The Canadian Manifesto 5: The Exploitation of Religion

"... the seemingly squeaky clean but morally corrupt Ralph Reed." Sarah Posner (1)

In the movie Casino Jack, based on the life of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, we are introduced to some of the players in the massive corruption scandal, that took down two Republican senators, and nine high profile lobbyists.

One character in the movie was Ralph Reed, played by Christian Campbell, who assures Abramoff that he is ready to play his part in the casino fraud.

For an enormous fee, 'Casino Jack' set out to destroy the gambling operation of a competing tribe, for his clients, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.

This was not the first time that Abramoff had used questionable tactics for this client, but he couldn't have done it without the help of the "squeaky clean" and "morally corrupt" Ralph Reed, then head of The Christian Coalition.

In 1999, the Choctaw needed to defeat a bill in the Alabama State Legislature that would allow casino-style games on dog racing tracks, resulting in competition for their casino business. It was at about this time that Reed had contacted his old friend Abramoff, asking for his help in establishing his new business, Century Strategies.

"Hey, now that I’m done with electoral politics, I need to start humping in corporate accounts! I’m counting on you to help me with some contacts." (Ralph Reed to Jack Abramoff, via email, November 12, 1998)

When asked what he could do to assist with this situation, Reed said that he could access "3,000 pastors and 90,000 religious conservative households" in Alabama, as well as "the Alabama Christian Coalition, the Alabama Family Alliance, the Alabama Eagle Forum, [and] the Christian Family Association." And he would do this for a retainer of $20,000 a month.

Souls don't come cheap.  Just ask the devil.

The firm that Abramoff was then with, Preston Gates, hired Reed as a subcontractor, and Abramoff told Reed to "get me invoices as soon as possible so I can get Choctaw to get us checks asap."

"By May 10, 1999, the Choctaw had paid $1.3 million to Reed via Preston Gates, for various grassroots activities relating to the dog-track bill, as well as opposing an Alabama state lottery." (2) Eventually they broke their business ties with Preston Gates, and began dealing directly with Abramoff, using Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform as a conduit.  (Norquist had done work for them in the past)

However, what Abramoff was hoping to pull off this time, was much bigger and riskier than dog tracks and state lotteries.

In October 2001, Abramoff began to suggest to the Louisiana Coushatta that the Texas legislature was "one vote away" from legalizing certain forms of gambling in Texas. The Alabama Coushatta - a related but competing tribe to the Louisiana Coushatta - also sought to open a casino in eastern Texas in 2001. Abramoff told the Louisiana Coushatta that if the Tigua succeeded in their court case, then Texas would be forced to allow the Alabama Coushatta to open their casino. Many of the Coushatta's casino customers traveled over the border from eastern Texas to Louisiana, so this could pose a grave threat to their livelihood.  (2)

Abramoff then suggested to the Choctaw that they should support Christian evangelical conservatives, who were prepared to oppose gaming expansion in Texas, and Reed was again on the payroll.  "Reed worked with Houston pastors and church congregations to make demands on the state government to prevent the casinos from opening." (2)

According to the director of the movie, Alex Gibney, in response to Reed suggesting that the work he did for Abramoff was "outstanding" and something he was "proud of":

Let's say it plain: Ralph Reed is a fraud ... there was probably nothing illegal about what Reed did. But, he was engaged in a kind of spiritual fraud: telling his supporters that he was opposed to gambling when, in fact, gambling was making him rich. (3)

Though Reed still denies that he knew that the millions of dollars paid him came from casino profits, there are numerous email exchanges that prove otherwise.  And if  that deception isn't bad enough, he also implied that he was "fully investigated by John McCain's Senate Committee on Indian Affairs", and cleared.  However, according to Gibney:

Reed correctly notes that he has never been charged with a crime and implies that he had been fully investigated by John McCain's Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. But the implication is deceptive. According to one very famous, disgraced former lobbyist, Reed was supposed to have been called before McCain's committee but Karl Rove intervened and pressured McCain not to call Reed.  To Reed, Abramoff committed the unpardonable sin of getting caught, and that's why Reed prays for him. Well, Abramoff did his time and now seems to be willing to speak the truth. Reed should pray for himself. (3)

Touché!

Leo Strauss Would Have Been Proud

In her book: Leo Strauss and the American Right, Shadia Drury of the University of Calgary, reveals that Strauss suggested that the exploiting of religion by the "right thinking elite" was necessary.

