First up from the God Machine this week is an unfortunate fundamentalist Christian twist to a conspiracy theory touted by anti-immigration forces.
There’s a major highway, Interstate 35, that stretches from Texas to Minnesota, which , the John Birch Society, Lou Dobbs, Ron Paul, and Tom Tancredo believe is some kind of “NAFTA Superhighway” that will lead to some kind of disaster for American sovereignty. (There is, by the way, no such thing as a NAFTA Superhighway.)
But for the religious right, I-35 has an entirely different significance. Consider this clip from TV preacher Pat Robertson’s 700 Club, by way of my friends at Right Wing Watch.
For those of you who can’t watch clips online, here’s the key excerpt:
A number of Christians have come to believe, because of recent prophecies, dreams, and visions, that I-35 is the highway spoken in Isaiah 35, verse 8: “And a highway will be there, it will be called the way of holiness.”
… [Heartland Ministries’ Hill] believes God has an awesome plan that starts along I-35. “Let’s draw a line in the center of America, set people on fire, get young people saved, get moms and dads saved, get churches on fire, get holy, and watch how it affects the rest of America.”
“What do we expect to see?” [said Cindy Jacob.] “We expect laws to be changed in cities. We expect righteous leaders. We expect a movement, a reformation that will literally sweep the face of the earth.”
Whether this crowd or the North American Union crowd is more annoying remains a matter of opinion.
Other items from The God Machine this week:
* God made him do it: “Richard Roberts told students at Oral Roberts University Wednesday that he did not want to resign as president of the scandal-plagued evangelical school, but he did so because God insisted. God told him on Thanksgiving that he should resign the next day, Roberts told students in the university’s chapel. ‘Every ounce of my flesh said ‘no” to the idea, Roberts said, but he prayed over the decision with his wife and his father, Oral Roberts, and decided to step down.” Well, that plus the near-unanimous opinion of the school’s board of directors.
* Blurring the line between church, state, and football: “The American Civil Liberties Union has accused Clemson head football coach Tommy Bowden of abusing his authority by imposing his religious beliefs on his players, and it has asked the university to discontinue the coach’s practice of strongly recommending that players participate in an annual team visit to a local church.” Apparently, Bowden has been using school buses to transport players to his house of worship — it’s unclear if students who declined faced punishment — but Clemson, a state school, has said the practice will be discontinued. A university spokesperson said the matter “has been resolved.” (thanks to reader R.S. for the tip)
* And in England, former Prime Minister Tony Blair is poised to convert to Roman Catholicism, prompting the NYT’s Geoffrey Wheatcroft to remind Americans that the largely-secular British public doesn’t much care about religion at all: “By contrast with the United States, whose First Amendment prohibits any establishment of religion, there is a Church of England ‘by law established,’ with the queen as its supreme governor. And yet, while polls indicate that nearly half of Americans go to church each week, services of this established church are now regularly attended by fewer than 2 per cent of the English population, while the total for all Christian churches is around 7 per cent. (Islam is another matter: Muslims attending Friday prayers in Great Britain may soon outnumber all churchgoing Christians.) We British not only don’t do God, we are effectively a pagan nation — and that goes for our politicians. Even when England was truly Protestant, that was more in terms of hostility to Catholicism than theological precision or zeal, and to this day the public displays of piety that are normal enough in America would be embarrassing here.”