The Right Wing Panics

INTRODUCTION

As we have indicated previously, today a vast and extraordinarily complex religo-political system has emerged in the United States - a keiretsu-like network of conservative religious and political organizations with interlocking boards of directors, similar sources of funding and "cross-over" memberships - which aims at taking over the country. It is into this "right-wing web" that countless numbers of Christians are being drawn - a web which historically has been permeated with racist, anti-Semitic and fascist ideas. Most Christians, of course, will deny that they are being affected at all by such ideas; but in the end, the only people they may be kidding are themselves. Our network of associations with one another - whether civic, religious, social, or personal - forms an integrated system of arteries down through which notions of all sort journey - sometimes to our benefit, and sometimes to our detriment. By such means, ideas become infectious; uplifting us on the one hand, and corrupting us on the other. It is in this way that we can properly speak of the contagion of evil; if left unchecked within a community, evil, like a vicious cancer, has a treacherous way of using the network of our social, political and religious relationships to spread it's venom throughout the entire body; of using the bands which connect us together as channels of corruption. By such means evil can demolish not only the individual Christian, but the entire Christian community. The Bible says,

"A little leaven leavens the whole lump." (Gal. 5:9)

Of course, there are those who would say that such thinking implies "guilt by association" - and to a certain extent, that's true! But the plain fact of the matter is, the relationships we keep, the fellowships we sustain, and the institutional associations we support - especially our religious and political ones - do indeed go a long way in defining us as persons. Ideas are infectious and while good ideas can ennoble us, bad ideas pollute everything they touch. This is why the Lord warns us against "mixture" - the mixing of the "profane" with the "holy." It leads to a condition where "the good" is mixed with "the bad" - a condition which the Bible indicates NEVER works out in favor of "the good" (again, "a little leaven leavens the whole lump"):

"Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee." (Ex. 34:12)

Surely those on the Secular or even Religious Right should have no argument with this - i.e., with the notion of "guilt by association." Their old McCarthy era friends took this concept to its extreme in their efforts to ferret out "communists" and "communist sympathizers" during the "Great Communist Scare" of 1946-1954 - and they found nothing wrong with this concept at that time. Why should they find anything wrong with it now? McCarthy era demagogues had a name for those whom they deemed "guilty by association:" they were called "fellow travelers" - people who "traveled" in the same circles as communists and avowed communist sympathizers. In the McCarthyite lexicon, nothing could be as damning as that epitaph. They understood that association more often than not implied agreement.

This was true during the McCarthy era, and it's true today. As the evangelical Christian community has been ever more drawn into the "right-wing matrix," it has been deeply affected by its new found "friends" and "associations."

Take what's been happening to Bill Clinton, for example. Now (and as we have said previously), in using Clinton as an example, we don't mean to condone what Bill Clinton has done; nor do we approve of his left-wing social agenda or his alliance with elements (i.e., homosexuals, radical feminists, militant atheists, etc.) with whom most Christians justifiably feel uneasy. Nor are we saying (or even implying) that Clinton is not necessarily guilty of the charges (or at least some of the charges) that have been leveled against him - not only the sex charges, but many of the other charges dealing with "Filegate," Whitewater, etc. That's not the point here. As we indicated in our first newsletter, what we are discussing is Hillary Clinton's charge of a "vast, right-wing conspiracy" that is out to "get her husband." There is a good deal more to that story than meets the eye; a story which - if read carefully - exposes the shadowy and threatening character of the kind of people Christians have gotten themselves mixed up with in their effort to "return the nation to Christ and the church."

It's a story that goes a long way in revealing the shocking lengths and cruel methodologies that some very misguided Christians - along with their "conservative" secular allies - are willing to employ in order to "return the nation to Christ." The problem with all this is, when we resort to such methodologies ourselves, we are transformed by them. Many will, of course, deny that that's true; but, then, the people who are transformed are usually the last to recognize that fact.

As we suggested in article, "The Olson Salon: A Case Study Of The Machinations Of The Religious Right," the results of the 1996 presidential election in which Bill Clinton trounced Bob Dole sent a shiver up the backs of most Religious Right politicos. The clear indication was that Clinton was being successful in re-positioning the Democratic Party away from the special interest politics that it had been pursuing in the 1980s and toward the center - and in doing so, winning back countless numbers of white, blue collar workers who had deserted the party as a result of its "pandering" to the left and the minorities. All this didn't bode well for Religious Right activists, because even a more centrist oriented Democratic Party would still be virulently opposed to the attempts of the Religious Right to structure the United States "once again" as a "Christian nation." If Clinton was successful here, the next time the Religious Right might get a chance to re-structure America as a Christian nation could very well be in the year 2009 - and by that time people like Jerry Falwell, D. James Kennedy, Pat Robertson, Tim LaHaye, etc might very well be dead and gone. No, it had to be now - the election of the year 2000.

