Vatican: Luther still bad

Looks like it was a vicious rumor.

Via Get Religion.

"Haman, what's with the attitude? I don't know why you're trying to get us so mad at you"

If you're like me and you carry a fair bit of religious subculture baggage around with you, the phrase The Bible Raps makes you cringe, not click. But this Jewish project--"kid tested, rabbi approved," according to its Web site--is, if not exactly cool, too self-consciously silly to be totally embarassing, either. Here's their Purim selection:



Via Jewschool. Crossposted over at CSP.

Another candidate forum on religion

This could be a pretty big deal.

Breaking news!

The ELCA's new statement on gays and lesbians highlights a lack of consensus, takes no strong positions, and angers advocates on both sides of the issue!

First church opened in Qatar

While the building features no outward Christian symbols, it's still causing a controversy.

Times of London story.

You think same-sex marriage is a minefield?

John Witte on the growing legal complexity of religion and marriage in U.S. culture.

Better late than never

The Jewish Council for Public Affairs has endorsed a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine.

Via Jewschool.

Steven Waldman on the faith of our fathers

Few of the founding fathers were orthodox Christians. Nor were they uber-rationalist deists.

Steven Waldman makes both these claims, guaranteeing that he'll piss off pretty much everyone who's ever held a strong opinion on the subject of the fathers and religion. Waldman's blogging about this all week at Table for One. Good stuff--he's read pretty much every known primary source on the topic.

He's also put up a project archive at Belief Net.

David Gordon Green on Snow Angels and faith

Idol Chatter talks to one of my favorite filmmakers.

(In the photo included w/ this article, Gordon Green looks an awful lot like a good friend of mine, also named David, currently in div school in North Carolina, where Gordon Green went to film school. Very suspicious.)

Bishop Schofield deposed

Episcopal Life article.

Congress' second Muslim

Elected yesterday in a special election.

Obviously, will have to run again this fall, also known as right away...

America magazine on recent Catholic theology

In the new issue of America, Roger Haight traces post-Vactican II theological history and identifies a few core lessons learned (subscription required).

Another poll from FPL et al

Faith in Public Life, the CAP Action Fund, and Sojourners commissioned another poll about Democrats and evangelicals. In a state where the subject matters a great deal to the national electoral math--Ohio.

Good stuff, though it would be nice to know more about these voters' more general voting trends, as Mark Silk pointed out last time around. Especially since, at this point, the Democratic and Republican nomination contests are very different things--which one would you vote in if you wanted to have an effect?

Guess who loves the earth?

The Southern Baptists.

Geez, who's next, Focus on the Family?

Freedom of conscience for other people, too

Good piece in Islamica about U.S. religious pluralism, the evangelicals who built it, and its positive effect on the American Muslim experience.

More at Utne.

"Please don't let them separate me from you"

It's official: Bishop Gene Robinson will not be participating at the Lambeth Conference.

His response is worth a read.

It was inevitable

Take 3,000 "OMG!!! Evangelicals Heart the Earth and the Poor!"s, add 600 "Who the Huck's This Candidate Who Hates Abortion But Seems Genuinely to Like People?!"s, and what do you get?

Eventually, this.

Benedict: Luther wasn't a heretic

This is encouraging.

And a great lede in the Times of London, summing up in a sentence the widely misunderstood point of Luther's activism:

Pope Benedict XVI is to rehabilitate Martin Luther, arguing that he did not intend to split Christianity but only to purge the Church of corrupt practices.

Tired of the negligible fruits of your lifestyle-driven environmentalism?

Organize a campaign over at The Point.

More at Utne.

I don't need you, I'm South American now

The bishop of the diocese of San Joaquin has resigned from the Episcopal House of Bishops--for the second time--to avoid "forc[ing] the House of Bishops to a vote." How thoughtful of him!

He also spelled the presiding bishop's name wrong. Though I suppose some might find it gracious on his part that he didn't refer to her as "that gay-loving woman 'bishop'" or some such.

Ugh.

The hedge of separation

Jeff Sharlet rants about the role of religion in the presidential campaign and proposes that we start quizzing the candidates on details about the Christianity they apparently hold so dear.

You know, because theological knowledge is what makes your faith real.

"Ecclesiastical bait-and-switch"

Interesting article about the practice of giving altar calls, literal or otherwise, during weddings and funerals.

Personally, I've seen this more at funerals than at weddings. Which is upsetting--while in either case, the is-it-what-the-family-wants? litmus test seems a decent one as far as it goes, funerals in particular are full of people who are especially vulnerable and should be able to mourn and commemorate a loved one's life without being put on the spiritual spot. (Some of them might even be active members of other faiths, some of which have painful histories with the subject of Christian conversion...) It's extremely manipulative, and whenever I witness it I get angry--not that there's anything particularly helpful to do about it then and there.

