Still wanted: religious freedom in Russia

The NY Times has a good longer piece on Christianity since Putin came to power--a time that's been good (in a manner of speaking) for the Orthodox church but not so much for Protestants.

Shirley Dobson: No interfaith enthusiast

Whatever you think of interfaith work generally, it seems pretty obvious that the National Day of Prayer would be a good time to be fairly broadly inclusive.

Alternate takes of the parables

I've always tended to side w/ those who say that the thing about Jesus' parables is not that some of them are so cryptic so much as that Christians tend to ignore the ones that AREN'T.

Still, this is pretty funny.

The Cubs just won their 10,000th game ever

A one-run victory over Colorado, in 10 innings. Great game--they used up their entire bench trying to eke the thing out. There was briefly a question in the 10th as to whether right fielder Fukudome was hurt. If so, they would have had to bring in a pitcher as a position player (Zambrano at first base?).

It's always the bench management that fascinates me most. Anyway.

And now I can go to bed.

Umbanda turns 100

Miami Herald.

If you're headed to Russia, don't give the gift of bullets

It got an American pastor a three-year sentence.

Next stop on the gay-marriage-ban express:

California.

California?!

California.

Jeremiah Wright interview

He's going on Bill Moyers this Friday.

The pope has left the building

Amid the swarm of fairly clueless coverage of the papal visit--yes, I'm aware that I didn't really contribute much of anything to counteract this--there were some interesting pieces. Two of my favorites:

Fr. James Martin on Benedict's admission that he, too, is weak and sinful.

Ann Rodgers, dispensing w/ the standard abortion-and-sexual-abuse focus in her first phrase and then covering what was actually interesting about the pope's speech to the bishops:

In a speech that delved into difficult issues from abortion to immigration and sexual abuse, Pope Benedict XVI charged U.S. bishops to do a better job of making sure that Masses are vibrant invitations to follow Jesus Christ -- or risk losing their church by attrition.

(Shame about the irrelevant and inaccurate headline and dek, but don't blame Rodgers...)

Court upholds three-drug lethal injection

By a vote of 7-2.

From the opinion by the chief justice: "An execution method violates the Eighth Amendment [which prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment"] only if it is deliberately designed to inflict pain."

Terrific to consider that we're responsible for the suffering we collectively inflict only if we do it not just irresponsibly or recklessly but intentionally and sadistically. Explains a lot of our foreign policy, doesn't it? Though not the torture part...

Biblicism and privilege

Know any self-professed biblical literalists who tend toward either conservative, pro-The Market® economic beliefs or none at all?

Send them this link.

Jeremiah Wright speaks

Rev. Wright gave his first sermon since Angryblackpastorgate this past Sunday. He's been keeping a pretty low profile, an understandable choice for any number of reasons. Not the least of which is the death threats. For allegedly being hateful and racist...

Will Benedict serve Communion to Sen. Kerry, Speaker Pelosi, etc.?

The Politico raises a good question.

No-fault divorce

Marriage Savers has a new anti-divorce Web site, and Kathryn Joyce doesn't like it, not one bit. Her criticism of this particular critique of no-fault divorce is certainly valid: it's fairly indifferent to the problem of domestic violence; it smells of the most reactionary sort of "fathers' rights" rhetoric; it's pretty paternalistic.

What Joyce DOESN'T do is to offer an actual defense of no-fault divorce along w/ her denouncement of one particular group of its denouncers. Here's a good, hard-to-pin-down-politically piece from a couple years ago that deals with some of the anxieties of faith-based parents (free reg. required). Among other things, it criticizes no-fault divorce laws, but from the careful center rather than the reactionary right. While many on the left no doubt have a problem w/ this argument, too, it doesn't present quite the easy target that Marriage Savers does.

It's finally happening

The pope has arrived.

"We have to empower them to hate their civilization"

Shabana Mir asks the question we've all been dying to: "What are we going to do about American women?"

Exactly 10 percent? Whatever happened to looking down and mumbling awkwardly about "whatever you can afford"?

Good idea from the ELCA Milwaukee synod--encourage parishioners to tithe on their stimulus payments. As in 10 percent, the amount many evangelical churches insist on but most mainline churches don't.

Via Melissa Rogers.

McCain's pastor

Surprising no one did this sooner--Associated Baptist Press has a story about Sen. McCain's pastor, Dan Yeary of North Phoenix Baptist.

Via Dan Gilgoff.

OMG, the literal resurrection?

Tom Wright--Bishop of Durham, leading conservative in the Church of England, renowned scholar--believes in things. Unlike the rest of the church, or liberals generally. And his "literal belief in the Resurrection makes him a hero to conservative Christians worldwide"!

Via Thinking Anglicans, a breathless and fairly clueless piece from the New Statesman.

You mean it isn't just a bona fide grassroots movement?

Jim Naughton points out that we still don't know who's funding the Church of Nigeria's activist efforts within the Anglican Communion.

