A lot of you may remember James Robison as one of the more prominent religious right leaders from the early 1980s. He pulled back later in the decade, saying that he didn't like the person that his demanding schedule was making him. In the process, he mellowed quite a bit, turning his focus to church unity and chucking his Southern Baptist roots in favor of the charismatic movement.
Well, so much for that. It turns out that Robison has returned to the culture wars. He recently co-authored a book called Indivisible: Restoring Faith, Family and Freedom Before It's Too Late with the Discovery Institute's Jay Richards. He's spent this week promoting the book on his show, Life Today. Yesterday, he declared that he would not allow those who believe in "secular theocracy" the freedom to keep preaching it.
Watch the whole thing here, if you can stand it.
I have to say that this is truly saddening to me. Robison was one of the few televangelists I liked. But I've done some digging since finding this video on PFAW's Right Wing Watch, and it turns out that he's been active on the religious right front for some time. For instance, in November 2010 he hosted a meeting in Dallas at which plans were laid to replace Obama with a social conservative.
Apparently Robison rejoined the culture wars as early as September 2010, when he started the process of organizing these meetings. In a July 2011 blog post, he made no bones about what he wanted to accomplish.
There is an insidious attack on God, faith, family and freedom. It is absolutely essential for believers to be involved in making wise decisions concerning our leadership and those we send to Washington to represent “we the people.” It is necessary for us to be prayerfully concerned about prevailing influences in our day which encourage anger, division, and hostility, especially toward those who have contributed to opportunity and success. Personal rights are being presented as coming from government, when the Bible is clear and our nation’s founders understood that our rights come from nature’s God and nature’s law. Tragically the major media, much of the academic community and other areas of influence are encouraging the people to trust “gov”, not “God.” I am convinced God is going to use these national leaders to help inspire a spiritual awakening, a return to sanity and a restoration of freedom’s foundation even as referenced in Isaiah 58 and Joel 2.
The list of participants is a virtual who's-who of religious right leaders--Rod Parsley, Richard Land, Daniel Lapin, Jerry Boykin, Ron Luce, Don Wildmon and many more.
The good news, though, is that their efforts aren't working. Remember, a good number of Repub strategists have said flat-out that the apparent religious right candidate of choice, Rick Santorum, would get Goldwatered. Still, a little bit of sunshine is definitely in order here.