(Also: the article suggests that pastors do this to fight the decline of church membership, which is not only an overly cynical interpretation but also one that suggests the reporter doesn't know the mainline-to-evangelical landscape to well...)

Overwhelmed by the commentary and spin following last night's primaries-and-a-caucus?

All you need is Noah Millman.

Happy birthday, Townes

In honor of Townes van Zandt's birthday: a tribute show tomorrow (Thursday) night in Minneapolis. If you're local and you like the country music, come on out. I'll be playing a few songs with friends Jake Hyer and Meghan Dudle.

It's at Lee's Liquor Lounge, at 101 Glenwood. 9 p.m., $5.

Joshua DuBois on Obama's Sermon on the Mount comment

David Brody had a good idea: hey, instead of speculating, let's ask!

What's the big deal with John Hagee?

Per usual, Jeff Pasley gives some good historical context for the McCain-Hagee debacle.

(Anyone who remains skeptical of the history of anti-Catholic bigotry in the States would do well to take a look at Awful Disclosures, which Jeff mentions as well.)

What's better than playing the lottery in hopes of being able to pay for health care?

Playing a lottery for which the prize itself is health insurance.

Martin Sheen awarded Laetare

While you Reagan kids may think of him exclusively as Pres. Bartlett, those of us who were around for the 70s remember him also as Kit and Captain Willard.

Notre Dame knows him as a Catholic activist and is honoring him accordingly.

The big produce lobby is powerful, too

Minnesota produce farmer Jack Hedin has a good op-ed in yesterday's NYT about how the final version of the farm bill is likely to make it even tougher for local producers to meet growing demand.

If only there were another weekend day, on which many people have religious services but not an obligation to avoid work all day long

A Jewish academy's basketball team may have to forfeit a playoff game because it's scheduled for Saturday, and the state high school sports governing body won't reschedule it. The state senate is trying to intervene.

Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier

According to the Vatican, these gender-neutral names for the members of the trinity don't have the power to effect a proper baptism.

No harm if you did it the wrong way--you just have to go back and do it again, with the proper boy Gods.

Hagee and McCain

John Hagee endorsed McCain yesterday, praising the senator with an enthusiasm normally reserved for zionists and fellow Catholic haters. Here's a surprise: Bill Donohue's not happy about this.

No word yet as to whether McCain will reject Hagee, or at least DENOUNCE him...

Obama and Santos

All the historic and unusually exciting parts aside, have you been feeling like this Democratic primary is a bit of a rerun?

Brian Schweitzer? John Podesta?!

The American Prospect plays the oh-who-will-be-running-mate? game for you, so you (and your roommate Dan) don't have to spend most of your time playing it yourself.

Okay, fine--confidential to Dan: despite Harold Meyerson's good points here, I'm still w/ the conventional wisdom on this one--neither Obama nor Clinton is a serious choice for the other's running mate.

Ted Strickland, on the other hand, makes a ton of sense.

Pew on people leaving or switching churches

New Pew Forum survey finds, among other things, that 10 percent of Americans are ex-Catholics.

That surprised me at first. Then I stopped and thought about just how many ex-Catholics I know. Of course, I also know several Catholics who converted from evangelicalism.

Once again, for all you theocrats: why separation of church and state is good for everyone involved

Ron Grossman gives a nice overview of the less-discussed side of separation--how it protects religion from politics.

Who are you calling emergent?

Here's a good quiz for all you theology nerds--more useful than the last one, by the same guy, which just lined us up with a bunch of Protestant theologians and a couple church fathers. (I was reminded that I like much of Calvin, even though I don't usually like Calvinists. [And don't even get me started on this guy.])

I'm apparently neo-orthodox, which I could have guessed. But I also scored high on the emergent church conversation meter, which surprised me at first--I'm a real liturgical loyalist, and I've never even been to church in a bar! But then I remembered that many emergent folks are essentially neo-orthodox believers with hipper music.

Via Heather.

A gathering of the goodie-two-shoes...in Gotham?

I don't know which part of this David Segal feature on King's College bothers me more: its wide-eyed-yet-condescending look at young evangelicals or its suggestion that all NORMAL, less-Jesus-loving college students in crazy, godless New York ever do is take ecstasy and have random sex. (I have it on the best of authority that some college students in New York--even Catholics and atheists and Jews!--spend most of their time studying and sitting around.)

Check out this lede:

Saturday night in midtown Manhattan, and 25 college students are packed into the living room of a small apartment. The festivities are about to get underway, and in this demographic, in this town, that typically means mind-altering substances, which segue to deafening music, which ultimately leads to nudity.

That's not happening here. There isn't a bong in sight, or a drop of liquor. Just 7Up and Edy's ice cream. And when the student in charge of this shindig says it's time for the evening to begin, he doesn't bust out a cooler of Smirnoff Ice. He asks everyone to bow their heads and pray.

7Up, ice cream, and prayer. How precious.

