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February 23, 2006
A Vision for America?
Posted by Jesus Politics
Rob Brendle, an Associate Pastor at Ted Haggard's New Life Church in Colorado Springs, has recently written a satiric piece. Is Brendle correct in "humorously" pointing out the unfair way moderate to liberal Christians and non-Christians view conservative Christians? Is his piece really satire? It is indeed a curious piece of writing and I'll highlight a few passages below:
I have a vision for America: God formed this nation—his sovereignty ordained its existence—and he wants it back. America is a Christian nation. Its heritage is comprised of the stories of people of faith, its legal code founded in Holy Scripture, its moral fabric informed by the collective conscience of a generation of God-fearing men. A veritable city on a hill, as the great Ronald Reagan put it, our country is a favorite son of the Creator himself, reminiscent of the people of Israel some 6000 years hence.
We, the evangelical community of 21st-century America, have an assignment from God to right the ship. Uniquely aware of God's purpose, we bear the burden of responsibility for sounding the alarm, mobilizing the faithful, and exacting the changes that must happen for America to realize her potential.
We evangelicals know we must oppose the trend of moral degradation. We must resist the bidding of virtue-bankrupt secularists whose vision for America is wiped clean of the fingerprints of the Creator and sanitized of any of his will. We must avail ourselves of every resource of democracy and capitalism to turn the tide of personal decadence and societal depravity. We must reverse the trajectory of ridding our public institutions of the emblems and expressions of their author. We must arrest the decay of our popular conscience. We must fight.
We need God's light to shine on our nation again. To get there, I advocate the following measures: Use our majority power. What can 50 million American Christians accomplish through a representative government? Absolutely anything we want to. We ought to take a lesson from the Islamic citizens of Western European nations, who move in, settle down, reproduce, outnumber, and change the law to suit themselves. Or consider Iraq: in their first real national election, the Shii majority voted themselves to power and shaped the founding documents to reflect their ideals. Did you know that the National Association of Evangelicals is the third largest organization in America, after the Democratic and Republican parties? The latent power of that many people is staggering. We have a responsibility to connect with, energize, and mobilize the sleeping giant that is the American church.
Crush all opposition. With the government restored to alignment with the Giver of life, we will be in position finally to do away with those who oppose the will of God. Organized evildoers will, naturally, be given the opportunity to repent. Should the likes of the many pornographers, the ACLU, and this pernicious paper choose not to accept the gracious gift of redemption, they will simply never be heard from again.
Establish religious police. A sort of righteous Gestapo will be necessary, of course, to maintain national purity. Rest easy, parents: these well-trained servants of the King will discreetly follow your teenagers on prom night, so as to ensure there never even approaches a chastity infraction. This moral constabulary will likely find it most effective in deterring immorality to institute public corporal punishment. So, you womanizers, liars, and coveters, reform your iniquitous ways or expect to face judgment day. One usually has to be flogged in the public square only once to embrace the law's teaching value.
Posted by Jesus Politics at 07:27 PM | Comments (34)
Iraq War Squeezes Average Americans: Time to Bring America Home
Posted by Faithful Progressive
President Bush has had five years at the helm of the ship of state. We are entering the third year of the war in Iraq, and things are getting worse there--for both our troops and the Iraqi people. Iraq stands at or just over the brink of civil war. The war has cost 100's of billions of dollars, and led to an enormous deficit. The Clinton surplus is long gone, mostly given away in the form of tax cuts to the very rich. The fiscal downturn has led to cuts in everything from student loans to food stamps. What about here in the US-how are the American people making do under this President? Two recent headlines give us important clues.
Food Bank Network Served Over 25 Million in '05:
WASHINGTON -- More than 25 million Americans turned to the nation's largest network of food banks, soup kitchens and shelters for meals last year, up 9 percent from 2001.
Those seeking food included 9 million children and nearly 3 million senior citizens, says a report from America's Second Harvest. "The face of hunger doesn't have a particular color, and it doesn't come from a particular neighborhood," said Ertharin Cousin, executive vice president of the group. "They are your neighbors, they are working Americans, they are senior citizens who have worked their entire lives, and they are children."
My wife volunteers regularly at Food Pantry here in prosperous Madison. She would agree that the most heartbreaking thing is the number of hungry children. But in case you think this is the poorest Americans who are suffering, consider the next headline. Average American Family Income Declines
WASHINGTON - The average income of American families, after adjusting for inflation, declined by 2.3 percent in 2004 compared to 2001 while their net worth rose but at a slower pace.
Average American families are being squeezed by the policies of the President, and this is reflected in the decline in personal income. It's time to set a timetable to bring our troops home, and bring America home to its real values.
How can progressive Christians be a part of a movement that accomplishes these goals? Your suggestions would be appreciated.
Posted by Faithful Progressive at 06:12 PM | Comments (14)
A Buffet of Calamities
Posted by Fresh Politics
As the old adage goes, when it rains, it pours. There are so many interesting happenings to cover this week that I can't pick just one topic. So, I have narrowed the field down to three very important issues that I think the whole country should be thinking and talking about.
