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April 26, 2007
Bill Moyers Interview in The Christian Century
Posted by Jesus Politics
The Christian Century has published an important interview with Bill Moyers. Some excerpts:
If the Bush administration were to ask you for your advice, what would you say to them?
Well, I did give President Bush advice once: on a broadcast I urged him to make Al Gore head of homeland security—in other words, turn our response to the terrorist attacks into a bipartisan effort, make the fight against terroism an American cause, not a partisan battle cry.
What would I say now? Fire the ideologues and assign them to scrub the floors at Guantánamo for penitence. Stop confusing neocon pundits with Old Testament prophets. Read the Bible for humility's sake, but for policy's sake commit to memory the report of the Iraq Study Group. Don't sacrifice any more soldiers to prove you're in charge; get the soldiers out of the line of fire between Sunnis and Shi'ites. And remind your hirelings of Winston Churchill's definition of democracy as the occasional necessity of deferring to the opinions of other people. [ ]
You once remarked that seminary was a detour in your life. Why did you go to seminary and what difference do you think it made for you?
I knew at age 15 that I wanted to be a journalist—then, a little later, a political journalist. That's how I wound up spending the summer of 1954 on Lyndon Johnson's staff in the Senate. I wanted to learn the game at the feet of the master.
But I came home feeling unsatisfied by that experience, and I interpreted my angst as a call to something more fulfilling—the ministry, actually. I thought of the pastorate or a professorship. I spent four years getting my master of divinity before finding myself back in politics and government and then back again in journalism.
For a while I thought I had made a mistake, that I would have been better off if I had spent those four years in law school or getting a Ph.D. But as the years unfolded I realized what a blessing seminary had been. I had a succession of remarkable teachers who believed that a true evangelical is always a seeker. T. B. Maston, one of the great souls in my life, taught Christian ethics and more than anyone else helped me to see into the southern enigma of having grown up well loved, well churched and well taught and yet still indifferent to the reality of other people's lives. I learned about historical criticism, the beauty of the Greek language, and the witness of my Baptist ancestors to the power of conscience. That detour turned out to be quite a journey.
Later on, when I realized how almost every political and economic issue I dealt with in government and then as a journalist intersects with moral and ethical values, I was grateful for those years in seminary. They still inform my life.
So much is being written and said about the alliance between the religious right and the Republican Party. What role do you think religion should have in the public arena?
Whose religion? Christian? Muslim? Jew? Sikh? Buddhist? Catholic? Protestant? Shi'ite? Sunni? Orthodox? Conservative? Mormon? Amish? Wicca? For that matter, which Baptist? Bill Clinton or Pat Robertson? Newt Gingrich or Al Gore? And who is going to decide? The religion of one seems madness to another. Elaine Pagels said to me in an interview that she doesn't know a single religion that affirms the other's choice.
If religion is the voice of the deepest human experience—and I believe it is—humanity contains multitudes, each speaking in a different tongue. Naturally, believers will bring their faith into the public square, translating their unique personal experience into political convictions and moral arguments. But politics is about settling differences while religion is about maintaining them. Let's realize what a treasure we have in a secular democracy that guarantees your freedom to believe as you choose and mine to vote as I wish.
Some people on the left think the Democratic Party needs to be more explicitly religious. What do you think about that counterstrategy?
If you have to talk about God to win elections, that doesn't speak well of God or elections. We are desperate today for cool thinking and clear analysis. What kind of country is it that wants its politicians to play tricks with faith?
Posted by Jesus Politics at 04:21 AM | Comments (3)
April 19, 2007
Imagining a New Christian Sexuality
Posted by Jesus Politics
Miguel De La Torre, a professor at Iliff School of Theology and an ordained Southern Baptist minister, has recently published the book, "A Lily Among the Thorns: Imagining a New Christian Sexuality." One of the chapters challenges the traditional patriarchal views of the Christian Right.
