Rogue and Righteous Religions

1980-2008

Mario Cuomo and Enduring Pluralistic Visions (1984 Notre Dame Speech)

• The Catholic who holds political office in a pluralistic democracy – who is elected to serve Jews and Muslims, atheists and Protestants, as well as Catholics – bears special responsibility. He or she undertakes to help create conditions under which all can live with a maximum of dignity and with a reasonable degree of freedom; where everyone who chooses may hold beliefs different from specifically Catholic ones – sometimes contradictory to them; where the laws protect people's right to divorce, to use birth control, and even to choose abortion.

• In fact, Catholic public officials take an oath to preserve the Constitution that guarantees this freedom. And they do so gladly. Not because they love what others do with their freedom, but because they realize that in guaranteeing freedom for all, they guarantee our right to be Catholics: our right to pray, to use the sacraments, to refuse birth control devices, to reject abortion, not to divorce and remarry if we believe it to be wrong.

• The Catholic public official lives the political truth most Catholics through most of American history have accepted and insisted on: the truth that to assure our freedom we must allow others the same freedom, even if occasionally it produces conduct by them which we would hold to be sinful.

• I protect my right to be a Catholic by preserving your right to believe as a Jew, a Protestant, or non-believer, or as anything else you choose.

• We know that the price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that they might some day force theirs on us.

• This freedom is the fundamental strength of our unique experiment in government.

Cult Power

• Jim Jones

• Sun Myung Moon

The Religious Right

• Green v. Connally (1971)

• Ronald Wilson Reagan

• FCC

• Marion G. “Pat” Robertson (1930- & CBN

• Jim Bakker (1940- and Tammy Faye Bakker (1942-2007) & PTL

• Jimmy Lee Swaggert (1935-

Evangelical Love Triangle

Debra Murphree after the 1988 Penthouse issue; dependingon your definition, she neverhad sex with Jimmy Swaggert;I simply couldn’t locate a photoof Rosemary Garcia, in whosecompany, Swaggert was arrestedin 1991.

I do not plan in any way to whitewash my sin. I do not call it a mistake, a mendacity; I call it sin. I would much rather, if possible -- and in my estimation it would not be possible -- to make it worse than less than it actually is. I have no one but myself to blame. I do not lay the fault or the blame of the charge at anyone else's feet. For no one is to blame but Jimmy Swaggart. I take the responsibility. I take the blame. I take the fault.

God said to David 3,000 years ago, you have done this thing in secret, but I will do what I do openly before all of Israel. My sin was done in secret, and God has said to me, "I will do what I do before the whole world." Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Excerpts from Swaggert’s Feb. 21, 1988 Televised Confession

Prosperity Theology

• Kenneth Copeland (1936-

• Robert Tilton (1946-

• Joel Osteen (1963

Christian Left v. Christian Right

• Jim Wallis (1948-

• Ronald Sider (1939-

• Pat Robertson and the 1988 Republican Nomination

• Christian Coalition-Ralph Reed (1961-

• The Christian Right and William Jefferson Clinton

Religion and Society—the 90s

• New Age Religion

• Religious Freedom Restoration Act (1993)

• Christian Identity

• David Koresh

• Timothy McVeigh

• African American Church arsons

• Promise Keepers

Religion and Society—the 00s

• 9-11 and Civil Religion • 2004 Election• Faith-based initiatives• Roy S. Moore and the 10 Commandments• Terri Schiavo Case (2005)• Keith Ellison takes Congressional Oath (2007)• Reverend Jeremiah Wright• Barack Hussein Obama—Birthers, Obamacare