Then STEVE AND HIS BROTHERS slew Hamor, Schechem, and the whole city

Dave on those personalized Bibles you can order that insert your own name in the text in place of the "you" or "they" to whom God's promises are addressed:

That way, you can understand that God is making promises directly to you, without the confusing suggestion that God's promises might extend to all people.

A priest, fine. But a BISHOP?

This stuff drives me crazy: Conservative clergy from the Church of England are taking a stand against female bishops.

It's fun to see people tie themselves into knots trying to explain why female BISHOPS are an even bigger problem that female priests. It would be intellectually consistent, if completely and utterly wrong, to oppose BOTH. But it's pretty silly to live (no doubt grudgingly) with the fact that your church ordains women, only to make a whole new stink when it starts to take the logical next step of consecrating them, too.

Obama and the "****ing faith-based thing"

Obama's making a religion speech today. The AP says he's going to announce plans to expand the faith-based initiatives program AND allow hiring and firing that considers religious orientation.

*Headline quote is from Karl Rove...

More GAFCON

And here's a shorter response by the Episcopal PB.

Williams on GAFCON

The Archbishop of Canterbury's response to the GAFCON statement is a must-read.

I know you're all wondering...

...what happened to my extremely short posts, in which I literally offer just a generic headline and a link?

The answer: They've migrated, sans headline, to my Google Reader shared items page, aka my link blog. I update this more often than the main blog; it's extremely quick for when I don't feel the need to throw in my own two cents.

Scroll down on the main blog page to see the link blog in the right-hand margin, or click here for a feed.

Four more years?!

It's here: writeinbush.com. Makes sense to me.

Via Sir Oolius, who wrote this up w/ a reference to that greatest of faux-GOP bumper stickers in 2004, "Don't change horsemen mid-apocalypse."

A hopeful nose with floral notes of change and a finish that suggests inspiration has the general-election shelf life of an unpasteurized lager

The only evidence you need that the Democratic nominee--for whom I'm sure I'll end up voting, despite it all--is a true hipster hero.

Via Meghan.

NYT: OMG, Billy Graham isn't endorsing?!

This is weird--NYT coverage of McCain's meeting w/ Billy Graham is stressing Graham's lack of formal endorsement as a major plot point.

To clarify: This is the same Billy Graham who has never endorsed a candidate, even though he's been intimate w/ basically every president since Truman and BFF w/ Nixon. So his declining to endorse McCain might not have much to do w/ the latter's Evangelical Problem.

Confidential to my younger siblings:

Seriously, borrow as little money for college as you possibly can. Work your butt off all summer, save your money, etc.

The LDS Church and gays and lesbians

The LDS Church--you remember the LDS Church; the rest of the country briefly bothered to care about these folks' existence back during the Republican primary--offers yet another example of a religious body that's wrestling with questions about gays and lesbians.

Here's one dissenting blogger's take on a recent conservative church statement on marriage and family.

Anthony Kennedy for president

Here in DC, everyone's talking about the Supreme Court decision striking down our handgun ban. But the all-powerful swing-voting Justice Kennedy the Court got something right last week, too--it ruled against the use of the death penalty in cases of child rape. Sen. McCain criticized the decision, as did...Sen. Obama.

Ezra sees it as a basic pander w/ serious consequences for the larger questions of the Court and the death penalty. Jeffrey Rosen points out that Obama didn't just make the position last week up but put it in his second book; he interprets it as an indication of a thoroughgoing judicial conservatism.

Either way, I just canceled my Obama t-shirt order. I'm a death penalty fundamentalist--I can see both sides of just about everything, but the very notion of intentionally killing someone who is no longer a threat, whatever the circumstances, makes me too physically ill to think about things like political pragmatism or incremental change or whatever. If you're looking for me on election day, you'll find me at the polls, trying to borrow a pen to write Justice Kennedy's name in for president. Or maybe I'll be at church, repenting for putting too much faith in a politician.

GAFCON roundup

The conference's final statement, which lays down the law pretty clearly w/o explicit reference to gays and lesbians or to TEC.

Paul Handley's onsite reporting, at the Church Times blog, is essential.

Mollie does her usual media-crit thing on the GAFCON coverage, taking to task those who've apparently misinterpreted the conference's aims and actions, including this Time piece.

