congress. As expected, the movement didn’t disappoint. There was this, for example, from Concerned Women for America:
“It is unfortunate in a society that is going down the path of godlessness and making right wrong and wrong right, that we continue down this path by celebrating one member of Congress who denies that God exists altogether,” Concerned Women for America Director of Legislative Relations Mike Mears told Cybercast News Service….
“I think a Christian worldview is proper for a politician to have,” he said. “I want them to be looking outside of themselves for answers to big issues.”
The Traditional Values Coalition went so far as to fabricate its own narrative.
In a display of open hostility to God, California Representative Peter Stark stood up on the Floor of the House on March 13 and declared his unbelief in God.
(For the record, Stark responded to a questionnaire; he didn’t stand up on the House floor.)
My personal favorite came from the Christian Seniors Association, a front-group created by the son-in-law of the Traditional Values Coalition’s president, called on other members of Congress to fight back against Stark’s secularism.
It is time for religious members of Congress to push back. A simple declaration of a belief in God by members of Congress on the House floor will be greatly informative for the American people….
This is a fight which is destined to be fought in America and we think it should begin today.
Theists now outnumber nonbelievers in Congress 534 to 1. Maybe the religious right ought to wait until atheists reach double digits before declaring a holy war.