Drollinger Capitol Ministries
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omg primary 720
BAAAACK 3 25
this is proxy for scary xian trump cabinet pompeo, pence, perry ...
sounds like c street in terms of aims and MO [MAGA MIKE HOUSE? 3 25]
BROOKE ROLLINS VOUGHT?
dominionist? XIAN NATL APOC ISRAEL
tag
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/ralph-drollinger/
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RWW VID
Christian Nationalist Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins Says The Trump Administration Is 'Bringing The Light To A Very Dark World'
09/17/2026
Christian nationalist Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins sat down for an interview with right-wing broadcaster Erick Stakelbeck at the Republican midterm convention earlier this month, during which she bragged that she knows God is supporting the Trump administration because they are a "group of warriors" who are dedicated to "bringing the light to a very dark world."
After serving in various capacities during the first Trump administration, Rollins and other Trump insiders launched the America First Policy Institute, which has subsequently played a key role in staffing the second Trump administration. In her current capacity as Agriculture Secretary, Rollins has been leading right-wing Bible study sessions for members of Trump cabinet.DROLLINGER
"I believe so strongly that God was not done with our country, that we are the greatest country in the history of the world.," Rollins said. "So, building that organization [AFPI] to prepare for a second term of America First—whether it was President Trump or somebody else—is what we did. But now to be able to step up and meet the moment; I pray a lot that maybe we don't feel like Moses, frankly, in Exodus, maybe we don't feel like we're fully prepared for this moment, but that God's got us."
"Walking into the West Wing every morning, I could feel God was with us," she continued. "I felt just this peace. These jobs are hard. You're being shot at figuratively, and our president literally, 24-7. The mainstream media is so dark. Big business, big government, big agriculture, big all of it is against you and so walking in that first term and seeing all of those wins in the first term, [it was a sign] that God was with us."
"I held Bible studies in the first term, we prayed all the time," Rollins added. "We built the America First policy Institute on the biblical foundations of everything: It's biblical to want a secure border. It's biblical to put children first in their education.
It's biblical to put patients first in healthcare. It's biblical to fight back to the land of milk and honey in the Old Testament, to fight for our farmers and ranchers. And now to be here the second time and to see this extraordinary amount of winning that we've been able to do, none of it is possible without God. We are a group of warriors to our core. gathering once a week to have a cabinet Bible study and remind all of us what we're fighting for."
"I do use this platform," Rollins admitted. "I believe in making disciples of all the nations. I believe that God has blessed this country and so ensuring that we are using this and bringing the light to a very dark world, that's what this administration is about."
"I have been sued a couple of times for, they say, talking about Jesus too much, but I'll never stop talking about Jesus, " Rollins vowed, before claiming that America will be doomed if Republicans do not maintain control of government in the midterm elections.
"The stakes couldn't be higher," she warned. "It's an existential threat to the future of not just America, to the world. ... I have two daughters and two sons. I will hopefully someday have some grandchildren and they will not have an America that we have unless we're able to win at the ballot box. We can keep fighting every day, but if those socialists, those Democrat socialists who believe in bigger government, who don't believe in God, their religion is a radical climate agenda, wake up America. This is real and the darkness will overcome the light in this country if we're not successful at the ballot box today and in the future."
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iron dome fUnding
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RWW
03/10/2025
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Capitol Ministries, a group that runs weekly right-wing Bible studies for members of Congress and did the same for Cabinet members during the first Trump administration, has announced the return of the “White House Cabinet Bible Study.”
According to a March 6 announcement, the first Bible study of the new administration took place early on the morning of President Donald Trump’s first Cabinet meeting and included some governors participating by Zoom.
Capitol Ministries “disciples” public officials with its founder Ralph Drollinger’s very conservative interpretation of scripture and his belief that the Bible mandates support for right-wing economic, social, environmental, immigration, and criminal justice policies. He teaches that the government’s primary job is to “quell evil” and punish sin and teaches that entitlement programs lack “any basis of biblical authority.” Drollinger believes that elections are “first and foremost a spiritual battle.”
According to Drollinger, God only hears and acts on prayers from Christians; prayers of those who “passively or actively reject the Son of God,” he has written, “are worthless and go unheard.”
Drollinger shows little respect or tolerance for Christians who disagree with his interpretation of the Bible. He has suggested that Christian leaders who support marriage equality are “Satan’s pawns.” As Right Wing Watch has reported previously:
He has called the “social Gospel” that motivates millions of liberal American Christians “a perversion of scripture” and “not Christianity whatsoever!” He has called Catholicism “one of the primary false religions of the world.” He urges public officials not to take part in “syncretistic” events like the National Prayer Breakfast, arguing that by participating in events that combine different forms of belief, attendees invite God’s wrath rather than his blessing.
In one Bible study, Drollinger offered Christian lawmakers an explanation for why their “unregenerate” non-Christian colleagues “do not seem to get your biblical argument.” It’s because, Drollinger wrote, “they are spiritually incapable of getting it.” Not only that, “The longer a person rejects Christ, the greater his depravity becomes.”
Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, former head of the America First Policy Institute, and OMB Director Russell Vought, former head of the Center for Renewing America, are sponsoring Drollinger’s Bible study.
Rollins is closely aligned with Tim Dunn, who Texas Monthly has called “the billionaire bully who wants to turn Texas into a Christian theocracy.” Under Rollins’ leadership, AFPI called its MAGA policy agenda a plan for “restoring a nation under God.” Capitol Ministries’ 2023 annual report includes an endorsement from Rollins in which she wrote that “our Founding Fathers established this great nation by God’s instructions and designed our country’s government based on biblical principles.” She wrote that Capitol Ministries gives her “the strength I need to endure the righteous fight for the soul of this nation.”
Vought has embraced Christian nationalism, and his Center for Renewing America listed Christian nationalism as one of its priorities for the new Trump administration.
Drollinger insists that he is not a Christian nationalist, theocrat, or dominionist because he does not want the church institutionally controlling the government, teaching that the two institutions have different God-ordained roles. He does want public officials to embrace and govern according to his definition of biblical Christianity, hire only “righteous” people to work for them, and refuse to support policies that “compromise biblical absolutes.” In “Oaks in Office,” his handbook for public officials, Drollinger wrote that “the critical and preeminent duty of the Church in an institutionally separated society” is “to evangelize and disciple—to Christianize—the leaders of the State and its citizenry.”
After beginning his work with legislators in California, Drollinger started his congressional Bible studies in 2010. When some of his congressional students joined the first Trump administration, he began holding Bible studies for members of the Cabinet, later expanding to other administration officials. He claimed in 2018 that Trump sent him handwritten notes praising his written studies.
In 2023 Drollinger launched weekly Zoom-based Bible studies with sitting and former governors. Drollinger produces written Bible studies (some translated into multiple languages) that form the basis for in-person gatherings and a weekly radio program that launched on the Salem radio network last year.
Drollinger’s global ambitions extend well beyond Congress and the White House. During the first Trump administration, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo opened doors to help Drollinger take his model to foreign capitals. A 2024 year-end letter from Drollinger boasted that Capitol Ministries held five global training conferences last year in Kathmandu, Nepal; Cape Town, South Africa; Bogota, Colombia; Brussels, Belgium; and Hebron, Kentucky. Its goal is to “plant and develop” ministries in 200 national capitals.
Capitol Ministries is also seeking, with the help of former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, to recruit men – and only men – to lead Bible studies for elected officials in every state capital and every one of the more than 4,000 local government jurisdictions in the U.S.
During Trump’s first term, Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine and former Rep. Michele Bachmann helped raise money for Capitol Ministries. Two former members of Congress, Tom Price of Georgia and Trent Franks of Arizona, currently serve on its board of directors.
ref eco
04/03/2018
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Ralph Drollinger, the man who leads weekly Bible study meetings for members of Congress and Trump’s Cabinet—including embattled Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt—distributed on Monday a Bible study warning that America is in the process of shifting from Christianity to the “false religion of Radical Environmentalism.” Pruitt told CBN last year that it was "wonderful" to participate in the Cabinet Bible studies.
Drollinger’s weekly written Bible studies (also available online in print and audio versions) are distributed to public officials by Capitol Ministries, which is expanding in the U.S. and globally. Drollinger, who sometimes describes them as a kind of a homework supplement to the in-person Bible study meetings, told a reporter last year that Trump reads the studies and sends him positive hand-written notes about them.
The study posted on Monday, “Coming to Grips with the Religion of Environmentalism,” appears to be an updated version of a previous written study with the same title. It draws heavily on a passage in the biblical book of Genesis in which God grants mankind dominion over the Earth and all its creatures and instructs man to rule and subdue creation.
Drollinger argues that it is unbiblical to believe that mankind’s actions could destroy the Earth:
To think that man can alter the Earth’s ecosystem—when God remains omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent in the current affairs of mankind—is to more than subtly espouse an ultra-hubristic, secular worldview relative to the supremacy and importance of man.
Here’s another bit of policy-related teaching that Drollinger has shared with Pruitt and his colleagues in the Cabinet:
To allow fish to govern the construction of dams, endangered species to govern power plants, flies to govern hospitals, or kangaroo rats, homes, is to miss the clear proclamation of God in Genesis.
Because of biblical promises that God would not again destroy the Earth in a great flood, and would continue to send rain, says Drollinger, “we can all rest assured and wholly rely on God’s aforementioned promises pertaining to His ability and willingness to sustain our world’s ecosystem.”
Drollinger, who is from California and recently held a fundraiser with Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue during the World Ag Expo in the heart of California’s agriculture industry, decries efforts in California to limit household water usage, saying there is “more than enough to go around” and that environmentalists’ efforts to restrict water usage reflects a secular worldview that says the environment is more important than people.
“The biblically informed public servant,” says Drollinger, must “order his thinking in light of God’s revealed hierarchy in creation.”
Drollinger says it’s good politics to side against “Radical Environmentalists,” in part because they have fewer children than those who believe “in the biblical truth of multiplying and filling the earth.” His Bible study says that Bible-believers have “outperformed” environmentalist parents “by six million children since the advent of Radical Environmentalism in America,” adding:
Those six million children are just now reaching voting status. Said another way, young Americans raised with a Christian worldview will soon outnumber the children of Radical Environmentalists by at least six million voters in the coming elections. Indeed the scriptural truth that your sins will find you outwill soon be realized across the country. Hopefully the religion of Radical Environmentalism will soon be relegated to fringe minority status in American society. Amen.
