Yesterday I wrote about Todd Akin’s ties to David Barton, the widely discredited Christian Nation “historian.” Today Think Progress brings us the story of Akin’s ties to the Reverend D. James Kennedy, founder of the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and a “Christian supremacist” (i.e. dominionist) minister who “who spent his life organizing a movement dedicated to reorganizing the American government along radically conservative evangelical lines.” According to Think Progress‘s Zack Beauchamp, Kennedy:

… was particularly influential on Akin’s worldview. According to a Politico profile of Akin, “[t]wo sermons by Dr. D. James Kennedy have been very influential for Todd and he references them frequently in discussions of government.” Akin told Kennedy’s Truth in Action (formerly Coral Gables Ministries) organization that “Dr. Kennedy understood how to connect the principles of Scripture with the practical applications of what keeps a nation free, the principles that America was founded on.” Akin also co-sponsored a resolution last year that “honors Dr. Kennedy’s lifetime of service and sacrifice to his God, his country, [and] the ideals of the Christian faith.”

Kennedy, for his part, recognized Akin’s commitment to his mission. In his book How Would Jesus Vote?, he praised Akin as “one of my favorite statesman,” suggesting Akin’s tenure in the House reflected that “he is a seminary graduate and has chosen politics as his ministry.” In 2007, Kennedy’s Center for Christian Statesmanship gave Akin their “Christian Statesman Award,” awarded to “a person recognizes that individuals (as well as nations) must ultimately give account to God and are dependent on Him for prosperity and success.”

The Think Progress article tracks numerous parallels between the teachings of Kennedy and Todd Akin’s policy statements and legislative initiatives – go read it and shudder when you realize that all that is standing between a Christian Supremacist bigot and the Senate is a seriously beleaguered Claire McCaskill. A point made (by one Shaun Duke) in the comment section of the Think Progress article in makes an important point:

The really scary thing is that the American public is not as outraged by these ideas as they should be. After all, most of the stuff these folks believe in (to the point of wanting to make them legal frameworks) are things most Americans disagree with. And yet there’s no push against it in any serious capacity. Those who should be pushing for us (Democrats) really aren’t doing it.

Are our Democratic politicians so easily stampeded that the cover of Christianity, combined with the pervasive right-wing Christian pretense of victimhood, can be used to promulgate an authoritarian, essentially un-American agenda which, according to a prominent theologian, Tom Faw, who warns against American Christo-fascism,  “allows Christians, or disposes them, to impose themselves upon other religions, upon other cultures, and upon political parties which do not march under the banner of the final, normative, victorious Christ”?

*Slightly edited for clarity and style.

Missourians who believe in live and let live when it comes to religion ought to know that Todd Akin, the GOP candidate for the Senate, is, theologically speaking,  best buds with one David Barton. Barton is the founder of Wallbuilders, an organization that, as Wikipedia puts it, “advocates the view that U.S. constitutional separation of church and state is a myth.”  Here’s a video of Akin and Barton discussing the obligation of religious leaders to speak out from the pulpit and lead their flocks on political matters:

This type of effort to shape political policy through the medium of fundamentalist Christian religion is typical of a strain of evangelical fundamentalism called “dominionism,” or Christian reconstructionism, which advocates for the establishment of a Christian theocratic government in the United States that would give religious institutions control over political, social and cultural life. (Sound like any other countries we know about? Perhaps Iran under the Imams or Afghanistan under the Taliban?) According to journalist Frederick Clarkson, under the dominionist/reconstructionist regime:

… society would feature a minimal national government, whose main function would be defense by the armed forces. No social services would be provided outside the church, which would be responsible for ‘health, education, and welfare.’ A radically unfettered capitalism (except in so far as it clashed with Biblical Law) would prevail. Society would return to the gold or silver standard or abolish paper money altogether. The public schools would be abolished. Government functions, including taxes, would be primarily at the county level.

Women would be relegated primarily to the home and home schools, and would be banned from government. Those qualified to vote or hold office would be limited to males from Biblically correct churches.

Take a look at the statements of a certain Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Missouri and tell me Todd Akin (oops!) isn’t toeing the reconstructionist line right down the road – at least to the extent that he can and still manage to get elected.

Barton’s  styles himself an historian although he lacks the requisite academic credentials – he has a Bachelor’s degree in Christian Education. His contribution to the  reconstructionist movement has been to lend it legitimacy by purporting to show that the Founders intended the United States to be a “Christian Nation” in the reconstructionist sense. His scholarship has been repeatedly debunked in academic venues which, of course, has had little effect on the true believers – such as Todd Akin – who continue to rely on his scholarly veneer to justify their authoritarian goals, as well the more run-of-the-mill, right-wing politicians who find his willingness to give a biblical luster to their corporatist goals exceedingly covenient.

Yesterday, however, NPR’s All Things Considered aired a segment on Barton (worth listening to or reading in its entirety) that might help to shine a light on the pernicious nature of his undertaking and, at the same time, help to expose the squishy intellectual underpinnings of theocrats like Todd Akin. The program “fact-checked” Barton’s most quoted claims and found that they were almost all entirely unfounded. Further, they pointed out that his recent book, The Jefferson Lies, which was on the New York Times Best-Seller list, was withdrawn by its publisher because of the number of factual errors it contained.

