Aug 31, 2007
Jim Jewell sets the record straight
Despite countless breathless headlines to the contrary, the creation care movement's growth does not mean the evangelicals are going Democrat.
And here I thought we needed to talk more about transformed lives
The real reason mainline and Catholic churches are declining? Unlike evangelicals, we don't offer grande soy frappumochas or...roller skating.
Kenneth Foster spared
Texas Gov. Rick Perry intervened at the last minute to prevent yesterday's scheduled execution of Kenneth Foster. Foster was convicted for his role in a robbery turned murder--he was the driver, not the shooter, making him eligible for the death penatly in exactly one state.
This isn't Perry saying that the death penalty is barbaric and immoral, or even that it's ineffective as a deterrent and unfairly applied. In fact, he didn't even say that it's absurd to execute a killer's accomplice--instead, he argued that co-defendants in a capital case shouldn't be tried together, as Foster and his accomplices were.
Still, it's a surprising and hopeful development, as Perry is well-known for his enthusiastic support for capital punishment. And Foster, who was made in God's image, will not be the victim of state-sponsored violence.
This isn't Perry saying that the death penalty is barbaric and immoral, or even that it's ineffective as a deterrent and unfairly applied. In fact, he didn't even say that it's absurd to execute a killer's accomplice--instead, he argued that co-defendants in a capital case shouldn't be tried together, as Foster and his accomplices were.
Still, it's a surprising and hopeful development, as Perry is well-known for his enthusiastic support for capital punishment. And Foster, who was made in God's image, will not be the victim of state-sponsored violence.
Aug 30, 2007
Mother Teresa the doubter
On Point had a good feature today on the new Mother Teresa book. I'm looking forward to reading it. This new evidence, from her letters, of prolonged doubt and spiritual loneliness only makes me admire her that much more--not only did her faith (the substance of things not seen) survive her dark night of the soul, but she stayed committed to her calling throughout. It's an important reminder of the complicated and surprising relationship between faith and doubt, and good for the Church for having the courage to release it.
Hugs
Breaking news from Religion News Service--hugging at church is on the rise.
Personally, I started getting passed the peace via hug rather than handshake as soon as I moved from the pew to the piano. Apparently, musicians need an extra dose of peace and/or don't receive it as easily as regular folks.
Personally, I started getting passed the peace via hug rather than handshake as soon as I moved from the pew to the piano. Apparently, musicians need an extra dose of peace and/or don't receive it as easily as regular folks.
As American as imported-apple pie
Tom Philpott--a farmer/activist and one of my favorite writers on food policy--has a great primer on the connections between U.S. produce, global trade, immigration, and the environment.
Blackwell: Obama is divisive
The NY Sun published a hit job on Barack Obama today, written by Kenneth Blackwell--the 2006 Ohio gubernatorial candidate who was named in multiple lawsuits following his dual roles in the 2004 election as Ohio secretary state/chief elections officer and honorary co-chair of the state committee to re-elect the president. Bush's win in Ohio made the difference for the president in the electoral college.
Anyway, the thus-credentialed Blackwell says--presumably, w/ a straight face--that he finds Obama's rhetoric on religion divisive and offensive. He cites the senator's recent speech at the UCC gathering--"one of the nation's most liberal Protestant denominations"--in which he accused religious right leaders of "hijacking" and "exploiting" Christianity. Blackwell characterizes conservative evangelical leaders/pastors--he sort of uses the terms interchangeably--as in fact simply acting on their beliefs, i.e., organizing around a narrow set of social issues because God and conscience compel them. The picture he draws is carefully (though subtly) located in the church pulpit, not downtown D.C.
Let's assume for the sake of argument that this is a fair way to characterize the political behavior of churches and pastors. Still, Blackwell is not addressing Obama's real point: the leaders of the religious right movement have long worked quite intentionally--and successfully--to shore up political support among evangelicals via wedge issues, narrow platforms, careful message control, etc. The religious right has never been primarily a grassroots movement. It's ridiculous for Blackwell to defend individual evangelical pastors against charges of "hijacking" and "exploitation," because they're not the ones standing accused--they're the ones who have been exploited, whose faith has been hijacked, by the overtly partisan, top-down efforts of powerful national leaders.
