Manoj Pradhan, in jail for leading riots against Christians last year in Orissa, seems to have won a seat in the state assembly in India's general elections.

But overall, India's Christians have reason to be happy with the election. Dara Singh, who was convicted of leading Graham Staines' murder, was not permitted to run.

More importantly, most of the election results showed a distaste for right-wing Hinduism and support of the non-religious Congress Party. The BJP, a Hindu nationalist party, was defeated quite solidly. The Washington Post reports that they are re-evaluating their support of candidates who support anti-Christian and anti-Muslim violence.

Manmohan Singh, the incumbent, is set for a second term as prime minister. The New York Times reports that India's stock market surged after the announcement the Congress party won 205 of 543 seats in Parliament. A near-majority means the party no longer has to "rely on India's Communist parties to stay in power." Those Communist parties won about 80 seats, and the BJP, 159.

Posted by Susan Wunderink at May 18, 2009 | Comments (4)

White supremacists, Islamic clerics, a controversial Kansas pastor and a U.S. talk show host are on a list of 22 people banned from Britain for "stirring up hatred," the British government said Tuesday.

Posted by Stan Guthrie at May 5, 2009 | Comments (1)

News reports, such as this one from CNN and this one from US News, highlighted yesterday the attitudes of white evangelicals on the issue of torture. According to a survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 18 percent of white evangelicals said use of torture against suspected terrorists can often be justified and 44 percent said it can sometimes be justified. That adds up to 62 percent. Compare that solid majority to the often/sometimes number for white non-Hispanic Catholics (51 percent, a bare majority) and white mainline Protestants (46 percent). Because of problems with the sample size, the Pew study was unable to peg a percentage for other groups, such as African-American Protestants or Hispanic Catholics.

One more factor to consider: attendance at religious services. Fifty-four percent of those who attend religious services at least weekly say torture against suspected terrorists can be often/sometimes justified compared to 51 percent of those who attend monthly or a few times a year and 42 percent of those who attend seldom or never.

The immediate impression is that religion - especially religion characterized by active commitment - makes people bloodthirsty. Or something like that.

What can we say about this picture?

First, the survey is probably accurate. Other studies have shown similar results. For example, a 2008 poll conducted for Faith in Public Life showed that 58 percent of white southern evangelicals thought torture of suspected terrorists could be justified often or sometimes. Thirty-eight percent said it was never or rarely justified.

But how you ask the question can make a big difference. That 2008 survey also asked respondents a "Golden Rule" version of the question. Should the U.S. government use methods against our enemies that we would not want used on American soldiers? The proportion of southern white evangelicals who said torture was never or rarely justified rose from 38 percent to 52 percent. Ask Christians to think in such Golden Rule terms, and they do change.

Second, there is (as there always is) a gap between leadership beliefs and grassroots attitudes. If there weren't a gap, leaders wouldn't be leading anyone anywhere. Pew did not survey evangelical leaders, but we do have an indication of their attitudes. In March 2007, the National Association of Evangelicals Board of Directors affirmed the Evangelical Declaration Against Torture with little hesitation or dissent (see this New York Times article by Peter Steinfels). That large group represents a wide variety of denominations and parachurch ministries. There were, of course, evangelical critics, but they tended to ignore the substance of the argument and to tar it by calling its drafters "pseudo-pacifist academics and antiwar activists" and attributing motives ("a barely disguised crusade against the U.S. war against terror"). The key leaders of most evangelical denominations and parachurch organizations have gone on the record against the use of torture.

The fact that thinking about the Golden Rule changes evangelical attitudes on torture suggests that further engagement with careful Christian thinking on the topic can have an even greater effect. Please study the 2007 declaration and read the 2006 Christianity Today cover story "Five Reasons Torture Is Always Wrong."

As more and more details have emerged about U.S. government use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" (which our own government has called "torture" at other times), the debate has been shaped by the questions, "Does it work?" and "Did it work?" In my opinion, the picture emerging from the evidence suggests that not enough attention was paid to what we did know about effective interrogation before we rushed into the use of torture (or "enhanced interrogation techniques").

But the question "Does it work?" presupposes a utilitarian ethic. Utilitarian ethics tends to weigh the magnitude of a potential good against its costs (the greatest good for the greatest number). But evangelicals have been eager to reject utilitarian ethics when addressing other issues - embryonic stem-cell research and population-control programs, for example. Even if embryonic stem-cell research turned out to be the best way to cure Parkinson's disease, most evangelicals would oppose it, just as we would oppose abortion even if it were shown to reduce, say, food insecurity. By the same token, even if torture produced reliable information about terrorist activity, we should reject it. We are people of principle. Our principles were historically at the root of human rights action and the development of the Red Cross and the Geneva Conventions, and any number of other moral crusades that put principle above utilitarianism. Our principles should now motivate us to lead the world in rejecting torture of any human being, for any reason.

* * *

Image credit: Falun Gong Practitioner Gao Rongrong after torture by Chinese police. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Posted by David Neff at May 1, 2009 | Comments (28)

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled yesterday that a California law school could lawfully bar the school's Christian Legal Society from being recognized as a student group for requiring its members to sign a statement of faith. The ruling could set a precedent for the way Christian organizations can or cannot retain their distinct religious beliefs at public colleges with nondiscrimination policies.

The CLS chapter at the University of California's Hastings College of Law filed a lawsuit in fall 2004 against the college for denying it status as a registered student organization. According to CLS's brief, it was denied official recognition for requiring members to sign a statement of faith, which, among other things, prohibits homosexual conduct. Hastings officials had said CLS's standards violated the school's nondiscrimination policy, which says all student groups "shall not discriminate unlawfully on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, disability, age, sex or sexual orientation."

CLS's lawsuit claimed that Hastings was practicing viewpoint discrimination and violating CLS's right to expressive association. It claimed that Hastings was applying its policy inconsistently. CLS's brief, page 14?18:

Hastings allows other registered student organizations to require that their leaders and/or members agree with the organization's beliefs and purposes. . . . Outlaw [a pro-gay rights group] is free to remove officers if they fail to support the organization's pro-gay rights purpose; Silenced Right: National Alliance Pro-Life Group may require its members to support its pro-life purposes; . . . Hastings' nondiscrimination policy is viewpoint discriminatory, as it allows a vegetarian club to require that officers and members not eat meat, but prohibits an Orthodox Jewish group for requiring its officers and members to abstain from pork for religious reasons.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals did not interpret Hastings's nondiscrimination policy that way, however. Its two-sentence ruling from yesterday:

The parties stipulate that Hastings imposes an open membership rule on all student groups - all groups must accept all comers as voting members even if those individuals disagree with the mission of the group. The conditions on recognition are therefore viewpoint neutral and reasonable.

CLA has not posted a response to its website yet. It is facing similar fights at other colleges, including the University of Iowa, where more than 100 faculty and staff have signed a petition calling for the school to stop funding its CLA chapter. CLA won similar cases in summer 2005 against Arizona State University and Southern Illinois University.

Inside Higher Ed and The San Francisco Chronicle covered the Hastings story.

Listen to the oral arguments here, and check CT's website later for deeper analysis of this case's implications for religious organizations on public college campuses.

Posted by Katelyn Beaty at March 18, 2009 | Comments (1)

Despite the Catholic Church's attempts to stop the procedure, a 9-year-old Brazilian girl whose stepfather allegedly sexually abused her had an abortion Wednesday after doctors warned that giving birth might result in death. Physicians at the hospital in the coastal town of Recife said the girl - 15 weeks pregnant with twins and weighing 80 pounds - could not give birth without putting her life at risk.

In response, on Thursday Jos? Cardoso Sobrinho, archbishop of Olinda and Recife, excommunicated the girl's mother, who authorized the abortion, and the doctors involved.

"The law of God is above any human law," the archbishop said in an interview with Globo television that aired Thursday. "So when a human law, i.e., a law enacted by legislators, is against the law of God, that human law has no value. The adults who approved, who carried out this abortion, have incurred excommunication." Excommunication is the Catholic Church's severest censure for an individual, who can no longer participate in church of receive the sacraments, except that of Reconciliation.

Abortion is illegal in Brazil, whose population is about 75 percent Roman Catholic, but exceptions can be made in cases of rape or when the woman's life is at risk. Medical director Sergio Cabral said the abortion was legal since the girl's life was in danger and police believed her stepfather, who was arrested last week, had raped her.

According to Globo, the stepfather is not being excommunicated. "He committed a serious crime, but . . . there are many other serious sins. Abortion is more serious," said Archbishop Sobrinho.

Both Brazil's president and health minister have denounced the archbishop's decision. Health minister Jos? Gomes Temporao, who has challenged the church's stance on abortion before, called its position "extreme, radical, and inadequate." President Luiz In?cio Lula da Silva, a Roman Catholic, said today that he "profoundly laments" the archbishop's decision.

The Vatican told Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera that it supports Archbishop Sobrinho's decision. "It is very, very delicate but the Church can never betray his ad, which is to defend life from conception to natural death, even in the face of a human drama as strong as that of the violence of a child-father," said Gianfranco Grieco, head office of the Pontifical Council for the Family.

Posted by Katelyn Beaty at March 6, 2009 | Comments (22)

President Obama's budget calls for a decrease in the amount of tax savings that wealthy donors (those who earn more than $250,000 per year) can claim after giving to charity. The budget estimates the new rule would bring in about $318 billion over ten years. This means that those in the 33% or 35% tax brackets would only get to claim 28% of the donation as a tax brake.

But charities and their supporters in Congress don't much like the idea. "After objections from Democratic lawmakers, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner appeared to suggest at one point Wednesday that the administration was willing to consider dropping or modifying the proposal," reports The Wall Street Journal.

Charity Navigator says it sees a huge jump in donations in the days before January 1, as donors adjust their giving for tax purposes. The Indiana University Center on Philanthropy estimates the new rules would decrease giving by nearly $4 billion, at 2006 giving levels.

Churches and other religious groups, whose services aid the increasing numbers of needy and who are already doing more with less, are likely to increase their pressure on the White House as the budget debate draws on.

Posted by Rob Moll at March 6, 2009 | Comments (7)

Last week the Justice Department announced that drug company Eli Lilly had agreed to pay $1.42 billion to settle criminal and civil charges that it had illegally marketed its blockbuster antipsychotic drug Zyprexa. The case accused company sales reps of promoting the drug for conditions beyond its narrow FDA-approved use of treating schizophrenia and symptoms of bipolar disorder, and for populations (children and the elderly) for whom its known side effects are particularly risky. The New York Times report indicates that claims and evidence in the case were similar to a California state lawsuit which alleged that company studies of the drug circulated among its sales force were "Lilly's thinly veiled marketing of Zyprexa as an effective chemical restraint for demanding, vulnerable and needy patients."

While the settlement was the largest amount paid by a single defendant in the history of the US department of Justice, it is dwarfed by the $39 billion in sales Zyprexa has generated since its approval in 1996, and is less than half of its $3.5 billion in sales in the first nine months of 2008.

This most recent case adds to the already sordid backdrop to Marcia Angell's scathing indictment of drug companies and the physicians, medical schools, and professional organizations happy to collude with them published in the latest New York Review of Books. Angell, the Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School who served as editor-in-chief for the New England Journal of Medicine for two decades, believes these massive payouts are "just the cost of doing business" and "well worth it" for drug companies so long as the drug continues to rake in billions.

In Angell's telling, the particular offenses reported in the government Zyprexa case represent only a fraction of drug company improprieties, a discouraging litany she candidly rehearses. Yet without countenancing or minimizing their contributions to a corrupt system, she reserves her sharpest rebuke for her colluding peers.

It is easy to fault drug companies for this situation, and they certainly deserve a great deal of blame...Still, apologists might argue that the pharmaceutical industry is merely trying to do its primary job - further the interests of its investors - and sometimes it goes a little too far.

Physicians, medical schools, and professional organizations have no such excuse, since their only fiduciary responsibility is to patients. The mission of medical schools and teaching hospitals - and what justifies their tax-exempt status - is to educate the next generation of physicians, carry out scientifically important research, and care for the sickest members of society. It is not to enter into lucrative commercial alliances with the pharmaceutical industry.

Angell is concerned that unless the medical profession reasserts its independence by sharply breaking its improper financial dependence on the pharmaceutical industry, the integrity of its work will continue to decline, and with it, the trust of the public.

And no payout, however staggering, can buy that back.

Posted by Derek Keefe at January 21, 2009 | Comments (3)

Hu Jia, who was among those named in our map of pre-Olympic arrests in China, was awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

The European Parliament gives out the prestigious annual award. Their press release says:

Hu Jia is a prominent human rights activist and dissident in the People's Republic of China. He has embraced a wide range of causes, including environmental issues, HIV/AIDS advocacy and a call for an official enquiry into the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. He has also acted as a coordinator of the 'barefoot lawyers movement'.

Having already been arrested several times, he spoke to MEPs in November 2007 from house arrest via conference call during a public meeting of the EP Human Rights Subcommittee on human rights in China in the run-up to the Olympic Games. As a result he was charged by the authorities with "inciting subversion of state power" and sentenced on 3 April 2008 to three-and-a-half years in jail.

The prize puts China - which is reportedly pretty steamed - in the awkward position of having an internationally recognized lawyer in prison.

The U.S. State Department and other organizations are demanding Hu's release: "We are deeply concerned about the imprisonment of human rights activist Hu Jia and have pressed the Chinese authorities for his immediate release on many occasions and at the highest level," State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid told The Age.

Although the European Parliament statement, the Wikipedia page, and reports by The New York Times, BBC, and others don't mention it, Hu is a Christian and one of many Christian human rights activists fighting for human rights in China.

* * *

While one source listed Hu Jia as a Christian, he is a Buddhist, according to China Aid and others. My apologies.

Posted by Susan Wunderink at October 24, 2008 | Comments (1)

Best-selling author Donald Miller will give a benediction Monday night at the Democratic National Convention. He replaces Relevant Magazine founder and CEO Cameron Strang, who decided not to give the benediction at the Democratic National Convention as previously planned.

Christianity Today featured Miller on its cover in June 2007, and his spirituality book Blue Like Jazz has sold more than one million copies.

"Don is one of the top names among young evangelicals," said Joshua DuBois, director of religious affairs for the Barack Obama campaign. "We didn't think he would do it. We're just ecstatic. I love Blue Like Jazz myself. I think it sends a huge signal that someone who's is helping to lead off the conventions is an evangelical of his calibre."

I spoke to Miller this morning.

Why did you choose to accept the invitation?
Somebody calls you and asks you to pray, you do.

You get three minutes to pray? Have you thought about what you're going to pray?
I've not written the prayer yet, but I really wanted to hone in on the theme of unity, even unity between Republicans and Democrats. In the convention, as we highlight our differences that we wouldn't forget that we're unified, we have more in common than we don't. That's the focus of the prayer.

Cameron Strang was in that slot before and said that people perceived the prayer as showing favoritism. Are you worried you'll receive the same reactions?
I'm not. I'm a registered Democrat. While that's perceived as black or white, or hostile toward the Republican Party, I grew up in the Republican Party. I even attended as a kid the Republican National Convention when it was in Houston when Bush Sr. was running against Clinton. I changed parties about five years ago. I really felt like the Republican Party was taking advantage of the evangelical community by throwing us abortion and gay marriage, really not giving the heart of Christ more thought. I felt like it was the party of the extremely wealthy and they needed this conservative base in order to get a majority and so they pandered to us.

(The rest of the Q & A is posted after the jump.)

I felt used by the Republican Party in that sense. I started looking at the Democratic Party and looking at social issues that are affecting the world, seeing the presidency and Congress from a global perspectives. Even though many Democrats don't identify themselves as evangelicals, many of the precepts of the party, charitable foundation of the party did reflect what evangelicals are about, the sanctity of human life, the importance of really not leaving people behind. I don't think either party is the answer to the world's problems. I lean toward solutions the Democrats seem to favor.

Where do you stand on issues like abortion and gay marriage?
The issue of abortion is a very sensitive one and it's an important issue. I look at from a perspective of, what's the best that we can do. As we elect a Republican House and Senate, and as we elect Republican leadership in the executive branch, we see very little changes on that issue. We're electing someone who agrees with us on abortion, being sort of a tragedy in our country, and yet can't get anything done. It's kind of like saying, I want a pilot on my plane who feels this way about abortion, but he can't fly the plane. The executive branch doesn't have that much power, it has some power, but it doesn't have much power. You look at the reality of that and say, what can I do to defend the sanctity of all human life, including the living, and the marginalized and the oppressed and the poor? What can we do to better social conditions so that less women are put in situations where they feel like they need to have an abortion. What does looking at the issue holistically look like. I hope the Democrats will listen to those of us who lean toward pro-life and those changes can be made.