The key is to use the most artful and most reliable techniques that history has made available. And in Strauss's view, nothing has ever proved to be more effective than the influence of religion. (4)

Karl Marx called religion the "opium of the people", but to Ralph Reed and most other "elite"  in the movement, it is pure gold.

Religion can be a good thing, when it inspires, but can be lethal when it incites.

There is no doubt that religion often exerts a wholesome influence on human conduct. And it may even serve as a small protection against tyranny and the abuse of power because persons committed to the moral life may prefer to risk their lives than to collaborate with wicked schemes. But it is also the case that religious fervor often turns political and even militant. Religious groups are not always satisfied with the religious freedom that liberal society affords them. They are not content to gather together, worship, sing, play, and educate their children as they see fit. They are interested in imposing their vision of private morality on the rest of society. What they want is not freedom of religion, but conformity to their religious views. (4)

Drury continues:

Their current mood is overtly political if not altogether militant. The Christian Coalition, founded by Pat Robertson and then led by his protégé Ralph Reed, is a case in point. Its "leadership school" does not waste much time on prayer, but on the political process and how best to manipulate it. Grassroots leaders in hundreds of counties in every state are instructed in the modern art of quick communication—phone, fax, and modem. These leaders are trained to mobilize their troops into rapid-response networks intended to "blitz" or bombard congressmen with the values of the coalition. (4)

It is said that 26 Republican presidential hopefuls have sought out Reed for advice, with chequebook in hand, of course.  And why not?

When [Pat] Robertson's campaign flamed out, political analysts served up a new round of obituaries for the religious right, but once again, the reports of its death proved premature. Even as Robertson nursed a wounded ego, he was hatching his organizational revenge, hiring a fresh-faced young doctoral student named Ralph Reed to build a grass-roots evangelical network, focusing first on the takeover of school boards and town councils before ultimately commandeering the machinery of the Republican National Committee itself. That institutional coup took place almost entirely beneath the media's radar, and by the time it finally caught their attention, Reed's Christian Coalition controlled both houses of Congress and would later play a major role in putting George W. Bush in the White House, not once but twice. (5) 

Their political goals include returning prayer to schools, recriminalizing abortion, stripping known homosexuals of their civil rights, teaching creationism in the schools, and censoring libraries and the press, all included in Reed's  "contract with the American family", that was released right after Newt Gingrich's 'Contract with America".

American conservatives such as William Buckley and William Bennett fool themselves in thinking that the Christian right is simply interested in safe streets, good schools, strong families, nonintrusive government, and a chummy Communitarian atmosphere .... They are very much interested in governmental interference to uphold and enforce their own values and preferences, not only in matters pertaining to public morality, but in private morality as well. But their political tactics call their ethics into question. For example, Ralph Reed has defended the "stealth campaigns" of Christian Coalition candidates who have disguised their political agenda by campaigning on issues such as crime or taxes, but have revealed once in office that their real interests are in gay rights, abortion, and creationism.

Reed justifies such deception as a type of "guerrilla warfare." He flatters himself into thinking that his stealth campaigns are a matter of using the tactics of a guerrilla war against Satan. Those who paint their political opponents as the forces of evil and regard themselves as the defenders of good, are inclined to justify any means as necessary to defeat their opponents. The urgency of vanquishing the satanic forces, and the sheer immensity of the task, blinds them to the fact that such mendacious and duplicitous conduct is a blatant disregard of Christian virtue. (4)

Touché again!

Ralph Reed in the Great White North

On May 5, 1996; the Albion Monitor reported on a group of Canadians, who had made the trek to Washington in the fall of 1995, to attend a conference of The Christian Coalition.  Their visit resulted in the creation of the Canadian Christian Coalition, whose board members included Reform Party members, Ted and Link Byfield, and our own Jason Kenney.

... ominous for democratic rights in [British Columbia] is the recent hatching of the B.C. clone of Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition ... The B.C. chapter is headed up by Operation Rescue activist Don Spratt, and claims among its founding board members former B.C. Premier and ardent anti-choicer Bill Vander Zalm. In an opinion piece in the Vancouver Sun, Spratt insisted (somewhat oxymoronically) "We have no ties with our U.S. counterpart." However, according to news reports, The Christian Coalition of Canada materialized after dozens of conservative Christians in this country thronged to Washington, DC, last fall to attend a major convention of the U.S. organization.

