D. James Kennedy has been one of the key leaders in the development of the Christian Right. He has also been a pioneering televangelist, who has methodically build a massive religious, media, and political empire. He recently held his tenth annual conference on “Reclaiming America,” one of the premier Christian Right political conferences. But most people have never heard of him. This needs to change.
Fortunately, two fine reporters have recently written important stories from different perspectives about the Kennedy empire.
Jane Lampman of The Christian Science Monitor was at the conference and wrote a feature story about it and the Kennedy’s role in public life. One of the conference highlights was a display of the controversial monument to the Ten Commandments, which Alabama Chief Judge Roy Moore had once installed in the state courthouse. A federal judge ordered it removed. When Moore refused, Moore was removed from the bench, and “Roy’s Rock” was removed from the courthouse.
“For more than 900 other Christians from across the US,” Lampman reported, “the draw at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church last month was a national conference aimed at ‘reclaiming America for Christ.’ The monument stood as a potent symbol of their hopes for changing the course of the nation…. Their mission is not simply to save souls” Lampman continues. “The goal is to mobilize evangelical Christians for political action to return society to what they call ‘the biblical worldview of the Founding Fathers.’ Some speak of ‘restoring a Christian nation.’ Others shy from that phrase, but agree that the Bible calls them not only to evangelize, but also to transform the culture.”
“In material given to conference attendees, the Rev. D. James Kennedy, Coral Ridge pastor wrote: ‘As the vice-regents of God, we are to bring His truth and His will to bear on every sphere of our world and our society. We are to exercise godly dominion and influence over our neighborhoods, our schools, our government … our entertainment media, our news media, our scientific endeavors – in short, over every aspect and institution of human society.'”
Kennedy has a Washington-based political operation called the Center for Reclaiming America, which is growing in political significance.
“The Center,” Lampman reports, “aims to increase its 500,000-strong ‘e-mail army’ to 1 million, and to encourage Christians to run for office. It has plans for 12 regional offices and activists in all 435 US House districts. And a new lobbying arm in Washington will target judicial nominations and the battle over marriage.
“‘If they don’t vote our way, we’ll change their view one way or another,’ executive director Gary Cass tells the group. As a California pastor, Dr. Cass spearheaded efforts to close abortion clinics and recruit Christians to seek positions on local school boards. ‘We’re going to take back what we lost in the last half of the 20th century,’ he adds.”
Independent journalist, and columnist Bill Berkowitz also recently published a must-read profile on Kennedy and his multifaceted religious, political and media empire.
Kennedy is a Christian nationalist who believes that the framers of the Constitution did not intend that church be separated from the state, and that the Christian Nation must be restored.
The several varieties of Christian nationalism is a core, animating part of the ideology of the Christian Right. I have long argued that it is essential for those who seek to preserve religious pluralism in the U.S., to understand what Christian nationalism is about, and be able to counter the bogus history and false premises on which it is based.
I sought to do this (among other things) in my book Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy. Last December, adapting material from the book, I zeroed in on Christian nationalism in an essay on my blog.
Kennedy is far less flamboyant than Falwell or Robertson, and is less likely than Dobson to get silly and attack SpongeBob and cartoon characters. His operation is not to be underestimated, and like the others, must not be ignored.
[Crossposted from FrederickClarkson.com]
So many televangelists, so little time. Or so it seems. Kennedy’s operation is far more significant than most.
Thanks Frederick. This is the first I’ve heard of Kennedy, or his group. I think you hit the nail on the head about how much more dangerous this is than Dobson and his ilk.
Kennedy has been building slowly and steadily for a generation. But he only started his own formal political culture and organziation in 1994 with the first Reclaiming America conference. I was there.
Glad I wasn’t there. How did you stand it?
I’ve long wondered about the ’70s “I Found It” campaign. Do you know the one I mean? (Those damn yellow bumper stickers were everywhere out here.) That seemed to me like the beginning of the surge in mindless Christian zealotry that has become so prominent today. Somebody conceived of that effort, and moved it along. Do you know if Kennedy was involved? Or if he surfaced from within that effort? Or am I even on track about its’ significance.
The I found it campaign was, I beleive, a projst of the Campus Crusade for Christ, headed by Bill Bright. I am hazy on the early history of CCC, but I do know that it was heavily financed by rightwing business interests such as the Hunt brothers, and that CCC sought to compete with the counter culture and the antiwar movement, in attarcting college students, and bombarding them with competing messages.
It certainly was aimed at the counter culture. Hunt Bros. – ptewey.
Sadly, he’s from my home area, so I grew up knowing what a dangerous kook he is. Glad more people are on to him, as well.
Urging Christians to run for public office? Sheesh. What do you suppose the percentage of self-identified Christians in public office is right now? 75%? 85%?
Oh. You mean real Christians.
Yup. And I daresay we ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.
Actually, the percentage of self-identified Christians in public office in the US is near 100%. A sprinkling of Jews being the sole meaningful exception.
One cannot effectively run for public office in the United States if one is not a monotheist, and for most offices if one is not a Christian.
As for “real” Christian, who is the authority on authenticity? Each sect calls all others false. The “liberal” Christians do this as much as the “conservative” Christians. There are literally thousands of flavors, each claiming to have it right.
One should be quite cautious in using terms like “real Christian”, if only it presumes that the is a single rational measure by which to compare one’s actions to a single unambiguous “Christian” standard. There is none.
For being one of the few consistent voices talking about this issue, in the face of at once public apathy and open hostility.
As I may have mentioned on dailykos once or twice, your writings from over a decade ago about Dominionism were the catalyst that sparked my initial interest in the American theocratic movement, which, in turn sparked my online activism, when my research revealed alarming trends in American politics.
So, to a great extent, while Maryscott is to blame for me being on Booman, you are to blame for me being an online gadfly in the first place.
Thanks for the kind words, Galiel. I do try to keep up, although I also take a break once in awhile;-)
My apologies, if those are in order, for contributing to your jumping into this stuff. But of course, as a writer who put alot of sweat and blood and time into it, its always good to know that my work has been read and made a difference.
I have another post planned for this evening, which I will post here, “over there” and on my site. Its one of a series I want to do as a warm up for a talk I am giving in NYC next month on what to do about the Christian Right.
My guess it that my post will stir things up a bit, “over there.” But as you say, apathy and open hostility often reins, and I am often wrong about what will engage people, and what won’t.
Admittedly, its been a rough go, but it hasn’t stopped me yet:-)