September 2009 Archives
In Matthew 10:8, Jesus enjoins his disciples to "heal the sick." Whether or not this can be considered a mandate for health care reform as it is being pursued in the U.S. today, it is telling that, according to Public Religion Research's recent survey of religious activists, 67 percent of progressive religious activists believe that such reform is "most important," while only 10 percent of conservative religious activists do. And 78 percent of the progressives think that the U.S. "should have comprehensive national health insurance event if it resulted in fewer choices for patients," while only six percent of the conservatives do.
For the conservatives, all other issues are overwhelmed by abortion and same-sex marriage, about which Jesus had, well, nothing at all to say. My point, however, is not who's got the Big Mandate, but rather to suggest that trying to sign up religious conservative leaders for health care reform is a fool's errand. They don't care about the issue, and therefore are more than happy to use abortion, which they care deeply about, as a club with which to beat it down.
For the conservatives, all other issues are overwhelmed by abortion and same-sex marriage, about which Jesus had, well, nothing at all to say. My point, however, is not who's got the Big Mandate, but rather to suggest that trying to sign up religious conservative leaders for health care reform is a fool's errand. They don't care about the issue, and therefore are more than happy to use abortion, which they care deeply about, as a club with which to beat it down.
For the serious-minded among you, I recommend curling up with Leonard Levy's 688-page Blasphemy: Verbal Offense Against the Sacred from Moses to Salman Rushdie. But first, to review the current bidding, take a look at David Gibson's piece over on Politics Daily. It seems that the occasion has sparked some internecine warfare between the atheist old guard in the person of Paul Kurtz, and the Young Turks of the Center for Inquiry who want to throw godless pies in the faces of the pious.
As my colleagues Barry Kosmin et al. recently made clear in their recent report, non-religious Americans (Nones) these days tend to fall into the Deistic, skeptical-but-not-actively-anti-religious category that can trace its lineage to the Founders. But the pie-in-the-face school has also been around for a long time. To sample its wares, you might take a look at the infamous anonymous treatise known as The Three Impostors (Les Trois Imposteurs, De Tribus Impostoribus). It was sometime near the end of the 17th century, and is extant in various forms, one of which can be found here.
The three impostors are, of course, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad--"Legislators whose Religions have subjugated a great part of the universe...guides whom ambition alone has raised up, & whose dreamings are eternalized by ignorance." In the words of Ecclesiastes, "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."
As my colleagues Barry Kosmin et al. recently made clear in their recent report, non-religious Americans (Nones) these days tend to fall into the Deistic, skeptical-but-not-actively-anti-religious category that can trace its lineage to the Founders. But the pie-in-the-face school has also been around for a long time. To sample its wares, you might take a look at the infamous anonymous treatise known as The Three Impostors (Les Trois Imposteurs, De Tribus Impostoribus). It was sometime near the end of the 17th century, and is extant in various forms, one of which can be found here.
The three impostors are, of course, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad--"Legislators whose Religions have subjugated a great part of the universe...guides whom ambition alone has raised up, & whose dreamings are eternalized by ignorance." In the words of Ecclesiastes, "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."
OK, I'll bite. A lot of nice Catholic guys (Reese, Gibson, Martin...see the Paulson roundup) are in a lather about criticism of the arrest of Roman Polanski in the child rape case that he skipped out of decades ago. What, they ask, if Polanski had been wearing a (Roman) collar? No such slack would have been cut for him, they say. The moral according to Reese:
The world has truly changed. Entertainment is the new religion with sex, violence and money the new Trinity. The directors and stars are worshiped and quickly forgiven for any infraction as long as the PR agent is a skilled as a saintly confessor. Entertainment, not religion, is the new opiate of the people and we don't want our supply disturbed.
Is there a double standard here? You bet.
Well, forgiven by whom? Without defending Polanski in any way, I'd just point out that there's been no evidence of popular opposition to his arrest--just as Michael Jackson's career suffered badly for the accusations against him; O.J. Simpson's, for what people believed he did, and so on. The fact that some French politicians, some folks in the movie industry, and a couple of American journalists have spoken up for Polanski is hardly a basis for assailing civilization as we know it.
One more thing. It is right and proper to hold clergy to a higher standard--they're in the ethnics and morality business. Sure, a Fr. Polanski would have been cut less slack by those who are cutting him slack now. And he would have deserved to be.
...now covered in plywood, goes before the Supreme Court next week, and according to WaPo: "If the court reaches the constitutional issues at hand, all sides agree
it could provide clarity to the court's blurry rules on
church-and-state separation." It could also not provide clarity--and that's what I'm betting on.
For sure, the court will in due course find that the cross either does or doesn't violate the First Amendment's ban on laws "respecting an establishment of religion." And it has opened the door to doing the latter by ruling in its last Ten Commandments case (2005) case that the, ah, original intention of the erectors of a religious display means the difference between constitutionality and unconstitutionality. It seems that the Mojave cross was not erected for religious purposes, but simply as a World War I memorial.
Over the years, the Mohave Cross has become a place where people gather for Easter sunrise services, so clearly religious significance has accrued to it. Anyone passing by the Mojave Easter ceremonies could be forgiven for imagining that this amounted to a government establishment of religion. On the other hand, I suppose if a bunch of Bavarian Illuminati decided to gather 'round the Washington Memorial regularly to celebrate the God of Reason, someone might make a case that the memorial had become a religious symbol and ought to be dismantled for the sake of non-Illuminati sensibilities.
It does seem likely that the court, with Sandra Day O'Connor replaced by Samuel Alito, will decline to order the cross removed. Whether its rationale will sort out our Establishment Clause jurisprudence is another question altogether..
For sure, the court will in due course find that the cross either does or doesn't violate the First Amendment's ban on laws "respecting an establishment of religion." And it has opened the door to doing the latter by ruling in its last Ten Commandments case (2005) case that the, ah, original intention of the erectors of a religious display means the difference between constitutionality and unconstitutionality. It seems that the Mojave cross was not erected for religious purposes, but simply as a World War I memorial.