Drollinger may have unique access to Cabinet members like Pruitt, and members of the House and Senate, but his anti-environmentalist theology is not unique. For years, Religious Right leaders have attacked the environmental movement—which some have called the Green Dragon. Right-wing “historian” David Barton is among those who signed the 2009 Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming, which denounced efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and said that God had made the Earth and its ecosystems “robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory.”
E&E News examined the impact of Pruitt’s faith on his approach to policy-making in a July 2017 profile, noting that Pruitt served on the board of trustees of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville. It also pointed to a 2016 interview, when Pruitt was Oklahoma’s attorney general battling a state Supreme Court ruling about the Ten Commandments, where he said, “A Christian worldview means that God has answers to our problems.” He added, “And part of our responsibility is to convey to those in society that the answers that he has, as represented in Scripture, are important and should be followed, because they lead to freedom and liberty.” Pruitt accused the “political left, the liberals, and those that are anti-faith” of misinterpreting the First Amendment as “a mandate for the government to eradicate all vestiges of religion in the public square.”
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9/20 spoke at The Return xian nat'l event
// djt hucksters
Drollinger, who teaches members of Trump’s Cabinet and members of Congress that the Bible requires Christian officeholders to support right-wing policies, will announce during this weekend’s “The Return” rally the launch of a new Bible study for subcabinet officials in the Trump administration, theright-wing Epoch Timesreported this week. According to the report, six “high-ranking Trump administration officials” met last week for the first time.
Right Wing Watch has reported extensively on Drollinger and his Capitol Ministries, which has ambitious goals to have “ministries” at all levels of government in the U.S. and in every foreign capital. These ministries, which are already in at least 32 state capitals and 24 foreign capitals, proselytize and “disciple” public officials to Drollinger’s interpretation of the Bible and the duties of public officials.
Earlier this week Right Wing Watch reported that Drollinger called elections a “spiritual battle” and said that only “mature” Christians are ideal candidates for public office. As RWW noted:
In previous writings, Drollinger has demonstrated little respect for Christians who interpret the Bible differently than he does. He has called the “social Gospel” that motivates millions of liberal American Christians “a perversion of scripture” and “not Christianity whatsoever!” He has called Catholicism “one of the primary false religions of the world.” He urges public officials not to take part in “syncretistic” events like the National Prayer Breakfast, arguing that by participating in events that combine different forms of belief, attendees invite God’s wrath rather than his blessing.
…
In “Oaks in Office,” his handbook for public officials, Drollinger wrote that “the critical and preeminent duty of the Church in an institutionally separated society” is “to evangelize and disciple—to Christianize—the leaders of the State and its citizenry.”
Trump administration officials have helped Drollinger raise money for the group, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has opened doors to help Drollinger set up shop in foreign governments.
Tags: Mike PompeoRalph DrollingerChurch-StateThe ReturnCapitol MinistriesTrump Administration
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DECEMBER 27, 2018 10:50 AM
Drollingers Tell Dobson That Trump Cabinet Members Are ‘Devouring’ His Right-Wing Bible Studies
SEPTEMBER 22, 2020 3:37 PM
Elections Are a ‘Spiritual Battle’ and Only ‘Mature’ Christians Are Ideal Candidates, Says Trump Cabinet Bible Study Teacher Ralph Drollinger
FEBRUARY 15, 2019 3:44 PM
Trump Cabinet Members Raise Money for Effort to Convert Public Officials to Fundamentalist Worldview
OCTOBER 17, 2018 3:32 PM
Trump Cabinet Bible Study Group Launches ‘Ministry’ to Mexican Legislators
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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/capitol-ministries-ralph-drollinger-expands-right-wing-bible-studies-within-trump-administration/
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PPP rww 720
Former Texas Gov. and U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry is partnering with a religious-right effort to “disciple” 500,000 local officials into a conservative Christian “worldview” and shape public policies in 40,000 U.S. localities. Perry’s undertaking was announced in a June letter to supporters of Capitol Ministries from the organization’s president Ralph Drollinger, whose weekly Bible studies teach members of Trump’s Cabinet and the U.S. Congress that the Bible instructs public officials to support right-wing social, economic, environmental, and criminal justice policies.
“I am passionate about Capitol Ministries’ efforts to reach today’s 500,000 elected local government leaders with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and disciple them with the Word of God, so they may form a Christian worldview in their hearts,” Perry is quoted in the Drollinger letter. “I see this effort as critically important. America’s ideological future hangs in the balance.”
Drollinger and Capitol Ministries have aggressive expansion plans in multiple directions. Drollinger has previously announced Capitol Ministries’ goal of establishing “discipleship” ministries in 200 nations, all 50 states, and all 40,000 localities in the U.S. With help from Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Capitol Ministries is expanding its presence among high-level officials in foreign capitals. Perry has become the group’s “spokesman for Local Government Ministries.”
As part of the partnership, Perry has begun emailing local officials offering to send them a weekly Bible study taken from Drollinger’s“Oaks in Office,” a guidebook for conservative Christian public officials.
“This is a critical time for our nation,” Perry declared in an invitation included with Drollinger’s letter. “Spreading secularism is threatening to smother the very values that our founding fathers based out country upon—values that you and I hold very dear.”
Perry wrote that Capitol Ministries’ Bible studies that he participated in as a cabinet member were “in-depth, theologically sound and they drilled deep in Scripture.” He added, “They helped us all understand more about God, biblical truths, and what God expects of us as leaders.”
Drollinger’s letter affirmed that the studies being sent to local officials who respond to Perry’s emails “examine crucial policy issues through the timeless lens of God’s Word”—meaning scripture as interpreted by Drollinger.
Drollinger is not humble about his approach to the Bible, dismissing those who interpret scripture and its demands differently than he does. He has demonstrated contempt for liberal Christians and the “social gospel,” and he has described the Catholic Church as “one of the primary false religions in the world.” He teaches that legislators who do not share his worldview cannot be counted on to do the right thing because, he has written, “the longer a person rejects Christ, the greater his depravity becomes.”
Drollinger’s Bible studies, which are available online, instruct public officials that the government’s job is to “quell evil” and punish sin; that “as a lawmaker it is incumbent on you to stand for the death penalty”; that entitlement programs lack “any basis of biblical authority”; that“radical environmentalism” is a “false religion.**:{” Drollinger recruits only men to run Capitol Ministries Bible studies, because he believes women are not permitted to teach men about the Bible.}:
In March, Drollinger complained about “evil pork” in coronavirus relief legislation, fretting that unemployment benefits in the bill might be an “impetus to slothfulness” and “antithetical to free-market capitalism.”
Drollinger, who insists that he is not a Christian nationalist, tells Christian public officials that they should refuse to participate in interfaith “syncretistic” prayer breakfasts; syncretism refers to the blending of belief systems. According to Drollinger, “God only hears the prayers of leaders and citizens who are upright, who live righteously through faith in Jesus Christ.”
When Perry was a member of Trump’s cabinet and participating in Drollinger’s weekly Bible studies, other cabinet members called Perry the “teacher’s pet,” Drollinger told Intercessors for America’s prayer warriors in 2018. Perry was among the featured speakers at Capitol Ministries’ global training session for ministry leaders that was held at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. in December.
Drollinger asked IFA’s intercessors to pray that cabinet officials would use their platforms to fulfill the “Great Commission”—the biblical command by Jesus to his followers to “make disciples of all nations.” U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and Trump-appointed NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine have both raised money for Capitol Ministries.
Drollinger’s letter asks for financial contributions to support the “massive effort” which, he wrote, “will impact not only the eternal souls of local political leaders but the very future of the United States.”
Perry’s ill-fated bid for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination was unofficially launched with a prayer rally backed by religious-right leaders and many of the “apostles” and “prophets” who are now among Trump’s strongest supporters.
Tags: Ralph DrollingerRick PerryChristian NationChurch-StateCapitol Ministries
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/rise-of-a-shadow-political-party-how-christian-nationalists-worship-power-and-why-they-love-trump/
https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/rise-of-a-shadow-political-party-how-christian-nationalists-worship-power-and-why-they-love-trump/
no lnx
Rise of a ‘shadow political party’: How Christian nationalists worship power — and why they love Trump
Written by Amanda Marcotte / Salon March 4, 2020
It’s one of the most enduring conundrums of the Donald Trump era: How is it that the Christian right, the self-appointed monitors of American morality, have come to so enthusiastically back a thrice-married chronic adulterer who lies as easily as he breathes?
Author Katherine Stewart has the answer: Because the true god these folks worship is power. In her book, “The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism,” Stewart details how she traveled around the country, getting to know the various Christian conservative figures that are whipping support for Trump and his agenda. She deems the “Christian nationalists” and demonstrates how their supposedly Christian values always come second to their endless quest for power.
Stewart spoke with Salon about her new book. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
In the intro of the book you write that most Americans view the Christian right as a “cultural movement centered on a set of social issues, such as abortion and same-sex marriage.” But in fact, it’s a political movement and its ultimate goal is power. What do you mean by that?
I think when we think of the religious right, we’re often thinking of a cultural movement or social movement that works from the bottom up, expressing the anxieties and reactions of a particular group in American society to change social realities, focused on issues like reproductive rights or same-sex marriage.But Christian nationalism really works from the top down. It actively shapes and manipulates its target population, and it often shifts its target.
When movement leaders are talking to the congregants or to pastors who speak to congregants, it’s all abortion all the time. The foot soldiers may even believe that they’re fighting for things like a ban on abortion or same-sex marriage, but the leaders have actually consciously reframed these issues in such a way that they can control the vote of a large subsection of the American public. They use that to solidify and maintain political power for themselves and their allies, to increase the flow of public and private money in their direction, and to enact economic policies that are favorable to their funders.
When you dig a little deeper into what the movement leaders talk about when they talk with one another, they actually advocate for a very wide range of policy issues that don’t just have to do with abortion or same-sex marriage. A lot of it has to do with economic policy. A lot of it has to do with foreign policy, social policy. It’s important to look at the movement in this broader fashion as a political movement that wants power.
Tell me more about that. How does someone argue that there’s something Christian about, say, low tax and low regulation?
They say that the Bible favors minimal government or no government. The Bible is against regulation, against the social safety net. Unless the social safety net is managed by the church.
Someone like Ralph Drollinger — who targets political leaders at the top levels of government — he’s got this Bible study group in the Capitol that’s been attended by at least 11 members of Trump’s cabinet, including Mike Pence. He also has Bible study groups targeting the Senate and House of Representatives, and they’re very well-attended. So he’s arguably one of the most politically influential pastors in America.