And one needs to be clear here - this is exactly what the leading advocates of the Religious Right are aiming at (i.e., the re-structuring of the United States as a "Christian Republic"), as they have made clear over and over again in their own words.

TAKING BACK THE COUNTRY FOR CHRIST & THE
CHURCH: IN THE WORDS OF THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT

RANDALL TERRY (Founder of Operation Rescue and a close friend of the Catholic Archbishops of New York and Philadelphia)

"I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good ... Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a biblical duty, we are called by God to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism. [The News-Sentinel (Fort Wayne, Indiana), August 16, 1993]

PAUL WEYRICH (Editor of the Conservative Digest and one of the founding gurus of the New Right)

"We are talking about Christianizing America. We are talking about simply spreading the Gospel in a political context." (Free Congress Foundation. August, 1980)

LOU SHELDON (Founder and president of the Traditional Values Coalition)

"We were here first. You don't take our shared common values and say they are biased and bigoted ... We are the keepers of what is right and what is wrong." (San Francisco Chronicle, September 13, 1993)

RALPH REED (Executive director of the Christian Coalition)

"What Christians have got to do is to take back this country, one precinct at a time, one neighborhood at a time and one state at a time ... I honestly believe that in my lifetime we will see a country once again governed by Christians ... and Christian values." (Religious News Service, May 15, 1990)

JERRY FALWELL (Senior Pastor of Thomas Rhodes Baptist Church)

"Modern U.S. Supreme Courts have raped the Constitution and raped the Christian faith and raped the churches by misinterpreting what the founders had in mind in the First Amendment of the Constitution ... We must fight against those radical minorities who are trying to remove God from our textbooks, Christ from our nation. We must take back what is rightfully ours." (Moral Majority Sermon, March 1993)

"I hope to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be." (America Can Be Saved, 1979)

PAT ROBERTSON (Founder of Regent University, CBN, Christian Coalition and the American Center for Law and Justice)

"If Christian people work together, they can succeed during this decade in winning back control of the institutions that have been taken from them over the past 70 years. Expect confrontations that will be not only unpleasant but at times physically bloody ... This decade will not be for the faint of heart, but the resolute. Institutions will be plunged into wrenching change. We will be living through one of the most tumultuous periods of human history. When it is over, I am convinced God's people will emerge victorious. But no victory ever comes without a battle." ("Pat Robertson's Perspectives," Oct/Nov 1992)

"They (the secular-humanists) have kept us in submission because they have talked about separation of church and state. There is no such thing in the Constitution. It's a lie of the left, and we're not going to take it anymore." (November 1993 address to the American Center for Law and Justice)

"Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It's no different. It is the same thing. It is happening all over again. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-biased media and the homosexuals who want to destroy all Christians. Wholesale abuse and discrimination and the worst bigotry directed toward any group in America today." (Fort Worth Star Telegram, September 14, 1993)

BILLY McCORMACK (Director of the Christian Coalition)

"I'd like for you to take - but your paper might not allow you to do it - and that is to take the Jewish element in the ACLU which is trying to drive Christianity out of the public place, and I'd like to see you do the something objective there. Because the ACLU is made up of a tremendous amount of Jewish attorneys." (Taped interview with the Los Angeles Times, November 14, 1990)

ROBERT SIMONDS (Founder and president of Citizens for Excellence in Education)

"America is now groaning! Atheistic secular humanist's should be removed from office and Christians should be elected. We can all then rejoice continually as our children and our nation will be more safe. Government and true Christianity are inseparable." (How to Elect Christians to Public Office, 1985)

W.A. CRISWELL (Senior Pastor of Dallas's First Baptist Church)

"There is no such thing as separation of church and state. It is merely a figment of the imagination of infidels." [Taped interview at the Republican National Convention (9/6/84)]

BEVERLY LaHAYE (Founder and president of Concerned Women of America)

"Today instead of protecting our right to freely exercise our religious faith in public places, publicly honoring our God and Creator as our forefathers did, we are forbidden to speak, to pray aloud, to read the Bible, to even teach Judeo-Christian values in our public schools and other public places because of an imaginary 'wall of separation' conjured by non-believers." (Fundraising letter, 1988)

WHAT DOES THE BIBLE ABOUT
POLITICS AND THE CHURCH?

