A house for some people

Some time ago I linked to a story about a church that barred an autistic boy from attending mass. Now, the Oregonian highlights some examples of more hospitable approaches.

Via The Lead.

The more-pithy-than-classy Richard Land

The SBC policy head, speaking as usual not for himself but for Christian conservatives generally, on why McCain's a better choice than Obama: "I'll take a third-class fireman over a first-class arsonist."

Slick move

Great Obama moment at Saddleback: Asked for an example of a time he put the country's interest above his own/his party's, Obama cited campaign finance reform--and gave McCain a shout-out for his leadership on the issue. How sportsmanlike! Of course, fairly or otherwise, the religious right crowd hates McCain for that one...

Asked the same question, McCain somehow neglected to mention McCain-Feingold. He did mention his opposition to torture, though not so much his later equivocation on the same...

The faith-based thing at the Saddleback thing

I haven't actually watched the Rick Warren thing w/ the two presidential candidates yet, at least not in full. Having seen clips and the transcript, I'm not sure I have the stomach to sit down w/ the whole thing: Seeing an evangelical pastor do a better job than any of the MSM debate moderators at actually asking questions about real things that matter BUT still fail to dig into more difficult territory about how one's faith actually influences one's beliefs about policy, governance, etc. is, well, depressing on multiple fronts.

One of the more interesting threads post-Saddleback has to do with this Warren question about the faith-based initiative program:

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 says that faith-based organizations have a right to hire people who believe like they do. Would you insist that faith-based organizations forfeit that right to access federal funds?

J. Brent Walker points out that the question's awfully biased in its wording. Barry Lynn, writing on his cool new BeliefNet blog he shares w/ Jay Sekulow, agrees and points to additional examples of bias in Warren's questions. (Of course, Lynn also opposed the Saddleback thing generally, on principle.)

Elsewhere, Jim Towey thinks Obama's position on the faith-based thing--BO wants to expand it but enforce fair hiring restrictions--is triangulation/double speak/whatever. Don Byrd takes Towey down concisely and effectively.

Another option for disgruntled conservative Episcopalians

If you're seeking a refuge from the big, bad, women-and-gays-loving TEC, you could always forgo developing-world archbishops in favor of an option much closer to home.

Vatican: No "Yahweh" in mass

The decision will affect OCP but not GIA, as the latter publisher already has a no-YHWH editorial policy.

Guess who the two highest-profile contributors to this year's Jewels of Elul are

Two hints:

• Neither one is Jewish
• Both are running for president
  

White House: Lousy endangered species can fend for themselves

Sorry if my headline isn't quite fair. Just trying to provide balance, because neither is the Post's. Giving the agencies more say over Endangered Species Act compliance! That has to be good, right? We're all about freedom here...

Abortion and the Democrats

The Democratic platform's new language on abortion--which several high-profile left-leaning faith-based types helped craft--has caused quite a stir.

David Brody posts the old and new language together and allows that, while hardly a paradigm shift, the change may put some anti-abortion folks who otherwise lean left more firmly in the Democrats' camp. Steven Waldman points out that, from an anti-abortion perspective, the language steps both forward and back: It names the goal of reducing the need for abortion, but it also eliminates the (in)famous Clinton language of "safe, legal, and rare." Amanda Marcotte makes the very important point that, by spelling out the need to help women who want to carry to term AND eliminating the word "rare," the new language actually does a better job representing pro-choice orthodoxy than the old language did. (If earlier debates about the distinction between "reducing the need for abortion" and "reducing abortion" had turned out differently, this would be a harder case to make.)

Steven goes on to say that the statement represents a missed opportunity for Obama to do some serious evangelical outreach. Mark Silk disagrees, arguing that Obama, and the Democratic party, are utterly pro-choice, and that it's unhelpful to try to talk your way out of that one. Elsewhere, Mark offers some helpful historical perspective on the argument the Dems are making--namely, that their policies will do more to actually reduce the abortion rate than the other guys' will. And Eric McFadden looks ahead to the Saddleback forum, calling on Rick Warren to ask Obama and McCain about "how women can be empowered to make other choices instead of abortion"--prompting Pastor Dan to push back against the use of the right's language and assumptions to frame an ostensibly left-leaning position.

Hmm. I've long been of two minds about this stuff. On the one hand, I'm in favor of anything that

• tempers the political power of the abortion mindless shouting match debate,
• encourages anti-abortion voters who lean left on economic and foreign policy to prioritize those beliefs and vote Democratic, and/or
  
• supports poor people.