And Tim Morgan reminds us that conservative Anglicans are no monolith.

In other Anglican-schism-or-near-schism-or-whatever news, another conservative victory in the Northern Virginia property disputes.

The hypocrisy of farmer's market shoppers redux

It's disappointing to see another version of the WTF, Locavores? Your "Green" Farmer Drives a Gas-Guzzling Pickup! article in, of all places, Salon. We expect such drivel from the daily rags, but Salon?

Marc R. has some good comments. So does AGFB.

In other food-politics news, see Tom Philpott--also known as a more politically engaged Wendell Berry, or as a more freethinking and less sanctimonious Michael Pollan, or as my hero--on how little the organic industry is doing to change the way we think about food.

The Anglican conflict, presented in silly drawings

Dave Walker keeps it light.

Would I want a sex offender in my church choir?

Um, yes. I've always been glad to have anybody at all, because it's good for the choir to have them and it's good for them to participate.

Anyone who believes that a) people have dignity, b) the church is a transformative and restorative place, and c) experiencing the life of the church means getting involved, not just showing up...should be alarmed by this.

It's a sad day...

...when senators FROM THE MAJORITY PARTY have to filibuster a bill undermining basic civil liberties.

Why we can count on McCain to handle tech-related issues fairly

Because he doesn't have a dog in that fight (or at least not a dog he knows very well, even if it does drool considerable cash into his war chest).

Because HE DOESN'T USE A COMPUTER.

Wallis and Campolo to push for an abortion-reduction plank at the Democratic convention

ABC on Wallis' plans to talk to Obama. (They know each other personally, you know.)

White House: If we don't like what's in your e-mail, we just won't read it

The White House plugs its ears when what's left of the EPA tries to talk.

Coming soon: The "I know you are, but what am I?" defense against charges of bullying the congressional leadership.

Everything that's wrong with the world in a nutshell

You can't find a baseball cap that's both organic and union made.

James Dobson clarifies his election-season strategy

How to be functionally partisan in an election while retaining the lovely sheen of a principled, nonpartisan interest group:

Step 1: Attack the GOP nominee, because we don't like him.

Step 2: Attack the Dem nominee harder, at greater length, and far less fairly--in order to render [Step 1] irrelevant in the more or less zero-sum game of general-election politics.

Here's Dobson on his radio show today. I particularly like his claim that he never heard of Obama's 2006 Sojourners speech--which included a brief mention of Dobson--until this week. How convenient for him! Good thing he doesn't have a large, sophisticated staff operation working on things like compiling press clips, or he might have accidentally run this show long ago, at a less strategically significant time.

I'd spell out his intellectually dishonest, strawman-filled attack on Obama's view of the role of religion in the public square, but Mark Silk's excellent blog saved me the time.

See also Dave, whom I've been debating in the comments.

The Pew survey and universalism

This massive thing from the Pew Forum is making a lot of headlines. The main thing people are latching onto is the finding that a majority of people within each U.S. faith tradition except the LDS church and the Jehovah's Witnesses--including evangelicals--apparently believe in universalist salvation. Here's the lede from the Morning News:

Most Americans say they are absolutely sure about standards of right and wrong – and are just as sure that no one religion holds an exclusive franchise on the truth.

Overwhelming majorities of Americans say they believe in God (or a "universal spirit"). But substantial majorities from all major religious categories also say they believe their religion is not the only path to eternal life, and that there's not just one correct version of their faith.

Amazing, no? Well, no. It WOULD be--but check out the actual question in question:

Question wording: [IF RESPONDENT HAS A RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION, ASK:] Now, as I read a pair of statements, tell me whether the FIRST statement or the SECOND statement comes closer to your own views even if neither is exactly right. First/next: My religion is the one, true faith leading to eternal life, OR: many religions can lead to eternal life.

"Even if neither is exactly right"--yet the news stories are presenting this as though everyone who chose the second response indicated that it's exactly right.

Terry raises some good questions--most significantly, what do we mean when we say "religion"? When I was a kid--in a small Midwestern town that was roughly equal parts Catholic, Lutheran, and low-church evangelical--people would often ask me what "religion" I was, w/o considering that I might be Jewish or Buddhist: They meant "denomination." Substitute "denomination" for "religion" in the Pew question--as many respondents may well have done internally--and it's a lot less surprising (though it might have been much different a few generations ago).

