A New Year's Resolution

Frederick Clarkson and Max Blumenthal have written some sobering blogs about the theocratic ideas that have come into prominence in America as we ring in the new year. What they are saying won't give Mainstream Baptists anything to cheer about, but it could provide some good grist for a New Year's Resolution.

This year, I resolve to stop remaining silent whenever I hear Christians talk about our country being a "Christian Nation." Nations can't be Christian. Genuine faith requires an individual, voluntary, personal commitment.

Baptists of the Year

Ethics Daily has posted a story about Baptists of the year.

I commend Robert Parham for venturing to offer such a list. I am sure that everyone knows someone that Robert omitted that they think should have been on the list.

I encourage anyone who wishes to add their nominees and the reasons for their nomination in the comments section below this post.

SBC's Sacred Cow Losing Its Halo

A recent report by ABP makes it clear that the Cooperative Program, the Southern Baptist Convention's sacred cash cow, has lost its halo. In a move he called "astounding and regrettable," SBC executive Morris Chapman whined, "former leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention have come out of retirement to ask churches to give to the BWA, a request they never would have made when they were SBC leaders, leading organizations that were dependent largely upon Cooperative Program gifts."

The truth is, when Duke McCall and Mainstream Baptists were leading SBC organizations, Southern Baptists were Cooperative Baptists who worked with Baptists around the world without trying to dictate their theology and control how they spend their money. Today Southern Baptist leaders are autocratic bureaucrats who twist the truth to justify the bullying they do to all who oppose their theological dictates and heavy handed micromanaging.

McCall aptly summarized the SBC takeover leaders by saying, "This new gang plays rough and twists the truth into lies."

Brethren Leaders Feel a Draft

Ethics Daily is reporting that the Selective Service made an unannounced visit to the Brethren Service Center in New Windsor, Md. The Selective Service denied that the visit had anything to do with plans for reinstating the military draft. Nevertheless, church leaders were left with a chill from the visit. The Church of the Brethren is one of the historic peace churches.

Few Baptists have been pacifists. In the past, we've been fairly "realistic" in supporting the use of force by legitimate authorities for "just wars." In my eyes, the current war in Iraq has put this "Christian realism" to the test. All the "just war" arguments I've heard are just fig leaves in this conflict.

It makes me wonder whether the Mennonites and Brethren haven't been right about the use of force all along.

Mean Cities

The National Coalition for the Homeless has issued a report about American cities criminalizing homelessness. They rank cities around the country according to how harshly they treat the homeless.

Little Rock, Arkansas ranked as the meanest city in America toward the homeless. Atlanta, Georgia ranked second. The state of Texas had three cities on the list -- Austin ranked tenth, Dallas fifteenth, and San Antonio was seventeenth.

There are a lot of Baptists in all these cities. In fact, Baptists have a significant presence in all twenty of the meanest cities in America. We need to start taking an interest in the homeless people in the cities in which we live.

Click here for a link to the NCH's full report. Click here for narrative about the meanest cities. Click here for narrative about how the homeless are treated in cities in your area.

Concerned About Concerned Women

Today's LA Times is running a story about Concerned Women for America -- the political action committee organized decades ago by Beverly LaHaye to derail the Equal Rights Amendment. The article is aptly named, "They Won't Stand on Common Ground."

The truth is, the right-wing movement taking over our country got its original impetus to organize from opposition to Equal Rights for women. They succeeded in defeating the ERA Amendment and then expanded their agenda. Meanwhile, American society has acted as though the Equal Rights Amendment passed. Business and government has been opening many doors for women that were previously closed.

Women should not take the advances that they have gained for granted. Doors that are now open can quickly close. A good example is the status of women in the Southern Baptist Convention. In the 1970's, when the Equal Rights Amendment was being debated, Baptist women were graduating from Southern Baptist seminaries, being ordained as chaplains, and on occassion serving as pastors of churches. Twenty-five years later, allies of Concerned Women for America are in control of the SBC and now, by official policy and decree, women can no longer be ordained as chaplains or serve as pastors of Southern Baptist Churches.