"The legal battle over same-sex marriage in California is also a clash of religions."

That's the lede of this reported piece in the SF Chronicle. I knew the UCC and the NAE differed on politics and theological particulars, but I wasn't aware they were different religions. I bet it's news to these people, too.

Three steps YOU can take in your daily life to BUILD a HEALTHIER PLANET and prevent global CATASTROPHE

1. LOBBY your senators and representative to support policy that will seriously address climate change, pollution, wilderness preservation, etc. If necessary, do this on your cell phone by incandescent light while eating individually wrapped imported beef jerky snacks on a short-haul flight for which you did not purchase a carbon indulgence.

2. LOBBY your state legislators, too.

3. JUDGE anyone who uses a vehicle powered by fossil fuels, including cars, buses, and even electric trains in cities that don't have 100% renewable electric utilities available. While you're judging them for being inadequately Green®, if it's too far to walk or bike, take a ride on the horsubway:


marriedtothesea.com

(Sorry; didn't intend to rant so--just wanted to show you this comic...)

Well, at least they're pro-life

Christianity Today reports that white evangelical support for capital punishment is down--all the way down to 74 percent. In 1996, it was at 82 percent--meaning that, at this rate, it should only take another third of a century or so to convince a majority of white evangelicals not to condone the killing of people their theology insists are made in God's image, utterly redeemable, and--this is the kicker, as it's a specifically Protestant and classically evangelical contribution--fundamentally no better or worse before God than anyone else.

Also: CT has long been an evangelical thought leader, and the conventional wisdom is that it's only been over the last several years that they've positioned themselves (some of the time) as a moderate agitator of the religious right line. But check out this unsigned editorial from 1996.

This just in: Missouri House supports enforcing current law

Let's take it to the people! Oh, convenient--there's already an election this November. That'll save the taxpayers money.

My earlier post.

Bloggers suck at math

Well, at least I do.

Here's the always-great xkcd on gender typing:

"Let religion compete in the marketplace for ideas"

Despite the predictable Free Markets!! language, the Economist's leader calling for disestablishment in England is a good read.

Via Thinking Anglicans.

Manipulating the bellwether

Another red-meat-to-the-religious-right referendum for the Missouri ballot? Weird coincidence. Not that it'll affect turnout--McCain's already pretty popular w/ these folks.

But at least this new amendment--unlike the same-sex marriage stuff--is a pointless and redundant re-affirmation of existing law an important step to inform principals and teachers about students' religious freedoms.

Similar tricks at work in Florida. (You remember Florida. Made the news a bit eight years ago.) This is important stuff--we might well have a President Kerry right now (a situation that I would, reluctantly, celebrate) were it not for the success the 2004 Ohio referendum had in turning out voters.

Okay, that's enough self-linking and sarcastic-talking for one post.

Bishops to ICE: Get your face out of our faces

The Catholic bishops sent a letter last week to DHS about Immigration and Customs Enforcement's aggressive enforcement activities.

Via RNS blog.

Oh, did we forget to mention that these folks were excommunicated long ago?

A high school affiliated with the traditionalist (i.e., anti-Vatican II and then some) Society of St. Pius X recently refused to let a female referee work a boys basketball game. (As long as they were being legalistic, couldn't they have let her ref provided she didn't say anything or TEACH the players anything? Maybe I'm thinking too biblicist-Protestant-fundamentalist... No teaching!)

Anyway, pretty crazy stuff. And it would have been nice if the wire story noted how utterly fringe this particular Catholic group is somewhere before the most-people-have-stopped-reading-now ninth paragraph. Just saying.

Maryland considers same-sex marriage

Sounds like a lively time Thursday at the state senate.

Washington Post, Baltimore Sun.

You can't do that! It's blasphemous! etc.

Actually, we Christians have been doing things like this all along--e.g., the pagan elements of Christmas and Easter.

This does, however, say something about the nature of contemporary European religion.

Via Get Religion.

"I kept being afraid that I was losing my audience"

Just in time for Valentine's Day, sex toys are no longer illegal in Texas.

This news inspired me to go re-watch a clip from Dildo Diaries. (It's a legit documentary, folks.) But I should warn you: the clip does include close-up images of dildos educational models and vibrators personal massagers and some matter-of-fact (while also bizarrely euphemistic) talk about how to use them. (It also features a couple choice naughty words uttered by the late, great Molly Ivins.)

Are we supposed to assume he'll be more principled when the political stakes are even higher?

Amid the endless chatter about the presidential race, I've repeatedly noted to friends that, whatever other feelings we have about the three remaining viable candidates, we can rejoice that it looks like our next president will not be pro-torture.

But I may have been overly optimistic. This afternoon, the Senate passed an anti-torture bill but failed to get a veto-proof supermajority. (The president has promised a veto, though these days I suppose that basically goes w/o saying.) Anyway, guess who crashed the Straight Talk Express right into the Capitol steps and stumbled in to vote nay?

