Why won't the candidates talk about food?

It's astonishing how little attention the presidential campaigns have given to food policy. As Michael Pollan and others keep telling us, it's intimately connected w/ a wide variety of issue areas that demand priority status: health care, global warming, energy, international trade, cost-of-living squeezes on working people. (And whoever's telling the candidates that no one wants to talk about food didn't poll me or my friends. It's pretty much all we talk about [when we're not talking about electoral politics itself].)

Anyway. My main-writer-crush Tom Philpott has a good column about where McCain and Obama stand on food and farms, to the extent that they stand anywhere at all. The short version: Obama's the clear better-than, but his ethanol pandering is Illannoyin'. But read the long version.

Also, Elanor recently covered a panel of experts discussing what they would do were they made food policy adviser (!) to the new president. What should his priorities be? etc. Good stuff.

Well hello there

Sorry for the long delay. I've moved and am working full-time again, and I'm trying out the idea of doing w/o Web access at home--the better to read things in print, spend time w/ friends and family, cook, etc. Which will mean lighter posting, though hopefully not as light as the last couple weeks (i.e., not at all).

One thing I will continue updating frequently is my link blog/shared items list. So if that's useful to you, consider subscribing to its discrete feed.

Posting is light because...

...I'm moving this week. Back soon.

Aunt Jemima: Racist image or symbol of wholesomeness and quality? We report, you decide.

At last week's Family Research Council conference, a table run by the Obama Waffles guys was protested and eventually shut down (though not before they sold quite a few boxes of waffle mix to the Values Voters present). Much of the coverage of the event has focused on the question of whether this image




is racist. You know how this goes: One side says a picture of Barack Obama w/ exaggerated features selling waffles that look an awful lot like those on Aunt Jemima packaging is racist. The other side says no it's not, it's about him waffling on the issues. Far be it from the new media to say this is OBVIOUSLY, BLATANTLY RACIST. They just report that a difference of opinion exists. The way that "some scientists" think evolution is a load of crap. The way that many voters (and lawmakers!) say that drilling in the Gulf and/or ANWR will bring gas prices down, even though every expert says otherwise. Now why would the voters think THAT?

Anyway. Sarah Pulliam sticks to the facts but has a more informative piece than most. Also essential is this press release from the waffle guys, in which they make the classically racist move of explaining how un-racist they are:

There was no mention in the AP report that upwards of 1/3 of those who bought the Obama Waffles were Asian, African Americans, Hispanics, or from other ethic groups - all of whom thought the product was hilarious and anything but racist. By the way, the last person to buy was an African-American woman who purchased three boxes of Obama Waffles.

Regarding the charge of being racists, the AP story failed to report that Bob is married to a Hispanic woman while Mark and his wife have adopted a daughter from China. Is that what racists do?

I'm convinced.

A penny saved is 90-odd percent of a penny earned

Roben Farzad on how we're sticking it to responsible savers.

Opposite day

It's bizarro-world time on the church-and-politics front.

A Catholic bishop from Madison is joining the chorus of his peers calling out Sen. Biden and Speaker Pelosi for their recent statements about abortion (and their pro-abortion-rights stances generally). In 2004, John Kerry was similarly criticized. He plead separation of church and state--he may believe such and such as a Catholic, but that doesn't mean he can legislate that in the public square, etc. Now, Pelosi and Biden are being accused not of misappropriating, putting too much stock in, or hiding behind separation--all fair criticisms of Kerry's perspective--but of VIOLATING it by offering their perspective on Church teaching. WTF?

Meanwhile, conservative Southern Baptist leaders are bending over backward to explain why, despite their steadfast opposition to women's leadership not only in the church but anywhere outside the home, voting for a female vice presidential candidate makes lovely sense. Of course it does! Robert Parham isn't having it. Neither am I.

What's nerdier than a speculative theology blog?

A PARODY of a speculative theology blog. Named ΨΕΥΔΟΘΕΟΛΟΓΙΑ.