All well  and good, shining a light on charlatans is always helpful, but considerations of truth and real scholarship aside, it’s unlikely that Barton will see his influence diminished any time soon – he’s too useful to the right-wing. And that’s a bad thing since  as John Fea, chairman of the History Department at evangelical Messiah College, and a fellow evangelical, pointed out during the NPR piece, Barton is a “danger because he’s using a skewed version of the past to shape the future.” Fea declared that Barton is:

… in this for activism, […].  He’s in this for policy. He’s in this to make changes to our culture.

And one of the tools reconstructionist activists like Barton will use to change our culture are simple souls like Rep. Akin – if they can keep him in Washington, that is.

Don’t get me wrong – politicians have a right to their religious beliefs, but not at the expense of our religious freedom – real religious freedom, not that self-indulgent, authoritarian crap coming from the Catholic Bishops and the “war on Christmas” fanatics these days, but the type of freedom that does not subject our children to Christian triumphalism in their schools, or the pretense that religious freedom amounts to trampling the rights of liberal Christians and non-Christians. David Barton’s lies aside, real historians agree that the Founders wanted us to have just that type of freedom.  

I was away from Missouri during the past month, but the internet being what it is, I was able to keep up with the outrage generated by the inestimable Todd Akin who gave voice to his belief that “liberals hate God.” I have to admit, that the only thing that surprised me about this rather typical Akin statement is that it has received so much attention.  Akin, after all, is the guy who

— chuckled about how Democrats nearly got “lynched” at their rambunctious, tea-party fueled town halls;

— declared that those without sufficient means should have to depend on the whims of those dispensing private charity for their health care;

— stated his conviction that abortion is not health care and rape is not rape unless the victim is physically damaged;

— worried publicly about how health care reform might discourage marriage;

— expressed his belief that God so worries about GOP policy priorities that He personally intervened to elect Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown and thus deprive the Democrats of a filibuster-proof senate majority;

— compared the passage of the Affordable Care Act to 9/11.

During the past ten years, Akin has expressed countless similar ignorant and bigoted opinions. His dim-witted meanderings have occasionally garnered a little short-lived local attention, depending on just how offensive they are, but the noise level quickly diminishes. It is gratifying that as a senatorial candidate he may not get off so easily – his latest bon mot seems to still be making waves (or, at this point, perhaps they’re wavelets).

What really strikes me, though, about Akin’s numerous pronouncements is that he makes no pretense that he even listens to constituents whose beliefs and needs differ from his chosen orthodoxy. He’s there for the small percentage of citizens who share his narrow views. His and, presumably, their goals are to impose those views, especially views about religion and personal deportment, on the rest of us, no matter what we think or want.

Brother Todd has dealt with the inconvenient ‘libruls” and even the more moderate Republicans in his district by keeping as low a profile as he can when it comes to his Christian dominionist leanings – which is why his recent predicament is so delicious. He’s kept up a fiction of acting in a representative way by sending around periodic “polls” with artfully biased questions, almost always accompanied with his fanciful take on the issue masquerading as background information. Nearly as bad are his informational “Alerts.” His “town halls” and constituent meetings have been carefully stage-managed and any dissenting voices quickly silenced.

And Akin is not alone in this attitude – it is shared by many in his increasingly radical party. I will never forget when my state Rep, little Andy Koenig, came knocking on my door to solicit my vote – his gambit was to ask a few leading questions about taxes and abortion. It quickly became apparent that there was no meeting of the minds between us and Koenig became increasingly antsy. However, before he made off, I remarked to him that we didn’t seem to share the same viewpoints about social responsibility and personal choice and I asked him how he was proposing to represent people like me if he were to be elected. You should have seen him – he couldn’t run away fast enough. Needless to say, I got no answer. I, and those like me, clearly just didn’t count and he wasn’t going to waste time trying to get his head around the concept in order to even acknowledge my point of view.

Anti-democratic and authoritarian though it may be, this approach has had a fair amount of success in Missouri. It is hard to resist the pull of us vs. them tribalism, especially when it is bolstered by religious teaching. It is going to be interesting to see how Akin’s propensity for bigotry, religious and otherwise, plays statewide over the next few months. The response will tell us a lot about the future of democracy over the next few decades.  

TPM notes that among incoming House members, four unequivocally qualify for membership in that chamber’s Crazy Caucus – among them, Missouri’s Vicky Hartzler. In this very special group of congressional newbies, which includes such standard fringewing specimens as as a proud torturer of war prisoners (Allen West, R-FL), an hysterical anti-Muslim fanatic (Renee Elmers, R-NC), and a birther (Tim Walberg, R-MI), Hartzler occupies the requisite religious nut niche (although there will no doubt be lots of mutual holding of ideological hands):

Hartzler belongs to that particular branch of conservative politicians, such as Michele Bachmann, who have described their political careers as callings from God. In fact, she wrote a campaign handbook for similarly-minded aspiring politicians, Running God’s Way.

This leaves me with just one question. Is Hartzler the price the powers that be are exacting in return for getting the queen of Christian scourges, Cynthia Davis, out of state government? If so, the tally is unbalanced – we still have Christian Dominionist Todd Akin (R-2nd) running untethered in Washington. One such embarrassment from Missouri should be enough, particularly in Washington where they can do big-time, national damage to Missouri’s reputation if they’re not watched carefully, which, given the new character makeup of the House of Representatives, is unlikely to be the case.