Some excerpts:
The greatest threat to mutual giving and vulnerability in relationships--and, by extension, to human and spiritual fulfillment--has historically been, and continues to be, the way in which women are perceived within patriarchy. Sex can never be liberated, or be liberating, as long as conditions in relationships prevent women from fully participating in the humanity created by God for them. As long as patriarchal structures define the personal and spiritual development of women, neither party in the relationship will be able to fully enjoy the passion possible through sex. This continues to be so even as well-meaning Christians often mention the need to return to a more literal interpretation
of the scriptures. Unfortunately, most traditional readings of the biblical text, specifically on issues on sexuality, can prove to be quite unchristian, especially when the Bible is read through the eyes of patriarchy. Again, Jesus' approach to women stands in marked contrast: it was quite antipatriarchal, if not downright liberative. [ ]
Jesus' commitment to debunking the patriarchy of his time can be seen in a retelling of the story through the eyes of marginalized women. In this retelling, the rabbi Jesus was received in the home of one of his apostles named Martha, who also served as founder and deacon of the house-church in Bethany in which she proclaimed God's word. On this day her sister Mary the evangelist sat at the feet of Jesus to study Torah. Martha asked the rabbi to have his student help with the duties required by the deacon, but the rabbi responded that studying Torah was just as important as serving.36 Hence, the same biblical text that has historically been used to enforce the oppression of women instead, as we have carefully delineated, contains the very seeds of liberation by which patriarchy can be challenged.
Posted by Jesus Politics at 04:12 AM | Comments (1)
April 13, 2007
Analyzing the 2008 Election from a Faith Perspective
Posted by Jesus Politics
The Associated Baptist Press has two informative and insightful articles where they discuss the 2008 election from a faith perspective.
From the article, "GOP presidential race again features faith, but new dynamics":
"Of course this could all change, but right now there's no candidate out there that really energizes evangelical voters the way that [President] Bush did" in the 2000 and 2004 elections, said Barry Hankins, a religion and politics expert at Baylor University.
And, noted Clemson University political scientist Laura Olson, at least two of the top three Democratic candidates have shown they can “speak ‘evangelicalese’” and appeal to evangelical and other religious voters.
Has the politics-and-religion script been flipped? Experts say a massive rearrangement of voting patterns among religious conservatives probably won’t happen in this election. But the election may signal the beginning of a significant shift in the dynamics of faith and politics over the long term -- and even small shifts in the way certain demographic groups cast their ballots can mean big results for an electorate that has been closely divided between the Democrats and the GOP for nearly a decade. [ ]
Although McCain has a strong conservative voting record on social issues, he has embraced positions that have angered some leaders of the Religious Right.
"I can see the evangelical Republicans saying, ‘You know, he's better than the opposition.’ But there's not going to be the excitement for him that you had for Reagan or Bush," said Baylor's Hankins, who teaches history and church-state studies at the Baptist-affiliated Waco, Texas, school. [ ]
Romney, meanwhile, has surprisingly come in first thus far among fellow GOPers in the all-important fundraising polls, but he is not gaining much support in surveys of potential evangelical Republican voters. Both Olson and Hankins said evangelical reluctance to support him might stem more from his recent pedigree of social conservatism than from his Mormonism.
The former governor of one of the nation's most liberal states would be the first member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to become a major party's presidential nominee. He has campaigned for president as a strong opponent of abortion rights and same-sex marriage. But, in his gubernatorial campaigns, he was strongly pro-choice and pro-gay-rights. [ ]
Hankins and Olson said Huckabee -- whose style and charisma may appeal to moderates in the general election -- has the potential to do far better, were he to possess the resources of the top-tier candidates.
"Huckabee, if he could move to the front of the pack, the Christian-Right evangelicals would jump all over that," Hankins said. "But it's a matter of getting to the front of the pack."
Olson said perhaps GOP strategists and big-money donors have strategically coalesced around candidates without strong Religious Right credentials. "Since President Bush is becoming less and less popular overall … maybe there's some sense that, if the Republicans want to win in 2008 … then you've got to pick somebody who is going to be, in some real obvious way, different than George W. Bush." [ ]
"If Gingrich could do in the moral sphere what Romney might be able to do in the political sphere -- that is, convince people he's had a conversion," then he has a chance of winning the nomination, he said. "That's going to be tough, but he's got all the political and religio-political stances the Religious Right loves."
But Olson said Gingrich, like Romney, risks appearing inauthentic.