But my larger objection has to do w/ the very idea that the question of universalism-vs.-particularism can be reduced to a question w/ two possible answers. I probably would have given the second answer--counting, foolishly, on the news media reporting Pew's "even if neither is exactly right" caveat--but it would have driven me crazy that I couldn't elaborate as to why it's a difficult and inadequate question. In addition to "religion", what do we mean by "eternal life"? What do we mean by "leading to"? If I, like a lot of Christians, believe that Jesus is Lord but also insist that I have neither any business deciding who is and isn't saved nor any real reason to, how do I answer the question?

This sort of thing is inevitably lost in a survey like this one, and even the good information available directly from the survey's page at Pew--which is pretty transparent about the survey's limitations--is lost further in the press coverage.

See also this WaPost live discussion w/ one of the Pew researchers.

New study: Church-surrender programs work

I linked to a story about this U.S. Marshals program back when I was at Utne. The program has created some controversy--it allows fugitives to surrender at churches.

Now, a study offers evidence of the program's effectiveness and benefits.

Finally got your head around the landscape of Anglican and Episcopal governance in the U.S.?

Make space for one more bit of weirdness: The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh is now apparently an independent corporation, under the authority of neither the U.S. church nor any of the global-south Archbishops.

More from GAFCON

Ruth Gledhill reports on Akinola's take on the Archbishop of Canterbury; she also offers this post about the people on the do-not-admit list: "Should these or any other activists attempt to breach the security around the conference at the Renaissance Hotel in west Jerusalem the 1,000-plus delegates have been instructed to start singing the hymn: 'All hail the power of Jesus' name.'" Wow.

Also: Riazat Butt gets into an interesting debate w/ the comments field over the African bishops' hesitation to condemn violence against gays and lesbians.

Have you heard?

Young-Evangelicals-Aim-to-Broaden-Their-Agenda!

As evidenced by their bed head and their tats!

GAFCON: No formal break yet

Akinola et al. say they intend to try to reform the Anglican Communion from within.

Democrats: More works, less faith

In 2004, I cringed whenever John Kerry quoted the Bible, as he invariably quoted the book of James--which doesn't necessarily endear a person to evangelicals, with their all-Paul-all-the-time theology.

As everyone everywhere has noted, 2008 is a different year for Democrats and People of Faith® than 2004 was. But, as this smart RNS piece observes, James retains a high profile.

The end of cheap bananas

Ever wonder how a tropical fruit is sold so much cheaper in the States than, say, apples? Or how it became a staple in the first place?

Wonder no more.

It was then that I carried _____

The world wants to know: Who really wrote "Footprints"?

More sort-of-good news from Chipotle

The burrito chain is pledging to use local sources for at least 25 percent of one ingredient in each of its locations. As good a hook as any for bringing up the same old question: Should we be glad?

It's a small menu, so let's be generous and say that 25 percent of one ingredient means 2-3 percent of total food purchases. (A more realistic estimate if it's chicken or cheese or tomatoes than if it's, say, jalapenos or cilantro--and which option do you suppose would cost the company less in exchange for the same amount of good PR?) Even if it IS that high, is this a reason to choose Chipotle over a restaurant that's locally owned and operated, that's attentive to the cultural and social tastes and needs of its particular community, that doesn't mask obscene calorie and sodium counts under rhetoric of natural and healthy food, that doesn't contribute to the homogenization and gentrification of neighborhoods? Or, for those of us who can afford it, over one that makes a more serious local-food effort and passes some of the related costs on to the customer?

On the other hand, maybe this a good reason to choose Chipotle over Panera or whatever when faced with no other options. Of course, it's also a reason to make the same choice when in fact there ARE other options, but they're less convenient, comfortable, predictable, reliable, whatever. In other words, it's a savvy move that appeals to people who care about food issues but are also drawn to fast-food chains for the same reasons people always have been. It's a guilt salve--a valuable service that we reward with our dollars.

On the third hand, while I'm far fonder of traditional Mexican food than of Mission-style burritos, Chipotle does do a pretty good job with the latter--they're tastier than anything at 95 percent of Chicago's gazillion taquerias or at any of DC's three. Hurray for the freshness enabled by high-volume sales, for the quality control of a chain, for delicious salt by the cupful.