Just exactly how all these people can say what they are saying in light of the clear teaching of the Scriptures is, of course, a mystery. The Bible clearly teaches that - as Christians - we are to have nothing to do with the world and the politics thereof. Jesus said,

"My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight ... but ... my kingdom (is) not from hence." (John 18:36)

Never was anything more plainly said: that this world is not our home, and that we are not even to fight for it or to attempt to make it better. Why? - because the Bible says,

"... the whole world lies in {the power of} the evil one." (1 John 5:19 - NASB)

The Bible teaches that the world is under Satan's control, and he is its ruler. Satan is the great KOSMOKRATOR (world-ruler) of this earth, and he has directed all his strength and ingenuity into causing it to flourish. To what end? - to capture man's allegiance and draw him to himself. He has one object: to establish his own dominion in human hearts worldwide.

Nonetheless, those who are being drawn into the effort to save the nation for "Christ and the church" - apparently have an extremely difficult time understanding this. They seem unable to fathom exactly who really is in charge here. True, they will acknowledge that Satan has an "influence" in the world and among the nations, but that is all that they will ever ascribe to him - influence, not control. But that is not what the Bible says; the Word of God clearly states that Satan CONTROLS the world. Satan controls the entire world:

"And the devil, taking him (i.e., Christ) up into an high mountain, shewed unto him ALL the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.
"And the devil said unto him ... (ALL THIS) IS DELIVERED UNTO ME AND TO WHOMEVER I WILL GIVE IT." (Luke 4:5-6)

The church is to have nothing to do with the world. Why? - because it belongs to Satan; therefore, it is beyond remedy; there is nothing that can be done to "reform" it - it is fit only for judgment. And that's not the end of it: John goes on to say,

"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world (i.e., our split level homes, our green lawns, our cars, our careers, our bank accounts, etc.). If any man love the world, the love of the Father is NOT in him." (1 John 2:15)

The Bible teaches that when we were born again, we became citizens of another kingdom - a heavenly kingdom - having NOTHING to do with this present world. It says that through baptism, we declared this fact publicly, and in doing so, we ipso facto renounced our old connections (i.e., citizenship) to this world much as a new immigrant to America , when he takes his oath of allegiance, renounces all former connections and allegiances to the country out from which he came.

As a result, the Bible says that the world now hates us, because we no longer belong to it. Indeed, Jesus says,

"If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." (John 15:19)

Our attitude, therefore, towards the world (and all the nations thereof) should be the same attitude one would expect to find in someone who was traveling through enemy territory: that we are merely "pilgrims and strangers" in it (and very furtive ones at that), a people who are just "passing through" (Hebrews 11:13); that, as the people of God -

"... we desire a better country, that is, an heavenly (one): wherefore God is not ashamed to be called ... (our) God: for he hath prepared for ... (us) a city (i.e., a heavenly city) ..." (Heb. 11:16)

And it is because of this fact that Peter can -

"... beseech ... (us) as strangers and pilgrims (in this world) ... (to) abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul ... (and draw us away from our connection to Christ's kingdom)" (I Peter 2:11)

The Bible says that -

"... (we) are (now) a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ... (we) should show forth the praises of him who hath called ... (us) OUT OF darkness [i.e., out of this world (cf. John 3:19; John 8:12; John 12:46; and Eph. 6:12)] INTO his marvellous light ..." (I Peter 2:9)

Nonetheless, the Religious Right feels somehow or other authorized to ignore these and other similar passages of Scripture. Isn't this what Jerry Falwell is telling us to do? - to act as if these verses are not a part of the Holy Writ and to involve ourselves in a vast political campaign to "save the nation for Christ and the church." Isn't this what Pat Robertson is telling us to do? Isn't this what D. James Kennedy, Chuck Colson, Tim LaHaye and countless others are encouraging us to do? Of course it is!

THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT PANICS

But let's get back to our story. By the fall of 1997, the Religious Right was beginning to show signs of desperation. Religious Right activists had to find a way to stop Clinton. Robert Fiske, the first Special Prosecutor, had disposed of the death of Vince Foster before Starr himself had been appointed Special Prosecutor. Mark Hosenball, writing in Newsweek (September 28,1998) reports that Whitewater had also come up "dry." It wasn't as if there was nothing there. Starr's prosecutors had long believed the story first told five years before by Little Rock businessman David Hale: that, in 1986 Clinton pressured Hale to make a fraudulent $300,000 loan to Clinton's business partner Susan McDougal. Clinton flatly denied the charge when he testified at the 1996 trial of Susan and Jim McDougal, and Starr's prosecutors considered accusing the president of perjury. But the idea was dropped because there were no credible witnesses to finger the president. Jim McDougal was dead, and Hale was a felon. The only other witness, Susan McDougal, refused to testify about the loan.

Meanwhile, new questions about Hale helped the White House in its continuing campaign to attack Starr. An independent investigator had uncovered evidence that $8,800 of Hale's legal fees had been paid by associates of archconservative multimillionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, heir to the Mellon banking fortune. Jay Bequette, the Little Rock lawyer who had received the money for Hale, declined to comment, and a Scaife lawyer denied knowledge of the payment. But Hale's current lawyer, David Bowden, confirmed that Hale had indeed received the money as a "loan" though he denied it influenced Hale's testimony against Clinton - but that pretty much finished off Whitewater.

The 1993 firing of the travel office smacked of cronyism and abuse of power. Starr's prosecutors did find evidence that senior White House officials, including the First Lady, may have misled investigators. But there wasn't enough to bring any indictments and nothing in the probe implicated the president.

Then there was the matter of "Filegate" - which at one point had looked like one of the most serious scandals involving the White House in years. Critics charged the improper acquisition of more than 900 FBI dossiers on members of GOP administrations had been part of a dirty-tricks operation directed against Clinton's foes and masterminded by the First Lady. But sources familiar with the probe say that Starr found no evidence that the files had been obtained for political purposes - at least nothing that would hold up in court. (Please see "A Starr-Crossed Probe" by Mark Hosenball in Newsweek, September 28, 1998, pg. 43)

And insofar as Mena was concerned - which some Clinton haters said implicated the president in drug running (in conjunction with a clandestine CIA "black operation" connected to Central America) - nobody wanted to touch that. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans wanted to open that can of worms, and when the CIA warned investigators off, both Democrats and Republicans were only too happy to comply. Besides, when the Mena drug running operation took place, it took place during a Republican Administration and on the orders of a CIA chief who had been appointed by a Republican president. In pursuing the Mena matter, the Republicans could very well end up catching themselves.

What was Starr to do? - all the holes which he had drilled - Travelgate, Whitewater, Filegate, Vince Foster, Mena - had come up dry. If there had been oil at the bottom of any of those wells, Starr hadn't been able to get at it. It looked as if Clinton was going to get off "Scott-free." It was precisely at this point that the Paula Jones affair once again entered Starr's horizons.

CONNECTING UP TO THE PAULA JONES AFFAIR

To be sure, the Paula Jones affair had never been totally out of Starr's sight. Early on he - along with all the rest of his friends in the Federalist Society and the "Olson Salon" - had taken a strong interest in the case. Indeed, Starr had volunteered his time to Gil Davis and Joseph Cammarata, Paula Jones's lawyers, to help (free of charge). To those that frequented the rather "straight," "up-tight," right-wing legal circles that comprised the Federalist Society and the "Olson Salon," this was the kind of disgusting sexual behavior that they felt characterized Clinton and his ilk (i.e., the draft dodging, pot smoking, free love junkies of the 1960s - the ones that had been responsible for losing the war in Vietnam). [Not that many of them had gone either, but that didn't seem to matter.]

Clinton's sex life, of course, was legendary. There wasn't much of a secret about the vigor of Clinton's carnal appetite and sexual prowess. By his own account to Lewinski, the president estimated that he had been involved with "hundreds and hundreds" of women over the years. His family knew, his associates knew, his friends in Little Rock knew - and after Jennifer Flowers surfaced in 1992, the whole nation knew. Unfortunately, and much to the disgust of Starr and those who comprised Starr's rather tight-knit world, the public didn't seem to care! But Starr and his circle of friends were fascinated with the case. They cared! They cared a lot!! - and, as a result, they maintained a high interest and close attachment to it.

