Church at war? :: An Overview of the Religious Front :: Part one ::
(Thursday 06 January 2005)
It does not tax our minds to realize that the US could not just decide, get up and go to occupy Afghanistan and Iraq in a matter of days.
However, it strains us to comprehend the scope of time, resources, planning and human effort put into materializing such barbaric adventures. Harder still is determining the motives of the barbarians of our age.
The easy-to-reach conclusion is that wars and foreign policies in the modern era are greatly influenced by the desire of industrial nations to procure and protect natural resources. That’s why the foreign policy of the United States is also driven in large part by the need for oil, not merely for internal consumption, but for sale by multi-national conglomerates to emerging markets in South Asia and the far East.
Others conclude that the horror of 9/11 has forced the US into such extremism. However, the genocidal sanctions that took far more Iraqi lives than the war so far predate 9/11. Furthermore, it is known to everyone that Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. All other ruses for this occupation also have now proved to be flat-out lies as well.
Everyone who loves peace on this earth earnestly hopes that this is a war for oil but reports that emerged from left and right suggest otherwise. These reports create doubts about the actual motives behind the ongoing brutal war.
Title cover of Trumpet magazine (Dec. 2004) by the Philadelphia Church of God, for instance suggest that compilation and nice presentations on the information about oil industry is not the whole answer. [1] Oil is not the goal. It is the booty, the by-product, which keeps the war going.
To understand the super goal of the war lords, we would have to go beyond the visible fronts of this war, which are the political, media, academia and military fronts. We need to study the vital, not so visible front that is hidden behind all these fronts and leave it to all of us to decide if the war, the concentration camps and other crimes against humanity are just for oil.
We need to see if it is the religious front that sustains life of the visible fronts by providing them inspiration and fresh soldiers all the while, and if it works as a compass and sets the final goal for global domination.
We need to see if it is not that just like the religious front’s basic policy principle of staying behind the scene, most of the war-lords and the institutions that belong to the visible fronts try their best to conceal their affiliations with the religious front. They hide behind the façade of mock neutrality, liberalism and secularism.
Before reviewing the religious front in detail, we need to have a look at the examples of apparently non-religious, liberal fronts of this war — the fronts that we all know very well were behind the official lies for invasion and occupation, and still don’t see any other way than sending more and more military troops.
On the Political front, John Kerry and John Edward are the prime examples. They are as much pro-war as is Bush and his company. So was Clinton, who sustained genocidal sanctions throughout his presidency that took at least 1.8 million innocent lives. Bush’s butchery has yet to reach that mark of mostly invisible genocide.
Regardless of the party titles and minor differences in approach, almost everyone on the political front seems to agree over the ultimate purpose of this war.
On the media front, ABC, CNN, NBC, etc. are as much for the global domination as Fox News. The New York Times, Washington Post and LA Times are as radical in proposing solutions as the Washington Times. Friedman and Safire are as radical as Daniel Pipes.
The only difference is that the former institutions and individuals are not as straight forward as the overt radicals, which is part of their strategy: to stab from behind. Their neutral tone doesn’t mean they are not part of the over all alliance, working towards a common goal: undermine Islam as a way of life.
On the academic front, the seemingly neutral Bernard Lewis, John L. Esposito and Huntington are as much for the clash with Islam as any of the die-hard neocons. In fact, these are the people who helped the political front shape present policies after exerting years of influence in close collaboration with media.
Anyone from the religious front would not have been able to generate as much Islamophobia as the warriors on the academic front have done in the garb of neutrality.
The not-so-visible Front
The invisible front of the ever intensifying barbarism seems to be the religious front: the lifeblood of the aforementioned fronts in the war for global cultural, social and economic domination.
We cannot assume anything. However, it would be an injustice to humanity if we do not analyze reports such as the one that appeared in the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag (May 30, 2004) under the title: "Millionen gegen Mohammed" i.e., "Millions against Mohammed."[2] The by-line reads: "Der Vatikan will weltweit die Ausbreitung des Islam stoppen," which means: "The Vatican wants to stop the world-wide propagation of Islam."
That is the overall goal. The rest that we hear, such as eradicating fundamentalism, radicalism, political Islam, and Islamism are plain ruses, used as tools to achieve the overall goal.
Of course, they want to stop the propagation of Islam, but they cannot stand up and declare: No Islam from now onwards. They need to follow some strategic course and utilize specific tools to gradually demonize Islam as a religion, divide its followers and prove it as an aggressive, violent ideology that has no place in a "civilized" world.
Modus operandi of the not-so-visible front
Let us see how the not-so-visible religious front of this war is working towards the overall goal or ultimate objective.
Again we are not assuming anything. The report in Welt am Sonntag talks about one of the most unknown organizations of the Catholic Church establish for the above-mentioned purpose. According to translation of the report: "The 'Congregatio per Gentium Evangelisierung,’ the Congregation for Evangelizing the people came out between 1566 and 1572 from the Congregation 'De Propaganda Fide’ from Pope Pius V. It has been working to spread the Christian faith on the globe for the large interest of the world public. Geostrategically, the Congregation seemed completely insignificant. No minister of foreign affairs took himself the time to speak with its representatives. But that was in the world from yesterday.
"Today ever more government agencies request its statistics from all over the world, which illustrate the exact propagation of Islam and Christianity. The Congregation is the only institution of the world, which actively delivers the conflict between the Christian and the Muslim religion. It does not examine the relationship between Muslims and Christian like a culture or an institution, but works practically with an army of more than one million co-workers to contain the propagation of Islam and the admiration for the war gentleman Mohammed. It wants to proselytize humans all over the world to peaceful Christianity, whose religious founder never took a weapon in his hands…."
The report adds that the above-mentioned argument is "delivered with military precision." The boss of these active missions, Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, calls his co-workers "my troops." The numbers in this fight for the souls is quite impressive. The Congregation for evangelising people alone is responsible for 40 percent of the Christian world with an army of 85,000 priests and 450,000 medal people. It operates 42 000 schools, 1600 hospitals, 6000 first aid stations, 780 homes for leprosy patient and 12 000 social projects around the world.
Here we find the ultimate objective for the ongoing war. According to Welt am Sonntag’s report, the objective remains to contain the "aggressive religion" of Islam and "spread the Christian faith." Here we see why the covert neo-cons on the other fronts of this war try to hide behind the façade of secularism and liberalism. They know that not everyone will jump on the bandwagon for war if they drive it in the name of crushing Islam and planting flags of Christian faith in every living heart.