Let's start with the furor over the port deal. To recap: the Bush Administration gave its blessing to the United Arab Emirates' Dubai Ports World, a state-owned company, in its quest to purchase Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation, a British company. POSN currently runs U.S. seaports in six American cities – New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Miami – and the deal would turn over management of the ports to the UAE company. However, politicians on both sides of the aisle have spoken out in opposition to the plan because of the UAE's rather spotty record on terrorism, which raises significant national security issues. Despite assertions by the Bush Administration that the UAE is a reliable ally in the “war on terror,” it has been widely reported that the UAE was one of only three countries to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, it has been an important transfer point for illegal nuclear shipments to countries like North Korea and Iran, and some of the 9/11 hijackers drew funds from UAE bank accounts. Also, Think Progress has a story on the UAE's royal family's coziness with Osama bin Laden: http://thinkprogress.org/2006/02/22/bin-laden-uae-royals/. For an administration that loves to brag about its strong stance on national security any chance it gets, it's a little fishy for this to get the green light.
There's enough here to raise concerns, and lawmakers who have spoken out against the Administration's approval of this deal are quite right to demand the approval be halted until the arrangement can be carefully scrutinized. Not because it is a Middle Eastern country. Not because two of the 9/11 hijackers came from the UAE (guilt by association is totally unfair – certainly I would not want the French to think that I adhered to the same ideas as Bill O'Reilly simply because we live in the same country). It is the UAE's record which justifies such careful review. Given the vulnerability of our seaports, it is the very least this Administration can do.
As if that's not enough to get the blood flowing, Justice Samuel Alito took his seat upon the Supreme Court and that same day the court announced that it would review the decision by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals on the federal “partial-birth” abortion law. Talk about efficiency. The law in question, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, was signed by President Bush in 2003, but never went into effect because it was immediately challenged. The law flagrantly ignored the Supreme Court's 2000 ruling finding a similar Nebraska law to be unconstitutional. Three Courts of Appeals – the Second, Eighth, and Ninth Circuits – have found the 2003 law to be unconstitutional.
Clearly, the Supreme Court isn't wasting any time getting its hands dirty with the abortion issue. The decision to hear the case is particularly troubling given that Sandra Day O'Connor was the swing vote in the 2000 decision. Further, there are concerns about the sweep of the law. As Linda Greenhouse wrote in today's New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/22/politics/politicsspecial1/22abortion.html:
“While supporters of the law maintain that this technique is used only late in pregnancy, and that the law therefore does not present an obstacle to most abortions, abortion-rights advocates say the statute's description applies to procedures used to terminate pregnancies as early as 12 or 13 weeks.”
This is a big deal, both because of the ramifications of a decision upholding the law and because of the gusto with which the Supreme Court has decided to take up an abortion case it only recently ruled on and the law at issue flagrantly ignored. At a minimum, this negatively impacts the credibility of the court and suggest a political agenda usually reserved for conspiracy theorists. Yesterday was not a good day for women – here's hoping it doesn't get worse.
In a bit of news impacting Oregon residents now, but perhaps other states in the future, the Oregon Supreme Court unanimously ruled “Measure 37” to be constitutional yesterday. Measure 37? In a nutshell, Measure 37 is the law Oregon voters passed in 2004 requiring state or local governments to compensate property owners if their property value decreases because of land use laws. If the government can't pay, then it must waive the regulation.
The enthusiasm with which West Coast states have their citizens enact legislation via ballot measures has always baffled me. A few ballot measures every now and then is one thing, but a whole slate of them in every election cycle strikes me as a bit much. Couple that with some clever anti-tax/property-rights groups who learn how to use the process to get things passed that would never make it out of a legislative committee, and you have trouble. Add to that the glitzy ads that skew the facts on both sides of the issue, and you're bound to have bad laws. Laws based more on marketing and advertising than fact-finding and reason. Ever wonder why Oregon had to close schools 17 days early a couple of years ago? And what do you think about a state that allows physician-assisted suicide, but won't let you pump your own gas (ok, to be fair, self-service isn't a ballot measure thing, but it is an odd bit of trivia about the state)?
Measure 37 is a bad law. It may not seem bad now, but it will in the future. The law's greatest impact may very well not surface for quite some time. As it is now, property owners whose values were diminished from land use laws enacted in the 1970s are entitled to seek compensation or a waiver. A waiver is more likely since the government is unlikely to be able to pay. But what impact will this have on the enactment of future laws to protect the environment and quality of life in Oregon? It is an example of yet another short-sighted approach to the environmental problems we face. Rather than deal with environmental issues now, and try to mitigate the impact of our actions on the environment and future generations, Oregon voters chose the buy now, pay later approach. Except they are not the ones who will be stuck with the bill.
Activists in other states are likely to be encouraged by the Oregon Supreme Court's ruling. There is a push to get a similar measure on the ballot in Washington state, and other states may soon follow. One can only hope that the voters in other states faced with this issue will think more about the long-term impact of a similar law and less about the real estate market.
Posted by Fresh Politics at 03:11 AM | Comments (1)
February 17, 2006
Christians Need to Speak Out on Gitmo and Other US Human Rights Abuses
Posted by Faithful Progressive
Central to my understanding of a Christian world view is the idea that every person has value as an individual soul, as a creation of God. So much flows from this basic concept: the values of equality and compassion, and the ongoing challenge of humility in the knowledge that no person has any more value than any others before God. It also makes all people, however reviled, worth standing up for; if we believe that we are all sinners, then any distinctions between us are differences of degree and not kind. International human rights law seeks to ensure the dignity of every human being. In just the past week, two important stories emerged that demonstrated just how far below this standard the current Administration has taken the U.S. Government.