Wearing a head scarf to class

The Turkish parliament passed two constitutional amendments allowing women to wear hijabs (Islamic head scarves) in universities. They await the president's signature, after which they'll become law.

In other news, the ultra-Orthodox authorities in Jerusalem aren't sure what to make of the community's burka trend.

New Orleans vs. Anytown, USA

Remember in the 2004 presidential debates when John Kerry kept promising to KILL--not “find” or even “defeat”--the terrorists? I certainly do; I had nightmares about the senator presenting my ballot as a credential before strangling some guy with his own two, war-hero hands.

How about this: Do you remember where Kerry and President Bush debated that fall? Miami, St. Louis, and Phoenix—but I couldn’t have told you that without looking it up. General-election debates just don’t tend to feature much of a sense of place; they function instead as what Scott Gabriel Knowles describes as “abstractly ‘representative’ American geographies.”

Check out this post of Knowles’ from last fall, in response to the news that the Commission on Presidential Debates plans to hold this fall’s debates in Oxford, Mississippi, Hempstead, New York, and Nashville. He argues that Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and New Orleans would have been better choices:

California has lost more of its citizens to the Iraq War and aftermath than any state, and L.A. as it’s largest metro region might make the perfect place to see the face of the war’s toll on U.S. soldiers and their families. Philadelphia suffers from the highest murder rate in the country, and would be the ideal location to talk about gangs, drugs, guns, post-industrial urban economics, and the failures of public education. New Orleans brings it all together, the ideal urban host to a conversation that would include questions about environmental degradation, energy independence, global warming, poverty, race, crime, and of course disaster and emergency preparedness, with a full airing of the Katrina saga.

Perhaps the commission will take this to heart when planning locations for 2012. Then, in 2016, we can turn our attention to trying to make the debates themselves something more than a who’s-tougher-on-terror charade.

"The daughter of the woman you killed in 1980 wishes to forgive you. Do you have anything you want to say in return?"

Good creative nonfiction piece about forgiveness in the current issue of Fourth Genre (not available online).

More at Utne.

The religious right hearts McCain

Well, Gary Bauer does, anyway. Others have their reasons for being cool toward him. Really stupid reasons, that is.

(In case you missed it, James Dobson recently saw the Huckalight, after keeping his distance until it no longer matters much. I'm sure the governor's very grateful.)

The MSM has already forgotten the "Evangelicals...and DEMOCRATS?!" trend piece

Or, rather, the HUNDREDS OF SUCH PIECES it's run over the last couple years.

After the Iowa caucuses, I linked to a post by Dan at Faith in Public Life in which he called for the networks to include questions about evangelical identity when exit polling Democrats, along with Republicans. Faith in Public Life later coordinated an open letter on the same subject.

Now, the group has co-commissioned a Zogby poll of its own that aims to correct this. Here's Dan again.

Community: something that serves ME, when I have time for it

D. Michael Lindsay--author of Faith in the Halls of Power--has an interesting column about the phenomenon of evangelical leaders who don't actually go to church on any regular basis.

He focuses on how hard it is for the church to play one of its major social roles--bringing people of different classes together in a way that (potentially) finds them equally invested and equally empowered--when the powerful folks don't actually show up. A good point. He might also have made the more theological point that the trend smacks of that most destructive of evangelicals heresies,* the belief that the faith community's value is defined only in terms of whatever value it adds to the individual's experience. In other words, that's it's all about me.

*Standard disclaimer: That is, SOME evangelicals promote this, and not usually explicitly.

Hello, I'm back

Just got back from a DC trip that came on the heels of a very busy week and a half. I hope you haven't run out of things to read in my absence--I know the internets can be pretty short on content. Anyway, be on the lookout for semi-frequent posts.

Saw these friends while out East. Nadia made perhaps the best apple-cranberry crisp ever. AND I spent hours waiting at airports waiting for delayed flights--I won't say what airline, but if you fly in/out of Minneapolis-Saint Paul and/or Detroit frequently, you can probably guess. Rhymes with "I-hope-never-to-fly-them-henceforth west."

And now, a bit of defensive and utterly inconsequential media criticism

I'm in DC this week, visiting the girlfriend and other friends.

I stopped at a coffee shop yesterday to get some work done, and the local TV news was on. There was a Lighthearted bit about a new trend in the crazy northern Midwest: snowboarding down city streets. They showed a few kids doing it in downtown Madison--and the newscasters got really confused as to why there were no cars in their way. (They even suggested that it was because of the snow. Which is what happens in cities like DC--two inches and the whole damn town shuts down--but not in Chicago or destinations north.)

Anyway, it was obvious that the footage was shot on State Street, which is regionally famous as a pedestrian mall--i.e., no cars allowed. Like Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis, the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, or the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. The kids weren't being reckless--they were playing in one of the lowest-danger city streets in the country.

