Jesus! Put your sandals on and get down here, we have an emergency!
I made the unfortunate or perhaps fortunate decision yesterday to Google videos of my opponent, much like an NFL coach reviews videos of the opposition in an effort to get an edge on the competition.
Well, I got an edge all right! A big, sharp, angry edge after watching her and a Christian podcaster discuss religion in politics and describe the opposition (that’s me) as “Satan,” “evil,” and “liars.”
I’m a firm believer in the separation of church and state and believe in and will FIGHT for your right to worship or not worship whoever or whatever you want. That said, I’m a Christian. Not a church-going, Bible-thumping, testifying Christian, but somebody who digs the teachings of Jesus.
My identifying as a Christian was never going to be a part of this campaign. I didn’t think it was appropriate. I didn’t think it was relevant. It shouldn’t be. But politics in Virginia is apparently bloodsport and there are no rules. So, gloves off Anne Ferrel Tata. Gloves off!
The first video I found was an hour long and I sort of half-watched it as there are myriad distractions during the day when you are running for state office. I need to go back and give it my full attention because I heard several alarming things. But the next video I watched was only 30 minutes and captured my attention. It was riveting.
Let’s hit the highlights.
The interview starts off with a big bang when the host asks her about the relationship between government and religion and whether there should be a relationship at all. Well, why pick just one mountain to die on when you can pick seven?
That’s right The Seven Mountain Mandate is how she feels about religion (her religion) in government.
Here’s a little on the mandate from Wikipedia: The Seven Mountain Mandate, also Seven Mountains Mandate, 7M, or Seven Mountains Dominionism, is a dominionist conservative Christian movement within Pentecostal and evangelical Christianity.
The movement was generally supportive of the Presidency of Donald Trump with member Paula White becoming the president's spiritual advisor. White claimed that Trump "will play a critical role in Armageddon as the United States stands alongside Israel in the battle against Islam." In 2020 Charlie Kirk said "Finally we have a president that understands the seven mountains of cultural influence" during a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Followers claim that the biblical base for the movement is derived from Revelation 17:1–18, wherein verse 9 reads, "And here is the mind which hath wisdom.
The seven heads are seven mountains.” The seven areas which the movement believes control society and which they seek to control are family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business, and government. They believe that their mission to take over the world is justified by Isaiah 2:2 "Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains.
Source: www.gregwigfield.com/...
Followers believe that by fulfilling the Seven Mountain Mandate they can bring about the end times.
That last part there just makes me chuckle. So for those of you who may not be ready for “end times” just yet, I guess I’m your candidate – by default.
Here’s how the delegate explains it in her own words:
“To me, that’s the political world as well. Um, it was never the intention that the division of church and state, it was a letter, everyone knows it was a letter from Thomas Jefferson and it was never, you know, part of The Constitution,” Tata said. “In fact, um, a lot of the early, um, church and state issues were to protect the church from the state, you know, we have it a little backwards.”
Ok. So she’s clearly not a great orator, but she knows that.
“I am the most ill-equipped. I was a non-politico. I had no political aspirations, she said. “This was never a thought in my head.”
She goes on to explain to the host that her decision to run for office was a calling from God. God woke her up in the middle of the night and asked her to run. Her husband had already said, “Absolutely not.” So the spiritual leader of her home said “no,” but the King of All Kings had other plans for her. She recalls the conversation with God like this:
God: I thought you would say “yes.”
Tata: But God, I get tongue-tied. I’m not articulate. I don’t know the issues.
God: Trust me.
Tata: But God, how am I going to raise money? I can’t self-fund this campaign. (She probably could, by the way. In fact, If she’s not the wealthiest member of our House of Delegates, she’s one of them. Zero percent of the other delegates have a similar financial profile to hers.)
God: Trust me.
She and the host, who we learn in the interview are friends, then discuss two landmarks in our district – the Cape Henry Cross and the iconic King Neptune statue on our boardwalk.
Photo Courtesy of Patrick “Buzz” Hayes
I wrote about the Cape Henry Cross and a recent event held there to rededicate America to God. The two women don’t come out and say it, but if you listen between the lines, you can deduce they were both there together.
Cape Henry: Site of “First Landing”
For some background on Neptune: the bronze statue is 34-feet tall, weighs 12 tons, and was erected in 2005. It’s a big draw for both locals and tourists and holds a special appeal to those who have served in the US Navy. Ex-sailors take pilgrimages to the statue to get their photo taken in front of it.
The women compare and contrast the statue and the cross, the cross representing all that is good and lovely and Neptune representing all that is dark and evil – an “idol” a “foreign god,” they agree.
Tata says this is a “spiritual war” and that while our city’s Neptune Festival – an event held after tourist season where the locals take our beach back from the tourists, “seemed innocent and fun at first…until they put this King Neptune statue right at our boardwalk and I was like, wow.”
“Wow” seems like a good word, Especially when you learn her husband was once in King Neptunes Court. He was Virginia Beach Neptune Festival’s Triton in 2012.
The host then asks, “How do you manage being a representative of both parties – those who walk in faith and those who walk in a spirit of delusion?”
“It’s good vs. evil,” Tata says. “It’s a scenario as old as time.”
But she’s not done comparing and contrasting the good vs. evil scenario just yet.
Virginia Beach is the home of the recently departed evangelist Pat Robertson, his Christian Broadcast Network, and the 700 Club – a person and an organization she presents as an example of good.
And then she says this, “But we also have the Edgar Cayce (Association for Research and Enlightenment) which is a New Age situation and it’s right here in the same place.”
Perhaps you’ve heard of Edgar Cayce, “the sleeping prophet.” He is a celebrated historical figure in our community. He was a devout Christian and a Sunday School teacher who read The Bible cover to cover at least a dozen times. He was an incredibly gifted and interesting man. To paint him as the opposite is mean and a lie.
All of this vile hatred spewing out of this polished persona in a Chanel suit delivered with a sickly sweet tone like saccharine.
Then she drops this little gift, “It does go to show you how you have to be careful how you associate with the world,” Tata says. “Because we are counter-culture.”
Hmm. Counter culture. If you say so delegate.
“People who don’t believe the way I believe,” she said. “My job is to love them.”
Here’s where she and I couldn’t be more different than each other. It’s not my “job” to love people, I just inherently do. It doesn’t require effort. MY “job” is to fight for people BECAUSE I love them.
And it’s no wonder she doesn’t know what her job as a representative for ALL Virginians actually entails. It’s not a job she wanted in the first place and she, in her own words, tells you she is “ill-equipped” and doesn’t know the “issues.” But she’s a part of the “Tata Machine” they all tell me. She’s got name recognition. Her father-in-law served as a Virginia Delegate for 30 years, her brother-in-law is Anthony Tata – that’s a story for another day.
Please consider helping us in our efforts to reject this religious extremism in government. Virginians deserve better and nobody deserves a representative who thinks that those who don’t share the same religious ideology are evil. God forbid.
