Well, it seems the Bushistas aren't religious fanatics after all.

Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction

Check part one of the dreaded exclusive report, Windows Media, Quicktime, or transcript at Crooks and Liars .

When President Bush touched on Iraq at his news conference this morning, he may have been revealing more than he knew.

[video] BUSH: The stakes couldn't be any higher, as I said earlier, in the world in which we live. There are extreme elements that use religion to achieve objectives.

He was talking about religious extremists in Iraq. But an hour later, Mr. Bush posed with officials from the Southern Baptist Convention.

It is described as the largest, most influential evangelical denomination in a new book by the former number-two man in Bush's Office of Faith-Based Initiatives.

The book, "Tempting Faith," not out until Monday, but in our third story tonight, a Countdown exclusive we've obtained a copy and it is devastating work.

The article is worth more than a snarky headline, though.

Until 1968, clergy members were exempt from Social Security unless they joined voluntarily. Since then, they have been automatically covered — but, unlike other citizens, they are allowed to drop out as conscientious objectors if they assert, by a certain point early in their ministry, that they have a religious opposition to receiving public welfare benefits.

“Few people, outside of the Amish, could plausibly say that,” said Mr. Hammar, an accountant who also has a law degree from Harvard and attended its divinity school.

Yet his research shows that 3 of every 10 ministers in America have opted out of Social Security. “The only conclusion is that the conscience-based objection is usually really a financial decision,” he said.

In God’s Name
Religion-Based Tax Breaks: Housing to Paychecks to Books
By DIANA B. HENRIQUES

Tucker Carlson to Evangelicals: Duped
By: John Amato on Tuesday, October 10th, 2006 at 5:29 AM - PDT

Tucker Carlson gets honest about what he says the Republican elites feel about the Extreme Christian Right.

Video-WMP Video-QT

Duncan:

CARLSON: It goes deeper than that though. The deep truth is that the elites in the Republican Party have pure contempt for the evangelicals who put their party in power. Everybody in…

Some of these exemptions are rooted in long traditions, while others have grown from court decisions over the last 15 years. Together, they are expanding the ability of religious organizations — especially religious schools — to manage their affairs with less interference from the government and their own employees.

The most sweeping of these judicial protections, and the one that confronted the novice nun in Toledo, is called the ministerial exception. Judges have been applying this exception, sometimes called the church autonomy doctrine, to religious employment disputes for more than 100 years.

As a rule, state and federal judges will handle any lawsuit that is filed in the right place in an appropriate, timely manner. But judges will almost never agree to hear a controversy that would require them to delve into the doctrines, governance, discipline or hiring preferences of any religious faith. Citing the protections of the First Amendment, they have ruled with great consistency that congregations cannot fully express their faith and exercise their religious freedom unless they are free to select their own spiritual leaders without any interference from government agencies or second-guessing by the courts.

Where Faith Abides, Employees Have Few Rights
By DIANA B. HENRIQUES

J. Jeffrey Heck, a lawyer in Mansfield, Ohio, usually sits on management’s side of the table. “The only employee cases I take are those that poke my buttons,” he said. “And this one really did.”

His client was a middle-aged novice training to become a nun in a Roman Catholic religious order in Toledo. She said she had been dismissed by the order after she became seriously ill — including a diagnosis of breast cancer.

In her complaint, the novice, Mary Rosati, said she had visited her doctor with her immediate supervisor and the mother superior. After the doctor explained her treatment options for breast cancer, the complaint continued, the mother superior announced: “We will have to let her go. I don’t think we can take care of her.”

Pssst. Want to create a dynasty? 

Bishop Long also said that he is planning a trip to Kenya mid next year with influential African American business men/women to meet with their Kenyan counterparts to develop business partnerships and exchange ideas.

Don't just build businesses. Build infrastructure. 

Now Kenya targets African-American tourist markets
By a Correspondent

The Government is targeting the African- American market in an effort to increase the number of tourists from the US. According to the Kenya Tourist Board, the African American market has huge potential with $700 billion worth of economic power.

