A number of this week's reports and analyses from the Greater Blogosphere have a theme. In various ways they describe the religious right's assault on religious freedom and pluralism in America. These assaults come from a number of seemingly different directions.

Even though summer is here, this week there has been plenty of illuminating blogospheric reporting on and discussion of the religious right. So welcome to my more-or-less-weekly blog round-up on these matters.

The summer time is the right time, to learn about the religious right -- and what to do about it. Well, all the time is the right time, but you know...

You've sometimes got to do a lot of looking around to find the best the blogosphere has to report on the religious right and what to do about it. But fortunately, a little searching always yeilds some gems -- in addition to the great stuff from the usual suspects, who we can count on to come through with good stuff for us just about every week.

This is yet another eclectic round-up of interesting and significant blog posts from the Greater Blogosphere on the religious right and what to do about it. This week's edition features posts from Orcinus, Jews on First!, and Political Spaghetti -- as well as many of the usual suspects.

Almost everyone has opinions about the religious right, its major characters, and the latest outrageous statements of Pat Robertson.

I think it is important that we listen to people who know what they are talking about.

The religious and secular right have have been gunning for the mainstream Protestant churches in the United States, and around the world, for a generation. Through front groups -- mostly associated with the Washington, DC-based Institute for Religion and Democracy (IRD), they have sought to foment internal division and generate external pressures, in order to neutralize, divide, and conquer the historic churches of mainline Protestantism that had become increasingly powerful and influential advocates for Christian notions of social justice.

Unfortunately, it has been as difficult for mainstream religious leaders to come to terms with this strategic assault, as it has been for most Americans to come to terms with the rise of the religious right in American politics. But we may have reached a turning point, thanks to Air America and a dedicated group of bloggers who also happen to be veterans of research and writing about the religious right.

On Sunday, May 21st, Air America's nationally syndicated radio show State of Belief, "In conjunction with the website Talk to Action... takes an unprecedented look into the takeover of America's churches, revealing the ugly truths, personal experiences, and exhaustive research of four leaders."

"The Southern Baptist Convention was lost," State of Belief host Welton Gaddy ruefully notes regarding the fundamentalist takeover of his own denomination, "not because of those trying to take it over, but because of people arguing that it wasn't a big deal."

The program will air on about 40 stations around the country, XM Satellite Radio, and over the internet via streaming audio, as well as via podcast. Visit the State of Belief web site for details on how to hear the show.

In my more-or-less weekly round-ups of interesting and important posts about the religious right from the Greater Blogsophere, I have highlighted posts with which I generally agree in substance and tone.  

But sometimes, there are disagreements worth highlighting -- even among our friends.  And this week, a few have surfaced. What we disagree on, and how we go about disagreeing, can be at least as important as the things on which we agree and how we come to agree on them.

Having a difficult time making sense of the religious right? If so, you are far from alone. It is alien territory for many Americans in its religious, political and public policy aspects. But it is a big, powerful, political movement that will be with us, in all of its many manifestations for a very long time, no matter what happens this election year.  If we are going to be able to have useful conversations about the politics of the Christian right, it helps to have some foundational knowledge.

Thank you, Kevin Phillips. The conservative scholar and author of the important new book, American Theocracy, has made it safe for all to utter the word "theocracy," without fear of being dismissed as a kook, an exaggerator or a religious bigot. (Or at least safer.)

I will have much more to say about American Theocracy in the not too distant future, but for now let's note that while this book is important for many reasons, it is worth highlighting that unlike almost every other writer that has tackled the Christian Right, he does not shy away from discussing the Christian theocratic movement as it exists in our time, in the U.S. (His argument is summarized in the current issue of The Nation.  His article opens this way:

"Is theocracy in the United States (1) a legitimate fear, as some liberals argue; (2) a joke, given the nation's rising secular population and moral laxity; (3) a worrisome bias of major GOP constituencies and pressure groups; or (4) all of the above? The last, I would argue."