Over the years, the Mohave Cross has become a place where people gather for Easter sunrise services, so clearly religious significance has accrued to it. Anyone passing by the Mojave Easter ceremonies could be forgiven for imagining that this amounted to a government establishment of religion. On the other hand, I suppose if a bunch of Bavarian Illuminati decided to gather 'round the Washington Memorial regularly to celebrate the God of Reason, someone might make a case that the memorial had become a religious symbol and ought to be dismantled for the sake of non-Illuminati sensibilities.
It does seem likely that the court, with Sandra Day O'Connor replaced by Samuel Alito, will decline to order the cross removed. Whether its rationale will sort out our Establishment Clause jurisprudence is another question altogether..
May those who are fasting have an easy time of it.
Lest you think religion and politics in Massachusetts aren't connected.
It's significant that anti-abortion African-American religious leaders are now supporting the Democratic health care reform legislation, taking the president at his word that it is abortion-neutral. This helps separate the pro-life sheep (those just worried about abortion) from the pro-life goats (for whom abortion concerns mask thoroughgoing opposition).
For what it's worth, here's my guess: The fabulous Anglo-Saxon hoard discovered by that unemployed metal detectorist in Staffordshire was booty taken by King Penda of Mercia in his victory over the saintly King Oswald of Northumbria at the battle of Maserfield in 641 or 642. The hoard includes some Judeo-Christian bric-a-brac, as reported by John Burns in today's New York Times:The three Christian crosses in the find had been bent into folds, as had a strip of gold with a biblical inscription in Latin of a kind likely to have been favored by an ancient warrior: "Rise up, O Lord, and may thy enemies be dispersed and those who hate thee be driven from thy face."The inscription is taken from the Vulgate, either Psalm 67 or Numbers 10:35. (How'd that work out for you, Oswald?)
Penda was a pagan who could have cared less about the spiritual value of that stuff--folding it up for its metallic value. He'd just kicked some serious Christian butt, dismembering his adversary in the process. One tough dude.
PZ Myers, biology prof and proud atheist, takes umbrage at what he see as a dishonest effort to reassure the public that all those Nones are not really Big Bad Unbelievers but mostly just skeptics about organized religion. No doubt, there are some who push in this direction--notably those (like Pew) who insist on referring to Nones as "unaffiliated," as if they just happen not to be on anyone's membership rolls at the moment. But Myers (& co.) need to understand that, just because they would like to believe that all the Nones are folks like them, it ain't necessarily so.Myers writes:
The results of yet another poll are out, showing that the godless are rising and promise to rise for years to come. In 1990, we made up 8% of the population; now in 2009, we're 15%. They're extrapolating forward and estimating that we will make up 25% of the country in 20 years.In fact, the number of Nones is generated by asking respondents "What is your religion, if any?" The Nones are those who say they have no religion, which is not the same as saying they don't believe in God. You'd think a scientist would take the trouble to understand the data.
In actual fact, as was made clear in the first Trinity ARIS report (which made such a splash last Spring), there are a lot more Americans who don't believe in a god or higher power or say they don't know if such exists than who identify themselves as atheists or agnostics--12 percent versus less than 2 percent. The latest report shows that among just the Nones, it's 7 percent versus 5 percent for atheists; 25 percent versus 6 percent for the agnostics (don't knows or unsures). Meanwhile, 27 percent of Nones say they believe in a personal God and 24 percent in a higher power.
So there's no question that a lot of unbelievers decline to give themselves the conventional labels for such. As the first ARIS report noted:
The historic reluctance of Americans to self-identify in this manner or use these terms seems to have diminished. Nevertheless as Table 4 shows the level of under-reporting of these theological labels is still significant.But it's simply atheistic fundamentalism to regard it as some kind of theistic conspiracy to point out that most Nones hold themselves out as believers. And why, in a country where it has become commonplace to say, "I'm spiritual but not religious," should this come as a surprise?
Oy veh! I've caught some flak from the gentlefolk at Religion Dispatches for describing that worthy electronic rag as a place for "professorial thumbsucking." Louis Ruprecht thinks I'm giving them the finger. Actually, professors, a "thumbsucker" is simply the term journalists use for a "think piece." Professorial think pieces are RD's stock in trade. Heck, professorial think pieces--short ones--are Spiritual Politics' stock in trade too. Chill, guys.
Robert Kolker's New York profile of Timothy Dolan is what you'd expect from a professional magazine writer doing his thing for the Church's newly arrived Happy Warrior: competent, enthusiastic without ignoring all criticism, and lacking any awareness of what's going on in the hierarchy today.
There's a lot of attention to abortion and same-sex marriage, but not a whisper about Obama at Notre Dame or the Kennedy obsequies, or the question of Communion for pro-choice Catholic politicians. Sure, Dolan will do his magisterium in the friendliest way possible. But if he's going to be one of the Church's big ad extra players, where's he going to stand on the issues that are currently roiling the bishops?
There's a lot of attention to abortion and same-sex marriage, but not a whisper about Obama at Notre Dame or the Kennedy obsequies, or the question of Communion for pro-choice Catholic politicians. Sure, Dolan will do his magisterium in the friendliest way possible. But if he's going to be one of the Church's big ad extra players, where's he going to stand on the issues that are currently roiling the bishops?
One of the more interesting findings of the new Trinity ARIS study of the Nones is that those who grew up with no religion (i.e. were Nones at the age of 12) are just as likely to switch to a religion in later life as those with a religion are to switch to something else. Or to put it another way, the Nones have the same retention rate--41 percent--as, on average, all other American religious groups.
So even as the proportion of those who say they have no religion has doubled over the past two decades, Nones constitute a normal American "denomination"--filled with people coming in and coming out.
So even as the proportion of those who say they have no religion has doubled over the past two decades, Nones constitute a normal American "denomination"--filled with people coming in and coming out.
A major changing of the guard at the Southern Baptist Convention is on the way with the retirementof two longtime officials--Executive Committee president Morris Chapman and foreign missions head Jerry Rankin. But they'll have to pry the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission out of Richard Land's cold dead hands.
