Anyway as seen in my last post on the opening of the 27 million dollar Bible based " CREATION MUSEUM " the fundamentalist evangelicals are in fact thriving in the current political climate in the United States . These politicized evangelicals are not content to merely spread their beliefs within the United States but believe it is their duty to spread their particular brand of Christianity to the rest of the world. This they refer to as the Great Commission which they believe the Bible endorses & to fail to attempt to convert every person on earth would be to fail God or even to go against God's Word .
This brings us to the recently held " World Congress of Families " which met in Poland .
A series of articles at Reality Check .org illustrates how the US Religious Right is spreading its Evangelical Political agenda world-wide through umbrella organizations like The World Congress of Families which is endorsed by the Bush Regime as one of the speakers at the conference was Ellen Sauerbery, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration .." who opened her speech by saying to the audience "I bring you greetings from President Bush!" She then went on to say that this Administration "values strengthening the family as an important goal for the sake of our common humanity" and congratulated Poland on its own courageous "pro-family" policies "...
What do the Vatican, U.S. Right Wing, and the Bush Administration have in common? The World Congress of Families...and it's not pretty
As Tyler LePard of Reality Check writes on May 10, 2007 in her article
" Introducing World Congress of Families "
The event that extreme conservatives have been waiting for is finally here! Get out your scarlet letters, chastity belts and witch feminist-poking sticks. The World Congress of Families (WCF) begins Friday and will be attended by fundamentalist conservative representatives from around the world (with a large faction from the United States, of course). The theme of this 4th Congress is "The Natural Family—Springtime for Europe and the World." (Anyone else hear a song from The Producers in your head? I wonder if they'll play that in the musical interlude on opening day...)
On a more serious note, the WCF and participating groups represent a real threat to sexual and reproductive health and rights; our special series covers the congress and its implications for these important issues. Two of our allies will be writing anonymously (names withheld to protect their safety) with RH Reality Check while they attend the event; this first post provides excellent background on the WCF (including the first three congresses) and why the right-wing chose Poland. More reports from the congress will be published over the weekend. Additionally, Andrea Lynch provides a reality check on the way in which WCF excludes real families around the world.
The list of WCF speakers and participants is an impressive collection of radical conservatives who are anti-abortion (duh), anti-feminist, anti-contraception, xenophobic and homophobic. The main impetus for focusing on the "natural family" is based on conservative Christian ideology, and they use declining birth rates, dwindling church attendance and growing immigration as motivation to push discriminatory policies and restrict tolerance and reproductive rights.
And the conference is dealt with in a series of articles which are informative & show that the Religious Right is far from dead & continues to influence policy makers & legislators in the United States & elsewhere :
World Congress of Families’ Legislative Aim
Elisha Dunn-Georgiou, SIECUS on May 14, 2007
The World Congress of Families IV ended on Sunday with Allan Carlson, of the Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society calling on the audience to make 2008 the real year of the international family by taking grassroots action to lobby parliamentary members to adopt policies that promote the natural family, criminalize abortion and further marginalize lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender citizens.
Despite the lower than desired media coverage and a lower than desired turnout of less than 3,000 people, the WCF organizers have accomplished what they ultimately set out to do—create a network of conservative civil society and parliamentarians who can influence European policy both at the national level and throughout the European Union. Unlike previous World Congresses whose aim was often to build cultural support for right-wing ideals, this WCF had a clear legislative goal from the beginning and several national (MP) and European Parliamentary members (MEP) were present throughout the conference, including Ana Zaborska (Slovakia), Head of Women's Rights and Equality Commission, and Carlo Casini (Italy), Head of Committee on Legal Affairs.
