What power group is propelling the several congressional bills that purport to restore, defend, and preserve religious freedom? Is this a movement of Christians seeking to regain their Constitutional rights, as some have stated; or is it non-Christians, using Christians as a means to their own ends, as a growing minority is convinced.
The recent, critical Supreme Court decision overturning The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, seems to support the minority view. It suggests that the law they struck down takes away religious freedom in the name of restoring it, something few who worked to pass the law ever suspected.
Concurrently with the Supreme Court Decision, two enormously important bills, known as The Religious Freedom Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and The Freedom from Religious Persecution Act, are being considered by Congress. The former has been skillfully reviewed by The Forecaster, published by Herbert W. Titus, who believes the amendment would limit religious rights rather than protect them. With Mr. Titus?s permission We Hold These Truths is reproducing his review entitled The Religious Freedom Amendment on our Webpage where it can be read in its entirety. (1)
A detailed examination of the history and promotion of The Freedom from Religious Persecution Act (HR1685) strongly suggests that Christian leaders are being influenced by non-Christian power groups to support anti-Christian legislation under the good name of giving a helping hand to those being persecuted. HR1685 has two revolutionary functions. It requires Americans to carry out the war policy of a government other than our own against governments with whom we have no quarrel. Additionally, the bill creates a new cabinet level agency with unlimited power to tamper with any religion, thereby, allowing state control over American churches. (2)
Since the very beginning of our unique republic, monopolistic international banking powers have quietly maneuvered Congress to centralize and internationalize government . To do this, certain internationalists have formed and used the powerful Council on Foreign Relations, The Tri-Lateral Commission, and an increasingly controlled press to mold public opinion. A number of noble sounding front organizations have then carried out a legislative agenda. Others have referred to these international banking powers as, the insiders, the power elite, or the establishment. We Hold These Truths has chosen to call them “The Warmakers” because their tactics invariably lead to war, and because their methods often dictate war as a tactic. Indeed war is often an end in itself. (3)
The story of David, Bathsheba, and Uriah, her husband, is a biblical example of warmaking. King David maneuvered Uriah out of his way by knowingly sending him into battle to be killed. David, great and noble a man though he usually was, had the power and will to use war to his personal advantage, thus he was a warmaker. Note that David used war for unjust or evil purposes, it does not matter that war may have been otherwise just.
This is the fourth in a series of articles detailing the Warmakers, their part in our history and their apparent agenda. In this and subsequent articles, we will discuss legislation designed to ultimately control the words and actions of committed followers of Jesus Christ or any other religion. The establishment Warmaker press has collectively termed the activists of any religion “fundamentalists”. Our use of the term “fundamentalist” means anyone who practices his faith sacrificially according to the defined precepts of his particular faith, in other words, devoutly.(4)
Prominent media and fundamentalist Christian religious leaders have unfortunately allowed themselves to be used to endorse legislation in recent years that has the end purpose and agenda of altering the constitutional form of government that Americans have depended upon to protect religious freedom. The legislation under review has three bold and crystal clear purposes: (1) to weaken and destroy the sovereignty of the several states in matters of individual rights; (2) to establish an office and mechanism for centralized control over all religions answering only to the Executive Branch; (3) to create wars to overthrow the governments that are resisting or otherwise stand in the path of the Warmakers.
Dictating Religion to the States:
The before mentioned The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) was legislation tailored to destroy the sovereignty of the states, and was declared unconstitutional on June 25, 1997. The Supreme Court of the United States ruled 6-3 that the City of Boerne, Texas could deny St. Peter Catholic Church a building permit, notwithstanding the RFRA which Congress passed and the President signed in 1993. (5)
Congress passed RFRA on second try in 1993, as a backlash to an alleged injustice suffered by two members of a native American church, who claimed the ingesting of peyote was a protected tribal religious ritual protected, regardless of the state drug laws to the contrary. Many prominent Christian leaders supported RFRA, in spite of the fact that Senator Edward Kennedy sponsored the original bill in the Senate along with liberal Congressmen in the House. This should have aroused Christian suspicion, even without reading the bill. In the absence of any strong conservative or Christian opposition, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act swept through Congress and became law.
Congress reasoned that under the Fourteenth Amendment the Indians had the right to “equal protection” under the law and that Congress was empowered to enforce against the states. The Fourteenth Amendment is the “Reconstruction” amendment ratified in the wake of the Civil War to punish the leaders of the revolt by disenfranchisement. This curtailed most states rights in the South. (5)
Later, when the City of Boerne, Texas refused to grant a building permit to expand the Church, Archbishop Flores sued the city in Federal Court under RFRA, asking the federal government to intercede and force a building permit from the city.