Mr Morris Dzoro, the minister for tourism and wildlife, recently met Bishop Eddie Long of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church to target the influential African Americans in the city of Atlanta, Georgia.

Humans have had the religious impulse since the species arose, however you explain that rise. Don't think atheists are exceptions...many atheists proselytize for their position as strongly as any evangelical. Long term, banning it from public spaces is beyond absurd...it's impossible.

Fortunately no one has ever tried to do it. What has happened is an attempt to shape society to eliminate the ability NOT to be religious moment to moment. That, long term, is as absurd as trying to ban religion.

Short term, however, you can push the pendulum way over to one side.

Just watch the return swing.

Evangelicals Fear the Loss of Their Teenagers
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Despite their packed megachurches, their political clout and their increasing visibility on the national stage, evangelical Christian leaders are warning one another that their teenagers are abandoning the faith in droves.

via Jack andJill Politics

Apparently only three (3) tiny percent of the many millions of dollars in this fund has actually dispersed to majority-black churches...

Leading pastors such as famous author T.D. Jakes have been buddy-buddy with Bush in the past and Jakes originally signed on to the Inter-Faith Katrina Relief Fund with Rev. Bill Gray, former Democratic congressman and CEO of the United Negro College Fund last December. Since then, Jakes, Gray and most of the committee members have resigned in disgust from the Fund. From CarpetBagger:

Numerous disagreements ensued, but Jakes and Gray said the last straw was the fund's decision to cut checks to 38 houses of worship, each for $35,000, without first conducting an audit to ensure the church exists.

UGH. Sound like the Bush Administration cronyism and corruption we've come to know and despise? Glad to see that though Bush may have pulled the wool over some preachers' eyes, that they might be finally starting to wake up to what this particular set of so-called-Christian conservatives really has to offer African-Americans

Vatican Says Pope Benedict Regrets Offending Muslims
By IAN FISHER

ROME, Sept. 16 — A top Vatican official said Saturday that Pope Benedict XVI “deeply regretted” that a speech he made this week “sounded offensive to the sensibility of Muslim believers.”

The statement, by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the new Vatican secretary of state, was made as denunciations from Muslim leaders over the speech continued for a third day around the world.

And in the West Bank town of Nablus on Saturday, a day after street protests and grenades were thrown at a church in the Gaza Strip, two churches were lightly damaged in fire bombings. A group calling itself the “Lions of Monotheism” said the attacks were in reaction to the pope’s remarks.

The first post tagged with both Religion and Tech. I think that's a notable event. 

I seriously invite you to consider exactly what you've done when you confess anonymously over the Internet. You may well find the Internet, anonymity and confession to all be tools to accomplish effects attainable by other means.

Perhaps the most important activity the Web site has is letting people know that they are not alone in their suffering, Professor Thumma said. It harkens to the now rare practice of “testimony time” at evangelical churches, he said, when “you could hear stories about people overcoming problems, stories of hope, so that you felt you weren’t the only one struggling.”

Among those changed by the confessions is Mr. Groeschel himself.

“Knowing that so many people I see every week on the outside look so normal, and yet inside there is so much pain, that has been surprising,” he said. “When you hear about it in their own words, it’s hard to bear.” 

Intimate Confessions Pour Out on Church’s Web Site
By NEELA BANERJEE

Group files complaint against Miss Indonesia
Tue Jul 25, 2006 03:13 AM ET

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A militant Islamic group has filed a police report against Indonesia's Miss Universe candidate accusing her of indecency, a lawyer for the organization said on Tuesday.

Nadine Chandrawinata's participation in the contest and display of her body in a swimsuit there "is actually insulting for Indonesian dignity and women," Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) attorney Sugito told Reuters.

Chandrawinata did not make it to the finals of the Sunday competition in Los Angeles, which was won by Miss Puerto Rico, but she had drawn heavy media coverage in Indonesia, partly because of her mixed Indonesian-German parentage and Eurasian looks.

Sugito said FPI had also filed complaints against four people involved in sponsoring and organizing Chandrawinata's participation.

