March 2008 Archives

Take the RADAR quiz. Hint: It's harder than you think.

Barack Obama spoke to a crowd in Pennsylvania on Saturday about sex education and told them the following:

"When it comes specifically to HIV/AIDS, the most important prevention is education, which should include -- which should include abstinence education and teaching the children -- teaching children, you know, that sex is not something casual. But it should also include -- it should also include other, you know, information about contraception because, look, I've got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby. I don't want them punished with an STD at the age of 16. You know, so it doesn't make sense to not give them information. You still want to teach them the morals and values to make good decisions."

As Wayne Slater of the Dallas Morning News points out, John McCain is quietly engaged in the delicate courtship of Catholic voters. A key swing demographic, Catholics could crown McCain victorious come November. However, the generally moderate group could also be turned off if McCain lines up too closely with the religious right. Thus, tact is of the utmost importance as the Senator handles incidents like John Hagee's endorsement. As part of their effort to win Christian voters, the McCain campaign has dispatched Senator Sam Brownback to spread the good word.

For those of us (and if we aren't legion neither are we a tiny few) who have shouldered the burden of tracking religion in the current campaign, the, ah, Godsend that was the Obama/Wright affair has just about run itself into the blogground, leaving in its wake a discernible absence of news. This may be remedied by the visit of Pope Benedict, who (according to Peter Steinfels) will provide at least a little grist for our mills.

In the meantime, a couple of uncommented-upon Wright matters are left to be tidied up in this space. First, I'd say there was a bit less than met the eye in Obama's comment on "The View" last Friday that he'd have left Trinity United had Wright not retired and acknowledged making comments that "deeply offended people." There's no question that Obama had long known that his tie to Wright could hurt his candidacy, and my guess is that he figured the retirement would make it easier to weather the storm (as it probably has). Were Wright still in the pulpit, he very likely would have been compelled to speak up on the subject, instead of keeping mum. And though it would not have come easily to him, an acknowledgment that he had "offended people" might well have been forthcoming.

Then there's the letter of Wright's to Jodi Kantor of the New York Times of a year ago, complaining that Kantor had misrepresented her intentions in an interview she did with him. Kantor had represented herself as working on a story about Obama's spiritual development but, according to the letter, the story that appeared focused solely on the fact, revealed by Wright, that Obama had decided that Wright not be present when he announced his candidacy. Wright thought this was dirty pool. In fact, as Times political editor Richard Stevenson has pointed out in a letter to the Time magazine political blog The Page, the paper did get around to publishing an extended article on Obama's spiritual development. But Wright's revelation was news, and so the first order or business had been to run out a quick story on the Wright non-appearance.

Wright's distress is understandable, but anyone who has spent time in the journalistic trenches would immediately see that his cause for complaint was minimal at best. If you talk to a reporter on the record, then whatever you say is fair game. I would have done the non-appearance story in a heartbeat.

Jacques Berlinerblau, the Washington Post's house church-state separation absolutist, sticks his tongue in his cheek to advocate a constitutional amendment that begins, "The right of presidential aspirants to discuss religion, invoke sacred texts, or mention God on the campaign trail is hereby repealed." The amendment also proposes that, "Whenever a religious figure endorses any candidate for the presidency that candidate must reject aforesaid endorsement." Oh, and Congress would be empowered to exile the faith-based endorser to France. The idea behind this modest proposal is, of course, that the country is best off with no religious talk by candidates, no such endorsements by religious figures. I 'm less than persuaded by the argument.

Berlinerblau thinks the endorsements threaten the country's "interreligious tranquility" and do the candidates no practical good, while the obligation to engage in a certain amount of God talk deprives the country of a lot of good candidates (i.e. those who can't do it). I'm no fan of clerical endorsements, but there's little evidence that the Wrights, Hagees, and Parsleys have in any way threatened relations among the nation's religious groups. Such controversy as has attached to their controversial remarks almost inevitably results in reaffirmations of religious comity elsewhere in the system. That's how the system works. Whether candidates are hurt or helped more by clerical endorsements is an empirical question that cannot be resolved merely by looking at the most controversial. For a generation, Republican presidential aspirants have sought the approbation of conservative evangelical pastors. Does Berlinerblau know something they don't?

Talking religion does come more easily to some candidates than others--remember Howard Dean and John Kerry during the 2004 election cycle? But John McCain has managed to capture his party's nomination without indulging in it to any appreciable degree. If there are would-be American presidents out there who have been afraid to throw their hats into the ring pending the arrival of Berlinerblau's secularist millennium, I'd like to know who they are.

Yesterday, a man I know told me that he had "converted" to Barack Obama as follows. He had been trying to make up his mind between Obama and Clinton, and while Obama's speech on race impressed him, it was not enough to cause him to get down off the fence. What did, instead, was his own decision to undertake a campaign to persuade his large conservative synagogue to take a more inclusive approach to mixed (Jewish-Gentile) marriages. His point, as I understood it, was that he realized that he could be at serious odds with other members of his religious community, including his rabbi, without separating himself from the community. Perhaps, even more, that it could be a mark of one's commitment to the rest of the community, including and especially to those with whom one deeply disagrees, not to remove to some other place.

Whether or not "A More Perfect Union" leads to a national discussion (whatever that means) about race, I suspect that the Obama/Wright affair has caused a lot of Americans to give some thought to the nature of their voluntary communities, religious and otherwise. Whatever our conclusions, it's not a bad thing, from time to time, to ponder what binds us together, in small groups and large, and how strong the bonds are, or should be.

You'd think by now that anyone who wasn't aware of Barack Obama's religious identity would have to be living under a rock. If so, there are a lot of American voters living under rocks. According to a Pew Research poll, 10 percent of voters think Obama's a Muslim, up six percent from an AP-Yahoo poll in January. A third don't know what his religion is.

Update: The direct link to Pew's findings on Obama's religion is here.

With Pennsylvania's upcoming contest looming (April 22), attention has turned to winning over one of the state's crucial religious blocs. No, its not the Quakers, but the Catholics who are being courted by Obama and Clinton. Recent polls have Clinton leading among Catholics, but Obama is not conceding this crucial Keystone constituency. Some are speculating that Clinton's lead might be due to an overlap with other traditionally Catholic demographics in her base such as Hispanics and bluecollar voters. Nevertheless, Obama is trying to cut into this lead with Catholic surrogates touting his credentials.