He argues that social welfare programs have no basis in Scripture. He says that the government should not directly fund needs for the poor. He says the responsibility to meet the needs of the poor lies first with a husband and a marriage, second with a family if the husband is absent, and third with the church. He says nowhere does God command the institutions of government or commerce to fully support those with genuine needs.
These policies are incredibly favorable to the plutocratic fortunes that are funding the movement. The movement wouldn’t be what it is without some subsection of very wealthy individuals and extended families that are supporting the movement financially. I’m thinking of like theDeVos, Prince families, the Green family, and so many others that I described in my book.
These families, in turn, benefit from a deregulation of lack of environmental control regulation, low taxation, and minimal workers’ rights. Drollinger himself derived a lot of his early funding from agribusiness kings, people who own large agribusiness conglomerates in Central Valley,California, and the San Joaquin Valley. So it’s a kind of economic policy that actually is favorable to many of the big-picture funders of the movement.
We also have to recognize that the role of public money is absolutely huge. A lot of the calls for “religious freedom” that characterize much of the activism of the movement today are often seen, rightly so, as a demand that conservative Christians should be able to discriminate against LGBT Americans, nonreligious women and members of the religious minority groups. But even more than that, activists have their eye on a vast potential flow of public funds in the future. This is one of the reasons why the calls for religious freedom are just like this ever-louder drum beat that we’re hearing in so many places.
This agenda has been made really explicit in the field of public educationwhere activists are determined to expand access to public funds in the form of vouchers. They’ve actually placed a key voucher case before the Supreme Court, which they hope will allow a greater funnel of funds in their direction.
The United States spends something like $700 billion a year on K-12. So Christian nationalists realize that, if they can get their hands on a small portion of that in the name of religious liberty, the money will flow without end. So when you look at the larger demands of the movement, it’s not just about these culture war issues, it’s about public policy, foreign policy, and it’s about money.
You call it a Christian nationalist movement, not a white nationalist movement, not the Christian right even. Why do you call it a Christian nationalist movement?
Christian nationalism is a political ideology. It says that what makes the United States distinctive is not our democratic system of government, or our Constitution, or our history of assimilating diverse people in a pluralist society. Instead, it insists that the foundation of legitimate government is bound up inextricably with the reactionary understanding of a particular religion. It basically says that the U.S. was founded on the Bible, and can only succeed if it stays true to that foundation.
It’s also not just an ideology, but a device for mobilizing and often manipulating large segments of the population and for concentrating power in the hands of this new elite. Vladimir Putin in Russia, or Viktor Orban in Hungary, or Erdogan in Turkey tie themselves closely to religious conservatives in their countries, to consolidate an authoritarian form of power. We’re seeing this today with Trump’s alliances, with our own religious conservatives.
You write that America’s conservative churches have been converted into “loyal cells of a shadow political party.” What do you mean by that?
Leaders of the movement have figured out that pastors drive votes, and so they organize pastors into these networks, to get them on the same page politically.They give themtools through networks of conservative churchesin order to do that, to help them turn out votes for hyper-conservative candidates.
Recently, I found myself at a small church in rural North Carolina, with dozens of evangelical pastors from the area. I was at an event sponsored by an organization called Watchmen on the Wall, which is an initiative of the Family Research Council, which is one of the largest and most powerful policy groups of the Christian right.
Watchmen on the Wall claims to have over 25,000 pastor members. They get all these pastors networked together, and they have these presentations where they tell them what issues matter and how to turn out the vote on these “biblical issues.” There wasn’t a slightest doubt about which way these pastors were expected to tell their congregations to vote.
They were instructed to form what they call culture impact teamswithin their churches. They have to figure out which members of their congregation are politically active, well-connected with other members, and motivated to get them to vote according to “biblical values.” They gave these pastors these booklets, 200 pages of material that help them form these culture impact teams.
They actually give them tools to get them out to vote. They give them tens of thousands of voter guides, and pastors were encouraged to take as many as they could use and hand out.
Your chapter on the anti-abortion movement in the book is titled “Inventing Abortion.” You write that it’s a myth that the movement was a reaction to a sincere belief in protecting fetal life. Tell me more. What is this Christian right obsession with abortion? Where does it come from? What is it actually about?
When Roe v. Wade was passed, the liberalization of abortion laws was something that many, if not most, Republican partisans supported. The early battles over abortion tended to be between Catholics and Protestants, with Protestants largely on the side of liberalization of abortion laws. Even though Catholic hierarchy is opposed to abortion, many Catholic individuals supported some form of liberalization based on sort of lived experience.
At that time that Roe v. Wade passed, the abortion law reform really conformed with the Republican party’s support for Protestant values, birth control. Billy Graham in 1968 said, “In general, I would disagree with the Catholic stance. I believe in Planned Parenthood.”
The most liberal abortion law in the country was signed in 1967 by California’s Republican governor, Ronald Reagan. Barry Goldwater, who is this great conservative hero, supported abortion law liberalization early in his career. His wife, Peggy, was a co-founder of Planned Parenthood in Arizona.
When Roe v. Wade passed, in fact, there was a wire service run by the Southern Baptist Convention. The bureau chief of the Baptist Press wrote a piece saying that religious liberty, human equality, and justice are advanced by the Supreme Court decision.
This was not an issue that united the Republican party at all, until activists from the new right got involved and were really searching for an issue that could unite the party.
At the time, they’d come together out of concern that institutions like Bob Jones University would be deprived of their lucrative tax advantage. But they knew that preserving tax advantages for racially segregated academies is not going to be an issue that could really unite the party. So they kind of looked around for an issue that could unite conservative Catholics and conservative Protestants.
Bit by bit, they settled on abortion and sort of purged the Republican party of its pro-choice representatives. They needed a single issue that they could get people to vote on, and abortion became that issue.
Let’s talk about Donald Trump. He’s obviously not a religious man. He knows little of Christian theology. He can’t even get the terminology right. He can’t really even be bothered to pretend otherwise. So how is a man like that such a hero to the Christian nationalists?
First, the movement realizes that much of their agenda is advanced through the courts and he’s delivering them everything that he promised.
I was at a Road To Majority conference, that’s Ralph Reed’s conference, right before the election. Trump held up a list of justices and he said, “I’m going to choose Supreme Court justices from this list,” and every single one of them was pro-life. Of course, the issue wasn’t just abortion, but abortion becomes code for the entire agenda.
There’s that transactional side of it. But I think that there’s another side too. Trump’s anti-democratic attributes are a vital part of his attraction for this movement.
This movement doesn’t really believe in modern representative democracy. At bottom, they sound as though they prefer autocrats. In fact, what they really want is a king. Paula White is always calling Trump a king. Ralph Drollinger is always talking about kinging and kings. Trump has been referred to as King Cyrus.
The thing about kings like Cyrus is that they don’t have to follow the rules. They are the law. Trump understands this longing for the hard hand of the despot. That is what has made him such an attractive leader to this movement.
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/authoritarian-paranoid-and-patriarchal-the-dark-roots-of-christian-nationalism-gave-us-trump/
no lnx
‘Authoritarian, paranoid, and patriarchal’: The dark roots of Christian nationalism gave us Trump
President Donald J. Trump joins members of his Cabinet in a prayer led by Secretary of Energy Rick Perry during a Cabinet Meeting Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2019, in the Cabinet Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)
Written by Nancy LeTourneau / Washington Monthly February 17, 2020
Katherine Stewart is the writer who first introduced me to the term “Christian nationalists”almost a year ago. I had previously referred to the group that has shown unwavering support for Trump as “white evangelicals.” But that is a bit of a misnomer, primarily because, as we saw with the article in Christianity Today calling for the president’s removal from office, there are pockets of white evangelicals who aren’t part of the movement. There are also members of other religious groups that espouse the same beliefs. For example, Catholic leaders like Attorney General William Barr and Federalist Society President Leonard Leo are major players in the Christian nationalist movement.
Bringing some clarity to the make-up of the Christian nationalist movement is just one of the myths Stewart busts in her upcoming book titled: The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism, set to be released on March 3rd. Equally important for us to understand is that this movement isn’t simply about culture wars.
It is not a social or cultural movement. It is a political movement, and its ultimate goal is power. It does not seek to add another voice to America’s pluralistic democracy but to replace our foundational democratic principles and institutions with a state grounded on a particular version of Christianity answering to what some adherents call a “biblical worldview” that also happens to serve the interests of its plutocratic funders and allied political leaders…This is not a “culture war.” It is a political war over the future of democracy.
When it comes to that “biblical worldview,” we often hear about the fact that Christian nationalists oppose abortion and LGBT rights. But as Stewart explains, the movement is actually based on the idea that “the Bible is very clear about the right answers to the political issues American voters face in the twenty-first century.” For example, they also believe that the Bible:
opposes public assistance to the poor as a matter of principle—unless the money passes through church coffers;
opposes environmentalism and, as a matter of theology, denies the science that human contributions to greenhouse gases causes global warning;
opposes gun regulation;
supports strong national borders;
favors the privatization of schools;
favors a gender hierarchy in both the home and church, with women being submissive to men;
favors the use of corporal punishment when discipling children;
favors government deregulation of business and minimal workers rights; and
favors capitalism and property rights.
To illustrate the Christian nationalist commitment to that biblical worldview, Stewart examined the writings and teachings ofRalph Drollinger, the founder of Capitol Ministries, who leads a weekly Bible study in the White House for cabinet secretaries and other officials. However, those views are also incorporated into churches by groups like the Family Research Council, which promotes “Cultural Impact Teams” and arms them with manuals that outline a biblical worldview.
Perhaps that helps explain why a host of uber-wealthy elites have signed on to the Christian nationalist movement and provide funding for the vast network of everything from non-profits to legal advocacy groups that promote their cause.
For me personally, the major myth about Christian nationalists that Stewart busted was to provide some history of where this movement came from. In this case, I have to disagree with my colleague Martin Longman. Trump hasn’t corrupted his Christian supporters, he is the apex of decades of work that led up to his election. Here are just a few of the men who laid the groundwork for where we are today.
Robert Lewis Dabney
Dabney was a Presbyterian minister and theologian who was born in 1820. He was an anti-abolitionist, who argued that opposing slavery was “tantamount to rejecting Christianity.” After the Civil War, Dabney, who referred to democracy as “mobocracy,” took up the cause of his “oppressed white brethren of Virginia and neighboring states to the south.”
Their oppression consisted in, among other things, having to pay taxes to support a “pretended education to the brats of black paupers.” These unjustly persecuted white people, as Dabney saw it, were also forced to contend with “the atheistic and infidel theories of physical science.”
