Excerpt from "Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism"
Every year for the past twelve years, D. James Kennedy has hosted the Reclaiming America for Christ conference, usually at his Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Ft. Lauderdale. The events bring together hundreds of committed Christian nationalists for two days of lectures, seminars and devotions that, as the 2001 conference Web site puts it, chart “the path for believers to ‘take back the land' in America.” Speakers have included Roy Moore, David Barton, and Rick Scarborough, as well as the occasional GOP operative like Clinton prosecutor Kenneth Starr.
Former vice president Dan Quayle delivered a speech at the first Reclaiming America for Christ conference in 1994. In his book Eternal Hostility, Frederick Clarkson described the scene: "Quayle's speech was unremarkable, except for his presence during the recitation of the pledge of allegiance—to the ‘Christian flag,’ which preceded his remarks. The Christian flag, white with a gold cross on a blue field in the upper left corner, flies outside Kennedy headquarters. The assemblage recited together: 'I pledge allegiance to the Christian flag, and to the Savior, for whose Kingdom it stands. One Savior, crucified, risen and coming again, with life and liberty for all who believe.’”
For all who believe. Reclaiming America for Christ is a place where the Christian nationalist movement drops its democratic pretenses and indulges its theocratic dreams. So at the 2003 conference, when the abstinence educator Pam Stenzel spoke, she knew she didn’t have to justify her objection to sex education with prosaic arguments about health and public policy. She could be frank about the real reason society must not condone premarital sex—because it is, as she shouted during one particularly impassioned moment, 'stinking, filthy, dirty, rotten sin!"
A pretty, zaftig brunette from Minnesota with a degree in psychology from Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, Stenzel makes a living telling kids not to have sex. Rather, she makes a living trying to scare kids out of having sex—as she says in her video No Screwin' Around, if you have sex outside of marriage “to a partner who has only been with you . . . then you will pay.”A big part of her mission is puncturing students’ beliefs that condoms can protect them. She says she addresses half a million kids each year, and millions more have received her message via video.
Thanks to George W. Bush, abstinence education has become a thriving industry, and Stenzel has been at its forefront. Bush appointed her to a twelve-person task force at the Department of Health and Human Services to help implement abstinence education guidelines. She’s been a guest at the White House and a speaker at the United Nations. Her nonprofit company, Enlightenment Communications, which puts on abstinence talks and seminars in public schools, typically grossed several hundred thousand dollars a year during the first Bush term.
At Reclaiming America for Christ, Stenzel told her audience about a conversation she’d had with a skeptical businessman on an airplane. The man had asked about abstinence education’s success rate—a question she regarded as risible. “What he’s asking," she said, “is does it work. You know what? Doesn’t matter. Cause guess what. My job is not to keep teenagers from having sex. The public schools’ job should not be to keep teens from having sex.” Then her voice rose and turned angry as she shouted, “Our job should be to tell kids the truth!”
“People of God,” she cried, “can I beg you, to commit yourself to truth, not what works! To truth! I don’t care if it works, because at the end of the day I’m not answering to you, I'm answering to God!”
Later in the same talk, she explained further why what “works” isn’t what’s important—and gave some insight into what she means by “truth.” “Let me tell you something, people of God, that is radical, and I can only say it here,” she said. “AIDS is not the enemy. HPV and a hysterectomy at twenty is not the enemy. An unplanned pregnancy is not the enemy. My child believing that they can shake their fist in the face of a holy God and sin without consequence, and my child spending eternity separated from God, is the enemy. I will not teach my child that they can sin safely.”
The crowd applauded.
Of course, Stenzel isn’t just teaching her child.
Publicly funded abstinence programs were introduced to the United States in 1981, when $11 million was appropriated under the Adolescent and Family Life Act. It wasn’t enough money to make much of an impact, though, and the law was soon tied up in a court challenge brought by the ACLU. Significant funds didn’t start flowing into abstinence until 1996, when a provision of the welfare reform law—added at the last minute with little notice and no debate—allocated $250 million for abstinence education to be distributed over five years. States accepting the funds were required to match every four federal dollars with three of their own.