UN alleges torture at Guantanamo -
By Richard Waddington, Reuters
The United States on Thursday faced mounting international calls to close its Guantanamo prison camp with U.N. investigators saying detainees there faced treatment amounting to torture. In a 40-page report, which had been largely leaked, five United Nations special envoys said the United States was violating a host of human rights, including a ban on torture, arbitrary detention and the right to a fair trial.
The report is likely to fuel new Arab anger over the treatment of Iraqi inmates at Baghdad's U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison after Australian TV broadcast more images of abuse there.
"The United States government should close the Guantanamo Bay detention facilities without further delay," the human rights' rapporteurs declared.
Until that happened, the U.S. government should "refrain from any practice amounting to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment," they added.
Harsh conditions, such as placing detainees in solitary confinement, stripping them naked, subjecting them to severe temperatures, and threatening them with dogs could amount to torture, which is banned in all circumstances and in all wars.
"The excessive violence used in many cases during transportation ... and forced-feeding of detainees on hunger strike must be assessed as amounting to torture," the report said.
In London, U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Louise Arbour told the BBC she saw no alternative to closing the prison at the U.S. naval base in Cuba where some 500 terrorism suspects are held, many of them for four years, without trial.
Speaking ahead of the release of the report, Arbour said that, although she did not endorse every recommendation it made, the United States should put inmates on trial or release them and shut down the prison.
Abu Ghraib abuse against international law: ICRC
By Stephanie Nebehay, Reuters
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Thursday the latest images of abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison showed clear violations of international humanitarian law.
However, the Swiss-based body, whose confidential reports have previously accused the U.S. military of using tactics "tantamount to torture" on inmates at the Baghdad jail, declined to say whether it would raise the issue again with Washington. An Australian television station broadcast what it said were previously unpublished images of abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the facility, fuelling Arab anger against the United States.
"We are shocked and dismayed at the mistreatment and abuse displayed in these images," ICRC spokeswoman Dorothea Krimitsas told Reuters in Geneva.
"The type of treatment in these images -- video or photos -- very clearly violates the rules of international humanitarian law which are designed to protect people detained in the context of armed conflict," she added.
The 1949 Geneva Conventions protecting people captured in conflict -- which the ICRC seeks to uphold -- "forbid torture as well as any cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment under any circumstance," according to the spokeswoman.
The current affairs program "Dateline," on Australia's Special Broadcasting Service, said the images were recorded at the same time as the pictures of U.S. soldiers abusing Abu Ghraib detainees which caused international outrage in 2004.
AS people of faith, we need to stand up for human rights and dignity. We need to speak truth to power, and doing so is the only way is to follow Christ's path of loving both our neighbors and our enemies.
Posted by Faithful Progressive at 01:52 PM | Comments (3)
February 16, 2006
The Baptizing of America
Posted by Jesus Politics
Rabbi James Rudin has recently written the book, "The Baptizing of America: The Religious Right's Plans for the Rest of Us". Below are excerpts from an interview where he talks about the book:
In The Baptizing of America, I write about two men who are pretty much unknown to the general American public - Francis A. Schaeffer, and John Rushdoony, an Armenian-American who died in 2001. They created movements called Christian Reconstructionism and Dominionism. "Dominionism" is taken from one of the chapters in Genesis – “You shall have dominion over the earth and other animals.” Well, whereas most people interpret dominion as stewardship – you shall protect it, you shall use it, but you have an obligation - they take the word dominion to mean control – total control. Two theological works written by Schaeffer and Rushdoony I would say constitute the religious firepower – the intellectual basis - for the Christocratic movement.
The Christocrats really want the federal government to be an arm of their particular religious point of view. Only they have the right to tell libraries, law schools, courts, and really, all of us, what we should do in our bedrooms, or what to teach in our schoolrooms, or how to operate our hospitals, which gets us into embryonic stem-cell research and choice on abortion, and a lot of other medical questions. They alone have the pipeline to God, so they alone are the ones who can shape and control America and have dominion over America. It’s a very, very insidious campaign. My book has been out for about a month, and many people are still shocked because they believe that the good old checks and balances of America will self-correct. I’m saying, well, maybe yes, and maybe no. My job is to sound the alarm.
One of the issues is that part of the Christocratic movement is saying, oh, well, in 1787 and in 1776, with the Declaration of Independence, it was an oversight. It was an accident that neither Christianity nor Jesus was mentioned in either document. I show that as the Constitution was being ratified by the various states, everyone was quite aware that there was an absence in the Constitution of any reference to Christianity or to God’s law, or to the Bible as the supreme law of the country. There had been serious debates going on. I quote some of the critics of the Constitution of 1787 – and it took people like James Madison and an under-appreciated Southern Baptist minister named John Leland, who, along with Jefferson and others, were able to get the Constitution adopted.
But it was neither an accident nor an oversight nor sloppy writing. There was a bitter debate in both North and South, by ministers and by lay people. It’s another myth that is thrown up to confuse people – that somehow there was a mistake made, and they want to correct the mistake. There was no mistake. It was very clear.
