rendering unto caesar - or not

Remember this story from back in May?

Well, the Washington Post has another story as follow up:

Declaring that clergy have a constitutional right to endorse political candidates from their pulpits, the socially conservative Alliance Defense Fund is recruiting several dozen pastors to do just that on Sept. 28, in defiance of Internal Revenue Service rules.

More about that later.

But first, this: I happened upon this via The Revealer, a handy compendium of news about religion and media coverage of religion. They don't see what the big deal is:

So news of a bid to stop a bid to overturn the ban requires the journalistic equivalent of explaining why a joke is funny. It's hard to get outraged over defiance of a law you didn't know existed. Maybe I'm wrong.

Yeah, dude. You're wrong. This is a very big deal. Where the hell have you been? Anyone who goes to church (or works for a church board or school or any non profit organization) knows exactly what this law is and what the ramifications are if 501c3 organizations are allowed to participate in electioneering.

Back to my original outrage:
For churches to bleat that their rights are being infringed upon by an oppressive government because they can't say 'Sarah Palin is teh bomb!' from the pulpit during an election year - I call shenanigans on that. Anyone who works for a non profit (like I do) knows there are ways around this code and ways to bend the code. Under the tax code, non profits are allowed a lot of leeway. We can talk about policies; we can offer opinions on legislation; we can even participate in direct lobbying and the limits are even broader if we participate in grassroots lobbying. During an election year, we just can't stand on our pulpits (bully or otherwise) and say 'Sarah Palin is teh shit!' because it's sort of like exercising undue influence on folks when voting is supposed to be a private civil matter.

Beyond the the self-serving, disingenuous goal-post-moving (which seems to be a contemporary hallmark of the radical Christian Right), I think it's interesting how the orthodox self-image of the Church has changed.

(Putting on Sunday School hat)

If the Church was meant to be called out from the world (to be separate from it, if you will), and if we accept the idea that national electoral politics are, well, secular , then why are certain church people agitating for an increased ability to be more...worldly?

Do you understand what I'm saying?

Because progressive churches don't seem to have a problem with the current tax code as it's written. My denomination, for example, is perfectly ok with keeping the wall between Church and State in place. For some reason we don't think it's necessary for our pastor to tell folks how to vote or who to vote for - we just let our actions speak louder than our words.

We don't even associate our missions or activities to politics (though we will participate in the lobbying process when it comes to negotiating real estate in Chicago) because we see our missions as a direct outgrowth from our Christian mission - to help the less fortunate, to be graceful in our life toward one another - basically, to live the frakking beatitudes like they mean something.

Do more socially conservative congregations *not* live their mission? I won't say that. (And some congregations are very active in publicly maintaining their particular community standards when it comes to issues like homosexuality, reproductive freedom and the like.) But I'll say that it's interesting that simply living their mission and vision isn't enough for these churches and the ADF; jumping into the political muck and dictating national policy that impacts everyone, regardless of individual religious affiliation, seems too attractive an opportunity to pass up.

are pigs flying?: the religous right leaning to obama?

via Jack & Jill, this article seems to posit that the Religious Right is cracking up and the flotsam are breaking for Obama.

my first reaction was to go, Hmm. Really??

a few months ago, we saw the Religious Right (R2) go slightly nuts with their rejection of Romney, their pragmatic shunning of true-blue, 'not electable' fundamentalist Huckabee and their reluctant embrace of McCain.

but does that mean the R2 is going for Obama?

i'd say no. rather, what this article demonstrates is that the term 'evangelical' is just as diverse as the term 'progressive.' (as this primary season has demonstrated, there are schisms and fractures all over the liberal/progressive community. class, racial, sexual orientation and religious differences have uncovered a shifting and discomfitted coalition that hasn't had to face the fact in a very long while that not everything is about holding hands and singing Kum Ba Ya, you know?)

there are an emerging group of evangelicals (like Jim Wallis) who, rather than focus on hot button issues like abortion and homosexuality or whether or not dinosaurs existed, tend to look at other 'values' issues like the care of the earth, the treatment of the poor, war, or human rights issues (like trafficking, immigration, rape in the Congo and Darfur, genital mutilation, etc.) through a lens that we would say is more 'progressive' than their counterparts in the R2.

but i'd be very comfortable in saying they don't represent the R2. who's the Religious Right? look at james dobson, hagee, and the current leader of the southern baptist convention. that's the religious right. and there is no way in frakking hell their constituents are going to break for the Dems.