On the other hand, the Wallis-Campolo-etc. trick of reducing the abortion question to a question of economic justice is awfully problematic. Insisting that disadvantaged women need to have real access to a full set of options is great as far as it goes, but it entirely (and, of course, deliberately) dodges actual, fundamentally moral questions about abortion itself. Still, avoiding those questions may be exactly what it takes to move the conversation forward, so a certain pragmatism may be helpful here. The bigger problem with this approach is that it's terribly patronizing: It implicitly paints women as helpless objects rather than decision-making subjects, a morally outrageous assumption and one that can't be good for progressive causes in the long run.

Anyway. I often have a hard time letting the philosophical stuff go in this sort of situation. I guess what matters most right now is this: The platform is likely to be at least modestly helpful in cutting through some of the abortion-debate crap, giving anti-abortion folks permission to stop being single-issue voters, and for crying out loud getting Barack Obama elected president. THAT all sounds good to me.

Meanwhile, having an abortion apparently does not cause mental illness. And more Protestants are avoiding artificial contraception in favor of natural family planning.

Our partners in freedom

The Saudis are cracking down on pet owners.

Harold Fording Obama

McCain's people want you to know that "hot chicks dig Obama":



Despicable. But Obama can't say so, as KD points out--the bizarre rules of this election dictate that if McCain race baits and Obama calls him on it, it's Obama who's guilty of playing the race card. And Obama's made it harder for the 527s to do this work for him, too.

Josh observes that it's pretty naive to think this isn't all part of McCain's team's calculated aproach.

And today's outrageous theological statement by a member of Congress award goes to...

...okay, no surprise, it's Congresswoman Bachmann again. The Republican from Minnesota pointed out today that Speaker Pelosi and others need not worry about saving the planet--because JESUS ALREADY DID THAT FOR US.

(Actually, good for her for allowing that Christ's redemption extends to the whole creation and not just to her personal, individualistic Soul. It's her conclusion that's troubling...)

Via Eric Kleefeld.

Well, I'M relieved

The Left Behind guys insist that, contrary to the McCain campaign's implications, Obama is not the Antichrist. Good for them. (Though it's important to note that their argument is about the details of the [supposed] biblical witness--the Antichrist is apparently unlikely to be an American politician--and not about, say, the fact that suggesting that your [Christian] opponent is the Antichrist is an astonishingly offensive thing to do.)

Elsewhere in premillennial dispensationalism land, folks wary of accidentally receiving the mark of the beast (oops!) should shift their attention from credit cards, SSNs, and microchips to...digital photos.

(Image from oldlutheran.com.)

200+ years after its most famous (slave-holding) member had the U.S. presidency designed for him...

...the Episcopal church is apologizing for slavery.

In other news, black TEC bishops observed that conservative Anglicans in the States have done little to build relationships w/ African-Americans--an irony given their ties to African archbishops. Of course, this speaks not only to racially and geopolitically fraught questions of Anglican identity but also to the wider reality of stateside evangelicalism: It's long been far better on global diversity than on racial integration in its own backyard. (At Wheaton, a fun parlor game is to look at posed, forcibly diverse publicity photos from the college and to point out which African country each black student hails from.) Obviously, there are many reasons for this--not the least of which is the fact that building international relationships is far easier than racial reconciliation. Almost anything is.

French Canadian amnesty for micro-organisms

I'm back, with a post about cheese to prove it.

In the States, raw-milk cheese aged fewer than 60 days is illegal. To get around this while staying within the letter of the law, you could always obtain some raw milk (by going to the farm in person to buy it and/or by buying a share of a dairy cow, depending where you live) and then make your own. OR you could just buy fish bait instead.

Another solution: Head to Quebec, which just legalized the good stuff.

Via Meghan.

Lambeth's over

Hello--I've been out of town all week, at the Jersey shore w/ Nadia's family. Then on to Wisconsin for a few days w/ MY family in the north woods. So very little blogging until next week.

The Lambeth Conference ended today. Here's the final "reflections" document; here's the final address from the Archbishop of Canterbury. Bishop Alan Wilson of Buckingham has some good thoughts.