For example, the number of people putting their trust in the seemingly neutral Bernard Lewis, New York Times or CNN is far greater than those putting their faith in the words of Daniel Pipes and the institutes behind him. In fact, both parties are equally pro-war and struggle in their respective ways towards the ultimate objective.
Congregation proudly publishes figures of 62.3 percent Catholic population in the American continent and 39.9 percent in Europe. It values more than 3000 Muslim student in a Catholic Church school in Qatar with a total of 4000 students. In India, less than 2 per cent population is Catholic but the church finances more than 28 per cent of the social expenditures for free hospitals and institutes.
This strategy pays off. Wealthy Muslim parents in India offer "substantial partial sums, so that their children may go to a Christian school." Consequently, according to the report, "frequently whole families convert to Christianity." The system functions so successfully that the government in New Delhi intervened because it does not affect Muslims alone: "In numerous states of India the attempt at proselytizing are meanwhile forbidden, [and the government] threatens detentions."
This mission of Christianizing the world is not limited to the Vatican alone. Author and educator George Grant, [3]founder of Franklin Classical School in the US, was Executive Director of Coral Ridge Ministries [4] for many years. He explains in The Changing of the Guard, Biblical Principles for Political Action:
"Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ — to have dominion in civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness. But it is dominion we are after. Not just a voice. It is dominion we are after. Not just influence. It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time. It is dominion we are after. World conquest. That’s what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish. We must win the world with the power of the Gospel. And we must never settle for anything less... Thus, Christian politics has as its primary intent the conquest of the land — of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the Kingdom of Christ. (pp. 50-51)."
Influencing Academic Front
Under the influence of this kind of religious crusade by the religious front, people like Huntington on the academic front do not call for securing oil supplies. Huntington rather calls for defending the Christian identity of the US and argues: "Only Religious America can Resist Islam" ¾ this being the headline in the same German paper Welt am Sonntag (September 05, 2004).5 The translation and global outreach simply hints at the popularity of the idea and success of the religious front.
Other soldiers on the academic front also follow the lead and produce books like "Mit Muslimen in Fieden leben" by Adel Theodor Khoury in which the author regurgitates theory that "a bloody confrontation between Islam and the Western world is coming."[6] Do you hear anyone talking about oil?
This thinking directly results from the influence of the invisible religious alliance against Islam. In response to a CAIR report of 2,000,000 Muslims attending 1,209 mosques in the US, Dr. Robert L. Reymond writes in The Trinity Review (Oct/Nov 2002):
"What concerns me about these numbers is not so much these numbers per se but the fact that they represent a three hundred percent increase over the last six years, showing clearly that Islam is blossoming and flourishing in the United States. I would also urge the Reformed church to launch a carefully planned and vigorous effort in the twenty-first century to evangelize the Muslim world by every appropriate means. The conversion of the Muslim world—we are talking about 1,200,000,000 people here—will be accomplished, of course, only by the grace and power of God, and at great cost."[7]
Similarly, it is not long ago when the Italian sources close to Vatican came out with the blaring headline: "The Church and Islam. 'La Civiltà Cattolica’ Breaks the Ceasefire"[8] as a result of Giuseppe De Rosa’s article in La Civiltà Cattolica, (October 18, 2003, issue no: 3680) which is edited by a group of Jesuits in Rome.
What the outsiders called as "the breaking of ceasefire with Islam," was the article, fully reviewed by the Vatican secretary of state before publication. The central thesis of the article is that "in all of its history, Islam has shown a warlike and conquering face"; that "for almost a thousand years, Europe lived under its constant threat"; and that what remains of the Christian population in Islamic countries is still subjected to "perpetual discrimination," with episodes of bloody persecution.
One has to see application of the tools that are mentioned in the beginning. One has to note the underlying stress, which remains on the concept of Jihad and the rancid notion of "Islamism" which are the common tools of media, academia and military fronts, working in tight alliance.
Every act of the religious front is undertaken with the objective of undermining Islam. Its attempts at influencing the academic front are part of the over all scheme. For example, when the cardinal secretary of state, Angelo Sodano, went to inaugurate a school in Venice on April 24, 2004, Sandro Magister described it a "centre of studies very dear to the pope" that "looks toward the East and Islam, even as far as China."[9]
Coordination and Simultaneous change of heart
To see how the visible and invisible alliances make efforts to stay on the same wavelength, one has to read carefully. An essay on the war in Iraq titled, "The Rage, the Pride and the Doubt," published March 13, 2003 in The Wall Street Journal argues: "Europe is no longer Europe. It is a province of Islam, as Spain and Portugal were at the time of the Moors. It hosts almost 16 million Muslim immigrants and teems with mullahs, imams, mosques, burqas, chadors. It lodges thousands of Islamic terrorists whom governments don’t know how to identify and control. People are afraid, and in waving the flag of pacifism – synonymous with anti-Americanism – they feel protected."
The following day the essay was translated and published in Italy in "Corriere della Sera" by Oriana Fallaci to propagate the same thesis. All this is in consonance with the Vatican’s approach in general, with the exception of Pope.
Until a decade ago, the Italian Church considered Muslim immigration as a social emergency, and it was met by 'ad hoc’ organizations of the bishops’ conference, like Caritas and the Foundation for Migrants. Peaceful, even interreligious, dialogue dominated this approach.
However, the change of heart on the academic and media front came about almost simultaneously. The Wall Street Juournal article and its wide publication are just tip of the iceberg. Earlier Enzo Bettiza, another "renowned expert on Islam" touched this idea in his book, "Viaggio nell’ ignoto. Il mondo dopo l’11 settembre" (Journey Into the Unknown. The World After September 11), published by Mondadori in October 2002.
This idea was supported by "a renowned historian of Islam," known by her pseudonym as Bat Ye’or, in a series of essays published in France in Commentaire, and in the United States. She put Muslims influence on Europe in the context of all rancid notions as "Islamic jihad," "Islamism" and above all "dhimmitude."
Enzo Bettiza argues that the feeling of dhimmitude is a trap contrived by the "modern Islamist elite to conquer Europe and the world." In his view, it is a trap that is already working: Many Europeans, "willingly or not, consciously or not, have already for some time been contributing to their own metamorphosis into 'dhimmi.’"
These theories became known with simultaneous change of heart at Vatican. Renzo Guolo dedicates an entire chapter in his book, "Xenophobes and Xenophiles: Italians and Islam," to the change in the Italian bishops’ stance and to the response they are giving to the challenge of Islam.
