The Top 10 Power Brokers Of The Religious Right (Must-Read)

[Hissyspit]

http://www.alternet.org/story/38467/

The Top 10 Power Brokers of the Religious Right
By Rob Boston, Church and State
Posted on July 7, 2006, Printed on July 7, 2006

The United States is home to dozens of Religious Right groups. Many have small budgets and focus on state and local issues; the most powerful organizations conduct nationwide operations, command multi-million-dollar bank accounts and attract millions of followers. They have disproportionate clout in the halls of Congress, the White House and the courts, and they wield enormous influence within the political system.

What follows is a list of the nation’s Top Ten Religious Right groups, as determined by publicly available financial data and political prominence. Additional information describes the organizations’ leaders, funding and activities.

1. Christian Broadcasting Network
Founder, CEO and Director: The Rev. Pat Robertson
2004 Revenue: $186,482,060
Location: Virginia Beach, Va.
Web site: www.cbn.com

Overview: The Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) airs Robertson’s “700 Club,” an incendiary daily mix of Pentecostal faith-healing, lifestyle advice and far-right politics. He calls church-state separation a “lie of the left” and thinks Christians like him should lead the world. With his withdrawal from the Christian Coalition in 2001, Robertson uses CBN as his primary political soapbox. The show, which according to Nielsen Media Research has 830,000 daily viewers, opens with a “newscast” that parrots Robertson’s views, often followed by commentary from the televangelist himself. Top leaders of the conservative movement regularly pontificate on the program, and Republican members of Congress appear to tout legislative goals.

- snip -

10. Traditional Values Coalition
Founder and Chairman: The Rev. Louis P. Sheldon
2005 Revenue: $6,389,448
Location: Anaheim, Calif. and Washington, D.C.
Web site: www.traditionalvalues.org

Overview: The Rev. Louis P. Sheldon founded the Tradi­tional Values Coalition (TVC) in 1980 primarily to work on issues in California. The group later branched out, establishing a Washington beachhead. The D.C. office is run by Sheldon’s daughter, Andrea Lafferty. The organization is a 501(c)(4) group, which means donations to it are not tax deductible. However, it maintains a fully tax deductible arm called the TVC Education and Legal Institute. (Sheldon also runs a small political action committee that in 2006 gave all of its money to Republican candidates in California.)

- snip -

Sheldon Quote: “A dangerous Marxist/Leftist/Homo­sex­ual/Is­lamic coalition has formed – and we’d better be willing to fight it with everything in our power. These people are playing for keeps. Their hero, Mao Tse Tung, is estimated to have murdered upwards of 60 million people during his reign of terror in China. Do we think we can escape such persecution if we refuse to fight for what is right?” (“The War on Christianity,” column, TVC Web site, Dec. 13, 2005)

CLICK ON LINK FOR THE REST OF LIST, PRINT OUT, AND KEEP HANDY!

[laheina]

1. Rob Boston has written several books on these organizations.

I highly recommend his work.

And thanks for posting this article! :hi:

[izzie]

2. Scary

--

[NMMNG]

3. Those people are scary

The fact that they have so much money and power makes them scarier.


More on them and their ilk: The Hijacking of Jesus: How the Religious Right Distorts Christianity and Promotes Prejudice and Hate

[H2O Man]

4. Nominated.

Great OP. Thank you for providing this for the DU community. It is important that we keep our eyes on one of the most dangerous factions of our population.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

5. The fact that they are equating

the left and Marx and homosexual and Islam, and saying they are in a coalition is, to my mind, merely fear mongering and catering to prejudice and ignorance. The fundamentalist Muslims probably equate them with the right and capitalism and homosexuality and the crusader mentality as exemplified by Bush. In their own way, the Talibornagains are as dangerous as the Taliban, imho.

[Clark2008]

6. Apparently, these people have never read this parable:

During his Journey to Jerusalem, Jesus is described by the Gospel of Mark as meeting a rich man, who addresses him as Good Teacher. Mark, however, states that Jesus responds by saying none is good but God alone, seemingly rejecting the form of address, but in a way which also appears to exclude Jesus from being God, and hence forming one of the main issues in Christology. The rich man is described as explaining that he has always kept the commandments, presumably the ten commandments or the 613 mitzvot, Jesus stating that he is aware that the man knows them.

The narrative goes on to portray Jesus as arguing that the man should give up everything, giving it to the poor, and only then follow Jesus, since it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Though the surviving full manuscripts of Mark have the rich man leave at this point, apparently dejected, and not seeming to ever return to the narrative, the Secret Gospel of Mark, if genuine, implies that the original text of Mark had the rich man complying with Jesus' request, and appearing to Jesus naked one night, whereupon Jesus indeed teaches him the secrets of the kingdom of God.