Repeat after me: Pesticides hurt people, especially poor people

Next time someone goes off about how the organic food people are oblivious to the realities of the lower classes, etc., you could do worse than to point them to this article on the human costs of conventional industrial agriculture:

TERESA AVIÑA won’t open the windows or door of her small apartment, despite a heat that plagues the soul. On the kitchen table, beside two jugs of bottled water, a small, green, electric fan pushes thick air around the room.

“What good is the wind?” she asks, glancing out the window at the breeze that flutters the trees in her front yard. “It’s all poison.”

Controversies large and small at Lambeth

Well, there's the gay thing. Or, if you prefer, the authority of scripture/doctrinal integrity/historic beliefs thing.

But there's also the Buddhist chant thing. Several bishops were outraged that the Bishop of Colombo gave a sermon that ended with the chant, even though the words he used were orthodox Christian by any standard. (Nobody tell them about the U2charist, okay?)

And let's not forget the thing where the bishops and their spouses marched in support of the Millennium Development Goals, but did so dressed to the nines--because immediately afterward they were to have tea w/ the queen. Nothing like making it easy for the press and the liberals-are-hypocrities-osphere to ignore the real story.

Meanwhile, the Common Cause Partnership--which represents the various conservative Anglican groups in North America that aren't part of TEC or ACC--is petitioning to become a province of GAFCON.

Since when do American civilians answer to a "commander in chief"?

Josh considers the militarization of the presidency.

Enjoy playing in the alley, Conor/Madison/Quinn. Wear your beach tag so people know you belong.

Next week, I'm spending a couple days on the Jersey Shore, in one of those towns where a bunch of people who drive everywhere they go in their regular lives pay a lot of money to spend a week or two in a dense, walkable town.

Matt Wanamaker contemplates this odd exemption to middle-to-upper-class NIMBYism on density. He also gives a good and thorough historical answer to a question I raise in the comments: Is it possible that people who otherwise despise multi-family housing, alleys, and other city-ish things are a little warmer to them in a place where they're unlikely to run into any of the kind of people they were wanting to avoid in the first place?

No room for theological skepticism in our wicked leads

Christian metal band Haste the Day has fired its guitarist--for becoming an atheist.

New study: Girls are just as good at math as boys are

From a new study by the National Science Foundation: Now that girls and boys take the same number of math classes, their standardized test scores are the same.

A great excuse to re-post this classic xkcd comic, titled "How it Works":

About that Brandenburg-trip thing

Ali raises a good point: For Obama, the equivalent to JFK's trip to Germany isn't going to Germany. It's going to Pakistan.

How is John Hagee like Moses?

Only Joe Lieberman could tell us.

"Kids! No church this weekend."

Drew on the persuasive power of license plates.

But I Thought the Religious Right Was Dead: Iowa edition

Sen. Grassley--Iowa's senior Republican elected official and recently an investigator of televangelists--will not be a delegate to the GOP convention.

Secrets

Doug Muder reflects on the religious themes that come up so often in Frank Warren's PostSecret project.

On a personal note, a few months ago I went to an art exhibit that featured something similar: Instead of secrets, visitors were invited to write down GOALS and drop them in a box; the artist later posted them. I submitted one--something serious and vulnerable--but I can't even remember what it was.

Indaba at Lambeth

So the bishops at the Lambeth Conference recently participated in Indaba meetings--a Zulu term for a meeting focused on hearing everyone out and talking about things rather than voting. Like most such things, sounds like a moving and frustrating experience. A couple posts: from the bishops of Missouri and Arkansas.

In other Lambeth news, Pope Benedict offers his prayers for the Anglican Communion.

David Neff on environmentalism and eschatology

The CT editor tackles some of the tensions with which the topic of evangelical theology's intersections with environmental ethics is fraught.

SBC: We need to sing more songs about going to heaven/burning in hell

I've done a lot of reading on people's (strong!) opinions about the relative merits of hymns and praise choruses, but this is an angle I hadn't quite seen before.

The Nation: America's little white daughters are sexually attracted to a black presidential candidate

The inaugural comment in The Nation's regular sex-and-politics feature is more than a little bizarre.

More Womenpriests ordinations

This time, in Boston.

Gift idea

For the guy who welcomed you into his home for six months, during which you both discussed much politics and put up much food, a t-shirt publicizing a new coalition:

More rapture profiteers

At last: A way to e-mail your Unsaved Friends post-that-great-gettin'-up-morning.

Via Gary.

Lambeth links

The Lambeth Conference has begun.

Dave Walker has a useful set of links to blogging bishops and other coverage. And here's a feed that aggregates most of the blogging bishops.