The Archbishop finally lost in the Supreme Court on June 26, 1997. The Court ruled that Congress had exceeded its authority by passing an open-ended invitation for litigation on matters that were not the business of Congress. The majority decision of the court, written by Justice Kennedy, stated of RFRA, “Sweeping coverage insures its intrusion at every level of government, displacing laws and prohibiting official action of almost every description, regardless of subject matter .”(5)
In a concurring opinion, Justice Stevens uniquely cited the First Amendment and stated, “In my opinion, The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) is a law respecting the establishment of religion that violated the First Amendment to the Constitution. For had a historic landmark on a hill in Boerne happened to be a museum or an art gallery owned by an atheist, it would not be eligible for an exemption from the city ordinance that forbids the enlargement of the structure — the Governmental preference for a religion, as opposed to irreligion, is forbidden by the First Amendment.”(5)
WHTT agrees, when a church accepts favors from a government, it will soon sacrifice its rights to religious liberty. Only in independence can religion remain free. The Supreme Court did a rare favor for religious freedom in rejecting Congress and the Archbishop. It is indeed strange that Christians would have to be rescued from its own leadership by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Consider what might instead have happened in Boerne, Texas had the Archbishop decided to solve the church’s problem within the community. Boerne is a small city 28 miles north of San Antonio. The church has about 300 regular parishioners, was growing, and had insufficient seats to accommodate them.
What would have happened if the leadership of the parish had encouraged the 300 families and their friends to organize outside the church to help with the local zoning problem? What if relatives and other churches in the area would have joined St. Peter’s Church to write letters, visit the city council and, if necessary, picket the mayor and town hall and the historic site until the permit was granted? It is doubtful that a town in Texas, regardless of size, could withstand such organized pressure of 300 influential, God fearing families for very long.
Had this been done, the church would have probably obtained its permit, and at a very low cost. Even if no permit was ever granted, consider the benefits to the congregation. The congregation would most certainly have converted itself into a cohesive, local action force, its members educated about citizen involvement, local government, and the power of a phone call. The members would have learned about the corrosive power of the federal purse over local questions. Such an effort might have built church strength, unity, and support for the leadership, as team action always does; and it probably would have increased membership and income for the parish. All of these things are worthy goals for a church.
Instead, St. Peters Church has no doubt spent a fortune on lawyers. The congregation was taught the wrong lesson, that to get along with local government one must sue through the federal courts and seek centralized solutions to local problems.
With whom does God council?
America is suffering as never before from a lack of local Christian leadership in the pulpit. There can be little argument about this, because of the phenomenal growth of the media church and mail order missionaries. However, the media church has shown that it does not build local communities, it centralizes power and money. And too many of the prominent, media church leaders are far too close and too friendly with the root of the problem, the eastern establishment Warmakers, as we shall see.
As an example, when international financier Rupert Murdock made a friendly offer to buy Pat Robertson’s International Family Entertainment, the public company which owns the family channel over which Robertson hosts the 700 Club and other programming, the news barely made a ripple on the mega-buck mentality of Wall Street. Few outside of the Christian community of TV watchers know IFE exists. According to Securities and Exchange filings, the merger is a done deal for a reported $1.4 billion dollars. Robertson’s IFE generates about $333 million annual revenue, not large by network standards. Robertson’s IFE will receive a reported $200 million for their interest. (6)
Murdock’s KFWW Inc. produces such family gems as Married With Family, and the Fox News, which even the Wall Street Journal has recently called sleazy. Many have asked, why would Robertson sell to Murdock, except for the money. It would appear Mr. Murdock paid an enormously inflated price for the Robertson empire, and it is reasonable to ask why he would do so. Mr. Murdock no doubt understands the potential political power of the Evangelical Christian Right. Murdock, who has powerful ties to British international banking circles, is apparently willing to pay dearly, either for himself, or for some other group he may be representing. Apparently, Murdock believes American Fundamentalist Christians represent a large and important market.
One if by land and two if by sea:
Fragmented though it may seem, the political potential of the Christian Right is well understood by the Warmakers. Presidential candidates fawned over and lied to the Christian block, making deals with media Christian and activist leaders, as we saw in San Diego in 1996. Where, but in American churches, can politicians find 30 to 60 million voters who freely assemble together in small groups, influenced by, or at least aware of common creed?
Clearly, our forefathers guided by historical experience understood that the right to freely assemble and speak is the linchpin of freedom, for they listed it first in the Bill of Rights. It is little wonder the Establishment is willing to turn heaven and earth to gain control over that block of influence we will refer to as the Christian community. Christians in America have played a large part in forming the structure, fabric and political stability of our society. Recall that when Paul Revere embarked upon his ride for freedom the warning lamps were posted in the bell tower of the Old North Church, the meeting place of the Revolution.
Politically correct and slumbering though they may have become, the local churches, not the media churches, remain the most serious potential obstacle in the way of the ignoble Warmaker plans for old world tyranny, sometimes referred to as New World Order.
Trading our birthright for a bowl of pottage:
Americas power elite has proven by their actions to have the same tyrannical designs as did the kings and earls of the 18th and 19th Century. Nowhere is there more clear evidence of a plan to destroy free religious practice than in the congressional outrage known as the Religious Persecution Monitoring Act. (7)
This bill introduced in Congress on May 20, 1997, by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) proves the old adage that “truth is stranger than fiction”. The Warmaker promoters of this insidious act are dependent upon Christian leaders who are uninformed or compromised in basic matters of constitutional law. They are supporting legislation cleverly designed to dilute their unalienable rights to practice their faiths freely, without government influence or interference — without “monitoring”.
