(282) Sat 29 Oct 94 11:28 By: Shelby Sherman To: All Re: more cor St: @EID:5b6c 1d5d5b80

(282)   Sat 29 Oct 94 11:28
By: Shelby Sherman
To: All
Re: more cor
St:
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@EID:5b6c 1d5d5b80
@GMD: 1:123/301
@MSGID: 1:123/67 2eb26a4a
@PID: GED 2.41+ 124LM3
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* Forwarded by Shelby Sherman (1:123/67)
* Area : THUMP_IT (Thump It! Religious Debate)
* From : Starwyn, 1:104/515 (25 Oct 94 17:17)
* To   : All
* Subj : more cor
=============================================================================

>>>Text of article from "Church and State" by Fred

Clarkson Pp 9-12<<<

HardCor

     Mark Twain, reading today's papers, might observe that the
news of the death of the Christian Right has been greatly
exaggerated.
     Examples abound, but one need look no further than the
thumpingly successful crusades of the Rev. Don Wildmon's American
Family Association and the broader Christian Leaders for
Responsible Television (CLEAR-TV) against television programming
they don't like.  Most recently, Burger King, a sponsor targeted
by the groups, surrendered and pledged fealty to "traditional
family values" in full page ads, after a two-month boycott over
the fast food chain's commercials on allegedly racy and anti-
Christian TV shows.
     But there is more to Wildmon and many of his allies than
television trouble-making.  He is a member of the Steering
Committee of the Coalition on Revival (COR), a secretive, theo-
political movement that seeks to bridge theological gaps among
conservative Christians and foster religious and political unity.
The movement's goal is nothing less than the establishment of its
vision of the Kingdom of God here on earth.
     The Coalition is the epitome of the refocusing and
retrenching of the Christian Right in the wake of the
televangelist scandals of the '80's and the rise of the secular-
minded presidency of George Bush.  Its roots, however, grow from
the Religious Right's heyday during the Reagan era, and it seeks
the establishment of a government-enforced Christian nation.
Working largely behind the scenes, the movement's influence has
be subtle and significant.  Prominent COR Steering Committee
members have included: televangelists D. James Kennedy and Ron
Haus, Robert Dugan of the National Association of Evangelicals,
the Rev. Tim LaHaye of the Traditional Values Coalition, former
U.S. Rep Mark Siljander (R-Mich.) and Religious Roundtable chief
Ed McAteer,
     Founded in 1982 by Dr. Jay Grimstead, COR has sought to
create a trans-denominational theology - a process that has
included the creation of 17 "Worldview" documents, a Manifesto of
the Christian Church, and a set of 25 key theological tenets
called the 25 Articles.  COR claims that "112 national
theologians and leaders working with 500 experts in those 17
different fields worked together in 17 committees."  The various
COR papers have been distributed widely among sympathizers both
here and abroad.
     One major focus has been to reconcile two main evangelical
eschatologies (end-times theology),  Most evangelicals in this
century have been pre-millenialists/dispensationalists, that is,
Christians who believe it is not possible to reform this world
until Jesus returns.  The minority post-
millenialists/Reconstructionist camp believes it is necessary to
build the Kingdom of God here and now.
     COR, which is led by post-millenialists and politically
motivated by pre-millenialists (like Tim LaHaye), has sought to
impose a non-quarrelling" policy on such matters.  In response to
a "Theological Summit" last year between COR advocates and
critics, one critic astutely observed to Christianity Today that
COR avoids defining both the means and ends of establishing to
Kingdom and that "These (25) Articles seem to be devised to
obtain if not the cooperation of the dispensationalists, at least
their neutrality.."
     Indeed, the pre-millenialist/dispensationalist avoidance of
entanglements with "this world" has kept much of evangelical
Christianity on the sidelines of politics and government.  COR's
de-emphasis of eschatology could effectively dissolve barriers to
political participation for many and clear the way for political
leadership by the Religious Right.
     Although loath to admit it, many leading evangelicals have
already been profoundly influenced by Reconstructionism, a
movement that seeks to impose some variant of Old Testament law
on all society.  Sociologist Sara Diamond observes in her book
Spiritual Warfare:  The Politics of the Christian Right that
Reconstructionism "has become the central unifying ideology of
the Christian Right" and that COR is the cutting edge of
Reconstructionism.
     Reconstructionism has many variations - the "Biblical Law
Revival," "Kingdom theology," "Dominion theology"- and all are