In terms of gay marriage, I see it as a constitutional issue. Until we become a theocracy, I think that judges should look at it from a constitutional issue. Whether I think homosexuality's wrong, personally? America is not God's country. It's not considered a Christian nation anymore. You have to look at everybody, not just Christians and say, what are the rights of these people based on this constitution. That's another difficult issue as well. I get a bit frustrated when the evangelical position is reduced to two issues. So many other issues are not a concern to us. What happened was, in my opinion, the Christian positions has been reduced in order to manipulate us. If we give them these two issues, we can do whatever we want.

I assume that means you support Barack Obama? What do you think he will do as president that would appeal to evangelicals?
This is one of the reasons I was attracted to obama and read his book and wanted to take him seriously as a candidate. If you look in the last eight years, we have lost our reputable standing among most nations. Certainly among many poor nations and Muslim nations, we're not very respected. There's a great deal of hostility against us. As we travel the world, America represents Christianity to the rest of the world. What we have is Christianity being represented by what is perceived as arrogance, bullying, an inability to negotiate peace, an inability to listen. People assume that Christianity is that way. You ask yourself, what sort of person might God rise up to heal the wounds that have been created by that kind of positioning in the world. You would think a very intelligent minority, who came not out of wealth, who's not only power position in Washington, D.C., a man who's more thoughtful in his answers and less bullyish, not as simple of a thinker, even as reality is not simple, a man who has spent part of his upbringing overseas and has connections with Kenya, that's the guy. A name like Barack Obama, you just kind of go, that would be the guy that God would choose to heal some of the wounds that we've caused in the world. That's what made me take him seriously. I read his book, listened to his speeches, asked myself some of those hard questions. When all the math was done, he edged out as a favorable as a favorable candidate for me.

Do you see yourself as a person who plans to be more involved in political activism?
I'm a writer. That's my calling. I'm not a pastor. I'm a believer. I write about spirituality. I have political opinions that may not have more worth than anybody else. In this instance, when someone calls and asks you to come and pray, I say yes. I'm a supporter of this candidate, and I think that's great. After I came out on a blog and expressed about the Bush administration, they invited me to the White House and had breakfast with the president's assistant. I enjoyed that and enjoyed them as people. When someone asks you to come, you come, and you have a conversation. I don't see this as an, "I'm against Republicans." That's not that kind of a move. This is about any believer who's called and asked to come and pray. No matter you're called to pray, you go.

Originally cross-posted at CT's politics blog.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam at August 22, 2008 | Comments (88)

Relevant Magazine founder and CEO Cameron Strang decided not to give the benediction at the Democratic National Convention as previously planned.

Strang said his planned prayer was perceived as showing favoritism, so he pulled out and recommended Blue Like Jazz author Donald Miller instead.

Strang sent the following statement to me in an e-mail.

"As a pro-life voter, I never intended my participation to imply unequivocal endorsement, and the DNC knew that and were fine with that. I viewed it simply as an opportunity to continue positive dialogue, show support for a continuing emphasis on faith issues, and pray in a forum where faith isn't typically thought to be emphasized. I wanted to show that this generation of values voters doesn't necessarily need to draw battle lines politically the way previous generations have, that we can work through areas of disagreement to further the common good.

"However, the reality is, through RELEVANT I reach a demographic that has strong faith, morals and passions, but disagreements politically. It wouldn't be wise for me to pick a political side, when I've consistently said both sides are right in some areas and both sides are wrong in some areas. My desire is to keep an open dialogue with both campaigns and talk about the issues that matter to my generation of Christians. If my praying at the DNC was perceived as showing favoritism and incorrectly labeling me as endorsing one candidate over the other, then I needed to have pause. And that's what was happening.

"So I brought that concern up to the DNC, and they understood. I recommended bestselling author Don Miller as a much better representative of our audience than I am, and they were glad to invite him to give the invocation in my place. I think this will ultimately be much better for the DNC. The campaign and I still have positive dialogue, and I'm thankful for that.

"Like I mentioned, they've invited me to participate in a "Faith in the '08 Election" panel on Thursday, which seems to be a perfect fit. It allows me to continue a positive conversation with the DNC and be involved a bit more behind the scenes. I want to make sure our generation of Christians has a place at the table, so to speak, and this will afford us that chance -- even moreso than if I was to give a prayer onstage.

"As an aside, in a "put your money where your mouth is" move this week, I changed my party affiliation from Republican to Independent. I want to vote because of values and convictions, not party affiliations. To me, that's an important part of being a thinking, values-minded Christian."

Originally posted at Christianity Today's politics blog.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam at August 20, 2008 | Comments (19)

Filed: 7:05 AM, July 30, 2008

Senator John Kerry kicked off the "Loving God and Neighbor in Word and Deed" conference (also known as the "Common Word" conference) Monday night with a largely unsurprising, but welcome speech. He was, after all, preaching to the choir: Christian and Muslim leaders from around the world who want to find a way to live together peacefully.

Kerry began by telling his roughly 150 listeners that the meeting they were attending at Yale University "can help change the world," while warning that pessimism about future relationships between the Muslim world and the West hands demagogues who play to pessimism about the inevitable violent clash of cultures and religions. "You have placed yourselves among those who are on the right side of the debate," he told them. "We must love one another or die."

Kerry, who is a direct descendant of Puritan governor John Winthrop, famous for his "city on a hill" sermon, recounted for the benefit of the global audience the way in which early American history was shaped by a series of bitter religious splits. But the fruit of that early experience of division was a commitment to welcoming all faiths, he said.

Kerry balanced his assertion that "we all worship the One God, the same God" with a plea that religious differences not be played down among the Abrahamic faiths. We don't need to succumb to "mush" in order to find tolerance. Nor do we need to remove the influence of faith from our public life, he said. "If we aren't shaped by our faith, we don't have faith."

Our goal should be a politics that seeks the global common good, Kerry said, not just the politics that cares for the people of one nation. He cited Vatican II documents to support this planetary notion of common good politics.

The audience gave Kerry a courteous welcome, but none of his comments drew applause until he called for the US to put Middle East peace back on the mainstream foreign policy agenda, and to do it in a way that would deal with "everyone's grievances."

Most quotable line of the evening: "Faith may be worth dying for, but it cannot be worth killing for."

Kerry has gone back to Washington, but the choir has stayed behind to hear each other sing. The panel discussions today will be less inspirational and motivational and will deal with substantive issues. The dozen or so Muslim and Christian panelists Tuesday include evangelical leaders such as Miroslav Volf (Yale), Peter Kuzmic (Croatia), Tukunboh Adeyemo (Kenya), Martin Accad (Lebanon).

Posted by David Neff at July 30, 2008 | Comments (9)

I never imagined Irv Rubin and I would agree on anything. He was the leader of the Jewish Defense League, an organization, founded by Meir Kahane, that took the ADL's efforts to terrorist extremes and could make an anti-Semite out of Tevye the milkman. I was the archetypal product of assimilation, a liberal evangelical with a Jewish last name and an affinity for understanding all religions.

But a few years back, which coincidentally was a few years after Rubin died in prison, I found myself in his camp. I had set out to write about the propensity for city officials and invited ministers to invoke Jesus' name in the prayers preceding municipal meetings. Thanks to Irv Rubin, who sued the city of Burbank in 1999 to prohibit sectarian prayers, referring by name to any deity -- Allah, YHWH, Jesus, Buddha, the Flying Spaghetti Monster -- had been ruled unconstitutional; the state and U.S. supreme courts let the ruling stand.

As a proponent of the separation of church and state, I couldn't have agreed more. But what I found was that few cities, at least in my community of San Bernardino and eastern Los Angeles counties, paid any mind.

"Lord Jesus, we'd like to give you thanks and praise," Rialto Councilman Joe Sampson began a meeting, which he later defended because the United States is a "Christian country."

I assumed that with time this would change. But that has not been the case. In Ontario, Calif., Tuesday, a day after the mayor apologized for "errors in his private life" that vaguely referred to allegations he had an affair with a city employee, Pastor Larry Enriguez invoked Jesus' words to a mob ready to lynch an adulteress in the eighth chapter of John: "He who is without sin, cast the first stone."

True words. Very true words when talking about, say, your covetous neighbor. But not when dealing with an elected official who may or may not have been diddling a taxpayer-supported subordinate.

More important, though, is the fact that these words are not appropriate for government meetings. I say this as a Christian who believes Jesus' message contains incredible power. But I also say this as someone who believes religion should not be forced into the public square. We all know how this ends up for those not in power. And what if the tables are turned? Judge not lest ye be judged.

Posted by Brad Greenberg at June 20, 2008 | Comments (32)

In a piece subtitled, "Fired and brimstone," The Examiner relays that George Bush canned Karl Rove in church.

The information comes from yet another pre-postmortem book on the Bush administration, Machiavelli's Shadow: The Rise and Fall of Karl Rove, by former Time reporter Paul Alexander. The Examiner summarizes:

"On a Sunday in midsummer, George W. Bush accompanied Karl Rove to the Episcopalian Church Rove sometimes attended," writes Alexander. "They made their way to the front of the congregation. Then, during their time in the church, Bush gave Rove some stunning news. ?Karl,' Bush said, ?there's too much heat on you. It's time for you to go.'"

Maybe Bush knew what he was doing in breaking such bad news in such serene atmosphere: As Alexander documents, Rove has quite the temper.

Posted by Susan Wunderink at June 10, 2008 | Comments (1)

California will become only the second U.S. state to allow gay and lesbian couples to tie the knot after the state's Supreme Court on Thursday (May 15) overturned a voter referendum that had banned same-sex marriages.

Twenty-three gay and lesbian couples had filed suit to challenge a 1977 law and the 2000 referendum that defined marriage as between a man and a woman. In a 4-3 decision, the court ruled that barring gay couples from marriage violates the "fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship."

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Ronald George said opening marriage to same-sex couples "will not deprive opposite-sex couples of any rights and will not alter the legal framework of the institution of marriage."

Under the ruling, same-sex couples will be eligible for marriage licenses in 30 days, and the state will recognize gay marriages performed in other jurisdictions. Currently only Massachusetts allows gay marriage, as do five other countries, including Canada.

While gay rights group hailed the ruling as a watershed victory, opponents promised a no-holds-barred battle to amend the state constitution to explicitly ban same-sex marriages. If approved by voters in November, the amendment would trump the court's decision.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has twice vetoed a legislative attempt to allow gay marriages, but said he would oppose the November referendum and respect the state court's decision.
Justice Marvin Baxter, in a dissenting opinion, said the court's majority was imposing "by judicial fiat its own social policy views for those expressed by the people."

Several religious groups -- including Mormons, the state's Catholic bishops, Orthodox Jews and the National Association of Evangelicals -- had filed briefs asking the court to not allow gay couples to wed.

Conservatives, while bitterly disappointed, indicated they would use the decision to build momentum to pass the constitutional amendment. "This ruling will unite the people of California and will propel their efforts to amend the state constitution," said the Texas-based group Liberty Legal.

And, recognizing that they have been unable to ban gay marriage in the five years since Massachusetts' highest court approved it, conservatives know how big the stakes may be in Thursday's decision.

"The court has overturned not only the historic definition of marriage, but the clear will of the people of California," said the Washington-based Family Research Council. "The California Supreme Court has taken a jackhammer to the democratic process. ... This decision put marriage at risk all across the nation."

Gay groups, too, recognized that their struggle to attain marriage equality in the nation's most populous state is not yet over.

"I would love to tell you to take a day and sit back and enjoy this momentous victory," said Joe Solmonese, president of the Washington-based Human Rights Campaign, in a fundraising appeal issued two hours after the court's ruling.

"In fact, sitting back is the reaction the right wing is hoping for. We can't afford to let them turn our success into their win."

One of the case's two lead plaintiffs was the Rev. Troy Perry, who founded the predominantly gay Metropolitan Community Church in 1968 and performed his first same-sex union ceremony a year later. Perry and his partner of 23 years, Phillip De Blieck, were legally married in Canada in 2003.

"I can't quit crying," Perry said in a phone interview just after the ruling was made public. "After 39 years of fighting for this, today thank God that the Supreme Court of the state of California ruled in favor of us."

Perry tempered his joy with the knowledge that "this is not the end of this struggle. There are still 45 states [that don't recognize same-sex unions in some way] that we have to work on."

Posted by Ted Olsen at May 15, 2008 | Comments (19)

This might seem like a good idea, but ...

Florida drivers can order more than 100 specialty license plates celebrating everything from manatees to the Miami Heat, but one now under consideration would be the first in the nation to explicitly promote a specific religion.

The Florida Legislature is considering a specialty plate with a design that includes a Christian cross, a stained-glass window and the words "I Believe."

Rep. Edward Bullard, the plate's sponsor, said people who "believe in their college or university" or "believe in their football team" already have license plates they can buy. The new design is a chance for others to put a tag on their cars with "something they believe in," he said.

If the plate is approved, Florida would become the first state to have a license plate featuring a religious symbol that's not part of a college logo. Approval would almost certainly face a court challenge.

This story from the AP is what I like to call religious-controversy in a can. There is an exact formula to reporting these kneejerkers out. Introduce the "major news" (these are CNN standards), followed by a supportive quote about how Christians just want equal rights and then the contrarion view from Americans United, the ACLU or Michael Newdow. My vote's for contestant No. 2:

The problem with the state manufacturing the plate is that it "sends a message that Florida is essentially a Christian state" and, second, gives the "appearance that the state is endorsing a particular religious preference," said Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.

Personally, I think the license plate is completely camp but have no constitutional qualms with it ... if the Florida DMV offers other religious variants. As my colleague pointed out with this satirical plate, I don't think Christians would be too thrilled if Satanists got their own design.

This article was cross-posted, with art, at The God Blog.

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Posted by Brad Greenberg at April 25, 2008 | Comments (3)

The Supreme Court (SCOTUS) today tackled one case on the death penalty and is on to the next.

The biggest news from SCOTUS was the 7 ? 2 ruling that Kentucky's method of lethal injection was a constitutional form of capital punishment and not cruel and unusual.

"The case before the court came from Kentucky, where two death row inmates wanted the court to order a switch to a single drug, a barbiturate, that causes no pain and can be given in a large enough dose to cause death," NPR reports.

In executions by lethal injection, a team of doctors administers a barbituate to numb, a paralytic, and then sodium chloride, which causes cardiac arrest, through an IV. One of the main objections to lethal injection is that any of the drugs is ineffectively administered, the execution would be painful, undignified, or drawn-out.

That risk, however, isn't enough to make the method illegal, said Chief Justice John Roberts.

American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) guidelines say use of the method to put down animals is unacceptable.

Our earlier report on the case discussed whether there was a significant shift toward disapproval of the death penalty in America.

A Pew Forum poll taken last August found that public support for capital punishment has dropped to 62 percent from a high of 80 percent in 1994. White evangelicals are still the death penalty's strongest supporters, with 74 percent approval, but that is down from 82 percent in 1996.

"There's been a pause in capital punishment since last September: a good opportunity to reflect on what life would be like without it and to take the public temperature on the death penalty in general." Slate says.

While that question may still trouble many a judge and many a Christian, yesterday's ruling has set the death penalty back in motion in many of the states.

* * *

In another significant case, the Supreme Court began hearings on whether child rape (i.e., the worst thing people can think of that isn't murder) merits the death penalty. Capital punishment for a crime that didn't result in the victim's death is uncertain ground.

"Nobody in this country has actually been executed for anything other than murder since 1964, although five states, including Louisiana, have laws permitting capital punishment for the rape of young children," Slate's Dahlia Lithwick explains in her analysis of the "inscrutable social consensus the death penalty for rapists."

For the high court, it's a monumental challenge: distilling all of these trends and counter-trends into some broad, workable constitutional rule, a rule that somehow reflects the emerging "national consensus" that we may like the idea of capital punishment far more than the reality of it.

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Posted by Susan Wunderink at April 16, 2008 | Comments (0)

The answer, apparently, is no.

Everybody has been a bit overeager about Zimbabwe's future - but there truly are some hopeful signs as Zimbabweans wait for the results of last Saturday's elections. The opposition party claims its candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, beat Robert Mugabe. They've also won a majority in parliament. And no one is contradicting them yet.

