The Bible Brigade – Social Conservatives, known as So-Cons or Theo-Cons – have since Stephen Harper organized to help elect politicians who share their worldview. In the U.S., they are often known as Christofascists (a significant number are Evangelicals). They are Conservative/Republican authoritarians who are anti-science, anti-experts, anti-public-education, & mostly anti-environmental protections. The right-wing Bible Brigade, over the last few decades, has forced the Overton Window to the right through their militant tactics & Christian fundamentalism.
The Bible Brigade needs to be exposed as the danger they are: “This isn’t the religious right we thought we knew. The Christian nationalist movement today is authoritarian, paranoid and patriarchal at its core. They aren’t fighting a culture war. They’re making a direct attack on democracy itself.” NYT
More recently, they’ve been involved in the Ottawa Occupation, & the Coutts, Alberta Border Blockades.
A nation-wide network of far-right Evangelical pastors are participating in the occupation of Ottawa and blockades at the Canada-US border.
“A nation-wide network of right wing Christian Evangelical pastors have been participating in the convoy occupation of Ottawa and border blockades in Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario.”
For many inside the Freedom Convoy, faith fuels the resistance
“Christian faith — with an overtly evangelical feel — flows likes an undercurrent through the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa”
The Convoy is Dividing a Rural Community Being Used as a Staging Ground for the Illegal Siege of Ottawa
The convoy established a rural base camp near Embrun, Ontario that is being used as a staging ground for the illegal siege of Ottawa.
Rural residents say the far-right convoy and COVID-19 conspiracies are turning neighbours against one another in Russell Township
They have a community newsletter plying Vaccine misinformation and they’re soliciting help from American Evangelicals & Republicans. “The Liberty Coalition Canada statement was signed by 3,300 individuals and the leaders of 200 churches across Canada and the United States….”
“The report adds the Coutts blockade has become more concerned with “replacing our current democratic system of government with a government that is based upon the principles of the Christian right.”
Coutts blockaders discussed blocking airport cargo terminals: private threat assessment
“A covert operation conducted by an Edmonton security firm determined some protesters occupying the Coutts border had become so emboldened by the blockade’s success they discussed blocking cargo terminals at airports across the country in an ongoing attempt to force a change of government in Ottawa.”
Far-right Christian ideology
“LeMay said the Coutts group has close ties to Christian libertarian factions in both Canada and the United States.”
The Long Con And The Overton Window
EXCERPTS: “… the Reform Party only marginally pushed the Overton window right, but it had started. Stephen Harper and the merged Conservative Party of Canada moved it a little further right…. It wasn’t until Harper was contrasted with a more left leaning Justin Trudeau did it show Stephen Harper’s exposure to being outside the Overton window.
We need the return of big ideas, new initiatives … to move the Overton window back to balance. If government, political parties, and media are failing us or refusing to see the long con game being played by Conservatives – it becomes incumbent upon us to demand those big ideas and initiatives that once was commonplace in Canada to retain the balance that creates good national policy, and not cater to special interests and niche political movements.”
Even without Scheer, the right-wing values of the Conservatives run deep
EXCERPTS: “Anti-abortion voters tend to differ from pro-choice voters when it comes to their views on the status of women, according to the survey.
Only 23 per cent of anti-abortion voters believe that the lack of women in office affects women’s equality, compared with 70 per cent of pro-choice voters. Only 27 per cent of those who oppose abortion think access to birth control affects women’s equality, compared with 74 per cent of those who support abortion. And only 19 per cent of anti-abortion voters feel that society is systemically set up to give men more opportunities than women, compared with 66 per cent of pro-choice voters.
Anti-abortion voters also tend to differ from pro-choice voters when it comes to their views on how women think and act. Seventy-seven per cent of anti-abortion voters agree that women are too easily offended, compared with 38 per cent of pro-choice voters. Seventy-one per cent of voters who oppose abortion think that most women interpret innocent acts as being sexist, compared with 38 per cent of voters who support abortion rights. And 54 per cent of voters against abortion agree that men generally make better leaders than women, compared with 24 per cent of pro-choice voters.
…
What do these statistics say in the context of the Conservative Party of Canada?