"I am worried that Nadine is only victim of their ambition," he said.

Many years ago, before the whites came to Africa, we were masters of all the land we could see. Then the whites came, and to be polite we received them. They had with them a book which they called "the Bible."

They said to us, "Close your eyes, and let us pray." To be polite, we closed our eyes while they held their prayer.

When we opened our eyes, lo and behold! We had the Bible - and they had taken the LAND!

‘P.O.V.’ on PBS: How Missionaries Spread the Word, and U.S. Capitalism
By VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN

Are evangelical missionaries good or bad? That’s the question in tonight’s PBS documentary, “The Tailenders.” The missionaries’ smugness and salesmanship tend to irritate other humanitarian workers, who typically see themselves as more respectful of the people they’re tending to. What’s more, the program implies, silencing the stomping beats of, say, the Solomon Islands in favor of pallid “Jesus Loves Me” singalongs seems just wrong.

But more disturbing than this, the documentary contends, is the psychological and spiritual danger that many progressives believe is wrought by missionaries, who swipe from indigenous people their happy, peaceful ways and stick them instead with the greed, selfishness, jealousy and wrecked natural landscapes known to be the key features of global industrial capitalism.

Asatru is often associated with white supremacy, although most Asatru leaders bristle at suggestions of such a relationship.

A 1999 FBI report on domestic terrorism described Odinism as a "white supremacist ideology that lends itself to violence."

Paganism gaining popularity in prison
By Kristen Gelineau, Associated Press Writer | July 23, 2006

STAUNTON, Va. --A pagan religion that some experts say can be interpreted as encouraging violence is gaining popularity among prison inmates, one of whom is scheduled to be executed this week for killing a fellow prisoner at the foot of an altar.

Michael Lenz is scheduled to die Thursday for the death of Brent Parker, who was stabbed dozens of times at Augusta Correctional Center during a gathering of inmates devoted to Asatru, whose followers worship Norse gods. At his trial, Lenz testified that Parker had not been taking the religion seriously and had to die to protect the honor of the gods...

...The researchers used psychological questionnaires and found that 22 of the 36 volunteers had a “complete” mystical experience after taking psilocybin – far more than the four who reported this type of experience after taking Ritalin.

More than one-third of the volunteers said that their encounter with psilocybin was the single most spiritually significant experience in their lifetimes – no person given Ritalin said the same. Experts say the study is the most rigorous study of psilocybin’s potential to elicit spiritual feelings because it is the first to use an active control.

...However, more than 20% of the participants described their psilocybin sessions as dominated by negative feelings such as anxiety. And while psilocybin appears to mimic the brain signalling-chemical serotonin, its precise action on mind function remains elusive.

Magic mushrooms really cause 'spiritual' experiences
05:01 11 July 2006
NewScientist.com news service
Roxanne Khamsi

“Magic” mushrooms really do have a spiritual effect on people, according to the most rigorous look yet at this aspect of the fungus's active ingredient.

This is another one of those deep stories I can't really excerpt well.

Jewish Family “Forced to Move” Over School Lawsuit
"Stop the ACLU Coalition" Publicised Home Address, Phone Number

That publicizing of people's addresses to hostile crowds isn't limited to abortion doctors and the employees of the NY Times. It's become a standard technique of the right, intended to terrorize. Not that the old techniques are coming up short.

Talk show calls out a mob
The district board announced the formation of a committee to develop a religion policy. And the local talk radio station inflamed the issue.

On the evening in August 2004 when the board was to announce its new policy, hundreds of people turned out for the meeitng. The Dobrich family and Jane Doe felt intimidated and asked a state trooper to escort them.

The complaint recounts a raucous crowd that applauded the board's opening prayer and then, when sixth-grader Alexander Dobrich stood up to read a statement, yelled at him "take your yarmulke off!" His statement, read by Samantha, confided "I feel bad when kids in my class call me Jew boy."

A state representative spoke in support of prayer and warned board members that "the people" would replace them if they faltered on the issue. Other representatives spoke against separating "god and state."