The predictable solution: Go to Chipotle once a month. Ask which ingredient they source locally, and order an extra scoop/squirt/dollop of it. Then enjoy--but don't forget to feel bad about yourself.

Unlearning teaching a man to fish

Via Steve K, the problems and shortcomings of teach-a-man-to-fish.

No head scarves!

Obviously, the Obama campaign has a delicate task in engaging Muslim voters. Still, this is disappointing.

In other news, did you hear the new rumors going around about Obama? If you love Jesus and America, forward them to everyone you know!

"Bush lied. Kittens died."

Dave offers some analysis of the Gore speech in Detroit.

Walton on Obama's Father's Day sermon

I liked the way Obama's sermon on Sunday balanced a call for responsible fatherhood with talk of the need for better public policy to meet fathers halfway. But it's interesting that, while such a speech plays a particular way to its intended primary audience (the national media and public), it exists in another world entirely for its physical primary audience (a black congregation)--as an example of what has become in many places an annual tradition of using Father's Day to criticize, not honor, black fathers from the pulpit.

The always-excellent Jonathan Walton offers some criticism on this point. He's too hard on Obama, who did not, in fact, spend the bulk of the sermon patronizing, totalizing, and berating black dads. But it's an important perspective, and it provides useful context for those who haven't spent much time in black churches.

"When will a right-wing, anti-gay legal group help out a lesbian mother?"

Nancy Polikoff answers the question that's long been on the tip of our collective tongue.

See also Polikoff's book excerpt in the new issue of Utne. She makes an interesting case for moving beyond marriage rights as the main goal of the LGBT rights movement--though some of her arguments echo those made in the past by the religious right, in the latter case as a political ploy to defuse the pro-marriage-rights argument.

The religious right hearts Obama!

Or at least they're not wild about McCain. That's pretty much the same thing, right? The Guardian throws its one cent into this fairly nonsensical trend piece.

Meanwhile, Dan Gilgoff rehearses the questionable talking point that evangelicals are leaving the GOP. And, by way of showing how different Obama's general election fight might be from the primary, he offers this counterpoint of how Obama faired in the latter among religious voters white Catholics and evangelicals, offered w/o comment as somehow representative of "religious voters," leaving aside the fact that Obama did quite well w/ mainline Protestants and black Christians:

And Obama has struggled among religious voters in this year's Democratic primaries. In Ohio, his 2-to-1 loss among white Catholics and a 20-point loss among white evangelicals gave Hillary Clinton's campaign a second wind that kept her in the race these last three months.

That same faith-based divide undergirded Obama's losses in Pennsylvania — where Clinton took nearly 60% of weekly churchgoers — and Indiana. Heavily religious West Virginia and Kentucky, meanwhile, handed Obama his biggest defeats of this campaign, even though he appeared to have the nomination sealed up by the time voters in those states cast their ballots.

For the last time, these numbers suggest an APPALACHIA problem for Obama--a perfect storm of racial, economic, and cultural factors that heavily favored Clinton over him. It's not clear what this says about an Obama vs. McCain match-up. But it IS clear that is says almost nothing about Obama and religious voters generally. And it's astonishing that people continue to talk about Obama's problems w/ "white Catholics" and "white evangelicals" in terms of religion and not racism.

Spirit-filled litigation

Growing up charismatic, I often wondered what would happen if someone got hurt when falling down during worship.

Well, here's one thing.

Via Jewschool.

The Obama-evangelicals meeting

On last week's meeting in Chicago: Amy Sullivan has a smart write-up. And Steve Strang's first-person report of the event is pretty illuminating.

He didn't endorse or ridicule a presidential candidate from the pulpit? Give it 75 words and put it on B18.

The biggest Protestant denomination in the country recently chose as its president a conservative, Lumbee Indian, anti-Calvinism crusader. That's a decent-size news story, right?

Wrong. But, as Jeff Sharlet points out, it should be.

Vatican: Down with fundie biblicism

The classic Vatican mode for addressing conservative, low-church evangelicals: Blunt, condescending, and pretty much right on.

Soul Force expertly manages the press

Terry Mattingly.

Faith among the famous bylines and terrible cartoons

Nice set of short, personal essays on faith from the New Yorker. I particularly like Uwem Akpan's and Tobias Wolff's pieces.

Hoping for a Catholic wedding in Viterbo?