Blackwell's piece is as cynical as it is sneaky. By painting Obama as the Democratic candidate least friendly to evangelicals, he betrays his anxiety about the fact that Obama is the Democratic candidate most friendly to evangelicals. Obama has repeatedly demonstrated the depth of his understanding of the role of faith in public life and in U.S. culture generally; his comments on the subject put Dem. separation boilerplate, and the other candidates, to shame. What's more, he's established that he's no dove when it comes to confronting terror at home and abroad--an important issue to many evangelicals. He's an attractive candidate to moderate evangelicals, an especially scary thing to Blackwell et al. in an election in which the GOP may well nominate a pro-choice, pro-gay rights candidate, utterly neutralizing the relevance of the culture war in which Blackwell engages with such reckless enthusiasm.
Anyway, the thus-credentialed Blackwell says--presumably, w/ a straight face--that he finds Obama's rhetoric on religion divisive and offensive. He cites the senator's recent speech at the UCC gathering--"one of the nation's most liberal Protestant denominations"--in which he accused religious right leaders of "hijacking" and "exploiting" Christianity. Blackwell characterizes conservative evangelical leaders/pastors--he sort of uses the terms interchangeably--as in fact simply acting on their beliefs, i.e., organizing around a narrow set of social issues because God and conscience compel them. The picture he draws is carefully (though subtly) located in the church pulpit, not downtown D.C.
Let's assume for the sake of argument that this is a fair way to characterize the political behavior of churches and pastors. Still, Blackwell is not addressing Obama's real point: the leaders of the religious right movement have long worked quite intentionally--and successfully--to shore up political support among evangelicals via wedge issues, narrow platforms, careful message control, etc. The religious right has never been primarily a grassroots movement. It's ridiculous for Blackwell to defend individual evangelical pastors against charges of "hijacking" and "exploitation," because they're not the ones standing accused--they're the ones who have been exploited, whose faith has been hijacked, by the overtly partisan, top-down efforts of powerful national leaders.
Blackwell's piece is as cynical as it is sneaky. By painting Obama as the Democratic candidate least friendly to evangelicals, he betrays his anxiety about the fact that Obama is the Democratic candidate most friendly to evangelicals. Obama has repeatedly demonstrated the depth of his understanding of the role of faith in public life and in U.S. culture generally; his comments on the subject put Dem. separation boilerplate, and the other candidates, to shame. What's more, he's established that he's no dove when it comes to confronting terror at home and abroad--an important issue to many evangelicals. He's an attractive candidate to moderate evangelicals, an especially scary thing to Blackwell et al. in an election in which the GOP may well nominate a pro-choice, pro-gay rights candidate, utterly neutralizing the relevance of the culture war in which Blackwell engages with such reckless enthusiasm.
Aug 29, 2007
Still one, still true
Leo and labor
Kate Coe gets not much of an answer to what should be a standard question: Is this sexy, star-powered eco-doc a union film?
I fear the current green craze, whatever it does accomplish, will not get us any closer to a philosophy (or, better, a theology) that conceives of the rights and needs of human beings as part of caring for the earth rather than competing with it for our attention.
I fear the current green craze, whatever it does accomplish, will not get us any closer to a philosophy (or, better, a theology) that conceives of the rights and needs of human beings as part of caring for the earth rather than competing with it for our attention.
Aug 28, 2007
ABC scoops us again
Did you know that...
- Some evangelicals actually care about the earth?
- From now on they're all going to be Democrats?
- They also all happen to be super-patriotic hipster Pentecostals?
I'm mighty weary of seeing this same story week after week. But the graphic is definitely one of a kind.
- Some evangelicals actually care about the earth?
- From now on they're all going to be Democrats?
- They also all happen to be super-patriotic hipster Pentecostals?
I'm mighty weary of seeing this same story week after week. But the graphic is definitely one of a kind.
Conspicuous reduced consumption
From Newsweek, via Grist: Honda's trying to catch up w/ Toyota in the hybrid market by making their sacrifice-free, conscious-soothing hybrids look...less like ordinary cars. Apparently they have solid market research suggesting that people don't just want to use less gas but also want to make sure everyone who sees them in their car is duly impressed.