Another sad part is that the second largest Christian body in America, the Southern Baptist Convention - second only to the Roman Catholic Church in population - were until recently one of the strongest advocates for the separation of church and state. Unfortunately, in the past twenty years the Southern Baptist Convention has moved completely away from their traditional position favoring strict separation. Jimmy Carter, a Southern Baptist, has written about it, Bill Moyers, Al Gore, Bill Clinton – all Southern Baptists – are very concerned.
Before the "Moral Majority," Christian conservatives' concern always was, get right with Jesus, get right with Christ, get right with God on a personal level. Yes, they voted. And they participated in elections. But they did not see political parties or political movements as a means of carrying out God’s will. God alone would determine that, and voting was a citizen’s duty. But the Christian conservatives didn’t look to the Democratic or Republican Party to deliver theological gifts or theological concerns or provide theological answers.
What Falwell did with his "Moral Majority" – a brilliant name, by the way, because if you were not in the "Moral Majority," you were the immoral minority – was to link religion and politics together so that they meshed. It wasn’t just, I’m praying to God and then I go out and vote, and the two are in parallel universes. But no – that the political system, and that shortly became the Republican Party – the political system can deliver on the issues that are important to us as conservative religious people.
Posted by Jesus Politics at 06:22 AM | Comments (42)
All They Can Be
Posted by Fresh Politics
Career counselors tell their advisees to dress for the job they want, not the job they have. Democrats would do well to heed that advice. Think about what you want to be (hint: it's not to be the minority party) and present yourself in that light (showing leadership - of any kind - would be a good start).
One of the many problems the Democratic party has had is that they've been unable to define themselves. So the Republicans happily stepped in to offer a role for the party: that Democrats are unpatriotic and soft on terror. The label has stuck and Democrats have their work cut out for them in de-bunking this perception.
A wonderful way to do this is to recruit candidates who can't be defined by it. Paul Hackett was such a candidate -- a proud Democrat and a former Marine who volunteered to go to Iraq in 2004 after he had been discharged in 1999. He stunned the nation when he narrowly lost his bid for the congressional seat in Ohio's heavily Republican Second District (Jean Schmidt of the "cowards cut and run, Marines never do" fame won in that special election).
After his incredible performance, Mr. Hackett decided to run for the Senate seat currently occupied by Republican Mike DeWine. According to Mr. Hackett, he was recruited by Democratic leaders such as Senators Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid. Later, Ohio Congressman Sherrod Brown entered the race for the Democratic nomination, ensuring a primary contest between Hackett and Brown. Fast forward to early this week, and Hackett's announcement that he was dropping out of the Senate race and out of politics altogether.
I actually don't care who wins the Ohio Senate race as long as it's a Democrat. But the explanation Hackett provided troubles me. On his website, Hackett announced his withdrawal from the race and then stated, "I made this decision reluctantly, only after repeated requests by party leaders, as well as behind the scenes machinations, that were intended to hurt my campaign." http://www.hackettforohio.com/newsroom/128/thank-you In recent days, he has elaborated on the pressure from Senators Schumer and Reid, who courted him in the beginning, to exit the race.
So here they are fanning the Republican flames that Democrats are unpatriotic by pushing someone out of the race whose patriotism is unquestionable. While someone is not a good candidate simply because they rebut the stereotype the Republicans have created, Democrats should not be afraid to encourage new blood to join and represent the party in high profile campaigns. This is precisely what is needed to revitalize the party and show that Democrats offer a real alternative to Republicans. Such a candidate can offer solutions to the Republican-led disasters and present another face of the party. We have to show that Republicans are not the only ones who support our troops.
To me, this smacks of fear. The same kind of fear that sent people flocking to John Kerry as a "safe" candidate instead of other more powerful, inspiring candidates. It's the same fear that makes politicians like John Kerry equivocate. It's the fear of a party that is weak and so afraid to lose that they won't take a chance. And it is this fear which loses elections.
If the Democrats want to take back the House and/or Senate in 2006, and the White House in 2008, they'd better act like it. It's time for the Democrats to be leaders, instead of being led by the Republicans.
Posted by Fresh Politics at 05:04 AM | Comments (5)
February 09, 2006
New Climate Initiative: Evangelical Conservatives and Moderates Break Ranks with Extremists
Posted by Faithful Progressive
What a difference a week can make! Last week we noted that the National Association of Evangelicals had been persuaded by a small group of partisan extremists, including James Dobson, not to take a stand on man's warming of God's creation. But, in a much more hopeful development, this week a group of Evangelical Conservatives and moderates launched their own Initiative: Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action. The signers included some high-profile conservatives and moderates: Rev. Dr. Rick Warren, Senior Pastor, Saddleback Church; Rev. Brian McLaren, Senior Pastor, Cedar Ridge Community Church; and Christianity Today magazine columnist Andy Crouch. The Statement made four Claims:
Claim 1: Human-Induced Climate Change is Real;
Claim 2: The Consequences of Climate Change Will Be Significant, and Will Hit the Poor the Hardest
Claim 3: Christian Moral Convictions Demand Our Response to the Climate Change Problem
Claim 4: The need to act now is urgent. Governments, businesses, churches, and individuals all have a role to play in addressing climate change starting now.
