The Washington Times newspaper will mark its 25th anniversary Thursday, May 17, with an extravaganza. Former President George H. W. Bush will give the keynote address. The Rev. Sun Myung Moon, probably decked in glowing robes, will deliver the founder’s address.
Moon, head of the controversial Unification Church, claims to be the messiah and "True Parent" sent to complete the failed mission of Jesus Christ. He founded the conservative Times newspaper in 1982.
According to Mother Jones Magazine, Bush and Moon have been rather close lately:
The Houston Chronicle in 2006 obtained evidence that Moon’s Washington Times Foundation had contributed $1 million to Bush’s presidential library using the Greater Houston Community Foundation as a conduit.Nevertheless, the Religious Right had always been more cozy with Moon than you might expect. In 1997, Jerry Falwell (may he rest in peace) accepted $3.5 million from a front group representing Moon to ease Liberty University's financial woes.
The deal came to light in a rather roundabout way. When he was asked if Moon’s $1 million went to the library, Jim McGrath, the family spokesman, told the Chronicle, “We’re in an uncomfortable position. … If a donor doesn’t want to be identified we need to honor their privacy.” He was then asked whether the money was meant to suggest to the Bush family that the time was at hand for President George W. Bush to grant Moon a pardon for his 1982 conviction [for conspiracy and filing false tax returns] McGrath replied, “If that’s why he gave the grant, he’s throwing his money away. … That’s not the way the Bushes operate.”
None of this is actually humorous, but it is sorta funny, ya know?
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3 comments:
Jerry Falwell spent his life trying to be the Pope of the Baptists (a contradiction in terms, but that was originally true for Christians generally, no?), George Bush reminds me of Damion in OMEN III, and Sun Myung Moon qualifies by his own words as an Anti-Christ. A neat trio.
Anyone who calls Jerry "the pope of the Baptists" never knew a single true thing about the man. He had a big role in starting the Religious Right, but we all make mistakes sometimes. That doesn't make him some kind of dictator.
And as unwise as it may be, accepting money from someone is not the same as an endorsement.
I see the point in showing the connection between the Right and Moon, but dancing on someone's grave isn't in the best taste.
I can agree in general that dancing on someone's grave is not in the best taste, but as someone famously remarked about the eulogies at Richard Nixon's funeral, it gave a whole new meaning to "lying in state."
I have no doubt that up close and personal, Jerry Falwell was a warm, loving human being. However, never having met him, I would have nothing to say at all if not for his public and political impact upon my life, my country and my faith. Generally, that has been negative.
I refer to him as aspiring to the the Pope of the Baptists in part because he tried to create institutions which, in his own words, would serve evangelical Christianity in the same way that Brigham Young served the Mormon church and Notre Dame, among others, the Catholic Church. He missed the whole point of the Protestant Reformation -- we have no central institutions, ideological or governing. As an American Baptist minister in West Virginia remarked, when you get two Baptists in a room, you have three opinions. But they can all coexist in the same church.
Falwell carried this further, by trying to impose ideological conformity on the Protestant varieties of Christianity, at least all those he could sway. Again, there should be no such thing. As Wycliffe said, man has no earthly spiritual overlord but Jesus. My reading of the Bible is as valid as Falwell's.
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