Naturally, when Starr was tapped for the job of Independent Counsel, he withdrew his offer of free help to Davis and Cammarata. But Olson, Starr's good friend, as well as many others connected to Starr's legal circles, continued their interest and their connections with the case. Indeed, Olson and his friend, Robert Bork, played judges for Paula Jones's attorneys in a "moot court" practice session just before they (i.e., Davis and Cammarata) argued the Jones v. Clinton case in the U.S. Supreme Court. The practice session was held at the Army-Navy Club in Washington D.C. The Jones Team ultimately prevailed, and shortly thereafter Davis and Cammarata, Jones's lawyers, worked out what they considered to be a fair settlement with the president which included a $700,000 payment to Jones.

HIJACKING THE PAULA JONES CASE

Then something quite unexpected happened. Jones turned the settlement down. $700,000! - that's a lot of money for a girl from Arkansas to turn down! Why? What happened? Obviously, someone had gotten to her and persuaded her that she had more to gain pursuing the case than she had in settling it. Gil Davis and Joseph Cammarata were incensed. They quit, saying that Jones had gone against their advise and turned down a very generous settlement offer. Davis and Cammarata issued a statement which said, "Our client persists in a course of conduct involving the lawyer's services that the lawyers reasonably believe is illegal and unjust." Both Davis and Cammarata refused beyond that remark to say exactly why they left the case - only that they could not proceed without violating ethical procedures, suggesting that their client had some agenda other than simply bringing a lawsuit.

THE RUTHERFORD INSTITUTE

But who had gotten to Jones? Who had persuaded her to spurn the president's rather generous offer and to soldier on? - the Rutherford Institute! It was widely rumored in the press at the time that the Rutherford Institute was merely acting as Starr's "stalking horse," and that by removing Davis and Cammarata from the case, Starr more or less was hijacking the Jones case for his own purposes. A lot of people scoffed at such reports at the time, and Starr was careful to maintain a discreet distance from all the "goings on," but it soon developed that there was more to these reports than at first met the eye - if only because behind all the maneuvering to replace Davis and Cammarata with the Rutherford's legal team was Starr's old friend and "Svengalli," Theodore Olson.

The Rutherford Institute is an ultra-conservative legal foundation associated with various Religious Right causes, particularly prayer in the schools. It is based in Charlottesville, Virginia, in the heart of Falwell country, and it too - like so many other conservative legal foundations - is a recipient of funds from Richard Mellon Scaife.

JOHN WHITEHEAD AND ROUSAS JOHN (R.J.) RUSHDOONY

John Whitehead, the institute's founder and head, is a disciple of Rousas John (R.J.) Rushdoony, head of the Chalcedon Foundation, based in Vallecito, California. Rushdoony reportedly helped Whitehead found the Rutherford Institute, and has been a director of the Institute and a participant in its speakers bureau. Rushdoony is the originator of and prime mover behind the many faceted movement which has come to be called "Christian Reconstruction." Christian Reconstruction is dedicated to replacing secular law with "Biblical law," and secular states with "theocratic republics." Reconstructionism in its broadest sense describes the rebuilding by Christians of every aspect of Western Civilization according to biblical strictures, beginning first with the United States. It is founded on the belief that God's laws, as described in the Bible, pertain to all people throughout history and comprise the only legitimate basis for culture. It places a demand on Christians everywhere to involve themselves in this process. Those who don't actively participate in the rebuilding of America as a "Christian state" are deemed apostates, and are to be dealt with accordingly - i.e., as the enemies of God.

Whitehead's 1977 book, The Separation Illusion, contains an introduction by Rushdoony. The book employs a Manichaean-sounding rhetoric emphasizing a kind of spiritual warfare between "the sons of God" and the "sons of darkness." (Manichaeism is hardly a fundamentalist / biblical theme!) Rushdoony is also the most frequently cited author in the bibliography for Whitehead's The Second American Revolution - a favored text among evangelical politicos. Rushdoony's major tome, The Institutes for Biblical Law, is also frequently cited by Whitehead. If pressed, Whitehead - like Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition - will deny that he is a Reconstructionist. But like Robertson, the denial is always followed by a "but" - for example, "I don't agree with Reconstructionism, but ..."