Rumor has it Mugabe may concede that he has not won. Some are suggesting his party's not declaring victory may lead to an actual handing over of power - and that Zimbabwe, in which church-state intrigue is practically an art form, might fare better with the democratic process than Kenya did this winter. "The mere possibility of a transfer of power is a stunning development in Zimbabwe," Greg Winter says in a New York Times video on the election.

The Zimbabwean pre-reported Mugabe's declaration of victory, which now seems very unlikely.

IWPR could not get the exact percentage by which Mugabe will be said to have won but the sources said there would not be a run-off, as ZANU-PF will claim Mugabe has clinched more than 50 per cent of the total number of voters cast.

Sources within the ZEC centre - newly christened the National Collation Centre - say Mugabe clearly lost the election to his opposition rival Morgan Tsvangirai, polling only 20 per cent of the vote. He is also said to trail Simba Makoni who garnered 28 per cent.

But commentators say it would be something of a miracle if Mugabe and his party had secured the victory, given more than 85 per cent unemployment, serious food shortages and a collapsed health delivery system.

Not to mention the 100,000% inflation rate.

However, Mugabe hasn't declared defeat, either. Although polling stations post results on their doors, the government has not released official results, "heightening fears that it is trying to massage the vote in the face of a crushing defeat," The Guardian reports. Churches are going public with concerns about rigging.

A runoff vote may be the next step.

NPR aired what was practically a post-mortem of Mugabe, detailing his shyness and resentment of Mandela. Mugabe's life is one of the saddest examples of heroism degraded.

Christianity Today's past coverage of Zimbabwe includes articles on Mugabe tampering with churches and accusing Pius Ncube.

Posted by Susan Wunderink at April 2, 2008 | Comments (0)

Many evangelicals seem taken with Barack Obama. Tired of the Religious Right and seeking a new tone in Washington, they see in this untested, enigmatic senator a chance for real change. And indeed he is congenial and a breath of fresh air when compared with the grasping Clinton dynasty. Many Bible-believers seem ready to look the other way with Obama, despite his extremely liberal voting record (including unfettered backing of abortion), because he appears to be a genuine person they can work with.

I wonder how his latest, religiously based comments might change this. The other day Obama reiterated his support for civil unions for homosexuals. No surprise there. Some Christians (but not me) do indeed allow for the conferring of some legal rights, short of marital status, on gays as a simple matter of fairness. But I suspect his rationale raised some hackles.

If people find that controversial then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans.

Since when did Romans 1 become obscure? I thought pitting the words of Jesus against those of Paul was a tactic of Red Letter Christians, not something a serious candidate for the Oval Office would engage in.

But be that as it may, it's a good thing that Obama is not running for theologian in chief. There is no refererence to gay civil unions in the Sermon on the Mount (unless you stretch the Golden Rule beyond all recognition). Perhaps Obama mixed up his Bible references, like Howard Dean calling Job his favorite New Testament book?

When Jesus spoke of marriage, of course, he assumed it is a heterosexual institution. There may be a legal case to be made for marriage-like civil unions. But, please, let's not drag Jesus into it.

Posted by Stan Guthrie at March 4, 2008 | Comments (48)

The White House released a 175-page report Monday highlighting the accomplishments of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiative.

The report received little attention in the mainstream media, but the Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy reported that the reactions varied from support to dismissal.

Outspoken critic of the office, former deputy director David Kuo told the Roundtable, "If they had fulfilled the President's promises, there wouldn't be any need for a glossy PR document that only proves the Initiative's great failures."

The report spotlights the office's training of more than 100,000 religious and grassroots organizations, and it has encouraged faith-based efforts in 35 states and more than 100 cities.

Supporters have lauded the program by saying that it helped level the playing field for religious organizations to compete for grants. However, lower funds made it more difficult for anyone to compete.

"While faith-based organizations were getting a bigger piece of the pie, the pie was shrinking," David Wright, project director for the Roundtable said in the article.

The office's Director Jay Hein told the Roundtable that the Initiative should not be judged by a tally of spending.

"This is not an Initiative about money," Hein said. "This is an Initiative about problem-solving. Problems don't get solved by spending more money."

Previous CT coverage includes a recent interview with former director John Dilulio.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam at February 28, 2008 | Comments (3)

Last spring, Karl Rove was outed by atheist superstar Christopher Hitchens as a fellow nonbeliever.

"He doesn't shout it from the rooftops, but when asked, he answers quite honestly. I think the way he puts it is, "I'm not fortunate enough to be a person of faith."

But last night Rove told me he is in fact a religious person, though he didn't specify how his Christian roots manifest themselves in his life.

Rove was in Los Angeles to speak at the Gibson Ampitheatre, one of a number of distinguished voices in this year's Public Lecture Series by American Jewish University. His invitation had caused a bit of consternation in the Jewish community, but he quickly won over many of his skeptics, which I wrote about in an article that will be online Thursday.

"I spent part of my childhood in Utah," Rove said at a VIP dinner before the lecture. "I went to a high school that is 95 percent Mormon, and only in Utah could a Presbyterian and a Jew both be gentiles."

Regardless of his own beliefs, Rove, who left his post as chief adviser to President Bush in August, was instrumental in helping Bush monopolize the support of evangelical voters and making religious rhetoric a more essential part of presidential campaigns, something we are seeing plenty of this year.

Religion has long been relevant on the campaign trail.

"Roosevelt used to say to his speech writer, Rosenman, Don't forget the God stuff at the end. That's a bit colloquial," Rove said, "but the point is Americans have always valued leaders of faith."

In fact, as early as 1800, in the race between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, religious piety and divine reverence played an important role in politics.

As Jefferson and John Adams, a publicly devout Christian, slugged it out on the campaign trail, the Gazette of the United States ran this:

THE GRAND QUESTION STATED

At the present solemn and momentous epoch, the only question to be asked by every American, laying his hand on his heart, is: "Shall I continue in allegiance to

GOD - AND A RELIGIOUS
PRESIDENT;

Or impiously declare for

JEFFERSON - AND NO GOD!!!"

Jefferson was vehemently attacked for being a godless, slave-owning (-impregnating) sinner. But the underlying issue was what kind of liberties would this country afford its few voting members and everyone else who lived here. Jefferson favored greater freedoms while Adams sought to strengthen the office of the president. (A proto-Bush?)

Still, many people couldn't get over the fact that Jefferson didn't believe in God. And though he eventually won through a complicated process in the Electoral College, some members who didn't want to give their vote to an atheist said they would rather "go without a Constitution and take the risk of civil war."

Now, though, Godtalk dominates -- whether it is about what kind of Christian John McCain is, why evangelicals can't stand Hillary Clinton or whether Barack Obama is a "covert Muslim." The question, and it's one Rove didn't answer, is why did religious rhetoric has become so central to running for president. So-called "moral-values issues" were just as important to voters in elections that brought Bill Clinton to the White House as those that elected and re-elected George Bush. Something else is certainly at play.

This article was cross-posted at The God Blog.

Posted by Brad Greenberg at February 26, 2008 | Comments (20)

Sometimes Americans United for Separation of Church and State is misguided in its zeal. But, in this case, the one lacking wisdom was Pastor Wiley S. Drake, who last week used First Baptist Church of Buena Park letterhead and an affiliated radio program to endorse Mike Huckabee for president. That's a violation of tax laws for nonprofits, and Americans United filed a complaint. Drake's response was a bit vengeful.

In an e-mail Thursday, Drake urged action against Americans United and the American Civil Liberties Union.

As he had in August, Drake quoted Psalm 109, which speaks of wicked and deceitful people and asks God to let such a person's days be few and let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.

"In light of the recent attack from the enemies of God, I ask the children of God to go into action with imprecatory prayer," he wrote.

Imprecatory prayers have been defined as praying for someone's misfortune or as appeals to God for justice.

The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, called Drake's appeal to his supporters "reckless and repugnant."

"Introducing this kind of religious extremism into American life is reprehensible," he said.

This article was cross-posted at The God Blog.

Posted by Brad Greenberg at February 16, 2008 | Comments (11)

Religion coverage in The Atlantic is typically well done. The magazine's coverage of the neutering of religion from The Golden Compass was interesting for the way it treated both Hollywood and the anti-religious themes of the book on which the movie was based. Though the magazine retains the secular, above the fray, attitude toward faith of its New England founding, it also put Philip Jenkin's article on the New Christendom on the cover in October, 2002, when his book describing the phenomenal growth of non-Western Christianity debuted.

So, the magazine's March cover story (not yet online) on the literal battle between Christianity and Islam in Nigeria is equally well done, despite some mistakes.

Eliza Griswold - daughter of the former presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church - writes from the town of Yelwa, where an attack that killed Christians in church in 2004 brought on a more gruesome response against Muslims killing hundreds. Yelwa is in Nigeria's Middle Belt, which, Griswold writes,

marks the fault line between Christianity and Islam not only in Nigeria, but across the entire continent. A satellite image from Google Earth shows the Middle Belt as a gray-green strip between the equator and the 10th parallel, dividing the fawn-colored dry land from the vibrant sub-Saharan jungle canopy. It also separates most of the continents 67 million Muslims to the north from 417 million Christians to the south.

Because of the 20th century explosion of Christianity in Africa, by the year 2050, Griswold writes, the demographic and geographic center of Christianity will be in northern Nigeria, where the country's Muslims live. This fact makes any tensions in the country religious ones. With 140 million people, oil revenues that never seem to help the people (half of whom live on less than a dollar a day) thanks to government corruption, and a changing regional climate that has wiped out many traditional livelihoods, the country has plenty of tensions.

"Every crisis is automatically interpreted as a religious crisis," an Anglican archbishop says. "But we all know that, scratch the surface and it's got nothing to do with religion. It's power."

Power, in this democracy (despite massive corruption) is a numbers game. Christians and Muslims compete for numbers - converts. And to do that, they not only use intimidation (Griswold quotes Archbishop Peter Akinola saying that Muslims do not have a monopoly on violence), Christians and Muslims appeal to want what Nigerians need most - prosperity.

Pentecostalism has brought along American prosperity theology. (Griswold doesn't seem able to separate Pentecostalism from prosperity theology.) And, in the competition for souls, Nigeria's Muslims have come up with an Islamic approach to making people wealthy.

Griswold suggests that, while violence between Christians and Muslims is still a threat, this sort of competition - non-violent pursuit of winning hearts and minds - is growing.

Hopefully she's right. The stories of murder, rape, and intimidation (all justified by either side's scripture) are horrifying. Yet, Griswold doesn't offer much to hang that hope on other than the story of an imam and a pastor who gave up leading militias to work together for peace. It's inspiring, but she gives little evidence of their effectiveness. And Griswold, despite her father's Christian leadership, doesn't seem to fully understand the Christianity she's reporting on, much less Islam. For example, she says Pentecostals "share an experience of the Holy Spirit, or the numinous, that offers the gift of salvation and success in everyday life." (italics are mine. At least she didn't spell it like Rob Bell.) And Muslims have yet to show that they can treat minorities as equals, instead of "protected" classes or worse.

Still, the article, and it's companions by Alan Wolfe (on how religiosity really is decreasing with modernization) and Walter Russell Mead (on American evangelical political moderation) are worth reading.

Posted by Rob Moll at February 10, 2008 | Comments (2)

Here's the text of James Dobson's endorsement of Mike Huckabee as sent out last night to the e-mail subscribers of CitizenLink:

Dr. James Dobson issues the following statement tonight, speaking as a private citizen.

I am endorsing Gov. Mike Huckabee for President of the United States today. My decision comes in the wake of my statement on Super Tuesday that I could not vote for Sen. John McCain, even if he goes on to win the Republican nomination. His record on the institution of the family and other conservative issues makes his candidacy a matter of conscience and concern for me.

That left two pro-family candidates whom I could support, but I was reluctant to choose between them. However, the decision by Gov. Mitt Romney to put his campaign "on hold" changes the political landscape. The remaining candidate for whom I could vote is Gov. Huckabee. His unwavering positions on the social issues, notably the institution of marriage, the importance of faith and the sanctity of human life, resonate deeply with me and with many others. That is why I will support Gov. Huckabee through the remaining primaries, and will vote for him in the general election if he should get the nomination. Obviously, the governor faces an uphill struggle, given the delegates already committed to Sen. McCain. Nevertheless, I believe he is our best remaining choice for President of the United States.

(NOTE: Dr. Dobson made these statements as a private citizen. This article is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as a reflection of the opinions of Focus on the Family or Focus on the Family Action.)

Posted by David Neff at February 8, 2008 | Comments (29)

In the vast canon of analysis of evangelical voters, John Green's interview with Pew Forum is speculative but helpful. There are the things we already know (e.g. Giuliani has an "issues problem" for evangelicals), but also some thinking past Super Tuesday - and before George W.

Green sees three real contenders for the majority of the evangelical vote: Huckabee, Romney, and McCain.

But are any Democrats likely to snag many evangelicals? Obama's comfort with speaking about his faith seems to give some evangelicals the warm fuzzies, Green says, and Democrats may get a greater proportion of young evangelicals this election.

"A lot of the anecdotal evidence from the campaign trail suggests that these are folks that may like to see a different relationship between evangelicals and the Republican Party," Green said, explaining that McCain's rocky relationship with Religious Right leaders Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell might not blight his campaign.

To truly get a majority of evangelicals, Green says, a candidate needs three characteristics: personal appeal, electability, and issue positions that are "minimally comfortable." Presumably, it's Democratic issue positions that continue to push evangelicals to the Republican candidates.

Asked about how Huckabee's evangelical support would be dispersed if he withdrew, Green responds:

The fact that Huckabee has come this far with relatively little organization and a real lack of funds is because of the enthusiasm of some evangelicals at the grassroots level who have been campaigning for him on their own initiative. That kind of enthusiasm is difficult to shift from one candidate to another.

It's at least plausible that if Huckabee's followers stay involved in the process, they may find John McCain more congenial than some of the other GOP candidates.

Does this mean that most evangelicals will vote Republican next November? Or will they remain divided and unpredictable in a field where every candidate seems to have two but not three of the characteristics they're looking for?

Posted by Susan Wunderink at January 29, 2008 | Comments (13)

Time will tell whether Democratic efforts will actually impact evangelical voter habits, but one Pulitzer-prize winning cartoonist seems a bit skeptical.

David Horsey of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer believes that at least those in Colorado will stick to the Republicans. Horsey attended New Life Church, formerly led by Ted Haggard. After a lengthy description of a megachurch worship service, he describes his talk with New Life's associate pastor Rob Brendle.

The pastor thinks the country needs "a morally principled diplomat in the White House" like Mitt Romney, not a religious leader like Mike Huckabee. Nothing would be worse for Christian conservatives than a candidate who scared the rest of America with too much focus on his faith, he said.

The cartoonist then wanted to know, "What about the Democrats?" since the Democrats have been making an emphasis on religion in their campaigns. Horsey writes that the pastor laughed and said he'd seen it before. He was in a meeting with John Kerry in 2004 where the former candidate pulled a New Testament. The pastor said nobody bought it then, and it won't work this year, either.

"If Hillary has suddenly started reading the Scriptures, then I'm glad she's reading the Scriptures," Brendle said, but evangelicals are sticking with the Republicans.

However, Clinton has long been in the Methodist tradition, and as President Bush's former speech writer Michael Gerson wrote back in the fall, she is neither secular nor awkward about her faith. Either way, I don't think anybody believes evangelicals will be overwhelmingly wooed to vote for a Democrat, but many are pleased that the Democrats are using the words faith and politics in the same sentence.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam at January 23, 2008 | Comments (9)

Republican Presidential candidate Fred Thompson dropped out of the presidential race Tuesday, the New York Times writes.

Mr. Thompson, 65, rode in to the campaign powered by the high hopes of conservative Republicans who were disappointed with the field of candidates and hoped that Mr. Thompson - a television actor and former counsel to the Watergate committee - could rally conservatives behind him. But Mr. Thompson instead brought a phlegmatic style to the campaign trail, and his candidacy never took off.

Even though Thompson appealed to some social conservatives and received an endorsement from the National Right to Life, he never drew significant numbers. He entered the race late in the game, told voters he didn't attend church and said he would not talk about religion on the campaign.

He placed third in South Carolina, apparently taking votes away from Mike Huckabee. Unless Huckabee decides to campaign more heavily in Florida, Thompson's exit from the race will likely help Mitt Romney in Florida.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam at January 22, 2008 | Comments (2)

Most of the media coverage of evangelical voter behavior revolves around the Republican race, but it looks like Sen. Barack Obama is still interested in grabbing the "evangelical vote." During last night's CNN debate, he spoke about how the Democrats should go after evangelicals.