MLK

The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated 40 years ago today. My favorites of today's many pieces:

Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite on the conservative co-opting of King's message: "Dr. King was killed because he challenged racism, militarism and economic inequality. And if you are not doing the same, you have no right to claim this legacy."

Jonathan L. Walton on how mainstream reverence is for King in 1963, not 1968--by which time he'd fallen from establishment favor.

And my special lady friend Nadia Stefko, on the Drum Major Institute blog, writing about an SEIU event celebrating Dr. King and highlighting the ongoing struggles of black workers.

Biblicism makes you poor!

And not just in spirit.

This new sociological study looks awfully suspicious--conservative Protestants have far less money than others. Why? They're focused on heaven instead of earth. And fewer families have two working parents.

Well okay, I guess that makes sense as far as it goes. But the rather staggering difference--a median net worth of $26,000 (in 2000) for conservative Protestants as opposed to $66,200 for the nation at large--seems like it might be about more than treasures in heaven and mommies at home. It would seem pretty important to deal with the possibility that it's in fact the financial status that motivates the religious affiliation, rather than the other way around--especially given that this particular branch of Christianity is so conversion oriented.

Modern conservative religion in this country thrives on, among other things, a narrative of cultural oppression--you know, the gay coastal feminist latte drinkers have killed school prayer, that sort of stuff. Leaving aside the question of whether this narrative is remotely true, narratives of oppression can be attractive to a society's relative have nots. And narrow, people-of-the-book doctrine thrives in a context of (real or perceived) oppression and threat--because there's much to protect against and clear bad guys to condemn. This is elementary stuff, central to understanding, say, the book of Revelation, or the Anglican Communion, or the newspaper industry's hostility to the blogosphere...

I'm getting carried away. What I mean to say is this: Is it possible that conservative Protestants have less money than others because conservative doctrine offers an appealing framework for finding meaning in being poor? Perhaps the Duke study deals with this, but the reporting here (from RNS!) doesn't say so. (It does mention that, controlled for education, age, and race, the difference remains, though it doesn't say how much the gap reduces, and the overall thrust of the thing is that conservative Protestants simply choose to have less money. I don't buy that.)

Another pastor gets it Wright

(Sorry, couldn't resist the much-abused headline pun. When I wrote my earlier post for Utne, I almost called it "Wright is Right"--get it?--till I Googled the phrase and realized just how late and how obvious I was. Okay, start reading for real now--)

While Sen. Clinton would never keep attending a church in which a pastor employed hyperbole as a rhetorical device and is dutifully appalled that Sen. Obama would--what is this "black church tradition" you speak of, Senator? Aren't you supposed to TRANSCEND race?--turns out her own pastor is a bit more sympathetic to Rev. Wright.

The Reverend Edward Matthews, UMC pastor from Arkansas, downplayed Angryblackpastorgate in a conversation w/ the NY Sun. Sen. Clinton remains a member of the Little Rock church Matthews served in the 90s.

(A point that strikes the Sun reporter as odd--it's "the only church of which Mrs. Clinton is a member"--despite the fact that it's standard to belong only to one church at a time, and it's quite common for people to retain formal membership in one church while moving and worshipping elsewhere. My own membership remains in a church I attended two cities and three churches ago. Largely because I'm not yet invested elsewhere as deeply as I was there. Anyway.)

OMG, James Cone?!

The Washington Times is shocked--SHOCKED--to learn that black liberation theology played a role in the founding of Trinity UCC. Liberation theology--that's just a bunch of Marxist crap, right? And black--that means angry and scary, right?

It's almost as if a couple decades of covering religion as if the conservative evangelical movement was the long and short of U.S. Protestantism has made everyone forget about, you know, major strains of religious thought that have long called for casting off oppression. Or, for that matter, the psalms...

Al Gore, the great uniter

Who else--besides Jesus, of course--could bring Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson together?

The seven aphorisms

The Supreme Court has decided to hear Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, the case of the religious group that wants their Seven Aphorisms posted in a city park alongside the 10 Commandments.

(For anyone who's counting, there are zero Summum adherents on the Court--that's right, even fewer than there are Protestants.)

Oh right, the legendary Catholic vote...

Dan Gilgoff reports that both Dem campaigns have finally hired Catholic outreach people.

A birthday party that the birthday boy might or might not attend

Julia Duin sheds light on an under-reported subject: the unofficial events that are also part of the papal visit.

Dobson: Hey, maybe I'll vote this fall after all

Long before John McCain sealed the nomination, James Dobson said he wouldn't vote for him "under any circumstances."

While he hasn't actually said he'll vote for McCain, he did tell Sean Hannity last night that he a) will indeed vote this fall and b) likes Obama and Clinton even less than McCain. Clearly, this means he'll be leaving the top line blank or writing in "Tommy Thompson" while focusing on all the down-ticket stuff...