It was a lot of money, but it wasn’t always used as conservatives intended. The funds were channeled through state health officials who sometimes didn’t believe in abstinence education; Hawaii used its money to fund afterschool tutoring and extracurricular activities, Massachusetts spent the grant on public-service advertisements, and California simply turned the money down.
Under Bush, the abstinence movement has come into its own, receiving lavish federal funding and developing the infrastructure to implement it. The president’s 2006 budget asked for $206 million for abstinence education, an increase of $39 million from the year before. By the end of Bush’s first term, the government had spent almost a billion dollars on chastity programs, and 30 percent of schools with sex-ed programs taught abstinence only. By law, federally funded abstinence programs aren’t allowed to discuss contraception except to mention failure rates. The programs must teach “that abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and other associated health problems” and “that sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects.”
Most research shows that abstinence programs don’t do much to stop teens from having sex. Some do succeed in helping kids delay losing their virginity, which almost all adults regard as a positive thing. Any health benefits, however, are negated by the abstinence movement’s relentless anticondom message, which seems to dissuade teens from bothering with protection when they do have sex. According to research by sociologists Peter Bearman and Hannah Brückner, teens who take virginity pledges—a key component of many abstinence programs—have sex an average of eighteen months later than those who don't. But Bearman and Brückner also found that in the interim they’re more likely to have oral or anal sex, and that when they do lose their virginity, they’re less likely to use condoms and to seek treatment if they contract STDs.
In 2005, Texas sponsored a study of the abstinence programs Bush pioneered in the state and later made a model for the nation. High school students, it emerged, were more sexually active after taking chastity lessons, although researchers attributed this to the fact that they were getting older rather than to abstinence education itself, which seems to have little effect one way or the other.
So if the aim is to prevent teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, abstinence programs don’t work. As Pam Stenzel’s comments make clear, though, the abstinence industry has always been more concerned with public morals than public health.
Well the bible teaches us that sex is to be practiced by only a man and a woman and only to procreate. So Ms. Stenzel's position is clearly consistent with that. Is there a problem with teens having unprotected sex? You betcha...because unwanted pregnancies, the spread of STD's due to unprotected sex, etc. aren't a good thing. But education is the best way to go and lying to kids and saying for example that HIV spreads through kissing is not helping the education cause. And anybody who has a kid or has been one at some point should know that the more you tell kids not to do something the more they are going to want to do it...they tend to be a tad rebellious at that age. Which would probably explain the lies and scare tactics (fire and brimstone) from these abstinence groups.
I wonder what Ms. Stenzel or any of Dr. Kennedy's followers would say about 2 consenting, unmarried adults who have protected sex (using a condom) for purely recreational reasons? I have a feeling I already know the answer and all I have to say is it's none of their business...
May 25, 2006 6:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Re: Well the bible teaches us that sex is to be practiced by only a man and a woman and only to procreate.
The former proposition may be inferred from the Bible, but the latter (that sex is only for procreation) is no where to be found in the Bible. This is a position ancient Christianity borrowed from the Gnostics and later justified (in the Catholic West at least) by “natural law” theology.
May 25, 2006 6:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Whether it is inferred or explicity stated the whole notion is biblically inspired and part of the religious faith of the people who support that position. And the Gnostic texts were written by people who have been considered by many to be early christians. Though the texts were not included in the "official" bible for various reasons and some of the sects were labeled heretics. Rome historically has a nasty habit of brutally enforcing church dogmas...
Actually I do enjoy splitting hairs up to a point...
May 25, 2006 8:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
And I failed to mention in my first post on this thread that not only are these people are pushing religiously supported positions they have succeeded in making them public policy in some states and now policy that is supported by the Bush administration. Wall of Seperation issues? At least to me they are...