Guolo knows Vatican very well by virtue of his teaching the sociology of religion at the University of Trieste and his writes editorials on this subject for the newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference, Avvenire.
In his book, he describes step by step, protagonist by protagonist, what he calls "the turnaround of the Italian bishops’ conference" in recent years: the anti-dialogue with Islam polemic first launched by the bishop of Como, Alessandro Maggiolini; the rude awakening for the Italian bishops, in 2000, faced with the problems within marriages between Christians and Muslims; the endorsement of more reacting positions even by progressivist cardinal Carlo Maria Martini; and the appeals for the reinforcement of the Christian identity of Italy and Europe by Camillo Cardinal Ruini. In the Vatican, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is a forceful proponent of this new approach.[10]
Pope is the last remaining figure who believes in dialogue rather than crusade. However, he is not going to be around forever. Monsignor Cesare Mazzolari, the bishop of Rumbek in southern Sudan has already stated: "The Church has defeated communism, but is just starting to understand its next challenge – Islamism, which is much worse. The Holy Father has not been able to take up this challenge due to his old age. But the next pope will find himself having to face it."[11]
The situation is more serious when looked in the context of the total rejection of Islam and the core beliefs promoted by the Church in total contradiction to the interfaith dialogue and bridge building espoused by many Muslims.
An essay that critiques "dialogue" at its roots and contrasts it with a theology cantered upon "the absolute uniqueness of Christianity with respect to Islam" was published in September of 2002, no. 3, in "Teologia," the magazine of the Theological faculty of northern Italy, based in Milan.
The author, Giuseppe Rizzardi, is a priest of the diocese of Pavia and a professor of Islamic studies at the Faculty. In his essay: "Theology and Islam: Constant Components of the Religious Debate," he underlines that the role of "Christian theology is not to reconcile the diversity of 'creeds,’ to find in Islam 'Christian seeds’ and 'biblical seeds,’ to engage in dialogue, but to proclaim the Christian message. This proclamation necessarily involves a judgment of the truth of Islam in the light of Christian truth."
Rizzardi concludes: "The motives, hopes, and utopias of interreligious dialogue bring with them the risk, for both Christianity and Islam, of a simplification that contradicts the truth of the two faiths."
Academic Front Consolidates a Mindset
How such philosophies of the religious front are, in turn, propagated by academic front can be seen in books such as The West and the Rest[12] by Roger Scruton, formerly a professor at Birkbeck College in London and at Boston University. Its Italian version, L’Occidente e gli altri, was immediately featured in the geopolitics curriculum of the Graduate School of Economics and International Relations at the Catholic University, directed by Vittorio E. Parsi, who is also an editorialist for the newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference, Avvenire, and a trusted expert for Cardinal Camillo Ruini.
Right from its opening lines, the book goes on the offensive: "Samuel Huntington’s celebrated thesis that the Cold War has been succeeded by a 'clash of civilizations’ has more credibility today than it had in 1993, when it was first put forward." What follows is even more abundantly surprising for those who are not aware of the mutual influence of the religion and academic war fronts against Islam.
Scruton points to Christianity as an essential element of American citizenship capable of giving identity to the West. Defending the political front’s strategy of "pre-emption" in the light of Christianity, the author adds that Christianity imposes the duty of defending those who are under attack. This is because Jesus preached a message of peace, but not of pacifism:
"The idea of forgiveness, symbolized in the Cross, distinguishes the Christian from the Muslim inheritance. There is no coherent reading of the Christian message that does not make forgiveness of enemies into a central item of the creed. Christ even commanded us, when assaulted, to turn the other cheek. But […] he was setting before us a personal ideal, not a political project. If I am attacked and turn the other cheek, then I exemplify the Christian virtue of meekness. If I am entrusted with a child who is attacked, and I then turn the child’s other cheek, I make myself party to the violence. That, surely, is how a Christian should understand the right of defense, and how it is understood by the medieval theories of the just war. The right of defense stems from your obligations to others. You are obliged to protect those whom destiny has placed under your care. A political leader who turns not his own cheek but ours makes himself party to the next attack. By pursuing the attacker, however violently, the politician servs the cause of peace, and also of forgiveness, of which justice is the instrument."
Page after page, Scruton unveils the greatness and the misery of the West today, face to face with the Islamic challenge. Tracing the roots of challenge to the time of Prophet Mohammed (PBUH), the author states:
"And his arguments frequently defy convention. Here is a sample, on the impact of rationalist European architecture on traditional Muslim cities: "He [Mohammed PBUH] and his followers were al-muhajiroun, the ones in emigration or exile (hijrah), and the experience of exile is invoked again and again in the Islamic revivals of our times…. In the eyes of the Koran the place where we are is not the place where we belong, since the place where we belong is in the wrong hands. […] This attitude greatly favors the notion of law as a relation between each person and God, with no special reference to territory, sovereignty, or worldly obedience[…]Islamism is not a cry of distress from the "wretched of the earth." It is an implacable summons to war, issued by globetrotting middle-class Muslims, many of them extremely wealthy, and most of them sufficiently well versed in Western civilization and its benefits to be able to exploit the modern world to the full. […] With al-Qaeda, we encounter the real impact of globalization on the Islamic revival. To belong to this "base" is to accept no territory as home, and no human law as authoritative. It is to commit oneself to a state of permanent exile, while at the same time resolving to carry out God’s work of punishment […] on his enemies, wherever they are."
Supporting neocons’ political front
The religious front stands firmly behind the Neocons. This can be judged from the two extreme ways in which two newspapers of the Church of Rome reacted to the US elections.
L’Osservatore Romano, the newspaper of the Holy See, didn’t even report Bush’s victory. In contrast, Avvenire, the daily owned by the Italian bishops’ conference, and above all by its president, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the Pope’s vicar for the diocese of Rome, appreciated Bush’s victory. As discussed earlier, it is a glimps of the possible future. It shows the post-Pope period will bring more bloody adventures on the part of political and military fronts.
L’Osservatore Romano’s respect for the canons of diplomacy, and neutrality is understandable. But the reticence with which it registered Bush’s victory smells fishy. Those who closely follow the details still remember how the Vatican welcomed with a sense of relief the news of Bush’s presidential election victory in 2000. In 2004, the paper’s going beyond its official duty of neutrality is surprising for many because it seems like a deliberate attempt at hiding something.
