When the editorial page of the Richmond Times Dispatch says you should resign, there’s no reason to think you can step out of it: You’re in deep do-do.

Congressman Tom Davis is trying to keep Democrats from moving into his district.

Some local elected Democrats say that in private conversations, Davis has made it clear that he has no interest in supporting high-density developments near Metro stations because he believes the residents they attract tend to vote for Democrats.

Yeah, and by taking Metro they don’t have the courtesy to help the GOP pollute the environment, too.

Democrats on the Hill are asking the PBS Inspector General to probe a series of questionable moves by the new Corporation for Public Broadcasting Chairman Ken Tomlinson. They say he’s injecting a right-wing bias into programming decisions on public TV programs.

Today’s Diane Rhem show on WAMU had a discussion of what it called the Conservative Christian movement, but in more precise terms — and one I wasn’t familiar with — is Dominonism.

Guests included Chris Hedges, a former NY Times reporter (whose name rang a bell for me as he was a reporter for the Dallas Morning News during my time in that prairie town), Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Bob Edgar, general secretary of National Council of Churches and the ubiquitous E.J. Dionne.

Hedges said the National Religious Broadcasters Association runs “a parallel information network” that seeks to make this a Christian nation. Leaders of this movement include the well known James Dobson who called Roe v. Wade the “biggest Holocaust in history.” The NRBA has pushed out even evangelicals. Dionne made the point that these leaders aren’t just “people of religion” or evangelicals but radicals intent on forcing their view on the rest of us.

Perkins used many of the phrases we’ve come to know well. He talked about how Christians are “under assault” and how there is “hostility toward Christians.” He accused the judiciary of imposing a “public policy that is hostile to Christian heritage of this country.” He specifically mentioned sex ed and homosexuality as battlegrounds for today’s Christians.

Hedges has an article in this month’s Harpers (begins on page 10 of the linked pdf file) that chroncilces his attendance at the NRBA convention.

[Illinois evangelist and radio host James MacDonald] reminds us, quoting theologian Peter Berger, that “ages of faith are not marked by dialogue but by proclarnation” and that “there is power in the unapologetic proclamation of truth. There is power in it. This is a kingdom of power.” When he says the word “power,” he draws it out for emphasis. He tells the crowd to shun the “persuasive words of human wisdom.”

Truth, he says, does “not rest in the wisdom of men but the power of God.” Then, in a lisping, limp-wristed imitation of liberals, he mocks, to laughter and applause, those who want to “share” and be sensitive to the needs of others.

…[Frank Wright, the new president of NRB, says] “Today, the calls for diversity and multiculturalism
are nothing more than thinly veiled attacks on anyone willing, desirous, or compelled to proclaim Christian truths,” he says. “Today, calls for tolerance are often a subterfuge, because they will tolerate just about anything except Christian truth. Today, we live in a time when the message entrusted to you is more important than ever before to reach a world desperate to know Christ.”

Hedges describes the Dominionism movement.

What the disparate sects of this movement, known as Dominionism, share is an obsession with political power. A decades-long refusal to engage in politics at all following the Scopes trial has been replaced by a call for Christian “dominion” over the nation and, eventually, over the earth itself. Dominionists preach that Jesus has called them to build the kingdom of God in the here and now, whereas previously it was thought that we would have to wait for it. America becomes, in this militant biblicism, an agent of God, and all political and intellectual opponents of America’s Christian leaders are viewed, quite simply, as agents of Satan. Under Christian dominion, America will no longer be a sinful and fallen nation but one in which the Ten Commandments form the basis of our legal system, Creationism and “Christian values” form the basis of our educational system, and the media and the government proclaim the Good News to one and all.

Aside from its proselytizing mandate, the federal government will be reduced to the protection of property rights and “homeland” security.’ Some Dominionists (not all of whom accept the label, at least not publicly) would further require all citizens to pay “tithes” to church organizations empowered by the government to run our social welfare agencies, and a number of influential figures advocate the death penalty for a host of “moral crimes,” including apostasy, blasphemy, sodomy, and witchcraft. The only legitimate voices in this state will be Christian. All others will be silenced.

The traditional evangelicals, those who come out of Billy Graham’s mold, are not necessarily comfortable with the direction taken by the Dominionists, who now control most of America’s major evangelical organizations, from the NRB to the Southern Baptist Convention, and may already claim dominion over the Christian media outlets. But Christians who challenge Dominionists, even if they are fundamentalist or conservative or born-again, tend to be ruthlessly thrust aside.