It concluded as follows: "We the undersigned pledge to act on the basis of the claims made in this document. We will not only teach the truths communicated here but also seek ways to implement the actions that follow from them. In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, we urge all who read this declaration to join us in this effort."
This is a very important statement in its own right, and it is exciting to see conservative and moderate Christian Evangelicals once again embracing truly Biblical rather than partisan Republican values. Secondly, they urge actions at all levels to support their vision. Third, in so doing, they have also expressed a concern for the poor that has been sorely missing from the Evangelical agenda. Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, they have broken ranks with the extremists who so dominate the discussion of Christian values.
What a difference a week makes--but then all things are possible with the Lord's help.
Posted by Faithful Progressive at 10:48 PM | Comments (12)
The Discredited and Disgraced Dr. Paul Cameron
Posted by Jesus Politics
The Southern Poverty Law Center's Winter 2005 issue of Intelligence Report has an article about Dr. Paul Cameron. Dr. Cameron is the discredited psychologist that the Christian Right likes to quote to justify their prejudices about homosexuality. Some excerpts from the article:
Under the guise of chairman of the Family Research Institute, his statistical chop shop in Colorado Springs, Colo., Cameron has published dozens upon dozens of research studies that offer homophobes a supposedly scientific justification for their prejudices by invariably concluding that gays and lesbians are dangerous and diseased perverts.
Religious right action groups including Focus on the Family, the American Family Association, the Family Research Council and the Traditional Values Coalition promote Cameron's statistics on their Web sites. The Christian Communications Network, a public relations firm run by anti-abortion zealot Gary McCullough -- media adviser to Operation Rescue and the parents of Terri Schiavo, whose feeding tube removal sparked a major controversy -- publicizes Cameron's findings to religious newspapers and helps distribute tens of thousands of his heavily footnoted pamphlets to church congregations.
Not one of Cameron's anti-gay studies has been published in a respected scientific journal with rigorous content review standards. Instead, Cameron props up his façade of credibility by publishing his studies in Psychological Reports, a Montana-based vanity magazine that advertises itself as "The Scientific Manifestation of Free Speech" and will publish practically anything for $27.50 per page.
Cameron first waded into the fray over gay rights in 1982, when he became chairman of the Committee to Oppose Special Rights for Homosexuals, which formed to fight a proposed ordinance in Omaha, Neb., to extend civil rights protections to gays and lesbians. Cameron was then a professor at the University of Nebraska. Campaigning against the ordinance, Cameron told the congregation of the University of Nebraska Lutheran Church that a local 4-year old boy had recently been dragged into a shopping mall bathroom and castrated by a homosexual. The story was totally false. The Omaha Police Department and local hospitals had no record of such an assault. But the tale of the homosexual castration attack upon a child quickly became a popular myth, and Cameron kept defending it in the media as "an example of what could happen," even after admitting that his source for the information was a friend of a friend who'd supposedly heard it from a police officer.
Legitimate scientists have identified and described in detail multiple fundamental flaws in the ISIS study's methodology and statistical analysis, any one of which would be enough to destroy its credibility. But still, to this day, Cameron's 1983 survey serves as the religious right's primary wellspring of anti-gay fear mongering.
The same year Cameron conducted the ISIS survey, he released a separate study claiming that homosexuals are "10-20 times more likely than heterosexuals to molest children," a startling figure that still frequently pops up in hard-right religious sermons and AM radio screeds.
Cameron based that finding on a 1978 study by Nicholas Groth, the highly respected director of the Sex Offender Program at the Connecticut Department of Corrections. Groth had interviewed 175 convicted child molesters and found that more of them had molested boys than girls. Cameron's statistic is derived from the false assumption that men who molest boys are gay, despite the fact that Groth's original study found that none of the men identified himself as homosexual. Instead, the pedophiles were either heterosexual outside of their criminal behavior or were what Groth termed "fixated pedophiles with no interest in sex with adults."
Groth was outraged and filed a formal complaint with the American Psychological Association that led to Cameron losing his professional accreditation. "Dr. Cameron misrepresents my findings and distorts them to advance his homophobic views," Groth wrote the APA. "He disgraces his profession."
Posted by Jesus Politics at 10:04 AM | Comments (9)
The Truth Is Not Polite
Posted by Fresh Politics
I know people who believe that it is impolite to criticize people to their faces. Better to do it behind their backs. I've never had much tolerance for this perspective, and so I have a hard time now accepting the arguments that it was impolite to criticize President Bush at Coretta Scott King's funeral.
First, let us consider who we are talking about. Dr. and Mrs. King were at the center of the civil rights movement, in the heart of the racist, segregated south. They advocated nonviolence in their struggle, and the rest of the world watched as ordinary, peaceful black citizens were arrested, firehosed, beaten, and attacked by dogs for sitting at a lunch counter or participating in a peaceful march.
Though the activists did not respond with violence, their approach certainly had the effect of making people uncomfortable. And why not? Shouldn't we be uncomfortable with racism? The segregation and racism that had been swept under the rug and reduced to a mere quirk of the south was brought front and center by Dr. and Mrs. King, and other civil rights pioneers. The truth was not polite -- it was ugly. And when it was in our faces, we had to see the ugliness, admit it, and make a change.