However, hiding is becoming a difficult job in 21st century. In the June 4, 2004 edition of the Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera, the Vatican journalist, Luigi Accattoli, who most faithfully reports the views from the pontifical palazzo, wrote that the pope has already decided: he prefers the evangelical Bush to the Catholic Kerry. And "he wants to help him with the Catholic voters."[13]
Four years ago – in the opinion of a very trustworthy Vatican observer, John L. Allen, the Rome correspondent of the American weekly "National Catholic Reporter" – in an imaginary vote, Vatican leaders and functionaries would have expressed "at least a 60-40 vote in favor of Bush over Al Gore."
Avvenire, on the other hand, stood with Bush against the disappointed opinion makers who considered it a defeat of "liberal, secular, tolerant, moderate" America at the hands of another America, "rural, ignorant, egoist, bigoted," and above all "religious."
Avvenire criticized this analysis in some of its editorials, and contrasted with this its own, different vision of the facts in a lead article by Giorgio Ferrari: "We, of the Heart of America."
In Ferrari’s views: "It is precisely on values that Bush, or we might say his extraordinary electoral strategist Karl Rove, fixed his aim. Not on the war, not on Osama Bin Laden, or not only on them, but on the defense of something profoundly American, as difficult for us Europeans to comprehend as it is easy to denigrate: that 'God, country, and family.’"
Ferrari is ecstatic to find "an America within America…where one can feel at home" — America of the Neocons. In his words: "Some define them hastily as "born-again Christians," others as neocons, still others as theocons, but none of these definitions is really appropriate, because the reality is much more complex. Certainly, within this great electoral mass there is room for the 'moral majority.’"
Ferrari felt himself at home in "an American that placed Iraq only in the third place" because "the first priority was the defense of a system of values." This is an America that wept while singing "’Amazing Grace,’ the most beautiful religious hymn Americans know."
Download complete PDF version (380 Kb) of this study from: http://www.icssa.org/Church_at_war.pdf
Notes:
[1] See: http://globalrealities.com/
[2] See: http://www.wams.de/data/2004/05/30/284942.html
[3] "Dr. George Grant Promotes Christian Doctrine in Education," The Christian Post, June 7, 2004. http://www.christianpost.com/dbase.php?cat=education&id=390
[4] Wyatt Olson, "United States of Jesus: The folks who are "reclaiming America for Christ" are pushing an agenda for a Taliban-like state where Scripture is law," New Times http://www.newtimesbpb.com/issues/2003-11-27/news/feature.ht
ml
[5] "Nur ein religiöses Amerika kann dem Islam widerstehen" Bestsellerautor Samuel Huntington ruft seine Landsleute auf, die Identität der USA zu verteidigen, Welt am Sonntag, 5. September 2004. http://www.wams.de/data/2004/09/05/328513.html
[6] http://www.theologische-buchhandlung.de/islam.htm
[7] Robert Reymond, "What is wrong with Islam,"
The Trinity Review / October, November 2002.
http://www.trinityfoundation.org/PDF/199a-WhatsWrongwithIsla
m.pdf
[8] See http://213.92.16.98/ESW_articolo/0,2393,41931,00.html
[9] Sandro Majister, "Parte da Venezia una nuova via della seta. Si chiama Marcianum, " (A New Silk Road Begins from Venice. It’s Called "Marcianum" L-espresso, April 30, 2004.
[10] Renzo Guolo, "Xenofobi e xenofili. Gli italiani e l’islam", Laterza, Bari, 2003.
[11] For details please refer to "Vatican Renews its Commitment to a War on Islam" at http://world.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/12053/
[12] Roger Scruton, "The West and the Rest. Globalization and the Terrorist Treat," ISI Books, Wilmington, DE, 2002.
[13] Quoted by L’Espresso repoter Sandro Magister in his June 07 article:Bush ha portato al papa un regalo: l’alleanza tra cattolici ed evangelicals
Source:
by courtesy & © 2005 Abid Ullah Jan
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/12413/
Church at War? :: Part Two ::
Consolidating Religious Front
Just as all the fronts against Islam draw inspiration from the religious front, the religious front too, for the first time, has taken full advantage of the born-again Christians at the political front.
The religious front is now more united than ever in the US history. Pope’s speech after meeting with Bush on June 4, 2004 is an evidence of a long-term consensus between the world’s lone political and military super-fronts against Islam.
A noticeable drawing together between Bush, the Methodist, and Catholithics was underway before the elections and the elections results reflected it well. 52 percent of Catholics voted for Bush, and 47 percent for Kerry. In 2000, the percentages were reversed: 48 percent for Bush and 51 for the Democratic candidate.
Among Catholics who attend mass every Sunday, the divergence was even wider: 56 percent for Bush against 43 for Kerry.
Eleven states also held referendums to emend their constitutions to establish the definition of marriage as a union between one man and one woman, and to block the path to gay unions. In all of them, the opponents of gay marriage won by large margins.
At another level of more impact, convergence is underway between Catholic Americans and their most heated religious rivals: the evangelical Protestants, which religious analysts call as "an absolute novelty in the history of the United States."
The traditional line-ups of Catholics always supporting Democrats and evangelicals supporting Republicans have completely changed. There were bishops who refused to give communion to Kerry.
At the same time, a growing number of Catholics made common cause with the evangelicals, in support of Bush, who calls himself a "messenger" of God, who is doing "the Lord’s will."[14]
The world witnessed a good example of this display of unity seven days before Bush-Pope meeting, Bush met in Washington a panel of religious thinkers brought together by Christianity Today, the magazine founded by the most famous of the evangelical Islam-basher, Billy Graham.[15] There were two highly influential Catholics among the group: the editor of "Crisis," Deal Hudson, and the editor of "First Things," Fr. Richard John Neuhaus.
The way transcripts of a few hours long interview are posted on the online edition of "Christianity Today" shows how they find each other in perfect harmony. Bush was questioned on every topic from Iraq to Israel, the pope, Islam, Cuba, terrorism, torture, the family, school, and prayer and he was fully and repeatedly quoted in the post.[16]
Bush, from the political front, has played a great role in convergence between Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism on the religious front. While "leaders" like Musharraf from the Muslim world never stop playing with dogs to show their liberalism, Bush never hesitates to tell publicly about his reading each morning a page from the writings of Oswald Chambers (1874-1917), one of the most popular evangelical spiritual teachers of the past century.
To the inspiration of others on the religious front, Bush says he is an assiduous reader of the writings of another evangelical, a former chaplain of the United States Senate, Lloyd Ogilvie. He claims he is a "born again" Christian who plans to re-read the entire Bible in the span of a year, as he has done several times since he attended Donald Evans’ Bible school from 1985-1986.