HR1685 is, without a doubt, the most cleverly and powerfully promoted anti-Christian legislation of our time. Its real title is, To provide for the Office of Religious Persecution Monitoring and to Provide for the Imposition of Sanctions Against Countries Engaged in Patterns of Religious Persecution and Other Purposes, hereafter referred to as The Office.
A monitor is, “one who admonishes, warns of faults, informs of duties, gives advice and instruction … also, an instigator.” (8) What Christian leader would want to be monitored?
In summary HR1685 will:
- erode constitutional government by creating a powerful Executive Branch
bureaucracy with warmaking powers to selectively embargo other countries or
groups without the approval of Congress. The result of such sanctions in the
past are documented deaths of innocent children and the defenseless by
starvation and disease. - create the director of The Office appointed by the President and approved by
the Senate effectively equivalent or superior to a cabinet-level position
without congressional oversight. - interfere with the Constitutional rights of U.S. Citizens, charities and
churches to carry out dictates of their conscience by forbidding them, under
threat of prison, to do any business with sanctioned nations. American citizens
could be jailed for sending food to relatives in a sanctioned country. - threaten first amendment freedom of religion by giving government employees
the authority to judge religions with respect to others. The First Amendment to
the U.S. Constitution Congress is prohibited from making any law prohibiting the free exercise of religion. - promote world government by citing the authority of the United Nations
Charter and its documents on human rights. This bill looks to the UN Security
Council to impose additional sanctions against Sudan.
The promoters of The Freedom from Religious Persecution Act clearly have a more far-reaching objective than American Christians are being told. It will overtly alter our government by granting new, unconstitutional powers to the Clinton Administration and its successors to monitor the religion of anyone anywhere in the world, including America, at the sole discretion of the Director. Let us look at the behind the scenes promoters of HR1685.
The Warmakers successful strategy is to establish the support of prominently known media Christian leaders to help pass an anti-Christian bill. Michael Horowitz, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute has made many public appearances guiding HR1685 through the friendly press and through Congress. Bill Bennett, former Secretary of Education, is guiding Empower America, an offshoot of the Hudson Institute, in a big dollar promotional campaign for HR1685 that began long before Wolf introduced the bill. Bennett’s team includes Jeanne Kirkpatrick, former UN Ambassador and CFR member, Lamar Alexander, Steve Forbes, Horowitz, and Nina Shea.
A who’s who of mainline, media Christian, and activist organizations have endorsed HR1685 directly, or indirectly by promoting its prospectus In The Lion?s Den. (9) These include James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries, Richard D. Land of The Southern Baptist Convention, The Lutheran Missouri Synod, Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson?s Christian Coalition, James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, Josh McDowell Ministries, Gary Bauer of Family Research Council, Reverend Billy Graham, Don Argue, National Association of Evangelicals, Chuck Colson, Prison Fellowship Ministries, Carl A. Anderson, Knights of Columbus, and many other secular organizations who should know better than to accept a Trojan Horse, including The John Birch Society. (10)
At least sixty-five Congressmen, including a long list of conservative Republicans, have co-sponsored the bill. Why would conservative leaders in Congress join with the likes of liberal Republican Wolf and the internationalists of the Hudson Institute to sponsor a bill that opens the door to religious monitoring, anathema to religious freedom? It is because Christian media heroes are telling them to. Conservative Representative J. D. Hayworth wrote a constituent that he was backing the bill because Reverend Billy Graham is for it.
Another obvious reason is the extravagantly deceptive wording of the bill title, which promises freedom from persecution to those who do not read beyond the title. But the bill also clearly promises militancy against Sudan and the Islamic religion. To understand why this appeal to militancy is working on many Christians, we must first examine the long standing propaganda campaign against religious fundamentalists that has conditioned religious leaders to accept what amounts to war against the Republic of Sudan.
Most Americans, including some media Christian and conservative leaders, have been subtly influenced to accept a new era of war in which our own armed forces become glorified mercenaries at the behest of the United Nations. Operating through the establishment media, the Warmaker dominated establishment media has openly promoted a new enemy to replace the Soviet Union. That enemy is religious, not political, for this war is to start as a religious crusade. The Warmakers have picked the Islamic nations as their new enemy, and they have already engineered the destruction of Iraq, Bosnia and Somalia. Sudan and Iran are to be next. In order to condition the American Christians to accept acts of genocide against the Muslim world the Warmakers have undertaken a massive propaganda program that has unfolded in stages. A detailed account of the Warmakers’ propaganda machine is contained in The Warmakers Attack on Religious Fundamentalism.(4)
The Warmakers’ focus on Sudan.
The Warmakers and their internationally controlled press have successfully created an attitude of fear and hatred directed toward Muslims everywhere. They are now set to capitalize on the illusion of an internal Islamic enemy, and this threat is being used to maneuver Christian leaders into supporting inhumane, contra-Christian sanctions against the people of the Republic of Sudan. These sanctions, like those against Iraq, Iran, Libya, Bosnia, Rhodesia, and the Republic of South Africa before, promote the globalist cause of world government at the expense of hundreds of thousands of civilian lives. Religious monitoring under HR1685 effectively continues and expands the Gulf War. It authorizes starvation sanctions on the impoverished African Republic of Sudan at the discretion of The Office created by HR1685. As described in HR1685, the sanctions re an effective embargo on a people among the poorest on earth whose annual per capita income is less than $750 per year. Its people have been plagued by civil war for 17 years. (7)
The bill also authorizes the Director to commence what can only be an undeclared war on Sudan before December 25, 1997, without any approval by our Congress. Christians might wonder why the Warmakers chose this strange choice of date for a War. Embargoes kill children. A recent documentary film Children of the Cradle produced by the International Relief Organization, demonstrates the effect of the six-year embargo on the children of Iraq. This documented and photographed account is by doctors who visited the childrens hospitals in Iraq. They conclude that 500,000 children have died of starvation and disease as a result of the embargo on Iraq. (11)
It is logical to believe that an embargo on the much poorer and more isolated nation of Sudan could starve even more children in a much shorter period of time than in Iraq. It is likely that some of these victims will be Christian children, as they have been in Bosnia, Iran, Libya, Rhodesia, and South Africa where embargoes or sanctions have been employed. The embargo will starve the very victims it claims to protect. The victims of embargo are certainly not the political leaders, such as Fidel Castro, which are apparently strengthened by sanctions, and no peaceful benefit has ever been demonstrated to come from an embargo.
Does Iraq’s mistreatment of Christians justify the present embargo on supplies for Iraqi children? Not according to Iraqi Christian Abu Kahilil, Middle Eastern Director of the Christian Aid Mission, who wrote The Middle Eastern Church is Growing in Postwar Iraq. Kahilil states unequivocally, “During the last seven years the church of Baghdad has grown from 250 to 1200 believers. — Saddam Hussein, because of his oppression, has done more to advance the spread of Christianity in the Middle East than all the foreign missionaries have done in the last 50 years.” Kahilil stated, “Hussein likes Christians. They usually dont have a violent political agenda. He employs about 50 Christians in the palace.” (12) Mr. Kahilil and Tyndale are certainly no less creditable than those who make exaggerated claims of atrocities against Sudanese, some of whom seem to have obvious motives for vilifying Sudan’s government, as we shall see.
Peopling the Crusade:
The President would instantly enjoy enormous warmaking powers hitherto reserved exclusively for the Congress. No method of warmaking is more common than that which places strangling economic restrictions upon another nation, and it is this power that is being conferred from the Congressional to the Executive Branch by HR1685. Most embargoes are against Muslim Governments. Prejudice against Muslims in America has been elevated to a religion in itself. This Muslim phobia has been carefully fostered and engendered by the world news media and those who control it, and has influenced Christian leaders to support HR1685, which promises revenge against Islam.
The out front promoters of HR1685 are Freedom House and the Hudson Institute, which are both clearly influenced by the Council On Foreign Relations and other internationalists. According to Nina Shea’s “In The Lions Den”, Freedom House is a Washington based organization started by Eleanor Roosevelt and Wendell Willkie to promote the concept imbued by the United Nations.(9, pg. 12) According to the Freedom House Homepage, 17 CFR members sit on its Board, apparent control. (13)
Nina Shea, an employee of Freedom house, authored the 126 page “In the Lions Den” in 1997. The book is integral with the promotion of HR1685 and appears to be written for that purpose. “In The Lions Den” was published shortly before the bill was introduced and contained many of the same references as the bill. For instance, the author relies upon United Nations doctrine as authority for demanding sanctions against Sudan. So does the bill. It should be no surprise that Tony Hall and Frank Wolf, the two co-sponsors of the bill, are also cover-leaf endorsers of Nina Shea?s book . Not surprisingly, HR1685 also contains an almost identical reference to the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights, Section 18, as a part of its text. (sec. 2.2.a.) Both authors must have used the same source. In The Lions Den has been used to continue and expand the Gulf War to Sudan. In the same way, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Toms Cabin was used to promoting the Civil War. The latter was written as a novel in the summer of 1852, and was distributed widely by pro-war Radical and Republican factions pressing for war between the states. Nina Shea’s book, like Mrs. Stowe’s novel, is not without historic accuracy and portrays many incidents that are ugly and probably valid. But she represents these incidents as though they are everyday occurrences, without providing reasonable proof. Mrs. Stowe, who lived in Florida, was a novelist, and it is said she abhorred the war and was disgusted by the “reconstruction” that followed. Ms. Shea is not a novelist. Her expansive statistics of millions of martyred Christians are simply not supported by evidence. What then was the motive of her bosses?
