I Thought Jesus Sat in a Purple
Chair

I'm working on a longer post about values and other stuff. In the
meantime, I wanted to post a long and informative comment by a person named
BushNotMyPresident from a discussion at the excellent MyDD http://www.mydd.com/; s/he seems to know what
s/he's talking about vis a vis what I would call our domestic madrassas-lite.
The post (called 'Our New Base' http://www.mydd.com/story/2004/11/4/151035/208),
is a must-read, too; it has some good news in it.Now, the comment in question,
and many thanks BNMP, whoever you are:


Understanding the Religious-RightWell, I personally think that religion
is what happened on election day Nov 2. I attended my local Kerry/Edwards party
on Tuesday. The problem of the religious-right came up. We all agreed that
something is going to have to be done about these religious people. However, I
get the impression that most Democrats don't understand the religious-right, who
they are and how they break down.

As a person that grow up in the Charismatic Church from age 4 to age 13, I
can help with this. I am not an expert, but I can give the basics.The top
reasons for being a Republican are the following: 1)Greed, 2) Religion,
3)Fear(losing guns or terrorists), 4)RacismThe threat to the Republican are the
following: 1)People of Color, 2) Regular people, 3) Poor people.

Well, the republicans targeted one of their threats through the
religious-right. This threat would be the people of color. They made some
successful inroads in this area. The black vote went from 9% in 2000 to 13% in
2004 nationally. The Latinos in Florida went wild for Bush this year. We should
think about Texas, there are tons of people of all kinds of colors. However,
there is a lot of religious-right influences in this state.

The primary threat to the Democrats is the Pat Robertson crowd of churches.
These churches break-down into the following categories:1)Charismatics,
2)Pentecostals, 3)Assembly of God, 4)Church of God, )Evangelicals, 6)Evangelical
Free, 7)Full Gospel, 8)Foursquare Gospel, 9)Apostolic, 10) what is called the
Five-Fold ministry. Watch churches that call themselves 11)into Prophecy,
12)Faith-based ministry, 13)Non-denominational, 14)Inter-denominational

The secondary threat to the Democrats are the Jerry Falwell crowd of
churches.These churches break-down into the following categories: 1) Fundamental
Baptists, 2) Independent Baptists, 3)Southern Baptists, 4) Some of the white
General Baptist churches.The above is the real threat to Democrats.

Now, some of you may not know any people like this or kids. This isn't a
surprise to me. Many of these types of Christians in Robertson's and Falwell's
Fundamental/Independent Baptist crowd shelter their lives and children from the
real world. Many of their children are home schooled or go to Christian schools.
Christian school is very different from Catholic, Private or Prep schools.
Christian schools are not as focused on education or technology, but religion
and discipline (corporal punishment is strong in many Christian schools).
Examples of Christian schools are the following: Evangelical Christian school http://www.ecseagles.com, Christian Academy
of Knoxville http://www.christianacadknox.org/,
Temple Baptist Academy http://www.templebaptistacademy.com/
, Knoxville Christian School http://www.knoxvillechristian.org/.
There are so many more of these schools in Knoxville and state of Tennessee and
all around the country. I would not recommend them academically. My Mom put me
in one and I paid for it academically until high school. I was way behind when I
went to public school in 7th grade. Teachers in these schools are often hired on
their religious affiliation and not their qualifications. There curriculums are
all written by religious people and that is the only reason they use them not
because they are the best. I can't stand the Abeka curriculum. Other curriculums
are Bob Jones Press, and Saxon.

These types are Christians send their kids to colleges like the following:
Oral Roberts University(OK), Bob Jones University(SC), Brigham Young
University(UT), Liberty University- Falwell's University(VA), Lee
University(TN), Johnson Bible College(TN), Crown College(TN), David Lipscomb
University(TN) etc.. these types of universities are all around the country as
well.

I think Democrats need to find away to go after the Religious-Right. A good
place to learn about the Religious-Right is to watch Christian television. In my
area, we have 3 stations on our basic cable of this. All of these networks are
run by Charismatic/Pentecostal type of Christians These would be the following:
1) Trinity Broadcast Network (TBN) http://www.tbn.org/, 2) Christian Television
Network http://www.ctnonline.com/, 3)
INSP - The Inspiration Network http://www.insp.com/, 4) Sometimes you will see
things on PAX, the program Worship http://www.worship.net comes on late at
night between 12:00AM and 4:00AM or 5:00AM. It the kind of worship that would be
common in a Pat Robertson type of church.

I can tell you what types of sermons you will hear in the
Charismatic/Pentecostal Church. Their sermons tend to be based on the following:
1)Prosperity, 2) Seed Faith, 3)Tithes/Offering, 4)Supernatural Healing, 5)
Self-perfection, 6)Salvation and 7)Morality.You won't hear much about the
following:1) Love thy neighbor, 2)Helping people, 3)Helping the poor and
4)Kindness. However, you may hear that the poor are cursed because they don't
live for God, pay tithes or sow seed.Fundamental Baptist preach a lot about what
is wrong with other faiths and salvation.The directory of Charismatic and
Pentecostal Churches http://www.charismatic.org/Assembly
of God Home page http://www.ag.org/top/AG
Colleges http://colleges.ag.org Church
Directory http://ag.org/top/churchdirectory/index.cfm

Religions that are fairly new, but growing and something to watch or be
concerned about:Catholic Charismatic http://www.garg.com/cccCharismatic
Episcopal http://www.iccec.net

You should also keep in mind that cults like the Jim Jones
http://www.religioustolerance.org/dc_jones.htm,/
Jonestown http://www.rickross.com/groups/jonestown.html
and David Koresh http://www.rickross.com/groups/waco.html
Both of these guys came out of the Charismatic Church. The power of many
Charismatic preachers is amazing. They can suck all kinds of people up. David
killed some very educated people and people of color.