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The Reverend Moon is Back By Bill Berkowitz
The January 19, pre-inaugural prayer luncheon was attended by some 1,700 religious, civic, and political leaders. The guest list included a host of Religious Right luminaries; the ubiquitous Reverend Jerry Falwell, former National Evangelical Association President Don Argue, Trinity Broadcasting Network's Paul Crouch and a host of leaders from the Southern Baptist Convention including President James Merritt, Executive Committee President and CEO Morris H. Chapman, and Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission President Richard Land. According to a front-page story in the Moon-owned The Washington Times, President Bush's nominee for U.S. attorney general Sen. John Ashcroft dropped by and "brought down the house…with a tale of amazing grace." One of the featured speakers at the luncheon was Dr. Tony Evans, head of the Texas-based group, The Urban Alternative. Dr. Evans, an African American, is an entertaining and unrestrained speaker with a penchant for saying outrageous things. He is frequently a featured speaker at assorted Promise Keeper events around the country. He is also a close friend and confidant to President Bush. Several months ago, The New York Times reported Bush often calls upon Evans for spiritual guidance. According to its website (www.tonyevans.org) The Urban Alternative proclaims itself "a ministry that seeks to equip, empower and unite Christians to impact individuals, families, churches and communities for the rebuilding of lives from the inside out." Despite being a rhetorically-charged and lively interdenominational event, some leaders from the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) are now backpedaling faster than Deion Sanders at news that the Inaugural Prayer Luncheon for Unity and Renewal was sponsored by the Rev. Moon-run Washington Times Foundation. According to a January 23 report from Baptist Press, some SBC officials are claiming they knew nothing about Moon's imprint on the event. "We knew that it was going to be an interdenominational event, but we had no idea that the luncheon was hosted by the Moonies," said Merritt, pastor of an Atlanta-area church. This despite the fact that for years Moon has been lending a helping hand to several financially challenged Religious Right organizations; not long ago, he gave a large donation to help shore up the Rev. Jerry Falwell's financially troubled Liberty University. One of the desired outcomes of sponsoring the prayer gathering was to show that the Reverend Moon and his organization could bring together a diverse group of religious and civic leaders. His daughter-in-law's explosive book detailing the disfunctionality of the Reverend Moon's family had kept the Reverend out of the public spotlight for the past few years. However, in recent months the Reverend Moon has reemerged and has participated in a series of events. The events are aimed at unification - meaning the "melt[ing] down [of] all denominational barriers to form one body of Christ," according to the Reverend Michael Jenkins, a top Moon official. In mid-October, Moon's Unification Church provided critical financial and organizational support to Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan's Million Family March in Washington D.C. Long-time right-wing watcher and author Frederick Clarkson, who broke the story in the online journal Salon, wrote: "Moon's role in the Million Family March is the fruit of a three-year personal relationship that began when Farrakhan helped officiate at one of Moon's marriage ceremonies at Washington's RFK Stadium in 1997."
Ultimately, the Reverend Moon intends to unite all Christians under the authority of the "True Parents," which, of course, are the Reverend Moon and his wife Hak Ja Han. One hundred days of prayer Several fundamentalist Christian groups including the Center for Christian Statesmanship (CCS), Intercessors for America (IFA) and individuals such as Pastor Dutch Sheets, are advocating turning Bush's one-day of prayer declaration into one hundred days of non-stop prayer. According to Charisma News Service, a daily news update put out by Charisma magazine, "Christians who offered concerted prayers during the presidential election have been urged not to stop following the weekend's inauguration." The Center for Christian Statesmanship is asking Christians to pray everyday for the Bush administration through mid-April. The Washington D.C.-based CCS, founded by the virulently anti-gay Florida-based evangelist D. James Kennedy. The organization is closely linked to several congressional representatives and their staffs who participate in meetings, events, personal ministry, and the distribution of the Center's materials. CCS director Frank Wright told Charisma News Service the first one hundred days is a critical period especially since the nation is so divided. "It seems it would be a good time for God's people to pray for divine guidance and intervention and wisdom," he said.
One hundred days of prayer is supported by Intercessors for America, a major player in the relatively unknown intercessor prayer movement. The Leesburg, Virginia-based IFA was founded in 1973, to encourage effective prayer and fasting in support of the Church and the Nation (www.ifa-usapray.org). Although IFA claims its prayers are non-partisan, a 1990 report by GroupWatch, published by the Interhemispheric Resource Center, described the organization as a prayer network serving the New Right's domestic and international agenda. Pastor Dutch Sheets is a national prayer leader and pastor of Spring Harvest Fellowship in Colorado Springs, Colorado. (dutchsheets.org). His Intercessory Prayer is a guidebook on the subject. It explains "the power of intercessory prayer…[which] inspires you to pray with courage to a God who hears your words...before you even speak them." Sheets says Christians need to "up the scale of prayer" or President Bush could "be overcome by the political machine…I think our job as a church is to go to a new level of prayer for this man, that God would literally anoint him to lead this nation." With the Reverend Moon back on the A-list and casting himself as a "uniter, not a divider" and the intercessor prayer folks standing in the shadows, indeed the times they are a'changin'. Bill Berkowitz is an Oakland, California-based free-lance writer covering the Religious Right and related conservative movements. Contact him at wkbbronx@aol.com. |
The Rev. Moon 
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