Of course, to know that, you'd have to actually talk to somebody from the tri-state area before putting your crazy-provincial-folks punchline on the DC news. Maybe the Iowa caucus still has the coastal elites central-time-zoned out...

The holy prepuce

My friend Sarah posted a link and asked me to comment on the story. (Presumably cause I'm a recognized expert on both religious relics in general and foreskins in general, so what else would scream "Steve!"--or even "Steve Thorngate dot Blogspot dot com!"--quite so plainly?)

I don't actually have the time or inspiration to provide any insightful commentary, but here's the article. (From the main daily of the Twin Cities, which Sarah, who used to live here, apparently reads more thoroughly than I do now.)

"If Obama is a Reaganite, then I am a salamander"

E.J. Dionne on "why the Clintons' assault on Obama is so depressing."

Busy week

Lots of things to blog about this week--plenty of good MLK Day commentary. Lively Dem debate last night, in which Clinton expertly put Obama in the no-win situation of either fighting back and Not Being a Uniter or not fighting back and proving that She's the Real Fighter. Today is Tu B'Shvat, the Jewish new year of the trees.

But I won't be talking much about any of those things. It's crunch time for the pitching cycle at Utne, meaning I'll be spending most every spare moment reading magazines and photocopying the articles I like. Not so bad, actually. And I've got a couple freelance projects to work on, about which I won't complain.

Anyway, you won't see much of me till the second half of next week, though I might hit you with a quick link or two.

Christian Unity Week

It's Christian Unity Week this week. The 100th anniversary of the first time.

If you didn't know that, perhaps that's in part because some of the ecumenical movement's efforts have been successful enough that they no longer seem controversial or even particularly interesting. Peter Steinfels has an interesting take.

Aw shucksabee, guess I'll change my immigration stance again

Good news for folks who can't handle Huckabee's moderate streak--he's again moving right on immigration policy.

So he's shaping himself into more of a traditional conservative to try to win South Carolina and the nomination. But which Huckabee would govern were he to be president--the old compassionate conservative Huckabee or the new paleoconservative one?

Feingold on Edwards

My housemate Dan and I are both Obama supporters and political junkies. We've been talking about, among other things, the string of endorsements that Obama's been getting, and Dan wondered out loud last night whether Russ Feingold's would be forthcoming. I responded that, sadly, I wasn't sure it would be all that helpful.

Then, this morning, Dan sent me this article, an interview w/ Feingold by a small Wisconsin daily. Here's an excerpt:

The [presidential candidate] that is the most problematic is (John) Edwards, who voted for the Patriot Act, campaigns against it. Voted for No Child Left Behind, campaigns against it. Voted for the China trade deal, campaigns against it. Voted for the Iraq war … He uses my voting record exactly as his platform, even though he had the opposite voting record.

So...looks like he won't be backing Edwards. He goes on to say he's having a hard time deciding whether to support Obama or Clinton. Perhaps he has his reasons for staying out of the fray on that one, but I have a hard time believing that the only "nay" in the Senate on the original Patriot Act vote would support Clinton over Obama.

Well, it's about time!

Starbucks gotten too eco-responsible for you?

OR, do Starbucks' various attempts to greenwash their practices drive you mad?

Either way, good news: the chain will no longer be offering organic milk.

Now if they would just stop pretending to promote progressive labor policies in their shops and fair trade policies for their growers...

Hooray for green government!

The White House LOVES the environment!

Why else would they be so deliberate about recycling and reusing things? Things like...computer backup tapes of e-mail correspondence?

What if President Kucinich/Gravel/Paul tried to amend the Constitution with the anti-imperialism of the book of Revelation?

The other night, Mike Huckabee clarified his earlier comments about how the Constitution should be changed to conform to God's word--he was talking specifically abouht gay marriage and abortion, not anything else.

Hmm. Tim Grieve's take is right on.

This ought to be interesting

Ron Paul's at Bob Jones University today.

Just when you though you had a good grasp of American Protestantism...

CT reports that some Southern Baptist seminaries are pushing Calvinism.

Calvinism!!!

Episcopal conflict in Pittsburgh

To no one's surprise, it escalates.

In Congress alone

This isn't supposed to be a political blog. But I've been fairly obsessed with politics for the last few months, so it just kind of comes out that way. I haven't been too worried about it.

Until now. I was just working on a post for another blog, and I meant to type the phrase "second coming of Christ" but accidentally wrote "second coming of Congress." I didn't even notice I'd done it until the third or fourth time I read through the paragraph. Better tell the separation watchdogs to let the Fugitive Safe Surrender program be for a spell and come file lawsuits against MY HEAD.

What a very strange mistake to make. This is a cause for some concern.

How about me, Mike? Can I get in, too?

