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May 9, 2008
Religious Right Decides Who's Catholic Enough
Pope Benedict’s visit to the United States is long over, but the Washington Times continues to doggedly report on one particular angle: the many thousands receiving communion at the pope’s masses included a handful of Democratic politicians, who, like the majority of American Catholics, are pro-choice.
While this seems like the season for picking over politicians’ personal religious lives, the Right has been trumpeting this point of contention for a number of years to use as a wedge between liberal candidates and faith. In particular, John Kerry’s communion became a public issue in 2004.
In 2008, none of the major presidential candidates are Catholic. But that just means the Right has to get more creative.
Last week, Catholic League President Bill Donohue tried to jump on the Rev. Wright bandwagon with his own brand of religious policing, attacking not Barack Obama’s faith, but that of his Catholic advisory council: “If these are the best ‘committed Catholic leaders, scholars and advocates’ Obama can find, then it is evident that he has a ‘Wright’ problem when it comes to picking Catholic advisors.” Donahue’s beef? Many of Obama’s Catholic backers disagree with him on abortion, stem-cell research, and school vouchers.
The advisors complained, bringing up the existence of other moral issues besides the ones that fit the Republican platform: war, poverty, etc. Donohue responded, calling it “shocking” that one could set political priorities on par with abortion.
And then, seeing a chance to attack Obama instead of his advisors, Donohue promptly compared the senator to Hitler (for opposing a graphic bill designed by abortion opponents to establish personhood for the fetus):
“It is so nice to know that Obama thinks abortion ‘presents a profound moral challenge.’ Is infanticide another ‘profound moral challenge’? To wit: When he was in the Illinois state senate he led the fight to deny health care to babies born alive who survived an abortion. That, my friends, is not a moral challenge—it’s a Hitlerian decision.”
Posted by Ezra at 6:08 PM | Permalink
Hagee: Real Christians Don't Support Welfare
Televangelist John Hagee, in a recently aired sermon, outlined what he meant by the term “counterfeit Christians”: those who take public policy positions he disagrees with, on issues from abortion and gay marriage to welfare. Watch:
John McCain, who courted Hagee’s endorsement, now can’t seem to decide what to do with the pastor. Perhaps McCain will continue to denounce him on TV while bragging about their close relations in front of the folks Hagee describes—those who are “truly saved” by the GOP platform.
Posted by Ezra at 2:30 PM | Permalink
May 1, 2008
Phony 'Official' Group Prays for More Bush Judges
This morning, President Bush celebrated a National Day of Prayer, an annual non-sectarian rite going back decades. A much younger tradition was also observed: a phony “official” Day of Prayer group tried to usurp the national celebration with its own Religious Right-flavored broadcast.
As we explained last year, the National Day of Prayer Task Force—chaired by Shirley Dobson, James Dobson’s wife—is in fact an independent group whose platform runs contrary to the multi-faith spirit of the law. NDPTF specifically excludes participation by “Non-Judeo-Christian” groups, promotes fighting a “cultural war,” and its volunteers must swear their belief in an inerrant Bible.
Despite efforts this year by Jews on First, the Interfaith Alliance, and others to clarify that NDPTF is not a federal agency, confusion remains. The president himself helped to muddy the waters during the official White House ceremony, inviting the Dobsons and others involved with NDPTF and opening his remarks by thanking Shirley Dobson “for being the Chairman of the National Day of Prayer.”
The NDPTF ceremony this afternoon featured segments on the three branches of government, each featuring a prominent Republican speaker. The representative of the judicial branch was Judge Janice Rogers Brown, perhaps the most extreme-right of the controversial appeals-court nominees put forth by Bush. After Brown spoke on the nation’s “spiritual trajectory” (through events such as putting “In God We Trust” on coins), Vonette Bright—widow of Bill Bright and co-founder of Campus Crusade for Christ—led a prayer for more right-wing judges to “uphold God’s plan for marriage” and ban abortion:
Posted by Ezra at 5:40 PM | Permalink
April 30, 2008
Persecution of Arabic-Language Instruction Reexamined
The New York Times has published an extensive feature revisiting the unfortunate public battle that emerged last summer over the opening of a charter school offering Arabic language and cultural instruction. As we wrote in September, while 67 other schools in New York City were earning applause for dual-language instruction, the announcement of the Khalil Gibran International Academy resulted in a right-wing backlash that seemed to presume Arab American culture to be of a piece with international terrorism. In the end, a handful of fringe websites and third-string commentators, with promotion by two conservative newspapers, managed to force the resignation of the respected founding principal and to tarnish the new school, essentially sabotaging the first year of the educational effort.
