Tactic Uses Pulpits to Power the GOP

[rodeodance]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-values23sep23,1,3310453.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

Tactic Uses Pulpits to Power the GOP
Evangelical leaders, on the first day of a rally, ask pastors to advocate for a social conservative agenda despite recent IRS investigations.
By Peter Wallsten, Times Staff Writer
September 23, 2006

WASHINGTON — Worried that discontent among conservatives and the lack of a clear standard-bearer to follow President Bush might cost Republicans in November, top evangelical leaders pleaded with their followers Friday to put aside frustrations and turn out for GOP candidates.

........


"There is no choice, because the alternative is terrible," said James C. Dobson, founder of the influential group Focus on the Family, referring to the potential for a Democratic takeover of the House and Senate in November.

Dobson's organization recently launched a major voter recruitment drive in eight battleground states that will include placing registration tables outside Sunday worship services at conservative churches.

The Values Voter Summit — which will include appearances by several potential GOP presidential hopefuls — underscores evangelicals' growing power in national politics. The agenda serves as a road map of their tactics for energizing voters, including sessions on fighting gay marriage, attacking Hollywood liberalism and denouncing embryonic stem-cell research.

[DoYouEverWonder]

1. Where's the IRS?

Oh that's right, they only go after liberal churches.

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. We need to make this an issue. It's time to call......

OOOOOOOOooolberMaaaan. Faster than a speeding bullet...

[gademocrat7]

4. So true.

[fasttense]

2. It's the new religion. They worship at the altar of bush

Instead of calling themselves Christians they need to call themselves Bushians.

[Tellurian]

12. In speaking to a few Christians

living out west; these fundamentalist churches DEMAND a percentage of their wages from their Congregation in support of Church initiaves...which apparently include political candidates.

How legal IS this?

[ninkasi]

5. They make me want to scream

Ok, this is pathetic..."There is no choice, because the alternative is terrible," said James C. Dobson, founder of the influential group Focus on the Family, referring to the potential for a Democratic takeover of the House and Senate in November."

Oh, what a terrible thing to happen, having Democrats in charge. That would mean curtailing the war mongering so cherished by Republicans, letting women have control over their own bodies, and maybe even an end to all of the hatred directed toward gays and lesbians. You know, radical things, like making sure that we all have equal rights, and whether a couple can marry or not will depend on what the couple wants.

Stem cell research, yes, something that could end premature death and suffering, and rolling back the huge tax breaks for those who are already immensely wealthy. We might be able to get universal health care, and permit Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices. Maybe the huge sums of money spent on making Halliburton rich could be used in this country, to rebuild our bridges and highways.

The Republican party prefers to waste money and time legalizing hatred. That, and cheating the tax payers out of every red cent they can get their sticky hands on. We would put an end to this repulsive notion of the United States torturing other people. Every time a think about that one, I get cold chills. It's only a matter of time before some conservative nut-case suggests that since we're using torture now, in this phony war on terror, it might be a good idea to extend the practice to the war on drugs.

As long as Republicans hold majorities, rest assured that we will be waging war on something, even a tactic. The war on terror will be as successful as the war on drugs, and we know how that's going. Just think, with a Democratic congress, we might be able to repair some of the damage done to our national image, and begin regaining some respect in the world.

All of those things would be such a terrible alternative, according to Dobson. I am so sick of these hateful, narrow minded bigots being in control of our beloved country. It's time for them to go.

[DeepModem Mom]

6. Recommended.

[xchrom]

7. k&r

[leesa]

8. How does one go about making a complaint to the IRS?

Dobson needs to be busted...all of this campaigning is tax-exempt.

[Copperred]

9. WHAT'S THE NUMBER????

PLEASE POST PHONE NUMBER ...EVERYONE SHOULD BE REPORTING TO THE IRS ON EVER SINGLE INCIDENCE OF EVANGELICAL SUPPORT FROM HERE UNTIL DAWN

[sarcasmo]

10. Is Dobsons Focus on the Family tax exempt?

Focus on the Family should be paying taxes with Dobson spouting off all the time on talking head shows.

[SDDEM06]

11. What's sad is that the neocons and the top 1% is using

the pious poor to wage war and loot the treasury. They keep telling these people that it's good to live in poverty and suffer through this life because of the reward they'll get in the next.

Bradley Whitford was on Bill Maher last night, which reminded me of his quote from last fall. It isn't that they worship God or recognize Jesus as the savior. "Supply-side economics is the religion and tax cuts are their Jesus."