"I think Gingrich goes and he talks to Dobson, you know, for strategic reasons. But does that end up looking forced, in the way that it might end up looking forced for McCain?" she asked, referring to the senator's recent attempts to mend fences with conservative Christian leaders he angered. The move came under significant criticism from some of McCain's previous supporters. [ ]
Dobson recently questioned whether Thompson, despite his strong social-conservative voting record, was a committed Christian. The former senator has said little publicly about his personal faith.
Olson said that exchange is significant for evangelicals.
“Whatever Dobson says, people are going to pay attention to,” she said. “But, I think, if you're Dobson, if you are the 'pro-family' movement ... and you're looking at the [GOP] landscape and there's nobody that we like, then one may realize Thompson is one's best choice. And you start to say, ‘O.K., maybe we were a little harsh on you to begin with.’”
From the article, "Democratic presidential race features more faith than usual":
One, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, is a cradle-roll Methodist who -- despite her caricature among religious conservatives as a rabid secularist -- has maintained her faith throughout her adult life.
Another, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, has been received warmly in recent months by evangelical audiences. Obama, an African-American, is a Congregationalist raised in an essentially secular environment in exotic locales around the world. He came to faith as an adult after working with churches on Chicago's South Side and seeing Christianity transform lives and communities.
The last -- former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards -- is a Methodist raised and baptized as a Southern Baptist who has talked about how his faith "came roaring back" after his firstborn son was killed. He has said his Christianity motivates his relentless focus on poverty and economic justice.
Democrats' apparent comfort in talking about their faith -- and apparent Republican discomfort with their own candidates -- comes from a number of factors, the experts said.
Establishment Democrats began realizing in 2000 and 2004 that they had a religion problem. Polls showed that large majorities of religiously committed people -- Catholics and Protestants alike -- voted for Republicans. The pro-GOP majorities were even more overwhelming among conservative evangelicals and Catholics. Meanwhile, people with low or no religious commitment voted overwhelmingly Democratic.
Worried the party would be tarred as a bulwark of secularism, Democratic leaders began rehabilitating the party's image with faith-motivated voters.[ ]
While many longtime evangelical leaders like James Dobson have resisted drawing attention away from abortion and homosexuality as signature issues, many younger evangelicals seem to be embracing the trend.
"I think they're interested in issues of peace and justice, and I think that some of those people that might otherwise be attracted to a Republican -- I think there is a group of evangelicals that could find Barack Obama pretty interesting and attractive," Hankins said. [ ]
Such comfort with discussing faith may help both Obama and Edwards, who has been similarly candid about his Christianity. In a Beliefnet interview earlier this year, Edwards said it "is important in my case to have a personal relationship with the Lord."
He also said he focuses campaign rhetoric on poverty and health-care coverage for the poor because "if you took every reference to taking care of 'the least of these' out of the Bible, there would be a pretty skinny Bible. And I think I as a Christian, and we as a nation, have a moral responsibility to do something about this."
Such a comfort with faith may cause Obama -- and, perhaps, Edwards -- to "siphon off" more evangelicals than Democrats have been able to do in years, experts say.
"You've got Sen. Obama and Sen. Edwards, and both of them … are able to speak 'evangelicalese,'" Olson said. "I think one of the things that American voters seem to want -- and part of why George W. Bush was able to do so well in both of the elections when he was a candidate -- is that Americans want someone who seems genuine."
Sen. Clinton may have more difficulty in that regard. She increasingly makes public reference to her lifelong Methodism and gave a highly publicized speech last year in which she tried to open a dialogue with abortion opponents. However, many conservative religious voters retain a strong dislike for her and her husband.
"Evangelicals are not going to cross over [and vote] for Sen. Clinton. I mean, they just aren't," Olson said. "She's a lot more religious than people think she is…. And, yeah, she kind of has tempered on abortion a little bit. But is she going to go over [to] the pro-life side? No."
Hankins said nominating Clinton could do more to mobilize the conservative Republican base than any of Republican candidates could.
“If you have Hillary Rodham Clinton getting the Democratic nomination, that could solidify conservatives because they'll have something to run against," he said. "[With] any person who identifies with the Christian right, the opposition to the Clintons is so strong, I don't think there's anything that can be done to overcome it.” [ ]
Whatever the case may be, Olson and Hankins cautioned not to expect any dramatic revolution in the voting habits of the core GOP base come 2008.
"You have this sort of Christian Right sort of evangelical who won't vote for anybody who's pro-choice in terms of abortion," Hankins said.