Wow. That Archbishop Burke should rally the troops against Cardinal O'Malley's presiding at Sen. Kennedy's funeral is, as David Gibson writes, "remarkable." The occasion--an annual gala for Catholic conservatives--was not exactly public, but the semi-official report on it from Deal Hudson--no Randall Terry he--would not have been made without Burke's assent.
What we're seeing looks like nothing less than a slow march to civil war among the Catholic hierarchs--extending all the way to the Vatican. Where Pope Benedict stands is a good question, but it's fair to wonder whether what's going on is a weakish octogenarian pontiff, not long in office, losing his grip.
What we're seeing looks like nothing less than a slow march to civil war among the Catholic hierarchs--extending all the way to the Vatican. Where Pope Benedict stands is a good question, but it's fair to wonder whether what's going on is a weakish octogenarian pontiff, not long in office, losing his grip.
On père:
So while others were marching to barricades, picking out bits of the truth that confirmed their own prejudices, editing contrary evidence and working themselves up a righteous lather, Kristol would adopt an attitude of smiling forbearance. He was able to pick a side without losing his clarity.Update: But see Sullivan's brief evisceration of both. Um, make that all three.
Currently about as many miscarriages take place in the U.S. as abortions--900,000 of the former and 800,000 of the latter, or 20-25 percent of all pregnancies in each case. Those who believe that there is a live person from the moment of conception presumably struggle from time to time with the theodicy question: Why does a just God permit such destruction of innocent life? Theology aside, the commonness of miscarriage is most likely the single best explanation for the readiness of most people to think of abortion as less than murder.
The latest report is out from the 2008 Trinity American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS)--a profile of the country's no-religion population. For political junkies, the big news is that whereas in 1990, Democratic Nones outnumbered Republican Nones by just 4-to-3, they now outnumber them nearly 3-1. That's because virtually all the new Nones--those born after 1973, have become either Democrats or Independents. In broad terms, while the Nones have increasingly come to resemble the rest of the American population in other respects (age, education, income, race, ethnicity, etc.), they've become more differentiated politically. I.e. Those who have come of age after the Republican party established its congressional majority in 1994 have stayed away from the GOP in droves. There's lots of other fascinating data in the report as well. Check it out.
So Mike Huckabee won the Values Voters Summit 2012 straw poll with 28 percent of the vote, while second place was shared by Palin, Pawlenty, Pence, and Romney, each of whom picked up about 12 percent. Does that mean anything? Neither WaPo's Chris Cillizza nor Time's Amy Sullivan thinks so, and it's hard to disagree. A lot of the folks at the summit didn't bother to vote--2012 is a long way away. Moreover, Values Voters straw polls cannot be taken at face value.
Two years ago, the last time the Summit held one, Huck was nosed out by Romney when a bunch of votes came in electronically. (This time, you actually had to be there in person to cast your ballot.) But a month prior to the 2007 Summit poll, there was a Values Voter Debate where Huckabee cleaned up with 64 percent of the vote and Romney got zero; however, Huckabee actually participated and Romney didn't.
More telling than the numbers this time was the performance itself. Two years ago, Huck was a fresh face in a slimmed down body, energetic in his delivery, connecting briskly with his audience. His made an effort to focus attention on the Values themselves--almost in (dare I say it) a post-partisan way; to wit: "I do not spell "G-O-D" "G-O-P."
Last week, he seemed to be going through the motions, delivering standard G-O-P talking points without much attention to who was in the audience. He's put some weight back on, which made him a less than persuasive spokesman for the Huckabee approach to health care reform--getting Americans to exercise more. Right, Mike. He was introduced to the audience as a "statesman and big-time TV celebrity." He did not look like someone itching to get back on the campaign trail.
Two years ago, the last time the Summit held one, Huck was nosed out by Romney when a bunch of votes came in electronically. (This time, you actually had to be there in person to cast your ballot.) But a month prior to the 2007 Summit poll, there was a Values Voter Debate where Huckabee cleaned up with 64 percent of the vote and Romney got zero; however, Huckabee actually participated and Romney didn't.
More telling than the numbers this time was the performance itself. Two years ago, Huck was a fresh face in a slimmed down body, energetic in his delivery, connecting briskly with his audience. His made an effort to focus attention on the Values themselves--almost in (dare I say it) a post-partisan way; to wit: "I do not spell "G-O-D" "G-O-P."
Last week, he seemed to be going through the motions, delivering standard G-O-P talking points without much attention to who was in the audience. He's put some weight back on, which made him a less than persuasive spokesman for the Huckabee approach to health care reform--getting Americans to exercise more. Right, Mike. He was introduced to the audience as a "statesman and big-time TV celebrity." He did not look like someone itching to get back on the campaign trail.
Yesterday, 57 religious and civil liberties groups delivered themselves of a letter to Attorney General Holder asking that the Justice Department dump the 2007 memo from the Bush justice department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) that justifies religious discrimination in hiring, based on the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Many of the signatories were part of the huge coalition that got RFRA passed. They claim that the act was not meant to trump civil rights laws such as those prohibiting religious discrimination in hiring. The Bush position was that yes, RFRA does protect such discrimination--and therefore faith-based organizations are permitted to hire their own kind with government grants. Conspicuous by its absence among the signatories (well, conspicuous to those of us who care about such things) is the American Jewish Congress, whose legal eagle, Marc Stern, has long been a major player in national church-state legal affairs. Today, Stern wrote his own letter (see after jump), also asking AG Holder to withdraw the memo but scaling back the absolutist claims of the collective effort. RFRA, according to him, does indeed apply to civil rights laws--but requires that there be a compelling state interest in trumping them. The Bush memo did no such "compelling interest" analysis.
Why should any of this this matter to those not interested in the niceties of anti-discrimination and religious liberty law?
First, the collective letter is evidence that the community of established religious lobbyists--as opposed to the newcomers who have been getting most of the ink lately--has become exasperated with the Obama administration's foot-dragging on the hiring issue. The fact that it's more or less a no-win situation for the administration doesn't matter. It's Bush rules unless OLC decides otherwise--and thus far it hasn't.