RUSHDOONY AND THE JEWS

In The Institutes, Rushdoony elaborates eighteen offenses which merit the death penalty. In his exposition of one of these offenses - bearing "false witness in a case involving a capital offense - he reveals himself as a revisionist insofar as the Holocaust is concerned. He writes:

"The false witness borne during World War II with respect to Germany (i.e., the death camps) is especially notable and revealing. The charge is repeatedly made that six million innocent Jews were slain by the Nazis, and the figure - and even larger figures - is now entrenched in the history books. Poncins, in summarizing the studies of the French Socialist, Paul Rassinier, himself a prisoner in Buchenwald, states: 'Rassinier reached the conclusion that the number of Jews who died after deportation is approximately 1,200,000 and this figure, he tells us, has finally been accepted as valid ... Likewise he notes that Paul Hilberg, in his study of the same problem, reached a total of 896,393 victims'.

"Very many of these people did of epidemics; many were executed."

Rushdoony argues that the purportedly inflated Holocaust death toll derives from a "basic insensitivity to truth which too extensively characterizes this age." Jews, Rushdoony argues, were wrongfully killed by Nazis; the number of victims was vastly inflated to shock a desensitized modern world; the Nazis were therein victims of false witness; false witness is punishable by execution. One may deduce from this twisted scheme that those who refute Holocaust "revisionism" and its false calculations deserve death.

RUSHDOONY AND THE "GENE POOL"

Pretty cold man, that Rushdoony! But that's not the end of it. Rushdoony writes often regarding matters of race and racial purity. In The Institutes, he writes, "Clearly history has witnessed genetic deterioration. Selective breeding in Christian countries has led to the progressive elimination of many defective persons, however." What a statement. It sounds like something straight out of The Bell Curve by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray (please see "Racism & Right-Wing Christianity"). For example, Rushdoony writes:

"The awareness of the necessity for improving the human stock has led some to advocate massive out-breeding as a means of genetic progress ... but ... out-breeding with inferior stock (i.e., blacks, Latinos, etc.) can only add more problems to the already existing ones."

On blacks, Rushdoony writes:

"They are an example, apparently, of 'inferior stock'."

"The white man has behind him centuries of Christian culture and the discipline and selective breeding this faith requires ... The Negro is a product of a radically different past, and his heredity has been governed by radically different considerations."

"The background of Negro culture is African and magic, and the purposes of the magic are control and power over God, man, nature, and society. Voodoo, or magic, was the religion and life of American Negroes. Voodoo songs underlie jazz, and old voodoo, with its power goal, has been merely replaced with revolutionary voodoo, a modernized power drive." (Please see The Religious Right, a publication of the ADL, pg. 124.)

Now, all this is racism, plain and simple - and it has no place in Christianity. (Please see "Racism & Right-Wing Christianity" )

STARR SETS A TRAP USING THE RUTHERFORD INSTITUTE

Getting back to our story, the question that needs to be asked now is why did Starr - using the Rutherford Institute as his stalking horse - move to hijack the Paula Jones case. Well, the reason isn't all that difficult to fathom. Rumors had been circulating for years all over Washington about the president's affairs. It was widely known that Clinton found it impossible to keep his pants zipped up, especially in front of good looking, young women. From time to time, of course, the rumors would surface, and one "bimbo" or another would come forward to tattle on the president. On such occasions, the president's defense was to deny everything. Lie and deny, and then turn his "attack dogs' (i.e., Sydney Blumenthal, James Caravel, etc.) loose on the hapless victim, savage her, and then scare her off. By now it had all become routine - and it was precisely that routine that Starr and Olson were banking on.

More about all this in our next newsletter. But let's stop here and absorb what's been said so far.

Evangelicals have - for a considerable amount of time - been cheering on Christian politicos like John Whitehead. Whitehead stands at the intellectual center of those so-called evangelicals who have determined to re-constitute the United States as a "Christian Republic." He has aligned himself with people in the right-wing matrix who are prepared to minimize the Holocaust and what was done to the Jews during the Second World War. That's no accident! The fact is, many of the people who surround Rushdoony - Whitehead's mentor - look favorably on the work of institutions like the Institute for Historical Review. Indeed, Van Til - Rushdoony's mentor - "bought into" revisionist thinking hook, line and sinker.

THE INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL REVIEW &
THE FIGHT FOR "WESTERN CIVILIZATION"

The Institute for Historical Review (IHR), which is located in Costa Mesa, California, denies that the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews and other targeted groups ever took place; it is known to have sponsored conferences where notorious anti-Semites and racists were the featured speakers. Willis Carto, the institute's principle founder, is a virulent hate-monger and conspiracist. Carto maintains offices just a few blocks from the Capitol in Washington D.C. where he produces the Spotlight, a newspaper which celebrates neo-Nazis, skinheads, the Waffen SS, armed anti-Semites, and other anti-democratic forces.