A former board member suggested that Mona Dobrich might "disappear" like Madalyn Murray O'Hair, the atheist whose Supreme Court case resulted in ending organized school prayer. She disappeared in 1995 and her dismembered body was found six years later.

The crowd booed an ACLU speaker and told her to "go back up north."

In the days after the meeting the community poured venom on the Dobriches. Callers to the local radio station said the family they should convert or leave the area. Someone called them and said the Ku Klux Klan was nearby.

via The Register, whose headline was quite appropriate .

Lion Kills Man in Kiev
Combined Report

KIEV — A man shouting that God would keep him safe was mauled to death by a lioness in the Kiev Zoo after he crept into an enclosure, a zoo official said Monday.

“The man shouted ‘God will save me, if he exists,’ lowered himself by a rope into the enclosure, took his shoes off and went up to the lions,” the official said.

“A lioness went straight for him, knocked him down and severed his carotid artery.”

My mom was watching Jackleg Central yesterday.

I need to tell you that when your $20 monthly "donation" gets you a little plastic card that gives you discounts on worship items like recordings, prayer cloths and "our new fashion line," you've gone WAY past money changing in the temple.

Mammon sends his love, by the way...

Nevaeh is Heaven spelled backward.

The name has hit a cultural nerve with its religious overtones, creative twist and fashionable final "ah" sound. It has risen most quickly among blacks but is also popular with evangelical Christians, who have helped propel other religious names like Grace (ranked 14th) up the charts, experts say. By contrast, the name Heaven is ranked 245th.

This is deep because names are free and speak to a parent's aspirations for what a child will become. Yet if you believe in words that deeply isn't the reversal of the spelling of serious symbolic significance?

And if It's a Boy, Will It Be Lleh?
By JENNIFER 8. LEE

Lou Dobb will achieve the world's first 24 hour orgasm.

Some time afterward a third party will gain instant (as these things are considered in politics) credibility by running on a nationalist platform by capturing several Senate seats in midwestern states.

 

Long preaches what is known as prosperity gospel, that God rewards the faithful with financial success. He declared in a 2005 interview that Jesus wasn't poor. In 2003 Long told a meeting of civil rights veterans in Atlanta that blacks must "forget racism" because they had already reached the promised land.

In 2004 Long led a march — while carrying a torch lit at King's crypt — where he called for a constitutional ban on gay marriage.

Cone is a King scholar whose influential books argue that Jesus identified with the poor and the oppressed, not the prosperous. A professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, he is considered the intellectual mentor for a generation of black pastors who came of age in the post-civil rights era.

He won't attend the commencement, he said, because he doesn't want to appear to condone Long's ministry.

"King devoted his life to the least of these," Cone said. "King could have been just like Bishop Long with all the millions he has, but he chose to die poor. He would not use his own message or his own movement to promote himself."

Long not welcome by all at seminary
Graduation invite provokes protests
By JOHN BLAKE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 05/11/06

An Atlanta's seminary's decision to invite Bishop Eddie Long to speak at its commencement has exposed rifts among black church leaders and threatens to disrupt the school's graduation Saturday.

The ceremony at the Interdenominational Theological Center was billed in part as a homecoming for Long, senior pastor of Georgia's largest church and an ITC graduate. The school is a consortium of six predominantly black seminaries located near the Georgia Dome.

But Long's invitation has:

• Caused prominent theologian James H. Cone, who was scheduled to receive an honorary degree, to boycott the ceremony.
• Prompted 33 graduating seniors to send a letter to the seminary's president questioning Long's theological and ethical integrity to be their commencement speaker.
• Led a 29-year member of ITC's board of trustees to boycott the ceremony.
  

A walkout, protest signs or a boycott are possible Saturday, student leaders said this week. "We could see a little bit of everything," said senior Joanne K. Bedford, who signed the letter criticizing Long's selection.

The controversy revolves around three emotionally charged issues: the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the future of the black church, and — a deeper issue — how a Christian lives out his or her faith.

Long and Cone embody different answers.