A Gospel that is Too Hot to Handle

AlterNet has posted an essay by Jeanette Batz Cooperman that is the most insightful discussion of the banned UCC ad to date. Here's a link:

The Compassion of Christ.

Another Uncomfortable Christmas

Kudos to Ethics Daily for posting Miguel De La Torre's devotional on Advent and War.

Peace truly is "the great desire of nations" -- but there is no peace.

Peace is also the great desire of every human heart -- but there is not much peace there either.

Since March 2003 I have discovered that I can no longer find peace with God in my heart when I bite my tongue around those who are comfortable with what our nation is doing in the world.

Now when I am most at peace with God, some of my relatives and many of my friends find it most uncomfortable to be with me.

No Theocrats on the Right ?

In 1996 Michael Lind wrote a book called Up From Conservatism in which he told the story of his conversion from the political right to the political center. In brief, Lind said he left conservatism because he could not remain in a movement that could see "no enemies on the right." He said the conservative movement was very careful to not offend and was openly wooing racists, theocrats, religious cultists, and neo-fascists.

A good example of what Lind was talking about is in a story posted on AlterNet today, Throw Down Your Cross. It is a story about the political influence of Sun Myung Moon and a movement he launched to remove crosses from churches.

In the past couple weeks, I've heard a lot on the radio about businesses taking Christ out of Christmas at the mall, I've read about churches not being permitted to enter floats in parades and I've been grilled on TV about schools taking nativity scenes out of their school plays, but this is the first thing I've seen about a movement to take crosses down from churches. Astonishingly, this story is being told by the left-wing press -- the AlterNet -- because the right-wing media hasn't yet found it newsworthy.

I suspect it's because too many Christians can see "no theocrats on the right." Moon's right on all the issues that matter most to them -- he supports right-wing candidates, he hates homosexuals and he opposes gay marriage. In their eyes, it's the secularists and church-state separationists who are truly dangerous.

Dominionist Press Publishes Book by Southern Baptist

Those who think the links between Southern Baptists and theocratic Christian Reconstructionists are tenuous need to look inside the front cover of the current issue of the Chalcedon Report. There the chief publishing house for Dominionist thought, Chalcedon, announces that it has published Bruce Shortt's book, The Harsh Truth About Public Education. Bruce Shortt, along with T.C. Pinckney, leads the movement against public schools within the Southern Baptist Convention.

Pinckney, who led SBC Fundamentalists to leave the moderately controlled Baptist state convention in Virginia, wrote a forward to Shortt's book. Paul Pressler and Paige Patterson, who organized the Fundamentalist takeover of the SBC, endorsed Shortt's book.

We've read this script before. First they attack the schools, then they organize a movement to take them over, and then they take them over. They did that in the Southern Baptist Convention.

Now they are taking on the public schools. When they are done, we will have a system of religious schools and home schools, paid-for at public expense, that will dutifully indoctrinate children in their theocratic ways.

For all those school teachers who are fed-up with the bureaucracy in public schools, you are going to love working for these autocrats.

For all those moderate realists and pragmatists who think this scenario is a little far-fetched, all but a few Baptists thought the same thing about the SBC twenty-five years ago.

FOX News Quotes Interview

I just got an irate e-mail from a right-winger that linked to a FOX news story.

FOX has reframed a quote from my interview last Friday and put it out with stories from other places around the country -- but there's not a word about the original context of the interview --Mustang, OK.

Here's a link:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,141920,00.html

Laughable Theocrats?

Baptist Press just posted an editorial from John Yeats about taking offense at hearing "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" when he shops at Christmas. Yeats is editor of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma's state newspaper.

When did Southern Baptists decide that the mission of the church was to "save the culture" and convert people to our "worldview?" Whatever became of sharing the gospel one-on-one and persuading people (not culture) to follow Jesus (not a worldview) by "the foolishness of preaching" (not by legislation, adjudication, or indoctrination)?