…
The problem is at the very centre of the party, not its margins, and will not be solved over the course of one election cycle alone. An entirely new approach is required, one that must champion social justice for all and take aggressive action on climate change.Neither of these things will be possible unless the party makes fundamental changes to how it conceives of itself, its members and its political operatives.
Scheer not out of step with his party
On both federal and provincial levels, Canada’s Conservatives seem unlikely to make these changes any time soon. Regardless of who replaces Scheer, the most public faces of conservatism in the country are unambiguously aligned with the radical right.”
Group looks to help anti-abortion advocates get jobs working for new MPs
EXCERPTS: “RightNow has produced “a guide to advancing the pro-life movement as a political staffer”….
“While it is absolutely imperative that we have solid pro-life staffers assisting our pro-life parliamentarians and ministers, it is equally important to have good people staffing non-pro-life parliamentarians and ministers. This ensures that there are good influences around them and prevents them from being surrounded solely by pro-abortion influences.””
A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE
Stephen Harper and the Theo-cons. The rising clout of Canada’s religious right
EXCERPTS: “What does it mean if and when a believer in the infallibility of Biblical prophecy comes to power and backs a damn-the-torpedoes course in the Middle East? Does it end up fuelling overenthusiastic end-timers who feel they have nothing to lose in some future conflagration, helping speed the world on Hagee’s fast track to Armageddon?
Harper’s agenda turns out to be hidden only to those who don’t know where to look.”
Series from the Armageddon Factor
British Columbia, Test Bed for Harper’s Religious Base
How BC became ground zero in the Christian conservative battle to shift Canada’s culture.
EXCERPTS: ” While the outcry over the Corren agreement has become one of the most polarizing skirmishes in the Canadian culture wars, it is only the latest standoff in a half-century struggle to determine which values are taught in the public-school system and who has the final say over what a child learns: parents or the government. Ever since any mention of creationism was banned from biology lessons in the name of science and prayers were pulled out of schools in the name of interfaith harmony, many conservative Christians have come to view state-run education systems with mistrust and outright hostility. As they see it, liberals and secular humanists have conspired with the courts to wipe out all symbols of Christianity from the classroom and impose an alien agenda on their offspring.”
When Christ Returns, What Will Things Look Like?’
That’s a history class question in one of Canada’s fast growing Bible-based schools. Here, there’s only one definition of ‘family.’
Raising the ‘Joshua Generation’
Some of the most ardent homeschooling advocates don’t just want to shape their kids. They want to reshape Canada.
NOTE: The Joshua Generation started in the U.S. See “I Was Trained for the Culture Wars in Home School“
Trinity Western University’s Long Reach to Ottawa
How a BC Christian junior college grew to be a key provider to Stephen Harper’s power structure.
“Evangelicals are mobilizing in Ottawa to put their stamp on public policy and opinion.”
Inside the Christian Right’s Ottawa Finishing School
How the Laurentian Leadership Centre prepares the Joshua generation to take the reins of government. [Janet Epp Buckingham is the centre’s executive director.]
EXCERPT from The Armageddon Factor: The “…National Post had run a flattering, full-page profile of the Laurentian Leadership Centre, celebrating it as a new haven for the “sharpest edge of intellectual evangelical Christianity,” but on the day I visit there is little evidence of that acuity.
If this is history filtered through a biblical worldview, it is a version that seems hopelessly skewed by conservative bias and a marked disregard for the facts. When students refer to the Toronto Star as “the Red Star” and deride Canada as a “welfare state,” I feel as if I’ve stumbled into the ornate clubhouse of some fresh-faced relics from the Reagan era.
That impression only deepens after a mid-morning break when Buckingham steers the discussion to the Charter of Rights, her own legal specialty. As the former chief counsel of the Evangelical Fellowship, she had been one of the leading advocates for the Christian right and, during the incendiary same-sex marriage debate, she won a reputation as a reasonable and nuanced voice. Today, however, Buckingham makes little attempt to temper the arguments of her students who, almost without exception, slam the Charter as “bad” or “frightening” and a threat to evangelical Christians. Decrying the fact that the courts “have gone too far on social issues,” she notes that religion in Canada has been “privatized,” as she puts it, which turns out to mean that it has been banished from the public sphere.