Try to resist the (worldly!) temptation to become a paraplegic.

Via Gary Stern.

Falsani on Pfleger

For an introduction to the colorful white priest of an enormous, largely black, south-side-of-Chicago Catholic parish, see Cathleen Falsani's short, informative piece.

From centerpiece to luxury

Mark Bittman--known at my former house in St. Paul as the author of the Bittman Bible--has a great piece in the NYT about strategies (not reasons) for reducing (not eliminating) the meat in your diet. Give it a read--I promise you won't feel judged.

Digest: OMG evangelicals and voting!!!

While Obama met w/ a wide variety of moderate-evangelical types, McCain continued in his uphill, obviously half-hearted journey of courting the religious right. (Check out the odd photo and cutline treatment on the Times article--what in the picture has anything to do w/ evangelicals? [Hat tip to Terry Mattingly.])

Meanwhile, a new Christians-and-politics survey from Calvin College's Henry Institute may surprise people who are convinced that Shane Claiborne or Ted Strickland or Jim Wallis or whoever is the new proto-evangelical. But it doesn't surprise Mark. Or CT.

What happened to A New Kind of Evangelical?

HuckPAC is talking issues. And, as Mark Silk observes, not a word about global warming, AIDS, Darfur, or global debt.

WTF, evangelicals? We keep hearing that The Climate is Changing Among You, that A New Generation of Leaders is Expanding Your Agenda, and even that A Former Presidential Candidate Shall Lead You. Hmm.

Silk also offers this bit of illuminating correspondence.

More Julian than eastern-spirituality-tourist

Deal Hudson reports on a modern-day locutionist in Ireland. Turns out she doesn't fit the modern-day-mystic stereotype too well.

Via dotCommonweal.

Transit problems

So I'm back in DC now--conducting the job search from here, as 1) it's as good a place as any, 2) my girlfriend is here, and 3) I found a cheap month-to-month room to rent.

Unlike the Twin Cities, it's far too hot here. BUT, also unlike the Cities, DC has a beautiful, comfortable subway system. I can't imagine the one-two punch of St. Paul bus stop wait times and the DC summer.

Former Sec. Labor Robert Reich sums up nicely the problems facing public transit: $4/gallon turns out to be the tipping point for many drivers, evidenced by the sudden swell in public transit demand. But

the nation doesn't have nearly enough public transportation to handle the new demand. Even more absurdly, right now when it's needed the most, public transportation across the land is being cut back. This is because transit costs are soaring by the same skyrocketing fuel prices that are forcing people out of their cars, at the same time transit revenues are shrinking because most transit systems depend largely on sales taxes, now dwindling as consumer purchases decline in this recession.

Infuriating, no? Read the whole thing.

McCain turns down meeting w/ Billy Graham

Not sure what his people are thinking.

CT: Don't pick your presidential candiate based on policy ideas

This is fairly bizarre.

Fr. Pfleger is back

To the delight of his parish.

Sun Times article.

Obama

I just left St. Paul late last week; I'm in Wisconsin for a few days before moving back East.

Meanwhile, Sen. Obama's in St. Paul, claiming the nomination. We're all pretty tired of this primary, so it's hard to remember just how exciting this is: For the first time, a black candidate has won a major party nomination. Nominating a woman would have been equally exciting, but that doesn't actually take anything away from this historic moment.

I wish I were still up in St. Paul.

Mocking Clinton won't do

Cardinal Francis George has instructed Fr. Pfleger to take a leave.

Hamburgled

Looks like the ship is sailing on taking restaurants' used cooking oil off their hands for free.

David Malki on smoking

I knew it wasn't all bad.

Angolan locavores

toothpastefordinner.com

Empty words?

Mark Silk has an interesting, so-crazy-it-actually-makes-sense theory: Because the Court's makeup is so different than it was a few years ago, abortion law might ACTUALLY CHANGE in the foreseeable future. Therefore, McCain can't emphasize his anti-abortion credentials too much, because the majority of the country that opposes criminalized abortion might fear that he'll actually do something about it, i.e., that for once a Republican's electoral-season talk on the issue might actually amount to something substantive.

Quick poll: Which is in general more bizarre, U.S. electoral politics or the abortion debate?

Why should evangelical pastors preach about the uninsured?

