The Rise of the Religious Right in the Republican Party

Topic List

Home Page

Introduction

Government

Environment

Judiciary Scalia
Federalist Society

Bush

Faith Base Initiative

Dominion Economics

Schools and Homophobia

Religious Institutions

Middle East

The Media

Satan

States' Rights

Separation of Church and State

Appeal of the Religious Right

2002 Texas GOP Platform

Biography of Joan Bokaer

"There will be Satanic forces...

We are not... up just against human beings, to beat them in elections. We're going to be coming up against spiritual warfare." Pat Robertson, Road to Victory, 1991

Introduction

Last Update, August, 2003

In this section you will find:
     War on Secular Society
     Dominion Mandate
     Who is the Religious Right
     Estimate of political strength

War on Secular Society

"We need to find ways to win the war" Karl Rove, President Bush's political director told a gathering of the Family Research Council in March, 2002. The Family Research Council is one of the most powerful lobbying organizations of the Religious Right today. Rove wasn't talking about the war on terrorism. He was talking about the war on secular society.

To understand the war on secular society, we should go to Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition, who told the Denver Post in 1992 that his goal was to "take working control of the Republican Party."

He explained the nature of the war on secularism in 1991 at a Christian Coalition rally. "It's going to be a spiritual battle," Robertson told the crowd. "There will be Satanic forces.... We are not going to be coming up just against human beings, to beat them in elections. We're going to be coming up against spiritual warfare."

Robertson named his enemies in a 1992 newsletter, Pat Robertson Perspective. The list includes, among others, the National Organization for Women, the National Education Association, the National Council of Churches, the Gay-Lesbian Caucus, as well as People for the American Way, and Americans United for a Separation of Church and State. They are lumped together as the "Radical Left."

"The strategy against the American Radical Left should be the same as General Douglas MacArthur employed against the Japanese in the Pacific...Bypass their strongholds, then surround them, isolate them, bombard them, then blast the individuals out of their power bunkers with hand-to-hand combat. The battle for Iwo Jima was not pleasant, but our troops won it. The battle to regain the soul of America won't be pleasant either, but we will win it." (from the book, The Most Dangerous Man in America? by Rob Boston).

Noting that the country is facing a war in Iraq, Alabama Governor Bob Riley declared, "There is another war going on in this country. This one is far more insidious. It’s one that you just can’t go and attack. It’s a war for the absolute soul of this country." Gov. Riley was Speaking to the Alabama Christian Coalition’s "Friends of the Family" Celebration, March 8, 2003. Gov. Riley has asked his Religious Right political allies to enlist in a crusade to restore the Christian character of America. Riley said, “If we are going to save this country, if we are going to reestablish that belief in God, it’s up to us. If we don’t do it, who will?”

If the Religious Right has declared war, they also see themselves as victims of war. Church and State reported, April, 2003, "House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) is helping a controversial Religious Right group raise money to defeat a so-called 'war on Christianity' in America and preserve the nation’s alleged “Christian heritage.”

DeLay has endorsed a campaign by the Rev. Lou Sheldon’s Traditional Values Coalition (TVC), which claims in a recent fund-raising letter that it will raise $12.6 million to “stop the all-out assault on Christians being waged by our government, by America’s educational institutions, by the media and throughout popular culture."

"The Culture Wars Are Not over, The Institutionalization of the Christian Right," by Frederick Clarkson. Published in The Public Eye, Spring, 2001. Click Here.

Dominion Mandate

Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates, an organization that monitors the Religious Right sums up the goals of the Religious Right in one word: dominion. Sara Diamond in her book Road to Dominion is credited with recognizing dominion as a political goal. "Our aim," according to Pat Robertson at a banquet in 1984, "is to gain dominion over society."

Authors Mark Beliles and Stephen McDowell have written an influential textbook for Christian schools titled America's Providential History. "The Puritans are prime representatives of this "spirit of dominion," they explain, holding out the Puritans as examples of good government. "They recognized the scriptural mandates requiring Godly rule, and zealously set out to establish that in all aspects of society." Dominion is described by former president of the Family Research Council, Kenneth L. Conner, as a society that "reflects, in the final analysis, the sovereignty of the Lord over all aspects of our daily life."

The term dominion means control over, in this case control over all the democratic institutions in this country. The Republican Party has been the key vehicle in the drive for control. Now that the Religious Right dominates both houses of Congress and the presidency, they are highly focused on the one remaining branch of government: the courts.

"Judges are the basis of the land's righteousness," said David Barton, a "Christian nation" activist and vice chair of the Texas state GOP. Barton is dedicated to ending the separation of church and state and was speaking about the 2002 elections. "We have a Senate election here in Texas. The only issue that should matter is judges."

David Barton was speaking at Worldview Weekend in April 2002, an event designed to teach fundamentalists how to gain political influence and bring government under religious control. Another speaker at that event was the House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay, but it was Barton's speech that captured the spirit of the 2002 elections: "The only issue that should matter is judges." The following link is an article by Rob Boston of American's United for Separation of Church and State in response to David Barton. Click Here

In his speech Barton was urging the audience to vote for any Republican senator, even moderates. Since Republican leadership is firmly in the hands of the Religious Right, the strategy was to ensure a Republican majority in both houses.