My favorite news item of the day

Obama whatever!
Palin blah blah blah!
Conservative Anglicans are pissed etc etc!

The Cubs September callups include outfielder Felix Pie. As soon as this guy can figure out how to hit consistently, he's going to win himself a golden glove and lead the league in stolen bases.

A world in which black leaders are judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their MLK rating

Jeff Sharlet wishes that Obama were less of a social-gospel liberal and more of an MLK-style liberationist.

Well, sure. But I think he gives the social gospel movement in its classic form too little credit. It wasn't just a baptism of standard liberal ideas, with their "cautious optimism." In fact, its optimism was pretty radical, and it was rooted in theological particulars: the postmillennial emphasis on the church's ability to build the kingdom of God on earth. (Obama sparked controversy some time ago when he made a particularly postmillennial-sounding statement.)

More importantly: I get that the fact that Obama's convention speech came on the anniversary of "I have a dream," and that the campaign dressed up the stage w/ Roman pillars to bring to mind the Lincoln Memorial, makes the comparison sort of inevitable. But still: Come on. Dr. King, of course, never ran for public office. More importantly, Obama isn't claiming to be the next King, and we've got to stop expecting him to be. It's both unrealistic and unfair. (If Sen. Clinton had won the nomination, we'd be spending our time wishing she were more like, say, Susan B. Anthony...)

Eucharist and food

One of the things I like about the church Nadia and I attend in DC is its appreciation for the significance of food in Christian spirituality. We receive communion gathered around the altar, a table across which everyone in the community is visible and present to everyone else. The sacrament truly feels like a meal.

While the congregation worships upstairs, a parish-run hot meals program is serving lunch downstairs. Nadia sometimes serves as one of the two lay eucharistic ministers who take bread and wine from the altar, walk downstairs to the lunch room, and serve communion to all who wish to receive it. One of the better ways to connect theology w/ praxis that I've encountered--and all of it related to food.

Yes magazine--a publication I often avoid for its pesky optimism--has a great q+a with Sara Miles, an Episcopalian whose adult conversion was deeply connected to the spirituality of food and hospitality. Miles now runs a large food pantry out of her church in San Francisco and consults with others--a practice that, among other things, brings liberal Episcopalians and conservative Pentecostals in conversation about the Christian imperative to feed.

Via Eliacin Rosario-Cruz.

On gaffes

Sam Stein is pleased to report Palin's first gaffe and a roundup of reactions to it.

Not so fast, says Ezra Klein. A gaffe is a MISTAKE, which would require that she know the right answer in the first place.

God the locavore

From RNS, an early example of what may well become a full-fledged trend piece: food ethics as specifically religious practice.

Palin and the Pentecostal fringe

The church in which I grew up is a fairly mainstream evangelical place. But its roots are charismatic, and over the years it's dabbled in (w/o every fully embracing) some of the less mainstream elements of Pentecostal practice. (Slayings in the spirit and talk of spiritual warfare were regular features of my church upbringing, as were the dominionist tendencies that infused such movements by the 1980s. We never got too into the holy laughter stuff, though I experienced it elsewhere. And we loved to sing about the prophet Joel's notion of "latter rain.")

So anyway, I was very interested to see Ruth's in-depth treatment of Gov. Palin's connection to the Third Wave or Latter Rain movement, a fringe-y Pentecostal thread that's been condemned by, among others, the Assemblies of God church and a variety of less-charismatic-leaning conservative evangelicals.

Unless you really know a lot about this stuff--and hardly anyone outside Pentecostal-charismatic circles does, including myself and especially including the MSM--start w/ this backgrounder. Then read her Palin-specific post. Sober-minded, even semi-scholarly, and very fair--yet still pretty damn scary.

"1,000 points of bullshit"

Jon Stewart on bash-community-organizing night at the RNC:

Fr. Bourgeois continues endearing himself to the powers that be

The Maryknoll priest who started the annual protest at the School of the Americas has recently been pretty outspoken in his support for women's ordination.