Olson agreed. "Conservative people of faith -- particularly conservative evangelicals -- cannot be expected too much to deviate" from past voting patterns, she said. "You are not going to see some kind of sea change in that kind of constituency."
Posted by Jesus Politics at 02:57 AM | Comments (4)
April 05, 2007
What is the Cure for Religious Illiteracy?
Posted by Jesus Politics
Charles Haynes, a scholar at the First Amendment Center, comments on Stephen Prothero's book about religious literacy in a recent column.
Haynes' column ends with these paragraphs:
Religious literacy matters because religion matters. Religion isn’t just something people used to believe a long time ago. Religion plays a central role — for better and for worse — in shaping events at home and abroad. As we’ve learned since 9/11, what we don’t know about religion can hurt us.
No graduate from an American high school or college is prepared to meet the challenges of the 21st century without some knowledge of the world’s major religions.
Religious literacy also matters because religious freedom matters. The United States is the most religiously diverse place in the world and, among developed nations, the most religious. How can we negotiate religious differences — and protect everyone’s rights — if we don’t understand one another?
The cure for religious illiteracy, Prothero argues, is for public high schools to require two religion courses: one in Bible and another in world religions. And he would require all college graduates to take at least one course in religious studies.
I have no problem with a college requirement. And I have long proposed a high school world-religions requirement. Religion is too important, too complex, to be handled adequately by brief discussions in history or literature courses. Some high schools currently offer electives in world religions (there are 11 such courses in Fairfax County, Va., alone). At least one school district (Modesto, Calif.) requires a one-semester course in world religions at the 9th grade level. So it can be done — without controversy or lawsuits.
A required Bible course is another matter. Given its place in Western civilization, schools should include substantial study about the Bible in history and literature courses. And, if handled well, a Bible elective can be a valuable option for students. But a required Bible course comes too close to privileging the Jewish and Christian traditions. Moreover, many school districts are already embroiled in conflicts over Bible electives. Requiring all students to take a Bible course would only up the ante.
Whatever your favored solution, don’t expect reform anytime soon. After all, it has taken 20 years to get minimal treatment of religion in textbooks. But in a world torn by sectarian conflict — and a nation increasingly divided by religion — I wonder if we have time to wait.
Posted by Jesus Politics at 10:38 PM | Comments (15)
April 03, 2007
False Prophets
Posted by de sententia
Does believing that "God is on our side" make it easier for us to inflict pain and suffering on those perceived to be our enemies? If we think God sanctions violence, are we more likely to engage in violent acts?
Those questions were posed recently by Social psychologist Brad Bushman of the University of Michigan. You may be surprised by the results.
According to the studies, the resounding answer to both questions is "yes." Researcher Brad Bushman hypothesized that "exposure to a biblical description of violence would increase aggression more than a secular description of the same violence" and that "aggression would be greater when the violence was sanctioned by God than when it was not sanctioned by God." In the study, students read a description of the beating, raping, and murder, of a woman in ancient Israel. One half of the students read a version of the story that included an assertion that God commanded the friends of the woman to take revenge. The other half read a version that did not mention God sanctioning violence. One group was told the account came from the Bible while the other was told it came from an ancient scroll. When those involved in the study were then entitled to inflict punishment upon others, those who believed that God sanctioned the punishment were the most aggressive in inflicting punishment. The results held true in Brigham Young University, where 99% of those tested said they believe in God and the Bible, and in Vrije University in Amsterdam, Holland,, where half said they believed in God and only 27% believed in the Bible.
As I read this story, I thought of the false prophets we are warned about. It is a warning well worth heeding, especially in politics. When Hitler came to power, his speech was colored with references to God and what is right. "I can thank God at this moment that He has so wonderfully blessed us in our hard struggle for what is our right..." he said in 1939. In the last two elections, politicians have manipulated voters with 'gimmick issues', like striking the words "under God" from the pledge of allegiance and appeals claims that our faith is under attack from (gasp!) liberals.
But perhaps Bushman summarizes the results of the study best:
"What worries me is when people use God as a justification for their violence. There are scriptures that say you should not take God's name in vain. This is the most extreme version of taking God's name in vain," he said.Amen.
Posted by de sententia at 01:28 AM | Comments (6)
