GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich (Pic by Gage Skidmore, via Flickr) This Saturday, 34 churches in Florida will host a viewing of “One Nation Under God,” which is being promoted as a “two-hour premiere DVD event featuring top American thinkers and political leaders who will bring the truth about God and America to people gathered in homes and churches across the nation.” The event is a thinly veiled national get-out-the-vote push for the religious right.
“„According to Stemberger, only Christians are capable of creating a free society. “As only the Christian presuppositions of theology created this country,” Stemberger said, “only Christians can save it and unless the church rises up, we’re done.” He went on to say that without the resurgence of the church, “our country’s going to slip away into something we don’t even recognize.”
“„Following “The Response,” American Family Association founder Don Wildmon sent a an e-mail message to those who’d registered for the event, encouraging them to become involved in the group’s effort to register 5 million new conservative Christian voters. To achieve the goal, CTV is asking 100,000 “champions” to register 50 people in their community, as the Texas Independent recently reported.
“„Bill Dallas, head of United in Purpose (UiP), the group leading the CTV initiative, has created a business and carefully crafted voter mobilization model around the event by fusing repackaged media and a detailed data mining project to reach those committed unregistered Christian voters.
“„Dallas’ crew plans to film the meetings and edit them down to a two-hour session called “One Nation Under God.”The repackaged event will be aired on Nov. 12 and can then be purchased by “host” churches and individuals.
“„Dallas expects about 1,000 “house parties” and 2-300 churches to take part in the November event. The hosts are not only instructed to air the reformatted briefing but have undergone an intensive eight week voter mobilization training session with CTV that include Webinars, conference calls, newsletters and a training kit. The hosts make up CTV’s base– the ‘champions’ assigned to reach out to the thousands of potential voters.