"I think there have been times -- there have been times where our Democratic Party did not reach out as aggressively as we could to evangelicals, for example, because the assumption was, well, they don't agree with us on choice, or they don't agree with us on gay rights, and so we just shouldn't show up.

And when you don't show up, if you're not going to church, then you're not talking to church folk. And that means that people have a very right-wing perspective in terms of what faith means and of defining our faith.

And as somebody who believes deeply in the precepts of Jesus Christ, particularly treating the least of these in a way that he would, that it is important for us to not concede that ground. Because I think we can go after those folks and get them."

This comment comes shortly after his campaign sent a mailer through South Carolina to debunk e-mail rumors that he is a Muslim. The mailer shows Obama with his head bowed in prayer and says that he will be guided by prayer when he's in office.

It's hard to tell if these attempts and previous ones are reaching evangelicals. As previously noted, the pollsters haven't asked Democrats the same self-identification questions as the Republicans.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam at January 22, 2008 | Comments (23)

What is a "cosmopolitan evangelical," and how does he or she differ from an everyday evangelical, if there is such a thing? Several sociologists have commented on a perceived shift in American evangelicalism's image, goals, and rhetoric, most notably Michael D. Lindsay, author of Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite. He thinks that if you want to see what this new breed of evangelical looks like, you only have to look as far as Mike Huckabee, who indisputably had the vote of conservative Christians to thank for his Iowa victory two weeks ago.

Huckabee, though quite comfortable with speaking publicly about his personal relationship with Christ, his conservative views on religious hot-button issues like gay marriage and abortion, and even God's providential role in his Iowa win, nonetheless differs from many conservative evangelicals before him, especially those in the Religious Right.

"I'm a conservative, but I'm not mad at anybody," Huckabee often says, and when once asked whether the Christian life was the best way of life, he answered, "Well it is for me..." but that he didn't want to come off as "judgmental, caustic or pushy." As David Brooks of The New York Times recently noted, "Huckabee is the first ironic evangelical on the national stage. He's funny, campy (see his Chuck Norris fixation) and he's not at war with modern culture." In other words, you won't hear Huckabee talking about his push to "take back America" anytime soon.

As last Saturday's South Carolina primary ended with Huckabee in second place behind John McCain by only a 3-percent margin, and Super Tuesday comes in two weeks, some pundits say Huckabee's success will rely largely on his ability to appeal to members of both the old and new guards of American evangelicalism, all the while appealing to non-evangelical American voters as well. As Lindsay writes on the blog The Imminent Frame,

Mike Huckabee must straddle the divide between the populists [old-guard evangelicals] and the cosmopolitans, convincing both that he is one of them. It's a difficult balancing act, but Huckabee is singularly poised to unite both camps. Like Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, he is able to exist on the margins of different groups and yet seem like an insider. To win, a candidate must appear as comfortable before factory workers as he is before titans of industry. Huckabee's cosmopolitan faith helps him become all things to all people.

Jay Tolson, writing for U.S. News and World Report, echoes Lindsay's observation on the "Faith Matters" blog:

Whether Huckabee will learn to connect with a larger part of the electorate - or even see the need to do so - should become apparent in the coming primaries, particularly in Florida, a state with a strong core of evangelical voters but also a very diverse collection of other voters broadly representative of the American mix. . . . And how he comes through that trial may tell us as much about the new evangelicals as it does about Mike Huckabee.

Fortunately, the new evangelicals don't have to rely solely on a presidential win by Mike Huckabee to determine the strength of their voice in today's political arena.

Posted by Katelyn Beaty at January 21, 2008 | Comments (11)

David A. Skeel, professor of corporate law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, will soon publish an article in the Emory Law Journal called "The Unbearable Lightness of Christian Legal Scholarship." In it, he chronicles the scandal of the Christian legal mind:

[T]he scope of Christian legal scholarship in the American legal literature is shockingly narrow for such a nationally influential movement. Why is there almost no trace of the intellectual underpinnings of the recent movement? ... Although evangelicals re-engaged American political life in the 1970s, the skepticism of religious perspectives, and the absence of a critical mass of Christian legal scholarship, lingered. There is now a substantial interest in Christian legal scholarship, but surprisingly little scholarship to turn to.

In that article, which Skeel first wrote in 2006, he acknowledges some counter-evidence, but concludes, "It is still much too early to tell if this new scholarly activity will have a sustained impact on legal scholarship generally, or on internal debate within Christian circles. But it might. In ten years, or possibly even five, this article's laments may come to seem quaint. I pray this is so."

As it turns out, the article may come to seem quaint even before it's published. Skeel has a new paper out claiming

that a real renaissance [of Christian legal scholarship] may finally be underway. Several promising articles have appeared in the law reviews in the past year, and more seem to be on their way. ... There are hints that a new normative Christian legal scholarship may be emerging. The most important illustration is the vibrant literature on international human rights. In domestic law, several scholars have recently asked the question of when and how the law should be used to police morality. ...

It's not surprising that Skeel thinks that Christian legal defense funds "are not a promising seedbed for Christian legal scholarship." Even those groups would be likely to agree that "they are designed to defend Christian positions, rather than to debate or wrestle with the appropriateness of the particular position. This is not a recipe for the kind of intellectual give-and-take that is likely to inspire innovative Christian legal scholarship."

It might be surprising, to some readers at least, that Skeel sees Regent Law School as a sign of hope. He puts the school, which was widely disparaged last year during the Justice Department firings debate, alongside Pepperdine as a "promising development" because of its "willingness to nurture and reward religiously informed scholarship" and its potential to "seriously [engage] the best scholars in their fields." It may be surprising, but only if you believe the caricatures of the school.

Skeel's most provocative assertion is his prediction "that many of the most exciting developments in Christian legal scholarship in the next generation of work will come from outside the domain of traditional philosophical analysis." He likes Alasdair MacIntyre, Alvin Plantinga, and Nick Wolterstorff a lot, and thinks philosophical work is extremely important in Christian legal scholarship. But "underexplored issues and perspectives offer opportunities for exciting new contributions," he says. Likewise, he says,

in the hands of us legal scholars, moral philosophy often becomes a debate about abstract propositions, and never quite gets to the street level business of trying to make sense of how the law actually functions and the lessons that can be learned from this. Rather than abstract propositions, the focus of the coming generation of Christian legal scholars will, I think, more often be on the orientation of the law: does it reflect the God who welcomes back the prodigal son, and who became flesh and dwelt among us?

Thankfully, even in his brief article, Skeel keeps his eyes on that God. He writes, "It is important not to overstate the potential effect of Christian legal scholarship. Law, Christians believe, is not what saves us; only God's grace can do that." But Skeel grasps how understating scholarship in light of God's transforming work has already damaged the academy, the church, and society. One hopes that the Christian legal scholarship boom is even more vibrant than Skeel sees.

Posted by Ted Olsen at January 21, 2008 | Comments (3)

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal ran a full page ad that was an open letter from Pastor Kenneth D. Taylor of Calvary Assembly of God in Algoma, Wisconsin, to the IRS regarding its enforcement of the ban on electioneering activities by tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organizations as that ban applies to churches. The letter was sponsored by The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. Here's how the letter begins:

I am the pastor of a small church in northeastern Wisconsin that is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. We're writing today to call your bluff.

The IRS has said for years -- based on what we believe is a mistaken interpretation of the tax code -- that preachers can't support particular political figures or political positions in their sermons.

I'm not going to comment on the theatrics, but I will comment on some of the legal issues the letter discusses. It is true enough that the IRS has said that leaders of any tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization (including, but certainly not limited to, churches) cannot endorse or oppose candidates for elective public office at official organizational events and in official organizational publications. The reason is that the IRS attributes these activities to the organization, rather than the individual, and thus views them as violations of the ban on electioneering that applies to tax-exempt 501(c)(3) entities. But the IRS has not said that preachers cannot support particular political positions in their sermons. Here's some of what the IRS has said on this issue:

Under federal tax law, section 501(c)(3) organizations may take positions on public policy issues, including issues that divide candidates in an election for public office. However, section 501(c)(3) organizations must avoid any issue advocacy that functions as political campaign intervention. Even if a statement does not expressly tell an audience to vote for or against a specific candidate, an organization delivering the statement is at risk of violating the political campaign intervention prohibition if there is any message favoring or opposing a candidate. A statement can identify a candidate not only by stating the candidate’s name but also by other means such as showing a picture of the candidate, referring to political party affiliations, or other distinctive features of a candidate’s platform or biography. All the facts and circumstances need to be considered to determine if the advocacy is political campaign intervention.

Some sensitive issues can arise here, and I have had some criticisms for the IRS in terms of the ways it has handled certain matters in this area. But the flat statement that "[t]he IRS has said for years ... that preachers can't support particular ... political positions in their sermons" in inaccurate.

The letter from Pastor Taylor goes on to say this:

Last election I delivered a sermon based on Matthew 5: 13-16, which tells us that we are the salt of the Earth and the light of the world. ... Unlike many sermons at my church, we did not broadcast this on the radio or television. It was simply a sermon to my own congregation. I did however keep a videotape copy.

I challenge you -- if you still think it's the law -- to investigate what I preached that day...

The Becket Fund has posted some of the video of the sermon here. The problem with the video is that you cannot hear the whole sermon -- "censored" black-out frames pop up at various points throughout the message. This, of course, is an attempt by the Becket Fund to make a point. Again, I'm not going to comment on the theatrics. But I will say that this tactic does not make it easy to have a productive debate around these issues. Further, this kind of thing may have the effect of making pastors believe that the rules prohibit more than they actually do. It's completely fair game to criticize the rules, start a debate about them, and sue over them. But we should be as clear as we possibly can be about what the rules say and don't say, what is up for debate and what is not, so that people have the most reliable information possible and so that the debate focuses on the right issues. (By the way, if you'd like more guidance on these issues, you may find some here and here. I also should note that the letter makes a disparaging reference to Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU). AU's response to the letter is here.)

The Becket Fund apparently believes that at least some of the application of these rules to tax-exempt churches is unconstitutional. I don't have time to address all the relevant issues now, but let me make one note. When the IRS revoked a church's tax-exempt status in 1995 for engaging in prohibited political activities, a church raised similar arguments. But in 2000 a federal appellate court affirmed a lower court's ruling in favor of the IRS in this case, saying that the revocation did not violate the church's free exercise or free speech rights. (Here's a more detailed description of the Branch Ministries v. Rossotti case.) In that case, the court said:

The Church asserts, first, that a revocation [of its tax-exempt status] would threaten its existence. ... The Church maintains that a loss of its tax-exempt status will not only make its members reluctant to contribute the funds essential to its survival, but may obligate the Church itself to pay taxes.

The Church appears to assume that the withdrawal of a conditional privilege for failure to meet the condition is in itself an unconstitutional burden on its free exercise right. This is true, however, only if the receipt of the privilege (in this case the tax exemption) is conditioned "upon conduct proscribed by a religious faith, or ... denie[d] ... because of conduct mandated by religious belief, thereby putting substantial pressure on an adher- ent to modify his behavior and to violate his beliefs." Jimmy Swaggart Ministries, 493 U.S. at 391-92 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)....

The sole effect of the loss of the tax exemption will be to decrease the amount of money available to the Church for its religious practices. The Supreme Court has declared, however, that such a burden "is not constitutionally significant." Id. at 391; see also Hernandez v. Commissioner, 490 U.S. 680, 700 (1989) (the "contention that an incrementally larger tax burden interferes with [ ] religious activities ... knows no limitation")...

Nor does the Church succeed in its claim that the IRS has violated its First Amendment free speech rights by engaging in viewpoint discrimination. The restrictions imposed by section 501(c)(3) are viewpoint neutral; they prohibit intervention in favor of all candidates for public office by all tax- exempt organizations, regardless of candidate, party, or view- point. Cf. Regan, 461 U.S. at 550-51 (upholding denial of tax deduction for lobbying activities, in spite of allowance of such deduction for veteran's groups).

It seems to me that this judgment is likely to stand. Of course, any organization is always free to forego the tax benefits associated with the 501(c)(3) status and thus be unaffected by the restrictions -- including the ban on electioneering -- that come along with the benefits of that tax-exempt status.

This post originally appeared at Melissa Rogers's religion and public affairs blog. Rogers is visiting professor of religion and public policy at Wake Forest University Divinity School and founder and director of Wake Forest’s Center for Religion and Public Affairs. She previously served as executive director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and as general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee on Religious Liberty.

Posted by Ted Olsen at January 17, 2008 | Comments (7)

A recent Time profile called Mars Hill Bible Church pastor Rob Bell "largely apolitical." Is he? The current issue of Relevant asks the question as his state heads to the polls. He answers:

We refer to ourselves [at Mars Hill] as aggressively nonpartisan, so we don't engage in partisan politics in terms of "Here's whom you should vote for; here's whom you should support." We do acknowledge that the Gospel has deeply political edges to it, but that should not surprise anyone. Jesus was killed because of how He confronted a particular socioeconomic religious system. He's a first-century Galilean revolutionary who proclaimed a Kingdom other than the kingdom of Herod, so the Gospel does have political edges.

The interest is in giving voice to people who have no voice and using all of our abundance and wealth and resources on behalf of those who have a shortage. Some of our pastors had a meeting with the mayor of [Grand Rapids], which was simply for the purpose of asking who the most forgotten and the most hurting in our city are. They mayor had several very specific answers, and so we've actually reorganized a whole area of our church, putting the majority of our efforts around trying to take care of the worst problems in our city. I don't know if you would say that's political or not, even though it involved meeting with the mayor, but if Jesus comes to town and things don't get better, then we have to ask some hard questions.

Posted by Ted Olsen at January 15, 2008 | Comments (14)

The Times-Picayune had a lengthy profile last week of Louisiana's new Gov. Bobby Jindal that focused on the India native's conversion to Catholicism and the role that has played in his political ascent.

When Gov.-elect Bobby Jindal converted to Catholicism during high school and college, he took a momentous step away from his inherited faith of Hinduism, the prevalent religion of his parents' generation and Indian homeland.

But among Jindal's relatives and among Hindus in India generally, his decision to adopt the Christian way is strongly supported.

Jindal's personal path to Christianity, which had politically significant ramifications for Louisiana, was aided by an open-minded attitude among his relatives about theology. Also, he visited India infrequently as a child, giving him little chance to acquire the deeply ingrained appreciation for Hindu culture that comes from exposure to daily life in that country.

His relatives' perspective reflects a tolerant side of a religion that for thousands of years has survived philosophical transformations, rebellious counter-religions and numerous sects, only to claim them all in time as part of the infinitely flexible cosmos of Hindu faith.

"If you find and see that you get more peace of mind, more solace, in that religion, then why not change religion?" said Jindal's uncle Subhash Gupta, a practicing Hindu. "In India, many people change to the Christian religion. And I can understand that some people maybe find Christian religion more satisfying to their needs."

(skip)

Although the relatives' opinions might seem magnanimous, their views are typically Hindu. India's large-circulation national newspapers viewed Jindal's election as front-page news, and for the most part his conversion to Catholicism was not commented upon negatively. Indian criticism of Jindal instead has centered on his infrequent visits and seeming lack of interest in his parents' home country.

The Indian national figure Mahatma Gandhi, a Hindu so famous his image appears on most Indian currency, espoused religious tolerance because he believed there were many paths to God, so long as an individual was sincere in the pursuit of the divine way.

When asked about Jindal, Pandit Deoki Nandan Shastri, a Hindu holy man in Varanasi, made a similar point.

"Hindu is not a religion," he said. "Hinduism is a way of life."

"You pray to Christ, I pray to Rama, he prays to Mohammad," he said. "We are going the same way. God is one. His name is called a thousand names."

Sadly, such a liberal perspective is not universal in India, where Hindu fundamentalists poignantly remind the world that "religious extremist" is not just a code word for Islamic terrorist. Remember the Gujarat anti-Muslim pogrom five years ago that left 2,000 people dead, including a woman who's fetus was proudly ripped from her womb by this guy.

The fervency of Hindu nationalism is no secret; it helped gave birth to Pakistan and later Bangladesh. And India has had quite the history of violence against Christians, which sprang up again last month.

