The FundamentaList

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from The American Prospect:



The FundamentaList

The quest for Dobson's endorsement, the Values Voter Presidential Debate, secret Bible codes about 9-11, Santorum's prep for war with Iran, and televangelist domestic violence.

Sarah Posner | September 19, 2007 | web only



Editor's Note: Introducing a new regular feature at TAP Online in which Sarah Posner, author of the forthcoming book God's Profits: Faith, Fraud, and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters, counts down the week's top news about the religious right. Look for it every Wednesday.

1. IRS Says Dobson Can Endorse Candidates

In Colorado Springs, James Dobson of Focus on the Family (FOF) was jubilant that the IRS had cleared his organization of charges, filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), that it had illegally endorsed Bush for president in 2004. As a tax-exempt organization, FOF could be subject to fines and even revocation of its tax-exempt status if it campaigns on behalf of or endorses candidates. But according to Dobson's announcement on his nationally broadcast radio program, the IRS found that any endorsement of Bush came from Dobson personally and not on behalf of his organization.

Dobson -- despite FOF out-fundraising CREW by a 127 to 1 margin -- was in classic sore-winner mode, complaining that CREW's purpose -- with its funding from George Soros, a "radical leftist who seeks to undermine so much of what this country stands for" -- was to "scare every pastor and every non-profit" from speaking their minds on political issues.

Although Dobson -- and other non-profit heads, as well as pastors -- will undoubtedly now feel free to offer up endorsements in the 2008 race, the irony is that no clear choice has emerged for them to support. Dobson already has ruled out John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, and has left open the possibility of endorsing Mitt Romney (although his Mormonism, Dobson maintained, would be an issue for many evangelicals) or Fred Thompson (after first questioning his Christian credentials, too). But some of Dobson's fellow members of the Arlington Group, the influential set of Christian right leaders struggling to find a hero in the imperfect field of Republican candidates, are dissatisfied with Thompson, and worry that Mike Huckabee lacks the fundraising firepower to vanquish their bête noire, Hillary Clinton.

2. …And the Second-Tier GOP Candidates Woo "Values Voters"

Huckabee made a play for the religious-right endorsement Monday night at the Values Voter Presidential Debate in Fort Lauderdale, where he overwhelmingly won the event's straw poll of religious-right insiders with over 60 percent of the vote. Giuliani, McCain, Romney, and Thompson all skipped the debate, citing scheduling conflicts. (Giuliani -- who had nothing to gain by being questioned by the likes of anti-feminist grande dame Phyllis Schlafly, Liberalism Kills Kids author Rick Scarborough, or Ten Commandments crusader Roy Moore -- was reportedly across town at a fundraiser.) The debate moderator, World Net Daily editor Joseph Farah, crowed that the debate panel "struck fear in the hearts" of the four absentees, and warned the leading candidates that "you can run but you can't hide." The absent presidential hopefuls were each subject to questioning while the camera zeroed in on empty podiums with their names on them.

As a Southern Baptist minister, Huckabee's answers about his faith were all predictably on target, particularly his statement that "the greatest thing in my life was coming to know Jesus Christ." (As the Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody put it, "Cha-ching!") Huckabee stumbled a bit when he displayed a shocking ignorance of the Mexico City Policy, the Reagan-era ban on federal funding to international organizations that "provide or promote abortion," which he mistook as a reference to Mexican law. The debate organizer, Janet Folger of Faith2Action, was palpably dismayed, but Huckabee may have redeemed himself with a pledge to defund Planned Parenthood.

Lined up on a stage with the single-digit Sam Brownback, Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, businessman John Cox, and Alan Keyes (yes, he's back), Huckabee's statements -- on issues ranging from a constitutional ban on gay marriage, overturning Roe v. Wade, immigration ("closed and secure borders"), judicial activism (activist judges should be impeached), and Social Security privatization (Bush's plan should be resuscitated) -- were indistinguishable from the other hardliners' statements. But he probably most ably cast the good-versus-evil foreign policy that his audience relishes. He opposes a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, an answer that satisfies Biblical literalists and Christian Zionists but is at odds even with recent Bush-stated policy. In response to a question about "Islamic jihadists," Huckabee described "a theological war" that is not about Iraq or Afghanistan, but "about our survival as a civilization and as a people."

3. 9-11 Remembered as Biblical Prophecy

The message aired by Christian television during the 9-11 anniversary week was that there's a war raging against Western civilization -- and against Christianity itself. The Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), the world's largest religious television network, re-ran a 2002 program, Bible Code Foretold 9/11. This, er, documentary purported to show how Equidistant Letter Sequence (ELS) codes in the Bible have predicted countless events, including Saddam Hussein's 1991 scud-missile attacks in Israel, the assassinations of Itzhak Rabin, Anwar Sadat, and Robert F. Kennedy, the Clinton impeachment, George W. Bush's 2000 victory, and the Oklahoma City bombing. The film lamented how it was discovered -- too late -- that ELS codes predicted 9-11 (code spelling out bin Laden's name, the film maintained, appears in the Book of Numbers).

It's amazing that TBN still shows the film, because it unwittingly proves its own prophesy wrong. Made a year before Bush's invasion of Iraq, it warns that "intelligence agencies should be listening" to Bible codes that prove Saddam Hussein was "deeply involved in the terrorist attacks of September 11." Decoders also claimed that ESL codes showed that the Iraqi dictator would die of a terminal disease. Oops.

But this artifact from the elaborate media roll-out of the invasion of Iraq does serve as a premonition of sorts for today. As the Bush administration plans a military attack on Iran and an accompanying media blitz, it's worth recalling that none other than TBN's own John Hagee and his Christians United for Israel (CUFI) have been instrumental in peddling purportedly vetted intelligence about Iran's nuclear program since early 2006. Now, Hagee is selling face time "with Israeli and U.S. elected officials and opinion leaders." For a mere $365 a year, you too can buy membership in the Lion of Judah club and participate in these quarterly teleconferences. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_fundamentalist_091907