Sitting in on the discussion, it seems no wonder that critics see the centre as an elite finishing school for Harper’s Conservatives. Every class has been invited to a photo session with the prime minister, and his office has hosted at least one intern each semester. Despite the centre’s repeated insistence that it is non-partisan, a seven-year review of its internships shows that, of the fifty-one MPs who employed students, 42 were Conservatives — most of them evangelicals. It’s a critique for which the students themselves are well prepared.
Before he was prime minister, Harper railed against the liberalism of the civil service, and Trinity Western is not alone in attempting to help him reverse that tilt. More than a dozen well-regarded Christian colleges and universities now exist in this country, and the Conservatives are quietly fostering their growth. When economic stimulus funds were being doled out, Harper funneled more than $26 million their way, including $2.6 million to Trinity Western — a windfall that was announced by Conservative MP Mark Warawa, a TWU alumnus himself.”
The Harper government and evangelical capitalism
EXCERPTS: “A 2007 article in the Vancouver Sun (August 18, 2007) noted that Harper’s cancellation of a proposed national daycare program coincided with the beliefs of Evangelical Christians, who “don’t want the state meddling in the sacred duty of raising children.” The piece also informed readers that Harper’s (and Preston Manning’s) Christian and Missionary Alliance Church “has about 2.5 million members and 14,000 congregations worldwide. One fifth of its members live in North America, with Alberta a Canadian hotbed.”
The article noted: “Aware that many Canadians are suspicious of Evangelicals, [Preston] Manning last year [2006] organized a series of conferences to urge conservative Christian leaders to tone down their Biblical ‘peel-the-paint-off-the-walls’ rhetoric.””
From ‘Bible Bill’ to Stephen Harper, the evolution of faith-based politics
“Under Manning, Reform was generally able to put its Christian roots on the back-burner.
But that was no longer possible when Reform morphed into the Canadian Alliance Party in 2000 and chose Stockwell Day as its leader. Day refused to campaign on Sundays and once gave a speech that seemed to indicate he supported the biblical notion that humans and dinosaurs co-existed on Earth 6,000 years ago.
Evangelicals were wildly enthusiastic about Stockwell Day as the leader of a national political party, but many Canadians were wary about his perceived fundamentalism, and he was unable to expand the Alliance base outside of Western Canada.
By 2002, the party had turned against him and Day was replaced by Stephen Harper.
Social values
Harper, who joined the evangelical Christian and Missionary Alliance Church in the 1980s, had long believed that courting the religious right by emphasizing social issues was bad politics for a party trying to form a national government.”
Harper gets good news about Israel out to key part of his coalition: evangelicals
EXCERPT: “Since they are more likely to vote than other Canadians, and more likely to volunteer and donate money to causes they hold dear, their political importance is greater than their raw numbers would suggest.”
A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada
“Nothing has done the electoral and moral credibility of liberalism more harm than the failure to take this attack seriously” – Michael Ignatieff, University of Toronto, 1998
Jason Kenney and the Christian Coalition:
“The Religious Right are about more than just ending abortion and gay rights. It’s a complete overhaul. We need to start paying attention, since clearly our media is not.”
The Canadian Manifesto: Introduction
The Canadian Manifesto: How the American Neoconservatives Stole My Country
The Christian Coalition and Jason Kenney Help to Create So-Cons on Steroids
EXCERPTS: “Less than 11% of Canadians are evangelical, and of that probably less than half are of the extreme variety. Yet they now make up more than half of the Harper caucus. But what’s worse, they have also been infiltrated into all levels of the public sphere, and are now in the courts, the senate and even the civil service.
If this government is in power much longer, the majority of Canadians risk losing their voice, and all decisions made will be contrary to Canadian beliefs and Canadian values.**”
True Blue
Jason Kenney wants Stephen Harper’s job. But is he too extreme for the Tories?
Ford’s closeness with controversial evangelical pastor is problematic
By Michael Coren. Published on Dec 4, 2018 5:28pm
EXCERPT: “‘Charles McVety is no ordinary or mainstream Christian. He has been at the centre of many of the most unpleasant campaigns in Canada against LGBTQ equality and modern sex education, and is considered on the right-wing fringe, even within the evangelical church.'”