May 25, 2006 8:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Re: Whether it is inferred or explicity stated the whole notion is biblically inspired and part of the religious faith of the people who support that position
I would disagree very strongly. You can search the Bible from start to finish and never find any passage that could remotely justify such a position. (There are of course many Christian doctrines which have nothing to do with the Bible, despite the claims of today’s Biblical literalists) The history of this proposition is actually fairly well known: it developed in Alexandria under Gnostic influence (the Gnostic attitude toward sex was far more negative than anything found in Christianity) and was only slowly adopted in Rome, while being generally rejected in Eastern Christendom where, for example, we find several noted theologians in Byzantine times saying things like “The chief purpose of intercourse is the joy husband and wife find in one another.”
In today’s world of course this particular proposition is affirmed only by the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church but even among the Catholic laity I doubt you will find many who accept it as witness the widespread use of birth control among Catholics.
As for the Gnostics it is incorrect to label them Christian, as they actually predate Christanity by a few years. They were an attempt to synthesize popular Platonism with the Jewish faith, and later (being fairly syncretist) they also added Jesus and some other Christian elements to their pantheon.
Re: Rome historically has a nasty habit of brutally enforcing church dogmas...
Rome had nothing to do with the exclusion of the Gnostic Gospels. The period during which the Gnosticism was a going concern was the same period during which Christianity itself was under persecution by Roman authorities. The authority of the Bishop of Rome over the Christianity as whole was all but non-existent; in fact not until well into the Middle Ages did these bishops, AKA popes, begin to dominate even the western half of Christendom. Moreover the authority of neither pope nor emperor ever reached to Ethiopia, India, Persia or China—and in none of these countries did the indigenous Christian churches ever accept Gnostic “Scriptures”.
May 25, 2006 10:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Rome had nothing to do with the exclusion of the Gnostic Gospels. The period during which the Gnosticism was a going concern was the same period during which Christianity itself was under persecution by Roman authorities.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Peter
Then there was Constantine's conversion to Christianity in the 4th century (long before the Middle-ages) and Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. Which gave the church power that a "State" has...it took until the middle-ages for them to consolidate their power by crusades, inquisitions and the like...but they have been strictly controlling the faith's message since the beginning and are the arbitors of who the "true believers" were.
And the sex thing was frowned upon in the OT...especially in Leviticus. Then there is the 10 Commandments and that thingy about "not coveting thy neighbor's wife". The Judeo-Christian heritage (OT & NT) is to control people's behavior about a lot of things including sex...
May 25, 2006 11:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh good grief we all know Wikipedia, along with some very informative articles, contains unverified and inaccurate information, some of it deliberate propaganda. It is not a reliable source. And even if someone acting on behalf of the bishop of Rome burned a few copies of some Gnostic gospel or other given the technological and commnication limitations of the era there's no way they could suppress something across the whole civilized world. (Heck, even Stalin and Mao in the 20th century failed at that). As witness of course the simple fact that copies of the Gospel of Peter et al still exist or we could not have this conversation!
And I repeat: how did Rome (either bishop or empire) achieve the miracle of censoring the Bible in distant lands with which it had no contact? The Ethiopian Church for example includes about a dozen OT books that no one else (including the Jews) admits to the canon-- in fact no one even knew of them for centuries. But no Gnostic gospels.
You can probably blame Rome (the empire) for the failure of the Arians and Nestorians (although the latter survived handily oustide the Empire) but when it comes to the Gnostics there's a much simpler explanation: Gnosticism was an elitist religion that promised salvation (or enlightenment) only to a few special people. Christianity was far more democratic and allowed everyone into the fold. Now which religion would you expect to win the popularity contest?