Why does Yeats minimize the theocratic impulse among right-wing evangelicals? He says it is "laughable and borders on the absurd." Yet, his own thinking is either clearly theocratic or else Dominionist themes resonate so thoroughly in his mind that he cannot see the similarity. For example, just two paragraphs before he laughs at the idea of evangelical theocrats, Yeats says,

"Tolerance now means the acceptance and equalization of every lifestyle philosophy, except for evangelical Christianity."

What's the difference between what Yeats is saying and what Rousas J. Rushdoony said when he denounced democracy as heresy because,

“In the name of toleration, the believer is asked to associate on a common level of total acceptance with the atheist, the pervert, the criminal, and the adherents of other religions.”

It seems to me that all Yeats does is disguise the same apology for intolerance by framing it in the mythology about evangelical Christians being persecuted. As I've said before, this mythology is really about Christians not being able to dominate the stage or takeover the public square.

The Mind of a Fundamentalist

Thanks to Robert Cunningham for sending me the link to Rachael Kohn's interviews entitled "The Mind of a Fundamentalist." About midway through the interview Shahid Najeeb makes an interesting observation:

The mind of fundamentalism proliferates like a cancer, without regard for anything other than its own scriptures. It lives and feeds only on these scriptures, which are fundamental inscriptions of personal aspirations. The devout believe their devotion and nothing else. Dictators believe their own propaganda. So one can’t help but wonder about the driven nature of these beliefs.

It’s as if the fundamentalist’s very life depends on the fierce way the beliefs are grasped. And there might actually be a lot of truth to this, for it might be that at heart, the forcible and persistent insistence of the fundamentalist’s truth at the heart of it, lies an unconscious feeling of the truth that may be, just maybe, he is quite mistaken. It might be that he knows at some level that he is hanging on to a container that has no content, and if this container’s devoid of any content, then the fundamentalist is hanging over a schism or a chasm, I beg your pardon, of meaninglessness and insignificance which is absolutely terrifying.

Clarification

From responses I'm seeing to the blog about my radio interview yesterday, I can see that I did not make it clear that the text in bold type approximates what was said on air. The regular type text is what I was prepared to say, but did not manage to get in on air.

I've made some revisions to yesterday's blog to make that clearer.

One thing I learned is that I missed an opportunity to make the point that seems to resonate the most with readers of this blog. If I ever get another opportunity to speak on an issue like this again, I'm going to make sure I get this line in:

We need to dispel the myth that Christians are being persecuted in our public schools. Most of the instances I hear about Christians being persecuted are really examples of Christians no longer being permitted to dominate the stage at school or takeover the public square.

Christmas with Mustang's Angry Christians

{Revised 12-19-04. Separated TV comments (bold type) from prepared comments (regular typed)}

I just finished my first interview on National TV news. FOX News asked me to comment on the uproar in Mustang, Oklahoma over the removal of the "live" Nativity scene from a public elementary school's Christmas play.

Christians in Mustang are suing the school district for discrimination because the play mentioned Kwanzaa and displayed a Menorah while the nativity scene was removed. Right-wing religious rabble rousers are complaining that, "political correctness" and a pervasive "secularism" is taking Christ out of Christmas. To show that they are not going to take it any more, residents of the city took it out on their kids education. They voted down a school bond issue.

The interview went so fast that I cannot remember the sequence of questions and answers. Frankly, until I get some more practice at this, I'm finding it much more comfortable to speak into a microphone and listen through a headset in the radio studio than to speak to a camera and listen through an ear plug at a TV studio.

I did get something from three of the four points that I wanted make on camera. In bold print below is an approximation of what was said on the air. Some of the bold is what I had prepared to say (who knows what I actually said? I can't remember and I did not manage to get the program recorded). The interview was conducted live at 10:30 AM CST. Though it was slated to be part of FOX's series about Christ being taken out of Christmas, it did not air in later segments of that series. They substituted a different story out of Florida.

The News anchor (Bridgette __?__) introduced the topic and asked the other guest what he thought was happening in Mustang. That guest replied something to the effect that there was a "systematic" effort across the country to remove Christ and Christian symbols from Christmas.