As Stewart notes, “Christian nationalism came of age in the American slave republic” due to the proslavery theology of men like Dabney, who fused religion with a racialized form of nationalism.
Rousas Rushdoony
The importance of Dabeny can be seen from the fact that Rushdoony, whose writings provided the core of today’s Christian nationalism, considered him a role model.
The views of the theologian who lies at the center of so much influence are not hard to state simply and clearly: Rushdoony advocated a return to “biblical” law in America. The Bible, says Rushdoony, commands Christians to exercise absolute dominion over the earth and all of its inhabitants. Women are destined by God to be subordinate to men; men are destined to be ruled by a spiritual aristocracy of right-thinking, orthodox Christian clerics; and the federal government is an agent of evil. Public education, in Rushdoony’s reading of the Bible, is a threat to civilization, for it “basically trains women to be men,” and represents “primitivism,” “chaos,” and “a vast integration into the void.”
Two of the themes that are critical for today’s Christian nationalists emerged from Dabney and Rushdoony: (1) the fight against government (ie, public) schools, and (2) the disdain for democracy in favor of a hierarchy of authoritarianism. As Stewart wrote: “the new generation of leaders promoted a theological vision that emphasized the divine origins of the existing order, which invariably involved domination and subordination.”
Paul Weyrich
Weyrich wasn’t a particularly religious man. Instead, he was a Goldwater Republican who was passionate about “anticommunism, economic libertarianism, and a distrust of the civil rights movement.” It was Weyrich’s genius to meld those commitments with Christian nationalists in order to form a new radical right.
Initially, Weyrich joined with leaders like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Bob Jones to rally around the cause of fighting against federal attempts to desegregate their schools. In that effort, we can see the groundwork that was laid by Dabney and Rushdoony.
But they had a problem. As Weyrich understood, building a new movement around the burning issue of defending the tax advantages of racist schools wasn’t going to be a viable strategy on the national stage. “Stop the tax on segregation” just wasn’t going to inspire the kind of broad-based conservative counterrevolution that Weyrich envisions. They needed an issue with a more acceptable appeal.
That is when, several years after the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v Wade was actually embraced by most conservative Christians, they decided to focus on the issue of abortion. The rest, as they say, is history.
One of the most important moments of the so-called “Reagan revolution” was the fact that he launched his presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi with a dog-whistle shout-out to states rights. But equally important was the speech the not-so-religious presidential candidate gave at the Reunion Arena in Dallas, Texas to a crowd of 15,000 pastors and religious activists.
I know that you can’t endorse me,” he declared, but “I want you to know that I endorse you and what you are doing.” The pastors went wild. Reagan went on to air his personal doubts about the theory of evolution. Then he offered a homespun hypothetical: if he were to be trapped on an island with only one book, he said, he would take the Bible. “All of the complex questions facing us at home and abroad,” he said, “have their answer in that single book.”
With his speech in Mississippi, Reagan secured the support of southern white racists. But it was his speech in Dallas that married Christian nationalists to his candidacy and forged the bond with the Republican Party that lasts to this day. Weyrich’s vision came to fruition.
David Barton
In today’s political arena, the number of Christian nationalist influencers is too great to capture. But Stewart suggests that Barton is the “where’s Waldo” of the movement—showing up everywhere.
Barton got a bachelor’s degree in Christian education from Oral Roberts University and, until his early 30s, was a math teacher and principal at a Christian high school. Then he became convinced that the whole idea of the founder’s commitment to a wall of separation between church and state was a myth. Here is how Stewart describes Barton’s historiography.
American was once a single nation with a single God. It goes on to describe a fall and a cause for grievance as the righteous lose their hold, thanks to the actions of secular liberals. The story of the past thus leads inexorably to a political prescription for the future, which for the most part involves retaking the court system and the rest of government and turning it over to Bible believers.
Those are some of the historical highlights that led Stewart to this conclusion.
America’s conservative movement, having morphed into a religious nationalist movement, is on a collision course with the American constitutional system. Though conservatives have long claimed to be the true champions of the Constitution — remember all that chatter during previous Republican administrations about “originalism” and “judicial restraint” — the movement that now controls the Republican Party is committed to a suite of ideas that are fundamentally incompatible with the Constitution and the Republic that the founders created under its auspices.
Mr. Trump’s presidency was not the cause of this anti-democratic movement in American politics. It was the consequence. He is the chosen instrument, not of God, but of today’s Christian nationalists, their political allies and funders, and the movement’s legal apparatus.
To outsiders, the question often arises about why this religious movement would remain loyal to such an amoral president. But that fails to take into account the fact that Christian nationalism is “authoritarian, paranoid, and patriarchal to its core…In Mr. Trump, they have found a man who does not merely serve their cause, but also satisfies their craving for a certain kind of political leadership.”
Reading Stewart’s book is certainly enlightening, but it can also be depressing. She ends, however, on a note that harkens back to Barack Obama’s most important speech: the one he gave at the 50th anniversary of the Selma march where he talked about what it means to be an American. Stewart emphasized the same theme.
If we want to guard against demagogues and theocrats who wish to “redeem” America, we don’t need a new theory of American democracy. We just need to recover and restore the vision of a nation dedicated to the proposition that all men and women are created equal.
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11/27 perry: trump sent by god, imperfect vessel, 1 pg cheat sheet of old test heroes; pompeo or someone //? line from The Family doc netflix?!
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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trump-cabinet-bible-study-teacher-expands-reach-in-ukraine-through-anti-lgbtq-politician
There’s seemingly no end to the list of Trump allies tromping around Ukraine. Ralph Drollinger, who teaches weekly Bible studies for members of the Trump Cabinet and members of Congress through Capitol Ministries, recently got back from a 10-day European trip where Drollinger “met with numerous Christian parliamentarians, trained newly named ministry leaders, cultivated teams to further the ministry and preached the gospel to more than 50,000 people at a national festival,” according to a blog post on Capitol Ministries’ website.
That festival was in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, and according to Capitol Ministries, Drollinger “greeted the Ukrainian people from the U.S. Presidential Cabinet, the Senate, and the House of Representatives Members Bible studies that he teaches weekly in Washington, D.C., then told the assembly that he and [his wife] Danielle were there to meet with government and religious leaders about expanding CM’s Bible study ministries in Ukraine.” The event was sponsored by a Ukrainian evangelical group.
Drollinger and Capitol Ministries are dedicated to evangelizing and “discipling” public officials around the globe and at every level of government to his “very conservative” version of Christianity, one which claims a biblical grounding for right-wing social, economic, environmental, criminal justice, and immigration policies. He teaches that government’s God-given role is to “quell evil” and that government officials “must send a constant message that sin will be punished.” According to Drollinger, Trump sends him handwritten notes praising his written Bible study materials.
Drollinger uses his high-profile relationships with the Trump administration and other politicians to expand his access and ability to preach his particular biblical worldview to powerful public officials in the U.S. and overseas. Drollinger’s expansion inHonduras, Nicaragua, and other Latin American countries was a focus of an international reporting collaboration by more than 15 outlets earlier this year.
Drollinger’s key political ally in Ukraine is an anti-LGBTQ member of Parliament, Pavlo Unguryan, who teamed up with Capitol Ministries to launch what the group calls a “thriving discipleship Bible study to parliamentarians” in 2018. Unguryan started a prayer group with other parliamentarians in 2008, and he has chaired the parliamentary caucus “For Spirituality, Morality and Health of Ukraine.”
In 2013, Unguryan called for a pride parade in Kyiv to be banned, saying he feared public LGBTQ events would be “the first step towards the legalization of same-sex relationships and same-sex marriage, and then introduction of mandatory training programs for homosexual parenting.” He added, “At the end, we will have the prosecution of any critical comments against these people.”
In 2015, Unguryan was vocal in resisting legislation that would ban anti-gay job discrimination to bring Ukraine into compliance with European Union standards and give Ukrainian citizens access to visa-free travel in the EU. “As a country with a thousand-year-old Christian history, we simply cannot allow this,” Unguryan said. “Today, a special status for sexual minorities is simply unacceptable.”
Writing in Foreign Policy after the legislation was rejected in parliament (although it eventually passed), Lev Golinkin wrote:
In perusing websites and statements by both Russian and Ukrainian far right groups and politicians, one is stunned by the identical tone: Both invoke the imagery of a nation with “a thousand-year history of Christianity” battling back the encroachment of decadent Western values in order to justify their cause. Both use the same derogatory terms for homosexuals. Both insist that their country can have a future only once it is cleansed of “foreign” influences. The only difference is, one set of slogans is written in Russian, the other in Ukrainian.
Also in 2015, Unguryan called homosexuality “a treatable disease” and accused gay people of pedophilia, noted Ukrainian journalist Maxim Eristavi. In 2016, Unguryan urged deputies not to endorse a Council of Europe convention on the prevention of violence against women and domestic violence because the document mentioned “gender,” a concept he said should be abandoned “for the sake of Christian values and common sense.” The parliament also, at his request, “eliminated the concept of ‘sexual orientation’ from the bill amending some laws of Ukraine in connection with the ratification of the Council of Europe Convention.”
As Right Wing Watch has reportedbefore, Drollinger teaches that the Bible assigns men and women particular responsibilities and believes the Bible does not permit women to teach men about the Bible, which explains why all his regional directors and Bible study leaders are men. He says that in “God’s ordained institution of husband-wife marriage,” women must submit to their husbands as a reflection of Christ’s submission to God the Father.
Earlier this year, Unguryan joined other anti-choice and anti-LGBTQ activists at the World Congress of Families in Verona, where he reportedly “expressed his hope that Europe would see the rise of a ‘Bible Belt spanning Italy, Romania, Croatia, Hungary and Ukraine.’” This summer, he was one of a group of deputies suggesting that sessions of parliament begin with the Lord’s Prayer. (They were not successful.)
In July, the blog of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty highlighted a tweet from journalist Tom Rowley saying, “Another day, another outrageous quote from Ukrainian MP and PACE delegate Pavlo Unguryan, who says on parliamentary TV that child sexual abuse ‘blossoms’ among sexual minorities – and that Pride Marches will soon lead to ‘Pedophilia Marches.’”
Earlier this year, Unguryan led a “Family Forum” gathering that drew Ukrainian religious and political leaders as well as U.S.-based, global anti-LGBTQ activist Brian Brown. An organizer said the event was designed to “unite our efforts around the Christian idea of Ukraine’s development and resist the total attack of amorality.” Open Democracy reported on the gathering:
According to the forum’s website, the event’s main aims included developing a “strategy to resist urgent threats to the Ukrainian family”, such as attempts by the Ukrainian parliament to ratify the Istanbul Convention, “gay parades” and other “anti-family legislation”.