Because it's apparently a group that includes many of them.

Via RNS Blog.

Two good pieces on the Anglican conflict

Jason Byassee reports on the state of post-Episcopal Anglicanism in one of it's hotbeds, the area around my alma mater, Wheaton College.

And the must-read: a beautiful piece of first-person reportage and reflection, in which Garret Keizer teases out some of the major tensions w/ which the whole subject is fraught. He makes clear that his essential loyalties are to TEC's position, but also that his instinct is to see the world fundamentally in terms of socioeconomic inequality, not doctrinal integrity or sexuality or anything else. I'd describe myself similarly, so naturally, I'm predisposed to appreciating his analysis. Here's an excerpt:

My tendency--at least my temptation--is to see the church crisis, at least in America, as I see most other political disputes between bourgeois conservatives and bourgeois liberals: as cosmetically differentiated versions of the same earnest quest for moral rectitude in the face of one's collusion in an economic system of gross inequality. It goes without saying that by touting this stark binary, I, too, am seeking to establish my rectitude. Still the question remains: How does a Christian population implicated in militarism, usury, sweatshop labor, and environmental rape find a way to sleep at night? Apparently, by making a very big deal out of not sleeping with Gene Robinson. Or, on the flip side, by making approval of Gene Robinson the litmus test of progressive integrity, a stance that I have good resaon to believe would impress no one so little as Gene Robinson himself.

This is, of course, a bit hyperbolic. (I cringe at the idea that the difference between alligning yourself with the U.S. church and w/ Nigerian archbishop Peter Akinola is a mere cosmetic one.) Still, it's pretty damning, and elsewhere in the piece Keizer asks more questions than he makes pronouncements. It's a tour de force, full of sophisticated analysis, ambiguity, and personal voice.

"Protest Incorporated" vs. "The Players"

David Sirota on why the Dems aren't likely to get us out of Iraq.

Evangelical priorities

As I've been saying every chance I get for a long time, a "broadening evangelical agenda" or whatever may be great for church life and the general health of debate. But it matters ELECTORALLY only to the degree that evangelical PRIORITIES change--and the evidence of such a shift is tenuous at best.

Meanwhile, Stan Guthrie insists that abortion retains priority status. And in the zero-sum game of electoral politics, it's priorities that matter.

Is Obama a Muslim, or isn't he?

New site offers an adequately nuanced response.

Twain's war prayer

A day late, required Memorial Day viewing, in two parts:

IRS: UCC is fine

Even though they let Barack Obama, a church member, speak to them!

Just one more step in the country's undeniable march toward a social-gospel-theocratic dystopia! What's next, a "Department of What Would Jesus Do" executive agency devoted to not bombing the hell out of anyone who crosses us? Dangerous stuff, people...

Economic Conservatives to Christian Coalition: WTF?

The Christian Coalition supports net neutrality legislation, citing its potential to protect grassroots interest groups generally. Makes perfect sense, right?

Wrong! The group's conservative allies are bewildered, frankly, bewildered. Christian conservatives against The Market?! There's no "go against the unholy alliance" in "team"!

It's a sad thing that a religious right group's backing a platform clearly in its own interests (and those of democracy) raises flags, as everyone simply expects such groups to be in bed w/ the Regulation Must Die set. But good for the CCA for doing it anyway.

GOP VP watch

I, for one, would find immense satisfaction watching the religious right bend over backwards to try to articulate why John McCain and the assumed-gay Charlie Crist support Family Values more than Obama and, say, Ted Strickland do.

We hope you don't get it!

A steaming pile of slick, greenwashed propaganda from James Dobson et al.

A holy, seedy love

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Mainline megachurches?

A trend piece from Mark Pinsky--turns out mainline churches aren't dying out as much as you might have thought. Some of them are even getting pretty big!

Of course, 1,000 or even 5,000 members doesn't put you in Saddleback/Lakewood/Willow Creek league. More importantly, he doesn't get into the question of slippage between mainline and evangelical labels--are these large, thriving denominational churches LIBERAL, or do they represent the conservative-to-moderate (arguably, the EVANGELICAL) branches that exist in each of the mainline bodies?

This hole in the piece becomes especially evident when Pinsky points out that, while evangelicals have one of their own in the White House right now, both Democratic candidates are mainliners. In a sense, this may be true. However, Bush and Clinton belong to the same denomination (United Methodist). Defining the mainline in terms of denominational affiliation is only useful as far as it goes.

