JOSEPH N. BELL -- The Bell Curve

However you feel about those folks who met at the Sutton Place Hotel

in Newport Beach last weekend to “Reclaim America for Christ,” there’s

one thing we can surely agree on. They aren’t kidding anyone. What they

say is what we get.

And what they say, according to their director as quoted in the Los

Angeles Times, is that the intent of the conference was to give

grass-roots members the tools for “positively affecting the culture and

renewing the vision of the Founding Fathers.” Which is code for getting

elected or appointed, then achieving sufficient power to put in place

their agendas in any vulnerable public or political entities.

If you’re curious as to the nature of the vision and the ways in which

this group -- headed by D. James Kennedy, founder of Coral Ridge

Ministries in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. -- would like to affect our culture,

you might want to ponder the relevancy to a school board or city council

member of such conference topics as “A Plan That Could Reverse Roe vs.

Wade,” “Strategies for Stopping Partial-Birth Abortion,” “An Inside Look

at the U.N.’s Global Governance Plan” and “Ways to Turn Back the Assault

Against Christianity.”

One of their speakers was the Alabama Supreme Court justice who

refused to take down a plaque of the Ten Commandments in his courtroom

and thereby became a role model for our own Wendy Leece.

Another speaker -- in keeping with the Kennedy group’s demonization of

homosexuality -- was a young man who was allegedly converted to

heterosexuality through Reclaiming America therapy. I wish I might have

supplied a second speaker on this subject, someone very near and dear to

me who bought into the sin they laid on her and in desperation subjected

herself to this treatment with near-tragic results. Only when she finally

rejected the alleged therapy and accepted herself as both a lesbian and a

child of God did she find peace and contribute mightily to the world in

which she lives.

As for the Founding Fathers’ vision, you might want to read some

historically accredited biographies -- especially of Washington,

Jefferson, Madison and Franklin -- to determine whether their religious

and philosophical views are being accurately represented by the people

who would use them to achieve political power today.

Fred Plumer, pastor of Irvine United Church of Christ, did this

homework at considerable length and came away so concerned by both the

agenda and the growing political clout of Reclaiming America for Christ

and similar groups that he organized a conference of his own that he

called Proclaiming America for All. It met in his church Saturday, and I

went -- both because I respect Plumer and because Reclaiming America

stirred a lot of unpleasant memories for me.

Plumer set the keynote in his introduction when he said: “Too many

people see this as a conflict between Christian perspectives. It’s so

much more important than that. We’re trying to attract attention to the

real question: Should we be concerned that people highly organized and

sophisticated are talking about taking over the country while they tell

their critics that it is presumptuous of them to disagree with God. What

this is about is power, and I’m still trying to figure out how serious it

is.”

Ten speakers followed, ranging from two college professors to a pair

of Protestant pastors, with a half-dozen other speakers representing

agendas under attack by the Kennedy group in between.

Harry Schwartzbart of Americans United for Separation of Church and

State said: “We are in greater peril of a government theocracy than at

any time in our history. This is an effort to breach the wall between

church and state, and never before has such an effort achieved the

political power it has today.”

The Rev. Jerry Stinson, senior minister of the First Congregational

Church in Long Beach, said: “I’ve seen what happens when these people

dominate school boards, and I’m scared of them. It is our heritage that

no one religion will ever dominate our country, but they will do anything

they can to tear down that wall of separation.”

All of this took me back to 1959, when I moved to Orange County. An

organization called the Christian Anti-Communist Crusade was working in

lock step with the John Birch Society to gain political control over

school boards and other political bodies that seemed ripe for picking.

They used Christianity -- or rather their brand of it -- as a means to

this end.

They were successful for a time, especially in taking over school

boards. They used Anaheim’s model sex-education program as leverage to

destroy the school board there in a pogrom of lies and character

assassination that took years to mend. (If you want a more recent

example, take a look at the chaos in the current Orange Unified School

District.) This whole quasi-political movement was dragged down finally

beneath the weight of its own excesses.

But now, said the speakers at the Plumer conference, the people

attempting to use fundamentalist Christianity as a route to political

power are much smarter, much richer and much more sophisticated. This

time, they’re working from the top down as well as the bottom up, and

they have replaced communism as the devil incarnate with such issues as

homosexuality, abortion and global warming. And they aren’t making a lot

of mistakes.

Plumer concluded his conference by saying: “This isn’t about zealots

or civil war between Christians with basic differences. I’m not worried

about zealots. What really worries me is voter apathy. That’s what allows

zealots to take over school boards.”

So maybe the next time a candidate who wants to “Reclaim America for

Christ” appears on a ballot, we should find out exactly what that means.

And then vote.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.