Religious Right leaders at the Reclaiming America For Christ Conference fretted that America cannot be "reclaimed" from the grip of the evil forces that now engulf it until religious revival sweeps the land.At the first major conclave of Religious Right foot soldiers since the 2006 elections, a sense of solemnity pervaded the sanctuary of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, also known as the pulpit of D. James Kennedy, the ailing televangelist pastor whose multi-million-dollar religious enterprise is based in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. Gathered together on March 2-3 for the annual "Reclaiming America for Christ" conference, participants heard from a range of speakers, by turns inward-looking, triumphalist or bellicose.
Hospitalized since a near-fatal heart attack on Dec. 28, Kennedy was absent from the conference, over which he has presided almost every year since the first one in 1995. The roster, however, was filled with speakers who made frequent use of the buzzwords reflective of Kennedy's ministry, particularly the use of the terms "salt" and "light," derived from the Gospel of Matthew, to denote the two ways in which Kennedy asserts Christians must act in the world: as "salt" -- to arrest the decay of society -- and "light" -- to reveal the path to everlasting life through the born-again Christian experience.
The conference is the product of the Center for Reclaiming America, one of several distinct components that are part of Coral Ridge Ministries, which took in some $38 million in 2005, according to the organization's own tax filings. While great pains appear to have been taken to demonstrate adherence to the letter, if not the spirit, of the law that grants exemption from federal taxes to non-partisan religious institutions, the political underpinnings of the event were apparent in the resumes of the speakers.
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