Daniel Pipes led the charge against the school and its architect, Debbie Almontaser. He described to the Times how he sees openly Muslim Americans as posing a new threat, not of violence or law-breaking but of cultural change:
The conflict tapped into a well of post-9/11 anxieties. But Ms. Almontaser’s downfall was not merely the result of a spontaneous outcry by concerned parents and neighborhood activists. It was also the work of a growing and organized movement to stop Muslim citizens who are seeking an expanded role in American public life. The fight against the school, participants in the effort say, was only an early skirmish in a broader, national struggle.
“It’s a battle that’s really just begun,” said Daniel Pipes, who directs a conservative research group, the Middle East Forum, and helped lead the charge against Ms. Almontaser and the school.
In the aftermath of Sept. 11, critics of radical Islam focused largely on terrorism, scrutinizing Muslim-American charities or asserting links between Muslim organizations and violent groups like Hamas. But as the authorities have stepped up the war on terror, those critics have shifted their gaze to a new frontier, what they describe as law-abiding Muslim-Americans who are imposing their religious values in the public domain.
Mr. Pipes and others reel off a list of examples: Muslim cabdrivers in Minneapolis who have refused to take passengers carrying liquor; municipal pools and a gym at Harvard that have adopted female-only hours to accommodate Muslim women; candidates for office who are suspected of supporting political Islam; and banks that are offering financial products compliant with sharia, the Islamic code of law.
The danger, Mr. Pipes says, is that the United States stands to become another England or France, a place where Muslims are balkanized and ultimately threaten to impose sharia.
“It is hard to see how violence, how terrorism will lead to the implementation of sharia,” Mr. Pipes said. “It is much easier to see how, working through the system — the school system, the media, the religious organizations, the government, businesses and the like — you can promote radical Islam.”
Almontaser is suing the city for forcing her resignation, but it’s remarkable that such a small group of people—led by activists like Pipes and Aryeh Spero, who are as a rule ignored—could intimidate New York City, armed only with overactive imaginations and a paranoid suspicion of Muslims.
Posted by Ezra at 12:18 PM | Permalink
April 23, 2008
More on the Right's 'Double Standard' for Religion in Politics
Radio talker Michael Medved complains about some imaginary “double standards” he saw following remarks by Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama at a Compassion Summit earlier this month:
From most commentators, Hillary received high marks for her thoughtful, surprisingly intimate answers to such questions. … Nevertheless, the generally positive reaction to her comments raises obvious questions about faith, Democrats and double standards.
Imagine that George W. Bush told a public forum that he had “felt the enveloping support and love of God” since childhood, and that on “many, many occasions” he “felt like the Holy Spirit was there with me.”
It’s not hard to imagine the derisive tabloid headlines: “Bush: God Is With Me” or “Prez Sees Spirits” or “W. Talks About His Imaginary Friend.” Howard Dean might comment: “It sounds like Bush is once again saying that he talks to God, so we better watch out. The last time that happened, he took us to a war based on false intelligence.” …
Why is it less controversial when liberals talk about their religious outlook than it is for conservatives to speak about our faith?
Controversial? In fact, it’s difficult to name any recent candidate for any major office who didn’t talk about his or her faith. And now that he mentions it, we might point out that it’s been the liberal candidates (along with poor Mitt Romney) who have had their faith questioned by the Right. When the right-wing media hasn’t been whispering that Obama is a secret Muslim, they’ve been speculating about the particulars of his pastor’s theology. One activist conducted his own investigation and declared Obama’s Christianity “woefully deficient.”
Likewise, Clinton’s faith is considered fair game for attacks from the Right. For evidence, look no further than four paragraphs later in the very same article by Michael Medved, when he cavalierly asserts that “no one objects to Hillary’s God-talk because, in essence, nobody fully believes it. Her frequent encounters with the Holy Spirit sound no more formidable than Dennis Kucinich’s sighting of a UFO (in the company of Shirley McLaine – now that’s a problem).”