Jason Kenney says Carpay membership decision lies with UCP board, not with him
UCP leader says Calgary lawyer who compared Pride flag to swastika has apologized for remarks
The common theme connecting So-Cons with politicians like Kenney, Scheer, Ford, & Stephen Harper is Ezra Levant from Rebel Media.
An earlier Twitter thread on the Bible Brigade: Dominion theology wants government by Christians. Dominionists will vote to elect Conservatives. Follow the sub-thread by André Gagné who researches the Christian right. We underestimate them at our peril.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1080135922488918016.html
EXCERPTS from another of Chrissy’s twitter threads: “The Christian Right will impose minority authoritarian rule for as long as it can, and it’s about goddam time we started acting like we’re fighting an anti-democratic force, a real threat to democracy and human rights, because we fucking are, and not by choice. Get in the fight.”
How the CNP, a Republican Powerhouse, Helped Spawn Trumpism, Disrupted the Transfer of Power, and Stoked the Assault on the Capitol
“The Council for National Policy was founded in 1981 by a group of televangelists, Western oligarchs, and Republican strategists to capitalize on Ronald Reagan’s electoral victory the previous year. From the beginning, its goals represented a convergence of the interests of these three groups: a retreat from advances in civil and political rights for women and minorities, tax cuts for the wealthy, and raw political power. Operating from the shadows, its members, who would number some 400, spent the next four decades courting, buying, and bullying fellow Republicans, gradually achieving what was in effect a leveraged buyout of the GOP. Favorite sons, such as Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, were groomed, financed, and supported. Apostates, such as John McCain and Jeff Flake, were punished and exiled. The leaders of the CNP tended to favor their conservative Christian co-religionists, but political expedience came first.
Recently, there have been disturbing reports that QAnon has been aggressively targeting Midwestern evangelicals, including mainline Protestants, Southern Baptists, and Pentecostals.”
Inside the Controversial US Evangelical Movement Targeting Indigenous People
How modern-day apostles and prophets are waging spiritual warfare in the North
The Radical Christian Right and the War on Government
EXCERPTS: “It fuses with the Christian religion the iconography and language of American imperialism and nationalism, along with the cruelest aspects of corporate capitalism. The intellectual and moral hollowness of the ideology, its flagrant distortion and misuse of the Bible, the contradictions that abound within it — its leaders champion small government… — and its laughable pseudo-science are impervious to reason and fact. And that is why the movement is dangerous.”
5 Key Moments From the Year of the ‘Exvangelicals’
EXCERPTS: “We’ve used our increased visibility, often through hashtag campaigns, to expose evangelical authoritarianism to the broader American public, something that major media outlets have mostly failed to do.
Because the exvangelical community consists of those who repudiate evangelicalism for its pervasive authoritarianism, we also tend to affirm that which most white evangelicals—a literally uniquely conservative, uniquely pro-Trump, and nativist demographic—stand against.”
I Was Trained for the Culture Wars in Home School, Awaiting Someone Like Mike Pence as a Messiah
Important to note that these Christofascists have been infiltrating Government for decades.
EXCERPTS: “Those of us who didn’t leave the far Right are being elected to federal positions or are taking over states and cities. With Pence in office, even the reasonable-seeming incumbents – who have been and are still at the mercy of the Tea Party – are growing more bold in their attempts to further the Christofascist agenda: To Take Back The Country For Christ.
This was the mantra we heard. This was our mission. This is how we were to win: Outbreed, Outvote, Outactivate.
A single powerful person who is convinced of their own Rightness with no thought of introspection is dangerous. We now have a government full of them.
This religion is based entirely on fear; you can’t argue away a fear so intense that it hardens you to anyone unlike you or your tribe.
They will not be won over with sit-downs and respectability politics. This kind of dogma cannot be reasoned with; it must be fought against. Trying to convince them to come to the other side is a waste of time unless they’ve already started on that journey themselves. The ones in power, actively harming our lives, are past this point. We can only fight back.
The revolution has come and we are the resistance.”
Taking Over the Republican Party
“The Grand Old Party is more religious cult than political organization.”
President of the Alamo City Republican Women’s club, 1993
http://theocracywatch.org/taking_over.htm
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