With God On Our Side
Round-up of evangelicals
Christian Coalition (of America)
Conservative Christian political advocacy group founded by Pat Robertson in 1989. Claiming more than 2 million members, the Christian Coalition is considered one of the most successful grassroots organisations in modern US politics. It lost its tax-exempt status in 1999 for carrying out unlawful partisan political activities as a ‘social welfare organisation’. In response, the organisation split into two – Christian Coalition International, a profitmaking corporation, and Christian Coalition of America, which took over the already-secured tax-exempt status of the Christian Coalition of Texas. The candidates it has supported now reside in the US Congress, state legislatures, the courts, school boards and more.
Moral Majority
One of the largest conservative lobby groups in the US. Founded by Jerry Falwell in 1979, the Moral Majority mobilised the religious right and influenced elections by promoting its conservative and religious Christian-centric beliefs (against legal abortion, homosexuality and the so-called anti-family agenda, for example) through support of political candidates. The organisation was officially dissolved in 1989 due to financial problems and a dearth of support but lives on in the Christian Coalition.
Jim Bakker
Founder, with his first wife Tammy Faye, of the PTL (Praise the Lord) show and network. Between 1984 and 1987 annual contributions requested from viewers were estimated to exceed $1 million a week, while the Bakkers received annual salaries of up to $200,000 each. Bakker resigned from PTL in 1987 following revelations that he had paid a woman to keep their affair secret. Two years later, he was indicted for fraud but was released on parole almost five years into his 45-year sentence. While he was in prison, Tammy Faye divorced him. The Grahams paid for a house and car for him upon his release. Last year Bakker began broadcasting the Jim Bakker Show with his second wife, and now renounces his past teachings in which he argued that God wanted everyone to be rich.
Charles Colson
The chief counsel (some say ‘hatchet man’) for President Richard Nixon from 1969 to 1973. Following his release from prison for his part in Watergate, Colson founded Prison Fellowship, an organisation devoted to prison ministry. In October 2002, along with other prominent evangelists, he signed, the ‘Land Letter’ to Bush (so called because it was written by Richard D Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention), which outlined a ‘just war’ endorsement of the pre-emptive invasion of Iraq.
James Dobson
A conservative Christian psychologist whose daily radio programme Focus on the Family is broadcast on more than 3,000 radio stations in 12 languages in 95 countries. Chair of the board of a non-profit organisation he founded in 1977 of the same name, he became famous with his book Dare to Discipline, in which he approved the spanking of young children. His mailing list is widely recognised to be the largest within evangelical circles.
Jerry Falwell
A vocal supporter of racial segregation during the 1950s and 1960s, Falwell founded the Moral Majority in 1979. Two days after 9/11 on evangelist Pat Robertson’s TV show The 700 Club, he laid blame for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon at the door of pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays and lesbians, the American Civil Liberties Union and People for the American Way. He said: ‘All of them who have tried to secularise America – I point the finger in their face and say, “You helped this happen.”’ He later apologised in a phone call to CNN. Allegations of partisan politicking have dogged Falwell for years, raising questions of whether he really believes in the separation of church and state.
Billy Graham
Southern Baptist evangelist and White House adviser for more than 50 years, Graham is widely seen as the leader of the current religious revival of the ‘Christian crusade’, which brought God out of the church and into politics. He has preached live to 210 million people in 185 countries. The Billy Graham Evangelist Association has an annual turnover of $109 million.
Franklin Graham
Son of Billy Graham and also an evangelical Christian preacher and missionary, Franklin delivered the benediction at George W Bush’s inauguration. He runs the evangelical charity Samaritan’s Purse, which links aid to evangelism, such as Operation Christmas Child – gift-filled shoeboxes delivered to needy children around the world along with ‘gospel books in their own language’. After 9/11 Franklin infamously called Islam ‘a very wicked and evil religion’. He aroused further ire last year when he travelled to Baghdad to conduct a Good Friday service, nine days after Baghdad had fallen to US military forces.
Stephen J Hankins
Dean of Bob Jones University (BJU), in Greenville, South Carolina,
which 'stands without apology for the old-time religion and the
absolute authority of the Bible'. Hankins became a Baptist minister
in 1975, has headed Baptist missions to Europe, and has worked
at BJU since 1977. The university was established in 1927 by evangelist
Bob Jones Sr, who believed that secular education undermined students'
faith. Today, BJU is known as the 'citadel of biblical Christianity'
in the USA. According to its mission statement: 'Within the cultural
and academic soil of liberal arts education, Bob Jones University
exists to grow Christlike character that is Scripturally disciplined;
others-serving; God-loving; Christ-proclaiming; and focused Above.'