The day was opened with speeches by representatives of Ukraine’s political elite, but the afternoon agenda focused on education and outreach workshops. The forum’s final resolution included a number of points, among them a call on the government to revoke the position of Parliamentary Ombudsperson on gender policy, minimise the number of abortions carried out and “actively propagandise the insitute of the family and family values”.
According to a translated version of an article from Censor.net, Unguryan had already submitted a package of bills that he wanted those in attendance of the Family Forum to support: According to Unguryan, a package of family bills has already been submitted to the Cabinet of Ministers, which the organizers hope for adoption. The legislative acts concern the requirement to prohibit commercial surrogate motherhood, the inclusion of representatives of religious organizations in the Supervisory Board of Public Television, the removal of gender terminology from legislation and family support.
Unguryan, who was in the U.S. last year to get trained by Capitol Ministries, seemingly shares Drollinger’s belief that nations will thrive when policymakers are guided by Drollinger’s interpretation of the Bible.
“Our goals are to take the Gospel and initiate Bible study groups in all areas of our society such as law enforcement, judiciary, healthcare system, education etc,” Unguryan is quoted saying in a Capitol Ministries’ post from May. “That is the fastest way to enforce law and bring a true transformation to Ukraine.”
“We are so blessed by our partnership with Pavel!” Drollinger said. “He has grown his ministry in Ukraine much faster than we’ve been able to here in the U.S.!”
“Many local government ministries have already been established in Ukrainian provinces and communities,” Capitol Ministries says, adding that the Drollingers trained 40 “newly appointed ministry leaders.” The Drollingers “also traveled to meet with government and faith leaders in Romania, Serbia, Macedonia, and Brussels. Other leaders traveled from Norway, Russia, and Moldovia to meet with the couple to discuss planting Bible study ministries.”
In May, Capitol Ministries reported that Drollinger was connected with Unguryan by Oleg Rachkovski, Capitol Ministries’ Eurasia regional director. Rachkovski also saw to it that “Oaks in Office,” Drollinger’s handbook for ministry leaders and public officials, was translated into Russian; it is being used as a guide for Bible studies in Ukraine. “Oaks in Office” is a compilation of 52 of Drollinger’s weekly written Bible studies that Drollinger believes should guide public officials “on crucial policy issues as viewed through the Bible.”
In the U.S., Drollinger has built relationships with high-profile Trump administration officials and conservative politicians through his Bible studies for members of the House and Senate and cabinet. Two of Trump’s cabinet members, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine,have keynoted fundraising dinners for Capitol Ministries that were held in 2018 and 2019 at the World Ag Expo, held in the heart of California’s agriculture industry. (Before moving to D.C., Drollinger ran a ministry with California state legislators.)
Drollinger joined the pro-Trump prayer warriors at Intercessors for America last year to pray for Trump and his cabinet members. Drollinger asked people to pray that he’d be able to move his cabinet Bible study into the White House compound so that it would be easier for Trump and Vice President Mike Pence to attend.
Drollinger is also keen to find his way into the Supreme Court. Last fall, at a religious right prayer gathering shortly before the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, Drollinger told participants that U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar is “really good friends with Justice Kavanaugh.” He said Azar had predicted that once Kavanaugh was on the court, “either we’ll have him here to the cabinet Bible study or he’ll want to start one in SCOTUS.” Added Drollinger, “So pray that would happen, of all places, at the Supreme Court.”
It seems likely that if Drollinger had in fact been invited to lead Bible studies at the Supreme Court, we would have heard about it. Perhaps Kavanaugh, a Catholic, and his Catholic colleagues might not be terribly enthusiastic about being taught by Drollinger, who expresses disdain for those whose interpretations of scripture do not align with his own, and who has called the Catholic Church “the world’s largest false religion.”
Tags: Pavlo UnguryanRalph DrollingerAnti-GayAnti-LGBTChurch-StateGender IdeologyInternationalUkraineCapitol Ministries
https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trump-cabinet-bible-study-leader-sets-up-ministry-for-nicaraguan-strongman-sanctioned-by-u-s
Ralph Drollinger, whose ministry runs Bible studies for members of President Donald Trump’s cabinet and the U.S. Congress that are meant to “disciple” public officials to his particular “very conservative” interpretation of Christianity, traveled to Nicaragua this month at the invitation of President Daniel Ortega to discuss setting up similar Bible studies for Nicaraguan officials.
Drollinger spoke at a massive public gathering celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution. Drollinger’s visit, and his
for Ortega and his wife and Vice President Rosario Murillo, are striking in light of the intense criticism of the Ortega-Murillo regime by the U.S. government, which as recently as April expanded sanctions against individuals and institutions associated with the government–not to mention the disconnect between Ortega and Drollinger’s political backgrounds.
In an announcement of the most recent sanctions–against a bank and the son of the president and vice president—the U.S. undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence said, “President Ortega, Vice President Murillo, and members of their inner circle continue to engage in blatant corruption, violence, and violations of basic human rights.” The government has also been criticized by international human rights advocates.
The latest U.S. sanctions came about one year after Nicaraguan officials and their allies killed hundreds of people and jailed or drove into exile thousands more in a violent crackdown on political protesters. Ortega, who has faced “persistent accusations” of election fraud, has consolidated his power, changed the constitution to eliminate term limits, and blocked opposition candidates from running for office. In August 2018, the Washington Post reported that “police and masked gunmen working with them have hunted down opposition leaders and protesters by the hundreds” and that many “have been killed, arrested, or disappeared.” In September, the BBC reported that the government had ordered the U.N. Commission on Human Rights to leave the country after it criticized the government’s use of excessive force against protesters and torture of detainees.
This April, the newspaper El País reported that repression under Ortega “has worsened during this year.” It cited a move by police to prevent regime opponents “from mobilizing in the streets of Managua.”
:{But there was no mention of any of that unpleasantness in Drollinger’s }
:{ at the July 19 celebration. He began his remarks by bringing greetings from the U.S. }::{House of Representatives Bible study, the Senate Bible study, and “the U.S. White House cabinet member Bible study.”}:
Drollinger pronounced himself “blessed” and “honored” by the invitation to come to Nicaragua for the celebration and to talk about creating Bible studies for government officials. “In the United States of America, we have found amongst our political leaders, that it is essential they have a Bible teacher in their midst,” Drollinger said. He reiterated that point, saying “we have found in our nation, that it’s an important aspect of our government to have a Bible teacher in the midst of our political leaders.”
“Mrs. Vice President has said you are a Christian nation,” he told the crowd. “In America, we view ourselves as a Christian nation. But what is a Christian nation? A Christian nation is a Christian nation to the degree that the people in the nation reflect the attributes of God.”
Drollinger went on to say that it falls to the institution of the church to reflect the mercy, grace, love, patience and kindness of God, adding that other attributes include justice and righteousness, which God has “asked the state to manifest.”
We are personally to manifest the attributes of God’s justice and righteousness in our personal and our national life. And so to the degree that we reflect the love of Christ, to the degree that we reflect the mercy of Christ, to the degree that we reflect the grace of Christ, to the degree that we reflect the patience of Christ, to the degree that we reflect the justice of Christ, to the degree that our nation and our personal lives reflect the righteousness of Christ, is the degree to which we are or are not a Christian nation.
Let’s pause for a moment to remind ourselves what Drollinger and his Capitol Ministries teach about what God wants from public officials. Drollinger believes he has been called by God with a very specific purpose—to convert and “disciple” public officials at every level of government to his biblical worldview. Drollinger teaches public officials that the Bible endorses or mandates right-wing policy positions on economics, immigration, environmental regulation, abortion, LGBTQ equality, and the death penalty. Drollinger teaches that the government’s job is to “quell evil” and that governments and public officials “must send a constant message that sin will be punished.” He also teaches that the Bible promotes distinct gender roles, and he will not allow women to be Bible study leaders.
Drollinger’s teachings are reflected in his handbook for Christian public officials: Oaks in Office: Biblical Essays for Political Leaders. Capitol Ministries says that the Spanish-language edition is soon to be released and “will be used in the discipleship of the nation’s leaders.” Another Drollinger book, “Rebuilding America: The Biblical Blueprint,” has also been translated into Spanish and Portuguese with a new title, “Rebuilding a Nation.”
What might motivate Ortega and Murillo to invite Drollinger to Nicaragua and give him a speaking platform at a major national celebration? It’s a way to publicly wrap themselves in the mantle of Christianity, and perhaps poke a finger in the eye of the U.S. Treasury and State Departments by going over officials’ heads, so to speak, to an American who brags of his access at the highest levels of the U.S. government, including the White House.
This wouldn’t be the first time that Ortega and his wife have used religion for political purposes. A 2018 Washington Post article entitled “From Rebel to Strongman,” noted that when Ortega returned to office in 2006 a decade and a half after he was ousted by voters, he had “amped up his talk of peace and Christian values.” The BBC quoted Ortega saying in 2006, “Jesus Christ is my hero now.” According to Capitol Ministries, Ortega’s invitation said, “We know if the people that God has trusted with the destiny of a nation are born again, our legislators will legislate according to the Bible.”
By one estimate, Nicaragua is about one-half Catholic and one-third evangelical. While Ortega’s opposition to abortion has undoubtedly pleased church leaders from both groups, the government became increasingly hostile to the Catholic Church during the past year over some church leaders’ criticism of his abuses of power.
Foreign Policy reported last August, “In recent weeks, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and forces loyal to him have targeted clergy, profaning and destroying Catholic churches, even killing those who seek refuge within them.” Foreign Policy noted that Vice President Mike Pence had slammed the Nicaraguan government for “virtually waging war on the Catholic Church and those calling for democracy and national dialogue.”
It’s worth noting that Drollinger has seemingly little tolerance for those whose take on Christianity or biblical interpretation differs from his own. He has called the Catholic Church “the world’s largest false religion.”
Given the hostility between the Nicaraguan government and the Catholic Church, the public embrace of Drollinger could be seen as a way for Ortega and Murillo to portray their government as publicly aligned with Christianity in spite of their feud with Catholic leaders.
Indeed, in April, shortly after presidential son Laureano Ortega Murillo was hit with sanctions by the U.S. government, he took part in an evangelical gathering where Managua Mayor Reyna Rueda was given the microphone to thank God for “the peace that reigns in our country.”
