Comments on: Uganda’s “Kill Gays” Bill Still Has American Defenders, Death Penalty And All

By: Burr

Burr — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 22:33:25 +0000

Well at least these guys actually DO take it literally instead of reaaaaalllyy stretching it into only a condemnation of same sex marriage. Never understood how “kill gays” gets translated by a believer of the supposed “literal, inerrant” bible into “don’t let them exchange wedding rings.”

By: Ryn

Ryn — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 17:36:02 +0000

Oh yes, Howard Ahmanson Jr., yet another example of how all roads lead back to the granddaddy of Christian Reconstructionism, R.J. Rushdooney. He says he’s not on board with the whole stone-the-gays part of Rushdooney’s teaching, but that didn’t stop him from giving millions to the foundation Rushdooney started even though that’s one of their stated goals in implementing OT civil law.

By: Gene Touchet

Gene Touchet — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 14:18:05 +0000

To address the “civil” crime, check out Kosnik’s “Human Sexuality,” 1977.
It was written by a team of Catholic theologians and posits that the Leviticus proscriptions were based in cultic politics rather than “divine” revelation. There is evidence that at the time of Leviticus certain religious prostitution was practiced in neighboring tribes In order to keep the Israelite practices from being “corrupted,” anything which the neighbors included in religious practices was prohibited to them.
(Kosnik was silenced by the Church and the book banned.)

By: Lynn David

Lynn David — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 09:58:51 +0000

Don Schmierer and Howard Ahmanson Jr have both been signatories to some of the WCF letters or ‘declarations’. The WCF was founded in 1997 by Allan Carlson and is a project of The Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society in Rockford, Illinois (www.profam.org). Seems there was a connection between the Watchmen on the Wall and the WCF in Riga, Latvia, along with “American activist Scott Lively, president of Defend The Family International.” Both Schmierer and Lively signed the WCF letter on Defense of Marriage in Romania early in 2008. The WCF especially thanked Scott Lively of Watchmen on the Walls (among others) for circulating the petition concerning the defense of marriage in Romania in their April 2008 newsletter. See:
http://www.worldcongress.org/WCF/wcf.nl/wcf.nl.0804.0204.pdf
Bottom of page 2.

So why doesn’t WCF show the love for Lively as well?

By: Ryn

Ryn — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 06:35:33 +0000

Ah yes, American Vision, the website of one Gary DeMar, one of those people who nobody’s ever heard of but who is an instrumental member of the Christian Reconstructionist/Theonomist movement, which is trying to implement Old Testament Civil Law as American law. They’re not at all apologetic about the fact that they want to implement the death penalty for homosexuality, adultery, and even for rebellious youth.

I don’t think Sharlet even knows or understands the full reach of the Christian Reconstructionist movement, and he’s not correct in representing them as part of the anti-intellectualism of American evangelicalism. They’re generally very highly educated, probably some of the most educated people in conservative evangelicalism. One of the reasons that they’ve been as successful as they have is because they’ve taken advantage of the fact that the average evangelical isn’t terribly intellectual and overwhelm them with big words and complex arguments. People tend to be afraid to question their arguments for fear of appearing stupid, and that’s when they even see that there’s a problem–the Reconstructionsts frame their arguments using terms that are familiar in American evangelicalism, but they use them in ways that are just different enough that, if you’re an evangelical, unless you know what to look for you may not even catch what they’re doing. It’s pretty obvious what they’re doing if you’re outside of evangelicalism looking in, or if you’re an evangelical and know what to look for, but since most people don’t have a clue about any of it, Reconstructionist thought is slowly spreading in evangelical churches and has been for the last 30 years.

If you want to get really scared though, start looking into the name R.J. Rushdooney and who all he and his associates are connected to. He’s the father of Christian Reconstructionism, almost nobody’s heard of him, but once you start digging you realize that his fingerprints are over almost everything in the American religious and political right in the last 30 some odd years.

By: Elise

Elise — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 05:06:13 +0000

American Vision quote continued: “Now, it just so happens that God revealed that the homosexual act is a civil crime, and it just so happens that He revealed that the homosexual act as a civil crime deserves the death penalty. Warren disagrees. He argues, “Since God created all, and Jesus suffered and died for all, then we are to treat all with respect.” Of course, Jesus never claimed to suffer and die for all; He claimed to give his life as a ransom for many (Matt. 20:28; 26:28; Heb. 2:10; 9:28). Likewise, God did not create all for unqualified “respect,” but some to be vessels of dishonor and destruction (Rom. 9:21–23).”

Wow. That’s a truly frightening understanding of one’s fellow human beings. And in the comments section of the Throckmorton blog Jeff Sharlet notes that American Vision is actually a pretty influential purveyor of historical revisionism to both Christian schools and politicians. Scarier still.