i'd say this group the article, and the other links in the Jack & Jill post, describe moderate evangelicals. these are evangelicals who believe in actively spreading the gospel (as well as the power and necessity for conversion) by focusing on issues that can make the most impact on a person's life now, rather than later. with issues like poverty and the environment, they're not necessarily already preaching to the choir about issues that are 'easy' rallying cries for those already hanging out inside the fundamentalist clubhouse . these are folks who just built a different clubhouse - same tree, different branch.

can the Dems depend on this emerging moderate evangelical bloc?

no. well, maybe the Dems can depend on these folks for those issues that speak to a moderate evangelical sensibility - like AIDS, global poverty, war/peace, the environment, or human rights (outside of abortion and/or gay rights, unless the Dems can find a way to message reproductive justice and gay rights as part of human rights, or social justice, issues. which they haven't successfully been able to do for the moderate evangelical crowd because the Dems just haven't taken the time), etc.

(i keep drawing a line between moderate issues and hot button issues because i think those moderate evangelical issues are 'missionary' issues; you can build a nice youth trip or awareness raising campaign around these things. you can't necessarily do that around reproductive justice or gay rights without looking like, well, the Religious Right.)

this isn't to say that i think moderate evangelicals don't belong under our progressive big tent. quite the contrary. but if the tradeoff is to give on some fundamental progressive issues, like abortion or gay rights, just to curry favor with some moderate evangelicals as part of a measly electoral strategy, then i'm more than wary.

(and why is our first inclination to tradeoff, anyway? let other people tradeoff if they wanna vote for us!)

and if the Dems really think it's going to be a good idea to climb up on that slippery slope and begin to couch our values in even stronger language of religion, then i wonder what kind of weed someone's smoking up there in Democratic headquarters.

Jack and Jill Politics: Religious Right -leaning towards Democrats?

The New Republic has an excerpt of Jeff Sharlet's The Family that will give anyone pause about the benefits of mixing politics with religion. [via The Revealer]

'crossing the line'

From The Revealer, I came across a little item pointing me to an interview between the Family Research Council and religious right activist Janet Folger about some electioneering activities the FRC has planned.

The usual (non-tax status threatening) stuff: pre-packaged sermons on hot button conservative issues, candidate comparisons (hmm) and then comes this:

"We're going," he said, "to prompt pastors and say to them that, you know, we really believe that they need to challenge some of the things, some of the thinking that we have going on in our society, which is that separation of church and state doctrine, that we really need to preach the Bible on these issues and apply them to the things that are going on in the culture today." [emphasis mine]

Uh-huh. Pastors really need to challenge that separation of church and state thing. Yeah.

You heard it, people. Right from the right's mouth.

Talk To Action Reclaiming Citizenship, History, and Faith

the other shoe drops: anti-choicers don't want you to have contraception!

Feministing has a story here about the campaign from the American Life League to stop folks (uh, women) from using the Pill. It's called The Pill Kills!

Yeah, well. It DOESN'T. Basic science, people. Basic. But who cares about basic science when you can write frakked up stuff like this:

The birth control pill does not reduce the number of abortions. The only difference is that you are killing the baby earlier.
[T]he pill and other contraceptives can stop a tiny child’s implantation in his/her mother’s womb because the pill irritates the lining of the uterus so that the tiny baby boy or baby girl cannot attach to the lining of the uterus and the newly formed human person is aborted and dies. This is called a chemical abortion.

Never mind the fact the Pill prevents ovulation so there's no egg to be fertilized. Never mind the fact the Pill cripples the sperm to prevent it getting to the egg. Never mind the fact ... oh, hell. These people are ass and facts mean nothing to them.

Personally, I cannot extoll the wonderfulness of the Pill enough. It regulated my periods, it cleared up acne and, taken in a super concentrated dose, it also backed me up after a condom malfunction. (Yay, Plan B!)

So frak off, sex-hating old Bible thumping ign'ant prudes. Leave our contraception alone.

(And did I not call this 4 years ago?? I totally called it! Not satisfied with messing about with abortion, the 'I hate women' crowd goes for contraception. Arrgh.)

But what am I thinking? They don't even think married people should use contraception.

Ok, you know what my issue is? It's this: If these people really believe that the Pill kills tiny, cute, little homonculi, then fine. Be stupid. That is their right to be so ignorant, they think a fertilized egg is a person. Fill your quiver, baby. (And then home school the quiver and form a militia and get on the ATF watch list. Whatever.)