Freedom House entertained “over 100 key Christian leaders and activists” in Washington in January 1996. Congressmen Wolf and Hall, the sponsors of HR1685, were present. Nina Shea describes the meeting in a chapter entitled A Call to Action, wherein the sponsors clamored for legislation to protect Christians. Freedom House then claimed to mail out 70,000 briefing packages to Christian leaders nationwide at what must have been a considerable expense. Nina Shea and Michael Horowitz solicited the most prominent of these leaders to endorse her book. (9, pg. 85)
The orchestra leader for promoting Religious Monitoring is Michael Horowitz of the Hudson Institute, who is often quoted by all parties, makes frequent media appearances, is quoted constantly, and seems to be the spokesman for the Warmaker promoters of HR1685. He writes extensively in The Wall Street Journal and elsewhere, a virulent critic of Sudan. But the subject of religious monitoring is never mentioned by Horowitz, Shea or any of the promoters of HR685. It is the bitter pill that goes with the package. (14)
A. M. Rosenthal, a Council on Foreign Relations member and syndicated Editorial Columnist, is another instant champion against Christian persecution. He wrote “Christians? Who Cares?”, New York Times, the sarcastic excoriation of Christian leadership for lack of concern for abused fellow Christians. (15) His stories contain graphic and somewhat sensational accounts of alleged torture and abuse. Several of Rosenthal’s nationally syndicated articles have been widely quoted and openly push for passage of HR1685. Monitoring is not in his vocabulary either.
Gruesome Christian persecution stories inundate those who watch or read the secular or Christian media. One in particular, the August Readers Digest story, entitled The Global War On Christians (16), contains bloodcurdling accounts of torture, slavery and mass abuse in Sudan. The Digest quotes Horowitz, Rosenthal and Shea, and relies heavily upon a book by Paul Marshall entitled Their Blood Cries Out . Quoting Marshall’s book as proof, the author infers by arithmetic that there are 6 million Christians in Sudan (20% of the population of 31 million). But this number is about four times as many Christians as there are in the entire country, north and south, as estimated by any number of statistical sources on Sudan, including the CIA, United Nations, Prodigy (17), the State Department, and a number of Sudanese sources on both side of the issue. For instance, the CIA Factbook for Sudan estimates there are 31.5 million people in Sudan of which only 5% are Christians, or about 1.5 million Christians country wide (18).
The United Nations’ “Sudan Country Profile DHN,” also available on the Internet, estimates 600,000 were killed in war from all races and religions in the 37 years of Southern Sudan?s existence, out of a total population of about 6 million of all races in the south. (19) If these figures are true, and if most of the people are pagans or Muslims, the number of Christians killed may only be 5 or 10% of what we are told. The Readers Digest (or more probably Mr. Marshall) has statistically manufactured 4.5 million additional Sudanese Christians. (16) This, of course, helps support the sensational claims of millions of dead Christians attributed to the Muslim government. These very dubious statistics are then picked up and trustingly quoted by others.
If the Warmaker’s statistics are lies, what else is untrue? The American public has been conditioned to believe we have a new enemy to fight in place of the old communist enemy. Because morality and religion are the objective of this siege, media religious leaders have been targeted. They have been carefully conditioned to believe that ” Muslim fundamentalist” governments are a greater evil and threat to Christians than the communists ever were.
Nina Shea, who may well be a sincere and unsuspecting agent of the Warmakers’ propaganda machine, puts it this way on page 1 of her book, “They (the 11 alleged persecutor countries singled out in her book, including China and Sudan) evidence a worldwide trend of anti-Christian persecution based on two political ideologies, communism and militant Islam. Around the globe, the two ideologies have constantly oppressed Christians, as well as other independent groups and individuals.” (9, pg. 11) In so saying, Ms. Shea holds to the Council on Foreign Relations line started with trend setting articles in Foreign Affairs Magazine, beginning in the mid 1980’s to the effect that Islam is a worse threat to the free world than Communism. Literally thousands of new stories have followed the theme of Judith Miller and Daniel Pipes in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Foreign Affairs Magazines of the mid 1980’s, which writings have been thoroughly reviewed in The Warmaker’s Attack on Religious Fundamentalism.(4) Pipes and Miller, establishment forerunners, have passed the baton to Horowitz, Rosenthal and Shea, who are beating the same drum in the pews of the churches and on the steps of Congress.
Christians in the big leagues:
Dr. James Dobson, a respected Christian media psychologist, runs the deservedly successful Focus on the Family, primarily a radio and direct mailing operation. Dobson provides a forthright account of how he was influenced by Horowitz, Rosenthal, Senator Alan Spector, Congressman Wolf, author Nina Shea and others in his July 1997, Family News From Dr. James Dobson stating, “it was my longtime friend Michael Horowitz who brought those atrocities to my attention a few months ago. Michael, who is Jewish, is among the first to recognize what is happening to Christians and began a frantic campaign to notify the world.” (20)
Further on, Dobson states, “I recently went to meet with Rep. Frank Wolf R-VA and others who have also been championing this cause.” Dobson continues, “Nina Shea of the renowned human rights organization Freedom House — has investigated the persecution of Christians over ten years and has documented the abduction and death of more than a million Sudanese, mostly Christians and non-Muslims at the hand of the Islamic fundamentalist government.” Note the carefully crafted legal language, “Christians and non-Muslims” which Dobson is quoting directly from Ms. Shea’s book. While the implication is that most of the “more than a million dead and abducted” were Christians, a careful reading reveals verbal slight of hand. Ms. Shea, who is a lawyer, actually attests only that they are “non-Muslims”. The CIA report tells us there are five or more black Africans of tribal or pagan religions for every converted black Christian in southern Sudan. (18) Further, if there are only 1.5 million Christians in the entire country this suggests Christian deaths are an exaggeration of enormous proportion. It appears there aren’t that many Christians.