Re:Then there is the 10 Commandments and that thingy about "not coveting thy neighbor's wife
Um yes, that's about adultery, which is not about sex but about property and inheritances. The patriarchs were, well, patriarchal about such things! But they also enjoyed a good role in the hay and the OT reflects this: provided certain boundaries involving bloodlines and property are honored (along with a couple of oddball taboos of the sort all primitive people seem to generate) the OT does not moralize against people having good and frequent sex with their spouses.
Christian sexual morality does not in fact owe much to Judiasm and the OT. Much of it snuck into Christianity from Greco-Roman philosophical ethical systems where the flesh was deemed inferior to the spirit and passions of all sorts were considered base and treacherous. In short, puritanism has more to do with Plato than with Moses.
May 25, 2006 4:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
To split hairs, the anti-sex attitude was promulgated by SOME Gnostics, based on the notion that the spirit was good and the body bad.
There were opposing Gnostic concepts.
May 25, 2006 4:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Splitting hairs here again, I would say most Gnostics were not in any real respect "Christians" as we know Christians today, other than that some of them may have been "monotheistic" in some respects. and perhaps approved of Jesus as a prophet. The bulk of Gnostic belief was that the "Christian" god was little more than a weak god and that there was a superior, in many cases feminine, god above him.
I don't think too many Gnostic cults had much, if anything, to do with Jesus in the same sense that Christians did.
But the Gnostic cults - and the early Christian sects - were so diverse that one can find almost anything in them to support the notion that they came down on one side or another.
Even Transhumanism basically originated from the Gnostic concept of "Knowing" and that to BE God was more important than to worship God. When that attitude was mixed with Greek rationalism, we ended up with the occult, which begat alchemy, which begat the scientific method and the sciences. Science is often described as "Faustian" and this is correct, as it basically implements the "heretical" notion of "Knowing" rather than "believing." (Of course, in the case of the original Gnostics, "Knowing" wasn't significantly different from believing - fortunately we "know" better now.)
May 25, 2006 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
"the Gnostic attitude toward sex was far more negative than anything found in Christianity"
Uhm, no, only in SOME Gnostic cults that rejected the body and all material reality as evil as compared to the spirit.
Other Gnostic cults reveled in the body and sex.
The early Christian cults supposedly were more positive about sex, as well, but I have no specific information. Certainly Christianity later suppressed positive sexual attitudes and still does.
I agree that it is incorrect to label Gnostics "Christians", whatever their beliefs about Jesus - although it is possible that some Gnostic sects that arose at the same time as early Christian sects might have overlapped in their belief systems somewhat.
May 25, 2006 5:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd agree with that last, as from my reading the Jews were adamant about every able-bodied male being married and producing children. Even rabbis had to be married, which is why many Biblical scholars believe Jesus was married.
The Jews pretty clearly aren't to blame for the anti-sex position of the Christians.
May 25, 2006 5:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
As an aside, Constantine never "converted" to Christianity. He remained an Arian as did his son. His Arian religion allowed his god to have multiple "faces", so he just added the Christian God as another "face."
This allowed him to recruit the Christians to support his candidacy for Emperor.
The amusing thing is that the Christians were so desperate for legitimacy that one or more of the senior Christians actually REPUDIATED Jesus as "the Savior" of Christians and annointed Constantine as "the Savior."
Of course, later, they went back to extolling Jesus as "the Savior."
May 25, 2006 5:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: As an aside, Constantine never "converted" to Christianity. He remained an Arian as did his son. His Arian religion allowed his god to have multiple "faces", so he just added the Christian God as another "face."
You may wish to become better informed. Arianism was a Christian “heresy” (meaning a form of Christianity that was officially rejected). The Arians argued that Jesus was not literally God, but rather a sort of super-Angel, first of all created beings. (the Jehovah Witnesses hold a similar belief today, though I don’t think the Arians went door to door with tracts).
Constantine’s opinions on the matter are a historical mystery and a matter of much dispute. He did endorse the Council of Nicaea (which he called and which rejected Arianism) but in later years, given the numerical strength of Arianism, he seems to have tried straddling the fence, and favored at least one Arian bishop at his court. He was baptized on his deathbed by a Nicaean bishop. His sons however were definitely Arians.
