The Tupelo, Mississippi-based American Family Association, founded by United Methodist minister, Rev. Don Wildmon, has been a leading Christian Right organization for a generation.
In recent years, AFA has developed syndicated radio program, American Family Radio, which it claims airs on about 200 stations around the country.
Wildmon and some of his senior staff recnetly engaged in a xenophobic discussion of the recent election of Antonio Villaraigosa, according to an account of the program by Max Blumenthal of Media Matters for America. (The organzation has, for some time, been monitoring the news and public affairs programs of Christian Right media outlets.) Among other things, American Family Radio’s Fred Jackson claimed that the recent election of Antonio Villaraigosa as mayor of Los Angeles was “a direct result of… illegal immigration.”
Jackson claimed that “that scenario… is going to repeat itself in communities across the United States.” He went on to say that “…the problem is, like brother Don [Wildmon] said, we don’t want to have two nations within our borders that can’t communicate with one another and natural hostility will develop.”
If there is a “natural hostility,” it would appear to be emanating from Jackson and Wilmon.
Incidentally, Wildmon’s “ministry” is an excellent example of how some of the Christian Right is not part of explicitly conservative denominations. Historically, the Christian Right has had a significant and growing base in mainline Christianity as well. This has often resulted in the development of conservative and evangelical factions, (sometimes financed and egged on by outside agencies), that are at odds with the rest of the denomination, creating tension, division and gridlock.
[Crossposted from FrederickClarkson.com]