Barack Obama reiterated his commitment to his Christian faith in Greensboro, NC yesterday. When a member of a town hall meeting asked the Senator about the role Jesus plays in his life, Obama said "I’m a Christian. What that means for me is that I believe Jesus Christ died for my sins, and, uh, and, and, uh, his grace and his mercy and his power, through him, I can achieve everlasting life.” Senator Obama then went on to reach out to voters of other faiths. “I think it’s very important to think that you do not have to have the same faith as me to be a moral person – there are a lot of Jewish people who are as moral, or more moral than I am, there are a lot of Muslims who are decent kind people,”Obama said. “I don’t think they are any less children of God.”

A new NBC/ Wall Street Journal poll has some interesting numbers. Besides showing that Americans are reticent to elect AARP members president, the poll revealed strong insight into the Rev. Wright fallout. First, most Americans followed the Rev. Wright controversy somewhat or not too much (37 and 19). Thirty five percent of respondents said that Wright's comments disturbed them a great deal and twenty percent said it disturbed them somewhat. About half (46%) watched Obama's speech and another quarter of respondents learned about it from the news. And of those who saw the speech fifty five percent were satisfied and thirty two percent were dissatisfied. Now here is where it gets interesting. It appears that the racial divide Obama talked about was reflected in the polls. Seventy seven percent of blacks who saw it were satisfied as opposed to fifty five percent of whites. Thirty five percent of whites were dissatisfied and only nine percent of blacks were dissatisfied. When it comes to Obama's relationship with Wright, Americans are most concerned that they don't know enough about Obama's background (24%) and that he is not being honest and open about his views (13%).

In the public intellectual department, gray eminences are pretty few and far between these days, but two of them, Martin Marty and Martin Peretz have weighed in on the Obama/Wright affair, both in the cause of the defense. In the Chronicle of Higher Education, Marty paints a sympathetic portrait of Wright, his former student at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Peretz, from his New Republic home, brings his own shul-going experience to bear on the Obama-Wright relationship. Amidst all the hollering, I haven't seen any brief for the prosecution of similar thoughtfulness and gravitas. Does such exist?

Is it just me, or has Christopher Hitchens turned into a caricature of himself? Once upon a time, he was one of those Shakespearean fools whose license to speak truth to power was exercised in often brilliant puncturings of sacred cows and other pious beasts. Since his ascent to the office of national Atheist-in-Chief, he seems mostly to run around the public square in cap and bells, farting in the general direction of any religious personage who crosses his path. Some may be entertained at the blast he let loose the other day at Jeremiah Wright, his presidency-seeking parishioner, and a few others who happened to be standing in their vicinity. Others will find it merely noisome. Discriminating, it is not.

Take, for a small example, the following sentence:

If you think Jeremiah Wright is gruesome, wait until you get a load of the next Chicago "Reverend," one James Meeks, another South Side horror show with a special sideline in the baiting of homosexuals.

This interfaith condemnation of Hillary Clinton's poke at Barack Obama for sticking with Jeremiah Wright is pretty newsworthy. It reads, in part:

Today, you took a new and disquieting step when you decided that it would be to your political benefit to wade into the waters of the issues surrounding Senator Barack Obama and his former pastor. This crosses the line and brings us full force into the zone of the politics of personal destruction.

On the jump is an extended passage from Dean Snyder's Good Friday sermon that makes use of Jeremiah Wright's "God damn America" line. It softens the application, making it more palatable--and obliquely identifies with the Obama critique. Pretty good use of Moltmann, I'd say. Worth a look.

A number of readers (nice to hear from you) have written in to say they think Hillary Clinton's current church is the Fellowship (or "the Family"), the rather secretive organization that for decades has run the National Prayer Breakfast and which sponsors various prayer groups for government officials and their spouses. Clinton joined up when she arrived in Washington as the First Lady in 1993 and apparently has since ascended to the most elite of its "cells." It's a basically evangelical operation (though non-evangelicals participate) and it forswears partisan politics even as it pushes towards the right. I once co-authored a book on the American Establishment (called The American Establishment), and what the Family mostly seems to me to be is one of those organizations that do do what establishmentarian organizations always do: provide the contacts and networks, the modes of understanding and accommodation, and the rites of entry and inclusion that enable elites to function and perpetuate themselves. The Family appears to be a right-wing example of the breed--rather more inclusive, by the evidence available, than, for example, most right-wing Washington think tanks. It does have a shadowy leader, which makes it seem more ominous than it otherwise might. His name is Doug Coe, who Clinton describes in Living History as "a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God."

The key source on the organization at the moment is this article by Kathryn Joyce and Jeff Sharlet from last September's Mother Jones, but come May, Sharlet's book, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power will be out. Sharlet, who edits the sharp and snarky religion news website, The Revealer, generally gives good weight, so what he has to say will be worth reading. Whether the Family should be considered Hillary's current church depends, I suppose, on what you mean by church. Prayer and Bible study groups have in recent years become primary religious reference points for non-Catholic American Christians--President Bush included. Hillary Clinton, however, has in the past been pretty churchy in the traditional sense. However deeply she felt the connection to the Family in her years as First Lady, for example, she was an active participant in Foundry United Methodist. There's no indication I've yet found that she's been equally engaged anywhere else during her years in the Senate.

Update: So far as we can tell, Clinton attended Easter services this year at the United Methodist Church of Mt. Pleasant, NY. To hear the politically uncontroversial sermon she heard that day, look here.

Rev. Wright was set give his first public sermon since relinquishing his post this evening, but the event was called off for "security concerns" and the potential for a media circus.

OK, gang. Hillary Clinton is now prepared to call Barack Obama to account for what his pastor says. As in the following quotes from today's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

"He would not have been my pastor," Clinton said. "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend..."You know, I spoke out against Don Imus (who was fired from his radio and television shows after making racially insensitive remarks), saying that hate speech was unacceptable in any setting, and I believe that," Clinton said. "I just think you have to speak out against that. You certainly have to do that, if not explicitly, then implicitly by getting up and moving."

The Reverend Jeremiah Wright is an outstanding church leader whom I have heard speak a number of times. He has served for decades as a profound voice for justice and inclusion in our society. He has been a vocal critic of the racism, sexism and homophobia which still tarnish the American dream. To evaluate his dynamic ministry on the basis of two or three sound bites does a grave injustice to Dr. Wright, the members of his congregation, and the African-American church which has been the spiritual refuge of a people that has suffered from discrimination, disadvantage, and violence. Dr. Wright, a member of an integrated denomination, has been an agent of racial reconciliation while proclaiming perceptions and truths uncomfortable for some white people to hear. Those of us who are white Americans would do well to listen carefully to Dr. Wright rather than to use a few of his quotes to polarize. This is a critical time in America's history as we seek to repent of our racism. No matter which candidates prevail, let us use this time to listen again to one another and not to distort one another's truth.

