The Raw Story | 'Godless' author Coulter unknown at church she claims to attend

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'Godless' author Coulter unknown at church she claims to attend

Max Blumenthal
Published: Thursday June 8, 2006

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Appearing on the cover of her latest manifesto, Godless: The Church of Liberalism, adorned with a wooden crucifix necklace, right-wing pundit Ann Coulter takes on liberals on explicitly religious grounds. Invoking the sectarian rhetoric of the Christian right, Coulter denounces liberalism as "the opposition party to God," and "a comprehensive belief system denying the Christian belief in man's immortal soul."

Coulter fills the pages of Godless with attacks on Hollywood – a traditional Christian right boogeyman – and, quoting controversial Holocaust-denying columnist Joseph Sobran, assails public schools for teaching an "amalgam of liberalism, feminism, Darwinism, and the Playboy philosophy" rather than "Biblical truth." Coulter also calls the Episcopal Church, "barely even a church."

Yet Coulter is curiously reticent in Godless about her own religious convictions. Nowhere in her book, for instance, does Coulter declare whether she belongs to a particular religious denomination, nor does she state where – or even if – she attends religious services. An April 17, 2005 article in Time Magazine by John Cloud provided a rare description of Coulter's attendance of church, as Cloud suggested that she has been a regular attendee of New York City's Redeemer Presbyterian Church, to which "she brings a lot of people…"

In his article, Cloud described accompanying Coulter to Redeemer:

Not long ago, I went to church with Coulter--Redeemer Presbyterian, an evangelical congregation in Manhattan. The actor Ron Silver had also tagged along--Coulter brings lots of people to church, including, at one time, an ex who is Muslim. Pastor Timothy Keller spoke of the importance of allowing one's heart to be "melted by the sense of God's grace because of what he did on the cross for you."

When contacted by Raw Story, however, Redeemer Presbyterian's Communications and Media Director Cregan Cooke could not confirm that Coulter had ever attended services at the church.

"The only thing I have heard is hearsay that she is an attender" of Redeemer, Cregan told Raw Story. "Our database shows that she is not a member."

Cregan added that wealthy celebrities routinely asserted a dubious connection to his congregation. "People from Robin Williams to Diane Sawyer have claimed to attend services here but don't actually know if they have. And I don't know anybody that would have seen Ann Coulter. We don't really know her."