Dobson also quotes Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby, noting “Jacoby is also Jewish”, Voice of Martyrs? Richard Wurmbrand, and Christian Solidarity International, as organizations that are all terribly concerned about Christian persecution.
Christian Solidarity International (CSI) has a peculiar involvement in promoting war against Sudan. It is a Swiss offshore, human rights group whose director is Lady Carolyn Cox, Deputy Speaker of the British House of Lords. Frank Wolf is also listed as a member of the Board of References of one of CIS’s Swiss Fronts Institute for Religious Minorities in an Islamic World. (21) CSI has a long record of promoting scandalous anti-Islamic propaganda world wide, and had much to do with promoting the unsupported idea of millions of Christian deaths and hundreds of thousands of Christian slaves in Sudan.
CSI circulated several reports about Sudan written by Yossef Bodansky, a one time Israeli military officer and former Israeli arms salesman, who works part time for a House Republican Study Group on Terrorism etc, using the offices of Florida Congressman McCullough, presumably at taxpayer expense. Bodansky produces inflammatory, anti-Islamic diatribes, including a report entitled Islam Against the Church, in 1994. (22)
CSI circulated Bodansky?s presumptuous report, which clumped all Christians together in one giant persecuted pot called “The Church”. Not surprisingly, Sudan was the villain. Bodansky’s true allegiances are easy to uncover. He still works for the study group at last report, but he is also currently a “World Terrorism Analyst” for The Freeman Center for Strategic Studies. His job is amply explained in The Freeman Center?s Statement of Purpose which reads, “The Center which attempts to aid Israel in her quest for survival in a hostile world, commissions extensive research into military and strategic issues relating to the Arab-Israeli conflict and disseminates pertinent information to the Jewish community worldwide.” (23) Therefore, Bodansky a professional pro-Israel propagandist hardly seems an unbiased authority on Islam and Christianity. This did not deter Christian Solidarity International from distribution of Islam against the Church, and it was the only place the report was available, apparently written to incite Christians to war against Sudan. The Warmakers’ attack on Religious Fundamentalism covers the very questionable Bodansky matter in more detail. (4) CSI has recently publicized a whirlwind trip by Baroness Cox and her entourage to Sudan, and they have sponsored other researchers, apparently to legitimatize Bodansky’s research.
It is an understatement to say Dr. Dobson and many of his well-intended colleagues may be victims of enormous statistical distortion by his establishment friends. One wonders how many of the Christian leaders who have endorsed either HR1685 or Nina Shea’s promotional book have actually read all 21 pages of the bill.
Fanning the flames:
The Warmakers’ disinformation program has also received a giant boost from a small, but prolific assortment of Christian opportunists, who have amplified the Warmakers’ tales of massive Christian persecution, and knowingly or innocently helped promote HR1685 while fund raising.
Impassioned fund raising appeal letters from mail order missionary Peter Hammond?s Front Line Fellowship is one of many to arrive monthly. Almost every one contains a painful message about some atrocity of Christian persecution in Sudan. Hammond has recently written a short paper Jihad and Slavery in Sudan, Africa?s forgotten War, a promotion for his current appearances in American churches. He states, “Since 1955 the Muslim Arab north has been attacking the Christian Black South the death toll so far is about 2 million.” There is much wrong with this statement, but the worst is the enormous exaggeration of Black Christian deaths, which is implied to be about 2 million. United Nations Factbook, and numerous other sources cited in this paper, all estimate that no more than 1.5 million Christians live in the entire country of Sudan, about 5% of the population. Therefore, every Christian in underpopulated Southern Sudan would have to have died five or ten times to total the 2 million Hammond proclaims. Mr. Hammond’s exaggerations seem to begin where Bodansky leaves off.
Hammond probably has an enormous mailing list, therefore, he effects a large audience in a repetitious fashion, pounding away month after month on Christian persecution in Sudan. Thus, Hammond legitimizes the Warmakers’ more modest death figures, making them appear conservative by comparison. Hammond never once states where his statistics come from, a sure warning sign, but recites incidents and second and third hand testimony in place of concrete sources.
Hammond solicits money in the USA, probably spending about six months a year on the road here. His own literature claims he delivers 400 lectures and “sermons” each year, substantial disinformation helping the Warmakers sell their story.
Unfortunately, this case of Christian fund raising opportunism is not unique, and its combined disinformation effect conditions Christians to accept anti-Christian legislation in disguise.
Fleecing the lambs:
As James Dobson observed, most of those promoting HR1685 to the Christian Community are Jewish. (20) Others might like to ask, why are Michael Horowitz, A. M. Rosenthal, Jeff Jacoby, Senator Alan Spector, Senator Joseph Lieberman, Bodansky and other establishment writers who are not Christian, as Mr. Dobson points out, suddenly going to such great time and expense to protect Christians from Islam?