As for Hillary, she can’t point to a single issue in which her supposedly “deep commitment to my Methodist faith” actually shaped her thinking, beyond a very bland and generalized concern for the poor as “the least among us.” She doesn’t scare non-believers because all the religious overtones in her speeches and interviews can’t erase the overwhelming impression they receive that “she’s one of us” – and her positions on abortion, homosexuality, stem cells, and most church-state issues further reassure them that she’s still on their side on the culture war.
According to Medved, “no one in the country” takes Clinton’s “well-advertised interaction with the Holy Spirit” as genuine.
While Clinton’s membership in a Capitol Hill prayer group is common knowledge, her fellow members in the group—such as Rick Santorum and Jim Inhofe—are taken at face value when they talk about how their faith influences their politics. Clinton, as Medved demonstrates, is not—apparently because the Right doesn’t like her political positions. What’s the term for that? Oh yeah—“double standard.”
Posted by Ezra at 5:19 PM | Permalink
April 22, 2008
Dusting Off the Dirty Playbook
It looks like the man responsible for 1988’s infamous Willie Horton ad is back and has his sights set on Barack Obama:
Starting Tuesday, a group of conservative activists led by Floyd Brown, author of the famous Willie Horton ad used so effectively against Michael Dukakis in 1988, will begin a campaign to tar Obama as weak on crime and terrorism, a strategy that aims to upend Obama's relatively strong reputation among Republican voters.
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Brown's new ad focuses on a 2001 vote by Obama in the Illinois Senate to oppose a bill that would have expanded the use of the death penalty if the perpetrator of a crime belonged to a gang. The links between Obama's vote on that issue and the deaths of three Chicago resident's are indirect and tenuous, as is the further connection the ad draws between the issue of Obama's position on the death penalty and the issue of international terrorism.
Time reports that the ads will be funded by a PAC called the National Campaign Fund “which had $14,027 in the bank at the end of March,” which probably explains why Brown is focused on creating the “most Internet-intensive effort for an ad debut ever” and hoping to gin up free media coverage to make up for the ad’s lack of funding, much like Mike Huckabee did, or at least tried to do, with his campaign ads (it is worth noting that Ari Berman of the "The Nation" reports that Brown's efforts are being "run by Bruce Hawkins, a former field organizer for Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson who recently worked for Mike Huckabee in Iowa.")
And speaking of free advertising, it looks like a pastor in South Carolina is trying make a name for himself by suggesting that Obama might secretly be Muslim:
Pastor Roger Byrd of Jonesville Church of God put the sign up which reads "Obama Osama humm are they brothers?"
Pastor Byrd says the sign is not meant to be racial or political but rather to make people think. "His name is so close to Osama, I have a feeling he might be Islamic therefore he doesn't recognize Christ," Pastor Byrd said.
Of course the ad is not political and was merely designed to make people think … that Obama is a Muslim and possible a terrorist.
Posted by Kyle at 4:16 PM | Permalink
April 16, 2008
Perkins' Invitation Lost in the Mail?
Yesterday we wrote a post about various Religious Right figures blasting the “Compassion Forum” that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama participated in over the weekend. Among those most bitter about the event was the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins who dismissed the entire thing as a sham mainly because he wasn’t invited to take part:
[O]rganizations like FRC, which have historically addressed faith issues, were not invited to participate or even submit questions to the candidates. Instead, the event's radical board, which included pro-abortion and homosexual advocates, used the forum as an opportunity to chip away at the traditional agenda of the faith-based community.
Well, as it turns out, the folks over at Faith in Public Life, who organized and co-sponsored the event, have something to say about that:
Perkins claimed that he was not invited to the Forum. In fact, Perkins was invited to attend the Forum AND the VIP reception for faith leaders held beforehand. He never responded to the invitation.
So much for that complaint.
But while we are rehashing old blog posts, we may as well note that the other part of that post dealt with the fact that John McCain subbed the event entirely and the fact that nobody on the Right seems too upset about it. In fact, someone from McCain’s religious outreach team reached out to the Brody File to spread the word that McCain’s faith is “extremely private” and that he won’t be talking about it.