In conjunction with the standard WCF program of speakers and sessions on conservative social and cultural issues, this year the organizers also hosted an Inter-Parliamentary Forum that brought together 50 national and European Parliamentary Members from Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, France, and the United Kingdom to strategize on how to achieve the "globalization of pro-family ideals." Additionally, over 100 European Parliamentary members signed a declaration in support of the Congress and its conservative ideals. Presented to the audience as a response to the letter from 19 European Parliamentary leaders for Ellen Sauerbery not to attend, the declaration was read by Catherine Vierling of the European Forum for Human Rights and Family, one of the many right-wing groups already lobbying the European Parliament to change its policies.
To learn more go to the website of WORLD CONGRESS OF FAMILIES where you will find their mission statement & the WARSAW DECLARATION which was agreed upon at the end of this years conference - it is chilling stuff to read- which begins:
We the participants of the World Congress of Families IV commit ourselves to protect the Truth about the family, recalling its natural essence as a community of love and life, one bearing inalienable rights as it is written in the Charter of the Family Rights.[1]
The natural family, creation of God, is the fundamental human community, based on the life long marriage between a man and a woman, in which new individuals are conceived, born, and raised.[2]
"The future of humanity passes by way of the family"[3] and "there is no more efficient way for the rebirth of the society than its rebirth through healthy families"[4] that are faithful to their conjugal and parental vocations.
Such families bring to the world today:
• Faithfulness to the Divine Truth versus relativism;
• Real love, being the complete and impartial gift of oneself versus hedonism;
• Faithfulness in love throughout life versus lack of responsibility toward those closest to us;
• Respect for the life of every human being from conception to natural death versus discrimination against and extermination of the weakest;
• Joyful responsibility for every child-to-be, versus fear of the child expressed in the contraceptive mentality;
• A moral community in which young generations can grow versus false ideologies propagating demoralization;
• And, last but not least, the "springtime" of a civilization of love and life versus "demographic winter."
And from their website their stated purpose for the conference:
Our Purpose:
We assemble in this World Congress, from many national, ethnic, cultural, social and religious communities, to affirm that the natural human family is established by the Creator and essential to good society. We address ourselves to all people of good will who, with the majority of the world's people, value the natural family. Ideologies of statism, individualism and sexual revolution, today challenge the family's very legitimacy as an institution. Associated with this challenge are the problems of divorce, devaluation of parenting, declining family time, morally relativistic public education, confusions over sexual identity, promiscuity, sexually transmitted diseases, abortion, poverty, human trafficking, violence against women, child abuse, isolation of the elderly, excessive taxation and below-replacement fertility. To defend the family and to guide public policy and cultural norms, this Declaration asserts principles that respect and uphold the vital roles that the family plays in society.
Note for instance their references to " morally relativistic public education " statism " & " excessive taxation " which point to their anti-liberal pro-neoconsrvatism & their belief in the notion of an ongoing "Secular Humanist Conspiracy " to destroy what they consider to be true Christian values.
In a related story from Alternet Bruce Wilson discusses how the Religious Right distort historical facts & disseminate this Revisionist History to American students:
Aleternet
Department Of Defense Promotes Christian Right's Revisionist History in Public Schools, May 16, 2007.
Bruce Wilson: David Barton Material Found in National JROTC Program Curriculum
Last Saturday, I uncovered revisionist US History within the Unit 6 core curriculum for the national Junior ROTC program ; about 1/2 million American high school students each year are unrolled in the JROTC. I was astounded ; a passage paraphrased from the writing of David Barton, the leading historical revisionist claiming that the United States was founded as a "Christian Nation", has been embedded within a national educational curriculum produced by the Department of Defense and taught, across the nation, to American public high schools students enrolled in Junior ROTC...
and he goes on to argue why faked or mangled history being taught is of concern:
In fact, from the students in the nearly 400 public high schools across the US who are taking Bible classes taught from a fake-history larded curriculum created by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, to the 1/2 million public school students being taught fake history in the Junior ROTC curriculum, on to the hundreds of thousands and possibly even millions of children being taught falsified American history embedded in Christian homeschooling curricula, a sizable portion of an entire generation of Americans is being raised to believe in the falsified "Christian nation" myth.