"Advisors" to the new CCC reportedly include Ted and Link Byfield (owners of the ultra-conservative B.C. Report and Alberta Report magazines), Jason Kenny (head of the Canadian Taxpayers Association), and Alex Parachin (head of the Christian Broadcasting Associates in Toronto, the Canadian branch plant of Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network). ...While Don Spratt may be telling readers "Nobody has anything to fear from Christian Coalition," progressive activists and journalists will have to make sure the electorate knows better. (6)

Touché, touché. touché, dammit!

The B.C. branch was responsible for a ban on Planned Parenthood in Surrey.  Stephen Harper has since expanded that, by cancelling all funding for PP, domestic and international.  The Tea Party gang have also been instrumental in the organization's demise in the U.S.

We beat them.  Yeah for us. (sigh)

However, while Jason Kenney may have been among the first to transport Ralph Reed's "faith for profit and righteous indignation" to Canada, he was by no means the last.  Two members of Stockwell Day's team, Brian Rushfeldt and Roy Beyer ("Families for Day"), visited Reed to solicit his help in getting Day elected as Alliance leader in 2000.

Both men were graduates of Charles McVety's Canadian Christian College.

In 2005, McVety invited Reed to speak at that institution, making sure that his protégé was in attendance: Jim Flaherty.

His very attentive listeners were challenged by Reed to “get on your work boots and tennis shoes and go out there like it all depends on you, pray like it all depends on God and let’s usher in the greatest victory in the history of this country.” (7)

Mcvety had already worked with Flaherty in his bid for leadership of the Ontario conservatives, but ironically, Flaherty was considered to be too right wing.  It was probably just the company he kept.

A Christian Manifesto Revisited

Francis Schaeffer, whose book A Christian Manifesto became the blueprint for the Religious Right, apparently regretted his involvement with the movement that he grew to detest.  According to his son, Francis Jr. (Frank), in his book Crazy for God:

Falwell, Robertson, Dobson, and others would later use their power in ways that would have made my father throw up. Dad could hardly have imagined how they would help facilitate the instantly corrupted power-crazy new generation of evangelical public figures like Ralph Reed, who took money from the casino industry while allegedly playing both sides against the middle in events related to the Abramoff Washington lobbyist scandal.
... Long before Ralph Reed and his ilk came on the scene, Dad got sick of "these idiots," as he often called people like [James] Dobson in private. They were "plastic," Dad said, and "power-hungry They were "Way too right-wing, really nuts!" and "They're using our issue to build their empires." (9)

Rick Salutin was fired as a columnist for the Globe and Mail, because he reminded Canadians of Harper's links to Leo Strauss.  His only error in the column was calling him the "last" Straussian.  Those guys breed like rabbits.

In March of 1995, former leader of the Reform Party, Preston Manning, was invited to speak to the editorial board of the Washington Post.  Newt Gingrich had been singing Manning's praises with the American media, as an important factor in his 1994 election victory.

Naturally they wanted to meet the Canadian neocon guru.

The late Dalton Camp, wrote a column about the visit, under the heading: Mr. Manning Goes to Washington.

"The Reform agenda includes a host of issues with American analogs—opposition to abortion rights, gun control and gay rights"—and lower taxes, less government, fewer rights for consumers, and "family values."

This does remind me once again of Senator James M. Inhofe* (R. Oklahoma), who has said he campaigned last fall, and won, on "God, gays, and guns."** No doubt Preston could arrange through Newt to meet with Inhofe, who is a great admirer of Jesse Helms who is a good friend of Al D'Amato who knows Dick Armey who needs no introduction to Ralph Reed of The Christian Coalition warmly supported by Pat Buchanan who knows Pat Robertson.

Knowing our man Manning has direct access to those guys makes you feel warm all over, doesn't it? (9)

"Warm all over?"  Not exactly.  I'm more inclined to feel like Schaeffer.  It makes me want to "throw up".

Footnotes:

*James Inhofe is the former boss of Conservative MP Rob Anders.