What brought this change of heart, Jim? Straight Talk on foreign policy? The senator's own flip on waterboarding? Or maybe just the fact that you and your ilk pull this kind of crap every cycle, standing firmly on principle in the primary--beholden to no one but God and The Unborn!--only to fall in line behind the eventual nominee?

A great relief

Lots of crazy silly stuff on the internets for April 1. Ooh, what's real and what isn't?

This one isn't. But wouldn't it be great if it was? I've been toying with the idea of formally joining the Episcopal Church for some time, and this would seal the deal.

"Breathlessness is always a problem with papal visits."

An entertaining rant from Peter Steinfels about the predictably clueless coverage of the pope's visit to the States.

Commonweal to GW: "Stop It"

A strongly worded editorial condemning the president's theological defenses of the "war on terror."

Apples and Catholics

According to the Vatican newspaper, Muslims have passed up Catholics as the world's largest religion!

Wait, you say. Shouldn't we be comparing Muslims to CHRISTIANS, or SUNNIS to Catholics? Or, as my girlfriend would say, isn't that like comparing apples and Catholics?

Well, maybe. Depends on what exactly "one true church" means, so it's always an awkward question. In this case, while the monsignor who compiles the Vatican's yearbook acknowledged this qualification, he still felt the need to tell the paper the news--ostensibly BAD news, to be downplayed, not trumpeted--that the "Muslims have overtaken us."

In other news, there are more Hindus in the world than Episcopalians. We've failed!

"Yesterday’s wisdom is not tomorrow’s"

A provocative piece by Paul Oestreicher challenges the idea that Christians are/should be "people of the book." While my own view of scripture is somewhat higher that his, he's especially good when he's discussing the Bible's own resistance to being read as a singular authority:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God . . .” In the beginning, there was no Bible. The Word, the logos, is the living Christ, constantly made known in his Church and in our hearts by the Holy Spirit — the light that enlightens the world. That enlightenment is a process that goes on until the end of time.

The paradox is that the New Testament texts themselves attest to the fact that they are not the last word. The Spirit is the contemporary judge over all that has been written. Jesus said, and the Spirit goes on telling us: “You have heard it said . . . but I say unto you.” Yesterday’s wisdom is not tomorrow’s. To the disciples, Jesus said: “There are many things you do not understand, but the Spirit will lead you to the truth.” He did not say: “Study the texts: it is all there,” and, significantly, did not write any texts himself.

More here.

In case you haven't yet tired of Angryblackpastorgate

Hello, I'm still here. Been running around quite a bit.

Jim Naughton has a good response to Michael "I'm a religious right shill!/I'm a thoughtful moderate!/Who am I now?!" Gerson's recent call for Obama to denounce "political extremist" Jeremiah Wright.

In short: Mike, you insist on calling yourself a member of the Anglican church of Nigeria, making Archbishop Peter Akinola your chief pastor. So, what about the plank in your own eye?

Also: the full text of the main Wright sermon in question is available here. (Hat tip to Dallas Morning News religion blog.) I'd say it largely confirms the view endorsed by me and others--the truth of the message itself rises considerably above its hyperbolic rhetorical flourishes.

Holy Week

It's Maundy/Holy Thursday--one of my favorite days of the church year. I'm in DC, spending the week with Nadia and our church community here. Last night we had a lovely Tennebrae service, complete with a dozen or so antiphonal psalms. I sang the gospel responses with a quartet and the Christus factus as a solo.

Holy Week's always an unpredictable experience for me. I just never know how distracted I'll be.

Here's a brief meditation I wrote on the subject two years ago.

"Wright is right" digest

I've already linked to a couple good pieces on what my friend John calls Blackpastorgate.

Here's a longer post I wrote yesterday for Utne, essentially a digest of that rare thing in the last few days: pieces by people who actually understand and appreciate what Jeremiah Wright is about and aren't just obsessed with the OMG-how-will-this-hurt-Obama angle.

Frank Schaeffer is an American hero

All you need to know about why the Jeremiah Wright thing shouldn't really be a thing.

Actually, I'd add to Schaeffer's bold analysis that Wright and Falwell alike represent a long American tradition of pulpit jeremiads...while the statements are what they are, the hyperbole exists within a particular context.

Hey, jeremiads (and Wright) are named after some Bible guy, right? That reminds me--for further support of Wright and his (hyperbolic) statement to the effect that God has no desire to bless us when we're oppressing each other and failing to pursue justice, you could always read the prophets.

Reminder: get your skateboard designs in

Today is the last day to submit design ideas to the NY arch for the papal skateboard, to be presented to the pope during his stateside visit next month. I know you've been putting this off, folks, but it's time.

The photo op will no doubt do much to take away from Benedict's rather old-fashioned image...

Via Gary Stern.

Crossposted at the Posse.

To some extent, it's the black church tradition, not Jeremiah Wright himself, that the rest of us find so shocking

And that's OUR problem, not Wright's or Obama's or anyone else's. It's an often prophetic, sometimes hyperbolic, always provocative tradition...

Diana Butler Bass.

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.)