represented in COR.  The acknowledged leader of
Reconstructionism, R.J. Rushdoony, is a COR Steering Committee
member who is slated to teach the biblical view of law at COR's
planned Kingdom College.  Fellow Reconstructionist (and COR
Steering Committee member) Gary North has said, "Rushdoony is the
Marx of this movement.  I'm trying very hard to be the Engles."
     Reconstructionists seek to apply "Biblical Blueprints" to
reform society, usually according to laws found in the Old
Testament.  Rushdoony's extreme views (not necessarily those of
COR) include opposition to democracy and advocacy of the death
penalty for homosexuals, adulterers, blasphemers, astrologers,
witches, teachers of false doctrine and incorrigible children.
(North takes that view one step farther and insists that the
preferred biblical means of execution is stoning.)  At COR's next
"Theological Summit" - scheduled for the Crystal City Marriott,
near Washington, D.C., Jan. 24-26 - the application of Old
Testament law to modern life will be discussed.
     COR's more general "world-view" would also not bode well for
American traditions of church-state separation, pluralism, civil
liberties and labor rights.  One of the "25 Articles" state in
part:  "We deny that anyone, Jew or Gentile, believer or
unbeliever, private person or public official is exempt from the
moral and juridical obligation before God to submit to Christ's
Lordship over every aspect of his life in thought, word, and
deed."
     COR "Commitment Sheets" - which must be signed by COR
leaders - require that one must be "willing to be martyred for
Jesus Christ and the establishment of His Kingdom here on earth"
and be "willing to submit to the hierarchical order that God has
created in which we are willing to submit as to Christ [emphasis
added] to employers, civil government and church leaders, and
within families, wives to their husbands and children to their
parents."
     In 1990, COR created a political program and action arm
called the National Coordinating Council (NCC), which advocates
abolition of the public schools, the IRS and the Federal Reserve
System by the year 2000, and seeks to Christianize all aspects of
life from the arts and sciences to banking and the news media.
(See "Kingdom Strategy," page 11.)  The NCC hopes to accomplish
its agenda in part by setting up a "kingdom" counter-culture of
sorts, including a "Christian" court system.  (In the meantime,
NCC leaders propose an "aggressive fierce Christian version of
the ACLU" to fight for its views in regular courts.)
     The NCC plans call for a grass-roots effort to elect their
kind of Christians to county boards of supervisors and sheriff's
offices, and disturbingly, once in power, to establish county
militias.  COR chief Grimstead says the militias are needed
because the federal government can't be trusted to defend the
U.S. against an invasion from a future "Communist Mexico."  This
implies, of course, not Minutemen on the Lexington Green, but
fully equipped local "Christian" armies.
     The COR program is being taken to 50 North American cities
over the next five years.  The method is to hold invitation-only
"Merge Ministry Seminars" geared toward the development of
"councils of pastors."  According to internal documents obtained
by Church and State, COR/NCC teams are coming to San Diego, Los
Angeles, Phoenix, Little Rock, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas/Fort
Worth, Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, B.C. in 1991.
     "Our present war with the forces of darkness," wrote
Grimstead recently, "will not be won in any city or county until
the Christian leaders thee deliberately form a coalition of
'spiritual generals' who will work together as a single unit."
Failing to create "such a unified D-Day approach," he continued,
"is to ensure our defeat."  He has invited COR members to move to
the San Francisco Bay area this year [1991] to create a model "D-
Day effect" - and plans a national invasion of the Bay area Oct
11-20.
     Grimstead's views of an ecumenism of the right may spring
from his own pilgrimage through differing religious groups.  The
57 year old activist started out in the Presbyterian tradition,
but moved to an ultra-conservative off-shoot of the main
denomination.  An area director of the evangelical youth ministry
Young Life for 1957 to 1877, he left that movement to form the
now-defunct Council on Biblical Inerrancy.  Grimstead is
currently affiliated with a San Jose, Calif., congregation of the
Pentecostal Holiness Church, a charismatic denomination.
     Grimstead believes Christian Right sympathizers can put
aside theological differences to work toward common political and
societal goals.  At a COR-sponsored "Solemn Assembly" at the
Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. in 1986, he told one
reporter, "We think we can influence every sector of American in