Update: In the interest of fair play, it was probably a mistake to call Dean Snyder Hillary Clinton's pastor. Foundry was the church the Clintons attended during Bill Clinton's presidency, and at that time the senior minister was Philip Wogaman. Snyder took over the position in 2002. It is not clear to what extent, if any, Hillary Clinton considers herself still associated with the church. According to reports, she spent Easter at home in New York with her family (when, be it said, Snyder included similar sentiments about Wright in his sermon). So no gotcha. But it would still be interesting to hear Clinton's response to Snyder's statement. By the way, does anyone know what church she's attending now?

Rev. Wright will be delivering three sermons starting with the first tonight in Florida. The church where Wright is speaking is banning recording devices, but stay tuned for a bootleg recording.

Politico's Andrew Glass points out in a worthwhile read that Rev. Wright is certainly not the first or most controversial pastor in American history. Two figures mirror Wright's controversy and fall from grace. They are Rev. Samuel Buchard made famous for his "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion” line that hurt Republicans in the 1880's and Charles Coughlin who preached antisemitism via the YouTube of the day, the radio.

It's probably not worth overburdening the analogy, but since James Carville has insisted that he said what he meant, and meant what he said, I'll indulge myself. Whether or not we are (as Reid suggests) to understand Hillary Clinton--really, the Clintons a deux, since Bill Richardson is Bill's disciple--as Jesus, the idea is that Richardson's endorsement of Barack Obama puts her on the path to crucifixion. The Clintons as victims--not exactly a new trope. Judas, of course, undertook his betrayal in exchange for money, and there's no doubt that Richardson himself heard the analogy that way, denying that Obama has offered him any quid pro quo for his endorsement. Make Obama Pontius Pilate in the scenario. Finally, it should be recalled that Judas ended up hanging himself, presumably out of remorse for his betrayal. Hear that, all ye superdelegates tempted to cast your lot with the Robaman legions!

A new Gallup poll breaks down the Democratic primary electorate by religion. Gallup properly ledes its story with the finding that Jewish Democrats favor Clinton by a small amount (48 percent to 43 percent) that is within the margin of error. Exit polls in states with a sufficiently large Jewish population to provide meaningful results have tended to show a greater preference for Clinton (though there have been exceptions, such as Connecticut and Massachusetts). In context, the real news here is that Jews are more likely to support Obama than white Protestants or Catholics of any sort. For although Protestants (including "other Christians") slightly favor Obama, white Protestants prefer Clinton 56 percent to 34 percent (just about the same percentages as Catholics). Obama makes up the difference by garnering the support of those belonging to other religions and those with no religion. Really, then, Obama doesn't have a Jewish problem. He has a white Christian problem--at least with respect to Clinton.

Fox News’ Jeff Goldblatt covered Easter services yesterday at Trinity United Church of Christ. As Goldblatt explains, the services did address the recent controversy referring to Rev. Wright's fall from grace as "a public lynching". Here are some highlights.

In comments airing today on Philadelphia's WPHT, Obama suggests that he and Jeremiah Wright have been discussing their differing views of the world for 20 years.

And now a word from John McCain's pastor.

The ragin' cajun, James Carville, really got into the spirit of this Easter weekend when he likened Bill Richardson's endorsement of Obama to a betrayal like Judas'. The Democratic strategist and HRC supporter said “Mr. Richardson’s endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic”. This begs the question who does Obama represent in this biblical metaphor?

Much of the commentary on the Jeremiah Wright controversy and Barack Obama's response to it has, naturally enough, focused on the possible consequences for Obama's presidential campaign. But my guess is that it will also have an effect on American electoral politics as a whole. Coming in the wake of the much smaller flap over John Hagee, L'affaire Obama/Wright assures that endorsements of or associations with politicians by religious figures will draw close and immediate media scrutiny from here on out.

First up has been Columbus, Ohio megachurch pastor Rod Parsley, for his claim that the government, allied with Planned Parenthood, has pursued a policy of "black genocide." Parsley has been up to his ears in Ohio politics for some time, and in this election cycle has been backing John McCain enthusiastically.

Two decades ago, revelations that Reagan Supreme Court nominee Douglas Ginsburg smoked marijuana not only scuttled Ginsburg's nomination but put pot smoking onto the list of approved questions for presidential nominees. They will now be expected to answer for the views of their clerical supporters, with the result that they will start vetting these people carefully before they let them up on the dais. I'd call this a net plus for the country.

Today, E.J. Dionne offers a powerful riposte to fellow Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson's claim that Barack Obama had chosen the Path of Wright rather than the Path of Martin Luther King, Jr. The telling words of King, as presented by Dionne, are:

Listen to what King said about the Vietnam War at his own Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on Feb. 4, 1968: "God didn't call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war. . . . And we are criminals in that war. We've committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world, and I'm going to continue to say it. And we won't stop it because of our pride and our arrogance as a nation. But God has a way of even putting nations in their place." King then predicted this response from the Almighty: "And if you don't stop your reckless course, I'll rise up and break the backbone of your power."

The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people,” he said in a 2003 sermon. “God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.

In today's column, Charles Krauthammer asks how Barack Obama could not have left Jeremiah Wright's church. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that Krauthammer is not engaging in agitprop here, that the question he poses is worth trying to answer.

One possibility is that Obama actually embraces the inflammatory things that, thanks to YouTube, we've all observed Wright preaching. There's no actual evidence of that, other than the fact that Obama remained a member of his church. Another possibility is that, while Obama does not embrace those things, he is so morally obtuse that he did not recognize that they obliged him to join another church. Again, the evidence of moral obtuseness on his part consists in the fact that he did not leave that church.

Let us suppose, on the other hand, that Obama has the values and beliefs he appears to have, and that he is not morally obtuse. The only answer to the question, then, is that the benefits of belonging to the church--and of maintaining his relationship to Wright--outweigh the costs of hearing things from Wright with which he profoundly disagreed. We have learned a lot, and not only from Obama, about the good works and uplifting message of the church. We also know, but it has not been sufficiently stressed in this context, that it was Wright who brought Obama to his faith.

