Year: 2012

Let me begin this post by saying that I have not seen Kirk Cameron’s upcoming movie Monumental, but I have seen the trailers. These clips are the basis for this post and the one on Saturday. On Saturday, I noted that Cameron recruited Herb Titus for his movie. Titus has become popular with Birthers who believe Obama is not a natural born citizen and therefore ineligible for the Presidency.

Reading more, it appears that Dr. Titus is also of the Christian Reconstructionism persuasion. Here he delivers a tribute to Rousas J. Rushdoony, father of Christian Reconstructionism, here he argues that public education is unbiblical, here is his book on dominion and law and here he and law partner William Olson argue against the Lawrence vs. Texas case that nullified sodomy laws nationally.

According to this Atlantic article by Harvey Cox, Titus was fired as law school dean at Regent University because of his dominionist views. Titus later sued the school for $70 million (I don’t know how it turned out). Cox featured Regent University in a November, 1995 article on the religious right. Concerned about Pat Robertson’s dominionist writings, asked about the views among the faculty there:

I [Cox] thought it was important, if awkward, to bring up these questions with Regent faculty members. And I did so. The answer was very clear. Regent, they insisted, is absolutely not a dominion-theology school, and Robertson himself had demonstrated this recently by getting rid of the dean of the law school, Herbert Titus, because Titus was leaning in the dominion direction. (Titus, who was a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union before his conversion to evangelical Christianity, is currently suing the school for about $70 million.) I did not wave quotations from Robertson’s books in front of anyone, because by this time I thought I might hear once again that he just doesn’t choose his ghostwriters carefully enough. Also, Terry Lindvall sounded persuasive when he told me that whatever might have been the case in the past, the battle over Herbert Titus had really been a “struggle for the soul of the university” in which the dominion-theology party had decisively lost. “This is no Masada,” he said. “We just want the evangelical voice to be heard and to make a positive contribution.” In his mind, the matter was settled once and for all.

Most viewers of Monumental will not know this.  About Titus, Cameron says he has been the Dean of two law schools, not saying, of course, that Titus was let go from one of them.

Many evangelicals will jump on this bandwagon without really understanding the implications.

 

Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays has been getting push back over the ex-gay pamphlets sent home with students recently in Montgomery County, MD. Earlier today, Peter Sprigg, who is on the board of PFOX and works for the Family Research Council wrote the Washington Post to criticize a Post article for calling homosexuality “innate.” Mr. Sprigg:

The March 6 article “Schools review policy on fliers” repeated as fact what are actually mere opinions of those critical of the flier distributed in Montgomery County high schools by Parents and Friends of Ex-gays and Gays (PFOX).In particular, the statement, “mainstream medical and mental-health associations say that homosexuality is innate” was unsubstantiated. Here is what the American Psychological Assocation says about the origins of sexual orientation:“Although much research has examined the possible genetic, hormonal, developmental, social, and cultural influences on sexual orientation, no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation is determined by any particular factor or factors.”The statement in the Montgomery County Public Schools curriculum that homosexuality is “innate” was added by the Board of Education; it was was not recommended by MCPS staff. In other words, it is a political statement, not a scientific one. This simply illustrates why students in Montgomery County need access to alternative sources of information about the choices they have in responding to same-sex attractions — alternatives like those offered by PFOX.

Peter Sprigg, Germantown

The author is a member of the PFOX board. He served on the MCPS Citizens Advisory Committee for Family Life and Human Development from 2005 to 2011.

Although the APA has also reviewed evidence regarding reparative drive theory in 2009 and found it wanting, Sprigg is partly correct that APA has not taken a definitive stance on the origins of sexual orientation.

However, calling orientation innate is not the same thing as saying that sexual orientation derives from pre-natal factors. There is evidence for the innateness of sexual orientation without regard to origins.

What is also troubling about Sprigg’s letter is that he offers an organization as an alternative that does what he accuses the Montgomery Board and the Post of doing – making political statements in place of scientific ones. PFOX has no interest in all of the evidence regarding sexual orientation. Instead, they promote reparative therapy, with the dubious view that parenting and sexual abuse causes sexual orientation. The one PFOX conference I attended several years ago was a sad affair for a group of parents I spoke with after the sessions. Why? Richard Cohen had just finished telling them that lack of love was the culprit behind the gayness of their kids.

As I write this, PFOX is just one of the organizations along with FRC that continues to mislead their constituents regarding current information regarding sexual orientation. They blast those who say that homosexuality is innate or may be a response to pre-natal factors while at the same time promoting bad parenting and trauma as causal factors. If the origins are so unknown, then why does PFOX promote reparative drive theory and therapy?

Montgomery County may still be in an ideological war over the factors which cause sexual orientation to take the direction it does, but an answer to that problem is not more “information” from PFOX.