Needless to say, that sort of attitude isn’t going over too well with the Right:
Pastor Rob Schenck of the National Clergy Council says not much is known about McCain's personal faith, except that he was raised in a family that believed religion was to be kept private. But Schenck contends that does not comport with the beliefs, customs and practices of evangelicals.
"We live with a mandate to preach the gospel, to unashamedly testify what Christ has done in our lives, to generously share that information with others," says Schenck. "... And John McCain has yet to give that kind of public testimony, and it's undermining the confidence of evangelicals in John McCain."
Schenck believes McCain's reluctance to talk more in-depth about his faith is not a good thing for him, his support base, or the country.
McCain’s faith may be private, but if he wants to win over the Religious Right, he’d better start offering up some public testimony, because that is what they want to hear.
But McCain had better not be too open about his faith because Schenck will just start criticizing it as “woefully deficient” and saying that it shows that he has "no real moral philosophy." Oh wait, no he won’t – he reserves that sort of criticism for Democrats.
Posted by Kyle at 4:42 PM | Permalink
April 8, 2008
Pat Robertson: 'Islam Is Not a Religion'
Today’s “700 Club” featured Bernard Lewis discussing what he calls the “clash” of civilization between Christianity and Islam, and host Pat Robertson added his own commentary afterwards, repeating his claim that “Islam is not a religion” but “a political system bent on world domination." He warned viewers that "what they’re going to do to you will be more horrible than anything you can imagine."
Added Robertson, “To say, ‘Well, it’s a religion and you should leave religion alone,’ that’s just not the way it works.”
Posted by Ezra at 5:54 PM | Permalink
March 17, 2008
What’s Obama To Do?
As a way of dealing with the controversy surrounding the various remarks made by his pastor Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama is set to deliver a speech tomorrow where he promises to talk “about not just Reverend Wright, but the larger issue of race in this campaign .”
Regardless of what he says in this speech, it’ll probably do little to appease the rank-and-file conservative Christian voters in the Republican Party who never liked him anyway and now seem to really, really dislike him, at least judging by most of the comments mailed into CBN’s David Brody:
I am sure Obama was listening to rev Wrights sermon about "America causing this to happen...and that the chickens came home to roost...etc."Right there Obama has lied on TV, to news reporters and to his supporters-claiming he knew nothing of these awful hate filled sermons.
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Obama being a member of this church for over 20 years and calling this guy his spiritual mentor and having him at present on an advisory committee is political suicide. He should pull out the race now, make a statement that he is leaving this radical black church and try to salvage whatever political career he has left. If he is the dems nominee they are handing the white house to the Republicans. It has been said time and time again that this guy should have been vetted. He is now, which is only the tip of the iceberg. The media has given him a pass.
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[N]ow that he has made that statement, I await the video of Wright spewing a bunch of crap while Obama's family is shown applauding in the pews. I wouldn't be surprised if it's coming.
Of course, the fact that Brody himself has posted on the Obama/Wright issue a total of ELEVEN times so far (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11) - versus the two times he posted about John McCain and John Hagee and the zero times he posted about McCain and Rod Parsley - might have something to do with that.
Anti-gay right-wing activist Harry Jackson also weighed in, saying that it is entirely reasonable that Obama be held responsible for the words of his pastor:
“Should Mr. Obama be judged because of the acts of his pastor.” My answer is yes! Pastor Wright’s worldview and his understanding of race, culture, and religion of the bible will in some measure affect how Barak Obama views the world. Only time will tell whether Obama’s life and message have been helped or handicapped by the ministry of Jeremiah Wright. If Obama says nothing elese, many people will simply label him as a hypocrite who says one thing in public but acts differently behind closed doors. During the next few months it will be important for Obama to set the record straight concerning his faith.
Does that mean that the congregants at Jackson’s own Hope Christian Church ought to be made to answer for Jackson’s anti-gay rhetoric? Presumably.
For his part, Obama has publicly distanced himself from Wright’s comments, calling them “inflammatory and appalling” … and now that has gotten him in trouble with the Right as well:
The National Clergy Council finds Dr. Wright's recent comments extraordinarily indiscrete, inapt, inaccurate and ill-considered, yet we find Mr. Obama's disloyalty even worse. We adjure Mr. Obama to remain faithful to the man who in so many ways shaped him for the campaign he now undertakes.
Mr. Obama's tossing of Dr. Wright under the bus for political advantage is a painful spectacle and is a classic politics-as-usual move.