To pave the way for merger, apart from Robert Bork and Robert Royal the most inner circle of Bush’s collaborators includes a very authoritative Catholic priest, Fr. Neuhaus, who is both a theologian and a political analyst. All of them are Catholics coming from Protestant faiths Fr. Neuthaus directs First Things, the leading magazine for Catholic neocons.
Things are not as simple as drawing a chart with personalities and their positions in oil companies to show that this is a war for oil. Actually, this is a war ignited and extended by the religious oil. Note at this point that Fr. Neuhaus is one of the close advisors of Bush. Neuhaus, in turn, has his confidant Michael Novak, who studied theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University and still teaches in the theological faculties of Rome. It was Novak who went to Vatican before the US invasion of Iraq to illustrate the theological justifications for Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq.
At one occasion, during the interview Bush admited that he needs "Father Richard around more." Father Neuhas, in turn, needs Avery Dulles around him more, not only for contribution to First Things, but for broader planning because he, too, is active both at the political and religious fronts against Islam. He was a Jesuit and then made a cardinal in 2001. This "reborn Christian" comes from a family of the WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) establishment. His father, John W. Foster Dulles, was secretary of state during the Eisenhower presidency, and his uncle, Allen W. Dulles, was head of the CIA.
Again, all these development did occur over night with the arrival of Bush on the scene. The efforts at conjunction between evangelicals and Catholics, in the United States, began after the fall of Soviet Union. In mid-90s’ they released a joint document with an unequivocal title: "Evangelicals and Catholics together."
For evangelicals, at the head of the dialogue there was Charles Colson, a former assistant to Nixon and destroyed with him by the Watergate scandal, then born again in the faith. For the Catholics, there was Bush’s mentor and advisor Fr. Neuhaus, with the support of Cardinal O’Connor and the future cardinal Dulles.
While efforts were underway to divide Muslims through introduction of the initial classifying notion "fundamentalists," which has now taken many forms from radicals, to Islamists and finally terrorists; leaders on the religious front made substantial gains in bringing different factions together.
Father Neuhaus came out with a book, The Naked Public Square, to impress the evangelicals, and so he did. It was a wake up call to let all on the religious front see the growing disappearance of religion from public life. The book was a successful attempt to bring to light traits that are common to both Catholic and evangelical thought for putting them into practice.
Since then, the evangelicals have made great progress. They have been successful in developed an ideology to create human cannon fodder to deploy against Islam on all fronts: media, academia, political and military. The cover story of the US News and World Report declared on April 24, 1995:"Re-ligious Conservatives Think Their Time has Come" to take power in the United States. In 2005, we see that they have not only consolidated that power, but also helped lunched "pre-emptive" strikes on their perceived enemies.
During the last decades of the 20th century, the so-called conservatives or the religious right groups ran multi-billion dollar networks "for God’s sake." Back in 1995, Patric Trueman, a former Justice Department lawyer, noted that leader of the conservative Christian move-ment, James Dobson "commands armies of people" and is anchor man of the Republican party.
In 2004, we witnessed that their influence has been decisive in many of the choices of the US presidency: from "peace" in Sudan to the war in Iraq and more decisive support than ever for Israel.
Christianization of the Republican Party, an article from the Christian Statesman, claims: "Once dismissed as a small regional movement, Christian conservatives have become a staple of politics nearly everywhere. Christian conservatives now hold a majority of seats in 36% of all Republican Party state committees (or 18 of 50 states), plus large minorities in 81% of the rest, double their strength from a decade before. The twin surges of Christians into GOP ranks in the early 1980s and early 1990s have begun to bear fruit, as naive, idealistic recruits have transformed into savvy operatives and leaders, building organizations, winning leadership positions, fighting onto platform committees, and electing many of their own to public office."[17]
Political adventures of the religious Front
The Vatican’s latest support to the war in Iraq is not something unusual. An unusual book by the US Ambassador to the Vatican, "The United States and the Holy See: The Long History"[18] gives a detailed account of the political adventures of the religious front. The book reconstructs the history of diplomatic relations between the United States and the Holy See, from their beginning in 1788 until today.
In the final pages, Nicholson writes about one of his conversations with John Paul II two days after the events of September 11, 2001. "I met the Pope at Castelgandolfo for about twenty minutes.... After we had spoken at length and prayed together, the Pope told me that he believed the events of September 11 were truly an attack,’ and that we were justified in taking defensive action..... It was at this meeting that the foundations were laid for the support of the Holy See for our campaign against terrorism. It is extraordinary that the Pope and the Church wished to help us, and likewise worth noticing that this support continues today."
It, therefore, must not be a surprise for many that Michael Novak is known as prophet of "democratic capitalism" which is one of the covers and leading forces behind the ongoing war. According to Sandro Magister, who is an analyst for Italian newspaper L’espresso concludes:
"The doctrine of the exportation of democracy is typically evangelical. And Bush is evangelical when he says, 'I believe freedom is the Almighty God’s gift to each man and woman in this world.’"
This, however, does not end the story. Exporting democracy is no more an evangelical project alone. Julian Coman and Bruce Johnston of British Daily Telegraph (October 10, 2004) report from Rome: "Vatican buries the hatchet with Blair and Bush over Iraq" and gave official support a military option for "protecting Iraq’s nascent democracy." So it is a joint Catholic-evangelical project. In other words a total Christian project led by many fronts from media to military.
This is where Zionists join in and gradually this Catholic-evangelical alliance start associating with the neo-cons, with Jews like Michael Horowitz, a great defender of persecuted Christians throughout the world: perfectly in line with the Vatican’s point of view.[19]
All starts are perfectly aligned for the religious front. In an interview with Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times, on May 31, 2004, Fr. Neuhaus said: "It is an extraordinary realignment that if continues is going to create a very different kind of configuration of Christianity in America."
Meanwhile, the pope of Rome is no longer the Antichrist for the evangelicals of the United States. In a recent survey of them, John Paul II won first place for popularity, with 59 percent saying they view him favorably, ahead of Pat Robertson, with 54, and Jerry Falwell, with 44 percent.
Along these developments, Philip Jenkins raises the frightening prospect of a re-run of the medieval Crusades (this time with much more devastating weaponry) in his book, The Next Christendom: The coming Blobal Christianity.[20] A wholehearted disavowal of the old Christendom – and all forms of coercive and imperialistic Christianity – is nowhere seen in the conversations, statements or plans of the leaders of the religious front.