For that reason alone, the claim that the Christian right as a political movement should be discounted is a dubious one because an entire new generation of leaders, now coming to the fore and inculcated with Christian right ideas including a fake "Christian nation" version of history, will soon take over to devise new tactics and strategies that will advance the movement.
and from Talk To Action see article by Bruce Wilson October, 29, 2006 "New National Program to "temporarily transform churches into courthouses" under the program called "Fugitive Safe Surrender" ...' that would give federal grants to churches for encouraging fugitive felons to turn themselves in; "arraignments would then be conducted in church, by judges, with the participation of law enforcement officers and public defenders. These arrests would involve bail hearings that would lead to the arrest of some defendants." ' which illustrates once again how the notion of a Separation of Church & State is being eroded in the United States which goes against the core beliefs of the country's founders.
Also see article :
Media Finally Discovers Army of Pat Robertson Acolytes in Bush Administration
By Max Blumenthal , Huffington Post April 13,2007 .
When Monica Goodling's name erupted into the news last week in the attorney scandal, the mainstream press suddenly realized that Pat Robertson's Regent University exists -- and that it's got a big footprint in the Bush admin.
also see
MISSION AMERICA COALITION
About the Mission America Coalition
by Dr. Paul A. Cedar, Chairman/CEO
The Mission America Coalition (MAC) is an unprecedented Coalition of Christian leaders who have prayerfully come together to mobilize the Church for praying, caring and sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ in deed and word.
Since its inception, leaders from 81 denominations, over 350 ministries and dozens of ministry networks have been involved in the Coalition. MAC calls for active participation in The Great Commission of Jesus Christ to “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19) and our Lord’s Great Commandment to “Love the Lord your God . . . and love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37, 39).
Our Mission Statement is:
"The Whole Church taking the Whole Gospel to the Whole Nation -
and to the World!”
and see Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization
& Lausanne World Pulse
Here is how they describe their organization & its mission:
The Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization (Lausanne) is an international movement that seeks to energize churches, mission agencies, networks and individuals to respond with vigor and courage to the cause of global evangelization. Lausanne grew out of the 1974 International Congress on World Evangelization called by a committee headed by the Reverend Billy Graham. For more than three decades, through the work of Lausanne, global Christian leaders have participated in regional, national and international consultations and conferences to develop biblical and strategic approaches to evangelism.
The Institute of Strategic Evangelism (ISE), the Evangelism and Missions Information Service (EMIS) and the Intercultural Studies Department (ISD) at Wheaton College, near Chicago, IL, USA, have come into existence through the efforts of many committed Christians seeking to evangelize various people groups and cultures. Although each separate department is housed at the Billy Graham Center (which is part of Wheaton College), all three are connected by a common goal to share the good news around the world. This is done through workshops, seminars, print and electronic media and classroom education.
Also of interest see:
Campus Crusade for Christ
Campus Crusade for Christ Statement of Faith
The sole basis of our beliefs is the Bible, God's infallible written Word, the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments. We believe that it was uniquely, verbally and fully inspired by the Holy Spirit and that it was written without error (inerrant) in the original manuscripts. It is the supreme and final authority in all matters on which it speaks.
We accept those areas of doctrinal teaching on which, historically, there has been general agreement among all true Christians. Because of the specialized calling of our movement, we desire to allow for freedom of conviction on other doctrinal matters, provided that any interpretation is based upon the Bible alone, and that no such interpretation shall become an issue which hinders the ministry to which God has called us.
and then goes on to list a number of doctrines which are the basis for their beliefs which ends with:
The Lord Jesus Christ commanded all believers to proclaim the Gospel throughout the world and to disciple men of every nation. The fulfillment of that Great Commission requires that all worldly and personal ambitions be subordinated to a total commitment to "Him who loved us and gave Himself for us.
Take care ,
GORD.
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