Perry Campaign Touts Book Calling For Conversion of Muslims

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is currently leading in the polls in Iowa.<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rickperry/6005063359/sizes/z/in/photostream/">Rick Perry</a>/Flickr

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

When I contacted Rick Perry’s campaign (and the Texas governor’s office) last week for a story about the presidential candidate’s favorite books, I never heard back. But in an effort to quell notions that Perry is “dumb”—it’s a theory that’s out there—the campaign gave Jonathan Martin a glimpse at what’s currently on the governor’s reading list. It doesn’t really prove or disprove the “dumb” thesis, but it’s interesting in its own right:

In an illustration that Perry knows what he needs to know, his spokesman said the governor is currently reading Henry Kissinger’s recent China book – “On China.”

And that’s not the only practical guide the governor is thumbing through.

Mark Miner, the spokesman, said Perry is also reading Charles Stanley’s “Turning the Tide,” a Baptist pastor’s how-to for Christian conservatives who want to change the country’s direction, and the Bible. Perry also carries an Apple laptop as well as an iPad with him on the road, said Miner, who called his boss “an avid reader.”

Emphasis mine. Stanley’s an interesting choice here. Like Perry, Stanley believes America is a Christian nation founded on Biblical principles, and that the further the nation gets from those precepts, the worse things will get. (The “tide” he mentions in the title is actually a “tsunami” of death and depravity that we’re running out of time to thwart.) Part of the problem, Stanley explains, stems from the nation’s march toward socialism, which challenges the primacy of religion as a moral code, and incentivizes laziness. That’s pretty standard fare on the religious right, and helps explain how tea party economics can mesh so easily with evangelical precepts; as it happens, Michele Bachmann’s favorite theologian, Francis Schaeffer, blamed government handouts for the fall of Rome. As Stanley writes, “Because there is no reward for working harder—and there are also no consequences for poor performance—people do the least they can do to get by.”

His arguments on the will of the Founders and the Biblical basis of the Constitution dovetail very neatly with those of Mormon historian W. Cleon Skousen, whom Perry has also cited as a must-read. Actually, they dovetail very nicely with what Perry himself has said: “natural law, God’s law, is the basis of our nation’s laws.” And then there’s this: In a section on terrorism, he urges readers to “Pray for God’s protection against terrorism and ask that Muslims throughout the world will come to know Jesus as their Savior.” (You’ll remember that Perry’s prayer rally in Houston, The Response, came under fire when organizers stated that their goal was to convert people of other faiths.)

Anyway, here’s an interview with Stanley explaining how “we will experience a political, a social, and a religious tsunami in America,” and what that will look like exactly:

Perry has been hit pretty hard because he associates with some fairly radical members of the religious right. This latest revelation is a sign that 1) those criticisms were pretty much spot-on and 2) he doesn’t really care.

h/t Ryan Lizza.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate