tea party

At the recent Values Voters Summit, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) spoke on the “War on Christianity”, but his speech was not about prayer in schools or the so-called ‘war on Christmas,’ his focus was radical Islam. Our live blog of the summit outlines his argument, which stresses that Christians around the world are being threatened by “a fanatical element of Islam,” and used isolated incidents of violence against Christians as an excuse to paint every Muslim worldwide as radical and evil.

Jim DeMint is the senior adviser to the Convention of States Project, former president of The Heritage Foundation, and a former Republican U.S Senator from South Carolina. In 2010, DeMint spearheaded Tea Party action. He looked to align the decentralized movement, calling it “part of an American awakening” and asserting people can “take back their government” and “No state is out of play.”

Virginia’s candidate for Lt. Gov. preaches self-help politics and help-himself theology.

It’s Seneca, Selma, and Stonewall vs. conquest and exceptionalism.

While 2011 was a frustrating year for the anti-LGBT Right, they haven’t given up.

Franklin Graham, panderer to the most powerful (and most conservative) members of the GOP, revives Obama as Muslim lie.

The Republican Party appears to be going the way of Tertullian who insisted that the true Christian must prove his or her bona fides by believing what is literally unbelievable.

Saturday’s surge of Occupy Wall Street-themed actions could be a turning point. There’s obviously more to be felt and said about this than any journalistic treatment could hope to engage; nonetheless, four RD contributors, moderated by Senior Editor Sarah Posner, shared their own thoughts about a movement that remains fluid and thrilling and quite literally indescribable.

While the money for the Tea Party may have originated in the conservative revival of the ’70s, when it comes to ideology and language, it stretches back much further, to FDR’s New Deal, when coalitions of businessmen and religious leaders began their fight against ‘socialism.’

As largely secular protests to “Occupy Wall Street” advance in fits and starts, capitalism and church negotiate to bring the best of both to bear on the world’s most intractable problems. Except, not quite.