Rosenthal stated his answer to this is, “Christian theology is not my specialization. I only know all prisoners for freedom are intertwined in their chains.” (15) Rosenthal’s words sound good, but he and his colleagues in the CFR and New York Times said little, if anything, during 80 years of Christian Persecution under the Soviet and Chinese governments. Nor has he ever mentioned the ongoing persecution of Christian Palestinians and Palestinian Muslims that has been documented during the entire 30 years of Israeli occupied territories in Palestine. The number of Christians in Palestine has diminished under Israeli occupied rule from a majority to only a few, according to David Briggs of the Associated Press. He says in an AP article entitled New Exodus, of Israeli persecution, “the hammer of Israel does not distinguish between Muslim and Christians in limiting access to jobs, schools, places to worship and the right to travel.” (24) While Christian Persecution in Israel is ignored, Muslim persecution is not even denied and is often boasted about. Detailed incidents are available by the hundreds from a multitude of reliable sources. But Rosenthal apparently does not include these Christians or Muslims when he speaks of “all prisoners intertwined in their chains.” (15)
John D. Rockefeller, one of the Warmaker Godfathers, cynically observed, “there are usually two reasons a man says something, the one that sounds good, and the real reason.” What is the real reason for the Warmakers’ preoccupation with Christian persecution? It has nothing to do with religion, it is to capture the Christian support for the Warmakers’ political agenda. Clearly, HR1685 is such a radical departure from our rights, guaranteed under the First Amendment, that it could never be made law without media Christian support. HR1685 eliminates a giant problem that stands in the way of authoritarian government. In the name of protection, all spiritually oriented thought of Christianity becomes controllable from a single administratively appointed Office. It is then possible to remove the concept of morality from the model, as was done in communist countries.
To see how this modern, authoritarian model of government might function we have only to look at the Warmakers’ custom made prototype government, the State of Israel, created almost exactly 50 years ago in the halls of the United Nations. Perhaps the government of Israel is the model in the minds of Rosenthal, Horowitz and Shea. If so, several possibilities come to mind why these media agents for Warmaker organizations might easily justify HR1685 in their own minds. Let us consider just a few.
Perhaps Horowitz, Rosenthal and others actually favor a state-controlled church in America. It is logical to look at this possibility since HR1685 will most certainly result in state monitored churches, the first step toward one state church. The State of Israel has the ultimate church state, where only Jews are allowed citizenship. Indeed, according to David Briggs in his article The New Exodus, religion is the basis for jobs, welfare, the right to own a weapon, to build a house, and to travel. All of these are strictly controlled by a perpetual, generous but firm police state. (24)
Horowitz and the other publicity agents for the Warmakers may also believe in promoting the Israeli foreign policy agenda by continuing the agenda of the Gulf War against its stated enemies, the Islamic fundamentalist states. The imminent embargo on Sudan will do exactly that. Israeli advocates might wish to see the Sudanese Government eliminated by U.S. force, just as we have destroyed Iraq in the Gulf War. The Sudanese government is one of the several Arab governments which does not recognize Israeli claims to captured land, such as Hebron and Jerusalem. Rosenthal, Bodansky, CSI and others may relish embargoes of governments hostile to Israel.
Yet a third possibility involves the fact that Southern Sudan is documented to possess large undeveloped reserves of crude oil found by Chevron 15 years ago, and left undeveloped until several independent American and Canadian companies attempted to produce oil in Southern Sudan in spite of the civil war. The CFR, Freedom House and Hudson Institute establishment press agents might not wish the oil developed by an Arab government that is not friendly to Israel.
These are all reasonable motives for the dozens of predominately non-Christian, pro-Israeli writers, politicians, representatives of Freedom House, the Hudson Institute, and the Council on Foreign relations, who are all inexplicably involved in what Dr. James Dobson called, Michael Horowitz’s “frantic campaign.” Dr. Dobson is correct about it being a “campaign,” but it is not “frantic,” it is very deliberate, indeed. Whatever their real reasons, the Warmaker promoters of HR1685 never mention the potential effects of religious monitoring on all religious worshipers.
Dr. Dobson and media Christians and organization activists who have allowed themselves to be seduced by Warmaker agents should recall the words of the wily, conniving, Godfather Warmaker, J. D. Rockefeller and ask, “why” The Warmakers, who stand aloof, one step above their visible agent, are paying the cost of buying passage of HR1685, and they are probably bankrolling Rupert Murdock’s billion dollar purchase of Pat Robertson?’s business enterprise. Unlike their understudies at Freedom House, these unnamed citizens of the world, who pay the bills for all of this, are not enamored with any religions, nor are they concerned about persecution of anyone. The are the persecutors, and theirs is a
bigger agenda.
That Warmaker agenda that requires the use of media Christian leaders, is ultimate control of the one great world power, which we American Christians call home. The control of the Arab Middle East and its oil and the charade of Christian persecution are only an interim front to the real objective of the Warmakers’ plan, total control of America’s government. Elimination of the First Amendment legal right to the free practice of spiritual thought, assembly and speech is the final step in control of all the other rights to which Americans call their heritage. It is a giant step toward total government, controlled by the Warmakers .