Tom Parker is running for the job once held by the Roy Moore, the former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court who was ousted for defying a federal court order to remove the monument to the Ten Commandments he had installed in the state courthouse in Montgomery. Parker, who served as a spokesman and legal counsel to Moore, was elected to a seat as an Associate Justice on the court in 2004.  

Parker is running a pugnacious Christian Rightist primary campaign for the GOP nomination for chief against incumbent Chief Justice Drayton Nabers, who once clerked for legendary U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Hugo Black. The primary will be held on June 6th.  

Said Parker:

"Hugo Black was one of the worst justices in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court. Unlike Chief Justice Nabers, I would never choose to work for Hugo Black after he ruled against school prayer and religious training in the classroom and Bible reading in public schools. And if I were Alabama's chief justice, I would never look to Hugo Black as an inspiration."

Parker is running on what is widely viewed as a payback slate of candidates seeking vengeance against the justices who voted -- unanimously -- for the ouster of Moore.

Amidst all the hoo ha over the slam dunk decision of federal District Court Judge John E. Jones against presenting intelligent design as science in the Dover, Pennsylvania public schools, it is easy to miss the point. The Dover decision was not only one battle in the struggle over the teaching of creationism and its variants in the schools, but one battle in the much larger and historic war of the worldviews. Even after most of the rest of society moves on, the religious right will never be over Dover.

This essay seeks to explain why.

This past weekend, I spoke on a conference panel titled "Resisting the Right," at the always excellent, annual reproductive rights conference sponsored by the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program, and the Population and Development Program, at Hampshire College, in Amherst, Massachusetts. There were about sixty-five people in the session; mostly young; almost all women. Some worked for reproductive rights organizations around the country. As always, it was an interesting and informative set of presentations, and a thought provoking question and answer period.

But one moment stood out for me that I want to try to describe.

Crossposted from Talk to Action

Pastordan at Street Prophets is sick of hearing the charge that "faithful progressives aren't doing anything while conservatives pervert their religion." He says "that's patently untrue" and he offers a long post in rebuttal. (Along the way he has some kind words for my post dissecting the IRD's attack on the current UCC ad. But that ain't all.) He says:

For a quarter century, the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), bankrolled by the founding funders and architects of the institutional right in Washington, DC, (such as the Heritage Foundation), has waged a war of attrition against the historic churches of mainstream Protestantism.  This gang of social and foreign policy conservatives have planted bogus stories with the media, and deployed staff to foment dissent, and to organize conservative factions into dissident formations throughout the churches as if they were strategic targets in a global war. All this and much more.

The 1.3 million member United Church of Christ, one of the targeted churches, has over the past two years, been engaged in a warm-hearted outreach campaign called "God is Still Speaking," which includes a TV and blog ad campaign seeks to reach people who have felt "rejected" for one reason or another by churches (as UCC research has found that many people do), and seeks to offer a message of what they call "extravagant welcome." The ads assert "God does not reject people. Neither do we."

The current ad campaign was unveiled at a national news conference on March 27th at UCC headquarters in Cleveland.  Based on the UCC's news release, longtime IRD leader Mark Tooley published a piece in the  The American Spectator online on April 6 that is highly critical of the ad -- and of the UCC.  

The Abramoff scandal -- the inside-the-beltway story of Congressional corruption and the influence of connected lobbyists, that finally brought down former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) -- will probably, eventually, also consume longtime Christian Right political leader, Ralph Reed.  

In the 1990s, Reed epitomized the emergence of the Christian Right as an organized political force. Times have changed, and several major political careers may turn on the widening gyre of the scandal.  

Bob Moser, writing in the current issue of The Nation, has a long and revealing look at the trajectory of Reed's career -  from boy political wunderkind to the combustion of the Abramoff corruption scandal.  

Every week brings a new revelation about the millions in dirty money Reed earned by duping his fellow evangelicals into putting their political muscle behind "Casino Jack" Abramoff's gambling clients. Reed's huge leads in both popularity polls and fundraising have almost disappeared. Instead of making his triumphant debut as a politician, the man Time magazine called "The Right Hand of God" is fast becoming the new poster boy for Christian-right corruption.