On Christmas Eve, violence broke out against Christians in the Kandhamal district of the eastern Indian state of Orissa, which has become well known for poor governance and class tensions. Hindu fundamentalist groups led by the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP, the World Hindu Council) have attacked Christians and their institutions at will in rural areas. Over 90 churches and Christian institutions have been burned and vandalized, over 700 Christian homes destroyed, and the number of pastors and Christians killed is yet to be known, according to a report by my colleagues in the All India Christian Council. A pastor in Chennai told me that 11 pastors have been killed and thousands of Dalit (formerly known as untouchable) Christians displaced. Compass Direct reports that the death count is at 9. Many people are missing, and others have vanished in the nearby forests.

Human Rights Watch and others have decried the present carnage in Orissa and have recognized that freedom of religious choice - especially in a democracy like India's - must be respected. The Prime Minister promised immediate action to restore peace in the state. But the affected areas are still reporting sporadic violence over two weeks since the attacks against Dalit Christians began.

Despite reports that Christians retaliated in some places, so far Dalit Freedom Network investigations and statements by the Orissa government indicate that Maoist rebels - called Naxalites - were behind the revenge attacks that left dozens of Hindu families homeless. Most Naxalites are armed Dalits, and their involvement gives evidence of the root problem: ancient caste divisions.

The author of this article was Joseph D'Souza, whom I interviewed a few months ago for an article about the plight of the Dalits -- who dwell beneath the bottom of India's cast system -- that will appear in the February issue of this magazine.

One of the biggest forms of discrimination meted out by the government is that Dalits who convert to Christianity or Islam lose their welfare eligibility. The same is not true if they converted to Buddhism or Sikhism. This often causes a dual identity.

"They will have their Hindu or pre-Christian indentity, sometimes keeping their Hindu name, because there is affirmative action and if they want to have the benefits of that, they cannot use their Christian name," Robert Eric Frykenberg, professor emeritus of history and South Asian studies at the University of Wisconsin, told me.

This article was cross-posted at The God Blog.

Posted by Brad Greenberg at January 14, 2008 | Comments (11)

White House Told to Make Guest Log Public

Visits of nine of conservative Christian organization leaders to the Bush White House under scrutiny.

Susan Wunderink | December 19, 2007

As the smoke clears from the Vice Presidential ceremonial office, Dick Cheney is getting more (indirect) attention because of a ruling that says Secret Service records of White House visits from nine conservative Christian leaders should be released.

While the issue in the ruling was really about whether the Secret Service's visitor records are subject to the Freedom of Information Act (and the court ruled that the requested records are), Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)'s objective is to look into "the influence that conservative Christian leaders have, or attempt to have, on the President [of the United States]."

"The White House doesn't want to talk about how much influence these leaders have, and we want to talk about how much they do have," CREW executive director Melanie Sloan said.

CREW wants to see records of visits by nine leaders of particularly activist (lobbyist) organizations:

• James Dobson of Focus on the Family. CREW was one of the organizations that instigated a 2006-2007 IRS audit of the organization for electioneering as a nonprofit.
• Gary L. Bauer, former president of Family Research Council who ran for President in 2000. He is currently president of American Values and on the board of Campaign for Working Families.
• Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America.
• Traditional Values Coalition executive director Andrea Lafferty and founder Louis Sheldon, Lafferty's father.
• Paul Weyrich, co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, Moral Majority, and Council for National Policy, currently Free Congress Foundation.
• Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council
• Donald Wildmon, founder and chairman of the American Family Association
• The late Jerry Falwell, co-founder of Moral Majority

Reuters reported that

U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth rejected as "misguided" the Secret Service's arguments that disclosing the records would reveal confidential policy deliberations.
Their disclosure would then be open to challenge only on a case-by-case basis, for reasons such as state secrecy or attorney-client privilege.

Justice Department spokesman Charles Miller said the agency was reviewing the ruling but had not decided whether to appeal.

But for the particular records of the nine people's visits to the White House, the ruling may not amount to evidence for CREW at all. Sean Sirrine, who blogs at Objective-Justice, writes, "Why is everyone so excited?"

The court is holding that these records can be obtained through the FOIA, but that if the records have already been given to the White House or destroyed there is nothing the court can do about it under this action exept [sic] order the Archivist of the United States to take enforcement action to prevent the Department of Homeland Security from unlawfully destroying agency records in the future.

Yes, the Secret Service might hae [sic] to release the records they have on the "nine conservative religious figures" mentioned in case, but if they no longer have any of those records, too bad.

Posted by Susan Wunderink at December 19, 2007 | Comments (5)

The Evangelical Whatsup?

From crackup to powerhouse.

Rob Moll | December 17, 2007

Just weeks ago, much was made of the demise of the one of America's largest voting blocs. The, "extraordinary evangelical love affair with Bush ended in heartbreak over the Iraq war and what they see as his meager domestic accomplishments," wrote The New York Times David D. Kirkpatrick. Evangelicals would no longer cast deciding votes in presidential elections--for at least six weeks.

Then came the surprising rise of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who is neck and neck with former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. Today, The Wall Street Journal credits Huckabee's rise to evangelicals.

The candidate's quick rise is a vivid demonstration of the power social conservatives continue to wield in Republican politics. It also illustrates the bloc's evolution. Grass-roots churchgoers no longer necessarily follow their national leadership.

"The leaders may have committed to someone [else], but their followers are flooding" to Mr. Huckabee, says Mike Campbell, his state campaign chairman in South Carolina.

Mr. Campbell is likely referring to Pat Robertson's endorsement of Giuliani. Campbell also seems to have in mind CT's January editorial, which says, "There isn't an evangelical vote. We are not some pious voting bloc up for grabs."

Many evangelicals have been paying attention to the race and making up their own minds. The Journal reports:

In Des Moines, Iowa, Pastor Rex Deckard of Calvary Apostolic Church noticed a change around mid-November. At a meeting with about 25 ministers, he reminded the group that Jan. 3 was caucus day. "Remember to vote for Huckabee!" someone shouted out, and the room broke into applause. "I thought, 'Wow, there seems to be something building,' " Mr. Deckard says.

Mr. Deckard gave Mr. McCain a serious look but initially decided to support social conservative Sen. Sam Brownback. When Mr. Brownback dropped out of the race, Mr. Deckard moved to the Huckabee camp, as is clear to his congregation: His briefcase and car now sport Huckabee stickers. Looking around, he realized others were coming to the same place.

And this shift in loyalties is having a ripple effects throughout the Republican primary campaign, The New York Times reports. Mitt Romney, who has long led Iowa, stands to lose ground from Huckabee's rise, which would benefit a lagging Giuliani campaign, according to the Times analysis.

Of course, with its deft reporting on the evangelical crackup, maybe we should take such analysis with a grain of salt.

Posted by Rob Moll at December 17, 2007 | Comments (13)

Creflo Dollar, Benny Hinn Rebuff Senate Investigation

Ministries refuse to hand over the information sought by the Senate Finance Committee.

Rob Moll | December 6, 2007

The AP is reporting that Benny Hinn is following on the heels of Creflo Dollar in telling the Senate Finance Committee to take a hike. Reporters Eric Gorski and Rachel Zoll write:

Benny Hinn of World Healing Center Church Inc. and Benny Hinn Ministries of Grapevine, Texas, said in a statement to the AP on Thursday that he will not respond to the inquiry until next year.

A lawyer for preacher Creflo Dollar of World Changers Church International in suburban Atlanta had said Wednesday that the investigation should be referred to the IRS or the Senate panel should get a subpoena for the documents.

Posted by Rob Moll at December 6, 2007 | Comments (79)

Appeals Court Says State Funding of InnerChange Unconstitutional

But ruling allows the ministry to continue operating without returning $1.5 million to the state.

Susan Wunderink | December 4, 2007

The U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Iowa's InnerChange Freedom Initiative (IFI) yesterday, saying that they could no longer receive funds from the state because the religious basis and religious content of the program violate the Constitution's establishment clause.

"For contract years 2000 to 2004, religious indoctrination can reasonably be attributed to Iowa's funding." The three-judge panel, headed by former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor, affirmed the Iowa district court's June 2006 ruling in part and reversed it in part.

InnerChange is an affiliate of Charles Colson's Prison Fellowship. It's a residential program for inmates and operates in Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, and Texas. Only the Iowa program is directly affected by yesterday's ruling.

Neither the Americans United for Separation of Church and State (the plaintiffs) nor Prison Fellowship considers the ruling a loss - just read their press release headlines. IFI's says, "8th Circuit Overturns Much of Ruling Against IFI," and Americans United's subtitle reads, "Americans United Praises Court Ruling That Upholds Separation Of Church And State."

Why are they both happy? Americans United lawyer Alex J. Luchenitser, said that the decision was "A major setback for the White House's ?Faith-Based Initiative.' It reaffirms that the government must ensure that public funds are not used for religious instruction, and that the government must not aid programs that discriminate based on religion."

Prison Fellowship is "grateful to the Eighth Circuit for refusing to handcuff people of faith who are helping corrections officials turn inmates' lives around," said Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley. They are specifically grateful because Monday's ruling overturned the district court's requirement that InnerChange repay the state $1.5 million for the years (1999 ? June 2007) when it operated with state funding. IFI has continued to operate in Iowa without state funds since July.

The court ruling has more details on how exactly IFI functioned in the Iowa prison.

Christianity Today's earlier coverage includes:

Rx for Recidivism | Prison Fellowship president Mark Earley talks about challenges the ministry faces. (November 21, 2006)
Bad Judgment | Ruling imperils faith-based programs around the country. (Charles Colson with Anne Morse, August 1, 2006)
Imprisoned Ministry | The future of Prison Fellowship's rehabilitation program, and other faith-based social services, are in the hands of an appeals court. (July 14, 2006)
Study Lauds Prisoner Program | Prison Fellowship releases InnerChange research at a White House roundtable. (June 1, 2003)
Suing Success | Prison Fellowship says its Inner Change program is clearly constitutional (March 1, 2003)

Posted by Susan Wunderink at December 4, 2007 | Comments (1)

Anyone Want to Talk About Health Care?

It’s time for Christian leaders to tackle the issue.

Madison Trammel | November 27, 2007

In an editorial published last Sunday, The New York Times explored what it called "the worst long-term fiscal crisis facing the nation" - rising health care costs. The piece provided a helpful survey of causes and possible solutions, but no silver bullet. As the editorial concluded, "A wide range of contributing factors needs to be tackled simultaneously, with no guarantee they will have a substantial impact any time soon."

The most arresting part of the piece was its summary of the United States' health care dilemma, laid out in the opening paragraphs:

The relentless, decades-long rise in the cost of health care has left many Americans struggling to pay their medical bills. Workers complain that they cannot afford high premiums for health insurance. Patients forgo recommended care rather than pay the out-of-pocket costs. Employers are cutting back or eliminating health benefits, forcing millions more people into the ranks of the uninsured. And state and federal governments strain to meet the expanding costs of public programs like Medicaid and Medicare.

Health care costs are far higher in the United States than in any other advanced nation, whether measured in total dollars spent, as a percentage of the economy, or on a per capita basis. And health costs here have been rising significantly faster than the overall economy or personal incomes for more than 40 years, a trend that cannot continue forever.

Indeed, rising health care costs have become a burden not just for the working poor, but for many middle-class Americans. It's an issue that's already on the minds of voters - in a New York Times-CBS News poll, Iowa Democrats likely to attend the January 3 caucuses called it their top priority - and it's going to gain more public attention as the presidential campaigns continue. Democratic candidates will make sure of that.

"I don't think you can run for president today without having a universal health care plan that covers everybody," Hillary Clinton said recently, "because we want to go into a general election with that issue against the Republicans."

That Democrats plan to make health care reform a major part of their platform in 2008 - and that Republicans will be forced to respond - is unsurprising, perhaps. But what is surprising is how little evangelical Christian leaders have said about the issue.

In March, the president of the Southern Baptists' Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Richard Land, supported a call to re-authorize and expand the federally funded State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) so that every child in America could have health coverage - a proposal that seemed relatively uncontroversial, at least until President Bush opposed SCHIP's expansion on the contention that it would move middle-class children off of private coverage and onto government coverage.

The social-action ministry Sojourners has also called for health care reform, but its reach among evangelicals is limited. Why aren't more Christian leaders speaking up?

In the last several years, the National Association of Evangelicals has denounced torture and mistreatment of India's Dalits. It has also cautiously supported creation care and released a comprehensive public policy statement entitled, "For the Health of the Nation." The statement lists such areas of concern as freedom of religion and conscience, protection for families and children, protection of all human life, compassion and justice for the poor, global human rights, the pursuit of peace and restraint of violence, and biblically based creation care. Ironically, for a document called "For the Health of the Nation," it makes only passing mention of health care. Yet the average American is more immediately affected by rising health care costs than by, say, whether or not their community recycles.

No doubt evangelicals are as split on health care reform as they are on many other issues. But if we want to present a fully orbed vision for public policy, then we need to start engaging more deeply with the issue of affordable, adequate medical care - and soon. A community grounded in God's Word and dedicated to proclaiming the One who came to save the sick, the poor, and the needy ought to have something to contribute to the rising discussion.

Posted by Madison Trammel at November 27, 2007 | Comments (12)

No Sale on Stem Cells

New Jersey voters reject $450 million ballot measure.

Stan Guthrie | November 7, 2007

New Jersey voters yesterday turned down a $450 million, 10-year plan to fund embryonic stem-cell research. Proponents, including Democratic governor John Corzine, argued that the measure would help lead to possible medical cures for a host of maladies. Opponents, including New Jersey Right to Life, said Public Question # 2 would finance "the creation, experimentation and then destruction of cloned human beings through the entire period of normal gestation." NJRL also criticized supporters for their "deceptive failure to disclose that the bonds will be paid through higher local property taxes if sales tax revenues are insufficient."

The outcome marks the first time since 1990 that New Jersey voters have rejected a statewide ballot initiative. The state has already committed $270 million in taxpayer money to pay for stem cell research facilities. New Jersey has the fourth highest debt of any state and the highest property taxes. Other states, however, are likely to pick up the financial slack for such research.

Several states are competing in the research. California previously approved spending $3 billion on stem cell research, Connecticut has a $100 million program, Illinois spent $10 million and Maryland awarded $15 million in grants.

It bears repeating: Embryonic stem cell research involves the destruction of nascent human life. Adult stem cells have no such ethical issues. And just on a pragmatic basis, the choice should be clear by now. According to the website stemcellresearch.org, medical treatments derived from adult stem cells outnumber those derived from embryos 73-0.

Posted by Stan Guthrie at November 7, 2007 | Comments (3)

Senate Committee Investigating Six Major Ministries

Sen. Grassley probes "possible misuse of donations" to Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyer, and others.

Ted Olsen | November 6, 2007

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, is investigating several major church-based ministries known for their leaders' lavish lifestyles and prosperity teachings.

"Recent articles and news reports regarding possible misuse of donations made to religious organizations have caused some concern for the Finance Committee," Grassley wrote to the ministries in letters asking for detailed financial records.

None of the ministries targeted -- those led by Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Benny Hinn, Eddie Long, Joyce Meyer, and Randy and Paula White -- are required to file the financial disclosure Form 990 with the IRS because they are are designated as churches.

The rest of this article is now posted on CT's main site.

Posted by Ted Olsen at November 6, 2007 | Comments (28)

Bureau of Prisons Re-shelves Religion Books

Now prisoners can find out Why Bad Things Happen to Good People

Sarah Pulliam | September 28, 2007

The federal Bureau of Prisons will return religious materials that were removed from prison chapel libraries to prevent religious extremism, according to the Associated Press.

The purged books that were removed included Christian discipleship materials (see CT's first story).

The material removed since June will be returned to prison chapel libraries unless it is found to be radicalizing or inciting violence. By June 2008, "what comes off the shelves will be a very, very small number, because the vast majority of material will be on the 'that's OK list,'" bureau spokeswoman Judi Simon Garrett told the AP.

Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Tex., still expresses concern:

"There's probably a limited universe of materials that incite violence, and I understand that perhaps those need to be banned," said Hensarling. "Instead, what the Bureau of Prisons appears to be doing is really censoring religious texts, deciding what is acceptable."

The New York Times' story says that previously, the bureau was not reconsidering the library policy, but it reversed its decision after receiving widespread criticism from lawmakers and religious groups.

But critics of the bureau's program said it appeared that the bureau had bowed to widespread outrage. "Certainly putting the books back on the shelves is a major victory, and it shows the outcry from all over the country was heard," said Moses Silverman, a lawyer for three prisoners who are suing the bureau over the program.