The religious Front’s political adventures and support of the barbarism, as we witness in Iraq, paves the way for modern day crusades and plans for dealing with the situation, which Philip Jenkins describes in his book.
Unlike their perceived enemies (Muslims), the Christian religious front considers its involvement in political affairs and foreign policy as inevitable because they foresee and plan for a clash. They think long term. In Jenkins view, people tend to think of Muslims nations as those which are the fastest growing, but Christian nations are growing at least as fast. Again, by 2050, nearly 20 of the 25 largest nations will be predominantly or entirely Christian or Muslim.
In Jenkins words: "By 2050, there should be about three Christians for every two Muslims worldwide. Some 34 percent of the world’s population will then be Christian, roughly what the figure was at the height of European hegemony in 1900." At least 10 will be the sites of intense conflict, where Christian and Muslim communities vie for dominance. These conflicts may make the religious wars of the 16th century Europe look very tame.
To prepare for these conflicts, the religious front has planned to reach all segments of the power structure at all levels. One of the crucial areas of influence is the so-called think tanks. An Italian intellectual, Marco Respinti, who knows the religious front very well, wrote an article: "New Theologies: the Dawning of the Theoconservative Era in United States."
Respinti wrote this article for September 19, 2003 issue of the daily, Il Foglio. He explains the roots of neoconism in the US. In one think tanks alone he assesses the influence of Neocons by their numbers in these words: "Today Robert Bork is senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., together with Walter Berns, Lynne V. Cheney, David Frum, Newt Gingrich, Jean J. Kirkpatrick, Irving Kristol, Michael A. Ledeen, Joshua Muravchik, Michael Novak, Richard N. Perle and Ben J. Wattemberg" ¾ not to speak of the appointment of anti-Islam propaganda war-lord Daniel Pipes to the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace.
The religious front’s deep involvement with the think tanks makes the Church one of the torchbearers of the so-called democracy because it is a concept-made-permissible to the extent that people can hardly argue against it.
Headlines such as "Trying Democracy in Baghdad, with the Vatican’s Blessing," The Pope Receives Iraqi premier Allawi," and the "Church Encourages Islamic Journey to Democracy," are telling signs of the political adventures of the religious front.
The way Pope met Allawi in private on November 04, 2004 in Rome and then blessed Allawi’s wife, Thana, the minister for development, Mehdi Hahedh, the minister for human rights, Bakhtiar Amin, and the new Iraqi ambassador to the Vatican, Albert Yelda, in another meetings shows how Vatican has granted full recognition to the US puppet regime installed for consolidation of occupation.
Vatican approach is neither permanent nor grounded in reality. Just one years before meeting with Allawi, calling for democratic transition and openly supporting bloody adventures in Muslim countries, La Civiltà Cattolica – the magazine of the Rome Jesuits, printed with the supervision and authorization of the secretariat of state – wrote that the pretext of transplanting democracy to these countries is "particularly offensive for the Islamic community." Today, Islamic communities must accommodate occupation forces, so that they may plant democracy there.
The adventures go beyond supporting occupation. There are systematic calls to the political front for the strongest military approach possible. Long before Vatican’s open declaration of supporting US occupation of Iraq, on September 20, 2004, Cardinal Ruini spoke to the permanent council of the Italian bishops’ conference, and repeated the duty of the Christian West to "oppose organized terror with the greatest energy and determination, without giving the slightest impression of considering their blackmail and their impositions," and at the same time, to transform into "our principal allies" the elements of the Muslim world that desire "liberty and democracy."
This is a blatant disregard of the US motives and lies for the war on Iraq, and a blind commitment to never allow an alternative Islamic governing system to take roots anywhere in the world. Instead the focus is on not to lose sight of the ultimate goal i.e., conversion of most of the world to Christianity. (See Charles Duhigg’s article, Evangelicals Flock into Iraq on a Mission of Faith, in Los Angeles Times, March 18, 2004 [21] and David Rennie’s "Bible Belt Missionaries Set Out On a 'War for Souls’ in Iraq," in Telegraph UK December 27, 2003.)[22]
In an attempt to influence the political front for religious adventures, an appeal was made in the newspaper Il Foglio on September 21, 2004 for the Italian government to become a promoter within NATO and the European Union of a massive deployment of the troops of the Atlantic Alliance. Among others, the appeal was signed by Vittorio E. Parsi, for Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference.
Similarly, the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, expressed admiration for the United States and severely criticised an excessively anti-American and secularist Europe, and also the UN in an interview to the New York correspondent of the newspaper La Stampa on September 22, 2004.
These examples of the visible aggression of the religious front are enough to give us a clue to their behind the scene struggle against Islam. There was hesitation and reluctance to support the Iraq war because everyone had assumed it a just war and expected full cooperation of the oppressed Iraqis. However, the growing resistance now gives them an indication that the Iraqis didn’t reject Saddam as strongly and forcefully as they are rejecting the US occupation. They now see a flavour of Islam in resistance and the religious front has now intensified its struggle to make the occupation as success.
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Notes:
[14] In the new book by journalist Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack, based on taped conversations with the President, Bush describes himself as a "messenger" of God who is doing "the Lord’s will." April 20 by Robert Scheer, reporter for the Los Angeles Times "With God on His Side ... "http://www.theocracywatch.org/with_g_on_his_side.htm
[15] Graham believes Christians need to more clearly spell out the differences between their faith and Islam. In his words: "This nation has been attacked, we’ve been attacked by men who claim to worship Allah. We have been attacked by a people, a group, in the name of Islam, and the clerics, the religious leaders of Islam have not denounced it." The theme that is repeated by Gen. Boykin in the military front, comes from Persons like Graham, who believe: "Many people after 9/11 said that 'The Muslims, they worship the same god we do, they just have their way to God. Christians have their way to God. But it’s the same God.’ No, it’s not." His son repeatedly calls Islam "evil and wicked" religion. See: http://www.jesusjournal.com/jj_issues/grahamonislam.html
[16] Sheryl Henderson Blunt, "Bush Calls for 'Culture Change’" In interview, President says new era of responsibility should replace 'feel-good.’posted 05/28/2004 See: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/121/51.0.html
[17] http://www.natreformassn.org/statesman/02/chrepub.html
[18] Jim Nicholson, "The United States and the Holy See: The Long History." Published by "30 Giorni," Rome, 2002, 84 pages.