The appearance generated some side-eye reporting on the leaders’ newfound enthusiasms. “Until recently, it was normal to see the Ortega Murillo family attending mass,” noted La Presna. “But since the dictatorship declared the Catholic Church as an enemy, they have moved closer to certain evangelical leaders, whose position during the crisis that Nicaragua is going through has been silence.”
La Prensa quoted Eliseo Nunez, a former deputy and member of the Broad Front for Democracy (FAD) portraying the ruling family as unprincipled and willing to do anything to maintain their hold on power. He accused Ortega of “taking advantage of the opportunism of a few pastors” in order to falsely portray all evangelicals as his supporters. There were also some Catholic leaders present at the July 19 celebration, La Presna reported, including a priest who asked Drollinger to intercede with the U.S. government to lift its sanctions.
Capitol Ministries’ own reporting about Drollinger’s public appearance in Nicaragua, which includes a link to the video of his “sermon,” states, “Drollinger explained that in the Bible, God doesn’t talk about ‘Christian nations,’ that only individuals can become Christians by being forgiven for sin through the atoning work of Jesus Christ.” But that’s not accurate, according to the video of Drollinger’s remarks at the political rally. At no point does he “explain” that “God doesn’t talk about ‘Christian nations’”—nor does he talk on that video about “individuals becoming forgiven for sin through the atoning work of Jesus Christ.” [See update below for Capitol Ministries’ explanation.]
“A ‘Christian nation’ per se, doesn’t exist,” continues the Capitol Ministries blog post, “Nations can only be so-called ‘Christian’ to the extent that their laws and people are guided by Christian principles, two of which are righteousness and justice, Drollinger said.
Drollinger did not tell the crowd in Managua that a “Christian nation” doesn’t exist. As noted above, he did say that what makes a nation a Christian nation is that its people and leaders reflect what he calls the attributes of God. He prayed that the people, government officials and country of Nicaragua would reflect the attributes of God, and added, “May God cement these ideas as to what is a Christian nation.”
This apparent misrepresentation* of his public remarks, at least those captured on the video shared by Capitol Ministries itself, may reflect the group’s sensitivity to how researchers and reporters have characterized Drollinger’s positions on church-state separation—he says he supports institutional separation, but not influential separation—and on Christian nationalism, which he has denounced.
Drollinger’s public remarks were translated into Spanish by Oscar Zamora, Capitol Ministries’ Peru-based director for Latin America. Zamora reported that he recently met with Nicaraguan congressional leaders and with General Inspector Jaime Vanegas “who asked me to give a word to almost 200 police officers who were waiting for me at an auditorium next door.” He also said he had met with Managua Mayor Rueda.
After the trip, Capitol Ministries announced that Bible studies for Nicaragua’s cabinet and National Assembly deputies will be led by Arsenio Herrera, who reportedly pastors the largest evangelical church in Managua. Herrera, described as the “spiritual son” of the late American missionary David Spencer, has his own ambitious plans to have a church in every city in the country to go along with his TV ministries. “We are a national church,” he said in 2015. A few years ago he told the Daystar network that he is “believing for the transformation of the nation.” Daystar described him as “working to establish the Kingdom of God in Nicaragua.”
Capitol Ministries says it “has planted ministries in 24 foreign federal capitals and has an objective of establishing 200 ministries in 200 foreign nations in the years to come.” It says that since Zamora’s appointment as Latin America director, “ministries have been birthed in Honduras, Uruguay, Ecuador, Mexico, and Costa Rica.” And it has asked its supporters to pray “for upcoming launches in the federal capitals of Brasilia, Brazil on August 29, and Panama City, Panama on October 22.”
*Update: After this blog post was published, Capitol Ministries contacted Right Wing Watch to let us know that its story about Drollinger’s Nicaragua trip has been edited to clarify that the comments attributed to him that do not appear in the video were meant to be described as things he said later to “explain” the “intent” of his talk in Nicaragua. With this clarification, the CM post no longer appears to report inaccurately what he told the crowd; readers can judge for themselves how closely his actual remarks, which described what makes a nation a Christian nation, matched what Capitol Ministries says was his intent.
AUGUST 6, 2018 4:45 PM
Trump Bible Study Group to Feature Dick DeVos, Join Troubled Willow Creek Leadership Gathering
JUNE 19, 2018 5:32 PM
Capitol Ministries, a group that teaches public officials that the Bible mandates right-wing economic and social policies, is convening its global staff for a regional directors’ conference in Chicago this week. Among the speakers will be Dick DeVos, right-wing political funder and husband of U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who is reportedly one of the participants in the weekly Bible study that Capitol Ministries’ President Ralph Drollinger leads for members of President Trump’s cabinet.
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Drollinger also leads weekly Bible studies for members of the U.S. House and Senate and publishes weekly written Bible study materials that his group distributes widely to public officials. Capitol Ministries has ambitious plans to run Bible studies for legislators and other public officials in national capitals around the world, every U.S. state capital, and tens of thousands of local government bodies.
After Capitol Ministries’ two-day conference, its staff will attend the Global Leadership Summit sponsored by the Willow Creek Association, a leadership organization that is independent of, but associated with, the Willow Creek megachurch. Dick DeVos, former president of Amway, chairs the Willow Creek Association’s board.
The association describes itself as “a community of innovative churches sharing a common vision of supporting the building of biblically functioning churches globally, representing members from diverse churches, denominations, regions, cultures and ethnicities who want to learn from each other and see the Church thrive worldwide.” Member churches are expected to “hold to a history, orthodox understanding of biblical Christianity.”
In April, Bill Hybels, founder of the Willow Creek Community Church, resigned from the Willow Creek Association board amid accusations of sexual harassment and other improprieties. He also resigned as the church’s senior pastor.
On August 5, Willow Creek Church’s Teaching Pastor Steve Carter resigned after The New York Times reported new allegations against Hybels. Christianity Today reports that since Hybel’s resignation, 111 church and organization sites that had previously committed to hosting the simulcast of the Willow Creek Association’s Global Leadership Summit have canceled. CT reports that “Tom DeVries, president and CEO of the Willow Creek Association (WCA) which runs the GLS, is expected to make a statement about Hybels at the start of the summit.”
As we noted in May:
Drollinger’s weekly written Bible studies, which are available online, instruct public officials that the government’s job is to “quell evil” and punish sin; that “as a lawmaker it is incumbent on you to stand for the death penalty”; that entitlement programs lack “any basis of biblical authority”; that “radical environmentalism” is a “false religion”.
Tags: Bill HybelsDick DeVosRalph Drollinger#MeTooChurch-StateInternationalCapitol MinistriesWillow Creek Association
Right Wing Round-Up: A Humiliating Defeat For Kris Kobach
MAY 16, 2018 11:36 AM
Ralph Drollinger Is Looking For A Few Good (Self-Funded) Men To ‘Disciple’ State Legislators
MAY 7, 2018 3:45 PM
Bible Study Leader Wants Trump Cabinet Members To Use Their Positions To Spread Christianity
APRIL 18, 2018 10:06 AM
Group That Runs Fundamentalist Bible Studies For Cabinet & Congress Growing ‘Beyond Our Wildest Imaginings’ Globally
APRIL 11, 2018 3:45 PM
Secretary Of State Nominee Mike Pompeo Vs. Religious Pluralism
APRIL 9, 2018 5:40 PM
Right Wing Round-Up: Trump’s Ambassador To The Fringe
APRIL 3, 2018 4:34 PM
EPA’s Pruitt Hears From Bible Study Leader That ‘Radical Environmentalism’ Is A ‘False Religion’
MARCH 21, 2018 5:32 PM
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/epas-pruitt-hears-from-bible-study-leader-that-radical-environmentalism-is-a-false-religion/
Drollinger, the man who leads weekly Bible study meetings for members of Congress and Trump’s Cabinet—including embattled Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt—distributed on Monday a Bible study warning that America is in the process of shifting from Christianity to the “false religion of Radical Environmentalism.” Pruitt told CBN last year that it was “wonderful” to participate in the Cabinet Bible studies.
Drollinger’s weekly written Bible studies (also available online in print and audio versions) are distributed to public officials by Capitol Ministries, which is expanding in the U.S. and globally. Drollinger, who sometimes describes them as a kind of a homework supplement to the in-person Bible study meetings, told a reporter last year that Trump reads the studies and sends him positive hand-written notes about them.
The study posted on Monday, “Coming to Grips with the Religion of Environmentalism,” appears to be an updated version of a previous written study with the same title. It draws heavily on a passage in the biblical book of Genesis in which God grants mankind dominion over the Earth and all its creatures and instructs man to rule and subdue creation.
Drollinger argues that it is unbiblical to believe that mankind’s actions could destroy the Earth:
To think that man can alter the Earth’s ecosystem—when God remains omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent in the current affairs of mankind—is to more than subtly espouse an ultra-hubristic, secular worldview relative to the supremacy and importance of man.
Here’s another bit of policy-related teaching that Drollinger has shared with Pruitt and his colleagues in the Cabinet:
To allow fish to govern the construction of dams, endangered species to govern power plants, flies to govern hospitals, or kangaroo rats, homes, is to miss the clear proclamation of God in Genesis.
Because of biblical promises that God would not again destroy the Earth in a great flood, and would continue to send rain, says Drollinger, “we can all rest assured and wholly rely on God’s aforementioned promises pertaining to His ability and willingness to sustain our world’s ecosystem.”
Drollinger, who is from California and recently held a fundraiser with Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue during the World Ag Expo in the heart of California’s agriculture industry, decries efforts in California to limit household water usage, saying there is “more than enough to go around” and that environmentalists’ efforts to restrict water usage reflects asecular worldview that says the environment is more important than people.
“The biblically informed public servant,” says Drollinger, must “order his thinking in light of God’s revealed hierarchy in creation.”
Drollinger says it’s good politics to side against “Radical Environmentalists,” in part because they have fewer children than those who believe “in the biblical truth of multiplying and filling the earth.” His Bible study says thatBible-believers have “outperformed” environmentalist parents “by six million children since the advent of Radical Environmentalism in America,” adding:
Those six million children are just now reaching voting status. Said another way, young Americans raised with a Christian worldview will soon outnumber the children of Radical Environmentalists by at least six million voters in the coming elections. Indeed the scriptural truth that your sins will find you outwill soon be realized across the country. Hopefully the religion of Radical Environmentalism will soon be relegated to fringe minority status in American society. Amen.
Drollinger may have unique access to Cabinet members like Pruitt, and members of the House and Senate, but his anti-environmentalist theology is not unique. For years, Religious Right leaders have attacked the environmental movement—which some have called the Green Dragon. Right-wing “historian” David Barton is among those who signed the 2009 Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming, which denounced efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and said that God had made the Earth and its ecosystems “robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory.”