Does Palin believe the destruction of first the Muslim world and then Israel is part of God's plan? And might this be problematic in a VP?

Frederick Clarkson examines Palin's dispensationalist streak.

$10,000 a year. What an elitist.

The second half of this Jay Smooth video is particularly good--on how despicable it is to mock community organizing:



The suggestion that community organizing--in Obama's case and many others, working long hours for very little pay trying to help marginalized people stand up for their rights and engage the political process--is somehow elitist and/or irrelevant, while accepting the status quo power system represents regular American values or whatever, is not just rude. It's completely idiotic.

Via Adam Serwer.

Words that strike fear in the hearts of decent people everywhere:

Chris Matthews for Senate.

A (dry) night club full of Republicans

While it may be known on the coasts primarily as the capital of Garrison Keillor's Fabulous World of Charming Traditional Lutherans, the Twin Cities area is also a hub of Hip Cool Church for the Youngsters--of both the Emergent and the original-recipe-evangelical varieties.

This place exists within the world of the latter group. I wonder how well the Republican delegates fit in there? I mean, the ones that don't have Bible-verse tats or rock-and-roll-for-Jesus side gigs?

Woody Allen and Billy Graham

I've never seen this before. It's from a special Woody did in the late 60s:



Via Kevin Cawley.

The federal food regulators hate America, part the third

The first, the second. (With feds this infuriating, we may just have to turn this into a regular feature. But I'm careful about what I wish for. Because it might just happen, which isn't actually what I want.)

Anyway: A federal appeals court is allowing the USDA to prevent a small beef producer from testing its animals for mad cow disease, because larger companies--you know, the ones that could actually afford to do more thorough testing--don't want to be forced to do it, too.

FORCED, you say? How would this force the big guys to do the same? Well, it's market pressure that would push them to do so. (Because why buy the possibly mad cow when you can get the definitely sane one for a fair price?) And, as Dean Baker reminds us, big business doesn't actually support free markets over government intervention, and neither does the Bush administration. It's a question of whom the markets are benefiting, and on whose behalf the government is intervening.

Darwin and the existence of God

Looking ahead to the 200th anniversary of Darwin's death and the 150th of On the Origin of Species, Jonathan Sacks offers some good thoughts on how Darwin's insights can actually be HELPFUL to people of faith as they contemplate God and nature. He also makes the very good point that the argument for God's existence from design--the particular thing people are referring to when they say that Darwin directly challenges God or whatever--is pretty foreign to the Hebrew Bible. In fact, it comes from the intellectual world of ancient Greece.

Via The Lead.

Palin

Okay, one more election-related post...

McCain's choice of Gov. Palin to be his running mate struck me as pretty foolish on his part at first--she's younger and less experienced than Obama, she's hardly the kind of woman that Clinton supporters will vote for, etc. But Nate Millman is fairly persuasive. It's going to be interesting.

At any rate, it's now certain that, one way or the other, January's Inauguration Day will mark a historic first. I'm in no way suggesting that this makes the two tickets equally desirable. But still.

Last DNC post

A few bits and pieces--

A seriously alarming video of a cop arresting an ABC News producer for standing on a public sidewalk and photographing senators meeting with VIP types:



As a defense-attorney friend likes to remind me, it's a serious mistake to assume that not doing anything wrong will keep you out of trouble with the cops. And this guy wasn't some anarchist blogger with a cell-phone camera--he's from ABC! Don't the powers that be at the DNC and the Denver PD know what he can do...wait, actually, the video isn't even featured on the ABC site, and it has yet to get 1,000 viewings on YouTube. Looks like nobody cares. Via Firedoglake.

On a lighter note, the Illinois delegation loves each other:



Anyone who's ever followed Chicago or Illinois politics knows how bizarre this is. Via Chicago Public Radio.

Apparently Cameron Strang is getting quite a bit of grief for his decision to pull out of the DNC benediction slot. And Kristin asks why white Protestants such as Strang were asked to pray at the Pepsi Center but not included in the interfaith panel.