Second, Stern's dissent, far from being merely technical, signals the difference between a hard-line separationist position and the possibility of compromise. What the collective letter declines to recognize is that there are times when religious liberty interests may trump civil rights law. To take a couple of simple examples, most of us would agree that a local Catholic Charities organization should be able to have a policy of hiring a Catholic as its executive director. Does that mean that no government funds can be permitted to defray the executive director's salary? I hope not. On the other hand, should the same organization be permitted to discriminate religiously in hiring a janitor? Again, I hope not.
On the faith-based hiring issue, both sides are dug in very deep, even though in private they will acknowledge that law and practice are more complicated than their slogans indicate. As I suggested the other day, this would be a good issue for the commongroundniks to show their stuff. But maybe it's no-win for them too.
Continue reading On the faith-based hiring warpath.
I've just got around to reading James Traub's approving piece on the liberal Jewish lobby J Street in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine, and am struck by the contrast with the Christian lobbies that have come to the fore in the Obama era. The latter--Catholics in Alliance, Sojourners, etc.--represent an effort to reassure conservative religious folks that Democrats feel their faith, and policy concerns. J-Street doesn't have to reach out to the Jewish rank and file, which voted overwhelming for Obama. It's to provide an alternative to the Likudnik line of the mainstream Jewish communal organizations.
The challenge is to avoid missteps--such as occurred last summer, when it treated Hamas' rocket attacks on Israel as morally equivalent to Israel's retaliatory attack on Gaza. Not to argue the point here, if you hold yourself out to be a pro-Israel organization that represents pro-Israel people, you've got to be very careful on the moral equivalence front. The current battle the battle on that front concerns the Goldstone human rights report on the Gaza incursion--criticized by the U.S. but insufficiently so for the likes of Abe Foxman of the ADL. As flawed as the parameters of the report were, it did uncover bona fide evidence of bad behavior by Israeli forces. Will J Street have anything to say about that?
The challenge is to avoid missteps--such as occurred last summer, when it treated Hamas' rocket attacks on Israel as morally equivalent to Israel's retaliatory attack on Gaza. Not to argue the point here, if you hold yourself out to be a pro-Israel organization that represents pro-Israel people, you've got to be very careful on the moral equivalence front. The current battle the battle on that front concerns the Goldstone human rights report on the Gaza incursion--criticized by the U.S. but insufficiently so for the likes of Abe Foxman of the ADL. As flawed as the parameters of the report were, it did uncover bona fide evidence of bad behavior by Israeli forces. Will J Street have anything to say about that?
Steve Waldman, who's been bird-dogging the abortion provisions of the various health care reform bills to a fare-thee-well, offers five reasons for why the bishops' support is important. I'd offer a sixth: It knocks the pins out from under the anti-reformists on the Catholic right.
"No thanks, we'll pass on that 'health care is a right' dish, especially if it's Obamacare and we can pretend that what's at stake is federally funded abortions." The pseudo-puzzlement expressed by the likes of Deal Hudson and Russell Shaw is risible as they disdain that particular teaching of the (dare I say it) magisterium, expressed not only by the USCCB but also by the present pope. If the Catholic right were truly motivated by pro-life concerns alone, there would be some indication of being torn between two imperatives; as in: "We applaud the Democratic effort to provide all Americans with access to health care, which is (as the Church teaches) a human right. And yet we are thus far too troubled by the danger of government funding of abortion to support the existing bills." But there's been, so far as I've seen, nothing of the sort.
In David Gibson's roundup, those Catholic moderates (bishops, theologians) pushing back have been reticent about calling out those on the right (bishops, intellectuals) for failing to hew to Catholic principles. Once upon a time, the late Richard John Neuhaus made "fidelity" the touchstone of orthodoxy, but for his living paleo- and neo-con pals, that seems to be only a one-way street for the left to travel. When, on issues like the war in Iraq, the economy, or the death penalty, Church doctrine is ideologically distasteful, then those on the right do not hesitate to follow their own consciences. Call it the Protestant Principle.
In David Gibson's roundup, those Catholic moderates (bishops, theologians) pushing back have been reticent about calling out those on the right (bishops, intellectuals) for failing to hew to Catholic principles. Once upon a time, the late Richard John Neuhaus made "fidelity" the touchstone of orthodoxy, but for his living paleo- and neo-con pals, that seems to be only a one-way street for the left to travel. When, on issues like the war in Iraq, the economy, or the death penalty, Church doctrine is ideologically distasteful, then those on the right do not hesitate to follow their own consciences. Call it the Protestant Principle.
In re: Gilgoff v. Schultz, the new study of conservative and liberal religious activists by Robbie Jones and John Green has this to say:
Abortion. Conservative religious activists are nearly universally opposed to legalizedThis tends to weaken the premise of Gilgoff's orginal post. The centrists he identifies as religious progressives are clearly a minority of the breed--or, in some cases, just pursuing a common ground agenda in order to bring actual pro-life moderates on board.
abortion: 95% say either that abortion should be illegal in all cases (60%) or most cases
(35%). In sharp contrast, 80% of progressive religious activists say abortion should be
legal in all (26%) or most (54%) cases.
Yesterday's WaPo article by Carrie Johnson on the Obama administration's approach to the contentious hiring issue for faith-based organizations (FBOs) receiving public funds tells you what you need to know--up to a point. To wit: It's a really complicated issue, there are partisans on both sides, and the Justice Department has placed it firmly on the back burner.
That said, there are a couple of things that require looking into. First, since the administration has said that the questions will be dealt with on a case-by-case (and now, it seems, program-by-program) basis, has anyone out there actually raised a question and received an answer to whether a particular FBO operating a particular program with public funds is free to hire only its own co-religionists?
Second, what about finding someone who supports a compromise solution? Between strict separationist Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va) and World Vision's "it's our right to hire our folks" Steven McFarland and Richard Stearns, you'd think there was no middle ground. There is. Come to think of it, maybe this is an issue for the commongroundniks to explore.