 

Kirk Cameron has a new movie coming out called Monumental. It claims to search American history to find our natural treasure. Cameron interviews a variety of people, most of whom appear on the Christian nation wing of the church, to make his points. As RWW pointed out Friday, Cameron interviews David Barton about the Aitken Bible. Barton, as is typical, takes an interesting story and misleads his audience.

 

You can read Chris Rodda’s more accurate rendering of the situation here. I hope to have something on this within the month (stay tuned for more on a new project on this coming soon).

Another of Cameron’s “experts” is Herb Titus. Titus has been Dean of the Oral Roberts and Regent University law schools and is prominently featured on birther websites such as this one. (obamareleaseyourrecords.blogspot.com). Titus and Cameron go to Harvard to tell viewers that the separation of church and state is a myth.

A lot of evangelicals will go see this movie and will come away believing that Cameron has assembled unbiased scholars who are simply revealing what the evil statist academic machine wants to hide. Lots of potential for mischief there.

I will have to wait to see what conclusions Cameron provides, but an effort that leads with Barton and a Birther is not getting off to a good start.

First some video from NTVUganda and then a statement from the government:

RESPONSE TO INTERNATIONAL DISCOURSE OF LRA ACTIVITY

***Friday 9th March2012***18:00 hour

***No Embargo***

RESPONSE TO INTERNATIONAL DISCOURSE OF LRA ACTIVITY

Uganda welcomes all campaigns which seek to raise awareness and highlight the plight of people affected by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). We are grateful forrenewed efforts which seek to contribute to the arrest of Joseph Kony and the elimination of the LRA from the Central African Region. The Government of Uganda however, would strongly urge that any awareness campaign fully takes into consideration the current realities of the situation.

The Lord’s Resistance Army has been a concern of this government since the late 80’s and have exacted a great toll on the Ugandan people and independent estimates approximate that 30,000 children were abducted and used as child soldiers over the course of the 25 year conflict.

Misinterpretations of media content may lead some people to believe that the LRA is currently active in Uganda. It must be clarified that at present the LRA is not active in any part of Uganda. Successfully expelled by the Ugandan Peoples Defence Forces in mid-2006, the LRA has retreated to dense terrain within bordering countries in the Central African area. They are a diminished and weakened group with numbers not exceeding 300. The threat posed by the LRA in our neighboring countries is considerably reduced and we are hopeful that it will be altogether eliminated with the help of US logistical support.

The people of Uganda, especially those in the north of the country are on a path of rebuilding, reconciliation and reintegration and are now vibrant and prospering communities. To aid this prosperity the Government implementeda 10 Year Peace, Recovery and Development Plan for Northern Uganda (PRDP).

The Ugandan Government is encouraged by this outpouring of international support for its continuing campaign to eliminate the threat posed by the LRA to all countries and communities. We are hopeful that our neighboring countries can also become free of LRA activity and enjoy the peace and prosperity that northern Uganda has experienced in the last 6 years.

For God and My Country

Fred Opolot

Executive Director

UPDATE: This post brought a strong reaction from a couple of readers who believe I am overstating the threat of Kony to Northern Uganda. Indeed, this article at Foreign Policy makes the case that Kony is not in Uganda currently. I am researching this more and will correct anything I have gotten wrong. For now, in addition to Okwonga’s piece, please read Michael Wilkerson’s piece at Foreign Policy.

Apparently, the Invisible Children video is not playing well in Uganda.

———

If you tweet, you know that Uganda has been trending on Twitter this week. The reason for the interest in Uganda is an effort by The Invisible Children group to make Joseph Kony a household word. The idea being that if he becomes well known, people will push the powers that be to end his reign of terror. Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army has been terrorizing Central Africa for over 20 years, stealing children and making them slaves.

As the knee jerks, some have found fault with the simple effort of the Invisible Children folks to use social media. I don’t have a problem with it, because anything that puts some light on the subject could help. Doesn’t mean it will, but it could help.

One thing that I hope happens is that the world starts asking the leadership of Uganda about their response to the situation. For a response that seeks to expand the interest of observers to Ugandan leaders, I point you to this essay by Musa Okwonga I read yesterday in the UK Independent. Here is his conclusion:

I don’t think that Invisible Children are naïve.  I don’t think that President Obama was ever blind to this matter either: his own father, a Kenyan, hails from the Luo, the same tribal group that has suffered so much at the hands of Kony.  My hunch – and hope – is that they see this campaign as a way to encourage wider and deeper questions about wholly  inadequate governance in this area of Africa.

And as far as President Museveni is concerned, my thoughts are these: if thousands of British children were being kidnapped from their towns each year and recruited into an army, you can bet that David Cameron would be facing some very, very serious questions in the Commons.  You can bet that he would be grilled on why, years after the conflict began, there were still about a million of his citizens slowly dying in squalor in ill-equipped refugee camps.  You can also bet that, after twenty-odd years of this happening on his watch, he wouldn’t still be running the country.