Then the news anchor asked me something about whether I was hearing a lot about such controversies. I said something to the effect that we were hearing a lot complaints this year and then launched into the major point I was trying to make:

"We need to dispel the myth that Christ was expelled from the public school Christmas program in Mustang, Oklahoma. The children sang "Silent Night" which repeats twice that "Christ, the Savior is born" and repeats twice "Jesus, Lord at his birth.

The people in Mustang are complaining because their children could not stage a dramatic visual climax to a play that was designed to give dramatic emphasis to one faith -- the Christian religion."

Then the news anchor asked me, "If the school can display Menorahs, what's wrong with a nativity scene?

I responded, "The children were acting-it-out. They were role-playing the nativity scene. That would have been too much for a public school."

Our constitution does not permit the government or its agencies, and public schools are agencies of the government, to elevate one faith above another or treat people of minority faith as though they were second-class citizens.

Then the news anchor said, somewhat exasperatedly, "This is not the issue we wanted to talk about. . . . It's Christmas. I just think it's natural to conclude with a nativity scene."

In regular type below is the full text of the comments I hoped to make on the air. There were four points that I was trying to make:

1. We need to dispel the myth that Christ was expelled from the public school Christmas program in Mustang, Oklahoma. The children sang "Silent Night" which repeats twice that "Christ, the Savior is born" and repeats twice "Jesus, Lord at his birth."

Frankly, those are affirmations that I hold, but it is not the mission of public schools to teach children the doctrines of the Christian faith. It is the responsibility of the churches to be teaching the articles of faith. Mustang has more than twenty churches. The Christians there need to focus on providing religious education in their churches rather than expecting the public schools to do it for them.

2. We need to dispel the myth that Christians are being persecuted in our public schools. Most of the instances I hear about Christians being persecuted are really examples about Christians no longer being permitted to dominated the stage and school or takeover the public square.

In Mustang, people are complaining because their children could not stage a dramatic visual climax to a play that was designed to give dramatic emphasis to one faith -- the Christian religion.

If public schools are going to talk about religion, they need to see that each faith gets faith and equal treatment. They cannot give token mention of minority faiths while providing catechisms and Sunday School lessons for the majority faith.

3. The First Amendment was designed to protect the rights of minorities.

Our constitution does not permit the government or its agencies, and public schools are agencies of the government, to elevate one faith above another or treat people of minority faith as though they were second-class citizens.

4. We need to practice the Golden Rule. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Some statement of the Golden Rule, either positively or negatively, is common to all faiths. It is not a controversial value. If everybody would practice it, we could put an end to about 90% of these church-state cases.

I'm a Baptist preacher. I am a "born again" evangelical Christian, but it is high time that evangelical Christians start practicing the Golden Rule and living our faith instead of trying to make a show of it and forcing everyone else to play a role in our show.

The Midst of a Culture War

Ethics Daily is running several stories about the latest skirmishes in the culture wars. One article talks about a Judge in Alabama who presumed to preside over his court while wearing a robe that had the ten commandments embroidered on it. Another article talks about conservative "evangelicals" fighting what they call Christmas "censorship." Still another story talks about a sociology Instructor at a state school who is being investigated for suggesting that people should buy AK-47's and shoot all the religious values voters.

It is obvious that the passions associated with different visions for American life that surfaced during the recent presidential election are not going away. In the recent past, the advocates of violence have been concentrated on the extreme right. Now the extreme left is beginning to use the rhetoric of violence.

Those of us who are in the Mainstream need to step up, be more visible and vocal, and inject more balanced rhetoric and reasoning in the public square before real bullets start flying. Once bullets start flying, those in the middle will be caught in the crossfire from both sides.

Better Off in 2004 ?