That said, there are a couple of things that require looking into. First, since the administration has said that the questions will be dealt with on a case-by-case (and now, it seems, program-by-program) basis, has anyone out there actually raised a question and received an answer to whether a particular FBO operating a particular program with public funds is free to hire only its own co-religionists?
Second, what about finding someone who supports a compromise solution? Between strict separationist Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va) and World Vision's "it's our right to hire our folks" Steven McFarland and Richard Stearns, you'd think there was no middle ground. There is. Come to think of it, maybe this is an issue for the commongroundniks to explore.
Between the Dans, Schultz and Gilgoff. The question is whether Gilgoff, in this post, disrespected religious progressives by pumping up concerns expressed by some commongroundnik types about the possibility that the House health reform bill will lead to more abortions. I'd score it 3-2 for Schultz. Yes, Gilgoff tips his hat to pro-abortion rights religious progressives, but way down in the post. The burden of the story is that religious progressives have abortion concerns.
Gilgoff defends himself by arguing that the pro-abortion rights progressives haven't really made themselves worth the ink because they're not players in the discussion. But the real problem is that the folks he describes as "left" are better thought of as Democratic centrists who have dedicated themselves to bridging the gap between pro-lifers and the main Democratic constituencies. That ought to have been made clear.
Update: Schultz rejoinds.
Gilgoff defends himself by arguing that the pro-abortion rights progressives haven't really made themselves worth the ink because they're not players in the discussion. But the real problem is that the folks he describes as "left" are better thought of as Democratic centrists who have dedicated themselves to bridging the gap between pro-lifers and the main Democratic constituencies. That ought to have been made clear.
Update: Schultz rejoinds.
Well, that's not in the plain text of yesterday's open letter on health care reform from an array of prominent progressive Catholic theologians and scholars, but you figure it's the latent message they wanted to send. What they actually express is concern at a group of bishops (Naumann, Finn, Nikless, Aquila) who have departed from longstanding Catholic teaching that health care is a basic human right that governments must ensure.
Here, for example, is what Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, had to say on the subject today:
Will such consideration lead some bishops to speak out on behalf of their long-held position? Or will the majority's preference for keeping their heads down and not contradicting each other publicly prevail?
Here, for example, is what Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, had to say on the subject today:
The theologians note that Bishop William Murphy, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Domestic Justice and Human Development Committee, wrote as much in his July 17 letter to members of Congress. They lament that the position articulated by Naumann et al. "only compromises the Church's integrity in the public square, and urge our bishops to consider how their words may be perceived by the media and wider public."The health of their own citizens belongs to the authorities, to the central government. And so I have been 16 years in the States and I was wondering why a big portion of the American people is deprived, have no health assistance at all. I could never explain this...
And you know that everywhere in the world it is a concern of the government first of all, and after there are possibilities also on the private sector, but those who are without anything... the central government must provide to that. So I cannot but applaud this initiative.
Will such consideration lead some bishops to speak out on behalf of their long-held position? Or will the majority's preference for keeping their heads down and not contradicting each other publicly prevail?
Bringing the hammer down on Norman Podhoretz's new book, "Why Are Jews Liberals? ("a potted history followed by a re-potted memoir") in yesterday's New York Times Book Review, Leon Wieseltier ventures his own answer to the question. Podhoretz's answer boils down to an old story: Just as the leftists of the past made Communism their God, so the liberals of today do the same with Liberalism. And as the former God failed, so should the latter have long since, in Podhoretz's view. So why hasn't it?
For Wieseltier, the point is that Judaism is not about left or right: Liberals as well as conservatives can seize on this or that part of the tradition to justify their politics--contra Podhoretz, liberalism does not make for bad Jews. But there's more to it than that. The politics of left and right have shifted markedly since the days of Jimmy Carter (for whom Jews had relatively little use). Nothing has done more to keep Jews within the liberal fold than the Republican alliance with conservative evangelicals and their distinctive concerns. Enthusiastic about Israel the latter may be, but their rejection of strong church-state separation, their injection of their religious beliefs into domestic politics and policy debates, and their alien cultural style have all been profoundly disturbing to American Jews. Over the centuries, Jews have learned to run the other way when Christians are on the march, and these Christians have been on the march.
My counter-factual hypothesis is that absent a religious right, Jewish liberalism would be, if not a shadow of its former self, a good deal less pronounced than it is today. The God who failed to bring American Jewry to Podhoretzian enlightenment was, I'm afraid, the evangelical Christian God.
For Wieseltier, the point is that Judaism is not about left or right: Liberals as well as conservatives can seize on this or that part of the tradition to justify their politics--contra Podhoretz, liberalism does not make for bad Jews. But there's more to it than that. The politics of left and right have shifted markedly since the days of Jimmy Carter (for whom Jews had relatively little use). Nothing has done more to keep Jews within the liberal fold than the Republican alliance with conservative evangelicals and their distinctive concerns. Enthusiastic about Israel the latter may be, but their rejection of strong church-state separation, their injection of their religious beliefs into domestic politics and policy debates, and their alien cultural style have all been profoundly disturbing to American Jews. Over the centuries, Jews have learned to run the other way when Christians are on the march, and these Christians have been on the march.
My counter-factual hypothesis is that absent a religious right, Jewish liberalism would be, if not a shadow of its former self, a good deal less pronounced than it is today. The God who failed to bring American Jewry to Podhoretzian enlightenment was, I'm afraid, the evangelical Christian God.
Just back from several days at Notre Dame pondering the future of American Catholicism, I can testify that the university seems none the worse for President Obama's visit--its grounds luscious, buildings going up on all sides, and grotto full of lit candles. OK, they lost to Michigan, but that was in Ann Arbor. Beware ye East Lansingites, coming to town next week. The dioceses may be strapped, the bishops divided, and the laity picking and choosing--but in South Bend, the faith marches on.
Blogging from the Religion Newswriters Association meeting in Minneapolis, USA Today's Cathy Grossman reports some unhappiness on the part of members of the 25-member advisory board of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships (OFANP). They seem to feel a bit like window dressing, in the sense that they are not being given the chance to deal with the big policy issues, like immigration and housing and health care. In the case of the big faith-based policy issue--the question of what the hiring rules should be for faith-based recipients of public monies--the White House booted resolution over to the Justice Department, which has so far not delivered itself of anything that's seen the light of day.