E&E News examined the impact of Pruitt’s faith on his approach to policy-making in a July 2017 profile, noting that Pruitt served on the board of trustees of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville. It also pointed to a 2016 interview, when Pruitt was Oklahoma’s attorney general battling a state Supreme Court ruling about the Ten Commandments, where he said, “A Christian worldview means that God has answers to our problems.” He added, “And part of our responsibility is to convey to those in society that the answers that he has, as represented in Scripture, are important and should be followed, because they lead to freedom and liberty.” Pruitt accused the “political left, the liberals, and those that are anti-faith” of misinterpreting the First Amendment as “a mandate for the government to eradicate all vestiges of religion in the public square.”
Tags: Ralph DrollingerScott PruittChurch-StateEnvironmentTrump AdministrationCapitol Ministries
Right Wing Round-Up: DO NOT CONGRATULATE
FEBRUARY 16, 2018 12:05 PM
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue Helps Trump Cabinet Bible Study Pastor Raise Money From Agribusiness
JANUARY 30, 2018 12:31 PM
Trump Cabinet Bible Study Pastor Ralph Drollinger On The ‘Fallacy Of Christian Nationalism’
JANUARY 24, 2018 4:12 PM
Trump Cabinet Bible Study Pastor Says It’s Libelous To Call Him A Christian Nationalist. Hmm.
JANUARY 02, 2018 12:40 PM
Trump Bible Study Leader: Government’s Job Is To ‘Quell Evil’ and Punish Sin
DECEMBER 19, 2017 4:47 PM
The Year The Religious Right Moved Into The White House
NOVEMBER 27, 2017 3:21 PM
Leader Of Trump Cabinet Bible Studies Aggressively Expanding Right-Wing Proselytizing To Government Officials
AUGUST 04, 2017 5:34 PM
Right Wing Round-Up: Lobbing Softballs At The White House
JULY 31, 2017 5:30 PM
Right Wing Bonus Tracks: Let’s Hope Trump Is No Samson
JULY 11, 2017 4:03 PM
Leader Of Trump Cabinet Bible Study: God Only Hears Prayers Of ‘Righteous’ Christians
WHITE HOUSE BIBLE STUDY LED BY PASTOR WHO IS ANTI-GAY, ANTI-WOMEN AND ANTI-CATHOLIC
BY KASHMIRA GANDER ON 4/11/18 AT 1:57 PM
Updated | The first Bible study group held for the U.S. Cabinet in at least 100 years is led by a pastor who believes homosexuality is "illegitimate," who doesn't believe women should preach and has described Catholicism as a "false" religion.
Ten members of the Cabinet, including Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, sponsor the study group, which holds meetings lasting between one hour and 90 minutes every Wednesday, according to BBC News. It unfolds at a location in Washington, D.C., that is kept secret for security reasons.
Its leader is Ralph Drollinger, a pastor and president of Capitol Ministries: an organization which aims to “evangelize elected officials and lead them toward maturity in Christ.”
U.S. President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and faith leaders say a prayer during the signing of a proclamation in the Oval Office of the White House September 1, 2017, in Washington, D.C. Members of the U.S. Cabinet have sponsored a Bible study group for the first time in 100 years.
The 63-year-old former pro-basketball player from California founded Capitol Ministries with is wife in 1996, to offer prayer groups, Bible study meetings, and private ministry to politicians. It now operates in 43 state capitols, and over 20 locations outside the U.S.
The outspoken pastor has sparked controversy for his views on women, same-sex relationships and Catholicism.
Arguing that women and men have "different roles," he claimed in the BBC News interview: "There is a prohibition of female leadership in marriage, and female leadership in the church. And those are clear in Scripture… it doesn't mean, in an egalitarian sense, that a woman is of lesser importance."
And earlier this year in a Bible study session released on the Capitol Ministries website, he said: "Homosexuality and same-sex ceremonies are illegitimate in God's eyes. His word is repetitive, perspicuous [clearly expressed], and staid on the subject."
Those comments come after he wrote in a Bible study addressed to the U.S. Capitol in 2013: “Not only is homosexuality and same sex marriage voided by God in His Word, but biology as well castigates homosexuality and same sex marriage: The ultimate outcome is the discontinuation of the species since homosexuals cannot procreate. For sure one cannot be a homosexual and an evolutionist at the same time.”
In 2004, Drollinger was criticized for declaring Catholicism "is one of the primary false religions of the world."
As a result, progressive campaigners have objected to Drollinger’s regular meetings with high-ranking US politicians, and fear the influence he could have on their political outlook.
Asked whether he tells his students how to vote, Drollinger told BBC News he willI “put the blueprint on the engineer's seat on the train” which will show the “right tracks to the station."
"But I'm not going to tell you what tracks to take. But you've got to be pretty stupid not to follow the blueprint, because it's there,” he said.
In a statement, the LGBT advocacy nonprofit the Human Rights Campaign called Drollinger an “extremist.”
“People look to their faith as a source of guidance and inspiration—and LGBTQ people and our family and friends are no different,” the group said. “Drollinger’s influence and involvement in the current administration is not only driving a wedge between faith communities and the LGBTQ community, but it is turning back the clock on progress with the spread of even more divisive rhetoric throughout the highest ranks of government.
Jessica Stern, the executive director of LGBT advocacy non-profit OutRight Action International told Newsweek: "Make no mistake; this is no mere study group. This organization has targeted American government officials, so it has by definition sought to blur the line between church and state.
"Their anti-woman and anti-LGBTIQ views matter because the highest levels of American government are listening to them. Members of the president's Cabinet must immediately withdraw their sponsorship of this organization."
The representatives of the North America region of the International Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) told Newsweek: “We have concerns that the Trump administration is willing to accept counsel from individuals who are hostile towards the LGBTQ community.
"There are many faith leaders to whom the administration can receive council who are inclusive and do not discriminate against any community. Many people who identify as LGBTQ are spiritual and religious people, and the fact that the President is surrounded by people who seek religious council from an exclusionary and hateful person is problematic. The President should require his cabinet to open their religious studies to more inclusionary groups and individuals."
The White House and Capitol Ministries did not respond to a request for comment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Drollinger
Ralph Kim Drollinger (born April 20, 1954) is an American clergyman and retired professional basketball player, and leader of the "White House Bible Study Group," a study group sponsored by 10 cabinet members which holds weekly meetings each Wednesday.[1]
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Education
Drollinger attended Grossmont High School in La Mesa and the University of California, Los Angeles, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Geography/Ecosystems.[2] He later received a Masters of Divinity degree from The Master's Seminary.[3]
Basketball
Drollinger played basketball at Grossmont High School and was the CIF Southern Section MVP, as his team won the 1972 CIF championship as a high school All-American. He was a 7'2" (2.19 m) and 250 lb (114 kg) center and played collegiately at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He was the first player in NCAA history to go to four Final Four tournaments.[4] He played for two national championship teams under coach John Wooden and after his first season, won the Seymour Armond Award as UCLA's most outstanding freshman. In his junior and senior years he was an Academic All-American.
Drollinger also played on America' World Cup Basketball team in 1978.
Drollinger was taken in the NBA Draft three times. He chose to forgo the NBA during those years to instead play with Athletes in Action, an evangelistic basketball team that toured the world and preached the gospel at halftimes and represented America in the 1978 FIBA World Championship.[5] He was selected with the 17th pick in the seventh round in 1976 by the Boston Celtics, with the 1st pick of the eighth round in 1977 by the New York Nets, and finally with the 17th pick of the fifth round in 1978 by the Seattle SuperSonics.
Drollinger was the first Dallas Maverick ever in the history of the then new NBA franchise.
He signed with the Dallas Mavericks in June 1980 as a free agent before they had hired Dick Motta as the head coach, motivated by his desire to attend Dallas Theological Seminary during his playing days.[6] He played in only six games due to a knee injury which led to his retirement from basketball in March 1981.[7] In the Mavs' inaugural season in 1980–81, he averaged 2.5 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game.[6][7]
Some years later after his retirement, Dr. James Dobson invited Drollinger to play in an early morning pick up game with Pete Maravich. That morning Maravich collapsed in the middle of the game from a massive heart attack. Dobson and Drollinger administered CPR, but to no avail; Maravich was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital.[8][9]
He was selected as one of the Fabulous 50 Basketball Players by the San Diego Hall of Champions in 2011.[10]
Sports ministry
After his brief injury-plagued professional career, Drollinger founded and participated in a variety of sports related ministries. He helped found and was the Executive Director of Sports Outreach America, an umbrella trade organization of American church and parachurch sports ministries, such as the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Athletes in Action, and Pro Athletes Outreach. He founded Sports Spectrum Magazine, a bi-monthly print magazine that features the testimony of Christian athletes, the "Path To Victory" Sports New Testament in conjunction with Biblica,[11] He also founded, produced and financed Julius Erving's Sports Focus, a weekly one-half hour television anthology on ESPN featuring the testimony of Christian athletes and hosted by NBA player Julius Erving.[12]
Capitol ministries
In 1997, Drollinger founded Capitol Ministries, a ministry organization that provides Bible studies, evangelism and discipleship to political leaders. The organization has founded ministries in over 40 US State Capitols since then.[13][6][7] Drollinger leads Capitol Ministries in Washington, D.C. and what is referred to internally as The Members Bible Study in the US Capitol.[9][14] Drollinger also leads several senior Trump administration officials in a similar group at the White House, and provides bible study print-outs for Donald Trump.[15][16] He is not associated with The Fellowship due to what he perceives as their unbiblical teaching.[17]
Political philosophy
Drollinger is a conservative evangelical Christian who describes his belief that there should indeed be an "institutional" separation of Church and State, but that the Church should still "influence" the State.[18] He has also asked President Trump to use his presidency to turn the American government into a "benevolent dictatorship."[19] Drollinger is also on record as being anti-LGBTQ, anti-women's rights, and declaring Catholicism as "one of the primary false religions of the world."[20]
Publications
- Rebuilding America: The Biblical Blueprint ISBN 978-1-62467-024-4
Personal life
Drollinger is married to Danielle Madison, the founding and former executive director of California's Allied Business PAC,[21][not ^in ^citation given] with whom he shares three children and seven grandchildren.[22] He is also the son of the founder of Adventure16, a retail chain of mountaineering specialty stores located throughout Southern California.[23] Drollinger is a world-class mountaineer and is the first person to have climbed every peak on the main ridge of the Sierra Nevada between Olancha and Sonora Pass, California, the 250 mile section of the ridge commonly referred to as the High Sierra.[4]
RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM By DAVID BADASHAPRIL 18, 201811:03 AM
‘God Is a Capitalist’: Preacher Holding Trump Cabinet Weekly Bible Studies Promotes Christian Extremism
"THE GOVERNMENT’S JOB IS TO 'QUELL EVIL'." "ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS HAVE NO 'BIBLICAL AUTHORITY'."