It is no different now. Though the racial divisions we experience as a country now are different in appearance from those we faced when Dr. King was alive, but they are no different in character. It embodies the spirit of Mrs. King to speak the truth and admit that there is still work to do. The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is simply one example. In making this exact point, former President Jimmy Carter said, "We only have to recall the color of the faces of those in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, those who were most devastated by Katrina, to know that there are not yet equal opportunities for all Americans."
Uncomfortable? Yes. Tough. It's the truth. Many of us sat in our living rooms watching the people in New Orleans in the days following Hurricane Katrina, and the awful truth was that the poor were the greatest victims. And the poor were disproportionately black. Given Mrs. King's life, it would be weird not to mention this.
The second point outraged conservatives made was that it was inappropriate to criticize President Bush at Mrs. King's funeral because it politicized the service. First of all, remarks in any forum should not necessarily be tailored to spare the feelings of one out of hundreds of attendees. Regardless of this, however, the President was there, attending the funeral of a major figure in the civil rights movement. His policies have hurt the very people Mrs. King spent her life fighting for. I don't think there is anything wrong with him having to sit there and listen to the impact he has had. So, the Rev. Joseph Lowery said, "We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there. But Coretta knew, and we knew, that there are weapons of misdirection right down here. Millions without health insurance. Poverty abounds. For war, billions more, but no more for the poor." This is the life poor people lead. President Bush may not like hearing it, but above all, he works for us. For them. He has to hear it. And this one of the rare instances where he had to sit with real (and not pre-screened) people, outside his bubble, and hear what they think. In the real world, they don't all agree with you, Mr. President; that's why your approval rating is not 100%.
There is a line, but it was not crossed here. If these same comments had been made at a conservative's funeral, I think it would be inappropriate. After all, it would not reflect the spirit and memory of that person. At my grandmother's funeral, the day after the 2004 election, the priest talked for several minutes about the outcome of the presidential election and how wonderful it was that President Bush was re-elected. I, as well as several of my family members, was shocked and horribly offended (one of my relatives no longer attends that church as a result). My grandmother was a life-long Democrat; I don't think she ever voted for a Republican in her life. The priest knew my grandmother for decades, yet chose to use her funeral to advance his position and views, not hers.
This is not the case here. The speeches were made in the context of who Coretta Scott King was and what she stood for. They reflected the things she stood for, but made clear that we have to pick up where she left off to finish the work that still needs to be done. Some may not like hearing it; they may not want to face the truth. But Mrs. King did not live her life to hide the truth from those who choose not to face it. Certainly our farewell to her should not be a great step backward.
Posted by Fresh Politics at 02:31 AM | Comments (5)
February 06, 2006
Cartoons of Mohammed
Posted by Public Theologian
I have a great deal of ambivalence about the cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed that have caused such a furor in the Islamic world. On the one hand, I think that the West has often been too dismissive of Islam and has not taken it seriously enough to understand the culture that it has engendered, so this side of my thinking wishes the cartoons had never been run. The West has called the tune for a long time in their corner of the world as a result of what President Bush called last week our “addiction to oil,” and in some ways this seems like more of the same kind of thing. Their way of life really does not matter much to the West—we only interface with it simply as a cost of getting what we want, so we can mock or dismiss whatever aspect of their worldview that suits us.
But there is another side of me that wants to defend the cartoons’ publication. Islam has to grow up. It should be allowed to practice its faith in as unfettered an environment as is possible, but they should not expect that their convictions should prevail or even be treated with kid gloves. It has to learn to live within its ideological boundaries and this is a useful lesson in that learning process. The cartoons were originally published in a small Danish newspaper and were, according to the editor who commissioned them, intended to provoke a conversation within that society about the self-censorship that many Danes and other northern European countries were engaging in in their discussions about Islam. Now we liberals—Danes and the rest of us-- want everybody to be treated equally, but in the West that means that any piety or pretentiousness gets skewered equally. As the Danish editor said, the cartoons therefore can be understood as marking something positive in the development of Muslim-European relations: we accept and respect them enough to make fun of them.
There is no justification whatsoever for the torching of the Danish embassies over the weekend or the threats to Danish and Norwegian nationals abroad. Whatever the offense that Muslims feel has been directed at them, they cannot assault others as a means of redress. As many have noted, these actions were more or less encouraged by the Arab governments who need to deflect public scrutiny of their own misbehavior and to find an outlet for pent-up anxiety within their own citizenry, so these cartoons have provided for them a convenient Western target. Liberals, who are prone to self-flagellation in such situations, should therefore understand the larger context in which the theater on the Arab street is now unfolding—this is not the fault of the Danes but rather of extremists within Islam.
That said, however, I would not have published the cartoons, as much as I love parody and as much as I believe that Islam has much available material which is ripe to be parodied. The situation at this time, though, is no laughing matter and people’s lives are at stake. The Danes have peacekeepers in Afghanistan, for example, which was one of the countries in which the protests have erupted. Provocative rhetoric, even if in jest, when lives are on the line, is irresponsible. You don’t joke about bombs in your baggage while you’re at the airport.