In fact, it's a tribute to the political adroitness of the White House that it's managed to focus virtually all the modest amount attention paid to the Faith-Based 2.0 (the Obama version) on the advisory board, and not on what the administration might or might not actually be doing to continue to curtail the extensive Bush administration efforts to pump up faith-based social service activity. Advisers are, well, just advisers. Is anything going on in the agencies themselves? Thus far, the reporting has been non-existent.
In fact, it's a tribute to the political adroitness of the White House that it's managed to focus virtually all the modest amount attention paid to the Faith-Based 2.0 (the Obama version) on the advisory board, and not on what the administration might or might not actually be doing to continue to curtail the extensive Bush administration efforts to pump up faith-based social service activity. Advisers are, well, just advisers. Is anything going on in the agencies themselves? Thus far, the reporting has been non-existent.
No, that's not the headline on yesterday's report from the Pew's 2009 Annual Religion and Public Life Survey. The actual headline seemed to suggest the opposite: "Muslims Widely Seen as Facing Discrimination." The findings are that 58 percent of Americans think there is "a lot of discrimination against Muslims." The next highest religious group is Jews, with 35 percent of Americans thinking there is a lot of discrimination against them. Let me say for the record that it's nonsense that there's a lot of discrimination against Jews in America. Ask the ADL if you don't believe me. Those 35 percent of Americans cannot be considered as providing an accurate read on anti-Semitism in America. What they're saying is that they really disapprove of prejudice against Jews, and have heard a good deal about it.
I think that's true about the anti-Muslim number as well. Why? The best indication is that those groups that think there is the most prejudice, such as liberal Democrats and African-Americans, are also the groups that are least likely to see Islam as more likely than other faiths to encourage violence. They are, in other words, the groups most likely to be concerned about anti-Muslim prejudice. As to "less hostility" as a plausible headline, it turns out that, across the board, the proportion of Americans who say Islam is more likely to encourage violence has declined over the past two years. That finding, which has bounced around since 9/11, may or may not be very significant--but it's a better indication of actual American attitudes towards Muslims than what Americans think they are. What Pew's approach does, however, is reinforce the message that anti-Muslim prejudice is a bad thing.
Meanwhile, there's a bit of bad news for Mormons in the findings. More non-Jews think Judaism is very or somewhat similar to their religion (35 percent) than non-Mormons think Mormonism is very or somewhat similar to their religion (21 percent). That is to say, the insistence of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that it is Christian doesn't seem to be getting through very well to other American Christians.
I think that's true about the anti-Muslim number as well. Why? The best indication is that those groups that think there is the most prejudice, such as liberal Democrats and African-Americans, are also the groups that are least likely to see Islam as more likely than other faiths to encourage violence. They are, in other words, the groups most likely to be concerned about anti-Muslim prejudice. As to "less hostility" as a plausible headline, it turns out that, across the board, the proportion of Americans who say Islam is more likely to encourage violence has declined over the past two years. That finding, which has bounced around since 9/11, may or may not be very significant--but it's a better indication of actual American attitudes towards Muslims than what Americans think they are. What Pew's approach does, however, is reinforce the message that anti-Muslim prejudice is a bad thing.
Meanwhile, there's a bit of bad news for Mormons in the findings. More non-Jews think Judaism is very or somewhat similar to their religion (35 percent) than non-Mormons think Mormonism is very or somewhat similar to their religion (21 percent). That is to say, the insistence of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that it is Christian doesn't seem to be getting through very well to other American Christians.
...that religious right leaders made regular visits to the Bush White House? Their care and feeding has been important to Republican presidents since Reagan, and helps explain their domestication within the GOP.
Over on Religion Dispatches, Emory prof. Gordon Newby has a piece decrying the "silence of religious voices" on behalf of health care reform. That's evidence that Newby hasn't been listening very hard. Quite a few religious voices have been raised for those with ears to hear--or more accurately, with eyes to scan. Coalitions have formed, conference calls held, lobbying has been done, statements issued. Has all this come through the clutter of town hall meeting protests and pro-life opposition? Not so much. But the bigger problem is that progressive religious folks don't have the institutional throw weight these days to make themselves a force in the land. We're a long way from the days of the civil rights movement.
Tom Reese, S.J. quotes chapter and verse to show that, yes Virginia, the Catholic bishops really do support health care reform, a few episcopal recusants notwithstanding. But one bit of rhetoric finesse has to do with the issue of federal funding of abortions. Here's Tom's last graph:
What remains is for the bishops and other pro-life supporters of health care reform to make clear where they stand on federal subsidies to help those of modest means pay for health insurance (whether private or public). Most private insurance policies include abortion coverage--going beyond the Hyde cases involving rape, incest, and life endangerment. Effectively, what the government would be providing is a voucher to help individuals pay for their coverage. Would such an approach meet the bishops' criterion of an abortion-neutral retention of the status quo?
Possibly, if as an accounting matter, the federal subsidy was prohibited from applying to the abortion portion of the policy. Can the bishops live with that?
The bishops do not want an abortion fight in the health care debate. They have said that they will be satisfied with the status quo, which is that no federal dollars can go to paying for an abortion. What they do want is health care for all.Not exactly. Medicaid's federal dollars do pay for a few thousand abortions per year, in cases of rape, incest, and life endangerment. And, judging from the letter sent to members of Congress by Bishop William F. Murphy, chairman of the bishops' Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, the bishops can live with this arrangement--which follows the latest version of the so-called Hyde Amendment:
Programs, such as Medicaid, that provide funding for the rare "Hyde exception" abortions, also provide for participation in the program by health care providers who decline to provide any abortions at all. (For a compilation of such federal laws, see www.usccb.org/prolife/issues/abortion/crmay08.pdf.) Health care reform cannot be a vehicle for abandoning this consensus which respects freedom of conscience and honors our best American traditions. Any legislation should reflect longstanding and widely supported current policies on abortion funding, mandates and conscience protections because they represent sound morality, wise policy and political reality. Making the legislation "abortion- neutral" in this sense will be essential for widely accepted reform.It is to be presumed that the bishops' readiness to support Medicaid in its present form will extend to the expansion of Medicaid proposed in the reform bills. That, in other words, would retain the status quo and therefore be "abortion-neutral."