Huckabee, fielding questions about who gets to go to heaven:

"I'm going to stick to the things that make it critical for me to be president of the United States," Huckabee said Sunday. "I have deep convictions about who goes and who doesn't, but as far as who makes that decision, it isn't me, it's God. I'm going to leave that up to him."

Marty's unsatisfied with this response, and understandably so. It should be noted however, that while this may be the careful response of a slick politician, it isn't JUST that--it's also pretty good theology. Demurring on the state of others' souls and deferring to God's judgment is not a mere cop-out. In fact, I'd say it's a pretty critical corrective to some of the worst impulses of Christianity.

Which is not to say that Huckabee would say exactly this in any other context, in front of a different group of people. He's made it clear that he's quite adept at tailoring his message, and more than willing to do so.

"All it would have taken was exactly what Obama did"

Ezra has an effective take-down of the Clinton campaign talking point that Obama did very little to oppose the Iraq war once in the Senate.

Still skeptical of Huckabee

In the media frenzy over Mike Huckabee's rise to the top tier of GOP candidates, it's been all but forgotten just how ambivalent the religious right establishment is about the guy. A couple good correctives: this Mark Levin post, in which fewer than half the members of the Arlington Group express support for Huckabee, and this piece from Columbus, Ohio's The Other Paper, which describes Huckabee's unpopularity among state party bosses.

In other Huckanews, the blithely policy-lightweight tone of his candidacy may be over, assuming he's a quick study: the campaign has hired Jim Pinkerton, a real big shot. Walter Shapiro has the essential facts.

Budgets are moral downloads

The Bush OMB is releasing its annual budget Feb. 5, and for the first time, it's going paperless.

Such a bold eco-move on the administration's part! Of course, this is what we've come to expect.

The inimitable Sen. Byrd: "Let us hope that they send us a budget that is worth the paper it would have been printed on."

I'm glad I'll be nowhere near the DC policy advocacy community when, on the annual morning on which folks are accustomed to going and picking up a copy of the budget, they instead have to cue up to try to load the 2,200-page doc from OMB's Web site.

Via Grist.

The holiness of water

The current issue of Ruminate--a terrific, newish faith-based lit magazine--includes a lovely little creative nonfiction piece about the concept of holy water in the context of a drought.

More at Utne.

Kirkpatrick on Huckabee

I think David Kirkpatrick is one of the smartest religion writers around, even though I think his "Seminal!" "Conversation-changing!" NYT magazine piece on the evangelical "crackup" was little more than the culmination of two years of dubious MSM trend pieces.

In today's Times, Kirkpatrick gives some good insight into Huckabee's success w/ young evangelicals, implicitly making the crucial point that, if there is a crackup among evangelicals, it's between leaders and people in the pews--it's about authority itself more than it's about evangelicals becoming more moderate or following new, younger leaders or whatever (even though the headline suggests the last).

"The sexes have always lived together, but the races have not."

Good op-ed today by Lorrie Moore, one of my favorite fiction writers. I disagree with her conclusions--that it's rather late in our history of gender relations to be super excited about the prospect of a female president for its own sake, and that electing Clinton would necessarily mean more of the mediocrity of the 90s. I actually think that electing a female president would be a huge accomplishment, very exciting in and of itself. But I believe the same thing about electing a black president, and I like Obama better on most of the issues AND think he has a far better chance of winning the general election. So, while I don't think the identity politics element of this race should be downplayed or disparaged, I'm grateful that, for me and my vote, the race and gender questions are mutually neutralized. Obviously, that's easy for me to say, as a member of neither group.

I tend to think that arguments that either racism or sexism is the bigger problem today and/or that one candidate or the other represents the bigger triumph over bigotry are fairly pointless--they're fundamentally arbitrary and impossible to prove. (Though when such an argument is made by a black woman, it does offer some valuable experiential insight.) But I'm interested in Moore's piece, as it makes such an argument in reverse--i.e., she's a white woman arguing that race matters more.

My interest in the piece is also writerly--check out this fantastic lede:

When most of us first laid eyes on Hillary Clinton, it was during “60 Minutes,” and she was sitting by her man saying she was not one of those women who would stand by him. Not long after that, she told us she didn’t make cookies. At that remark I thought I heard the cheering of nonbaking working women everywhere, but apparently I was wrong, and quickly we the people were favored with Mrs. Clinton’s own contrite cookie recipe, which I have not yet had time to try.

Hardly an unprecedented idea, but how often do you get to read prose like that in the opinion pages?

Church lawsuits aren't just for Anglicans

Though in this case, it's the conservative congregation, not the universalist, tradition-forsaking, gay-loving communist theologically diverse larger church body, that initiated the suit itself.

In Pittsburgh--incidentally, an even bigger center of ANGLICAN conservatism than west suburban Chicago or Northern Virginia--the local PCUSA presbytery's dispute with its largest church has just escalated to a legal fight.

Via RNS blog.

We misplace modifiers in our headlines, you decide

The liberal media is making incendiary claims about the president again.