It may be easy for people whose religious identity was formed in childhood to pick their places of worship as adults depending on what accords best with their doctrinal beliefs, aesthetic preferences, and social values. Should we assume the same about someone who has come to a faith as an adult, and specifically one who, in his twenties, was brought to an acceptance of Jesus Christ as his lord and savior by a powerful religious leader? Is it easier to separate oneself from such a spiritual parent than from a blood relative? Should we beware of someone who passes judgment by asking rhetorical questions?

Andre Carson has assumed his seat in the House of Representatives representing Indiana's seventh district as the second Muslim elected to Congress. My information is that, at least on the Democratic side, there was a decision to let him assume the seat as a courtesy to his late grandmother Rep. Julia Carson, who died last year. But he's got opposition in the primary contest in May, and there will be a vigorous general election fight as well. All of which could make Andre Carson the first sitting Muslim member of Congress to be defeated for reelection.

Huck's fundamental decency, his pastor's experience, and his understanding of race in the South--on display.
P.S. Plus, perhaps, his knowledge of what videos of his own old sermons, had anyone ever been able to lay hands on them, might have done to his campaign.

Reactions to Obama's speech yesterday fell into one of two camps. The first was that the Senator's remarks were a frank audit of race relations in America today. These pundits felt that Obama not only addressed the serious issues that plague black and white society, but also showed presidential gravitas. This school of thought believes that this was a landmark event in presidential politics. Eugene Robinson thought the speech showed real cajones , the Sacramento Bee opined that the speech was the most significant since JFK's in 1960, and the Kansas City Star was awed by the Senator's integrity and challenge to move beyond our past. The other group felt that Obama did little to condemn Rev. Wrights comments. Instead of distancing himself from Wright, Obama explained why such comments were understandable in light of the history of African Americans. These opinions focus on why the Senator associated himself with Wright in the first place and why he used examples like his grandmother's prejudice to portray a common imperfection in Americans. See Maureen Dowd's criticism as Obama as a Messiah, Michael Gerson's guilt by association and duplicity argument, and Newt Gingrich's suspicion of Obama as a responsible church member.

The speech is receiving enormous attention from the mainstream press and the blogosphere. On YouTube the speech is blowing up, quickly jumping past 1 million views. Check it out and form your own opinion.

In his blog, Shmuel Rosner, the chief U.S. correspondent for Haaretz, recounts some bumptious comments by former George W. Bush secretary of state Lawrence Eagleburger at a conference for young Jewish leaders in Washington. Eagleburger's role was to represent presidential aspirant John McCain on a panel also featuring Daniel Kurtzer (for Barack Obama) and Ann Lewis (for Hillary Clinton).

In a response to a question about the religious right, an important component of the Republican coalition, he said that it was, indeed "a serious problem," and reminded his listeners that he now lives in Charlottesville, surrounded by such people that he needs to fight.

OK, politicians are busy folks who can't always be expected to know who's who in the world without a scorecard. Still, it's unsettling that John McCain, on his latest swing through the Middle East, should have on several occasions asserted that al-Qaeda is receiving training in Iran. An elementary knowledge of the religious order in the region ought to prevent you from imagining that the Iranian Shiite establishment would want to do anything to help the Sunni extremists who constitute al-Qaeda. An elementary awareness of recent American military activities means knowing that the Iranians helped us bring down the Taliban and their al-Qaeda associates in Afghanistan by sealing their border. But McCain said that it was "common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran; that's well known." Nope.

To be sure, McCain is not alone. Silvestre Reyes, the Texas congressman hand-picked by Nancy Pelosi to head the House Intelligence Committee after the 2006 elections, couldn't tell Sunni from Shiite either when he was named to the post. But McCain really seems to possess a profound lack of interest in religion and how religious differences matter. Last year he seemed to want to be an Episcopalian and a Baptist at the same time. More recently, he seemed flummoxed by having to deal with San Antonio evangelical panjandrum John Hagee's anti-Catholicism. It may come as a relief to many to have a GOP candidate who doesn't pretend to religious expertise. But it might be a good idea for him to do a little boning up.

He had me at "two hundred and twenty one years ago." OK, maybe he did and maybe he didn't. I'll spare you the dithyrambs. To my eyes and ears, the core of the speech was this:

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America.

From his sabbatical in Tel Aviv, my colleague Ron Kiener has sent this account of the Israeli view of the presidential election:

Israelis are slowly coming to terms with the fact that their favorite living American political figure, former President Bill Clinton, will not be returning to the White House anytime soon. One cannot underestimate the visceral warmth and goodwill that most Israelis hold towards Bill Clinton – the American President who hosted on the White House lawn the signing of the Oslo accords; the American President who flew to Israel on a moment’s notice to utter the words “Shalom, chaver” (“Goodbye, friend”) at Yitzhak Rabin’s funeral; the American President who tried, through a mastery of mind-numbing details, to bring peace to Israelis and the Palestinians; and when it all fell apart, the American President who didn’t hesitate to blame the diplomatic fiasco squarely on the bumbling, duplicitous, narrow-minded leadership of Yasser Arafat.

The Washington Post's Eli Saslow provides a good sketch of Jeremiah Wright's church. A different kind of contextualization can be found in a lengthy comment by "vega" posted in response to this analysis piece on Politico by John F. Harris and Jim Vandehei (response number 2). Vega is evidently Frank Schaeffer, the movie director and author son of Francis Schaeffer, the godfather of the religious right. (I was pretty proud of myself for figuring that out, until I saw that this fact had already been added to the paragraph on Frank Schaeffer in Francis Schaeffer's Wikipedia entry.)

Schaeffer's object is to call attention to the denunciations of America that are typical of celebrity leaders of the religious right from his father on down. (He cites chapter and verse.) Doubtless, critics of Obama will say, as they have been saying, "But the Schaeffers and Falwells and Robertsons are not the personal pastors of this or that Republican presidential candidate." What's important to understand is that, either way, this is standard American religious rhetoric, biblically derived, deployed for prophetic effect, and designed to provoke repentance, individual and collective. Nor is it merely the province of the Angry; I can show you examples from Billy Graham, the great blithe spirit of American evangelicalism--and Pastor to Presidents.

Does this prophetic mode mean nothing? No, it is used to point up what the Jeremiah in question wishes to denounce as a great evil, be it white racism or abortion, three-strikes-and-your-out justice or gay marriage. You're free to disagree, or to find the preacher's entire program objectionable or worse. Just recognize the "attacks" on America for what they are: stylized rhetorical performances.