[sic] Every student takes a Bible course each semester, and rock
music is banned.
Billy James Hargis
Founder of the Christian Crusade Ministries in the late 1940s as ‘a Christian weapon against communism and its godless allies’, Hargis believed that John F Kennedy’s assassination was the result of a communist conspiracy. In 1964 he published a book attacking communism entitled The Far Left.
Tim LaHaye
A conservative Christian evangelist and author and original board member of the Moral Majority, LaHaye is deeply committed to getting Christian candidates into office. He’s best known for the all-time bestseller Christian fiction series Left Behind, co-written with Jerry Jenkins, about the ‘Rapture’ or judgement day. In both his non-fiction and fiction, LaHaye blames ‘secular humanism’ for the evils of the world and calls for the Christian right to go on the attack to take back America.
Ralph Reed
Called the ‘right hand of God’ by Time magazine in 1995, Reed was the Christian Coalition’s executive director and political mastermind from 1989 to 1997. During his tenure, the organisation’s budget grew from $200,000 in 1989 to $27 million in 1996, and its following grew from 2,000 members to 2 million members and supporters. He has since become one of America’s leading political strategists; he’s founder and president of Century Strategies, a leading public relations and public affairs firm. Reed has been involved in seven presidential campaigns, including for Bush-Cheney this year.
Pat Robertson
Founder of the Christian Coalition and host of the popular TV show 700 Club, Robertson was a candidate for the Republican nomination for president of the US in 1988, even beating Vice President George Bush Snr in the Iowa Republican primary with support from the Christian Coalition. Robertson came under attack in the mid-1990s for claims that his $1.2 million of aid in cargo planes to Rwandan refugees through his charity ‘Operation Blessing International’ was actually spent hauling heavy equipment for Robertson’s African Development Corporation, a diamond mining operation. Robertson later said the planes had proved impractical for relief work and insisted he had reimbursed the charity for ADC’s use of them. In September 2002, he announced on a Fox News Channel that the prophet Mohammed was ‘a killer’.
James Robison
Well-known Texan evangelist and host of the Christian television programme Life Today, Robison transformed himself from a hard-hitting preacher denouncing gays and fringe religions in the 1970s and 1980s to a ‘true reality television host’ with a new emphasis on missions.
Todd Strandberg and Terry James
Authors of Are You Rapture Ready? which claims that the
biblical Last Days, or Endtime, are imminent. The authors are fundamentalist
Christians who believe that the prophecies of the Book of Revelations
are literal truth, and not a metaphorical myth. For them, the Last
Days will arrive when, in Strandberg's words, 'Antichrist confirms
a peace agreement with Israel'. In line with 'The Rapture' movement,
they expect Armageddon in their lifetime. They envisage it as a
nuclear war with human-made plagues and natural disasters such
as earthquakes. Strandberg started the Rapture Ready website in
1997, while James, who lost his eyesight in 1993, is an ex-public
relations manager who now writes extensively on prophecy.
Chaplain Scott
Bearded motorbike preacher from Arkansas. Chaplain Scott's unpublished
book, Dead or Alive in the Last Teenage Year, is a lurid
autobiographical account of how he found Jesus after a misspent
youth, during which he indulged in sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.
Now a born-again Christian evangelist, he wears leather biker's
gear, on which he sports seven bullets – the result of a
fight with three assailants that he survived despite being severely
wounded. He also says that, in 1996, he shot his wife by accident.
He believes in 'The Rapture'.
Jimmy Swaggart
A popular and pioneering televangelist in the 1980s. In 1988 Swaggart confessed on his television show that he was guilty of an unspecified sin (an affair with a prostitute) and would be temporarily leaving the pulpit. In mid-September 2004 Swaggart said in a sermon that he would kill gay men: ‘I’m trying to find the correct name for it … this utter absolute, asinine, idiotic stupidity of men marrying men. … I’ve never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry. And I’m gonna be blunt and plain; if one ever looks at me like that, I’m gonna kill him and tell God he died.’ He later apologised for these comments, claiming they were just a joke.