(The evangelical-mainline binary is a sociological and journalistic minefield, and Pinsky, a smart and insightful writer, has been simplistic about it before. Here's my review of his book on U.S. evangelicalism.)

Church order vs. severely autistic teen

This is heartbreaking.

As long as they still have super-slick music and a "prayer department"

Willow Creek is abandoning its "seeker sensitive" approach to Sunday services.

40 years since Catonsville

Chris Hedges talks to Fr. Daniel Berrigan.

Protect me, father. I am helpless, though pure.

What's creepier than a "purity ball," at which young women dress up all fancy and vow to keep their bodies pure of Satan's Sexy Ways?

How about one at which the girls stay silent while their fathers do the vowing?

Bush: I can veto whatever the hells I want

Despite the veto-proof level of support in both houses, the president will veto the farm bill anyway. So there.

For the next six months anyway, same-sex marriage is legal in California

NY Times article.

And from now till November, a whole lot of Christians will be embarrassing the rest of us.

Um, creepy. Definitely creepy.

CNN asks the tough questions.

The trend pieces vs. the voters

Mark Silk makes a point that some of us have been making for a couple years, one that's as relevant as ever right now: The problem with the evangelicals-go-Democrat narrative is that THERE ISN'T MUCH MEASURABLE EVIDENCE OF IT. And he links to new poll data that finds that evangelicals--not just the white ones--prefer McCain to Obama: 69 vs. 28 percent.

Another reminder that you really can't make something true just by saying it over and over again.

The bathwater without the baby

Interesting observation from Alice Blair Wesley--despite the many aspects of Puritan New England that the American Unitarian tradition rejected, the UU church retains congregational polity.

Not sure why this matters much, but I'm the sort of nerdy person who finds it interesting.

Well yes, sir, we DO have the engorged liver of a tortured duck today!

Based on my own limited experiences, a basic dining-and-travel guide:

Go to the Twin Cities for Asian food and great beer. Burn off the calories on the wonderful bike trails.

Go to DC for Ethiopian food and overpriced bad sandwiches. Enjoy the city's beauty (for the few minutes you can stand the heat), its crowds of uptight squares (w/ the fascinating knowledge and high ideals they may even condescend to tell you about), and its admission-less museums (which you don't have time to visit).

Go to Chicago for Mexican food and everything else that's good about food/the world. Including, recently, foie gras. Taste the astonishing cruelty again, for the first time.

With less pressure to pander, Romney talks some sense

Romney: Oh wait, did I hedge in my religion speech on whether non-religious people have any real worth in U.S. society? Let me fix that now, when it doesn't really matter much.

Yes Edwards Can

Late is better than never.

Ezra has some good analysis of the difference between the Edwards and Obama narratives. I share his ambivalence about the Obama all-unity-all-the-time thing, despite my enthusiasm about the man, his character and intellect, and (a lot of) his policy ideas.

Bush to veto farm bill

So says the secretary of agriculture.

Sustainable food people: Is this good or bad? It's a pretty shitty bill, but it's the only one we have...should we cut our losses and wait five years, or will U.S. ag policy have already destroyed the world by then?

Fish bait

At my local farmers market, one vendor sells (delicious) raw-milk cheese aged <60 days under the name "fish bait." It's a winking thing; she's not actually fooling anybody. But the raw-milk thing is quite a lively topic among food types, and the laws vary considerably by state.

Last month's Harpers includes a good reported piece that deals with the topic thoughtfully and fairly. I was especially interested to read about why pasteurization of milk came about in the first place.

Evangelical manifesto

This is pretty interesting. Hopefully, among other things, a good corrective to the typically clueless media coverage of U.S. evangelicalism, except when it's about politics...

Feature on progressive Christianity conference

Hello, I'm still here. I'm finishing up my internship at Utne Reader and spending most of my time trying to find a job. So blogging's been a bit light.

Here's a short feature I wrote for Utne on a progressive Christianity conference in Minneapolis last month.

Prayer for all people! Who endorse a particular brand of Protestantism!

Today is the National Day of Prayer, and a lot of folks aren't pleased that Shirley Dobson et al. still control this thing.

Gary Stern has a good summary.