The Drum Major Institute, a left-wing think tank chaired by former ambassador Andrew Young, has released a 2004 Year in Review report. The report includes a section on the best public policy and the worst public policy of the year 2004. Here's a paragraph about policy proposals that escaped my attention until I saw it listed as the worst policy proposal of 2004:

BUSH GIVES WORKING-CLASS NO CREDIT

A major theme of President Bush's re-election campaign was his "ownership society" agenda, a focus on policies to empower Americans to buy their own home, start their own business and carve out a place in the middle class. Key to achieving that goal is the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which requires banks with assets of more than $250 million to provide banking services, loans and investments to low- and middle-income residents in the communities in which they are situated. In October, a set of proposals by Bush administration appointees threatened to raise the minimum asset level of banks before they are required to participate to $1 billion, up from $250 million, freeing nearly 90 percent of all banks from complying with CRA. For leaving working-class Americans completely on their own, this proposal earns a place in this year's "Worst of Public Policy."

Policies like this raise a red flag in my mind. It reminds me of a very unpleasant experience I had trying to sell my first house.

My wife and I bought our first house when I was in Seminary working on a Ph.D. We bought a home in a neighborhood that was integrating racially. White people were moving out and African-Americans were moving in. When we were buying the house, our realtor did her best to talk us out of moving into that neighborhood. We thought that prejudice was all that was informing the advice she was giving us. We were not threatened by African-Americans and we were happy to do something to stem the tide of white flight.

We lived in that house for eight years. We never had any problem with vandalism, burglary, theft, noise, nosey neighbors or nit-picking neighborhood associations. We had fine neighbors and good friends who lived in stable, loving families -- some of them in marriages of mixed race. It was a delightful place to live.

When I graduated from Seminary and was called to pastor a church in Houston, we put our house on the market. We were satisfied with an appraisal that showed the value of the house had only increased by 50%, knowing that values had declined to that level from the nearly 66% increase that houses in the neighborhood (next door) had sold for a couple years before.

Over the next year we had several contracts from people who wanted to buy the house -- all of them African-American couples. None of them, however, could qualify for a loan to buy the house -- no matter how much the price was lowered.

Finally, after fifteen months, we gave the house to the first real estate speculator we could find who would take over the payments and get the loan out of our name. Otherwise, we could not qualify to buy a home in Houston.

Later, we learned about a bank practice called "red lining" where certain people (mostly African-American) and certain neighborhoods (mostly African-American) are excluded from credit by bank policy. At one time, we passed laws to prohibit such practices, but that was before we were told that all government regulation is just bureaucratic red tape that causes a drag on our economy.

If you can't trust American bankers to treat people fairly and look out for the common good of their comunities, who can you trust?

Baptists Weighing in Against Decalogue Displays

The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty has filed a friend of the court brief before the Supreme Court opposing government displays of the 10 commandments. The BJC is a nearly seventy year old organization that officially represents nearly all Baptists except Southern Baptists (and represents many of them unofficially).

In a press release K. Hollyn Hollman, BJC general counsel, said, “It’s inconceivable that a freestanding, six-foot monument in the shadow of the state capitol building is not an endorsement of the message ‘I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.’

Associated Baptist Press reports that the Interfaith Alliance is joining the BJC in arguing against the decalogue display.

This case may prove to be more significant than most people think. Baptists and others are challenging the notion that "common law" is based solely on "biblical law," -- an argument popular in Christian Reconstructionist circles.

For Dominionists, posting ten commandments monuments on public property is a symbolic act identifying the United States as a Christian Nation. Once the courts accept the symbols of "establishment," they'll be working step-by-step to insure that the constitution is strictly interpreted to accord with a literal interpretation of Mosaic law.

Director of Faith-Based Office Insults Mainstream Baptists

ABP reports that Jim Towey, Director of the White House office of Faith-based Initiatives, said he expected there to be "continued outcry from the secular extremists" against President Bush's faith-based initiatives. His statement was designed to leave the impression that only "secular extremists" oppose the faith-based initiatives.

After enduring years of slander from Fundamentalists in the SBC, name calling doesn't make much of an impression on us. We do object, however, to politicians trying to skew the debate over government funding of religion in a way that would by-pass and ignore the objections to faith-based initiatives that come from within the community of faith.

Mr. Towey knows that many religious people object to his office's fudging over the line separating church and state. He should also know that we are not "extremists" either.