Prison Fellowship President Mark Early told the AP:

"It took years for chaplains, local churches and other religious organizations to build up the holdings of many prison chapel libraries. Prisoners need access to more material to promote rehabilitation, not less. We want to monitor the process."

Posted by Sarah Pulliam at September 28, 2007 | Comments (2)

Bauer gives peek inside the Arlington Group

"Many of us are intrigued and excited by Thompson, but we have great concerns about his advocacy of federalism"

Ted Olsen | September 7, 2007

National Review Online's Jim Geraghty scored a nice scoop following up on The Boston Globe's March reporting on The Arlington Group. The Globe had reported that the Arlington Group, a meeting of top-level conservative Christian advocacy organization leaders, is interviewing candidates in hopes that its members can "coalesce around one candidate that prominent members such as James Dobson ... could endorse individually."

"We've been meeting with candidates for a year, every one of the major candidates except Giuliani," Gary Bauer told Geraghty. "Many of us are intrigued and excited by Thompson, but we have great concerns about his advocacy of federalism in dealing with the issue of protecting the sanctity of marriage, and that is certainly an issue we want to discuss with him further." (Geraghty had a follow-up with Bauer after the Arlington Group's meeting Thursday.)

Another member of the Arlington Group, unnamed, confirmed Bauer's summary, and says the group hasn't "coalesced" yet. "There has been a great deal of excitement about the possibility of a Thompson campaign; many of us are very happy about how clearly he criticized and called for the overturn of Roe v. Wade," the source said. "But there is concern that the federalist constitutional amendment that he leans toward on marriage just wouldn't work."

Bad news for Mike Huckabee:

Asked about the rumor that members of the group might be flirting with Huckabee, this individual responded, while never mentioning the Arkansas Governor directly, "it's not just that the candidate will be philosophically in tune; we have a realistic understanding that in a cycle where everything is bunched up in the front like this, you have got to be able to bring in major resources, enough to compete in 20 states at once. This makes a number of candidates not as viable to us as they might otherwise be."

Remember: You won't hear the "Arlington Group" endorsing anyone. What you'll hear is Arlington Group members singing from the same songsheet. That's the whole idea of the group: to unify the efforts of religious conservative political groups.

Update: The Associated Press also has reporting on the Arlington Group's meeting.

Posted by Ted Olsen at September 7, 2007 | Comments (7)

President Huckabee?

Trends may favor the Arkansas governor.

Stan Guthrie | August 24, 2007

In an opinion piece this week in National Review Online, S.T. Karnick suggests that two trends may help long-shot Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee actually win the presidency. Huckabee placed second in the recent Iowa straw poll despite barely registering a national blip in the race against better-known and better-financed candidates such as Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney.

The first trend, Karnick states, is that governors usually win the presidency, while senators (most of the other candidates) usually do not:

The reasons governors beat national politicians are probably fairly simple. They have accomplishments they can cite, have served as CEO of a large government organization (as the U.S. presidency is), and, most importantly, they don’t have a voting record on important and controversial national issues.

Senators, by contrast, don’t have the individual political-administrative accomplishments to which to point, have records dotted with controversial and polarizing votes, and typically have made a lot of enemies on the national level.

This does not bode well for the Democratic triumvirate, each of whom serve or served in the Senate. But of course several of Huckabee's Republican opponents have executive experience. Romney ran Massachusetts as governor, Giuliani ran Gotham as mayor. But Karnick says the hugely important evangelical vote is unlikely to coalesce around either of these two. Giuliani has character problems, while many Bible-believing Christians distrust Romney's Mormon faith (and perhaps his recent reversal on abortion?).

That's where Karnick's second reason comes in. Huckabee is a former Baptist minister, able to connect with evangelicals in a way the other candidates cannot:

A former Baptist minister who served two terms as governor of Arkansas, a state long controlled by Democrats, where he nonetheless enjoyed high approval ratings, Huckabee is hardly more obscure than Bill Clinton was in 1991 (unless you think Clinton’s tenure as leader of the National Governor’s Association made him world-famous). His appeal to evangelicals is a given.

So can Mike Huchabee become a viable presidential candidate and perhaps even steal the Republican nomination? It's an interesting argument. Stranger things have happened, I suppose. No one gave Clinton any hope against Bush I, after all.

Posted by Stan Guthrie at August 24, 2007 | Comments (30)

Death and Texas - Part 2

Reuters turns a prolife word on its head.

David Neff | August 13, 2007

The Reuters story referenced in my last post contained a wild misuse of a common word. Here's the citation:

While the prolific death chamber in the city of Huntsville, where 19 inmates have already been executed by lethal injection in 2007, makes Texas stand out, the state is also starting to follow national trends toward fewer death sentences.

"Prolific death chamber"? "Prolfiic" comes from a Latin word meaning "fruitful," which in turn is based on the Latin word for "offspring." The American Heritage Dictionary offers two definitions for the word:

1. Producing offspring or fruit in great abundance; fertile.
2. Producing abundant works or results: a prolific artist.

The Reuters writer has stood a pro-life word on its head, exchanging the idea of fruitfulness and fertility for sheer efficiency. Christian media critics have often criticized Reuters for uninformed handling of the religion factor in their reporting. But whatever they know or don't know about religion, Reuters editors should know their dictionaries.

Posted by David Neff at August 13, 2007 | Comments (3)

Death and Texas - Part 1

Reuters blames Bible-belt religion for Texas' record number of executions.

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On Sunday, the Washington Post published a Reuters story about the number of executions in the state of Texas--now pushing a remarkable 400 since the Supreme Court lifted its ban on capital punishment in 1976. Texas has carried out 398 executions and it has 5 more planned for August. The closest runner up to the Texas numbers is Virginia with 96 executions--only one quarter of the Lone Star State's record.

What was puzzling about the story was the way writer Ed Stoddard tried to link the numbers to religion. Here's how he led off the story:

Texas will almost certainly hit the grim total of 400 executions this month, far ahead of any other state, testament to the influence of the state's conservative evangelical Christians and its cultural mix of Old South and Wild West.

The Washington Post repeated the emphasis by headlining the story, "Religion, Culture Behind Texas Execution Tally."

Whoa there, Podner!

What does religion have to do with it? All Stoddard could come up with was this:

Like his predecessor, Governor Perry is a devout Christian, highlighting one key factor in Texas' enthusiasm for the death penalty that many outsiders find puzzling -- the support it gets from conservative evangelical churches.

This is in line with their emphasis on individuals taking responsibility for their own salvation, and they also find justification in scripture.

"A lot of evangelical Protestants not only believe that capital punishment is permissible but that it is demanded by God. And they see sanction for that in the Old Testament especially," said Matthew Wilson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

That's it. Unless you also count the fact the Governor Rick Perry is "a devout Christian." Yup, that explains a lot.

Let's take a look at the factors cited by Stoddard:

First, a belief in individuals taking responsibility for their own salvation. Well, of course we evangelical Protestants don't teach that individuals "take responsibility for their own salvation." We teach that the grace of God comes to individuals in their pervasively sinful state and enables them to respond to his love by faith. But, yes, we do emphasize that individuals can have a personal, saving relationship with Jesus (as opposed to salvation necessarily being mediated through clerics and church ritual).

But neither Stoddard's version of evangelical belief nor the correct one has much to do with capital punishment. If anything, belief in the individual dimension of salvation drives evangelicals to engage in more extensive and more intense prison ministry than other Christians.

Second, evangelicals find justification for capital punishment in Scripture, particularly in the Old Testament. Well, no and yes.

No, evangelicals who support capital punishment do not use the Old Testament as their primary source of justification. If you ask almost any evangelical in the pew if they think that Sabbath-breaking or homosexuality should be a capital crime, they would shudder in horror at the thought.

Yes, evangelicals do find support in Scripture--but as part of God's plan for the secular order. See Romans 13:1-7, where the Apostle Paul portrays "the sword" and taxes as legitimate functions of the state. But to consider this a legitimate function of the state is not to approve of the way any given state carries out its responsibility for retribution.

When studies show disproportionate application of the death penalty by race or economic status, Christians of any and every stripe should be challenging the system. And when DNA-testing and other death-row efforts repeatedly reveal the miscarriage of justice, Christians should be working to make sure justice is truly served.

Posted by David Neff at August 13, 2007 | Comments (14)

Colson on the Candidates

He's not happy.

Ted Olsen | August 7, 2007

"It is the most disappointing field of candidates, looking on both sides of the aisle, that I've seen in my lifetime. I don't remember an election where less people have got me excited from either side."

More here.

Posted by Ted Olsen at August 7, 2007 | Comments (5)

'Letting Barabas go scot-free'

Zimbabwe's despot

Ted Olsen | July 24, 2007

Zimbabwe's state paper runs an op-ed today saying that the country's independent media aren't sufficiently criticizing Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube. (The archbishop, who has been the chief critic of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe's extensive human rights abuses, was accused last week of adultery.) In The Herald, Caesar Zvayi writes that Zimbabwe's independent media, are "punishing the innocent while letting Barabas go scot-free."

Hmm. So if Mugabe's newspaper wants to call Ncube Barabbas, then that would make Mugabe...

It wouldn't be the first, or most egregious example, or Mugabe's cronies comparing him to Jesus. As Chenjerai Hove wrote in Pambazuka News earlier this year,

In the quest for glory and grandeur, the presidential palace is full of charlatans, praise-singers and flatterers. First they used to call him 'the son of God', and then one minister publicly said 'Mugabe is our Jesus Christ'. Next the minister of education and culture has recently designed and installed a 'throne' in parliament, for 'king Mugabe.' Then the minister of local government would not be outdone. He has decided to build 'a shrine' in Mugabe's home village. A shrine is a place of worship. So the president has become a god who deserves a 'shrine.' Thus, from VaMugabe ndibaba' (Mugabe is our father) to 'the son of God' to 'Jesus Christ' to a 'shrine' a place of worship, God.

Perhaps the most famous example is deputy minister of local housing Tony Gara calling Mugabe "the other son of God." In a 2002 African Sociological Review article, Ezra Chitando describes how the words of Christian songs were changed for political ends. "I will never cry when Jesus is there," for example, became, "I will never cry when Mr. Mugabe is there."

All of this might be confusing. If you're trying to remember the difference between Jesus and Robert Mugabe, here's a helpful tip: Jesus is the one who fed the 5,000. Mugabe is the one starving millions.

Posted by Ted Olsen at July 24, 2007 | Comments (5)

When we say it, it's factual, not political

Another New York Times editorial on Holsinger.

Ted Olsen | July 12, 2007

In addition to its Tuesday editorial against surgeon general nominee James Holsinger and five op-eds today on the Holsinger confirmation hearing, The New York Times also feels the need to weigh in with another editorial on the subject. You have to love the brazen irony of this section:

The main subject to be probed, aside from Dr. Holsinger’s professional qualifications, is whether he still holds the views he has expressed in the past that seem hostile to gay men and lesbians. Now, in the wake of Dr. Carmona’s revelations, it will also be important to ask Dr. Holsinger what steps he would take to keep the office from being politicized.

Did Linda Greenhouse write this?

Liveblogging the hearing after the jump.

* * *

Liveblogging the hearing: Time elapsed between Kennedy railing against "political litmus tests" for the position of surgeon general and him railing against Holsinger's writings on homosexuality: about two minutes. You can watch the hearing live here.

Holsinger: "I’m deeply troubled" by comments about my faith. they "don’t represent who I am, what I believe, or how I have practiced medicine."

Oddest question so far: What's more important? Fighting al-Qaeda or gay people? (I don't have the exact quote. Sorry.)

On his paper: "The paper I was asked to write was asked to deal with certain specific issues ... it was a literature review of the health issues surrounding homosexuality. Not a paper on sexuality. ... The situation is very different today. We’re now 20 years later. I don’t even think the same questions would be asked as 20 years ago."

1 hour, 35 minutes in, Holsinger makes a proposal that might change the hot topic of the day: He wants to ban advertisements for prescription drugs (or at least ads directed at the public), saying they put too much pressure on physicians.

More on his paper: It wasn't intended for distribution beyond a few people asking a few specific questions, and was never published. "Read scientific papers I’ve published as examples of my scientific work."

As things are wrapping up, Holsinger is finally asked about embyronic stem-cell research. In 2002, he reportedly called for the government to reduce its regulation on embryonic research and cloning -- which is probably why conservative religio-political groups have not actually supported Holsinger's nomination. Holsinger's response: Since 2002, I have not had reason to stay engaged in the stem cell discussions ... [so] I don’t feel comfortable giving you my opinion."

Posted by Ted Olsen at July 12, 2007 | Comments (0)

Hillary Clinton's Faith

Another Methodist in the White House?

Rob Moll | July 9, 2007

Michael Luo has a piece in Saturday's New York Times on Hillary Clinton's faith:

Mrs. Clinton, the New York senator who is seeking the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, has been alluding to her spiritual life with increasing regularity in recent years, language that has dovetailed with efforts by her party to reach out to churchgoers who have been voting overwhelmingly Republican.

Mrs. Clinton's references to faith, though, have come under attack, both from conservatives who doubt her sincerity (one writer recently lumped her with the type of Christians who "believe in everything but God") and liberals who object to any injection of religion into politics. And her motivations have been cast as political calculation by detractors, who suggest she is only trying to moderate her liberal image.

Posted by Rob Moll at July 9, 2007 | Comments (16)

The Giuliani Choice

Can conservative Christians vote in good conscience for the ex-New York mayor?

Stan Guthrie | June 25, 2007

Catholic Church leaders are expressing frustration with Republican presidential aspirant Rudy Giuliani's abortion position. Like many Democrats before him, the former New York mayor, a professing Roman Catholic, says that while he is personally opposed to abortion, he doesn't want to impose his personal religious views on others.

According to a report in today's New York Times:

"One American bishop, Thomas J. Tobin of Providence, R.I., recently wrote a caustic column for his Catholic newspaper calling Mr. Giuliani’s position 'pathetic,' 'confusing' and 'hypocritical.' Other bishops said that they would not criticize a candidate by name but would not hesitate to declare Mr. Giuliani’s stance contrary to Catholic teaching.

"Archbishop John J. Myers of Newark said: 'I think he’s being illogical, as are all of those who take the stand that "I’m personally opposed to abortion but this is my public responsibility to permit it." To violate human life is always and everywhere wrong. In fact, we don’t think it’s a matter of church teaching, but a matter of the way God made the world, and it applies to everyone.'"

Funny how pro-choice people (and that's the best way to characterize Giuliani) say they can't legislate their beliefs about abortion in our pluralistic society but have no problem when it comes to murder, theft, or even gasoline mileage standards. The fact is, someone's morality is being legislated all the time, so why not on the sanctity of human life?

For Giuliani to defy church teaching on so clear a matter brings to mind the old warning from James: "Faith without works is dead." At some point, you have to walk the talk.

His candidacy also places evangelicals who traditionally put life issues first when they go to the ballot box into a quandary. In these days when terrorism threatens the nation, Giuliani, for all his sins, knows what evil is, and he looks like the kind of person who has the guts and experience to stand up to it. These are dangerous times, and this country needs a tough leader to defend it.

But if conservarive Christians vote for Giuliani, then what does that say about our commitment to the sanctity of human life? As I said, it's a tough question. Prayers for wisdom and guidance are definitely in order.

Posted by Stan Guthrie at June 25, 2007 | Comments (24)

Flash: Justice Department Defends First Amendment Rights

Article from the New York Behind the Times frets that government fights for religious freedom.

David Neff | June 14, 2007

Ever since last October's special series titled "In God's Name," the New York Times has increased its reporting on what it sees as the excessive entanglement of government and religion. The first article in that series complained, for example, that a retirement home near the University of Notre Dame for aging Catholic priests (who, let us be clear, worked for a pittance and never built up equity in a home) receives property-tax breaks that an architecturally similar retirement complex across town doesn't.

Well, the Times is back today, with an article complaining that the Justice Department defends the free exercise of religion too much - and doesn't pursue as many race-related cases as it did in the past.

The increase in the Justice Department's attention to religious-freedom cases is hardly news. On February 20, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez gave a widely reported speech to the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, in which he "unveil[ed] a new Department of Justice initiative aimed at educating Americans about their religious liberties and to ask for the Southern Baptist Convention's help in identifying and reporting abuses of those liberties." (See the Baptist Press account here.)

The same day, Justice released a "Report on Enforcement of Laws Protecting Religious Freedom: Fiscal Years 2001-2006." Clearly, the Justice Department was seeking publicity for its new focus on religious freedom cases.