What remains is for the bishops and other pro-life supporters of health care reform to make clear where they stand on federal subsidies to help those of modest means pay for health insurance (whether private or public). Most private insurance policies include abortion coverage--going beyond the Hyde cases involving rape, incest, and life endangerment. Effectively, what the government would be providing is a voucher to help individuals pay for their coverage. Would such an approach meet the bishops' criterion of an abortion-neutral retention of the status quo?
Possibly, if as an accounting matter, the federal subsidy was prohibited from applying to the abortion portion of the policy. Can the bishops live with that?
OMG Obama is going to mention Harry Potter and invoke God's blessing on our children!!!
It's a sci-fi thriller, a shoot-'em-up, a buddy film, and--in our mixed-race age--a parable of the limits and possibilities of empathy. I would hope that in three years a wise Prawn father with the richness of his
experiences will reach a better conclusion than a South African human who hasn't lived that life--or we're all in big trouble.
Ayatollah Khamenei said this week that the study of social sciences "promotes doubts and uncertainty." He urged "ardent defenders of Islam" to review the human sciences that are taught in Iran's universities and that he said "promote secularism," according to Iranian news services.
"Many of the humanities and liberal arts are based on philosophies whose foundations are materialism and disbelief in godly and Islamic teachings," Ayatollah Khamenei said at a gathering of university students and professors on Sunday, according to IRNA, the state news agency. Teaching those "sciences leads to the loss of belief in godly and Islamic knowledge."
Michael Slackman, New York Times
If you're catching up on your New Yorkers this Labor Day weekend, don't overlook lit prof. James Wood's review essay, "God in the Quad," from the August 31 issue. (Here's the link to the abstract; the full digital version is behind the magazine's firewall.) Wood, a non-believer whose father became a priest late in life, has no use for the so-called New Atheists--Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, et al.--whom he finds superficial and unpleasant. But he reserves most of his criticism for religion's cultured defenders--the New Anti-Atheists--and particularly for Marxist lit prof. Terry Eagleton and his recent book, Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate. Eagleton wants religion wihout all that pesky propositional stuff having to do with belief in God and what's in the historic creeds. Like it or not, argues Wood, religion is propositional. For those like him who can't accept the propositions, "What is needed is neither the overweening rationalism of a Dawkins nor
the rarefied religious belief of an Eagleton but a theologically
engaged atheism that resembles disappointed belief."
Maybe so, but it's worth bearing in mind that not all religious traditions put an equally strong emphasis on individual assent to particular propositions. Different Christian traditions differ in the importance ascribed to them. Islam has the Shehada ("I bear witness that there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the Prophet of Allah") and Judaism, the Sh'ma ("Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One")--but won't kick you out of the faith if you decline to embrace them. Jews in particular have a tradition of tolerating--indeed, of refusing to reject--members of the community who turn their backs on belief. Isaac Bashevis Singer's story "The Blasphemer" (1969) tells of such a character, one Chazkele, who had from childhood made himself obnoxious to his co-religionists by scorning their beliefs and practices. The story ends with an account of what follows Chazkele's demise:
Maybe so, but it's worth bearing in mind that not all religious traditions put an equally strong emphasis on individual assent to particular propositions. Different Christian traditions differ in the importance ascribed to them. Islam has the Shehada ("I bear witness that there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the Prophet of Allah") and Judaism, the Sh'ma ("Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One")--but won't kick you out of the faith if you decline to embrace them. Jews in particular have a tradition of tolerating--indeed, of refusing to reject--members of the community who turn their backs on belief. Isaac Bashevis Singer's story "The Blasphemer" (1969) tells of such a character, one Chazkele, who had from childhood made himself obnoxious to his co-religionists by scorning their beliefs and practices. The story ends with an account of what follows Chazkele's demise:
Who listens to a madman? He was taken to the cleansing room and candles were placed at his head. He was dressed in shrouds and a prayer shawl, and the community gave him a plot in the suburban cemetery. Basha, his former mistress, and her company rode after the hearse in droshkies. He is son was five or six years old and he recited Kaddish at the grave. If there is a God and Chazkele must account to Him for his deeds, it will be quite gay in heaven.As unpleasant as Chris Hitchens, as theologically engaged as James Woods could ask, Chazkele is sent off with the complete ritual package--to be sure with much to answer for, but with his Jewish identity never in doubt.
Welton Gaddy, president of the Washington-based Interfaith Alliance and pastor of a liberal Baptist church in Monroe, La., has gotten into a spat with La. Gov. Bobby Jindal over the latter's practice of helicoptering up to north Louisiana of a Sunday at state expense to attend services and press the flesh at one or another evangelical church. Could it be that Jindal, a Roman Catholic, is shoring up his conservative Protestant base preparatory to his run for reelection?Whether gubernatorial gadding about can be distinguished from gubernatorial politicking is a question that only scholastic philosophers can be confident answering. One can be more confident, perhaps, suggesting that it is healthy for neither religion nor politics when politicians make a habit of meeting the citizenry in houses of worship. But be any of this as it may, it is hard to see how Jindal has violated the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. Actually, Gaddy doesn't actually accuse him of that. What he says is that Jindal has committed "a violation of the United States Constitution's promise of religious freedom which has been a critical contributor to the vitality of religion in our nation." I don't see how a visit from the governor violates anyone's religious freedom, though doubtless there are congregants who would like to be free from appearances by politicians while engaging in weekly worship.
Jindal's churchly jaunts were reported in the Baton Rouge Advocate, which did a stellar job nailing down the dates and places, as well as rounding up quotes from some of the folks on hand. Among the latter, the most telling came from Rev. Bill Dye of the North Monroe Baptist Church, which Jindal visited July 5, and which is three miles up the road from Gaddy's church. Dye, reports the Advocate, said the visit "helped his congregation see that a practicing Catholic can be an outspoken evangelical." The 2008 Trinity American Religious Identification Survey showed that 18 percent of Catholics consider themselves "evangelical or born-again Christians"--disproportionately so in the South. We now see that at least some Southern evangelicals are prepared to consider them that too.