Christianity never worshipped Constantine as a savior. That’s just silly. However Constantine, together with his mother Helena, was canonized as a saint and titled “is apostolis” (equal to the Apostles”) which strikes me as a bit over the top.
May 26, 2006 7:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
There is a tendency today among some anti-Christians to dredge up the little-known rivals to ancient Christianity and deck them out with whatever virtues the anti-Christian admires and then lament their passing. This sort of revisionism is a bad, bad practice as rewriting history for propaganda always is.
And surely it is possible to criticize the Christian faith without having to appeal to some ersatz ancient authority, whether Gnostics, Manichaeans, Arians, ancient Paganism or anyone else.
May 26, 2006 7:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
It would seem on further research that Constantine may be said to have actually "converted" to Christianity in SOME sense. However, I found the following:
"Following are some relevant excerpts from the Introduction to the English translation and commentary on Eusebius' Life of Constantine by Averil Cameron and Stuart G. Hall:
Doubts have been expressed about the genuineness of Constantine's Christianity. (Notably in the past Jakob Burckhardt and Eduard Schwartz.) Once the letters are accepted as authentic, Constantine's conviction of divine calling and service must be accepted. But was he at heart a Christian, and if so, of what kind? Opinions differ as to the degree of his theological awareness, and as to his ultimate motives. Some hold him to have been a syncretist; others that he had little belief in the saving work of the cross of Christ as generally understood by Christians. He was in practice willing to tolerate polytheism, even if he could be at the same time personally hostile and verbally abusive [to polytheism]....
He continued to honour the Unconquered sun, and this deity figures on his coins to the exclusion (with rare exceptions) of Christian symbols. When he appoints the Day of the Sun for rest, he does not refer to its Christian significance, and even Eusebius' account of his vision in 312 is loaded with solar symbolism. The best explanation however is not that Constantine was a half-informed syncretist, os much as that the Sun could be a potent symbol of the one God worshipped by Christians....
God is often seen by Constantine as Saviour, an idea which undoubtedly includes the giving of victory in war, and is not related particularly to spiritual reconciliation with God by the saving death of Jesus. Rather, the cross is a "saving trophy" precisely because it brings victory in battle over the powers of tyranny.
It is best therefore to accept Constantine's attachment to the Christian God and to Christ as the response of one deeply committed to his imperial calling, who adopts and patronizes Christ precisely because he seems to bring "salvation" - victory, that is, prosperity and peace. It is a doctrine which many of the best Christian intellectuals of the day (including both Eusebius and Lactantius) were not ashamed to approve and encourage. (pp. 45-46)"
The bottom line:
1.Under Constantine, the official state religion was pagan sun worship - at least until his personal conversion and subsequent edict establishing Cbristianity as the only acceptable religion.
2. During Constantine’s reign “Sol Invictus,” the invincible sun, was prominently displayed on imperial banners and the coinage of the realm.
3. During Constantine's reign, he acted as the chief priest and was called "The Sun Emperorship" of the sun worship cult.
4. Until Constantine's decree of 321 Jesus' birthday was always celebrated on January 6, but Constantine changed it to December 25 which was the festival of Natalis Invictus, the birth (or rebirth) of the sun, when the days began to get longer.
5. By a decree in 321, Constantine announced that the courts to be closed on “the venerable day of the sun (Sunday).
7. Constantine was not baptized until when he was lying on his deathbed in 337. (This has been explained as common in the times, so may be of limited significance.)
I was in error in ascribing his primary religion as Arianism. In fact it was sun worship as Sol Invictus. It was this religion that allowed for multiple aspects of the deity and Constantine apparently adopted Jesus as one such.
It would seem Constantine adopted Christianity on a basic level as a religion he could adopt for his own purposes and use to control his empire.