I feel about the cartoons in much the same way as I did about the fundamentalist pastor from my hometown, the Rev. Jerry Vines, who thankfully retired last week, who in 2003 referred to Mohammed as “demon-possessed pedophile.” While I would defend with my last breath the Rev’s right to his hateful and inaccurate propaganda, to make such a remark in the present circumstances was just plain stupid. We have two military bases in our city and the folks who serve in the armed forces hardly needed a reason to become more hated and greater targets of retribution for the misdeeds of the West as they serve in hot spots around the world. We are going to have to wait and let things settle down for awhile before we can say whatever we want to or about Muslims.
Late Update: Apparently the paper doesn't think Jesus jokes would be a big hit for their readers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1703501,00.html?gusrc=rss
Posted by Public Theologian at 05:50 PM | Comments (98)
February 03, 2006
"A Retreat and a Defeat:" Evangelicals Take No Stand on Global Warming
Posted by Faithful Progressive
"Nature is a theater of grace,” the great Lutheran theologian Joseph Sittler wrote. Sittler was among the first to make ecology a thoroughly theological issue and to relate care of creation to God’s grace. He spoke of grace as “all that God does to crack nature open to its God, to restore it to his love and to its intended destiny.” (Evocations of Grace) Somewhere, Joseph Sittler (and no doubt the Creator of us all) is looking down and shaking his head.
James Dobson and company have struck again. Evangelicals Will Not Take Stand on Global Warming:
By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 2, 2006; A08
The National Association of Evangelicals said yesterday that it has been unable to reach a consensus on global climate change and will not take a stand on the issue, disappointing environmentalists who had hoped that evangelical Christians would prod the Bush administration to soften its position on global warming.
Over the past four years a growing number of evangelical groups have embraced environmental causes, urging Christians to engage in "Creation care" and campaigning against gas-guzzling SUVs with advertisements asking, "What would Jesus drive?"
In October 2004 the leadership of the NAE, which says it has 30 million members and is the nation's largest evangelical organization, declared that mankind has "a sacred responsibility to steward the Earth and not a license to abuse the creation of which we are a part." At about the same time, the umbrella group's president, the Rev. Ted Haggard of Colorado Springs, called the environment "a values issue."
But this fledgling movement -- dubbed the "greening of evangelicals" in a front-page Washington Post article a year ago -- has also met internal resistance. In a letter to Haggard last month, more than 20 evangelical leaders urged the NAE not to adopt "any official position" on global climate change because "Bible-believing evangelicals . . . disagree about the cause, severity and solutions to the global warming issue."
The letter's signers amounted to a Who's Who of politically powerful evangelicals, including Charles W. Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries; James C. Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family; the Rev. D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries; the Rev. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention; Richard Roberts, president of Oral Roberts University; Donald E. Wildmon, chairman of the American Family Association; and the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition...
"Allow me to confirm at the outset that the NAE is not circulating any official document on the environment. We are not considering a position on global warming. We are not advocating for specific legislation or government mandates," Haggard said. His statement added that the NAE's executive committee recently passed a motion "recognizing the ongoing debate" on global warming and "the lack of consensus among the evangelical community on this issue."
Calvin DeWitt, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin who is a leading evangelical supporter of environmental causes, called the statement "a retreat and a defeat."
"A year ago, it looked as though evangelicals would become a strong, collective voice for what we call 'Creation care' and others may call environmentalism," he said. "This will have negative consequences for the ability of evangelicals to influence the White House, unfortunately and sadly."
Posted by Faithful Progressive at 04:45 AM | Comments (14)
February 02, 2006
God's Senator
Posted by Jesus Politics
Joel Pelletier at Talk to Action links and quotes from Jeff Sharlet's recent article on Senator Sam Brownback in Rolling Stone magazine. Sharlet gives a detailed picture of how Brownback and the Christian Right are changing our political culture. Some excerpts:
After little more than a decade in Washington, Brownback has managed to position himself at the very center of the Christian conservative uprising that is transforming American politics. Just six years ago, winning the evangelical vote required only a veneer of bland normalcy, nothing more than George Bush's vague assurance that Jesus was his favorite philosopher. Now, Brownback seeks something far more radical: not faith-based politics but faith in place of politics. In his dream America, the one he believes both the Bible and the Constitution promise, the state will simply wither away. In its place will be a country so suffused with God and the free market that the social fabric of the last hundred years -- schools, Social Security, welfare -- will be privatized or simply done away with. There will be no abortions; sex will be confined to heterosexual marriage. Men will lead families, mothers will tend children, and big business and the church will take care of all.
Brownback is unlikely to receive the Republican presidential nomination -- but as the candidate of the Christian right, he may well be in a position to determine who does, and what they include in their platform. "What Sam could do very effectively," says the Rev. Rob Schenck, an evangelical activist, is hold the nomination hostage until the Christian right "exacts the last pledge out of the more popular candidate."
Brownback was placed in a weekly prayer cell by "the shadow Billy Graham" -- Doug Coe, Vereide's successor as head of the Fellowship. The group was all male and all Republican. [ ]
They were striving, ultimately, for what Coe calls "Jesus plus nothing" -- a government led by Christ's will alone. In the future envisioned by Coe, everything -- sex and taxes, war and the price of oil -- will be decided upon not according to democracy or the church or even Scripture. The Bible itself is for the masses; in the Fellowship, Christ reveals a higher set of commands to the anointed few. It's a good old boy's club blessed by God.