Evolution's Bottom Line
By HOLDEN THORP

Both sides say they are fighting for lofty goals and defending the truth. But lost in all this truth-defending are more pragmatic issues that have to do with the young people whose educations are at stake here and this pesky fact: creationism has no commercial application. Evolution does.

...[E]volution has some pretty exciting applications (like food), and I'm guessing most people would prefer antibiotics developed by someone who knows the evolutionary relationship of humans and bacteria. What does this mean for the young people who go to school in Kansas? Are we going to close them out from working in the life sciences? And what about companies in Kansas that want to attract scientists to work there? Will Mom or Dad Scientist want to live somewhere where their children are less likely to learn evolution?

One Kansas biology teacher, a past president of the National Association of Biology Teachers, told Popular Science magazine that students from Kansas now face tougher scrutiny when seeking admission to medical schools. And companies seeking to innovate in the life sciences could perhaps be excused for giving the Sunflower State a miss: one Web site that lists companies looking for workers in biotechnology has more than 600 hiring scientists in California and more than 240 in Massachusetts. Kansas has 11.

Two years from now, Mr. McCain's commencement address at Liberty will most likely have vanished from the political landscape.

...because in two years he'll be running for President.

And that's actually the reason we'll ALL remember it in two years.

 

Quote of note:

As the findings have trickled down to churches and universities, they have produced a new generation of Christians who now regard the Bible not as the literal word of God, but as a product of historical and political forces that determined which texts should be included in the canon, and which edited out.

For that reason, the discoveries have proved deeply troubling for many believers. The Gospel of Judas portrays Judas Iscariot not as a betrayer of Jesus, but as his most favored disciple and willing collaborator.

An early Christian manuscript, including the only known text of what is known as the Gospel of Judas, has surfaced after 1,700 years. The text gives new insights into the relationship of Jesus and the disciple who betrayed him, scholars reported today. In this version, Jesus asked Judas, as a close friend, to sell him out to the authorities, telling Judas he will "exceed" the other disciples by doing so.

Known by the initials NCMAF, Keizer's group is a private, 40-year-old association of more than 60 Christian, Jewish and Muslim denominations. It says it represents 5,430 of the 7,620 chaplains in the armed forces.

The calls for an executive order to protect the right to pray in Jesus's name have originated in large part from a rival association, the International Conference of Evangelical Chaplain Endorsers. Formed two years ago, it says it represents about 800 chaplains, exclusively from evangelical Christian churches...

Prodded by complaints from ICECE, 74 members of Congress signed a letter to President Bush last fall saying that "it has come to our attention that in all branches of the military it is becoming increasingly difficult for Christian chaplains to use the name of Jesus when praying."

I actually though hard about the title.

"Theological education has a lot of uses, like a legal education does," said Barbara G. Wheeler, president of Auburn Theological Seminary in New York and director of its Center for the Study of Theological Education. "It's good to have people with a theological education doing lots of things. It's a perspective that helps."

I decided I'd rather have people who know how to think clearly about religion and matters of faith out amonst the hoi poloi, than running for office and by their presence igniting the ignorant ones they could have been teaching.

Students Flock to Seminaries, but Fewer See Pulpit in Future
By NEELA BANERJEE

Quote of note:

"South Park" co-creator Matt Stone responded sharply in an interview with The Associated Press Monday, saying, "This is 100 percent having to do with his faith of Scientology... He has no problem — and he's cashed plenty of checks — with our show making fun of Christians."

Isaac Hayes Quits 'South Park'
By ERIN CARLSON, Associated Press Writer
Mon Mar 13, 6:11 PM ET

Isaac Hayes has quit "South Park," where he voices Chef, saying he can no longer stomach its take on religion.

Hayes, who has played the ladies' man/school cook in the animated Comedy Central satire since 1997, said in a statement Monday that he feels a line has been crossed.

Quote of note:

The Conservative movement was long the dominant one in American Judaism, but from 1990 to 2000 its share of the nation's Jews shrank to 33 percent from 43 percent, according to the National Jewish Population Survey. In that same period, the Reform movement's share jumped to 39 percent, from 35, making it the largest, while Orthodox grew to 21 percent, from 16 percent. Estimates are difficult, but there are five to six million Jews in the United States.