This could be a defining moment, and not just in the campaign. Fasten your seat belts.

Mollie, in line with GetReligion's gimlet-eyed determination to ferret out evidence of liberal tilt in the MSM, argues that Jeremiah Wright is getting softer treatment for his "God damn America" pronouncement than Jerry Falwell did for his post-9/11 remarks. At the risk of consigning myself into the netherworld of liberal apologetics, let's just take a look at the textual basis of her comparison. Here's Wright:

“The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people,” he said in a 2003 sermon. “God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.”

But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way — all of them who have tried to secularize America — I point the finger in their face and say “you helped this happen.”

Guilt by association is an integral part of presidential campaigns. Candidates hire staff and hunt for supporters far and wide. They seek to bask in whatever glow those associated with their candidacies can shed. And when a supporter casts a negative light--as will inevitably happen--they can't pretend it's irrelevant to the enterprise. The only question for the candidate is how to unload the burden of guilt in the quickest and least costly way. Remarks can be renounced, staffers can be fired, honorary or voluntary positions can be terminated, relatives can be kept under wraps or otherwise quieted (see Clinton, Bill).

Among those associated with presidential campaigns, religious figures are a distinct type. Over the past generation, GOP candidates have needed to make the clerical rounds, assuring evangelical pastors that they are men of faith and seeking one or another kind of clerical endorsement. So accustomed have Americans become to such maneuverings, that little criticism attaches to a presidential aspirant when a familiar culture warrior like Pat Robertson or James Dobson supplies an anointing. John Hagee's endorsement of John McCain would have gone largely unnoticed had the Catholic League not raised its hue and cry.

On the Democratic side, there has not been the same sort of endorsement fest, even as Democratic candidates have begun to exercise their spiritual muscles on the hustings. Last fall, Gene Robinson, the Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, publicly endorsed Barack Obama, and the Obama campaign in the state initially trumpeted his doing so; but it seemed to dawn on people that Robinson, a figure of international controversy, might not be the most effective poster boy for the Obama campaign, and anyway, that this business of clerical endorsements smacked too much of the hated religious right. The Democratic approach has been to make religious leaders into campaign advisers.

Which brings us to Jeremiah Wright. In the world of political associations, he is, for Barack Obama, something more like a family member than an endorser--and, indeed, Obama has spoken of him in these terms. Wright is the guy who brought Obama to Jesus, his and his family's pastor for two decades. So his removal from the candidate's African American Religious Leadership Committee, while helpful in terms of sending a public signal, hardly disposes of the connection between the two. (Nor did Obama, in denouncing Wright's inflammatory remarks, claim that it did.) The underlying questions have to do with the meaning of the connection: Does Obama, despite all appearances to the contrary, share his pastor's radical views? Or, if he does not share them, is he insufficiently troubled by them?

The answer to the first question seems to be no. The answer to the second depends on what you think a sufficiently troubled reaction should be. In both cases, a judicious determination ought to require a fuller understanding of Wright's ministry than a few quotes and a YouTube clip can supply--as well as an appreciation of Obama's views, as laid out in his autobiographical writings. If any other presidential candidate in American history has put his inner life on public view to the extent Obama has, I'm unaware of it.

Obama's conservative critics will not let the Wright association disappear. For them, the pastor's rhetorical damning of America, like Michelle Obama's remarks about her newfound pride in America, point to an inexcusable absence of patriotism, of that civil religious embrace of the homeland that is essential for all aspirants to the presidency to manifest. It's a cross Obama will continue to bear, gladly or otherwise. But it's worth bearing in mind that the ancient tradition of the Jeremiad is a stock feature of American religious discourse--the criticism of America for not living up to its promise, the allocution that God is withholding His blessings because the country has, in this or that way, failed. Such denunciations issue still from across the American religious spectrum. And Wright's Christian name, of course, is Jeremiah.

Writing on Huffington Post, Barack Obama has denounced the widely viewed comments of his pastor in no uncertain terms. Impressively, he acknowledges the legitimacy of the questions raised by the comments about his relationship with Wright:

Because these particular statements by Rev. Wright are so contrary to my own life and beliefs, a number of people have legitimately raised questions about the nature of my relationship with Rev. Wright and my membership in the church.

The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation. When these statements first came to my attention, it was at the beginning of my presidential campaign. I made it clear at the time that I strongly condemned his comments.

''The violence of 9/11 was inexcusable and without justification,'' he said in a recent interview. He was not at Trinity the day Mr. Wright delivered his remarks shortly after the attacks, Mr. Obama said, but ''it sounds like he was trying to be provocative.''

''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.''

Ambinder has a sensible post on the issue of pastoral endorsements, to the effect that with bedfellows like Hagee and Parsley, John McCain has to be careful about going after Wright; or what's sauce for Obama's goose is sauce for McCain's gander. Brody, meanwhile, quotes some anonymous "key Democratic strategist" (for any particular campaign?) suggesting that l'affaire Wright is going to kill Obama "in the heartland." We'll see. I think it will make the hill Obama has to climb with Jewish voters steeper, but will prove to be not much more than a pothole with the rest of the electorate. Time, uh, will tell.

Before us, now, is a series of possible violations of the law against partisan political activity by non-profit organizations--specifically by religious institutions allegedly supporting Barack Obama's candidacy for president. Besides the official IRS inquiry into Obama's appearance at the United Church of Christ convention last year, there are assertions that a pastor in Las Vegas and Obama's longtime pastor, Jeremiah Wright, endorsed him at least indirectly from the pulpit. (These are reviewed by Mark Stricherz in GetReligion. For the latest on Obama and Wright, see here.) Under the circumstances, it seems like it might be worth a quick review of how IRS enforcement policy has gotten to this point. And to that end, I called up Marc Stern, church-state guru for the American Jewish Congress, for a briefing. Here, briefly, is what Marc had to say:

Democrats will do the faith thing in Denver.

Tony Perkins is echoing sentiments swirling among evangelicals about John McCain. Promoting his new book, Perkins said that McCain must actively reach out into the Christian community to heal wounds caused from incidents like the Gang of 14 and McCain's refusal to back a ban on gay marriage.

Check out Good Morning America's piece on Rev. Jeremiah Wright called "Is Obama's Pastor a Liability?" There is some great footage from the UCC.
UPDATE: Here's another clip via Fox News where Wright points out that HRC has never been called a n****r.

