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Special Report

(Page 2 of 3)

In other words, the fact that the UCC "tends to be a mostly progressive denomination" is only true if you believe 19 percent to be greater than 41 percent. In fact, if you add the middle, a rocking 81 percent do not consider themselves to be "liberals." Even if you add the "liberals" with the "middle," at 59 to 41 percent you are one long way from a "mostly progressive" denomination. Will you see these figures in the New York Times ad? Don't hold your breath.

What else will you most probably not see in this ad if it runs true to form? While Karnack the Magnificent has not been sighted since the death of Johnny Carson, one doesn't really need a Karnack to take a wild guess that in this pricey ad there will be no mention of:

* The UCC and the Jewish Community: No mention of the UCC's relationship with the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center. This is a radical Palestinian Christian group whose leadership has not only questioned the right of Israel to exist but refers to the creation of the Jewish state as "Al Nakba" or "The Catastrophe." Sabeel founder Naim Ateek was featured at Boston's Old South UCC last fall in what one Jewish columnist in Boston called an "anti-Jewish hate fest." This on the heels of a 2007 public rebuke to the UCC issued by eight major American Jewish organizations for what was politely termed imbalance towards Israel. The signers included the American Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League and B'nai B'rith International. Indeed, the UCC leadership's support for issues ranging from a divestment resolution to a call for Israel to tear down its anti-terror security fence protecting Israelis from Palestinian terrorists prompted the Simon Wiesenthal Center to angrily accuse the leadership of being "functionally anti-Semitic."

* The UCC and Puerto Rican terrorists: No mention of the UCC's support for the Puerto Rican terrorist group FALN (Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional or Armed Forces of National Liberation), a terrorist group, as reported here the other week, determined by the U.S. government in the 1990s to "represent an ongoing threat." A terrorist group that has included the wife of a UCC minister, a woman honored and admired by the church leadership who was caught on an FBI surveillance tape making a bomb -- and did time until the UCC among others persuaded Bill Clinton to grant clemency.

* The UCC and Obama: No mention of the now-ongoing IRS investigation of the denomination set in motion because of its perceived support of the Obama for president campaign, including an appearance by candidate and church member Obama himself, as documented both here in The American Spectator and by the UCC Truths website.

* The UCC's Trinity and the IRS: No mention of a second complaint to the IRS that has now been filed against Obama's personal church, Trinity UCC of Chicago, because of the political content of the famously videotaped sermons sold by Trinity itself.

* The UCC and Obama on Wright: No mention will be made of Senator Obama's statement on The View that he would have left Trinity UCC had Wright not retired and kept preaching in the very fashion Reverend Thomas has already lavishly praised -- from Wright's pulpit.

* The UCC and the charge of "spies" at Trinity UCC: No mention will be made of a charge in the Washington Post by Susan Thistlethwaite, the president of the Chicago Theological Seminary, that there are "spies" amongst the Trinity congregation. Who does this woman in service to Christ accuse as spies? Why, "members of the press or political operatives" who have the audacity of freedom to "take notes during the service and try to record the message."

* The UCC and Wright's "retirement" home: No mention will be made of the recent discovery by Fox News that a UCC compensated minister -- Jeremiah Wright -- who spent his career ministering in the poor communities of Chicago, is retiring to a multi-million dollar gated community. No mention either of this from Fox News: "Public records of the sale show Trinity initially obtained a $10 million bank loan to purchase the property and build a new house on the land. But further investigation with tax and real estate attorneys showed that the church had actually secured a $1.6 million mortgage for the home purchase, and attached a $10 million line of credit, for reasons unspecified in the paperwork."

* The UCC and opposition to intellectual diversity: No mention that while the UCC hierarchy loves the idea of dissent when it is dissenting from Bush administration policy, no less than Reverend Thomas himself has termed dissenters from what he calls the "progressive values" of the 19 percent ruling the church as "serpents in our midst," with the church's official blogger calling those who dissent from the 19 percent "thieves."

* The UCC, the Obama staffer/UCC employee and Air America: No mention that the UCC's official blogger, the Reverend Chuck Currie -- who doubles as a staffer to the Obama campaign -- links the UCC's site to his own personal site, which in turn promotes links back to the UCC (through use of its official logo), the Obama campaign and Air America, the left-wing extremist site that is famous for its virtual cauldron of verbal venom. Sample rhetoric on this site promoted by a UCC minister includes (but unfortunately is not limited to) this language from a lovely talk about First Lady Laura Bush, from Air America's "Mike Malloy Show": Mrs. Bush is "a murderer" and a "killer," the Bush family a "crime family (that) is about theft and greed and lies and war and death....They are beyond evil." Memorably, the Currie link takes you to the allegation that the president believes in both rape and cannibalism. By the way, Currie says he opposes "personal attacks" and "slander."

Charming, no? Although perhaps not as impressive as the video of himself Currie features on the official UCC site giving a political speech at a political rally (oops, church PC calls these UCC sponsored events "peace rallies," sorry). Currie is heard on the video he has placed on the church site attacking Bush and Cheney as "villains" who display "addictive arrogance." In the world of his officially sanctioned church blog, where political apartheid is the coin of the realm and serious opposition banished, this video comes hilariously replete with a photo of Cheney as Darth Vader. Really. What's funny, admittedly, is that Currie apparently thinks Cheney-as-Vader is not funny but true. Then again, there's a lot funny about this minister of Christ who thinks Air America language is appropriate and said awhile back that a conservative church participating in a "Justice Sunday" rally should be investigated by the IRS. Be careful what you wish for.

SO WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON with this prospective New York Times ad? Stand back for a moment and take a good long look at what's happening here.

This is something that American conservatives have seen before. An institution that seems on the surface to be a rock of left-wing certitude is, in fact, not what it seems at all. Just as the Soviet Union collapsed, just as the Berlin Wall came tumbling down, just as the façade that was the dominance of the American liberal media has crumbled, the 19 percent dominance by the American left of a very old and prestigious American religious institution that was once peopled by the Pilgrims, the Puritans, Jonathan Edwards and counted the decidedly conservative Calvin Coolidge as a devout member is now showing the first signs of collapsing.

The irony is that Thomas and his left-leaning brethren have long been lusting for the UCC to get a higher profile in American politics. At one point a few years back a church PR guy launched a campaign to get Thomas invited as a political player on shows like Meet the Press, complaining bitterly about the media attention afforded conservatives religious leaders like Jerry Falwell. Again, as the old wisdom goes, be careful what you wish for -- you might get it. Suddenly, thanks to Obama, an increasing number of UCC church members outside the 19 percent are wide awake to the fact that simply couching American liberalism in biblical language is nothing more than what Obama himself is about -- American politics. Nothing more, nothing less, and certainly nothing of Christ. The Emperor has no clothes, as congregants gazing at Jeremiah Wright's stark language realized with the stunning clarity of an epiphany. With the heat of the spotlight focused on his -- our -- denomination, Thomas has suddenly had to fight off calls for his resignation, finding not only his own leadership under scrutiny but also the treasured insistence of the hierarchy that "social action" equates to American liberal politics.

topics:
Taxes, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Television, Israel, NATO