Fighting the Right

Family Research Council’s new vice president Jerry Boykin has a penchant for making bizarre, conspiratorial claims about President Obama and extremist attacks on Muslims, and at a Massachusetts synagogue last week even wondered whether President Obama is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Responding to a questioner who asked if Obama is “a member of the Muslim Brotherhood,” Boykin replied, “you probably don’t know, and my answer is, I don’t know.”

He went on to allege that Jeremiah Wright brought Nation of Islam theology into the United Church of Christ, and that the NOI is based on the teachings of James Cone, a Christian theologian who was born after the founding of the NOI. Boykin denied that Obama attended a real Christian church and instead claimed Wright surreptitiously preached Cone’s crypto-Islamic theology, and so for Obama “it wouldn’t of mattered whether he was in the Nation of Islam or was in a Christian Church, he got the same theology, which was James Cone’s Marxist, liberation theology, which runs parallel to the whole doctrine of Islam.”

Watch:

Update: Wil Gafney writes in Religion Dispatches that not only did Boykin grossly misrepresent black liberation theology, but also that Wright was never a member of the Nation of Islam.

During a recent appearance on Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum Live radio show, conservative radio talk show host Mason Weaver, whom Schlafly introduced as “a very articulate black” who is urging African Americans to “get a life” and “get off the plantation.”

Schlafly: Our guest today is Mason Weaver, who is a very articulate black, he is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, and he’s trying to encourage blacks to get a life, get off the plantation, make something of yourself and stop depending on Uncle Sam to give you everything from food to childcare for your kids.

He described the feminist movement as “anti-God”, and insisted that liberal social policy, (in this case referred to euphemistically as ‘the other man’) breeds dependency and thus promotes and justifies criminal activity. Schlafly’s organization recently lamented the downward trend in the white birth rate, and Schalfly herself has said wistfully that the United States “was a lot better off before 1962,” before the civil rights movement had made major gains.

Schlafly: And you realize the disaster the feminist movement has been in this country because they’re anti-men, and anti-husbands, and anti-masculine, and when they talk about liberation…

Weaver: They’re anti-God, that’s all it is.

Schlafly: Yeah.

Weaver: They’re anti-God. The feminist movement was created to have another front on the attack on masculinity. It’s an attack on the culture in the family, it’s an attack on success. They want dependency, they want failure, they want themselves to be in charge, it’s just simply agreed on their part.

Schlafly: And they want everybody, blacks and women, to believe they’re victims of society. And of course if you wake up in the morning and you think you’re a victim, how far are you going to get?

Weaver: Well think about the male ego. If you convince a 20 year old man, black or white, that another man controls his family, his health, his income, his job, why go get a job? The other man controls it. Why go out and try to earn something? He’s going to take it from you. But you also feel justified in criminal activity, in not respecting your family. If you buy the liberal mindset of yourself, as a black man, you are by definition depressed.

Schlafly: That's right.

Family Research Council president Tony Perkins has called President Obama the “worst president this country has ever had” and warned that America will not “have a future as a country” if Obama is re-elected because his administration “will destroy this country.” Perkins even said that Christian Obama supporters must “repent” for electing a president who “has a disdain for Christianity.” And so today it was no surprise that after Perkins and co-host Tim Wildmon, the president of American Family Association, played an out of context portion of a recent Obama speech, he said he’s “amazed that this man is the President of the United States.” Wildmon also chimed in, maintaining that Obama is “oozing with envy and jealousy” and claiming it “was so un-American what he just spouted.” In the address, Obama was referring to the importance of government investment in education, infrastructure and technology in growing the economy, but right-wing detractors have twisted his speech into an attack on businessmen.

Wildmon: That was just, he was all over the map, that’s just class warfare, he was oozing with envy and jealously, he was stirring up the crowd to be against people who have created wealth for themselves and for others.

Perkins: I am amazed that this man is the President of the United States.

Wildmon: As am I. That was so un-American what he just spouted, in keeping with our traditions. And he created a straw man there too to knock down, saying that people who are wealthy ‘think they are so smart and they work so much harder, and I’m here to tell you that they don’t and it’s time for them to pay their fair share by golly and I’m going to make it happen because I’m the President.’ Well, anyway, so much for the years of Ronald Reagan’s optimism, morning in America talks.

Last week the Department of Health and Human Services announced a relaxation of some work requirement contained in the 1996 Welfare Reform Act in an effort to give "states and localities [more] flexibility administering it so they can experiment with ways to improve the number of people making the jump from government assistance to jobs."

Today on his radio program, Bryan Fischer absolutely flipped out over the change, claiming that it was an effort by President Obama to win re-elections by getting "more people helpless, abjectly dependent upon him as if he were the slave owner of a plantation and they were working in his cotton fields."

The move, Fischer declared, was illegal and unconstitutional, demonstrating that Obama is a "lawless president" who is like a "street thug" who takes a "perverse delight" in destroying America "just like juvenile delinquents just destroy stuff just for the sheer pleasure of destruction":

We have a lawless president. This guy, he reminds me of a juvenile delinquent is really what he reminds me of. He's like a street thug where there are no laws, there are no rules that apply to him. He feels like he can do whatever he wants, he can take whatever he wants, he can ignore whatever he wants. Really, he has the mindset of a juvenile delinquent. He is destroying America, he is dismantling the structure of America, he is dismantling and destroying American values and he seems to be taking a perverse delight in doing so just like juvenile delinquents just destroy stuff just for the sheer pleasure of destruction.