Jonathan D. Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University and author of "American Judaism: A History," said, "In the 1950's when Americans believed everybody should be in the middle, the Conservative movement was deeply in sync with a culture that privileged the center. What happens as American society divides on a liberal-conservative axis is that the middle is a very difficult place to be."

Conservative Jews to Consider Ending a Ban on Same-Sex Unions and Gay Rabbis
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

In a closed-door meeting this week in an undisclosed site near Baltimore, a committee of Jewish legal experts who set policy for Conservative Judaism will consider whether to lift their movement's ban on gay rabbis and same-sex unions.

I am really, REALLY enjoying Glen Greenwald

Are Bush critics labeled "liberal"?

As most readers here will recall, there were numerous responses -- not all of them friendly -- to the post I wrote a week ago (entitled "Do Bush Followers have a Political Ideology?")

...Since that time, replies to my original argument have continued to be posted, including from Ramesh Ponnuru at The Corner, James Taranto at Opinion Journal, and the former Religious Right-activist-turned-ostensible-Democrat Bull Moose. I haven't replied to any of those posts because none of them said anything particularly new that wasn't already subsumed by the other posts to which I did reply.

...But an odd and somewhat alarming development is now prompting me to address a couple of these arguments. The generally well-behaved adult Tom Maguire has spent the last several days frantically jumping up and down, throwing food and crying out for attention -- both on his blog and via e-mail to me -- because he seems to think he has a really impressive reply to my post which I have ignored. For each of the last three days, he has written a series of increasingly childish, amazingly shrill, and attention-demanding rants which purport to reply both to my original post and to a post written about my argument by Peter Daou.

...Based on this premise, Tom has issued what he boldly calls his "challenge" -- the "challenge" that he's been claiming I (along with Daou) have been evading. It's this:

OS - if Messrs. Greenwald and Daou, or their supporters, could find real evidence of Cult leaders actually re-labeling Bush critics as "liberal", that would advance this seminal effort and deepen our understanding of this important work.

Let’s see how intellectually honest Maguire and Taranto are.

Talk about fish in a barrel...

Robertson Cancels Speech at Convention
Move Comes Amid Fellow Religious Conservatives' Concern Over Recent Remarks
By Sonja Barisic
Associated Press
Sunday, February 19, 2006; A11

NORFOLK, Feb. 18 -- Fellow conservative religious leaders have expressed concern over and open criticism of Pat Robertson's habit of shooting from the lip on his daily religious news-and-talk television program, "The 700 Club."

The Christian Coalition founder and former GOP presidential candidate has said U.S. agents should assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine retribution for the Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip.

The God Genome
Review by LEON WIESELTIER

THE question of the place of science in human life is not a scientific question. It is a philosophical question. Scientism, the view that science can explain all human conditions and expressions, mental as well as physical, is a superstition, one of the dominant superstitions of our day; and it is not an insult to science to say so. For a sorry instance of present-day scientism, it would be hard to improve on Daniel C. Dennett's book. "Breaking the Spell" is a work of considerable historical interest, because it is a merry anthology of contemporary superstitions.

Thus begins the savaging of Breaking the Spell : Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. Wieseltier is so relentless it's an amusing sight.

I like the two cartoons that accompany the review a lot. Here's my favorite:

Whoa. Serious statement.

You remember your last breakup, right? Didn't you put up with stuff, try your hardest, overlook so much...and while you're sitting there gritting your teeth some straw was just the last one.

Some of you lashed out. Some of you relaxed and said, oh that's the way it is...

It's always something small.

And what I don't understand is, everyone claims they're worshipping the same God so they should KNOW how folks are going to react. I mean, picture this:

A cartoon. In the upper right hand corner, rays of light pierce a billowing cloud bank. In the lower left hand corner, a burning bush. In the center, a figure recognizable as Da Vinci's Jesus pissing on the burning bush. The caption: "I'll be right home, Dad...I just have to put out this fire!"