Nevertheless, the Times manages to completely avoid references to the Justice Department's report and offer only oblique references to speeches by the AG. The paper appears to pretend that it is digging up buried information.

The article's main complaints seem to be that:

* under the Bush Administration, Justice is pursuing fewer race-related and hate-crime cases. (The article offers no quantifiable evidence.)

* new entry-level hires at Justice are increasingly coming from faith-based law schools like Ave Maria and Regent. (An accompanying chart, however, shows more hires of Harvard Law grads in the last three years than there were in the preceding three years. Indeed, of the "liberal" law schools on the chart, only Cal Berkely seems to be suffering.)

* vigorously enforcing existing legislation that protects churches against zoning discrimination.

Efforts to combat sex-trafficking also come in for criticism because it is "a favored issue of the religious right." Sex trafficking - forcing people into sexual slavery - is a civil- and human-rights violation. It is an essential tenet of liberalism that we do not enslave people to do degrading work like this. Even the proponents of the sexual revolution of the sixties built their erotic insurgency around individual autonomy. Why does it matter to the Times that the "religious right" favors this issue?

The story's final insult to the reader's intelligence is it's inclusion of a quote from Robert Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches. While Edgar agreed that it was important for Justice to pursue religious freedom and human trafficking cases, there was still a need for race and poverty to get "the highest caliber of attention." His evidence? The "flawed government response to New Orleans and its mostly poor, black population after Hurricane Katrina." Wait a minute. Was that the Justice Department responding to Katrina? Was that Alberto Gonzalez running FEMA?

Posted by David Neff at June 14, 2007 | Comments (1)

Faith Forum for Democrats

Sen. Clinton talks about prayer and her husband's affair.

Collin Hansen | June 5, 2007

Last night, CNN devoted one hour to a presidential forum for the three leading Democratic candidates for President--former Sen. John Edwards, Sen. Barack Obama, and Sen. Hillary Clinton. The forum, sponsored by Sojourners, struck a very friendly, informal tone. CNN host Soledad O'Brien at one point talked about keeping a sensitive matter between "just us girls" with Clinton.

This approach may have softened Clinton's defenses, because she did not dodge a question about President Clinton's affair. "I'm not sure I would have gotten through it without my faith," Clinton said. "I take my faith very seriously and very personally. And I come from a tradition that is perhaps a little too suspicious of people who wear their faith on their sleeves, so a lot of the talk about and advertising about faith doesn't come naturally to me. I keep thinking about the Pharisees and all of the Sunday school lessons and readings that I had as a child."

The "sleeves" comment drew applause from the George Washington University audience. I couldn't help but wonder why the crowd would cheer Clinton for this line during a forum when all three candidates talked openly and personally about the great importance of their faith.

Try as he might, Sojourners/Call to Renewal president Jim Wallis struggled to get policy specifics out of Edwards and Obama. The candidates much preferred to talk about how much they care for the poor, rather than what they would do about poverty from the White House. In light of news reports about his extravagant lifestyle, Edwards sounded hollow when he talked about his many great deeds to fight poverty.

Despite some drawbacks, this forum probably could not have come together in 2004. No matter your politics, that's a good sign for evangelicals.

Posted by Collin Hansen at June 5, 2007 | Comments (79)

Sam Brownback on Evolution

Faith and science are compatible, he says. It is okay to questi

| May 31, 2007

In the first Republican presidential debate, candidates were asked if they did not believe in evolution. Sam Brownback, along with several others, raised his hand. Now he wants to clarify that. In today's New York Times he writes

If belief in evolution means simply assenting to microevolution, small changes over time within a species, I am happy to say, as I have in the past, that I believe it to be true. If, on the other hand, it means assenting to an exclusively materialistic, deterministic vision of the world that holds no place for a guiding intelligence, then I reject it.

Brownback says that he believes "that the process of creation ... is sustained by the hand of God in a manner known fully only to him." It is not anti-science to "question the philosophical presuppositions" that scientists offer to support their theories that exclude "the possibility of design or purpose." These sceintists "venture far beyond their realm of empirical science."

He adds, "Man was not an accident and reflects an image and likeness unique in the created order. Those aspects of evolutionary theory compatible with this truth are a welcome addition to human knowledge. Aspects of these theories that undermine this truth, however, should be firmly rejected as an atheistic theology posing as science."

One hopes the NYT editors would take this message to heart in their coverage of creationism or Intelligent Design.

Posted by Rob Moll at May 31, 2007 | Comments (13)

Alabama's Christian coalitions battle

Amid gambling legislation fight, old and new state chapters head to court over assets.

Ted Olsen | May 29, 2007

The long-simmering battle between the former Christian Coalition of Alabama (now Christian Action Alabama) and the new Christian Coalition of Alabama (started by the national Christian Coalition) has gone where such battles predictably go: to the courts.

Posted by Ted Olsen at May 29, 2007 | Comments (2)

Regent on trial

Apparently it's a very, very big deal that Monica Goodling went to a law school founded by Pat Robertson.

Ted Olsen | May 24, 2007

No one in Washington or in mainstream media outlets seems to be coming right out and saying it, but the implication from much of the reporting and commentary regarding yesterday's House Judiciary Committee testimony of former Justice Department official Monica Goodling seems to be that Christian college graduates shouldn't be permitted in high government positions.

Try to find a news story today that doesn't mention that Goodling is a graduate of Regent University's law school, that the school was founded by Pat Robertson, and that it has a distinctly Christian mission. (Several reports also note that she did her undergraduate work at Messiah College, another distinctly Christian school.)

In fact, Rep. Stephen Cohen (D-Tenn.) spent most of his questions on Goodling's Christian education. Here's the transcript:

COHEN: Miss Goodling, I've read your vitae, and it says that you grew up and you mostly went -- you went to public schools. Was that K through 12?

GOODLING: Mm-hmm. (Affirmative.) Yes.

COHEN: And it says you went -- chose Christian universities in part because they -- value they placed on service. What as the other part that you chose Christian universities?

GOODLING: I chose them because I had a faith system, and in some cases -- I went to American University for my first year of law school and then I transferred. And I enjoyed studying with people that shared the similar belief system that I did. It didn't mean that there wasn't a lot of diversity of discussion, because in some cases I actually found that the debate at Regent was much more vigorous than it was at American University my first year of law school. But I enjoyed being surrounded by people that had the same belief system.

COHEN: The mission of the law school you attended, Regent, is to bring bear -- "is to bring to bear upon legal education and the legal profession the will of Almighty God, our Creator." What is "the will of Almighty God, our Creator" on the legal profession?

GOODLING: I'm not sure that I could define that question for you.

COHEN: Did you ask people who applied for jobs as AUSAs anything about their religion?

GOODLING: No, I certainly did not --

COHEN: Never had religion discussions come up?

GOODLING: Not to the best of my recollection.

COHEN: Is there a type of student, a type of person that you thought was -- embodied that philosophy of Regent University that you sought out as AUSAs?

GOODLING: In most cases, the people at Regent are good people trying to do the right thing, who wanted to make a difference in the world. If the question is, were I looking -- if I was looking for people like that, the answer is yes. I wasn't necessarily looking for people who shared a particular faith system. I don't have any recollection that that entered into my mind at any point. But certainly there are a lot of people who applied to work for this president because they share his same faith system, and they did apply for jobs.

COHEN: Are there a lot of -- an inordinate number of people from Regent University Law School that were hired by the Department of Justice while you were there?

GOODLING: I think we have a lot more people from Harvard and Yale.

COHEN: Well, that's refreshing. Is it a fact -- are you aware of the fact that in your graduating class 50 to 60 percent of the students failed the bar the first time?

GOODLING: I'm not -- I don't remember the statistics, but I know it wasn't good. I was happy I passed the first time.

COHEN: Thank you. That's good.

National Review Online's Byron York noted that Cohen's questioning came shortly after another discussion of higher education:

Earlier, Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee was very concerned that Goodling had asked about the political leanings of a job seeker named Seth Adam Meinero, "a graduate of Howard University, one of the top, outstanding law schools in the nation." (Rep. Cohen did not protest, even though Howard's bar-passing statistics don't measure up to Regent's.) Goodling said she regretted making a "snap judgment" about Meinero's supposed political leanings, although she stressed that Meinero ultimately got the job he was seeking.

Posted by Ted Olsen at May 24, 2007 | Comments (22)

Come, Now, and Let Us "Reason" Together

The former veep is a poster child for the Angry Left.

Stan Guthrie | May 21, 2007

Al Gore, in his new book The Assault on Reason, shows he is again half a step slow. According to a book description on Amazon.com, AR is "A visionary analysis of how the politics of fear, secrecy, cronyism, and blind faith has combined with the degration of the public sphere to create an environment dangerously hostile to reason." Gore is a step behind because Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and other advocates of "reason" have been bashing religious belief and believers for a long time. Some visionary. Someone please tell me why the advocates of sweet "reason" usually seem to be the most unreasonable.

Gore's complaint, assuming the rest of the book goes on in this vein, sounds suspiciously like some of the warnings pouring out of leftish opinion leaders following the 2004 presidential election, to wit:

1. Normally level-headed Times columnist Tom Friedman said he was "deeply troubled." "[W]hat troubled me yesterday was my feeling that this election was tipped because of an outpouring of support by people who don't just favor different policies than I do?they favor a whole different kind of America. We don't just disagree on what America should be doing; we disagree on what America is."

2. "The president got re-elected by dividing the country along fault lines of fear, intolerance, ignorance and religious rule," wrote fellow Times columnist Maureen Dowd. "? W. ran a jihad in America so he can fight one in Iraq?drawing a devoted flock of evangelicals ? by opposing abortion, suffocating stem cell research and supporting a constitutional amendment against gay marriage." (On stem cells, Bush has actually taken a moderate approach, opposing federal funding for research on new embryonic stem cells lines?which involves the destruction of innocent human life?while placing no restrictions on the more promising research based on stem cells from adults and umbilical cords.)

3. Historian Garry Wills linked the results with the 1925 Scopes trial, in which fundamentalist Christians, led by William Jennings Bryan, were discredited for their simplistic opposition to evolution, causing many to withdraw from the larger society. Wills called the vote "Bryan's revenge," asking, "Can a people that believes more fervently in the Virgin Birth than in evolution still be called an enlightened nation?"

So if Gore is seeking to accuse those with whom he disagrees of being intolerant bigots, then he'd better take a number. To me, however, it looks like he's still just mad that he lost the 2000 election (i.e. "Those who refused to vote for me are kooks") and frustrated that his overhyped book and documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, hasn't won over the skeptics as well as it has the mainstream media.

Posted by Stan Guthrie at May 21, 2007 | Comments (21)

Boomer Evangelicals Are Less Political

Falwell's death brings out the obits on evangelical political activity.

Rob Moll |

With the death of Jerry Falwell, The New York Times reports that old-school political activism has also died among evangelicals. The piece says that evangelicals are getting more interested in issues with widespread appeal, like AIDS and the environment, and losing their bombast when it comes to hot-button issues like abortion. See Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, and Rich Cizik.

It's nothing new really. The story's been written dozens of times. But, some stats may be new to readers. The Times reports,

John C. Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life ... placed evangelicals into three camps - traditionalist, centrist and modernist - based on the how rigidly they adhered to their beliefs and their willingness to adapt them to a changing world. The traditionalists are evangelicals who are usually labeled as the Christian right, while the centrists might be represented by the newer breed of evangelical leaders, who remain socially and theologically quite conservative but have mostly sought to avoid politics. The two camps are roughly the same size, each representing 40 to 50 percent of the total.

Experts agree, though, that the centrist camp is growing

If it's true that centrist evangelicals are a growing group, what do we make Ohio's patriot pastors, Dobson's increased political activity, and the Family Research Council's new position as evangelicals' main lobbying group?

Posted by Rob Moll at May 21, 2007 | Comments (1)

Falwell Hospitalized

Baptist pastor found unconscious in office.

Collin Hansen | May 15, 2007

The local newspaper in Lynchburg, Virginia, reports that Jerry Falwell has been taken to the hospital. According to a Liberty University official, Falwell missed a morning meeting and was discovered unconscious in his office.

Posted by Collin Hansen at May 15, 2007 | Comments (0)

Onward, Christian Lobbyists

Should ministries angle for earmarks?

David Neff | May 14, 2007

There's been a legitimate debate about President Bush's faith-based initiative and the wisdom of ministries seeking government funds to carry out the "secular" aspect of their social ministries - helping the homeless, the unemployed, the drug addicted, the victims of spousal abuse. Will such ministries over-secularize their efforts just to keep government inspectors happy - or their own consciences clean? Should the church do such ministry without an appropriate spiritual component?

Those are all legitimate areas for debate. But a New York Times story posted this past weekend raises a related and still more problematic issue. Religious Groups Reap Federal Aid for Pet Projects reports that a number of religious institutions and ministries have now hired lobbyists to seek earmarks for their special projects. Unlike grants made through the usual welfare programs, earmark funding carries little or no accountability. No regulators. No inspectors. And earmarks are a multifaceted problem for our federal budget. (See Chuck Colson's CT column, "The Earmark Epidemic" from October 2006.)

The article quotes NAE vice president for governmental affairs Rich Cizik thus:

The Rev. Richard Cizik ... said that while religious organizations should be able to compete for federal money, such groups "shouldn't do that through earmarks." He explained, "As good stewards of the public trust, we have to be transparent and above board - and earmarks are not transparent or above board."

Time for a new debate.

Posted by David Neff at May 14, 2007 | Comments (3)

Pro-choice Giuliani

Enough waffling for the 9/11 hero, he's for abortion rights.

Rob Moll | May 10, 2007

The New York Times reports that former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani will offer an explanation of his views on abortion.

The shift in emphasis comes as the Giuliani campaign has struggled to deal with the fallout from the first Republican presidential candidate debate, in which he gave halting and apparently contradictory responses to questions about his support for abortion rights. ...

The campaign’s approach would be a sharp departure from the traditional route to the Republican nomination in the last 20 years, in which Republicans have highlighted their antiabortion views.

Posted by Rob Moll at May 10, 2007 | Comments (1)

Pope to Pro-Choice Pols: No Communion

Did St. Louis Archbishop get it right in '04?

David Neff |

The headlines were so predictable I almost didn't read the stories: "Pope Opens Trip with Remarks Against Abortion" (New York Times) and "Pope Stresses Opposition to Abortion" (Associated Press).

Is the Pope Catholic?

But there seems to be some news here. On his flight to Brazil, the Pope made some remarks that seemed to condemn not only women who have abortions and the doctors who provide them, but also the polticians who vote for legalization of abortion--as they did recently in Mexico, providing for legal abortions up to 12 weeks gestation.

Papal spokesman (when it's the Vatican, you can use the gender-specific term) Federico Lombardi immediately tried to soften the possible implication of the Pope's words. But then, well, I'll let the New York Times tell the story:

The pope's spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, quickly issued a clarification that played down his words, but then issued a statement approved by the pope that seemed to confirm a new gravity on politicians who allow abortion.

"Legislative action in favor of abortion is incompatible with participation in the Eucharist," the statement said, and politicians who vote that way should "exclude themselves from communion."

So, this turns the clock back to the 2004 election controversy over St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke telling pro-choice Catholic presidential candidate John Kerry that he should not receive communion when campaigning on Burke's turf. If memory serves, Washington's Cardinal Theodore McCarrick tried to soften the potential impact of Burke's statements. But now that Benedict has spoken, it looks like Burke may have been right.

The automatic self-excommunication that applies to women who have abortions and their doctors also applies to legislators. This doesn't mean that priests are supposed to become the Communion police, but it does mean that the Church considers it a pretty grievous thing for a Catholic politician who has voted to legalize abortion to present him or herself to receive Communion.

Christianity Today's June 2004 editorial on the dispute between Burke and Kerry can be read in the CT Library (paid archive).

Posted by David Neff at May 10, 2007 | Comments (9)

Spiritualpolitique

Former director of the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives says American politicians need to get religion.

Rob Moll | May 8, 2007

Another good read on the need for Westerners to become more spiritually educated (especially Western politicians) is in this week's Weekly Standard. John J. DiIulio Jr. writes

what I hereby baptize as spiritualpolitique is a soft-power perspective on politics that emphasizes religion's domestic and international significance, accounts for religion's present and potential power to shape politics within and among nations, and understands religion not as some abstract force measured by its resiliency vis-à-vis "modernity" and not by its supporting role in "civilizations" that cooperate or clash. Rather, a perspective steeped in spiritualpolitique requires attention to the particularities that render this or that actual religion as preached and practiced by present-day peoples so fascinating to ethnographers (who can spend lifetimes immersed in single sects) and so puzzling to most of the social scientists who seek, often in vain, to characterize and quantify religions, or to track religion-related social and political trends.