Though quite radical to the Pharisees and Sadduccees, non-ownership was the normal way of life for Essenes, who lived at varying levels of asceticism, and this is one of the reasons that many scholars suspect that Jesus was originally part of an Essene group. The insistence on giving up ownership of riches was one of the major arguments between different monastic orders in the mediaeval world, with the Franciscans in particular arguing that Jesus' teaching meant the church should not seek riches, but the Pope, at that time living in great luxury, ruled otherwise, and the non-ownership restrictions on mendicant orders were lifted. Despite their separation from the papacy, conservative protestants have traditionally supported this papal line, and capitalism has historically been known as the Protestant work ethic; conversely the Christian groups living amongst the poor have traditionally been the Anglo Catholics, and other high church groups.

The obscure and curious juxtaposition of a camel and a needle has long attracted attention. This was satirised by Monty Python, with a scene in which a priest uses the saying as the basis of his sermon, but accidentally misquotes it as it is easier for a rich man to go through the eye of a needle than for a camel to. It is philosophically notable that the textual inverse of the saying - it is easier for a rich man to pass through the eye of a needle than for a camel to enter the kingdom of heaven - is also a mainstream Christian viewpoint, since in most forms of Christian theology, animals do not have souls. Amongst textual critics, it is widely thought that the phrase is a scribal error, since the Hebrew words for camel and for a certain type of rope are very similar, and consequently that it is more plausible the phrase was intended as it is easier for a rope to go through the eye of a needle .....

[DemReadingDU]

7. Robertson & Dobson each of 2 organizations

1. Christian Broadcasting Network
Founder, CEO and Director: The Rev. Pat Robertson
2004 Revenue: $186,482,060
Location: Virginia Beach, Va.
Web site: www.cbn.com

2. Focus on the Family
Founder and chairman: Dr. James C. Dobson
2005 Revenue: $137,848,520
Location: Colorado Springs, Colo.
Web site: www.family.org

6. American Center for Law and Justice
Founder and President: The Rev. Pat Robertson
Chief Counsel: Jay Sekulow
2005 Revenue: $14,485,514
Location: Virginia Beach, Va., and Washington, D.C.
Web site: www.aclj.org

7. Family Research Council
Founder: James C. Dobson
President and CEO: Tony Perkins
2005 Revenue: $9,958,115
Location: Washington, D.C.
Web site: www.frc.org

[cantstandbush]

8. Notice that Robertson and Dobson each head TWO orgs. nt

[Maestro]

9. These people are disgusting and the reason why

I have pretty much lost my faith in organized religion.

[Hissyspit]

10. I didn't know my hero was Mao Tse Tung. Good thing I have the Rev.

Sheldon to keep me straight (sarcastic pun intended).

[PaDem]

17. How about..........

the "Marxist/leftist/homosexual/Islamic" coalition. Did the good Reverand leave out any boogeymen? Secular Humanists?

[LisaLynne]

11. Because these people are so insane ...

it's easy to want to dismiss them as whack-jobs. They are whack-jobs, but they have money, power, and are organized. We ignore them at our peril and the peril of our democracy. They do NOT want the US to remain a democracy of free people. I truly believe they want this country to devolve into a theocracy. Thanks for posting this -- it's important information.

[YankeyMCC]

13. Point well made - K&R for the thread

[Tesha]

12. K&R (NT)

[FreeStateDemocrat]

14. What about Billy's evil spawn Franklin Graham R/W charlatan

Graham son brings word to Baltimore
By Matthew Hay Brown
Sun reporter
Originally published July 5, 2006

CHARLOTTE, N.C. // It is, perhaps, the curse of the man that, at 53 years of age, he still must endure comparisons to his father.
Not that the comparisons are easy to avoid. First, there is the striking physical resemblance: the tall, broad-shouldered build, the solid jaw, the penetrating eyes. Then there's the familiar manner, gentlemanly but assertive, smoothed by that easy Appalachian accent.

snip

By contrast, his son has echoed the Rev. Pat Robertson, the Rev. Jerry Falwell and other conservative Christians in proclaiming homosexuality a sin. And where Billy Graham once said that Muslims and Christians worship the same God, Franklin Graham said after the Sept. 11 attacks that Islam was "a very wicked and evil religion."

Franklin Graham "does take a somewhat harder line," says Rice University scholar William Martin, who wrote a biography of Billy Graham.

"His father, particularly in recent years, but really progressively throughout his career, became more and more inclusive, to the point that some evangelicals were rather worried about some of his statements," Martin says. "They thought he was too inclusive, too accepting. And I think that's not Franklin's tendency."

snip

A short time later, he joined Samaritan's Purse founder Bob Pierce on a six-week mission to Asia. In 1979, he succeeded Pierce as head of the organization, which now has a budget of $264 million and projects in more than 100 countries. In 1989, he began leading festivals, his version of his father's crusades, for the Billy Graham association. (cont'd)

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-te.md.graham05jul05,0,2564048.story?page=1

[sinkingfeeling]

15. Thanks. Good to have the list of people seeking the destruction of our

democracy.

[wildeyed]

16. This is very helpful information.

Thanks for posting.