I first covered Yale's promotion of anti-LGBT fast food provider Chick-Fil-A, as an alleged exemplar of positive spiritual values in the workplace, in a March 7, 2011 post titled Yale Faith Institute Puffs Virulently Antigay Chick-Fil-A and I revisited the subject in a February 3, 2012 story titled More On Yale's Templeton-Funded "Spiritual Capital" Initiative in which I asked,

Should Chick-Fil-A be known for its extensive ties to, and funding of, some of the most aggressively anti-gay groups in America, as well as its role in catalyzing the national "Protect Marriage" (by fighting same-sex marriage) movement -- or should the fast food chicken chain be regarded as an exemplar of the spiritual value of "gratitude"?

According to a project under the aegis of the Yale Center For Faith and Culture called the Spiritual Capital Initiative, that's funded with almost $1.9 million dollars from the John Templeton Foundation, it's the latter: gratitude.

Bust out the burqa! Stash your safety razor! Islamic law is just around the corner.

So says the latest far-right conspiracy theory that's making the rounds. Word is that a band of Islamic zealots has somehow infiltrated the upper echelons of the federal government - no doubted aided and abetted by the secret Muslim in the White House - and will be imposing shariah law just about any day now.

Speakers at the annual Christians United for Israel (CUFI) summit, held July 16 - 18 in D.C., included Michele Bachmann keynoting the Night to Honor Israel and David Barton keynoting the donor banquet.  Bachmann is in the news this week for her claims that Hillary Clinton's deputy chief of staff is part of a Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the U.S. government, a conspiracy theory hatched at the Center for Security Policy. The CSP is led by Frank Gaffney, also a speaker at the CUFI summit. Barton is the author of The Myth of Separation, and a leading proponent of revisionist histories claiming America was founded as a Christian nation.

Despite the end times prophets, Christian nationalists, and conspiracy theorists headlined at CUFI's national and local events, some Jewish leaders continue to partner with the organization. The Israeli ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, and Sen. Joe Lieberman were  in attendance at the CUFI summit and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke via satellite.

You wouldn't recognize him on the street and he definitely isn't a household name, but the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, the President of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference is more than ready for his close-up.

With the country's demographics rapidly changing and immigration no longer on the back burner -- but not quite on the front one either -- Rodriguez is becoming more influential with both sides of the political aisle, has been in regular contact with Team Romney, and is drawing ever so much closer to a number of conservative Christian evangelical leaders.

In short, this is Reverend Rodriguez's time.

Last year, concern about Gov. Rick Perry and Rep. Michele Bachmann's relationships with a variety of dominionist thinkers and political actors was gaining traction in the media.  Rachel Tabachnick was on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. There were major articles in The New Yorker, The Texas Observer, and The Daily Beast. Perry's massive pre-presidential campaign prayer rally attracted major media attention, and some of us noticed that the event was organized by the dominionist associates of C. Peter Wagner, the leading figure of the New Apostolic Reformation, and that Wagner himself was present.

All this was accompanied by a sustained barrage of articles and op-eds in mainstream and right-wing media (which in retrospect, seems orchestrated) variously claiming that the role of dominionism was exaggerated or didn't exist; and that those of us who have written about these things were all kinds of terrible.  We heard from, among others, Ross Douthat and Michael Gerson at The New York Times and The Washington Post, respectively and in syndication beyond. Charlotte Allen sneered about it on the Los Angeles Times op-ed page.  Lisa Miller at The Washington Post published as ill informed a piece as has ever been written on the subject. (I responded here.)  The worst of the bunch was Mark Pinksy's screed in USA Today -- in which he compared the work of several Jewish writers to some of the worst anti-Semitic smears in history.  Then Jim Wallis of Sojourners of all people picked sides and piled on. Writing at The Huffington Post he also denounced of those of us who write about dominionism -- and recommended Pinky's smear to boot!

Enough was enough. So some of us wrote an Open Letter to Jim Wallis.  He never responded, nor did any of the other perps.  (Except Pinksy who in comments at Talk to Action, stood by his smears and refused to apologize when Chip Berlet pointedly called on him to do so.)  The story was widely picked up on and discussed around the blogosphere.

We stood our ground and declared that we refused to be silenced or intimidated --  and the smear campaign stopped as suddenly as it started.  I've reposted the Open Letter below as a reminder of how far some people will go to suppress important information and analysis that does not comport with their various agendas.

Back in 2003, a general in the U.S. Army named William G. "Jerry" Boykin got himself in hot water because he had a habit of appearing, often in full uniform, before meetings of right-wing evangelicals and making intemperate comments about Islam.

