More National Prayer Breakfast Commentary: "The [Republican] Party Needs to Face That Element Within Them, Which Is Essentially a White-Supremacist Element That Putin Is Playing"

More good commentary about the connection of the National Prayer Breakfast to the treasonous behavior of the political party now controlling the U.S. federal government — this commentary has come to my attention since I posted my collection of other pieces early today:

Valuable Commentary on National Prayer Breakfast and Treasonous Behavior of GOP Leaders: "#Nationalprayerbreakfast Is All Over the Affidavit for Russian Spy Maria Butina"

If you want to understand the Russian connection to U.S. right-wing white evangelicals — who are absolutely on board with treason to achieve their goals — you owe it to yourself to read @C_Stroop and @JeffSharlet. No one knows more about this than these two scholars.

— 𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚖 𝙳. 𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚜𝚎𝚢 (@wdlindsy) July 17, 2018

I'm pleased to see that the important thread I identified three days ago in the unfolding story of the treasonous activities of top Republican leaders — the centrality of the National "Prayer" Breakfast to the story — is receiving a lot of media attention. Here's commentary I'd like to share with you:

Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage: "In Our Christian Heritage We Received from the Missionaries, There Is Nothing of That Inclusive Language"

David Gibson writing for Religion News Service today:

"In our Christian heritage we received from the missionaries, there is nothing of that inclusive language," Archbishop Thomas Msusa of the East African nation of Malawi told National Catholic Reporter.

Jeff Sharlet on Ditto Boys: Laying Bare the Ideology of Male-Bonded Obedience in New Religious Movements Like the Fellowship and Opus Dei

In the excerpt from his letter to Pope Francis on "new evangelization" that I featured yesterday, Matthew Fox maintains that many of the cultic "lay" movements within Catholicism today that are spearheading the "new evangelization" aren't about proclaiming the gospel at all. Groups such as Opus Dei and the Legion of Christ substitute for the gospel, Fox argues, a "theology" of christofascist authoritarianism that boils the entire Christian faith down into a bare command to obey--to obey the highest authority figure in one's group, which is, for Catholics, the pope.

Ashley Baxstrom Interviews Jeff Sharlet: "In Lieu of Hobbits"

After reading Ashley Baxstrom's recent interview with Jeff Sharlet about his new book, Sweet Heaven When I Die, I'll definitely read the book.  Interesting themes: e.g., the tension between the narratives of Exodus and Revelation in the American experience, between the expectation that somebody is going to come along and get us out of the mess we're in, and the recognition that if we're going to get out of Egypt, our own feet will have to carry us out.  Sharlet relates the latter emphasis to the African-American church experience, but also to transcendentalists like Emerson and Thoreau, who went out to Walden as an Exodus experience.