I'm not sure which is more embarrassing--the environmental degradation we cause or the types of remedies that gain the most traction. If we spent less effort on personal green image and more storming the OSM, we might accomplish something measurable.
Of course, C.S. Lewis's Screwtape encourages his underling Wormwood to forfeit any particular struggle if our resulting virtue makes us prideful. I imagine he'd enjoy watching us waste reasonably modest amounts of fuel showing off our new obviously-eco-Hondas.
I'm not sure which is more embarrassing--the environmental degradation we cause or the types of remedies that gain the most traction. If we spent less effort on personal green image and more storming the OSM, we might accomplish something measurable.
Of course, C.S. Lewis's Screwtape encourages his underling Wormwood to forfeit any particular struggle if our resulting virtue makes us prideful. I imagine he'd enjoy watching us waste reasonably modest amounts of fuel showing off our new obviously-eco-Hondas.
New Life hires new pastor
New Life Church--the Colorado Springs megachurch formerly headed by the ever-newsworthy Ted Haggard--voted overwhelmingly in favor of bringing on Brady Boyd, of Gateway Church in suburban Dallas, as its new senior pastor. AP story via the Houston Chronicle.
Some expect Boyd's leadership to take a considerably less political tone than Haggard's did. A reasonable expectation, as Boyd won't be moonlighting as president of the National Association of Evangelicals.
Some expect Boyd's leadership to take a considerably less political tone than Haggard's did. A reasonable expectation, as Boyd won't be moonlighting as president of the National Association of Evangelicals.
D. James Kennedy's retirement
D. James Kennedy--influential religious right leader and uncompromising dominionist--retired Sunday from his decades-long tenure at Coral Ridge Presbyterian (PCA) in south Florida.
The Miami Herald has a solid piece. It includes this sentence--"A new generation of Christian conservative leaders wants to broaden the agenda to include climate change, global human rights, poverty and social justice and other concerns"--some version of which has found its way into nearly every MSM article about evangelicals in the last year or two. And it quotes several of the usual suspects for such trend pieces--Joel Hunter, John Green, Barry Lynn. But it gets the story right: the choice of Kennedy's successor will say a great deal about where the conservative Christian movement is headed.
http://www.miamiherald.com/548/story/217112.html
The Miami Herald has a solid piece. It includes this sentence--"A new generation of Christian conservative leaders wants to broaden the agenda to include climate change, global human rights, poverty and social justice and other concerns"--some version of which has found its way into nearly every MSM article about evangelicals in the last year or two. And it quotes several of the usual suspects for such trend pieces--Joel Hunter, John Green, Barry Lynn. But it gets the story right: the choice of Kennedy's successor will say a great deal about where the conservative Christian movement is headed.
http://www.miamiherald.com/548/story/217112.html
Aug 27, 2007
Religion and schools redux
In yesterday's NY Times magazine, Noah Feldman has a thoughtful piece about the perennial debate.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/magazine/26wwln-lede-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&oref=slogin
Feldman makes the crucial observation that the difference between the religious and secular is often not as simple or obvious as one might expect or like--or as Supreme Court decisions might suggest. His treatment of the establishment clause issues is generally balanced, though he is perhaps too immediately skeptical of the stated intentions of a pair of new, publicly funded, officially nonsectarian schools--named for Ben Gamla and Khalil Gibran--to focus their attention on the Hebrew and Arabic languages, respectively, and not on Judaism and Islam. He gets in a little over his head--or, at least, into a little too much depth for the piece's parameters--when he digresses into discussions of the interplay between faith and culture in each tradition.
Still, a good read.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/magazine/26wwln-lede-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&oref=slogin
Feldman makes the crucial observation that the difference between the religious and secular is often not as simple or obvious as one might expect or like--or as Supreme Court decisions might suggest. His treatment of the establishment clause issues is generally balanced, though he is perhaps too immediately skeptical of the stated intentions of a pair of new, publicly funded, officially nonsectarian schools--named for Ben Gamla and Khalil Gibran--to focus their attention on the Hebrew and Arabic languages, respectively, and not on Judaism and Islam. He gets in a little over his head--or, at least, into a little too much depth for the piece's parameters--when he digresses into discussions of the interplay between faith and culture in each tradition.
Still, a good read.
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