…Luis Palau, a well-known evangelical preacher who is close to Billy Graham. “I don’t think it is wrong to want to see political change, especially in places like Latin America,” he says. “Something has to happen
in politics. But it has to be based on convictions. We have to overcome the sense of despair.

I worked in Latin America in the days when almost every country had a dictator. I dreamed, especially as a kid, of change, of freedom and justice. But I believe that change comes from personal conviction, from leading a more biblical lifestyle, not by Christianizing a nation. If we become called to Christ, we will
build an effective nation through personal ethics. When you lead a life of purity, when you respect your wife and are good to your family, when you don’t waste money gambling and womanizing, you begin to work for better schools, for more protection and safety from your community. All change, historically,
comes from the bottom up.”

Hedges, who studied to be a minister like his dad, concludes,

I can’t help but recall the words of my ethics professor at Harvard Divinity School, Dr. James Luther Adams, who told us that when we were his age, and he was then close to eighty, we would all be fighting the “Christian fascists.”

He gave us that warning twenty-five years ago, when Pat Robertson and other prominent evangelists began speaking of a new political religion that would direct its efforts at taking control of all major American institutions, including mainstream denominations and the government, so as to transform the United States into a global Christian empire. At the time, it was hard to take such fantastic rhetoric
seriously. But fascism, Adams warned, would not return wearing swastikas and brown shirts.

Its ideological inheritors would cloak themselves in the language of the Bible; they would come carrying crosses and chanting the Pledge of Allegiance.

Adams had watched American intellectuals and industrialists flirt with fascism in the 1930s. Mussolini’s “Corporatism,” which created an unchecked industrial and business aristocracy, had appealed to many at the time as an effective counterweight to the New Deal. In 1934, Fortune magazine lavished praise on the Italian dictator for his defanging of labor unions and his empowerment of industrialists
at the expense of workers. Then as now, Adams said, too many liberals failed to understand the power and allure of evil, and when the radical Christians came, these people would undoubtedly play by the old, polite rules of democracy long after those in power had begun to dismantle the democratic state. Adams had watched German academics fall silent or conform. -He knew how desperately people want to believe the comfortable lies told by totalitarian movements, how easily those lies lull moderates into passivity.

Adam told us to watch closely the Christian right’s persecution of homosexuals and lesbians. Hitler, he reminded us, promised to restore moral values not long after he took power in 1933, then imposed a ban on all homosexual and lesbian organizations and publications. Then came raids on the places where homosexuals gathered, culminating on May 6, 1933, with the ransacking of the Institute for Sexual
Science in Berlin. Twelve thousand volumes from the institute’s library were tossed into a public bonfire. Homosexuals and lesbians, Adams said, would be the first “deviants” singled out by the Christian right.

We would be the next.

Here’s another interview with Hedges.

It’s wise for us — and certainly for the politicians we support — to distinguish Christians and evangelicals from their Dominionist leaders. But we need to encourage them, especially those like Tim Kaine and others whose Christian faith is important to them, to make that distinction. In fact, it’s imperative for them to explain to Christians that they are not the enemy. Perhaps we can recruit some of those in the East Waynesville Baptist Church who know that a line has been crossed.

I wonder how my conservative friends — yes, I really have some — feel about this latest example of corporate welfare and irresponsibility. Proponents of private enterprise performing functions best left to governments (building roads, managing schools, and a host of public private partnerships) are always mum when corporate malfeasance raises its ugly head.

United Airlines promised its employees a certain retirement benefit. But after a long period of irresponsibility, poor leadership and no doubt exorbitant executive salaries, United executives say they can’t fulfill their obligations and request that the government bail them out.

Yet when individuals, especially the poor, immigrant, and black individuals ask for government help, we hear get lectures on self-reliance from regressives. Not only will retires lose up to 50 percent if their promised retirement, but taxpayers will pick up some of the slack. While the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. will pay benefits from premiums companies have paid the organization over the years, it is fast approaching its own bankruptcy, requiring tax dollars to bail it out.

The pastor of the small Baptist church in Waynesville, N.C. resigned today over his attempt to kick out members who voted for John Kerry. But in this AP story, there is hope for the progressive/moderate coalition.

Many of those who opposed Chandler’s leadership said they agreed with the pastor’s positions on abortion and other hot-button religious topics, but disliked linking those beliefs to specific political positions and candidates.

“If we wanted politics, we would stay home and watch it 24 hours a day on TV,” said Charles Gaddy, 70. “I like Chan. He can preach a good sermon. I just wish he would keep some things out of the church.”

Frank Lowe, 73, a leader of the members who left the church in opposition to Chandler’s leadership, said, “I think his duty was to preach God’s word and let the people sort out what they want to do.”