He's a Muslim, he wasn't born in America, and he's a socialist who shouldn't be allowed to speak to my kid.
Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley's defense of his decision to preside at Sen. Kennedy's funeral is notable on a number of grounds, but above all as an articulation of what is emerging as the public stance of the moderate wing of the American hierarchy--as opposed to the right-wing Burke-Chaput axis. The message is that yes, of course, we will advocate for the church's life issues, but not in a way that casts those who disagree into outer darkness:At times, even in the Church, zeal can lead people to issue harsh judgments and impute the worst motives to one another. These attitudes and practices do irreparable damage to the communion of the Church. If any cause is motivated by judgment, anger or vindictiveness, it will be doomed to marginalization and failure. Jesus' words to us were that we must love one another as He loves us. Jesus loves us while we are still in sin. He loves each of us first, and He loves us to the end. Our ability to change people's hearts and help them to grasp the dignity of each and every life, from the first moment of conception to the last moment of natural death, is directly related to our ability to increase love and unity in the Church, for our proclamation of the Truth is hindered when we are divided and fighting with each other.There can be little question that O'Malley means to include some of his fellow bishops among those doing "irreparable damage to the communion of the Church." In this, he should be seen as joining Santa Fe Archbishop Michael Sheehan, who last month directly criticized the combativeness of "a minority" of the episcopate. With the presumptively forced resignation this week of hyper-combative Scranton Bishop Joseph Martino, it's evident that that the Vatican is putting its thumb on the moderate side of the scale. So who will be next to step up? Yo, Dolan!
Update: Nope, it's Madison, Wisc. Bishop Robert C. Morlino.
Addressing Washington archbishop Donald Wuerl's campaign against legalizing same-sex marriage in the nation's capital over on America's In All Things blog, prolific contributor Sean Michael Winters (hi, Sean Michael!) writes:
The Church does not owe anyone an apology for stating our belief in the importance of traditional marriage, nor for the argument that our society should continue to privilege this unique, life-giving form of human friendship and loving that is marriage.Sure, don't apologize for stating that belief. But American Catholics who embrace it might consider apologizing for the feeble and increasingly implausible natural law argument that the Church uses to justify its pushing the belief on a society that is rapidly coming to recognize civil marriage for same-sex couples as a simple civil right.
Conservative white Republicans constitute 27.9 percent of the American adult population who say religion is important to them, but just 13.7 percent of Americans who say it is not important.
Does God want Mark Sanford to stay in office? Why or why not?
Bob McDonnell, the GOP gubernatorial candidate in the blue-ing state of Virginia, is falling all over himself to disavow a thesis he wrote 20 years ago in pursuit of degrees in law and public policy at Pat Robertson's CBN University (now Regent). The thesis, "The Republican Party's Vision of the Family: The Compelling Issue of the Decade," embraces various anti-feminist, homophobic positions that sit less well in 2009 than they did in 1989. McDonnell, a long-time Virginia state legislator who resigned as state attorney general this year to run for governor, is competing hard for the women's vote in a state where 54 percent of the electorate is female. Democrats are making hay with the fact that he opposed women working outside the home not as some callow undergraduate but as a 34-year-old married man. Columnists like WaPo's Ruth Marcus are enjoying themselves too.The current squall aside, O'Donnell's thesis serves as a wonderful historical document of the state of play of religious politics in Virginia and the country at large in 1989. That was the year that the religious right made the transition from its heady but ultimately disappointing Reagan years to the hard business of integrating itself fully into the national Republican apparat. And Virginia was ground zero. Licking his wounds from his failed presidential campaign, Robertson himself established the Christian Coalition with 28-year-old Ralph Reed as executive director. O'Donnell was one of those bright young things (n.b. a Roman Catholic, not an evangelical) who would be furthering the religiosification of the party.
The thesis itself is a perfect expression of the ideological moment. Here's how it ends:
If Republicans at every level are committed unashamedly and zealously to promote and protect the traditional family as the American norm, and to resist family dissolution as an inevitable reality of progress and culture, then the vision of restoration will begin to bear fruit. As the family goes, so goes the nation.Since then, the religious right has had its ups and downs in Virginia, reaching its peak influence in the early part of this decade, and subsequently descending into the valley of the shadow. At no point, however, has a full-throated devotee been able to rise to the heights of statewide office. (George Allen, Mr. Macaca, is the closest example to the contrary.) But the limits of religious zealotry were apparent to McDonnell 20 years ago. As he wrote, "It is also becoming clear in modern culture that the voting American mainstream is not willing to accept a true pro-family ideologue."
His challenge now is to prove to Virginians that he no longer is one.
Fred Clarkson has a good round-up on Religion Dispatches today of the tale of Chris Broughton, the assault-rifle-toting protester at Pres. Obama's Phoenix speech last week, and his "praying-for-Obama's-death" pastor, Steven L. Anderson of Tempe's storefront Faithful Word Baptist Church. The only thing odd about Clarkson's piece is his claim that the MSM missed the Anderson connection. In fact, as CBN's David Brody witnesses in his apologia pro religione sua account, CNN's Rick Sanchez was all over the story. All told, the Anderson connection has hardly been a secret--what with coverage on some of the most widely followed politics websites in the country (e.g. TPM). Under the circumstances, it's worth pondering how much attention to give, and how much significant to attach, to marginal characters like Broughton and Anderson. Clarkson's own view is that such people need to be taken seriously because "it doesn't take large numbers of people, acting singly or in cell groups, to commit horrific acts of violence in God's name." Brody's concern is that outsiders assume that all evangelicals share their views. Rick Sanchez contextualizes his piece by way of reporting that, according to the Secret Service, death threats against the president have risen 400 percent since Obama's inauguration. This time, I'd say, the MSM got the story right.
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