[Mr_Spock]

13. ...and CNfuckingN shows the one liberal minister in NJ who criticized war

as being investigated by the IRS at the behest of the RW ass holes. I was screaming "what about the majority of RW churches in the SOUTH!!!"

THis issue WILL eventually backfire on these motherfuckers once we get control of our country back from the RW hater bigots.

[murphymom]

14. So what happens

if Liberals test them on this? What will the fundies do if we can mobilize people to come up to their registration tables and try to register as Democrats?

This bears some close watching, and if they are caught tampering with voter registration applications this could backfire in their faces - we can only hope.

[LetsThink]

15. Oversite, Accounting for taxpayer $$$ given to churches as part

of 'Faith based initiatives' -- to serve the local communities. Any accounting/ oversite of how this money has been spent and/or how much has been spent?

[truthisfreedom]

16. walk into those churches and bring camcorders and tape recorders! capture

this violation of the law and get it on television! turn it in to reporters... force the IRS's hand! make them take away exempt status! it's easy!

[kestrel91316]

17. We need moles inside each and every one of these

christofascist "churches", listening to sermons and recording them and taking lots of notes, and then turning each and every one of them in to the IRS with FORMAL COMPLAINTS. And we need to do it starting NOW.

Open your eyes
Time to wake up
Enough is enough is enough is enough

[Joe Chi Minh]

18. In the second half of the 4th century, St Augustine of Hippo, one

of the most astonishingly prophetic theologians of the Roman Catholic Church, had this to say about Christian pastors who encouraged in their flock a soft, flabby view of what a life of commitment to Christ entails, rather than taking up their cross daily and following Christ. A feature I hear of your so-called 'fundamentalist' Christian pastors, and to a more limited extent of otherwise genuinely and deeply devout evangelicals, generally. It is taken from Augustine's 'Sermon on the Shepherds':

"You have already heard what the wicked shepherds like. See what they neglect. 'The weak you have not strengthened; the sick you have not healed; the crippled you have not bound up; the strays you have not brought back; the lost you have not sought, ad what was strong you have destroyed.' A sheep is weak, that is, it lacks courage, with the result that it may give way to temptations, if they come upon the sheep when incautious and unprepared.

The negligent shepherd does not say to a believer of that sort, 'My son, when you come to serve God, take your stand in righteousness and fear and, and make ready your soul for temptation.' One who speaks thus, strengthens the weak and makes him strong instead of weak, so that when he has found faith HE WILL NOT HOPE FOR THIS WORLD'S PROSPERITY . For if he has been taught to hope for this world's prosperity, HE WILL BE CORRUPTED BY THE PROSPERITY ITSELF; when adversities arrive, he is wounded or perhaps utterly crushed.

One who so builds is not building him on a rock, but setting him on sand. 'The rock was Christ'. Christians must imitate the sufferings of Christ, not seek for pleasure. A weak man is strengthened when he is told, 'Expect the temptations of this world; but the Lord will deliver you from them all if your heart has not retreated from him. For it was to strengthen your heart that he came to suffer, that he came to die, to be spattered with spittle, to be crowned with thorns, to listen to insults, finally to be fixed to the wood of the cross. He suffered all these things for you; you have suffered nothing. They were not for his benefit, but for yours.

What kind of men are they who, fearing to hurt those they speak to, not only do not prepare them for imminent temptations, BUT EVEN PROMISE THE HAPPINESS OF THIS WORLD, which God did not promise to the world itself? He foretells toil upon toil, that will come upon the world right to the end; and do you wish the Christian to be exempt from these labors? Because he is a Christian, he is likely to suffer more rather than less in this world.

For the apostle says, 'All who wish to live piously in Christ will suffer persecution'. Now, if you will, you shepherd seeking your own advantage not that of Jesus Christ, let Paul say, 'All who wish to live piously in Christ will suffer persecution'; and do you say, 'If you have lived piously in Christ, all good things will be yours in abundance. And if you have not children, you will take up and nurture all men, and not one will die on your account?' Is this your way of building? Notice what you are doing, where you are placing a man. He is on sand, this man you are setting up. The rain will fall, the floods come, the wind will blow; they will beat upon that house of yours and it will fall, and great will be the fall thereof.

Raise him up from the sand, set him upon a rock; let him who wished to be a Christian live in Christ. Let him note the indignities and sufferings of Christ; let him observe the sinless Christ paying for what he had not stolen; let him attend to the words of scripture, telling him, 'The Lord chastises every son whom he accepts.' Let him prepare himself for chastisement, or else not seek to be accepted."