UPDATE: They fixed it! I'll gladly take full credit for embarrassing Fox News.

Ah, the body of Christ

The property dispute between the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia and several churches that left the diocese is costing both sides a ton in legal costs. The diocese is selling off other property and borrowing from endowment funds to pay for it. The "Anglican District of Virginia"--which represents the churches that seceded--is raising money from members. Many of whom, you may recall, have pretty deep pockets.

Fun!

Fired up! Ready for you to drop the stupid, sexist Hillary's-a-crybaby-and/or-a-faker story already!

Seriously, Jesse Jackson Jr., you really shouldn't do that.

The other day, I was proud to be an Obama supporter when, after Clinton choked up a little--she didn't even shed any tears or cry out loud, for crying out loud!--my guy responded to a question about it from the juvenile gaggle of groupthinking gossip hounds Our Nation's finest political reporters with just the right combination of classy respect for his opponent and subtle disdain for the question--while the other guy expressed fear that Hillary might, if elected, get too emotional to think clearly while she's menstruating all over the missile launch buttons gave a careless and offensive response.

Today, Jackson, Obama's co-chair, outdid Edwards. While Jackson doesn't get into the crying-women-are-weak garbage, he does talk some pretty serious nonsense about how she should have cried about other sad things--POLICY-related sad things--instead of about "her appearance." And, asked if he's accusing her of faking the tears, he hedges, tries to have it both ways.

Now please don't accuse me of perpetuating a story that I think should be a non-story, because this blog doesn't have enough readers to have any kind of real effect...but, on the off chance that somebody from the Obama campaign stumbles onto this post by mistake: please don't let this happen again. It's offensive, and it won't work.

My friend Dave summed it up well in an e-mail:

Encouraging that someone in the Obama campaign is echoing talking points from William Kristol.

It's mean to accuse someone of crying on purpose. At least Edwards had the integrity to believe she was really crying, and the guts and backbone to just make fun of her for being a weak woman.

If it's less carbon, then it must be good!

A new greenwashing low:

A U.S. company is working with the Chinese government to give farmers carbon credits in exchange for growing the company's genetically modified rice. You know, because GM rice requires less nitrogen fertilizer, resulting in less greenhouse gas production.

It's not the "green" craze itself that's scary. It's the fact that it gives cover for crap like this--for framing genetically modified conventional agriculture as somehow environmentally friendly.

Geez.

Huck and the somewhere-else-state solution

Huckabee appears to be no friend of Palestine, to say the least.

See Matthew Duss' fairly devastating take.

Oh yes, the old "it's not a religion; it's a person"

This Andrew Greeley piece is sort of all over the place, but it raises a good point:

[Catholics have] been Christians since the beginning. The claim of the evangelicals to a monopoly on the term is little more than a century old. It excludes Mormons, secularists and Catholics. We don't like being excluded, and we might just begin to make trouble about it. We invented Christianity, guys, and your claim to sole rights is historical nonsense -- and bigotry, too.

Too bad he doesn't include the peace churches, the Orthodox church, and, for crying out loud, mainline Protestants in his list of those wronged by evangelicals who think "Christian" refers only to their particular brand of the faith. I'm not just being defensive here--I've found over the years that those evangelicals I know who tend toward this particularist stance are not anti-Catholic so much as they are anti- anyone who defines faith primarily in terms of church membership rather than evangelical tenets of faith.

Here's one I've heard a lot: "It's not that Catholics can't be real Christians; it's that being Catholic doesn't MAKE them Christian. Anyone who has a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, believes the Bible is true, and knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that only Christ's blood can save him/her from hell can be a Christian..."

A frustrating attitude, for sure. But it's not the SAME attitude that provoked convent burnings in the 19th century. Substitute "Lutheran" or even "Baptist" for "Catholic" and you'd get largely the same group of people to endorse the above statement--because it isn't about bigotry against a certain group, and it isn't even just about sectarian particularism. It's about a general disregard for the denominational structures that used to dominate U.S. religious identity.

(Also, on the Greeley piece: I'm not sure how he's using the word "secularists" in the quote above. People, including Christians, who support the separation of church and state? Okay, I'm one of those. Though if he intends it as a blanket label for non-theocratic Protestants--which, in caricature-your-enemies land might be seen as a synonym for "mainline"--then I take the rest of this post back and will instead write about how confusing and stupid it is to use the word that way.)

Noah Feldman on the LDS church's position in American culture and politics

Good in-depth piece from the NYT magazine.

Oh, is there a presidential race on the ballot, too? We were too worried about protecting life to notice...

Looks like Missouri--that electoral vote-rich swing state--may well have an abortion-restricting referendum on its ballot this fall.

Those crazy grassroots movements and their insistence on focusing only on issues!

In case you've forgotten--though if you're like me you never, ever will--President Bush may well have lost in 2004 were it not for the fact that Ohio (among other states) had a same-sex marriage ban on the ballot.

