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Join us at PAGEANT
Presented by Hope for Peace & Justice
An Uptown Players Production
Special One-Time Benefit Performance
Sunday, April 30
7pm | Trinity River Arts Center
 Support Hope for Peace & Justice on this special night.
The cast of Pageant has donated a special performance to
Hope for Peace & Justice. By purchasing your tickets
to Pageant through Hope for Peace & Justice, you help
us raise money for important campaigns, programs and workshops.
Your $50 ticket includes an invitation to a post-show dessert
reception.
Click
here to buy your tickets.
Book and Lyrics by Bill Russell and Frank Kelly
Music by Albert Evans
Conceived by Robert Longbottom
You've never seen a beauty pageant like this one! Pageant
pits six beauty queens (all played by men) against each other
in an extravaganza of evening gowns, bathing suits, and not-to-be-missed
talent.
While les girls swirl around the charming host in the
funniest beauty contest ever seen, judges selected
from the audience decide who will be crowned Miss
Glamouresse. A different winner each night ensures
non-stop nail-biting fun!
Theatre: Trinity River Arts Center
2600 Stemmons Freeway, Suite 180, Dallas, Texas 75207
The Trinity River Arts Center Theatre is located across
from the KD Studio in the same building complex.
Click
here for more information.
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Bob
Munro has generously offered a 15% donation to H4PJ
for every piece of art sold through Hope for Peace & Justice.
Please visit Sacred
Pause online. |
The IRS, the IRD, and Red State Blue State Religion
Commentary by John H. Thomas,
General Minister and President, United Church of Christ
Delivered to Gettysburg College on March 7, 2006
 Mention
the IRS, and most of us glance nervously at the calendar
to see how many days are left before April 15. Yes, it’s about that time to gather up the W2 forms, pull
out the 1040's, and get to work. Or at least it’s time
to start thinking about it! But in recent months the IRS
has become one of the new flash points in the increasingly
volatile relationship between American religion and American
politics. On February 17 of this year, the IRS issued a new
advisory on “Election Year Activities and the Prohibition
on Political Campaign Intervention for Section 501(c)(3)
Organizations.” “With the 2006 campaign season
approaching,” the advisory begins, “the IRS is
launching enhanced education and enforcement efforts, based
on the findings and analysis of the 2004 election cycle.” The
rather bland bureaucratic language masks an intense new battle
in the struggle for the soul of America in which religion
and politics are trying to use each other to achieve their
ends.
Last
year the IRS announced that it was investigating an Episcopal
Church in Pasadena to determine whether it had engaged
in illegal political activity, thereby jeopardizing its
tax free status. The church’s well known and outspoken
liberal rector had preached a sermon prior to the 2004 presidential
election in which he had delivered a blistering critique
of the Bush administration’s war in Iraq. In my experience
over recent years the IRS has not been overly aggressive
with churches about compliance with the ban on support for
particular candidates. Mainline churches generally tried
to remain even handed, focusing on issues if they focused
on anything related to elections at all. My hunch is that
this had less to do with careful attention to ethics and
more to do with the fact that their membership was, for the
most part, middle of the road politically, and pastors were
loathe to alienate anyone. Conservative churches, until the
Falwell era, avoided politics. Roman Catholic churches and
African American churches were much less coy in their political
allegiances, but this seemed to be more or less “winked
at” by the IRS. Things have changed.
When
the investigation of the Pasadena Church became public,
progressive voices howled in protest, assuming that Republican
politics, perhaps even the White House, were behind the
move putting pressure on the IRS to harass liberal churches.
It reeked of Karl Rove to many. However, as the full range
of complaints and investigations launched by the IRS has
become clearer, these fears seem less well founded. And
progressive churches themselves have started to fight back.
In January of this year a group of clergy in Columbus,
Ohio filed a complaint with the IRS against two Ohio mega-churches
whose pastors are deeply involved in an effort to organize
a group of so-called “Patriot Pastors,” a coalition closely
associated with the Secretary of the State, Kenneth Blackwell.
Blackwell, an extremely conservative Republican, is running
for Governor of Ohio and is often mentioned as a potential
Vice Presidential candidate in 2008. Blackwell played a key
role in the passage of Ohio’s anti-gay marriage amendment
in 2004, a central element in the strategy for the Bush re-election
campaign in Ohio which became “ground zero” for
the bitter election season. The educational and enforcement
initiative by the IRS suggests that churches have become
targets of political operatives seeking to enlist them in
partisan politics.
Religion
and politics, of course, have always had an intimate relationship
in America from the time my Puritan forebears arrived in
New England. The wall of separation has always been thin
at best; religious social reformers have waded into the
political fray over numerous causes from Abolition to Armenians,
Prohibition to school prayer, and most recently in nearby
Dover, Pennsylvania, Intelligent Design. Judges have tended
to ward off the most egregious breaches of the wall, but
it’s always been an easy creek to wade across.
In the past, generally, it’s been the sphere of religion
seeking to use the sphere of politics to further its causes.
I believe that pattern has begun to shift in the last twenty
years as politics - and politicians - have begun to find
ways to use religion to serve their own partisan interests.
Bible belt Republicans, and African American Democrats have
long been comfortable employing the language of faith to
further their political ends. Now everyone is trying it.
Republicans have obviously been much more adept than Democrats.
The famous reference to the “New Testament” book
of Job by Howard Dean was only one instance of Democratic
ineptitude on this. No one can end a political speech these
days without the ubiquitous phrase, “God bless America!” And
recently, well-connected Democratic operatives have begun
quiet conversations with a few progressive religious leaders,
including me, asking how their candidates might be able to
use religious language and imagery more effectively to connect
with church-going voters.
If speech
making was all we were talking about, there would be little
news here. But as the IRS investigations suggest, the stakes
are being raised. No longer is it merely religious groups
seeking to use the political arena to press their reform
agendas. And it’s not just politicians seeking
to coopt religion for their election campaigns, either. Now
we are seeing well organized, politically connected initiatives
intervening in the interior life of American religious bodies
to serve their interests. Here the scene shifts from the
IRS to the IRD.
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H4PJ
Dallas Mixer: Monday Night with
Mike
Monday, April 3 | 5pm-7pm | Sushi Zushi
This
month’s Monday Night with Mike will be held
April 3 at Sushi Zushi in Dallas. The event will begin
at 5pm and last until around 7pm. Sushi Zushi is located
at 3858 Oak Lawn Ave. Suite 145 at the corner of Oak Lawn
Ave. and Blackburn St.
Monday
Night with Mike is a free event. Everyone is invited!
This is a great way to meet new people that are passionate
about our issues.
Michael
Piazza, President of Hope for Peace & Justice, will
speak about current issues and H4PJ. Please mark your calendar
for this special event on April 3.
Remember
to invite your friends and family!
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