During one appearance in Oregon, Boykin opined that Islamic extremists hate the United States "because we're a Christian nation, because our foundations and our roots are Judeo-Christian."

"Christian nation" pseudo-historian David Barton is on the defensive. It's a place I've wanted to see him for a long time.

If you're just joining us, Barton is a Texas Religious Right activist who makes his living peddling a revisionist history of America designed to prove that the country was founded to be a Christian nation.

If knowledge is power, then what is ignorance?

It has been my experience over the past 30 years of doing research and writing about the Religious Right and various of its components, that most of us are resistant to learning much about it.  We seize on slogans and cheap name calling as a substitute for actual knowledge and processing that knowledge in ways that are intellectually, politically and reportorially useful; or indeed to change the way we think about the Religious Right and the things we do in response.  This resistance to knowledge about matters of great consequence, things that may jeopardize things that we hold dear, is an astounding dimension of our public life.  And yet many of us wonder how the Religious Right continues to exercise such power in public life.

A few weeks ago, I was rummaging through a storage closet at home when I came across a stamp collection I kept when I was a kid.

I was surprised to see it because I assumed that I had long ago discarded this battered book of postage stamps mainly from the 1960s and `70s. I began leafing through it and almost immediately spotted a U.S. stamp that made me do a double-take. It was an 8-cent stamp from 1972 that depicted a drawing of a typical nuclear family of a mother and father with two children. Across the top were the words "Family Planning."

Ralph Reed, the main architect of the successful political development and mobilization efforts of the Christian Coalition in the 90s -- is back.  Not that he ever really left, but he is back now with what he calls a "a 21st-century version of the Christian Coalition on steroids."

Adele Stan has the story at AlterNet -- including how the recent Wisconsin recall was a pilot project for November.  Reed says that his Faith and Freedom Coalition, will contact some 27.1 million conservative voters as many as as dozen times before November as well as focus on getting voters, Stan reports to "vote early in states that permit it."

This is, in my opinion, the most important election related story about the Religious Right this year.  It is a must read for anyone who is serious about the 2012 election, and for that matter, the future of American politics.

Here are a few excerpts.

Several years ago, when Mitt Romney was merely a multi-millionaire Massachusetts politician, he couldn't locate the conservative Christian evangelical movement with a GPS or MapQuest. Over the past few years however, Romney and his team have been holding a series of meet-ups - whose pace has been recently accelerated - with conservative Christian leaders to assure them of Romney's fealty to their issues.

When Romney heads off to Israel later this summer, he hopes to accomplish at least three objectives: renew his longtime friendship with Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu; convince Jewish donors and voters that he is more Israel-friendly than President Barack Obama; and, send a message to conservative Christian evangelicals that he can be trusted.

A 2011 poll conducted after the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan by the Public Religion Research Institute in partnership with the Religion News Service, found that 6 in 10 evangelicals, and 38 percent of all Americans believe that God uses natural disasters to send messages. When natural disasters strike, whether they are hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, tornados or forest fires not caused by human intervention, Christian fundamentalist disaster interpreters come out of the woodwork. They trumpet the news that God is sending a warning to humankind.

While the devastating forest fires in Colorado may not have been directly caused by human intervention, an unholy alliance of Christian dominionists and libertarians may have exacerbated the damage.

Christian Broadcast Network's Brody File reports, "Last week around 70 conservative Christian leaders met in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., to discuss what it would take to get behind Romney." CBN's lead political correspondent, David Brody, states that the choice for the vice presidential candidate is crucial, and "acceptable nominees" for vice president include the following.

Tim Pawlenty
Mike Huckabee
Bob McDonnell
Rick Santorum
Bobby Jindal
Marco Rubio

It is not surprising to hear Catholic League President Bill Donohue call for liberal Catholics to fall in line or leave the Church.  What is surprising is that former New York Times editor Bill Keller recently took to the op-ed page to agree.

In so doing, career journalist Keller exposed both his attitude towards and ignorance about his faith. Actually, we have to call it his former faith because he says he is so beyond lapsed he is now a "collapsed Catholic."

One of the challenges in writing about the Religious Right and what to do about it -- on this site and elsewhere -- is the matter of terms and definitions.  

From the earliest days of Talk to Action, we have often written about how unfair labels and terms of demonization are not only inaccurate and opposed to basic standards of scholarship and journalism; but are also unrelated to the basic values of people of good will -- and are often politically counterproductive to boot.

The purpose of this post is not to go over all that again. I want to point to some useful resources on basic definitions and usage for those who are interested in trying to get it right.