[19] A Jesuit magazine, La Civilta Cattolica, thought of as the semi-official voice of the Vatican, published an article in October 2003, apparently to highlight the "desperate plight" of Christians in Muslim countries, but in reality its objective was to criticize the main concepts of Islam in which Jihad clearly stood out.
[20] Philip Jenkins, "The Next Christendom. The Coming of Global Christianity", Oxford University Press, 2002.
[21] http://www.theocracywatch.org/irag_yahoo.htm
[22] Also see Christian Missionaries Battle For Hearts and Minds in Iraq From the Washington Post, May 16, 2004. http://www.theocracywatch.org/missionaries_post.htm
Source:
by courtesy & © 2005 Abid Ullah Jan
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/12414/
Church at War? :: Part Three ::
Religious Front’s justification for war
Overtly the world is convinced that war is widely rejected and it violates a taboo widely diffused in Catholic circles: a taboo that denounces as immoral not only making war, but even thinking about the possibility of a war like the one the United States has waged against two countries since October 2001 and is planning to extend to Iran and Syria in the near future.
The reality, however, is very different. The leaders in the religious front provide justification for the Bush’s doctrine of pre-emption. Michael Novak went to Rome on the State Department’s mission and gave a speech at the Center of American Studies in Rome on February 10, 2003 to justify the US war in the light of the Christian concept of "Just War." He delivered this historic speech after meeting with the foreign minister of the Holy See, Archbishop Jean Louis Tauran, and the secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Bishop Giampaolo Crepaldi.
In the first part of his speech, Novak regurgitated all the lies that Bush administration brazenly repeated at the UNSC and elsewhere before the war. Explaining how Iraq fits the Just War logic, he said: "Saddam Hussein has the means to wreak devastating destruction upon Paris, London, or Chicago, or any cities of his choosing… Saddam Hussein has failed to account for more than 5000 liters–five million teaspoons–of anthrax which he is known to have possessed just a few years ago."
Novak argued, "as a condition of his continuation in the presidency of Iraq," Saddam Hussein was told to "disarm" and "provide proof to the U.N. that he had disarmed." Since he did not, therefore, "authentic Catholic doctrine on the just war, as formulated by St. Augustine and St. Thomas, lays out a clear path of reasoning for public authorities acting in their official capacities in approaching the decision to go to war."
Furthermore, to empower Bush administration, Novak added: "In evaluating these contingencies, the new Catholic Catechism assigns primary responsibility, not to distant commentators, but to such public authorities themselves…[because] they are the ones who bear the primary vocational role and constitutional duty to protect the lives and the rights of their people."
Similarly, Bush’s confidant George Weigel, a frontline representative of the Catholic American Neocons and a close friend of the prefect of the papal household, Bishop James M. Harvey, goes to the extent of sidelining UN and international community. Writing in The Catholic Difference (2003) presents the logic that "a correct reading of the just-war tradition does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that prior Security Council approval is morally imperative."
While making a case for violating all international norms and standards, Weigel argues that the world should not worry "about overriding the presumption of 'sovereign immunity’ that nation-states traditionally enjoy." The reason he gave was that Iraq does not "displays a minimum of agreement to minimal international norms of order…[and] its behavior demonstrates that it holds the principles of international order in contempt."[23]
On September 30, 2002 a seminar was held in Washington on the issue of just war.[24] Thereby, a noted scholar of law and religion and former president of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, Gerard Bradely, whose books include Catholicism, Liberalism, and Communitarianism, summed up his position like this: "my judgment is this: Such an attack would not be inconsistent with traditional teachings on just war. I contend, in other words, that on this description, a morally upright statesman, President Bush, for example, could launch a pre-emptive strike to disarm Iraq."
Earlier, among the sixty influential Americans, who signed the "letter From America" soon after September 11, 2001, Novak, Weigel, and other famous Catholics like Mary Ann Glendo were the most prominent in total alliance with the academic front Fukuyama and Huntington. The Christian concept of "just war" which they re-introduced in the following words continues to this day in the form of just occupations, just torture and just massacre.
While justifying the already planned wars, the authors throw realism out: "The idea of a 'just war’ is broadly based, with roots in many of the world’s diverse religious and secular moral traditions … To be sure, some people, often in the name of realism, insist that war is essentially a realm of self-interest and necessity, making most attempts at moral analysis irrelevant. We disagree." The world is reaping the fruits of idealism pushed down its throats by the religious front using other visible fronts.
Religious front’s efforts were not limited only to justify political front’s physical war in the name of a "just war," it also worked hard to bring as many countries into the coalition of the barbarians as possible.
Vittorio E. Parsi’s, who teaches geopolitics at the Catholic University of Milan, presents the religious front’s vision and support to the renewed alliance between the United States and Europe in his latest book L’alleanza inevitabile: Europa e Stati Uniti oltre l’Iraq (The inevitable Alliance: Europe and the United States beyond Iraq) published by Bocconi University in Milan (2003). To the author, "equality of all states" is an "untenable legal fiction."
How these war fronts work hand in hand is obvious from the fact that Parsi’s book was released with precisely the same title and thesis just a few days after the United States and Europe had drawn closer together again by passing resolution 1515 at the U.N.
Religious front on terrorism
Other fronts — political, media, academia, and military — of the war on Islam have perfected the art of linking all kinds violence with Islam. While claiming that "all Muslims are not terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims," Islamophobes, such as Daniel Pipes, forget that all victims of oppression and occupation are Muslims and the occupiers are mostly Christian and Jews as well.
The media front ignores the fact that wars waged on the basis of lies and deception are far worse than what they call "terrorism" — the resistance the occupiers face. They label all resistance to their unjust wars "Islamic terrorism" for the sole purpose of demonizing Islam.
Looking for the right perspective, it is an undeniable reality that wars based on lies and deception is terrorism. By this relation, if we use the Western terminology, the most despicable and lethal terrorism the world faces today is Christian and Jewish terrorism. Vatican’s commitment to this kind of terrorism is obvious from the statement of Camillo Cardinal Ruini’s unforgettable words "We will not run away". This firm statement came during his homily at a mass to mourn the 19 Italian soldiers and civilians killed in Nassiriya on November 12, 2003.
All these fronts of the war on Islam ignore the simple logic that the so-labelled Islamic terrorism will become British, Dutch, or Italian (and by default Christian) terrorism if the US goes and occupies and faces resistance in UK, Netherlands or Italy today.
With this background, it is easy to see position of the religious front on the issue of "Islamic terrorism." The pope and his newspaper L’Osservatore Romano effectively avoided using the term "Islamic" for a long time.