Take a look at the excerpts from Jacob Weisberg's new book on President Bush post in Slate today. Weisberg is not the first to get behind the Billy Graham walk-on-the-beach myth, but his version seems to be the best we have so far. Evangelist Arthur Blessit, not Graham, is the guy who made the difference. Best of all is the account of Bush's relationship with Doug Wead, the sometime Pentecostal minister who did evangelical outreach for his father's campaign in 1988. Wead's a curious, excessively outspoken character. (Years ago, he explained to me how the Bush '88 campaign used religion to do away with the candidacies of Jack Kemp and Pat Robertson.) Weisberg's portrait of Bush's religion is neither credulous nor dismissive, but--to my eye--pretty well balanced.

Turning away from the presidential race for a moment, there was a significant event in Indiana yesterday. The late Congresswoman Julian Carson's grandson, Andre Carson, won a special election 54-43% to serve in Indiana's 7th congressional district. What makes this story more interesting is that Carson will be the second Muslim elected to Congress. Joining the ranks of Keith Ellison (DFL-MN), Carson said "I'm a proud Hoosier. I'm an Indy 500 Hoosier, I'm a Covered Bridge Festival Hoosier, I'm a Black Expo Hoosier, I'm a state fair Hoosier. I just happen to be a Hoosier of the Muslim faith". Carson will finish out the ten months in this session before having to run again in November.

In Mother Jones, David Corn calls attention to another McCain-supporting megachurch pastor whose animadversions against another religion might oughta be problematic for the GOP standard bearer-apparent. This time it's Rod Parsley of Columbus, Ohio, and Islam is the religion he's got a problem with. As in, that Islam is a "false religion" that should be eradicated. Given McCain's preoccupation with the long war against radical Islam, this is an evangelical bedfellow, unlike John Hagee, whose beliefs might plausibly be considered aligned with the Arizona senator's convictions. How long will another semi-renunciation take?

This week the National Religious Broadcasters Convention takes center stage in Nashville, TN. President Bush and James Dobson will headline the event, but perhaps the person who will be talked about the most is John McCain. As Bob Smietana of the Tennessean points out, Dobson and many evangelicals have yet to embrace McCain since he became the presumptive Republican nominee. Robin Smith, head of the Republican party of Tennessee, concedes the point about McCain, but also points out that evangelicals have a choice between "sitting on their hands on the sidelines" or "standing up for Christian principles and being the salt of the earth." Dobson has declined to expand on his previous comments about McCain's alleged lack of conservatism.

The Catholic League is satisfied with John McCain's repudiation of "any comments that are made, including Pastor Hagee’s, if they are anti-Catholic or offensive to Catholics.” As in this from Donohue: “Sen. McCain has done the right thing and we salute him for doing so. As far as the Catholic League is concerned, this case is closed.” No more legs to the story for now.

Last week's Forward made clear that the organized Jewish community was not going to get involved. The question, for the ADL's Abe Foxman, was simply, Is it bad for the Jews?

Hagee’s endorsement “is not a Jewish issue,” Foxman told the Forward. “Are we troubled by Hagee’s support of McCain and McCain’s acceptance? The answer is no, and that’s where it ends for us.”

The difference “between Farrakhan and Hagee is self-evident,” Foxman said. “So to compare the two and to say: ‘Well, if you ask Obama to distance from Farrakhan — well, Farrakhan is a black racist, an antisemite, anti-Israel, consorts with America’s enemies. Hagee is a supporter of Israel, an advocate of Israel, opposed to antisemitism, and there are issues on which members of the Jewish community and some organizations disagree with, and so from time to time they or we have indicated our disagreement, but it’s not of the same nature or category or being.

The conference call didn't leave me with much more to say about the Zogby poll of Ohio evangelicals. While I don't doubt the anecdotal evidence that white evangelicals are more in play this year than they've been in several election cycles, the evidence for party switching, based on these polls, has to be considered inconclusive. At this point, the folks at Faith in Public Life, Sojourners, and the Center for American Progress Action Fund have no plans for another such poll, but according to spokeswoman Katie Barge, hope springs eternal. My suggestion is to go for North Carolina--and ask the Democratic primary voters whether they normally vote Democratic in presidential elections. That would give at least some indication if switching there be.

John McCain will travel to Israel next week in an effort to secure Jewish support in the U.S. and to show off his foreign policy credentials.

In yesterday's Washington Post, E. J. Dionne postulates the end of the era of the Religious Right: R.R. RIP, 1980-2008. I'm inclined to agree, with a bit of caution, inasmuch as liberal journalists have been announcing the Religious Right's demise ever since the early 1980s. Less persuasive is Dionne's grand periodization of the political past into secular and religious eras. He wants to see 1930-1980 as a secular time, preoccupied with issues other than religio-cultural ones. And he suggests that we're entering one of those now.

Such a schema requires scanting some important pieces of history, and how religion played into them. The religious dimension of the early Cold War, with its heavy emphasis on the need to confront Communism spiritually, cannot be underestimated. Nor can the importance of religion in the great moral crusade of that "secular" era--the Civil Rights movement. The JFK moment of cool secularism in governance was short-lived.

As for the present moment, we would do well not to ignore the ongonig impact of political Islam on American consciousness (cf. John McCain). No less important, the religious resources that the Democratic Party seems interested in summoning in this election season may not contribute to culture warring, but they hardly betoken a secular turn. For those interested in a rather more nuanced periodization of religion and national politics over the past half century, I will immodestly call your attention to One Nation, Divisible: How Regional Religious Differences Shape American Politics, by Andrew Walsh and me, due out from Rowman and Littlefield in a few months.

Nicholas Kristof has a worthwhile piece in today’s NYT about the bigotry surrounding Obama. Kristof puts these recent events into a historical context noting that racist smears seem to be one of America's favorite pastimes. On race:

There is a parallel with presidential campaigns in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when one of the most common ways to attack a candidate was to suggest that he was partly black, or at least favored racial intermarriage. For example, the Federalists charged that Thomas Jefferson was “the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.” And the word “miscegenation” was coined in 1863 and 1864 in charges that Abraham Lincoln secretly plotted for blacks to marry whites, especially Irish-Americans. As late as the 1920 presidential campaign, a quarter-million letters were sent to voters accusing Warren Harding of being descended from a “West Indian Negro. ... May God save America from international shame and domestic ruin.”