** Not one to leave a Republican quote unplagiarized, Stephen Harper wrote a piece for the Globe in March of 1995, in which he defined his Reform Party as being based on "three g-issues"- guns, gays, and government grants." (10)

Sources:

1. God's Profits: Faith, Fraud, and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters, By Sarah Posner, PoliPoint Press, 2008, ISBN: 0-9794822-1-6

2. Wikipedia: Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal

3. The Deceptions of Ralph Reed, By Alex Gibney, The Atlantic, September 26, 2010

4. Leo Strauss and the American Right, By Shadia B. Drury, St. Martin's Press, 1999, ISBN: 0-312-12689-1, p. 19-21

5. The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada, By: Marci McDonald, Random House Canada, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-307-35646-8 3, p. 5

6. The Christian Coalition Comes to Canada, by Kim Goldberg, The Albion Monitor, May 5, 1996

7. US Political Wiz Ralph Reed Urges Canadian Social Conservatives to “Make History” This Election, LifeSite News, December 2, 2005

8. Whose Country is This Anyway? Mr. Manning Goes to Washington, By Dalton Camp, Douglas & McIntyre, 1995, ISBN: 1-55054-467-5, Pg. 185

9. Crazy For God: How I Grew Up a One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take it All (or Almost All) of it Back, By Frank Schaeffer, Carroll & Graf, 2007, ISBN: 13-978-0-7867-1891-7, p. 299-300

10. Where Does the Reform Party Go From Here, By Stephen Harper, Globe and Mail, March 21, 1995

Tithing Yourself Into Knots: John Hagee Says Show Me the Money

The Canadian Manifesto: How the American Neoconservatives Stole my Country

“These proposals included cries for billions of new money for social assistance in the name of “child poverty” and for more business subsidies in the name of “cultural identity”. In both cases I was sought out as a rare public figure to oppose such projects.” (Stephen Harper, The Bulldog, National Citizens Coalition, February 1997)

I have lived in the same neighborhood for more than twenty five years. When we moved here there was a little church around the corner, that I was told had been there at least twenty years before we arrived. I had never been inside and could not tell you what denomination it was. But it was a familiar landmark. "Go past the little church on the corner" ... "turn right at the little church on the corner".

And besides the Sunday services, it was often a hub of activity. School buses lined up to take members of the congregation on picnics. Evening meetings, where voices were raised in song. There always seemed to be something going on.

And every year they held a lawn and bake sale on the parking lot, and every year I attended. (Someone made the best banana bread on the planet). But last summer the sale seemed to be bigger than usual, with furniture, folding chairs and even a piano. I asked the woman at the table if they were renovating, but she said that they were going out of business. They could no longer afford to operate.

I noticed that one table had a rather large selection of John Hagee books and tapes, with a ridiculously low sale price. I think maybe fifty cents apiece. In my mind I thought there was a connection, not only in the fact that they had such a large collection of them, but that they had now deemed them to be almost worthless.

I was going to buy Jerusalem Countdown, out of curiosity, but decided that I didn't want that garbage in my house.

I've always believed that these small community churches serve such an important function, as they become like an extended family. Someone always knows when you are in hospital, under the weather or down on your luck. In a different variation to the song, "everyone dies famous in a small church." Somehow John Hagee didn't fit.

The Tithes That Bind You Up

The above video is of Hagee screaming "starve" to applause. Now first off, he has the Bible quotation wrong. He says the man who "does not work", while it should be the man "unwilling to work". There is a difference, but clearly he does not see one.

You know it's very easy for Pastor Hagee to call anyone without a job "lazy", when he lives on a $5.5 million dollar ranch with its own private airstrip, smokehouse, skeet shooting range, etc. and launders money through his non-profit "church related activities", while drawing a salary of more than a million dollars a year. In fact he is now known to be the highest-paid nonprofit executive in San Antonio.

And a lot of his money comes from bullying people into tithing 10% of their income to his church.

When you give to God, He controls your income. There is no such thing as fixed income in the Kingdom of God. Your income is controlled by your giving." Believing or not believing in these principles is one's choice, and if you make the wrong choice, you've clearly sided with Satan and will be cursed financially: "The difference between living a life of prosperity and a life of poverty is a matter of choice. ... Tithing is a choice. If you choose to not tithe, you will be living under a financial curse." (1)

And his wife pleads with other women, even suggesting that should leave their husbands if they will not tithe:

Real men tithe to their church and follow the word of the Bible, which according to Hagee "is the only foundation on which America can build and survive" and provides the greatest financial counseling in the world. To emphasize the supernatural power of its blessing, Hagee added that "it will do for you what the phone booth did for Clark Kent." But even when her husband is not abiding by the biblical imperative to tithe, the wife should still submit to his wishes, even though she knows his position is unbiblical. "I minister to many wives who are tormented by the fact their husbands refuse to give back to the Lord one-tenth of what the Provider has allowed them to earn," Diana Hagee writes. "A man who rejects the principle of tithing cannot understand the feelings of a woman who believes and trusts in the Word of God regarding prosperity."