The most bluntly theocratic effort, however, is the Constitution Restoration Act, which Brownback co-sponsored with Jim DeMint, another former C Streeter who was then a congressman from South Carolina. If passed, it will strip the Supreme Court of the ability to even hear cases in which citizens protest faith-based abuses of power. Say the mayor of your town decides to declare Jesus lord and fire anyone who refuses to do so; or the principal of your local high school decides to read a fundamentalist prayer over the PA every morning; or the president declares the United States a Christian nation. Under the Constitution Restoration Act, that'll all be just fine.
Although Brownback converted to Catholicism in 2002 through Opus Dei, an ultraorthodox order that, like the Fellowship, specializes in cultivating the rich and powerful, the source of much of his religious and political thinking is Charles Colson, the former Nixon aide who served seven months in prison for his attempt to cover up Watergate. A "key figure," says Brownback, in the power structure of Christian Washington, Colson is widely acknowledged as the Christian right's leading intellectual. He is the architect behind faith-based initiatives, the negotiator who forged the Catholic-evangelical unity known as co-belligerency, and the man who drove sexual morality to the top of the movement's agenda.
Brownback doesn't demand that everyone believe in his God -- only that they bow down before Him. Part holy warrior, part holy fool, he preaches an odd mix of theological naivete and diplomatic savvy. The faith he wields in the public square is blunt, heavy, unsubtle; brass knuckles of the spirit. But the religion of his heart is that of the woman whose example led him deep into orthodoxy: Mother Teresa -- it is a kiss for the dying. He sees no tension between his intolerance and his tenderness. Indeed, their successful reconciliation in his political self is the miracle at the heart of the new fundamentalism, the fusion of hellfire and Hallmark.
Posted by Jesus Politics at 06:11 AM | Comments (1)
Join Us In The Real World
Posted by Fresh Politics
The state of our union is...strong? Um. OK. Watching the President's speech last night, I saw nothing to indicate that he could offer any real assessment on the matter. It was like watching last year's address, right down to a pitch for social security reform. But he seems not to have stepped outside of his world, and his speech showed that he thinks everything can be business as usual just because he says so. I don't think he has recognized that there is a world outside his bubble that is vastly different from the one he is cloistered in. His speech did not take advantage of the opportunity to say something new to the American people. Instead, it was the same old recycled garbage that he has been saying since September 11th. His failure to recognize that things have changed -- that he lacks the credibility he once had -- was obvious and embarrassing.
He covered terrorism and defended the war in Iraq. About Iraq, he said, "We're on the offensive in Iraq, with a clear plan for victory." I still can't figure out what the plan is, and I'm not the only one. Despite his assurances that "we are in this fight to win, and we are winning," I have a hard time feeling comforted as more and more people die over there. President Bush saying something does not make it so. Perhaps this is the most serious casualty he suffered in 2005, and it is one that he does not understand. In 2003, the President could use the State of the Union address to dupe us into believing that there were weapons of mass destruction, we knew where they were, and the Iraqis would welcome us with open arms. But a lot has happened since then, and in 2006, fewer people are willing to just take his word for it.
With a straight face, the man who is where he is because of daddy's big oil money told us that we are addicted to oil. I don't argue with that assertion -- but from him? Are we supposed to believe that he is going to deliver us from our dependence on oil (foreign or otherwise) and show us the path to sustainable energy? Hardly. More likely, he'll be delivering ANWR to Exxon, polar bears and future generations be damned.
He has got a Republican-controlled House and Senate that is so fiercly partisan that Democrats are routinely shut out of the process, yet he calls for bi-partisanship and a line-item veto. He barely mentions the disaster of Hurricane Katrina, except to note that the government is doing work to rebuild New Orleans and that "Yet as we meet these immediate needs, we must also address deeper challenges that existed before the storm arrived. In New Orleans and in other places, many of our fellow citizens have felt excluded from the promise of our country." This, after arguing that his tax cuts should be made permanent and that "This year, my budget will cut it [spending] again and reduce or eliminate more than 140 programs that are performing poorly or not fulfilling essential priorities." Hmm...who will be most impacted by those budget cuts? Further, the President asserts that "By passing these reforms, we will save the American taxpayer another $14 billion next year and stay on track to cut the deficit in half by 2009." We're "staying on track" to reduce the deficit? Really? The Cato Institute is not so impressed:
http://www.cato.org/dispatch/02-01-06d.html
Chris Edwards, Cato's director of tax policy studies, remarks on the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) report that the U.S. budget deficit will reach $337 billion this year: "President Bush and Republicans in Congress keep claiming that they are getting spending under control and that spending growth rates are falling. That is simply not correct. The 8.0% growth rate in 2006, and massive 43% spending increase the past five years (FY2001 to FY2006), shows that federal government growth is completely out-of-control under the Republicans.
I don't think his strategy to fool people by repetition of facts he wishes to be true will continue to work. We have learned too much over the last few years and even people who ordinarily support the President find fault with his "facts." His speech assumes that we all see what he sees. But I think it's time for him to see what we see and join us in the real world.
Posted by Fresh Politics at 03:22 AM | Comments (8)