For the last two days, James Dobson's "Family Talk" radio program has featured a discussion with Wayne Grudem, author of the book "Politics According to the Bible."

In between fretting that the United States was on the verge of permanent collapse due to the policies of President Obama and the poor moral/spiritual state of the nation in general, Grudem was asked by Ryan Dobson just what he should say to people who think that just because something is legal that makes it okay.  The question prompted Grudem to respond that just because something is legal, that doesn't make it moral ... just as our nation allows freedom of religion, but that doesn't mean it is "morally right" for people to be Muslims or Buddhists:

Ryan Dobson: When I speak around the country to all ages, I talk about the difference between legal and right; just because it's legal doesn't mean it's right. And oftentimes I hear from churchgoers "well, that's what the law is, what am I supposed to do?" And at what point can a believer say just because it's legal doesn't make it right and I'm going to do what's right even if it's illegal.

Grudem: Well, there are two questions. One is does God require of us more than the civil laws demand? Sure. Our nation, for instance, allows freedom of religion so it's legal to have a Muslim mosque or a Buddhist temple but that doesn't mean it's morally right for people to seek to come to God that way because you and I believe, Ryan, that we only come to God through knowing Jesus Christ as Savior. So there are things that are allowed that are not what God wants us to do.

Earlier this month, Buster Wilson of the American Family Association weighed boycotting Google because of its new “Legalizing Love” campaign “to decriminalize homosexuality and eliminate homophobia around the world.” Today, Janet Porter of Faith2Action in her radio alert said that “While it may be next to impossible to avoid all of the social media that Google owns,” the “Legalize Love” initiative “is one more good reason to have your e-mail and conduct your searches with someone else.” In fairness, Porter should alert listeners to avoid Google rivals Apple, Microsoft and Yahoo for also favoring gay rights causes.

Promoting homosexual rights around the globe.

That’s the new campaign that Google has recently launched. In a written statement, the search engine giant announced that their new “Legalize Love” initiative seeks to promote human rights and tackle discrimination in countries with “anti-gay laws on the books.”

A spokesman said “we want our employees who are gay or lesbian or transgender to have the same experience outside the office as they do in the office.”

They say that the campaign will not push for the legalization of same-sex marriage, but the company has actively opposed the efforts to ban it in California.

While it may be next to impossible to avoid all of the social media that Google owns, this is one more good reason to have your e-mail and conduct your searches with someone else!

On his program yesterday, Bryan Fischer was discussing the study produced by professor Mark Regnerus purporting to show that children of same-sex parents fare worse than children of heterosexual parents and the news that the University of Texas would be conducting an investigation into his study, seeing the latter as proof that "the homosexual lobby is vicious, they are venomous, [and] they are filled with hatred."

During the discussion, Fischer cited the study as evidence that children in same-sex homes are at a higher risk for sexual molestation, prompting him to declare that any parent "who goes into the homosexual lifestyle after siring children" should be denied custody and only allowed to have supervised visits with their children:

Alan Chambers of Exodus International has drawn the ire of a number of Religious Right activists after stating that the group will no longer officially endorse sexual orientation conversion therapy but will instead encourage people to repress their sexual orientation. Chambers also upset anti-gay leaders when he said that openly gay Christians can go to Heaven and asserted that “99.9%” of people who tried conversion therapy experienced no real change. Linda Harvey of Mission America, who last week denounced Chambers for showing “very poor judgment,” criticized Chambers not only for his apparent turnabout on ‘ex-gay’ therapy but also for dropping the youth-oriented Day of Truth, which became Focus on the Family’s Day of Dialogue, over fears that it was contributing to anti-gay bias in schools.

Harvey on her Saturday radio show insisted that Chambers showed his willingness to “pull the plug on kids and just abandon them” by ending the Day of Truth, and is conforming to “the stereotype of men who are not being men.” “Well the people running over you are the homosexuals, how ironic is this?” Harvey asked. “How ironic is this that the ones with the real guts are the ones who are the more effeminized or non-masculine males who aren’t embracing their real, God-given masculine identity.” After arguing that anti-bullying programs have “corrupted” kids, Harvey tearfully called for people to pray that Chambers will stop “embarrassing and humiliating and hurting” his own family by talking about his own same-sex attractions and “come back to the Lord and publicly repudiate all of this and be healed.”

For Exodus, as a position led by Alan Chambers and he’s not the only one in leadership there that are really misled, for them to pull the plug on kids and just abandon them, this is just the stereotype of men who are not being men, shall I just go there, because that’s what it is. Just don’t defend anything, just let people run right all over you. Well the people running over you are the homosexuals, how ironic is this? How ironic is this that the ones with the real guts are the ones who are the more effeminized or non-masculine males who aren’t embracing their real, God-given masculine identity. But the ex-homosexuals, supposedly, or the leadership there, won’t stand up. Come on, you are our best witness out there. If you won’t stand for this and you will just let kids be corrupted in this way all by buying into this phony notion that in order to have ‘no climate of hate’ in schools you can’t say anything bad about homosexuality; no, to have a ‘no climate of hate’ in schools you need to be telling kids the truth, giving them real hope. I didn’t get to the other issues I was going to cover today but this one is important enough.

I hope folks that you would pray for Exodus, stand up for those people who are disaffiliating from the current regime but maybe they’ll change. Pray that Alan Chambers and the other folks there in leadership with these false and very damaging ideas and this horrendous witness that they are giving to America and to American Christianity will change their heart and come back to the Lord and repent in their own lives, they will stop dishonoring their own families and embarrassing and humiliating and hurting them, come back to the Lord and publicly repudiate all of this and be healed.