After my last post on the purported anti-Catholicism of John Hagee, I spoke with Mary Navarro Farr, a San Antonio woman who spent seven years at Hagee's church a quarter-century ago. While she never formally joined the church, she sang in its choir, went on a trip to Israel led by Hagee, and generally functioned as a member. She loved the fellowship the church provided but ultimately its anti-Catholic ideology proved too much for her.

Navarro Farr emphasized that while she was not part of Hagee's "inner circle," she had no doubt that the anti-Catholic ideology came from the top. "You cannot not fault the leadership," she said. The preaching was filled with "hellfire and brimstone," with much talk about the role of "the City of the Seven Hills" in the coming Tribulation. The need to get right with God in order to be among the Saints raptured to heaven was a constant theme. When she would go off to church, her husband would warn her "not to drink the Kool-Aid."

"Someone would say I have a friend who is Catholic and we need to pray for their deliverance from that cult," she said. "I couldn’t pray that prayer." One time, another Hispanic woman who had left Catholicism accosted her for wearing a holy medal with the image of the Virgin Mary. "I said, 'Why you're looking at me like I dropped my clothes.' She said, 'It’s a graven image.' I said, "You’re frightening me into leaving this place.' Not long after that I decided to leave. It was time for me to go." She returned to worship at San Antonio's San Fernando Cathedral, where she remains to this day.

So let us stipulate that John Hagee has, for decades, offered up a strong version of premillenial dispensationalism, in which hostility to Catholicism figures prominently. And that the view that Catholicism is a cult allied with diabolic forces plays out on the ground among the members of his church. Does this mean that a presidential candidate should reject his endorsement?

On Friday, John McCain told the AP:

We've had a dignified campaign, and I repudiate any comments that are made, including Pastor Hagee's, if they are anti-Catholic or offensive to Catholics," McCain said.

"I sent two of my children to Catholic school. I categorically reject and repudiate any statement that was made that was anti-Catholic, both in intent and nature. I categorically reject it, and I repudiate it.

On Friday, prior to the AP story, the Catholic League posted a notice of disapproval, with the redoubtable Bill Donohue quoted as saying:

Fortunately for McCain, he did not shut the door and say this matter is over. But time is running out. We expect to hear a more definitive statement that explicitly rejects Hagee’s anti-Catholicism. If we don’t, criticism from many quarters will only escalate. It is one thing for a candidate to disagree with the Catholic position on certain public policy issues, quite another to break bread with an anti-Catholic bigot.

Jim Wallis and Zogby were at it again last week, coming in behind the exit polls to discern the white evangelical vote in the Democratic primary in Ohio. According to the email teaser, these folks favored Clinton over Obama 57 percent to 35 percent. That's a significant finding, given that white Protestants as a whole split for Clinton 67 percent to 30 percent (white Catholics, 65-34) in the Buckeye State. It's the first statistical evidence I've seen to suggest that evangelicals are disproportionately attracted to Obama.

This is not what Faith in Public Life, the Center for American Progress Action Fund, and Sojourners want to emphasize, however. Their interest is, again, to demonstrate that there are indeed white evangelicals who vote Democratic. So their email's first point is: "Forty-three percent of all white evangelical Ohio primary voters participated in the Democratic primary and 57 percent participated in the Republican primary." That looks pretty impressive, until you realize that twice as many voters participated in Democratic than in the GOP primary. So if the turnout had been the same on both sides, then roughly three-quarters of white evangelicals would have voted on the Republican side--exactly the same proportion as usual.

The interesting question, to me at least, is whether there is any evidence of a shift of evangelicals from GOP to Democratic ranks, and to that end I proposed that Democratic-voting respondents be asked if they normally vote Democratic in national elections. On Monday we'll find out if they took my suggestion. I'm not holding my breath.

With the March 4 primaries out of the way, it's clear that the John McCain/John Hagee endorsement story is not going away any time soon. Egged on by reporters, Nancy Pelosi has joined in the chorus of condemnation. Liberal Catholic groups like Catholics United have added their voices to the call by Bill Donohue of the Catholic League for McCain to denounce and reject Hagee’s embrace (which, to be sure, he solicited).

But I must confess to having acquired, along the way, a touch of queasiness about my own piling on (here and here). Joining any crusade led by Donohue is sufficient to induce such a feeling in me, but even more, I’ve been troubled by the fact that it's the same viral YouTube clip, and the same passage from one of his books, that thus far have constituted the brief against Hagee.

Jim Wallis looks for Mike Huckabee to step up as the leader of a new, more enlightened engaged evangelicalism. As noted in this place earlier, I'm a bit of a skeptic on that proposition. The question to be answered is whether the real Huck is the pre- or the post-New Hampshire Primary Huck. Pre-, as on display in this Reuters article, is what one might call the "broad church" Huck. Post-, it was narrow church all the way. For my money, the issue turns on whether he wants to be a player in the GOP or a player in evangelical public life. Those are, these days, no longer exactly the same thing.

While the eyes of Texas (and the rest of the nation) were upon Clinton and Obama, a Cleburne urologist named Barney Maddox was spending a lot of money on fancy mailings to try to oust incumbent Pat Hardy as the GOP candidate for the District 11 seat on the Texas state school board. Given the absence of a Democratic opponent, that would have effectively gotten him elected.

And my point is? Maddox's educational concerns, as noted by Dallas Morning News columnist Steve Blow, extend to the following bold declaration in one of the mailings:

Barney Maddox believes social studies textbooks should devote more space to American presidents than Marilyn Monroe and that the vicious attack of 9-11 should be portrayed as an aggressive act by terrorists, not an American conspiracy.

More, ah, controversially, Maddox is a fervent anti-evolutionist whose election would give the seven social conservatives currently on the board the eight votes they need to try to incorporate Creationism into the Texas public school curriculum. On Tuesday, the voters in District 11 seem to to have headed that eventuality off at the pass. And the Texas educational establishment exhaled.

Out of yesterday's Democratic primaries, the religion question that has struck--perhaps confounded--me is: Does Obama actually have a Catholic problem? If you simply take Catholics and Protestants, state by state, it would seem that he does. But that's largely because the African-Americans are counted among the Protestants. Take them away, and what we're mostly left with are other things. For example, white Catholics and Protestants in Texas voted for Clilnton at almost the same rate. Where Clinton did particularly well was with Hispanic Catholics. In Ohio, white Catholics were actually slightly more likely to vote for Obama than white Protestants. True, in Vermont, Catholics gave a smaller majority to Obama than Protestants--and there are no African Americans to speak of there. And in Rhode Island, the case was similar, but only to the tune that white Catholics preferred Clinton to Obama by only a few percentage points.