The National Clergy Council adjures Mr. Obama to stay faithful to his father-in-the-faith and take whatever criticism comes.
Considering that the head of the National Clergy Council, Rob Schenck, has been on a one-man crusade to convince the world that Obama’s Christian faith is “woefully deficient” and that he might really be a Muslim, it is probably safe to assume that his “stand by your man” advice is not being dispensed with the purest of intentions.
Posted by Kyle at 2:15 PM | Permalink
March 13, 2008
Be Careful How You Pray
From their start as the “Moral Majority” through their as the “Christian Coalition” and all the way up to the “Values Voters” who supposedly returned President Bush to office in 2004, Religious Right leaders has long claimed the exclusive right to speak for people of faith in the political arena. In order to bolster that claim, the Right has developed an entire repertoire of attacks against those who might dare to disagree: complaining about perceived anti-religious bigotry, warning that Christians are under constant attack, demonizing and disrespecting other faiths, and accusing Democrats of attempting to dupe faithful Americans into abandoning the only political party that represents a “truly biblical worldview.”
Normally, such attacks were directly solely against Democrats, but they started to get used against Mitt Romney and his Mormon faith when he showed up on the presidential scene. The Right, not knowing know how to react to a Republican candidate who did not subscribe to a faith with which they were comfortable and familiar, began to flail about, giving rise to all sorts of speculation about whether rank and file right-wing voters could ever support such a candidate, allegations that other candidates were exploiting the issue for political gain, worries that Romney’s unique beliefs would somehow hijack the Right’s traditional messaging … even allegations that a vote for Romney was “a vote for Satan.”
Eventually, Romney was compelled to deliver a speech reminding voters that a religious test for candidates and office holders was prohibited by the US Constitution and proclaiming that “no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions. “
The speech didn’t accomplish much and Romney was eventually forced to drop out of the race – and now the Right has been able to get back to what it does best: attacking Democrats.
Amid the strong showing that Barack Obama continues to make in the Democratic primaries, we have begun to notice that Obama’s proudly declared strong personal faith appears to be rankling some on the Right who see his talk of faith as a threat to their perceived hegemony and have begun striking back by attacking not just his positions or policies, but the nature of his faith itself.
Routinely, right-wing commentators have been attacking Obama’s church and declaring that his “Christianity [is] woefully deficient.” Just last week, Rob Schenck did an entire segment on Obama’s faith, suggesting that he might really be a Muslim despite the fact that he identifies himself as a Christian and even questioning Obama’s claim that he “[prays] to Jesus every night, wondering why he would “pray to Jesus” rather than “pray to God in Jesus’ name.”
Apparently, the mechanics of Obama’s personal prayer and his understanding of the Trinity are of great concern to people like Schenck and Mychael Massie who seem to think it is now acceptable to encourage voters to oppose a candidate or office holder based solely on how he or she exercises their personal faith:
Suffice it to say that his comments are objectionable on many levels, not least of which is because the fundamental construct for prayer is given in Matthew 6:6-9, and nowhere in same does Jesus say to pray to "Him." In fact, nowhere in all of Scripture are we told to pray to anyone save God Almighty Himself.
In Philippians 2:9-11, Paul writes that while God has given Jesus a name above all names, and that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, and that every tongue should confess Him as Lord, this is done to the glory of God the Father. Paul, in verse six of the same chapter, writes that, "…in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be known unto God." He doesn't say make them known unto Jesus.
Is it possible Obama doesn't understand the meaning and order of the prayer the Lord instructed us to pray in Matthew 6:6-9? Does Obama presume Paul didn't mean what he said? Or does he place his biblical literacy above him whom God inspired? Perhaps Obama just doesn't understand the true nature and order of the Triune God – allowing that is the case, then it is incumbent upon him to revisit the definition of devout.
Jesus Himself references God the Father as "His God" and "my God." At no time and in no place does Jesus say pray to Him, but rather in John 16:14-28, He instructs the exact opposite.
So word to the wise: if you consider yourself a Christian, you’d better bone up on the details of how to pray properly because otherwise the Right is going to accuse you of being a posturing, ignorant phony whose faith is fundamentally illegitimate.
Posted by Kyle at 10:13 AM | Permalink
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