Dave takes issue w/ Obama's borrowing from the New Testament in his speech last night. Mark is less concerned.

Okay, no more election posting for awhile...hard to avoid right now.

Obama the theocrat?

Adele Oltman makes the fairly bizarre argument that the Martin Luther King Obama resembles is actually King Sr.--because Obama's theology and views of church and state are too liberal conservative [corrected typo--thanks, Anonymous] for the younger King.

Not so fast, says Mark Silk.

Anti-pluralism on the right

The Republicans get out the English-class-slacker vote:

Via Josh.

Abie Nathan is dead

Gideon Levy has a remembrance.

Not sure whose tax plan will help you more?

Wonder no more.

Birthdays

Today, my little sister is 24.

And this blog is one.

Each is EXTREMELY advanced for her/its age. I'd totally rent a car to my sister w/o adding an age surcharge; I'd also vote for her to represent me in Congress. And the blog's been walking for weeks--we're thinking of starting piano lessons this fall.

Thanks for reading.

WTF, food feds? part two: USDA on beef safety

In part one, we looked at the FDA's affection for irradiated food. Well, mostly we fantasized about the unlikely possibility of an Obama administration actually prioritizing a better farm bill in 2012, but we BEGAN the post intending to look at the FDA thing.

Today, the USDA. The agency's Food Safety and Inspection Service decided recently to combat the food safety problems of large beef producers by tightening regulations on...small beef producers.

With a deck this stacked, it must be infuriating to be a small-scale farmer selling at a market and to have to politely answer questions about why things are more expensive than over at Costco or whatever.

DNC digest

Sifting through hundreds of "are-the-Democrats-really-united?!" pieces, I did manage to find a few interesting things:

The National Journal's audio slideshow of the interfaith gathering.

Donald Miller's benediction apparently was toned down a bit by the convention organizers. The problem had nothing to do w/ implicitly acknowledging the Republicans as equals or addressing Jesus by name. Instead, he was asked to back off a statement about the U.S.'s diminished standing in the world. The DNC: We'll push your faith buttons all day long, but we're too scared to talk about the fact that the world hates America for reasons CAUSED LARGELY BY THE OTHER GUYS. Here's the prayer:



Elsewhere, Sister Helen Prejean did her usual "hey, maybe we shouldn't be torturing and killing people" schtick. Crazy nun. So far out of the mainstream! And Ezra offers an uncharacteristically reflective post about the distance between The Poor of the DNC and the poor of Denver.

Finally, for those of you who share my evident frustration with the small-bore version of Change® the Democrats continue to represent, Glenn Greenwald and Jane Hamsher put on their muckraker hats and crash the Blue Dog/AT&T party:

Back in the Twin Cities

This billboard will greet the RNC:

Via Bennett.

New McCain ads contradict each other

I'm house-sitting for friends w/ cable and thus watching a lot of MSNBC and CNN.

Since Obama announced Sen. Biden as his running mate, McCain has hit back quick w/ two negative ads--two ads that make pretty much the exact opposite argument.

The first points out that Biden had some critical things to say about Obama in the primary. The guy's running mate doesn't even like him--WTF?! Vote McCain: His running mate likes him and doesn't say bad things about him.*

The second offers that the only reason Sen. Clinton didn't get the nod is that she was brave enough to speak the truth in the primary: the anti-Obama truth. He refused to offer her the VP slot just because she asked serious questions about his candidacy--WTF?! Vote McCain: His running mate will be someone who isn't afraid to criticize him.

Naturally, the cable networks are re-playing the ads for free and talking about which constituencies they're aimed at, etc.--w/o bothering to call McCain out for the utter incoherence of this argument. Fortunately, the baseball game's about to start. Time to change the channel.

*Unless his name is Mitt Romney, in which case his running mate admires him but isn't afraid to engage in spirited debate during the primary. You know, like Joe Biden.

FDA: The answer to dangerous food is different dangerous food

You'd think that with all the food safety scares coming at a time of existing anxiety about global warming and energy supplies, local food advocates would get a hearing at higher levels of the advocacy and government communities. You'd be wrong, of course. Instead, you get the FDA ruling in favor of solutions such as this one.