Of course Obama talks like a politician, and of course Wright doesn't

Marc Ambinder needs to be told.

NeoBLOGisms

One of the (many!) joys of blogging in obscurity is keeping tabs on which invented words remain me-exclusives:

Sucksabee was for awhile but isn't anymore. Due more to obviousness than influence, I'm sure.

Greenwiping is.

So's Angryblackpastorgate (with apologies to John, who I believe coined all or most of this one).

Happy Easter

Today is Easter Sunday in the Orthodox and Coptic churches. More than a month after the Western Easter this year--it was cold here in Saint Paul on our March Easter Sunday. Oh wait, it's cold here today, too...

New rule about Angryblackpastorgate:

No one is allowed to express any anti-Wright opinions unless they've watched last night's Bill Moyers interview in its entirety.

Really good stuff. I was especially impressed with Wright's great little description of black liberation theology. He quoted James Cone on how the god of the guy captaining a slave ship is fundamentally different from the god of the people down below. Then he observed that it's not like when Notre Dame plays Michigan and each side prays to God that they'll win, where the only thing that's clear is that there's no particular reason for God to prefer one side over the other. In fact, the God of the oppressed has the advantage of, you know, actually being the God of the Bible.

And it's fascinating and sobering to see longer clips of Wright preaching at Trinity UCC. The media coverage of Angryblackpastorgate has had the sad effect, on me at least, of making it seem really unusual to see Wright at the pulpit, wearing his dashiki, saying not shocking things but regular, pastor-y things. Which, of course, he did plenty of for many years in that pulpit. Good for Moyers/PBS for including some longer clips.

(Close to an hour, but worth it. And no, I'm not going to try to get you to watch ever longer videos about Wright every couple days...)

South Dakota social conservatives try again

The all-new, improved anti-abortion referendum.

Just the facts and a nice graphic

Tired of all the spin about which Democratic candidate has more appeal w/ X or Y group of people?

This NYT graphic lays it out pretty nicely.

And here I thought only other white, gay-loving, resurrection-denying liberals supported TEC...

This is interesting: in its latest episode of conflict w/ CANA--the young Anglican body aligned w/ the church in Nigeria--the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia has the support of the national bodies of not only the United Methodist Church but also the Worldwide Church of God and both of the main historically black Methodist churches.

Let's all just get along! And while we're just-getting-along, I'll be in Canada, actively challenging your authority and the Communion's protocols

Southern Cone primate Gregory Venables tries to have it both ways.

Via The Lead.

What's Wright's political strategy here?!

Dan Gilgoff: "How many votes will [coverage of the Wright interview w/ Moyers] win Obama?"

Marc Ambinder: "The most damaging thing Rev. Jeremiah Wright has to say may well be that Obama 'says what he has to say as a politician.'"

Damaging to whom, Obama? Sorry, I'm not going to hold Wright to that particular standard right now. In his own defense (you'll recall that he's been under a bit of an attack), Wright pointed out that pastors and politicians say different things to different audiences, and this is why Obama had to distance himself from his pastor. A lot more gracious than Wright might have been. Also, of course, entirely true.

But no one's all that concerned with Wright's defense on the merits. It's an election year, and people only exist as characters in that particular narrative. As Terry Mattingly always reminds us, if you want the media to cover religion, look for where it influences politics.

Wow

I missed this earlier--Michael Pfleger of Chicago's St. Sabina's getting the best of a Fox News reporter in a conversation about Jeremiah Wright.

Among other things, Fr. Pfleger schools the guy on the difference between the Martin Luther King we remember fondly and the Martin Luther King who went and got himself killed.

Ten minutes long, but worth it.

Via Folknotions.

Angryblackpastorgate: The ABP speaks, WITHOUT THE CAMPAIGN'S PERMISSION

The Caucus has a preview of Jeremiah Wright's interview w/ Bill Moyers, which airs tomorrow.

Dan Gilgoff thinks that, whatever Wright says, his being back in the news will be no good, for the Obama campaign, no good at all.

He may be right, and I certainly share his anxiety. Of course, if I were pummeled by ad hominem attacks, kept at arm's length by my friends, and physically threatened by people who, unlike me, are actual violent extremists--all for a couple lapses in facts amid years of truth--I might just go on TV and defend myself w/o thought of the political consequences for someone else, too.