An article appeared in Harper's last March called "Jesus Plus Nothing: Undercover among America's secret theocrats" by Jeff Sharlet. While the term "dominion" isn't used, the goal is the same. The article reads like a thriller, except that it isn't fiction. Click Here

Here's a follow-up interview with the author. Anthony Lappé, Executive Editor of GNN.tv, interviewed Sharlet on June 13, 2003. Click Here.

Who Is The Religious Right?

This site is not about religion. Many religious leaders, including those from mainline Christian churches, are deeply concerned about the Religious Right. The Interfaith Alliance, for example, "is a nonpartisan, clergy-led grassroots organization dedicated to promoting the positive, healing role of faith in civic life and challenging intolerance and extremism."

This site is not about Christianity. The Religious Right does not view mainline Christians as true Christians. It is not easy to find an appropriate term for this movement. Some call it the "Christian right," but there are many Christians who consider themselves at the right wing of the political spectrum, but don't necessarily support the agenda of the Religious Right. Likewise, many people identify themselves as "Christian" and "conservative," but don't support the goals of the Religious Right.

Evangelicals cover the whole political spectrum. The term Evangelical should not be used as synonymous with the Religious Right. Former President Jimmy Carter is an evangelical who is considered a liberal Democrat. Groups such as the Evangelical Environmental Network or Sojourners do not support the Religious Right political goals, and are often opposed to them.

This site is not about Republicans. To quote a highly respected, very conservative Republican, former presidential candidate, Barry Goldwater, "Our problem is with ... the religious extremists ... who want to destroy everybody who doesn't agree with them. I see them as betrayers of the fundamental principles of conservatism. A lot of so-called conservatives today don't know what the word means."

From another seasoned Republican to whom Goldwater spoke those words, Bill Rentschler, "Prepare yourself, fellow Americans, for historic change, the most dramatic and far-reaching change in your lifetime, a sweeping metamorphosis that may alter radically the distinctive, time-honored structure of the fabled American experiment, which has endured for most of the last 225 years." Click Here.

While this site is not about Republicans, it is about Republican strategists who target fundamentalist, Pentecostal and charismatic churches as a way to expand the base of their party, and about a very specific group of religious leaders who are using the Republican Party as a way to gain "dominion" over society. The ultimate political goal of the Religious Right is to make the United States a Christian nation. The ultimate legal goal is to make the U.S. Constitution conform to Biblical Law. The bar graphs in Government make it clear that the Religious Right is in a strong position to hold the Republican Party hostage to its agenda.

For a list of key organizations of the Religious Right, go to the "Marriage Protection Week" web site. It provides links to organizations. Click Here.

For a list of members of the U.S. House of Representatives that sponsored the Itsook Amendment go to Click Here.

Estimate of Political Strength

This drive for "dominion" is underestimated by the media and political analysts. Karl Rove estimates the number of people from the Religious Right who voted for Bush in 2000 to be about 15 million, and he talked about raising that number to 19 million. With the Religious Right's passion to gain control of the federal court system and its ability to send followers to the polls by the busload, Rove's estimate is probably modest, and its number as a voting bloc could exceed 20 million.

The Houses of Worship Political Speech Protection Act, a bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 107th Congress, was intended to bypass campaign finance reform and allow houses of worship to collect money for political campaigns. It was drafted with help from Pat Robertson's law school. These contributions would have been both anonymous and tax exempt. This bill was lobbied for intensively by virtually all the key organizations of the Religious Right, and opposed by a strong coalition of mainline religious groups. It was defeated in the House of Representatives on October 3, 2002, thereby denying unrestricted campaign contributions to be made through the collection plate.

Because most groups except the Religious Right opposed the bill, it was a good measure of their numbers in the House. Roughly 43% of those who voted supported the bill (178 for, 239 against). Candidates backed by the Religious Right won 18 new seats in the House of Representatives. The bill was re-introduced in January, 2003. To read a fact sheet on the Houses of Worship Political Speech Protection Act from the Interfaith Alliance Click Here.

Another bill was introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives that indicates the strength of the Religious Right. While media attention focused on the two-ton granite monument of the Ten Commandments placed in the lobby of the Alabama Supreme Court by its Chief Justice Roy Moore, little, if any attention was focused on a House measure that passed on July 23, by a vote of 260 - 161. The bill blocks the federal government from spending any tax funds to enforce the 11th U.S. circuit Court of Appeals order to have the monument removed. During floor debate, the author of the bill insisted that Congress has the power to curb the courts. This bill is an assault on an independent judiciary.

To quote from Church and State, "One Alabama newspaper blasted the amendment. Calling the move "outrageous and wholly unconstitutional, " The Tuscaloosa News editorialized July 30, "While the amendment can and certainly should be stripped from the bill in the Senate, Hostettler’s move shows that the same kind of blatant disregard of the law that Moore is trading in back here in Alabama is also current in Washington. That his ploy is not likely to stand does not make it any less outrageous. " Click Here.

The next page explores the role of the Religious Right in government.

Home