As for "Christians worshipping Constantine", I never said that. I said that at least one Christian authority has been quoted as ssying that Constantine and Constantine alone was to be considered the "Savior" over and above Jesus. Whether this was merely an attempt to curry favor with Constantine as he "converted" isn't clear, but the hypocrisy is.
I'm not surprised they made him a Saint - without him, the Christian Church might have had a rough time getting accepted as well as it was.
May 26, 2006 2:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, the Christians have been lambasting the Gnostics since the time of the Gnostics for their "heresies", so I'm not cutting them any slack in this area.
Much of the anti-Gnostic Christian writings are just as much "propaganda" as the reverse.
That's the nature of religious writings. It's ALL "propaganda" by definition since there are so few facts involved.
May 26, 2006 2:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Message to Iran and other nations yet without access to nuclear weapons--
We really would hope that you never build or use these weapons. They cause great suffering and death and the process to build them often includes great environmental disaster.
BUT if you decide to build them please contact our department of safe nuclear proliferation so that they may help you in the safest path to nuclear armament. Because we know that education is how people can be as safe as possible and we know that despite all our efforts we can't forcably stop you're arrival at a state of nuclear armament.
See, you can teach "SAFE PROLIFERATION" without condoning nuclear proliferation. What a happy progressive thought!
May 27, 2006 11:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Re: December 25
This is not entirely true. Different churches celebrated the nativity on different days. The Jan 6 date was common in some of the Middle Eastern churches (and still is used by the Armenians). The date of Dec 25 however had been in use in some western churches as early as the mid third century AD, and in fact was based on some fairly complicated calculations of the events described in the opening portions of Luke’s Gospel (which include some assumptions, now known to be erroneous, about what year Jesus was born.) Also please note that Dec 25 is NOT the solstice at all, as is sometimes sloppily started, and the ancients were good enough at astronomy to know what day the solstice actually fell on.
As for “Sunday”, rather awkwardly for these arguments the seven day week was originally a Jewish innovation, unknown to the Romans. When it was adopted by non-Jews (since it was a useful subdivision of the month) they named the days for the principal heavenly bodies (the sun, moon and five visible planets). However Christians did not use or refer to these names in antiquity and Sunday is not “Sunday” in most European languages even today: it is some development of “Lord’s Day” or “Resurrection day” (also, “Saturday” is not usually “Saturn’s day” either, but some form of “Sabbath” for the Jewish Sabbath). We know from citations almost from the earliest days of Christianity that Christians had the day after the Jewish Sabbath as their principle worship day, and this at the request of the Jews with whom they originally shared synagogues (so Christian rites would not interfere with Jewish worship on the Sabbath). Constantine may have worshipped Sol Invictus on Sunday, but he had zero influence on the Christian practice of celebrating the Resurrection on Lord’s Day.
As for Constantine personal religious beliefs, see how much argument there is over what our Founders thought about religion—and they are closer to our age, and we share somewhat of a common culture and language with them. How we are to divine the inner thoughts of a man 1650 years in his grave I don’t know. If I had to guess I’d say his conversion was mostly political, but that he was an intelligent enough guy that he probably did have a sincere interest, out of curiosity if nothing else, in the new religion he was favoring and on his death bed decided that he really should play it safe and be baptized.
May 27, 2006 1:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd agree with your last paragraph - we might not be able to be certain of Constantine's beliefs at any given point in his history. That still makes him just as likely a sun worshipper as a Christian - which is the point.
As for your other points, the facts as to how various Christian factions treated one symbolic element or another is not relevant to the fact that Constantine apparently justified his marking various days and holidays according to the Sol Invictus religion, not the Christian religion. That point supports the notion that he was just as much a Sol Invictus follower as a Christian even after his supposed "conversion." What influence he had on Christians in this regard was not the point.
May 28, 2006 3:28 PM | Reply | Permalink