But they need to stop telling the rest of us to get on board with their freaking weirdo religious ideas!

Because that's what this is: it's a religious idea about when life begins. Religious freedom means they can do whatever they like; but it's a frikking imposition on MY religious and personal freedom when their actions can negatively impact my ability to control my Supreme Court-supported ability to control my own frakking fertility - according to my own religious ideas.

So. Whose religious ideas win? Mine? Or theirs?

Jeebus. I got so worked up I need a cocktail.

one more time, this time with feeling

if you haven't already dropped dead from Obama/Clinton/Longest Primary Season EVAR Fatigue, then perhaps you have some thoughts on Wright, more distancing, the black church (whatever that is) and racial politics.

here's my thought about the whole thing:

Church. State. Divided.

why are we even discussing this?

[if anyone needs it spelled out: it's like the chocolate and peanut butter thing. if you don't want your politics to suddenly turn into the Nearer My God to Thee hour, then keep politics out of your churches - and keep your churches off the political radar. when the Church steps onto a public platform, all sorts of lines get blurred - and when the political process suddenly starts to require folks to make religious proclamations in order to pass some kind of political fitness test, then that's problematic too. movement in either direction pulls Church and State closer together until the one is indistinguishable from the other.

capisce?]

'compassion' replaces 'religion'

so, did anyone catch the Compassion Forum last week? (or was it over the weekend? this way too long primary cycle is giving me a hangover.)

how neat that this forum jibed perfectly with my complaint last week that our public political discourse is not being served by the constant introduction of 'faith' - or compassion, whatever. (remember when we all thought Shrub was a 'compassionate conservative'? we all should have learned a lesson from that but, clearly, we didn't.)

anyway, if you caught it and have thoughts about it, i'd love to hear about it.

[and, over here at A Moderate Voice, the writer asks why we even needed this lame forum.]

thank ye, marse!: more on black gratitude and the rev wright nonsense

Obsidian Wings: Where's The Gratitude?

an excellent post (via Bitch Ph.D.) in response to Pat Buchanan's totally frakked up commentary on how grateful black folk should be to white folk. (roll of eyes here)

what's cool about the post is that it doesn't deal with the 'grateful' issue but, rather, gives some rather pointed criticism of Buchanan's poor grasp of public policy and the history of so-called 'generosity' on the part of the government toward blacks.

you must read it. go. do it.
...
this rev. wright thing clearly has some long legs and i think it's been running for so long for several reasons:
1- white folks are still surprised at instances of black anger and black folks are frustrated that no one ever takes their anger seriously
2- it's always nice drama in this country to take down an 'uppity negro' like obama (and his supporters)
3 - this country still wraps itself in knots when it comes to discussing racial/ethnic difference because it still can't acknowledge that the ideological default in this country is still white and male (and straight, for that matter.)
4 - our public discourse has been permamently polluted by the discourse of 'values' and 'faith.'

this last thing is interesting to me (and the Obsidian Wings post touches on this briefly in one of the comments, I think.) i think we can all remember the advent of the Values Voter, that poll-skewing and election-swinging voter who, rather than keep the separation of church and state sort of firmly in place, decided to pretend his polling place was a church pew and made all sorts of decisions based on how closely a candidate seemed to hew to his/her own faith background and their willingness to let their faith inform public policy.

sensing a powerful new voting bloc, politicians scrambled to appease the Values Voter and pronouncements of christianity, faithfulness, prayer, kneeling and all sorts of pharisaical nonsense started to appear all over the place. every election cycle, our candidates went through a dumbshow of evangelism, of piety and visited every major evangelical pulpit in the country. no longer content to be crazy and whacked out behind their pulpits, mini-Dimmesdales were suddenly on every major cable news show to blather on about their faith-based revolution, out to change the culture and return this country to its god-fearing roots. they wanted us to go back, before the feminists, the humanists and the gays started mucking about with things. meanwhile, the rest of us wondered how the hell 'faith' became a litmus test for public service or a new language within public discourse.

(and, quite frankly, if the feminists, gays and humanists were really in charge of things, life would be a lot more fun, if you ask me.)

as a result of all this hollow talk 'faith' is a line item in our federal budget and a pastor's sermon has become a trial of a candidate's patriotism. see how neat that is? a private utterance in a church has far-reaching consequences for someone's public, national identity.

is anyone else totally frightened that the veil separating our private, religious thoughts and expressions from our public selves is beginning to disintegrate?

huck for president?

