The Public Eye magazine has just posted my most recent article online.  I am posting a few excertps below (and more than the usual excerpts, since umm, its my article) but you will have to click over to The Public Eye to read the whole thing.

I take the view that it is important that we have a sufficient understanding of our own history, and an ability to articulate it (and its not as hard as it sounds, once you have a well-framed narrative -- four suggested books in the article) so that we can recapture the narrative of American history from the Christian nationalists whose views are seeping into public life and play a surprising role in electoral politics.

I address these points in the excerpts below, but there is much more in the whole article.

As always, elements of the Greater Blogosphere are keeping an eagle eye on the religious right.  In this collection note that while we have been focused on events in Washington, interesting and disturbing events are nevertheless afoot out there in America -- things we might not otherwise hear about. Some of the battles in the culture war are in the courts, some are in the academies, some are in the streets.

The Greater Blogosphere is on the case.

Dick DeVos is running to be govenor of Michigan. Russ Bellant, author of The Religious Right in Michigan Politics, is very concerned. Here is why:

Dick DeVos is the richest and most right wing major party candidate for Governor in Michigan history. He is the product of the Amway company and its decades of interlinks with the most influential religious extremists. He conducts himself like an Amway recruiter, deception and all.

And Bellant believes DeVos would like to be president someday. Bellant has written what can only be called a profile in extremism, outlining DeVos' far-right religious and political involvements over many years. Originally posted in its entirety at Michigan Liberal, Bellant is posting it as a four part series at Talk to Action, where he will be a regular contributor after the election.  

Excerpts from the first two parts on the flip.

David Barton, the notorious Christian historical revisionist and longtime Texas GOP activist, is once again barnstorming the nation on the payroll of the Republican National Committee. As he did in 2004, Barton is now speaking in churches on behalf of GOP candidates. This past weekend, Barton made appearances with Rep. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) in three Baptist churchesin the Louisiana congressman's district. According to Barton's speaking schedule on the web site of Wallbuilders, the organization he heads in Aledo, Texas, the churches were: Calvary Baptist Church, in Alexandria,  Cedar Crest Baptist Church, in West Monroe, and  First Baptist Church Bossier City, in Bossier City. For each of the three events, the contact listed is not the church, but Taylor Teepell, at the Jindal campaign. Jindal is being challenged this year by Democrat Stacey Tallitsch.

As in 2004, Barton's campaigning seems intended to be mostly "below the radar."  

The Christian Reconstructionist movement has long been one of the driving forces of the contemporary religious right. I reported on this in a study published in The Public Eye in 1994, and expanded on my reporting and analysis in my 1997 book Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy.

Since then the signficance and influence of the overtly theocratic Reconstructionist movement has come to be more widely recognized.

Some of the best reporting in recent years has been done by journalist John Sugg. He has a report out on AlterNet on a major Reconstructionist conference just held in Georgia.

I will feature some highlights on the flip.

After the family gathering; after the picnic, after the fireworks, it is worth considering something. It is something about the way that the so called culture war, is partly a struggle over American history.  

On this Indpendence Day, the day we mark to celebrate the launch of the revolutionary new nation -- let us recall that leaders of the religious right use the Declaration to justify their ideology of Christian nationalism.  "Ugh," you may think to yourself. "I really don't want to think about that."  

But hey, chill.  I have good news.  I know we could think of this as part of a revolting parade of horrors that never seem to stop. But there is another way of looking at it:

The reason they are trying to hijack the Declaration -- is because they are desperate.  

In my more-or-less weekly round-ups of interesting and important posts about the religious right from the Greater Blogsophere, I have highlighted posts with which I generally agree in substance and tone.  

But sometimes, there are disagreements worth highlighting -- even among our friends.  And this week, a few have surfaced. What we disagree on, and how we go about disagreeing, can be at least as important as the things on which we agree and how we come to agree on them.