Maybe you can hope for better policy if and when the feds work for Obama. Furthermore, maybe he'll push for a better farm bill in 2012 than the one you finally got this year. Of course, he'll be running for re-election and needing to prove himself a Friend of Business and generally a Non-Extremist at each and every turn. Not that you've ever counted on Democratic leadership on food issues anyway...

Here's a daydream. What if

• Obama wins in November.
• The Republicans, as expected, change their primary schedule effective 2012 but don't go so far as to stop letting Iowa and the other early states go first.
• Obama's people take political advantage of the fact that, as the party not running in the primaries, they're the ones who don't have to pander to big ag in Iowa.
• When the farm bill debate coincides with the general election campaign, Obama pushes for serious reform and attacks his challenger for pandering in Iowa.
• With congressional majorities strong enough to stand up to farm-state representatives up for re-election and the strong, this-is-finally-a-priority support of the White House, the Democrats pass a seriously reform-oriented farm bill. Unlike this last one, the bill is at least well on its way by November.
• Obama wins re-election. Farm-bill reformers get serious subsidy reform AND major initiatives to support small- and medium-scale produce and livestock producers. Everybody gets progress toward tastier and more healthful food, stronger communities, and pathogen outbreaks that are less common and far easier to track and contain.
  

I'm not holding my breath.

"I've used my skills as an impeccable wearer of blazers and boat shoes to avoid a principled stand on any subject"

Don't miss Sally Jenkins' column in the voice of of IOC president Jacques Rogge:

It's one thing for the Chinese government to jail dissidents, to forge the passports of underage gymnasts, and to set up official protest zones and then arrest anyone who applied to use them. These are matters that I met with disciplined silence, or as I so adroitly put it, with "quiet diplomacy." But I cannot ignore Bolt's disturbing spontaneity. Him, I feel compelled to rebuke.

And:

How is [Bolt] different, for instance, from the U.S. women's beach volleyball team, which shrieked, hugged each other, cavorted, and fell about in the sand for several minutes, before congratulating its opponents?

Isn't it obvious? They are women in bikinis.

Best of all:

To sum up, over the years I have been an ally to the Soviet Union, Iran and China, and now I have demonstrated that I am not afraid to take on a Jamaican.

DNC to be less Relevant!® than originally planned

Cameron Strang has backed out of giving a benediction, recommending Donald Miller in his place.

I'd quote Jeremiah Wright on (upper) "middle-classness" if it wouldn't betray me as an extremist and a hater-of-freedom

A CTI survey finds that the average senior pastor makes more than $80k annually. A couple questions this Christian Post story doesn't answer:

• $80k is the mean. What's the median?
• If you were to eliminate from the formula all televangelists who make the kind of money that is liable to, say, get them investigated by Republican senators, what would the mean be then?

Obviously, a simple average number like this one can be pretty skewed by just a handful of astronomically high outliers. Still: $80,000?! For folks w/ a job description that includes preaching the immanence of a kingdom not defined by worldly standards of wealth and value? Sad.

The world on Saddleback

Tom Heneghan has a nice digest of international press coverage of the Warren extravaganza.

Theda Skocpol takes the words right out of my mouth

Several hundred frustrated ones, to be precise.

In short: Start hitting BACK, Obama! If you do so truthfully and fairly, you won't have to sacrifice the moral high ground in which you've staked your claim...with the added benefit of having a (fighting!) chance of actually being elected president.

We get it: The Democrats have found their faith

Next week in Denver, the Democrats are throwing a tent revival convention. Speakers include a whole mess of strategically placed Christian leaders, a couple of whom no one's ever accused of being Democrats, along with four whole rabbis and, in lower-profile, non-prime-time-TV slots, a token Muslim or two a diverse array of religious leaders reflecting the party's commitment to the common good as articulated by our nation's rich patchwork quilt of faith traditions.

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.