IRD irked by UCC ad

A group affiliated with the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) is asking the United Church of Christ (UCC) to pull their television commerical welcoming all people to their church. The IRD and its affiliate, the Association for Church Renewal, are irked by the lack of doctrinal definition in the ads. They conclude, "While the UCC commercial emphasizes the denomination’s inclusiveness, there is no attempt to define what the denomination believes or promotes, other than inclusiveness itself."

Fred Clarkson's blog provides valuable insights about the IRD's well-funded and organized attempts to foment Fundamentalist takeovers of mainline denominations -- takeovers modeled after the takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Those interested in additional information about the IRD's efforts to disrupt America's mainstream Protestant churches should read Lewis C. Daly's, A Moment to Decide: The Crisis of Mainstream Presbyterianism and Leon Howell's, United Methodism at Risk: A Wake-Up Call.

The last time American churches were so thoroughly divided was in the 1840's and 1850's. This time the Mason-Dixon line is running through the middle of churches in both the north and the south.

No "Fellowship" for Democrats in FCA

Ethics Daily is reporting that a student at Carson-Newman College, a Baptist college in Tennessee, was removed from FCA's leadership after he told the chapter president that he would vote for Kerry. FCA leaders say the matter had nothing to do with politics.

Seems like I've heard reports like this before. Since the Fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention, denominational politics has had nothing to do with the removal of moderate denominational executives, professors and missionaries from positions of leadership either.

On Disponsibilité

Thanks to Robert Cunningham for calling my attention to Martin Marty's Commencement Address at Eastern Mennonite University. Speaking about the French philosopher Gabriel Marcel's idea of disponsibilité, Marty gives one of the best explanations of the term that I've seen in print. Here it is:

A Marcel scholar (Seymour Cain) says that it is easiest to define disponibilité by looking at its opposites: "unavailability," "a holding-back, self-adherence, closed-in-ness," Kierkegaard's Indesluttedhed (in Danish), or "shut-in-ness." The "disposable" person opens freely and gives herself unreservedly in a mutuality of presence, "the indisposable person is self-preoccupied, encumbered, self-enclosed, incapable of giving himself, of opening up, of giving out. If he listens to me, he gives me only his ear, the outward attitude, but he refuses me himself, for he cannot 'make room' for anyone else in himself."

Being available is thus not only a habit of expression but a deep focus on personal philosophy. It is not only a matter of psychology or bodily posture, but of the spiritual life. Marcel sometimes used a kind of economic metaphor, "opening a line of credit" for someone else. "I put myself at the disposal of, or again I make a fundamental engagement which bears not only on what I have, but on what I am." You give credit to another, and you are giving a gift to yourself. Marcel: "To be unavailable is to be in some manner, not only occupied, but encumbered by the self."

A theological or ethical dimension appears: Marcel speaks of "self-presence:" "the portion of creation which is in me, the gift which from all eternity has been given me of participating in the universal drama, of working, for example, to humanize the Earth, or on the contrary to make it more uninhabitable." And "from the very beginning there must be a sense of stewardship: something has been entrusted to us," and we are responsible to the Giver of the trust, the "Other," God. What is the whole drama of God visiting the world in Israel and the prophets and, finally, in the divine Son, in the life and death and resurrection of a Jesus who "condescends" and is a "com-presence," a shaper of community, available to us and through us, in prayer and work.

In three brief paragraphs Marty has provided a very good introduction to a key idea in the thought of a very neglected and overlooked philosopher, Gabriel Marcel. For those interested in learning more, here's a link to the best book from which to understand Marcel's thought, Creative Fidelity.

Mohler in the Lap of Politico's

As soon as Richard Land began to lumber down from his place as loyal lapdog for right-wing politicians, Al Mohler jumped up to take his place.

Right-wing politicians have been "talking Jesus" and "walking corporations" for at least a quarter-century. All along the way, right-wing evangelicals have been voting their "moral values" to oppose abortion and "biological Darwinism" while "walking loyally" with the "social Darwinism" of right-wing politicians. After more than two decades of loyal efforts as well as credit for securing the winning margin in the last election, you'd think that the politicians would throw a bone to their pet pit bulls and put a moral issue like abortion at the top of their agenda.