The reason from the Italian analyst of Vatican affairs, Sandro Magister, was not that religious front was not on the same wavelength with the rest of war fronts. The reason was "Realpolitik motivation" from Vatican authorities with the objective to "protect Christians from more serious threats, and in particular the Christians who live in Muslim countries."[25]
In Magister’s view, "what the Vatican really thinks" is "that the current 'fourth world war’ (the words of Cardinal Renato Martino, imprudent as usual) against the West, Christianity, Judaism, and Muslim "apostates" is not the result of generic terrorism, but of Islamist terrorism."
This message is being transmitted transparently to the world towards the end of 2004 through an editorial of La Civiltà Cattolica [26] — a magazine reflecting the point of view of the highest Vatican authorities, including the pope. But the message is not new as Magister clarifies. It has been a common view within the Vatican that terrorism is of "Islamic origin" and this view is shared with the war lords active on the other fronts against Islam.
Right from the first line the Vatican affirms views of Islamophobes on other fronts: "There is a tragic conceptual connection beginning from New York on September 11, 2001, and reaching Beslan, in North Ossetia, on September 1, 2004. It is the connection of terrorism of Islamic origin, which in three years has sown death in many places all over the planet." Nowhere in the rest of the editorial from the Vatican, the write could trace roots of what they call "terrorism" to the roots of Islam. It’s a pathetic rant and repetition of what we witness on the media and academic front on daily basis.
The only beauty of the editorial is that it finally came up with the truth that lied in its heart and was the source of confirmation and inspiration from the rest of the fronts in the war on Islam.
Expecting mercy is naivety
One can imagine the extent of hatred towards Muslim, who believe in a totally different way of life, when the totalitarians on the religious front consider even their co-religionists as enemies if they believe in secular or liberal values.
"We need to find ways to win the war" Karl Rove, President Bush’s political director told a gathering of the Family Research Council in March, 2002. The Family Research Council is one of the most powerful lobbying organizations of the Religious Right today. Rove wasn’t talking about the war on "terrorism" or Islam to be precise. He was talking about the war on secular society.
The Reverend Tim LaHaye co-authored Mind Siege: The Battle for Truth in the New Millennium, published in 2000. The best-selling book issues a call to arms for Christians on the religious front to battle against secular humanism. Mind Siege declares that secular humanism is a "religion," and issues marching orders to evangelical Christians to gear up for an all-out battle to root secular humanists out of public life; their bottom line is that "No humanist is fit to hold office."
LaHaye, best known for the Left Behind series, was one of the founders of the Moral Majority. He first declared war on secular humanism in 1980 with his widely read book, The Battle for the Mind, in which he claims that evangelicals need to become politically involved to fight the great evil, secular humanism, that is threatening to destroy America.
Paul Weyrich said in a talk: "The real enemy is the secular humanist mindset which seeks to destroy everything that is good in this society."[27]
Muslims are shocked when they hear General Boykin and others calling Islam and "evil" religion. They don’t know that for Christian zealots even secularism is satanic, let alone Islam. Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition, explained the nature of the war on secularism in 1991 at a Christian Coalition Road to Victory gathering:[28] "It’s going to be a spiritual battle. There will be satanic forces.... We are not going to be coming up just against human beings, to beat them in elections. We’re going to be coming up against spiritual warfare."
"The strategy against the American Radical Left should be the same as General Douglas MacArthur employed against the Japanese in the Pacific... Bypass their strongholds, then surround them, isolate them, bombard them, then blast the individuals out of their power bunkers with hand-to-hand combat. The battle for Iwo Jima was not pleasant, but our troops won it. The battle to regain the soul of America won’t be pleasant either, but we will win it."[29]
For the outside world, the US was lying about Weapons of Mass destruction to go for oil in Iraq, or to remove Saddam or at the worst fighting a war for Israel. This, however, has not been so simple for the religious front behind the war.
Alabama Governor Bob Riley declared: "There is another war going on in this country. This one is far more insidious. It’s one that you just can’t go and attack. It’s a war for the absolute soul of this country."[30] Gov. Riley has asked his political allies to enlist in a crusade to restore the Christian character of America.
Church and State reported, April, 2003: "House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) is helping a controversial Religious Right group raise money to defeat a so-called 'war on Christianity’ in America and preserve the nation’s alleged "Christian heritage."
It is important to note that promotion of secularism and democracy in the Muslims world, which is approved by all religious garrisons from Catholics to Evangelicals, is not considered beneficial for the Christian world. Democracy and secularism in the Muslim world are used like other tools such as political Islam, Islamism and Islamic terrorism.
In the US, religious front is actively working to make the Bible the law of the land.[31] What is most significant here, and yet gets almost zero coverage in our media, is the fact that Bush is very closely tied to the Christian Reconstructionist movement working towards this end.[32] The links between this White House and that movement are many and tight. Marvin Olasky — a former Maoist who is now a Reconstructionist — coined the phrase "compassionate conservatism," and was hired by the Bush campaign in 2000. Olasky’s entire career has been financed by Howard Ahmanson, the California multimillionaire who has said publicly that his life’s goal is "to integrate Biblical law into all our lives."
Supreme Court Justice Scalia spoke at the University of Chicago Divinity School in January, 2002, and wrote an article for First Things, in May, 2002 [33] that reflects his hostility towards Democracy: The "consensus" [that government is the minister of God] "has been upset, I think by the emergence of democracy...It is much more difficult to see the hand of God...behind the fools and rogues...we ourselves elect of our own free will."
He sees democracy as obscuring the divine authority: "the reaction of people of faith to this tendency of democracy to obscure divine authority...should [be] the resolution to combat it as effectively as possible."
It is clear from Republican tactics in the 2004 Presidential election that voting is not considered a fundamental Democratic right. Block The Vote by Paul Krugman details some of those tactics. (NYTimes, Ocotober 15, 2004) [34]
The empire of religious front
The most demonized Mulla and Madrassa cannot even dream of the resources, planning, outreach, access to power and global designs of the religious front in the West. Their much dreamed religious empire is almost in place and in action to Christianize the world.
Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners, an evangelical Christian magazine that advocates social justice, writes in "Dangerous Religion, George W. Bush’s theology of empire":
"The Bush theology deserves to be examined on biblical grounds. Is it really Christian, or merely American? Does it take a global view of God’s world or just assert American nationalism in the latest update of 'manifest destiny?’"[3
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