Why U.S. religious pluralism is way better than any European alternative: Mosques in Europe edition

USA Today:

• Supporters of the Swiss referendum collected enough signatures two weeks ago to call for a constitutional ban on minarets, the towers used to call worshipers to prayer. No date has been set for the vote.

• Italy's Interior Minister Roberto Maroni announced this month that he wants to close a Milan mosque because crowds attending Friday prayers spill onto the street and irritate neighbors. In April, the city of Bologna scrapped plans for a new mosque, saying Muslim leaders failed to meet certain requirements, including making public its source of funding.

• In Austria, the southern province of Carinthia passed a law in February that effectively bans the construction of mosques by requiring them to fit within the overall look and harmony of villages and towns.

• Far-right leaders from 15 European cities met in Antwerp, Belgium, in January and called for a ban on new mosques and a halt to "the Islamization" of European cities. The group said mosques act as catalysts for taking over neighborhoods and imposing Islamic ways of life on Europeans.

I'm feeling uncharacteristically patriotic today.

Sign of the Timeses (and the Posts and the Sentinels)

Veteran God-beat reporter Mark Pinsky has been laid off.

Sourcing your compost (or, God forbid, your garbage-disposal fodder)

If this card (from someecards) is to be believed, apparently while I've been sitting at home pitting the season's last tart cherries (while simultaneously watching baseball and looking for a job--both notoriously slow-paced activities) and then canning them in a light sugar syrup, some of you who "work at jobs" and "can't spend three hours in the kitchen on a Thursday afternoon" have been WASTING FOOD--a crime far more serious than buying produce at the grocery store or whatever.

Via Bonnie P., who adds that "you know something’s reached a tipping point when it gets its own hipster greeting card."

Sane words on Coverillustrationgate

Jeffrey Weiss says something that should be obvious but apparently isn't: All satire is offensive or transgressive in some way. That's part of what makes it satire.

"Man running through the grass outside, says he wants to take up serpents"

A crackdown on the snake handlers.

No word as to whether people will be arrested for deliberately drinking the deadly thing.

Why I miss Chicago

The people. The food. The weather. The Cubs. The (great) lake.

The coyotes.

In which my big-tent instincts evade me

Via Jeff, the church door prize from hell.

Pretty sure you don't hunt with these things. They're meant for shooting PEOPLE, something I think we can all agree the church shouldn't be promoting among its teenagers.

Tithing on staff time

I missed this before--an interesting idea from Tom Perrellio, the Democratic challenger in Virginia's 5th congressional district.



Via Mark.

"We understand that casual sex is dear to you, but staying alive is dear to us."

If you're interested in the tensions between Western ideas and the ways in which Westerners tend to actually treat non-Westerners, you could do worse than to follow the conflict in the Anglican Communion.

This piece from the co-chair of Uganda's anti-AIDS committee is instructive as well.

Cars have four wheels and an engine! It's a disgrace.

An analogy from Ezra on the fact that John McCain's made it clear not only that his "plan" to reform Social Security is a little light on details and heavy on nonsense but also that he doesn't (or didn't) even understand how the program works:

It's like if lots of people made fun of one guy's car because it was broken down, ugly, and lacked headlights. Then one of the dimmer members of the group, sensing an opportunity to jump in, piped up with, "yeah, four wheels and an engine? What's with that!? When you gonna do something about that!?" Everyone would sort of look at the guy for a moment while they registered that this person didn't understand how a car worked. Now imagine that this person was applying to run an auto shop. And people were taking his application seriously. That's sort of the situation we're in.

Community organizing vs. compassionate conservatism

Ira Chernus on why the Obama faith-based initiative plan is fundamentally different from the Bush one.

Wes Granberg-Michaelson q+a

Back when I was at Utne Reader, I interviewed Wes Granberg-Michaelson--general secretary of the Reformed Church in America and a leader in global and stateside ecumenical efforts--for the Web site. It's just been posted.

Remembering the lies in an age of moving on

With a successful book out about prosecuting the president for murder, it's remarkable that Vincent Bugliosi hasn't gotten more press. Leaving aside the actual merits of Bugliosi's main idea, this video's a good reminder of just how damning the facts (not conjecture) about the Iraq War buildup are to its architects:



Via Kathy G.

Repeat after me: The religious right was NOT born of moral outrage at Roe v. Wade

I'd forgotten about this gem of an anecdote from Randall Balmer until Digby quoted from it in a post about Obama's discussion of limits on late-term abortion w/ Relevant magazine.