Chandler supporter Rhonda Trantham, 27, saw no problem with Chandler’s approach. “If it’s in the Bible, I believe it should be preached,” she said.

Can someone please cite me chapter and verse of where in the Bible it says “Vote Bush”?

Still, when conservative, devout Christians say people like the Rev. Chan Chandler have gone to far, I think there’s an opening for progressives to acknowledge — and if they are so inclined – embrace their own religiosity but also support tolerance and a clear separation of church and state.

The Virginia-Pilot Monday published three editorials on taxes. The first put the “no new taxes” argument in perspective.

A few days back, the U.S. Census bureau reported that state taxes in Virginia went up $147 on average last year. Even so, Virginia fell from 29th to 31st among its sister states in per capita collections by state government.

The Tax Foundation’s figures are even more telling since they combine state and local levies and report them as a percentage of personal wealth. As a function of ability to pay taxes, Virginia’s burden was 35th lowest in the nation last year.

The Tax Foundation predicts the ranking will rise just one notch, to 34th, in 2005, even with last year’s tax increase in place for the full year.

As the campaign season wears on, voters should beware of candidates spouting false claims about high taxes. Virginia’s goal should be the lowest possible taxes to provide good schools, safe neighborhoods and a decent transportation system.

Right now, by national standards, Virginians aren’t being overcharged for what they get.

And the Pilot cite two jurisdictions that are finding little resistance to higher property taxes. A vast majority of the people testifying at a Suffolk public hearing supported higher salaries for fire fighters, police and teachers.

In Portsmouth, the city council increased spending for schools with funds raised through higher house assessments. The Pilot credits taxpayers who have been “remarkably quiet about the big jump in taxes.”

Same could be said of the entire state, yet the media will continue to give legs to the manufactured anti-tax furor. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised, given the general conservative bias of the mainstream media.

If I want more freedom, I guess I’d be better off in Henrico County. A few years ago as a group I was affiliated with was trying to lobby the school board for faster funding of our high school’s renovation, we had to seek permission to put information in flyers that were taken home in the kids’ backpacks. We’d often run into resistance, as school officials were afraid of being supportive of a political effort.

But in Henrico, a church can advertise in school flyers, and the school system abets a charade by obfuscating the fact that it’s a church.

Laura Kreisa knew the YMCA, the PTA, the JCC. She couldn’t pinpoint WEAG.

She became curious about the acronym when her son came home from his western Henrico County school with a flier advertising a golf event sponsored by WEAG.

She saw no full name, no contact information.

Confused, Kreisa thought it may stand for some West End athletic group.

“I had no clue,” she said. “I was looking in the phone book for WEAG.”

She asked school staff and was told the letters stood for West End Assembly of God, a church in western Henrico.

“The way it’s presented, it’s not clear it’s a church,” Kreisa said. “I would feel better if they are straightforward. Any organization should be fully identified, whether it’s religious or not.”

That was last year. So Kreisa was surprised to see the acronym again last month when her son brought home a flier advertising an extreme dodgeball league. The flier still did not spell out the name.

So it’s a golf event. If her son is an elementary school child, the event clearly was not for him or his classmates.

“We allow the YMCA to use the acronym, we allow the JCC to use the acronym, and there are some people in Richmond, in the West End especially, that recognize the WEAG acronym,” said Marianne McGhee, Henrico schools’ director of public information and television services.

Causing confusion about the acronym was unintentional, said David Mercer, executive pastor at West End Assembly of God. WEAG shows up on school fliers most likely because the material is the same that they use in house, he said.

“It’s nothing clandestine by any means,” he said.

“It’s simply an acronym that we’ve come to identify ourselves by in our internal communications here.”

Oh, and we should know that!

This may be innocent as I know little about the church. But let’s be at least clear when we’re advertising a religious-related event in a public school flyer.

The Washington Post editorial page also thinks Potts just might benefit from the frustration people have over the tenor of the governor’s race.

COULD ANYTHING be less central to this year’s gubernatorial election in Virginia than the twang and timbre of one of the candidate’s voices? Yet, somehow, the race between the two major contenders has degenerated into a venomous little exchange over the accent of former attorney general Jerry W. Kilgore, a Republican from the hill country of southwest Virginia, and his campaign’s insistence (despite slim evidence) that Democratic Lt. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine is impugning it. If the two candidates sorely wish to encourage a protest vote for a maverick third-party challenger — in this case state Sen. H. Russell Potts Jr. (R-Winchester), who is likely to appear on the ballot as an independent — they need only persist in this vein for a few more months.

UPDATE: Roanoke Times mocks Kilgore’s twang strategy.