Shake, Rattle and Roil the Grand Ol’ Coalition - New York Times
The Enduring Strength of Huckabee - Andrew Sullivan
Holy Huck, Straight out of Flannery O'Connor - Oh, Dave
Meet the Press transcript, Dec 30, 2007 - MSNBC

do you want an ex-baptist preacher for president?
Huckabee has an interesting reply when Meet the Press' Tim Russert asks him about his pastor past:

MR. RUSSERT: But where does this leave non-Christians?
GOV. HUCKABEE: Oh, it leaves them right in the middle of America. I think the Judeo-Christian background of this country is one that respects people not only of faith, but it respects people who don't have faith. The, the key issue of real faith is that it never can be forced on someone. And never would I want to use the government institutions to impose mine or anybody else's faith or to restrict. I think the First Amendment, Tim, is explicitly clear. Government should be restricted, not faith, government. And government's restriction is on two fronts: one, it's not to prefer one faith over another; and the second, it's not to prohibit the practice of somebody's religion, period.
MR. RUSSERT: So you'd have no problem appointing atheists to your Cabinet?
GOV. HUCKABEE: No, I wouldn't have any problem at all appointing atheists. I probably had some working for me as governor. You know, I think you got to realize if people want--say, "Well, you were a pastor," but I was a governor 10 1/2 years. I have more executive experience running a government. I was actually in a government position longer than I was a pastor. And if people want to know how I would blend these issues, the best way to look at it is how I served as a governor. I didn't ever propose a bill that we would remove the capitol dome of Arkansas and replace it with a steeple. You know, we didn't do tent revivals on the grounds of the capitol. But my faith is important to me. I try to be more descriptive of it. I just don't want to run from it and act like it's not important. It drives my views on everything from the environment to poverty to disease to hunger. Issues, frankly, I think the Republicans need to take a greater leadership role in. And as a Republican, but as a Christian, I would want to make sure that we're speaking out on some of these issues that I think we've been lacking in as a party and as, as a nation. [emphasis mine]

my question is, where does the separation between political animal and person of faith begin? if, as Huckabee puts it, faith is an intrinsic part of him, how can he separate that faith from future political decisions, made for a pluralistic society? Huckabee says that his evangelical past leaves non-Christians in the middle of America; i think that's fairly astute. it leaves them surrounded by a government led by an evangelical Christian and a citizenry that believes in the literal truth of the Rapture for the most part. if you were a non-Christian wouldn't you feel a little heebie-jeebie?

the attacks on huckabee from his own party are interesting, too. the times article mentions folks like limbaugh calling Huckabee a fake Republican because of his populist stances on poverty and i have to admit that i always feel sort of good about whatever makes limbaugh get his drawers in a bunch. but then i remember this is a Republican candidate we're talking about. his likeability, speechifying and surprisingly holistic views on education and poverty aside, he's still the man who's the most dangerous to a woman's reproductive freedom. again, from Meet the Press:

MR. RUSSERT: And what would happen to doctors or women who participated in abortion?
GOV. HUCKABEE: It's always the, the point of trying to say, "Are you going to criminalize it?" That's not the issue.
MR. RUSSERT: Well, if it, if it's illegal, it would be.
GOV. HUCKABEE: It would be. And I think you don't punish the woman, first of all, because it's not about--I consider her a victim, not a, not a criminal. You would...
MR. RUSSERT: But you would punish the doctor.
GOV. HUCKABEE: I think if a doctor knowingly took the life of an unborn child for money, and that's why he was doing it, yeah, I think you would, you would find some way to sanction that doctor. I don't know that you'd put him in prison, but there's something to me untoward about a person who has committed himself to healing people and to making people alive who would take money to take an innocent life and to make that life dead. There's something that just doesn't ring true about the purpose of medical practice when the first rule of the Hippocratic Oath is "First, do no harm." Well, if you take the life and suction out the pieces of an unborn child for no reason than its inconvenience to the mother, I don't think you've lived up to your Hippocratic Oath of doing no harm. [emphasis mine]

like his fellow social conservatives who shudder at the thought of women controlling their own fertility, Huck stops short of saying that those women should be thrown in prison. instead, he displays his unconscious devaluing of women by calling us victims. we aren't agents in the decisions we make about our fertility, but objects at the mercy of inveigling doctors or 'inconvenience.' whether his ideas stem from his faith or just a good old lack of trust in women's autonomy, they don't bode well for women's issues; do i want this man as president, wielding the power to appoint supreme court judges?

not so much.