What to do, in Diana Hagee's view? The woman "knows that the Lord requires the tithe, . . . that he will provide blessings to those who obey the Lord with their tithe, . that the Lord promises to devour the enemies of her family when her family is obedient to the tithe." Yet obedience to her husband supersedes all of God's laws: "Based on the Word of God, she does not have many options. She must be obedient to her husband's decision." A former member of Hagee's church said that Cornerstone's marriage counselors hewed to that philosophy: "If your husband was a big tither, and you had money, you were in the wrong.... But if he wasn't a good tither, and a big tither, leave him. (2)

But all these promises of riches if you just hand over your cash, rarely materialize, and many people have suffered financially, simply because they could not afford to keep feeding Hagee's enormous appetite for the good life.

One former member of Hagee's church, fearful to talk on the record because Hagee is "really powerful" and has "got so much clout," described Hagee as "very angry" and "not approachable." The former member, who attended Cornerstone for about ten years, recalled that she had been going to Cornerstone for six years before she actually met Hagee. "I said, 'Oh, Pastor Hagee, I'm finally getting to meet you after six years,' and he said, 'Oh, I've been back here every Sunday' and turned and walked off." Her husband is bipolar, and when they went to marriage counseling, the church "told him he was a loser and an infidel." The counselors encouraged the former congregant to leave her husband, but "thankfully, I prayed enough. ... I began to see trouble, you know, I began to see things that wasn't right."

[She] said that even though she and her husband wrote a big check to the church after they sold their house and tithed close to 10 percent of their income, "We never prospered there." Most of the people she knew there were struggling financially, including some who were evicted from their apartments because they couldn't pay their rent. Hagee, she said, has a "very powerful hold, and you don't even realize it. ... We were there ten years, and I knew something was wrong, but I couldn't figure out what it was." She even feared speaking to a reporter: "If I say too much about him, God's going to get me. ... [Hagee's] got so much money and he's so powerful, he could take everything we have in a minute."

Another former member told of tithing even when she had to borrow out of her 401(k) plan to make her mortgage payments. At one point, she said, "at Christmastime I didn't have gifts under my tree. Two small gifts for my kids, that was it. I was so broke, and I was tithing." At the time, she believed that tithing would result in her own blessing. Still another former member, a single mother divorced from an abusive husband, told of tithing out of her child support checks, even though she was living in an apartment with subsidized rent. Contrasting her small apartment with Hagee's home in an exclusive San Antonio subdivision and his multimillion-dollar ranch, she added, "I don't even have a house! My kids grew up on top of each other like sardines. ... I just want a little house." She added, "I thought something was wrong with me. Why am I still [living like this]. I've given and given and given and tithed and tithed and tithed." But while attending Cornerstone, she, like the others, felt guilt and enormous pressure not to question Hagee or his doctrine, and that atmosphere was reinforced through multiple church services each week and mandatory meetings with smaller cell groups whose leaders were vetted on the basis of classes, tests, and the faithfulness of their tithing. As a result, the former member said, "I looked to Pastor Hagee as a god." (1)

I wonder what Hagee's god has to say about that? Single mothers giving him money from that "cheque in the mail every month"?

John Hagee is a swindler. If he wasn't hiding behind his religion he would be in jail. And that is the man helping to dictate Stephen Harper's foreign policy. Business partner of Jim Flaherty's pal Charles McVety.

These people don't represent Christianity, but if ordinary Christians don't start speaking out against this nonsense, theirs are the only "Christian" voices we will hear. And those little "churches on the corner" that provide so much comfort, will be a thing of the past.

Sources:

1. John Hagee's Controversial Gospel, Sarah Posner, March 12, 2008

2. God's Profits: Faith, Fraud, and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters, By Sarah Posner, PoliPoint Press, 2008, ISBN: 0-9794822-1-6, Pg. 85