Fired by the impassioned words of the Warmaker controlled press about persecution, TV evangelical leaders have suddenly lost their fear of embracing United Nations law. Pat Robertson, who once wrote a book on “The New World Order,” would now turn authority for “religious monitoring” over to the Clinton Administration under a United Nations legal theory. His nationwide political educational organization Christian Coalition has officially endorsed every one of the repugnant bills that have been condemned in this paper, including the anti-constitutional, contra-Christian HR1685. (25)
The promoters of HR1685 are non-Christian. Like the mythical Pied Piper, who called away the children, Horowitz, Rosenthal, Spector, Wolf, Shea, and others have piped leaders of the media Christian right into demanding vengeance against Islam. The have focused a media Christian lynch mob on the sad, incredibly remote and impoverished Republic of Sudan, a traditional enemy of no one but the government of Israel. Prominent Christian leaders, while denouncing what they term “Islamic Jihad”, are themselves joining in a crusade against the children of Iraq and Sudan. When they help provide the Executive Branch with the power to monitor others? religions, they condemn their own religious freedom to the gallows. They like Esau, are trading their birthright and ours for a bowl of pottage.
Once the First Amendment to the Constitution is gone, the remaining amendments, protecting lesser rights, become meaningless and may be tossed aside by the next executive order. A police state becomes only a thought crime away. Then the only remaining choice is between tyranny and resistance.
The media Christian leadership has become increasingly unapproachable, except by their largest contributors, shielded by the moat of one way TV and radio. Their judgment is often clouded by the shear weight of their own success, susceptible to the flattering attention of the Warmakers’ agents who patiently culture them from their earliest moments of promise, welcoming them with open arms once they gain power and prestige. As if the Warmakers have planned it themselves, the media church has helped centralize the influence of Christians in Washington at the expense of the local community.
Media evangelist and mail order missionaries have forgotten that Jesus told his disciples, “If you would disciple after me you must deny yourself, pick up your cross daily and follow me.” He did not say, follow me and the government will guarantee your safely and comfort. The media and activist Christian leaders have forgotten that Christianity has never been without risk and cost, and freedom has never been free. It is not free to the Christian in Sudan or China, it was not free to the first century Christians, or to David Livingston who crossed Sudan, and it is not free to us.
Jesus expects moral decisions during time of mortal crisis. He is clearly not getting them from TV Christian leadership. The media church has failed to provide moral leadership. Activists and fundamentalists of all religions must return to the pews and laboriously build Christian values in local communities and politics. They must put their check where it is within arms reach, in the hands of men responsible to them for their actions and conduct. We, the people who do not want leadership, must accept it as our forefathers did in a similar hour of crisis.
FOOTNOTES
1. Herbert W. Titus, The Forecaster, Titus Publishing, 2400 Carolina Road, Chesapeake, VA 23322 FAX 757 421 3644
2. C. E. Carlson, Will America Accept Religious Monitoring, Summary and Report , We Hold These Truths, June 1997
3. C.E Carlson, Attacking Islam, New American Magazine, March 21, 1994
4. C. E. Carlson, The Warmaker?s Attack on Religious Fundamentalism, Right to
the Point Journal, We Hold These Truths
5. Supreme Court of the United States, syllabus City of Boerne v. Florez, Archbishop of San Antonio et al. No. 95 2074
6. International Family Entertainment , Inc., filing Securities and Exchange Commission August 12, 1997
7. HR1685, 105th Congress, First Session, To establish an Office of Religious Persecution Monitoring, to provide an imposition of sanctions against countries engaged in a pattern of religious persecution, and for other purposes. Section 11c.
8. Webster?s New International Dictionary, 2nd edition.
9. Nina Shea, In The Lion?s Den, Broadman and Holman Publishers, 1997
10. William Norman Grigg, The Price of Faith, book review of In The Lion?s Den, May 26, 1997, New American Magazine, book offered for sale through American Opinion Book store.
11. International Relief Organizations, Children of the Cradle, 40 minute video, 24522 Harper?s Avenue, St. Clair Shores, MI 48080. Available WHTT $10.00 ppd.
12. Church Around The World, Tyndale Publishers, Volume 27#9, PO Box 464, Mt. Morris, IL, 61054
13. Freedom House Homepage, http://www.freedomhouse.org
14. Michael Horowitz, New Intolerance between Crescent and Cross, The Wall Street Journal, July 5, 1995
15 O. M. Rosenthal, Christians? Who cares? syndicated New York Times February 14, 1997
16. Ralph Kenney Bennett, The global War on Christians, Reader?s Digest, August 1997
17 A Prodigy Co., Africa Online, http://www.africaonline.com
18. Central Intelligence Agency Sudan Factbook, Homepage, http://www.odci.gov/cia
19. United Nations Organization, Sudan, Country Profile DHA, 1995
20. Dr. James C. Dobson, Family News by Dr. James C. Dobson, Colorado Springs CO 80995
21. Caroline Cox and John Eibner, Ethnic Cleansing in Progress, War in Nagonro Karabakh, with preface by Elene Bonner Sakharov, Institute for Religious Minorities in an Islamic World
22. Yossef Bodansky, Director, Islam Against The Church, House /Republican
Research Committee Tasks Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, January
1994
23. The Freeman Center for Strategic Studies, Homepage, http://freeman.io.com/
24. David Briggs, Associated Press, New Exodus, Living Stones of Christianity Disappearing From the Holy Land, Arizona Republic, April 12, 1997
25. Christian Coalition Homepage, http://www.cc.org