Posted by Rob Moll at May 8, 2007 | Comments (0)

Political Theater

What happened inside the Beltway during the National Day of Prayer?

Collin Hansen | May 7, 2007

Last week, Dana Milbank of The Washington Post looked into the political theater surrounding the National Day of Prayer. Milbank offers "behind the scenes" access that you don't hear about from press releases.

Posted by Collin Hansen at May 7, 2007 | Comments (0)

Colson the socialist?

It's not wrong to fire expensive employees, says Doug Bandow -- and Colson's marketing guy.

Ted Olsen | May 4, 2007

In 2000, Slate's David Plotz praised Chuck Colson for being selfless, humble, the "Switzerland of the culture war," and an "equal-opportunity critic, smacking the left for its sneers at religion and the right for its intolerant moralizing." But he warned that "Colson is changing as his popularity increases ... [and] sounds increasingly like other religious-right preachers."

Eh, not so much, says Doug Bandow in an American Spectator piece today suggesting Colson is "trending left" by becoming a "corporate scourge." At issue is Colson's April 2 BreakPoint commentary on Circuit City's layoffs, "Disposable Workers."

"The mere fact that a firm fires for economic reasons an employee it originally hired for economic reasons does not, in Colson's words, leave 'people as disposable commodities and dehumanized,'" Bandow writes.

Prison Fellowship’s vice president of direct marketing, Allen Thornburgh, also criticized Colson's commentary on BreakPoint's own blog, The Point.

The "evangelical view of economics" discussion goes on.

Posted by Ted Olsen at May 4, 2007 | Comments (3)

Bad headlines of the day

Note to ABC: Change is not always evolution.

Ted Olsen |

There's the "that's not news" category: "Episcopal Church faces divisions over gay issues" (Reuters)

Then there's the misplaced metaphor/cliche/exaggeration: "Christian Press Take Colorado Springs By Storm" (Christian Post)

And then there's someone feeling superior: "Evangelicals See an Evolution of Their Own | Movement Seen as Distancing From GOP, Homosexuality, Taking up Global Warming" (ABC News)

Whatever your stance on global warming and what the government should do about it, or really whatever your politics is, I think we can agree that "evolving" is incredibly loaded in this context. Yes, I get the intended humor and irony: Those crazy evangelicals that don't believe in evolution are evolving politically. Ha ha. But precisely because evolution suggests a change from a lower form to a higher form, the word in this context means "evangelicals are finally recognizing that they've been wrong in disagreeing with me."

CT readers will know that it's questionable to assert that evangelicals are changing their political beliefs, attitudes, and voting behavior. But even if that's your argument, say "change." That won't suggest that Republican evangelicals who oppose homosexual sex and don't make global warming a priority are a bunch of monkeys.

Posted by Ted Olsen at May 4, 2007 | Comments (5)

Hate crimes bill passed

Bush veto likely.

Ted Olsen | May 3, 2007

The vote was 237-180. Though the passage was expected, a proposed amendment by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) briefly turned the debate on its head. The bill focuses on "violence motivated by the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of the victim." Smith's amendment would have added "status as a senior citizen who has attained the age of 65 years" and "status as a current or former member of the Armed Forces" to that list.

Republicans had argued that hate crime legislation was unnecessary -- violence is already a crime -- and potentially harmful to free speech. With Smith's amendment, Republicans started arguing that veterans and seniors need special protection, and Democrats responded that veterans and seniors are already protected under existing law. It was ultimately a sideshow and the amendment was defeated 189-227. (A bit of analysis after the jump)

(I should note that I'm saying Democrats and Republicans too broadly. In the final vote, 25 Republicans voted for the hate crimes bill and 14 Democrats voted against it.)

The rhetoric today was really something to watch. One Democrat compared opposition of the bill to lynching, another seemed to suggest that it should apply to preschool bullying. Republicans claimed that the bill would result in pastors being arrested for preaching that homosexuality is wrong. (Don't miss the Traditional Vales Coalition's "Wanted" posters of Jesus, which claimed Jesus' preaching would have been criminal under the hate crimes bill.) We probably won't find out if that's really true. The White House says a veto is likely.

I still have many questions, though. (1) Why have Christian groups given so much attention to "sexual orientation and gender identity" rather than religion? That is, why the fears over a ban on preaching that homosexual sex is wrong rather than a fear over a ban on preaching that non-Christian faiths are wrong? (2) Is there really any evidence that pastors and religious broadcasters would be charged? Fred Phelps has preached in many states that have hate crime laws (many far broader than this bill) and, to my knowledge, has not been charged under any of them (though he has been arrested under other statutes, like anti-trespassing laws). Likewise, there have been any number of radio broadcasts critical of homosexual sex in jurisdictions with existing hate crimes laws. Have they ever been invoked against speech? I'm not saying I support the bill. I'm just asking what the bill's opponents have other than pointing to incidents in countries that don't have First Amendment protections of speech and religion.

Posted by Ted Olsen at May 3, 2007 | Comments (16)

Kennedy's Center for Reclaiming America shuttered

The end of the comeback of the return of the resurgence of the Religious Right?

Ted Olsen | May 1, 2007

"The Center for Reclaiming America has closed, halting its conservative activism and throwing the future of its signature annual conference in doubt," the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports. "An undisclosed number of employees were laid off on Thursday at the center's headquarters in Fort Lauderdale and its congressional chaplaincy office in Washington, D.C., in what its parent organization, Coral Ridge Ministries, called a 'streamlining.' ... [A spokesman] said the actions were unrelated to the long convalescence of [founder D. James] Kennedy, who had a cardiac arrest in December. [The spokesman] also denied money problems forced the layoffs, saying revenues have changed little for at least eight years."

Go ahead and use this as the lead example in your "end of the Religious Right" article or blog post. Those are always entertaining. As are the "resurgence of the Religious Right" stories that follow, then the "takeover of the Religious Right," then the "end of the Religious Right" again.

[UPDATE: I didn't expect Cal Thomas to be first out of the gate. At least first outside the blogosphere.]

Posted by Ted Olsen at May 1, 2007 | Comments (2)

Guns or Abortion?

Evangelical support for Giuliani triggers many questions.

Collin Hansen | April 30, 2007

This weekend The Wall Street Journal offered Richard Land's analysis of the Republican primary field. The president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission delivered a grim prognosis. He thinks Giuliani's two divorces and pro-choice views will doom him. He doesn't fully trust McCain. He really doesn't trust Gingrich. He could vote for Romney, should the Mormon former governor clarify how religion would affect his decision-making. And Thompson has some promise.

I think the last couple hundred words of the interview pose some serious questions evangelical Republicans must answer.

Land argues that evangelicals will decline to vote for a Republican with liberal social views, even if the Democrats nominate Sen. Hillary Clinton. Many will stay home out of principle, Land says. He warns that such an outcome would doom the Republican Party all the way down the ballot.

The Journal's Naomi Schaefer Riley doesn't seem so sure. What if the Iraq War remains the dominant political issue in 2008? If evangelical supporters of the war stick to their guns, they would have a stark choice between Giuliani and Clinton — or for that matter, any Democratic candidate. The Democrats want out; Giuliani supports President Bush. So what happens in this scenario? Would evangelicals who support the war tolerate any candidate who promised not to immediately withdraw the troops? Or would abortion trump guns?

Here's another question: Would evangelical support for Giuliani on the basis of war signal a "maturing" of our political engagement and broadened concerns? Or would we betray the social problems that triggered our recent involvement in the first place?

Posted by Collin Hansen at April 30, 2007 | Comments (23)

Obama's faith, his pastor, and his foreign policy

The NYT explores the Senator's faith and his pastor, while David Brooks deciphers how it might affect his foreign policy.

Rob Moll |

The New York Times has an extended piece on Barack Obama's faith, his church, and his relationship with his pastor, Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Wright has become known for his liberation theology, which, as Wright has applied it, some have called reverse racism.
Obama describes the differences in outlook he has with his pastor.

"Reverend Wright is a child of the 60s, and he often expresses himself in that language of concern with institutional racism and the struggles the African-American community has gone through," Mr. Obama said. "He analyzes public events in the context of race. I tend to look at them through the context of social justice and inequality."

The article's emphasis on Obama's relationship with his outspoken pastor is due to its potential political effect on Obama's presidential campaign. But the article does describe Obama's personal conversion: "He comes from a very secular, skeptical family," said Jim Wallis, a Christian antipoverty activist and longtime friend of Mr. Obama. "His faith is really a personal and an adult choice. His is a conversion story."

The article has less of Obama speaking about himself than David Brooks's column does. In the column, perhaps, we see Obama's faith at work better than we do in the much longer piece about Obama and his pastor. Brooks says he got Obama to open up when he asked, "Have you ever read Reinhold Niebuhr?" Obama, it turns out, is a big fan. "What do you take away from him?" Brooks asked.

"I take away," Obama answered in a rush of words, "the compelling idea that there's serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain. And we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn't use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction. I take away ... the sense we have to make these efforts knowing they are hard, and not swinging from na?ve idealism to bitter realism."

Posted by Rob Moll at April 30, 2007 | Comments (11)

Is illegal immigration a satanic plot?

A resolution that's bound to get attention this weekend.

Ted Olsen | April 27, 2007

"In order for Satan to establish his 'New World Order' and destroy the freedom of all people as predicted in the Scriptures, he must first destroy the U.S.," says a proposed resolution to be debated at the Utah County Republican Party Convention this weekend. "There are ways to destroy a nation other than with bombs or bullets. The mostly quiet and unspectacular invasion of illegal immigrants does not focus the attention of the nation the way open warfare does but is all the more insidious for its stealth and innocuousness."

Don Larsen's resolution calls for the county party to support "closing the national borders to illegal immigration to prevent the destruction of the U.S. by stealth invasion." (Sources: Deseret Morning News and Salt Lake Tribune)

My guess: No Utah County Republican Party Convention resolution will have in the past or will ever in the future see the media coverage that this resolution will see.

So here's the question: apart from Larsen's apocalypticism, if you believe breaking the law is sinful, then do you think that there is demonic involvement in illegal immigration? And if you believe that America's immigration policy is sinful, do you think that there is demonic involvement in the slow progress in changing it? Follow up questions: Do you believe prayer would change illegal immigration? If so, have you ever prayed about it?

Posted by Ted Olsen at April 27, 2007 | Comments (8)

'In Christ's Name'

A John Edwards campaign stop undergoes spiritual transformation.

Ted Olsen | April 25, 2007

Politico.com is all abuzz (well, it has a news story and an op-ed, anyway) about John Edwards praying "in Christ's name" at a Nashville campaign stop after the Virginia Tech shootings.

"Does John Edwards include Jews in his prayers? Or Muslims? Or Hindus? Or any other non-Christians?" complains Roger Simon. "Edwards has a perfect right to pray publicly or privately any way he wants to. But people who are not Christians often feel left out of prayers like his." Simon also criticizes Edwards for not praying for gun control.

The original Politico.com news story is rather remarkable, detailing how a campaign stop to "roll out his long-planned agenda for revitalizing rural America" was transformed into a religious memorial service.

Posted by Ted Olsen at April 25, 2007 | Comments (2)

The 'evangelical view of economics'

Are theological conservatives also economic conservatives? A study answers the question.

Ted Olsen |

Of all the lines in the widely circulated letter against Richard Cizik's work on global warming, I found one section particularly surprising:

Cizik's disturbing views seem to be contributing to growing confusion about the very term, "evangelical." ... We believe some of [the] misunderstanding about evangelicalism and its "conservative views on politics, economics and biblical morality" can be laid at Richard Cizik's door.

As I've said before, I found that surprising because most evangelical activists I know of have been eager to define evangelical theologically or sociologically and oppose use of the word as a political descriptor. But while you can talk about trends in evangelical political behavior (which is quite a bit different than talking about "evangelical politics"), I was stumped on what the letter's signatories thought evangelical views on economics are. Granted, 50 years ago there was a strong anti-Communist streak in evangelical Protestantism. But today?

Well, I just found an answer, at least in part, in the journal Social Science Research. (More after the jump)

In the June 2007 issue, Pennsylvania State University sociologists Jacob Felson and Heather Kindell write about "The elusive link between conservative Protestantism and conservative economics." For the full article, you'll have to pay $30. But here's the abstract (emphasis mine):

Research on the political attitudes of conservative Protestants has yielded inconsistent results. We know that conservative Protestants (CPs) tend to be more socially conservative than members of other religious groups and have tended to vote Republican in recent years, but we are less certain of their attitudes toward the size and role of government in matters unrelated to religion. Despite theoretical expectations and qualitative research supporting a link between conservative Protestantism and conservative attitudes about the size and role of government, quantitative work has failed to find a consistent relationship. The present study interprets conservative Protestant issue preferences in the context of research on non-attitudes, arguing that we should not expect ideological constraint among the less educated segment of the population. However, among better educated members of the population, we should expect to find ideologically consistent attitudes. Results from the General Social Survey suggest that better-educated evangelical Protestants are consistently more economically conservative than other Protestants. Among Protestants with lower levels of education, there is no consistent relationship between conservative Protestantism and economic policy preferences. Since the better educated are disproportionately politically active, politicians may be especially likely to pay attention to their interests. This may help to explain why the Republican coalition between social and economic conservatives has endured for several decades and shows no signs of abating.

Since I didn't pay the $30, I can't tell if the study took into account that the better-educated evangelical Protestants are likely to have higher incomes--something that would no doubt also influence their economic views. But the bottom line here is that talking about the "evangelical view on economics" is even more problematic than talking about evangelical politics. There is a group that is both evangelical and economically conservative. And certainly it would be interesting to find out more about that group, and whether its influence is proportional to its size. But please don't confuse the part with the whole.

Posted by Ted Olsen at April 25, 2007 | Comments (4)

Interviewing the Interviewer

Article VI bloggers grill Guthrie with the Mormon question

| April 24, 2007

Yesterday, the Article VI Blog posted an interview with CT's senior associate editor and book review editor, Stan Guthrie.

It was, actually, an interview sparked by an interview. Stan had posed questions to radio host Hugh Hewitt about his book A Mormon in the White House? (If you missed the original interview, you can read it here.)

The bloggers at Article VI are an evangelical Presbyterian (a Fuller Seminary grad) and a Mormon (a University of Utah law school alum). They've been blogging since April 2006 about Mitt Romney's chances as a presidential candidate and the Mormon factor in American politics. (The blog's title - Article VI - is a reference to the constitutional prohibition of a religious test for public office.)

In the 3,500?word interview, Stan gives an excellent account of his thinking about these issues.
I most appreciated this comment from Stan:

One of the things I have really appreciated since coming to Christianity Today is learning ... that you need to see how the life is lived. How [a religion's] followers live the thing - Whether it is Latter Day Saints, whether it is Islam, or Episcopalians, or whatever. You can't just get it from press clippings and references in books. You have to see how it is actually lived out in the real world and what the nuances are and what is stressed and what is not stressed. I think as that goes on with followers of Mormonism, that some of those stereotypes and concerns will be addressed. ... When you establish a relationship with someone, you have a much better chance of building a friendship and seeing things more sympathetically.

Evangelical Protestants will no doubt always disagree with Latter-day Saints about fundamental beliefs, such as the nature of God. But combine the scrutiny that would be given the life of a Mormon president with friendships such as the one shared by Article VI's two bloggers, and we may someday find ourselves disagreeing less disagreeably.

Posted by David Neff at April 24, 2007 | Comments (3)

Do you know Melissa Busekros?

If you only read mainstream media sources, you don't.

Ted Olsen |

Do a news search (Google | MSLive | Yahoo) on "Melissa Busekros" and you'll get several hits.

But what you won't get are many results from mainstream media sources. The Christian Science Monitor is one of the few outlets to pick up what is surely the hottest topic in Christian home-schooling circles.

The background: After the German government tried for two years to get Melissa's family to stop home-schooling the 15 year old, officials removed her from her home in February, put her in a foster home, and sent her to psychiatric treatment for "school phobia."

The update: Yesterday, on her 16th birthday, Melissa fled her foster home and showed up on her parents' doorstep.

Seems like a nice hook for a news story in the mainstream press, if they've been waiting for one.

Posted by Ted Olsen at April 24, 2007 | Comments (2)