My sense is that what's required is a more complex analysis--one that takes into account the particular culture and ethnicity and socio-economic circumstances of the various non-African American subgroups. Thus:
1. In Ohio, a lot of German Catholics and Appalachian evangelicals
2. In Texas, over three quarters of Catholics are Hispanic
3. In Vermont, French Canadian Catholics
4. In Rhode Island, a dominant, multi-ethnic Catholic and Democratic white working class
Such considerations can be multiplied from state to state, of course. The question is: What part if any does Catholicism, per se, play in any of this?

Hail, Huck, and Farewell. For now.

Here are the exit polls from the Democratic races. More detailed analysis to come.
Rhode Island- Hillary beat Obama with Catholics 60%-40%.
Texas- Again Clinton won Catholics and Hispanics. Obama won Protestant weekly attendees.
Vermont-Obama swept all categories.
Ohio-Hillary won all Christians and levels of attendance.

Right now, Mike Huckabee is dropping out of the race. Huckabee's speech has been consistent with what made him so popular in the first place, his appeal to conservative Christians. Along with analogies to the battle of the Alamo, he peppered his announcement with quotations from the good book. Huckabee talked about his humble roots and how incredible it was that he had the opportunity to run for the highest office invoking a quotation from the prophet Isaiah, "Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug." He also talked about his commitment to principles claiming that he "fought the good fight and kept the faith." Huckabee said that he would have rather lost this presidential race than his principles.

If Chuck's the schmuck from New York, what does that make Rev. Land?

CNS has posted Barack Obama's response to a question at a town hall meeting in Ohio regarding his evangelical support. Most attention has been given to Obama's discussion of homosexuality, in which he bases his support for civil unions on the Sermon on the Mount rather than "an obscure passage in Romans." (See here for a review of the discussion by GetReligion's Mollie.) Obama caught some flak from Marc Ambinder for citing a scriptural basis for his position, but I fail to see how that's out of bounds in a question about his religion.

Two new items give fascinating insight into the depth of support that Barack Obama inspires. Robert Bellah in Commonweal writes of the way Obama has reignited "the theological virtue of hope" in America's possibilities. Frank Rich in the New York Times offers a more secular rendering of how Obama's authentic patriotism drives his popularity. Far beyond "the vision thing," this ability to cross the boundary between spiritual and secular progressives and moderates may be what makes Obama the most promising of the Democratic candidates.

John Hagee has sent the following statement to CBN's David Brody denying that he's anti-Catholic.

I have always had great love for Catholic people and great respect for the Catholic Church. My wife comes from a Catholic family and millions of my viewers are Catholics. I am shocked and saddened to learn of the mischaracterization of my views on Catholics that has spread while I spent the weekend celebrating the 50th anniversary of my entry into the ministry with family and friends.

Throughout my career I have been a strong critic of Christian anti-Semitism. But any fair review of my record will demonstrate that I have consistently criticized all Christians – Protestant and Catholic alike – for the sin of anti-Semitism. In fact I rarely address this topic without castigating the founder of Protestantism, Martin Luther, for the horrendous anti-Semitism he spouted towards the end of his career. It is a bitter irony that in my zeal to hold my fellow Christians accountable for our past anti-Semitism, I now find myself compared to an anti-Semite.

To call me “anti-Catholic” makes about as much sense as calling me “anti-Protestant.” I am, most assuredly, neither.

60 Minutes has an interesting clip of an Obama supporter who is unsure about voting for the Senator due to the persistent rumors about his faith. The supporter from Chillicothe, Ohio heard that Obama doesn’t know the national anthem and was not sworn into the Senate using the Bible. And as the Columbus Dispatch points out that as goes Chillicothe, so goes the nation. To what extent will this influence voting today? Stay tuned for coverage of Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont as it happens.

Tim Rutten wrote in this weekend's LA Times on the nature of Catholic voters. Rutten describes how Catholics are a swing demographic who unlike blacks or evangelicals aren't firmly rooted to one political party. This erratic nature combined with the large number of Catholics in the U.S.( 1 in 4) makes them a targeted voting bloc, says Rutten. He predicts that Catholic's social gospel mentality and interest in more than just "life" issues will send this swing group into the Democrat's embrace come November.

Let us state at the outset that John Hagee’s anti-Catholicism goes well beyond the kind of odium theologicum that derives from tough but honest differences over the right path to salvation. So far as he is concerned, this “false religious system” is responsible for the Holocaust. Setting aside the glee of the liberal blogosphere, it’s hard to see this as less objectionable than, say, Louis Farrakhan’s description of Judaism as a “gutter religion.”

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Today's Hartford Courant features a commentary by the Rev. Davida Foy Crabtree, conference minister of the Connecticut Conference United Church of Christ, defending the UCC against the IRS investigation into whether the church violated rules against political engagement in the matter of Barack Obama's address to its General Synod last June. Two days ago, the paper itself stood up ("IRS Goes Overboard") for the denomination that has more UCC members per square foot in Connecticut than in any other state. A rather more amusing defense than either of the above by radio talk-jock and blogger Colin McEnroe can also be found in today's Courant. Here's a taste:

I attended Obama's speech last summer, and it does not surprise me to learn, now, that the UCC had studiously read up on the IRS rules about this kind of thing and had instructed the 10,000 people in attendance that they were not allowed to bring buttons or signs or banners with such obviously political sentiments as "We Love You, Barack." The only thing allowed was cookies. You're going to think I'm making this up, but Connecticut UCCers home-baked 14,000 cookies for this convention as part of a diabolical Congregationalist plot they called — again I am not kidding — "Extravagant Welcome." (If the cookies didn't work, they had, I was told, a last-ditch apocalyptic backup plan involving soft cushions.)

The UCC was also carefully monitoring Obama's speech and was prepared, according to a UCC official on my show this week, to cut his sound if he got too political or broke any other rules.

Really, sending the IRS after these people is like having the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms kick down the door of a bunch of nerds playing Dungeons and Dragons.

Not all Christian denominations seek to engage the public arena, but for the United Church of Christ, this is part of our DNA, going all the way back to our forebears in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. It has been our teaching since our very beginnings that one cannot divide life into the sacred and the secular; that all of life is seamless.

New York Times religion writer Neela Banerjee reports. Meanwhile, former ambassador Daniel Kurtzer is on the trail for Obama in Columbus Sunday.