http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/9178374/gods_senatorAlthough Brownback converted to Catholicism in 2002 through Opus Dei, an ultraorthodox order that, like the Fellowship, specializes in cultivating the rich and powerful, the source of much of his religious and political thinking is Charles Colson, the former Nixon aide who served seven months in prison for his attempt to cover up Watergate. A "key figure," says Brownback, in the power structure of Christian Washington, Colson is widely acknowledged as the Christian right's leading intellectual. He is the architect behind faith-based initiatives, the negotiator who forged the Catholic-evangelical unity known as co-belligerency, and the man who drove sexual morality to the top of the movement's agenda.
"When I came to the Senate," says Brownback, "I sought him out. I had been listening to his thoughts for years, and wanted to get to know him some."
The admiration is mutual. Colson, a powerful member of the Fellowship, spotted Brownback as promising material not long after he joined the group's cell for freshman Republicans. At the time, Colson was holding classes on "biblical worldview" for leaders on Capitol Hill, and Brownback became a prize pupil. Colson taught that abortion is only a "threshold" issue, a wedge with which to introduce fundamentalism into every question. The two men soon grew close, and began coordinating their efforts: Colson provides the strategy, and Brownback translates it into policy. "Sam has been at the meetings I called, and I've been at the meetings he called," Colson says.
Colson's most admirable work is Prison Fellowship, a ministry that offers counseling and "worldview training" to prisoners around the world. Many of his programs receive federal funding, and Brownback is sponsoring a bill that would make it easier for more government dollars to go to faith-based programs such as Colson's. Social scientists debate whether such programs work, but politicians consider them undeniable evidence of the existence of compassionate conservatism.
And yet compassionate conservatism, as Colson conceives it and Brownback implements it, is strikingly similar to plain old authoritarian conservatism. In place of liberation, it offers as an ideal what Colson calls "biblical obedience" and what Brownback terms "submission." The concept is derived from Romans 13, the scripture by which Brownback and Colson understand their power as God-given: "Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation."
So there is overlap sometimes openly where they will support one another as long as their goals are the same but I am sure if they got close to their ultimate goal they would turn on each other with as much venom as they do with non-fundamentalists now.
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