Fortunately, as we've all been told, the religious right is dead...

"A referendum on the Protestant political soul"

The always-insightful Diana Butler Bass frames the possibility of an Obama vs. Huckabee election in terms of two entrenched positions withing U.S. Protestantism.

Making executions better...

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments today about Kentucky's use of three-drug lethal injection. A good NY Times editorial manages to both address the issue at hand and make it clear that the larger point is that the death penalty, regardless of how it's administered, is always unconstitutional and immoral.

I often struggle with this myself--to even have a serious conversation about how much risk of pain or indignity or whatever is acceptable when KILLING SOMEONE IN A STATE-SANCTIONED SETTING strikes me as equivocal and disgusting. But I'm hopeful that cooler heads than mine on this particular issue will continue to achieve incremental reform on the way to eventually ending the barbaric practice altogether.

Just what we need--more Jesus in the English department

(Actually, I found my grad school experience to be fairly hostile toward religion, despite the fact that I went to a Jesuit school with a crucifix in every classroom.)

Terry Eagleton--the prominent literary scholar whose diverse career has been marked more by Marxist thought than by any other school or movement--has written a new introduction to the Gospels.

Why Obama?

Lots of people have asked me recently why I'm such a fan of Obama's. Along with my pride in having voted for him twice when I lived in Chicago, I usually name a few reasons:

• He offers a more sophisticated explanation of the appropriate place for faith in public life than any other candidate from either party.
• He believes in America as a force for good in the world but doesn't equate this w/ reckless, pointless war.
  
• As Andrew Sullivan and others have articulated, President Obama's name and face mean instantly better relations w/ many parts of the world.
  
• His intellectual style seems to place more value in seeing all sides of an issue fully than in being decisive and right all the time.
  
• Despite this, he offers bold progressive vision--the unity and consensus he seeks are not about centrist compromise. He's able to actually persuade people to support his ideas--to LEAD. And left-leaning Democrats don't have to choose between the "electable" candidate and the one who actually represents their views.
  

Since Iowa, some of the best analysis of Obama's candidacy has come from Ezra Klein--e.g., on Obama's current stump speech. Actually, all of Ezra's election coverage has been quite good.

This post from Daniel Koffler is also interesting.

Surprise, Dobson likes Huckabee after all!

James Dobson is claiming the Huckabee win in Iowa as evidence of the religious right's ongoing influence. I don't think he's exactly wrong about the basic point, but it's obnoxious to see him do this after his conspicuous unwillingness to give Huckabee the time of day up till now. He's just barely stopping short of actually taking credit for something he distinctly refused to do, now that it's gotten done w/o his help.

This guy gets more tiresome each year.

Polling and religion

Dan makes a good observation about exit poll data from Iowa--CNN and NBC each asked Republicans about evangelical affiliation but not Democrats.

Wasn't it just months ago that the MSM was hyping the Evangelicals Go Liberal! narrative every damn day? Pretty crazy that the What the Huck's Going to Happen Now? story could displace it so entirely.

This is gonna blow your mind

The National Council of Churches has a list of principles, a reference for voters.

Anthony Bradley--of such mainline-loving organizations as the Acton Institute and Covenant Theological Seminary--seems to think the list leaves something to be desired.

Coming soon: Southern Baptists disagree with the finer points of UCC Christology!

Dismissed as rector, effective Christmas day

Another casualty of the Anglican conflict.

Iowa

It seems redundant for little old me to chime in on the analysis, so let me just say this:

Obama!

Remember "macaca"?

Interesting thought experiment from Dan Schnur: what if Sen. Allen was running for president, as everyone assumed he would be until his reelection campaign went down in flames?

You have heard what others say. What do YOU say?

Which theologian represents you best?

I lined up best with Calvin, followed closely by Tillich and Moltmann. Nadia got Moltmann. Dad says he'll try to get Luther but expects he'll get Jonathan Edwards instead. Whatever that means.

Via Adam Copeland.

Yes, yes, Christ saved you--but WHEN?

When I was in high school, a good friend of mine spent many evenings in conversation with me before deciding to "get saved." (He was converting from not Islam or paganism or, worse yet, secular humanism--he was baptized Lutheran. That's a topic for another time.) When he told me about deciding to embrace the more personal faith of our evangelical church, he didn't say anything about a particular moment at which he prayed and accepted Jesus. This worried me, and I said so (and offended him).

It was only later that I learned that the idea that salvation is largely about a moment in time and the uttering of a few sentences is, in the larger world of Christendom, not a particularly popular or traditional one. (It was later still that a seminary professor articulated what I've come to believe is a common and serious evangelical heresy--embracing faith over works to the point that faith itself becomes a work.)

Erik Thoennes has far better evangelical cred than I do. In this great essay for CT, he offers some good correctives to common ideas about getting saved.