In case you don't feel like reading the Balmer excerpt, here's the gist: It wasn't abortion. It was segregation.

Good thing she hasn't discovered Cornerstone Festival yet

It looks like Claudia Parsons has never heard of the evangelical movement, much less of its music festivals. Creation Fest is "an unusual place to get baptized," what with all the long hair and rock and roll? Unusual by whose standards, Episcopalians? Or this paragraph:

One in four Americans count themselves as evangelical Protestants, a growing movement with serious clout in a country where religion and politics often mix. Creation is officially non-denominational and it drew some Catholics, but the rhetoric of most speakers was that of "born again" Christians.

This would be right at home in a news story from back when I was a toddler. In reality, Reuters published it earlier today.

What's Stranger Than... (Lambeth Edition)

What's stranger than a blogging bishop?

A bishop who both blogs and VLOGS a gathering to which he was conspicuously not invited.

It's happening

Religious right leaders are getting behind McCain. And they're plotting strategy for convincing younger, more moderate evangelicals that they and their candidate do indeed "care about"--a phrase I love for its electoral meaninglessness, whether it's wielded by Eagle Forum, Faith in Public Life, or the New York Times--economic justice and the environment.

Happy 4th

A strange holiday for those of us who are uncomfortable expressing patriotism in its standard militaristic mode, and for those of us people of faith who insist that our allegiance to God and to country are two different things and that our allegiance to God comes first. But I've learned to like the holiday and to spend part of it thinking about the many parts of American identity and culture for which I'm indeed grateful, about the responsibilities of privilege, about the importance of the loyal opposition.

David Gushee has some good, measured thoughts about July 4 celebrations and church+state.

Jeff Pasley has some July 4 toasts from the early days of the republic, when political statements were not always coded as anti-patriotic. My favorite: "The Congress: May that representative body be purged of aristocrats."

And Meghan has a recipe for charcoal-grilled pizza, which Nadia and I are going to start working on as soon as I hit "post."

One more angel in Episcopal-blog heaven

Father Jake throws in the laptop.

The new Christian apologists

If it's a movement, it needs a slogan. I'll start a brainstorm:

• Apologetics: Because faith is all about incontrovertible proof
  
• Apologetics: My God is real because I'm smarter than you are
• Christianity: Only stupid people are skeptical of it
  
• Faith: The substance of things proven, the evidence of things painfully obvious

More shocking torture news almost no one will notice

Next time someone explains that they support the Bush administration's torture choose-your-euphemism policy because it might save a lot of lives by preventing a "ticking time bomb" or whatever, remind them of this:

• At Gitmo, military personnel learned interrogation techniques in a class based entirely on a chart describing "coercive management techniques."
• The chart was copied verbatim from a 1957 study of how the Chinese interrogated our guys during Korea.
• Many of the confessions the Communists--remember, we don't like them--got from the Americans were false. In fact, getting false confessions was PRETTY MUCH THE POINT.

What?! Are you kidding me?

Okay, back to the real news: I heard somebody said something not-controversial!

Oh, the homosexuality of life!

What happens when anti-gay organizations insist on using the word "homosexual" instead of "gay"?

Sometimes, this.

Take a deep breath and watch this

TPM.tv offers a lowlight reel of the Gen. Clark non-gaffe coverage:



This is absolutely infuriating. (I just watched it and started yelling at the screen. My friend Reuben, looking on, seemed concerned about me.)

In short, the difference between the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth thing and these comments from Gen. Clark are as follows:

• The Swift Boat guys disparaged Sen. Kerry's war-hero status, unequivocally and openly. Gen. Clark acknowledged McCain's service but questioned the assumption that it's equivalent to being prepared to be president.
• The SBV4T talking points consisted of carefully constructed half-truths, personal attacks, and spin. Gen. Clark, speaking off the cuff, said something that was at worst carelessly worded, because it's OBVIOUSLY TRUE: Getting shot down while serving your country might make you a hero, but it has nothing to do with your ability to govern.
  

Mark Silk on the Obama faith-based plan

A helpful summary from what's become one of my favorite blogs.

Why the Christian left is hostile to the Christian right

Barack Obama is not an evangelical.

Barack Obama is not a conservative reader of scripture.

Barack Obama certainly is not a student of theology.

But this? Come on.

Via Faith in Public Life.

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.