the next 10 years so it will be almost unrecognizable.  Not just
this Coalition on Revival, but fundamentalist, evangelical,
charismatic and Catholic Christians whose foundation is the Bible
and the Lordship of Christ.  We're going to bring America back to
its biblical foundations.
     "We're standing on a commitment to getting God's will done
on earth as it is in heaven," he observed.  "We think no
Christian can argue with that, because it is part of the prayer
the Lord taught us to pray.  Anybody who can go for that is with
us."
     Early on, Grimstead seemed to be having some success.  The
COR Steering Committee, featured on the group's letterhead,
includes a cross-section of conservative Christian activists.  In
addition to the prominent evangelicals mentioned earlier, names
on the list include Robert Simonds of Citizens for Excellence in
Education, Reagan administration official Carolyn Sundseth,
"creation-science" advocate Duane Gish, anti-abortion leader
Peter Gemma, "pro-family" activist Connaught Marshner, home-
schooling attorney Michael Farris, Intercessors for America
chairman John D. Beckett, Dennis Peacocke and Bob Mumford of the
controversial "Shepherding/Discipleship" movement, and Edith and
Franky Schaeffer, wife and son respectively of the late
evangelical guru Francis Schaeffer.
     But Grimstead's radicalism seems to be threatening the
group's unity.  In addition to the goals already mentioned, his
recent NCC "ministry merge" document also called for all
"leadership Christians" to practice fasting and learn how to cast
out demons.  Local church groups, he said, must form a Christian
voting bloc and be linked together into a "single, area-wide,
mobilizable, spiritual army."
     In addition to evangelizing all junior and senior high
schools, NCC goals include taking control of all school boards,
with a view toward replacing public schools with private
Christian schools by the year 2000.
     Grimstead's ideas have led to some schisms with COR.
Defectors include Religious Right activist and Biblical Scorecard
publisher David Balsiger, Beverly LaHaye of Concerned Women for
America, Gary Amos of Regent University, and Robert Dugan of the
National Association of Evangelicals.
     Among other's who seem to be scuttling away from the taint
of Rushdoony's views and the emerging militance of COR/NCC is Don
Wildmon, who actually sued an official of the National Endowment
for the Arts for slander after she inaccurately attributed
Rushdoony's views on capital punishment and democracy to Wildmon
and his American Family Association.  (Rushdoony himself is a
long accepted leader in conservative circles, having served on
the Board of Governors of the elite Council for National Policy,
and on the advisory board of the Conservative Caucus and
Conservative Digest.)  Gary Amos now claims that the COR/NCC
agenda exists only on paper and blames it on Grimstead.  NAE's
Dugan says COR has gotten too Reconstructionist for him.
     In his own defense, Grimstead told Christianity Today that
the COR/NCC program is a fair representation of the views of Pat
Robertson and D.James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries.  Top
Kennedy aides George Grant and Charles Wolf are listed as two of
the NCC's 45 activists.
     The ties to Robertson are also clear.  Joe Kickasola, a
professor at Robertson's Regent University (formerly CBN
University), was a principal author and with Gary Amos, defender
of the 25 Articles at last year's Theological Summit.  Regent U.
Board Chair (and COR Steering Committee member) Dee Jepson is
another link that shows the influence of FOR and
Reconstructionist thought.
     According to Robertson, Jepson was the main advocate of the
name change from CBN to Regent University.  Robertson explains
that the meaning of the new name states the mission of the
school.  He says a "regent" is one who governs in the absence of
a sovereign."  And Regent U. trains students to rule until Jesus,
the absent sovereign, returns.
     "One day, if we read the Bible correctly," he predicts, "we
will rule and reign along with our sovereign, Jesus Christ.  So
this is a kingdom institution to teach people how they may enter
into the privilege that they have as God's representatives here
on the face of the earth."  regent U. has 700 graduate students
in education, communications, religion and law - with plans for
3,000 (possibly 12,000 through "extension programs").
     The Christian Right is clearly building for the future, and
COR is playing a pivotal role by building the theological and
political alliances for the 1990s and beyond.
     Fred Clarkson, a Washington D.C. freelance writer, reports
extensively about the Religious Right.  This story is an expanded
version of a piece that appeared in the Nov/Dec issue of Mother
Jones magazine.


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