Ralph Drollinger's own ministry declared him "not biblically qualified for spiritual leadership." And yet, he leads the Trump Cabinet's weekly Bible study group,organized by Vice President Pence and faithfully attended by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, CIA Director Mike Pompeo, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, among others.
Right Wing Watch's Peter Montgomery on Thursday reports "Drollinger’s Capitol Ministries is dedicated to teaching public officials a very conservative take on the Bible. Drollinger teaches that 'the absolutely critical preeminent duty of the Church in an institutionally separated society' is 'to convert the soul and disciple—Christianize—the leaders of the State and its citizenry.'"
Montgomery reveals some of the positions Drollinger is teaching his disciples in the Trump White House. Direct from Right Wing Watch:
the government’s job is to “quell evil”
governments and leaders “must send a constant message that sin will be punished”
entitlement programs have no “biblical authority”
liberal Christians aren’t really Christians, they’re “simpletons”
Catholicism is “one of the primary false religions in the world”
“Radical environmentalism” is a “false religion”
“God only hears the prayers of leaders and citizens who are upright, who live righteously through faith in Jesus Christ”
“God is a capitalist” and because of excessive environmental regulations in the U.S. “the economic benefits God intends from private property ownership have been greatly diminished”
“righteous” people with government positions should not “compromise Biblical absolutes” and should hire only other “righteous” people
Secretary Rick Perry earlier this year explained the weekly meetings: [video] "brilliant"
also senate and congressional bible study
https://www.facebook.com/CapitolMinistries/videos/1743050242422194/
no lnx
Trump Cabinet Secretaries Attend Bible Study Led by Extremist Pastor ‘Not Biblically Qualified for Spiritual Leadership’
'IT IS THE ESTIMATION OF THESE MEN THAT RALPH DROLLINGER IS NOT BIBLICALLY QUALIFIED FOR SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP' HIS OWN BOARD MEMBERS CHARGED
A large number of President Donald Trump's Cabinet Secretaries attend a weekly bible study group led by a right wing extremist pastor whose own ministry declared him "not biblically qualified for spiritual leadership." The group is sponsored by Vice President Mike Pence.
"Health Secretary Tom Price, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Agriculture SecretarySunny Perdue, and CIA Director Mike Pompeo are just a few of the regulars," Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) reports Monday. "America's top cop, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, also attends the study."
"Nearly all Cabinet officials attend Bible lessons with [a] right-wing pastor who compares Trump to biblical heroes," Sarah K. Burris at Raw Story adds.
The pastor, apparently sourced by Vice President Pence, is Ralph Drollinger of Capitol Ministries.
In 2009 California's Capitol Weekly reported "five board members resigned from Capitol Ministries," of which Drollinger is president.
"This group included John Anderson, a Grace Church member who is now on the Board of Directors of Capitol Commission. In communication with current or former Capitol Ministries board members and others, Grace officials noted on Sept. 24 'It is the estimation of these men that Ralph Drollinger is not biblically qualified for spiritual leadership.'"
If Drollinger's own board members deemed him "not biblically qualified for spiritual leadership," why is he in the White House leading some of the most powerful people in America in Bible study?
On May 21, 2004, the L.A. Times reported Drollinger "wrote in a Bible lesson that women lawmakers with young children at home are sinners."
Three days later Church Central reported Drollinger "claimed that the Bible says God has given men and women different roles. 'Man's is, primarily, to be a breadwinner, and women's is to be at home nurturing their children,' he said." It also reported that when Drollinger called Catholicism a false religion, then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is Catholic, kicked Drolliniger out of the governor's offices.
Theologian Diana Butler Bass calls Drollinger "anti-women, anti-Catholic, anti-LGBTQ, anti-Jewish."
Diana Butler Bass
?
@dianabutlerbass
- Jul 31, 2017
Replying to @dianabutlerbass
Throughout Drollinger has shown himself to be anti-women, anti-Catholic, anti-LGBTQ, anti-Jewish ....
Diana Butler Bass
?
@dianabutlerbass
and teaches God demands borders to keep nations separate w/distinct categories: "citizens, immigrants, foreigners." https://capmin.org/bible-says-illegal-immigration-problem-2/ …
5:45 PM - Jul 31, 2017
What the Bible Says About Our Illegal Immigration Problem
Ralph Drollinger | I am reissuing the study, What the Bible Says About Our Illegal Immigration Problem, this week in order to provide you with a better understanding and a sound systematic theology...
capmin.org
64
44 people are talking about this
Twitter Ads info and privacy
And adds:
Diana Butler Bass
?
@dianabutlerbass
- Jul 31, 2017
Replying to @dianabutlerbass
For Drollinger, the Bible is "restrictionist not racist."
Diana Butler Bass
?
@dianabutlerbass
These are the things that, according to CBN, amount to "spiritual awakening"?? #notinmybible
5:50 PM - Jul 31, 2017
Insisting the "Trump Cabinet Bible study is making history," CBN claims a "spiritual awakening is underway at the White House."
Journalist Amy Sullivan (who tweeted about the above stories) offers this interesting push back:
Amy Sullivan
?
@sullivanamy
Hey, you know who was in a weekly Bible study for nearly all eight years in the White House and nobody cared?
Hillary Clinton
Niraj Warikoo
?
@nwarikoo
Report is by a Christian media outlet. It says AG Sessions, Sec. Betsy DeVos, CIA head Pompeo among members of weekly Bible study: https://twitter.com/nwarikoo/status/892130157464494080 …
2:36 PM - Jul 31, 2017
CBN, which is Fox News for far right wing Christian evangelicals, also claims Trump's cabinet has "been called the most evangelical Cabinet in history." CBN does not cite any source for that ludicrous claim.
But CBN does cite Drollinger himself, speaking about the cabinet members who attend his bible study.
"These are godly individuals that God has risen to a position of prominence in our culture," the pastor who has been called "not biblically qualified for spiritual leadership" tells CBN.
Drollinger says Attorney General Sessions will "go out the same day I teach him something and I'll see him do it on cameraand I just think, 'Wow, these guys are faithful, available and teachable and they're at Bible study every week they're in town.'"
Diana Butler Bass
?
@dianabutlerbass
- Jul 31, 2017
Replying to @dianabutlerbass
Where the controversial Capitol Ministries is sponsored by (among many others) Mike Pence of Indiana: https://capmin.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/How-We-Got-The-Bible-Part3.pdf …
Diana Butler Bass
?
@dianabutlerbass
This is one of Drollinger's Member Bible studies -- on same-sex marriage. Note Pence is a sponsor: http://godsmarriagebow.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/the-bible-supreme-court-and-same-sex-marriage.pdf …
5:00 PM - Jul 31, 2017
CBN also reports Drollinger "teaches weekly studies in theU.S. House and Senate and now leads about a dozen members of President Trump's Cabinet in weekly studies of the scriptures."
At Raw Story, Burris notes "Drollinger sees Pence as a character like biblical stars Joseph, Mordecai and Daniel, all of whom rose to stand beside heads of government in history. Though Joseph is known for always doing the moral thing. Mordecai almost pushed his cousin into slavery. And Daniel committed crimes to avoid committing biblical sins."
ref
https://www.rawstory.com/2017/07/nearly-all-cabinet-officials-attend-bible-lessons-with-right-wing-pastor-who-compares-trump-to-biblical-heroes/
Nearly all Cabinet officials attend Bible lessons with right-wing pastor who compares Trump to biblical heroes
Sarah K. Burris SARAH K. BURRIS
31 JUL 2017 AT 13:02 ET
Christian Broadcast News has suggested President Donald Trump’s cabinet is the most evangelical cabinet in history even more than born again Christian George W. Bush.
“These are godly individuals that God has risen to a position of prominence in our culture,” said Capitol Ministries president and founder Ralph Drollinger. According to CBN, the majority of the cabinet officials attend a frequent Bible study class, that is the first of its kind in at least 100 years.
He has long maintained that changing the hearts of lawmakers to see a Christian worldview could guide them to making good policies. While he doesn’t lobby on behalf of peace or advocate policies that would fit a Jesus-like agenda, he has started a Bible study group in 40 state capitols as well as foreign capitols. He teaches weekly Bible study classes for the U.S. House and Senate and now leads a group of nearly all of Trump’s cabinet officials.
Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Education Secretary Betsy Devos, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and CIA Director Mike Pompeo are all regular attendees.
The most notable, however, is Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
“He’ll go out the same day I teach him something and I’ll see him do it on camera and I just think, ‘Wow, these guys are faithful, available and teachable and they’re at Bible study every week they’re in town,'” Drollinger said of his influence.
He said that the group is the “best” he’s “ever taught” because the officials “are so teachable; they’re so noble; they’re so learned.”
Trump, however, is in an entirely different category. While the president is always invited to the groups, Drollinger doesn’t disclose that he’s attended, only that he’s been invited. He also sends a copy of the teaching each week to the president.
“I don’t think Donald Trump has figured out that he chained himself to the Apostle Paul,” Drollinger said, though it isn’t clear who the “Paul” is in this analogy. It’s doubtful Trump would get the reference either given his confusion about popular Biblical texts.
Vice President Mike Pence does plan on attending in the future as his schedule permits and he serves as the sponsor of the group.
Drollinger sees Pence as a character like biblical stars Joseph, Mordecai and Daniel, all of whom rose to stand beside heads of government in history. Though Joseph is known for always doing the moral thing. Mordecai almost pushed his cousin into slavery. And Daniel committed crimes to avoid committing biblical sins.
“Mike Pence has respect for the office. He dresses right – like it says Joseph cleaned himself up before he went to stand before the Pharaoh,” Drollinger explained to CBN. “Mike Pence has uncompromising biblical tenacity and he has a loving tone about him that’s not just a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And then fourthly, he brings real value to the head of the nation.”
Drollinger sees Trump as the biblical character Samson, who is known for the source of his strength coming from his hair. Jn Judges, Samson is an immoral person who does little more than slaughter and betray people.
“I just praise God for them,” Drollinger continued. “And I praise God for Mike Pence, who I think with Donald Trump chose great people to lead our nation.”