The principle purpose in founding the institute was to separate Hitler, Nazism and "white pride" from what they ultimately produced in the Holocaust - the death of over twelve million people in the ovens of Auschwits, Treblinka, Sobibor, etc.

And why this effort? - because the results of the Holocaust have gone a long way in silencing "white supremacists" both in the United States and throughout the world - a silence which, the IHR believes, has led to the phenomenon of multiculturalism and the displacement of the older majority white, Euro-centered, Christian-based culture in this country and in Europe.

The people connected to the IHR believe that fascism (Nazism) and Hitler have been grossly misrepresented to the American people. They believe that what Hitler and Nazism were really fighting against during World War II was atheistic communism and the inundation of Western Civilization and Christianity by the Soviet Union. They see Hitler, then, not as the monster he has been presented as, but as a Christian hero who - at great sacrifice to himself and his countrymen - had the courage to stand up against Russia, communism and the Jews which were behind it all. Hitler and Germany were beaten because the Jews - which controlled Whitehall, Churchill, Wall Street and Roosevelt - brought the United States into the war against Germany. Moreover, they believe that the effort to portray Hitler as a "monster" rather than what he really was - a kind of Arthurian figure - is largely the result of the machinations of the Jewish lobby in the United States.

THE CRUSADER MINDSET AND EVANGELICALS

And just how far this kind of thinking has seeped into the American psyche is mind-numbing - the fact is, it's gone much further than most evangelicals seem prepared to grasp. There's a rage out there, a rage by whites against multiculturalism and economic globalism which is seriously being underestimated (and excused) by evangelicals in this country - a rage which is pre-disposing countless numbers of evangelicals to the propaganda being generated out of the IHR. And evangelicals everywhere are buying into this rage - but it is exactly the same kind of rage that produced Hitler and the Third Reich (Hitler's Millennial Kingdom). And in the end, it will produce exactly what Hitler and the Third Reich produced - an eternity of shame for all those who involve themselves in it.

Oh, you think that evangelicals are not involved in all this? Well think again! Take just one small example, Maureen Salaman, a well-known TV personality on the Family Christian Broadcasting Network (FCBN). FCBN was started in 1982 by Ron Haus, a former Assemblies of God minister. Starting as a one-station operation, FCBN's original signal area was limited to the San Francisco Bay area. Gradually, the network added repeater stations in Fresno and Sacramento. By the late 1980s, FCBN began syndicating some of its programs on other Christian networks. The most popular of these shows is "Accent on Health" with Maureen Salaman.

Salaman is known nationally as a veteran activist in Willis Carto's Liberty Lobby (see page 8). In 1984, Salaman campaigned as the vice-presidential candidate on the slate of Carto's fractious electoral front, the Populist Party. She is an ardent distributor of Carto's Spotlight Magazine (see above), a weekly tabloid which is devoted to a virulent fascist ideology - and one which portrays Hitler as a Christian, anti-Communist crusader.

The story of Maureen Salaman is so bizarre and peculiar that one is tempted to "write it off" as an aberration from the norm. But that is simply not the case. Ron Haus certainly knows what Salaman is up to; it is fully within his power as owner of FCBN to put an end to her open involvement with Willis Carto and the Liberty Lobby. But he has apparently done nothing; quite the opposite, he has promoted her program at every opportunity.

And it doesn't end with Haus. Dennis Peacocke is Ron Haus's "pastoral advisor" or "shepherd." Haus works with Peacocke in the Coalition on Revival (COR). It is, thus, also fully within Peacocke's power to end Salaman's relationship with Carto and the Liberty Lobby. He too, however, refuses to do so. One is reminded of an old proverb, "Silence is the voice of complicity."

Of course, people like Pat Robertson, D. James Kennedy, Jerry Falwell, Charles Swindall, Chuck Colson, etc. think they can inoculate themselves from all this - that they can "buy into" parts of this kind of thinking, while not other parts. But in the end it will be nothing more than an exercise in futility. Not too many years hence, we may all be wearing jackboots and be marching out to conquer the world for "Christ and the Church" - and that's what the "Great Deception of the Last Days" is all about. Thinking to do good, we will do evil - more evil than has ever been done in the history of the world.

The only question is, where do you stand in all this.