That, however, is not in the cards. Economic conservatives like Grover Norquist are still setting the agenda and social conservatives are still making excuses for their political masters. Richard Land has started to show a little independence. Al Mohler, however, seems more than willing to keep wagging his tail for right-wing politicians. The game in Washington remains the same, the only thing that changes is the name of the dog in the lap of the politicians.

Liberating Louisiana College

For the information of anyone who has been out of the Baptist loop, Louisiana College, a Baptist college in Pineville, La. is nearing a nuclear meltdown. Fundamentalists tookover the board of trustees, began censoring books such as Scott Peck's Road Less Travelled, and prompted the resignation of the school's president.

Recently the board tried to hire a Fundamentalist to be president but, after a much publicized coronation, he turned them down. Now the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, an accrediting agency, has placed the school on probation.

A week ago I heard a rumor that Jerry Falwell advised the Fundamentalists that there is no need for them to be concerned about accreditation because he could get them accredited through Liberty University. Wouldn't that be remarkable? Twenty-five years ago, who could have foreseen that any respectable Southern Baptist liberal arts college would even be rumored to be getting a seal of approval from an Independent Fundamental Baptist like Jerry Falwell?

On the Dialogical Unity of Religions

Thanks to Robert Cunningham for sending me the link to Walter Kasper's speech "Disarming Terror: A Role for Believers." Kasper's comments shine a bright light on some very dark issues. Here's his conclusion:

Religions must wake up and galvanize their own spiritual resources of resistance to terrorist violence. Such a clear and public disassociation from terrorism is what many expect specifically from Islam. The profound nihilist characteristic of terrorism can only be overcome through the affirmation of the essential attitude of all religions – profound respect.This means both the self-critical review/correction of one's own history as the preaching not of hatred but of tolerance and respect for others' beliefs, as well as the consequent condemnation of all forms of violence. Religions must tear off the religious mask from the face of the terrorists to unmask them and show them for what they really are, namely, nihilists who reject all the values and ideals of humanity.

The "clash of civilizations" can be avoided only through the dialogue of cultures and religions. Dialogue presupposes respect for the common heritage of all religions and profound respect for the sacred, but dialogue in no way means syncretism and the renunciation of one's own identity; rather, dialogue can be conducted only by interlocutors who each has his own identity, an identity that they know [and] esteem and by which they commit themselves through the arms of the spirit.

This dialogical unity of religions, which condemns physical conflict but is not afraid of spiritual confrontation, is the only way for peace in the world.

Did the Nazi's Separate Church and State?

Thanks to Bob Allen for calling my attention to Thom Hartmann's essay about Supreme Court Justice Scalia's speech at an Orthodox Jewish Synagogue in New York. Scalia blames church/state separation for the holocaust.

Scalia, like most theocrats, persists in revising history to fit his ideology. Hartmann does a masterful job of giving the highlights of the Nazi takeover of the German state church and Hitler's use of it for his political purposes. The link he provides to photos of the Nazi's with various religious leaders tells the story in images stronger than words can provide.

The truth is, one of the biggest reasons why Europe is so much more secular than America today is because the church failed so dismally in facing the Nazi menace. It's not hard to project the same result for this nation once people perceive the tragic effects of the unholy alliance between the evangelical theocrats and the neo-conservative empire builders who are forming our current foreign policy.

America's First Prophetic Voice

Thanks to Barbara McGraw, Barbara & Tom Boyd and Tom Burns for a conversation yesterday that prompted further reflection on an issue which has been churning in the back of mind since I began wrestling with the thought of Baptist re-envisioners (See my 7-9-04 Blog on Baptist Identity). The question is “What is conscience?”

A few years ago I wrote an essay with that title in which I defined conscience as the ability to put yourself in the place of others (in technical terms, sympathetic imagination) and look at yourself through the eyes of an Other (in technical terms, reflexive self-consciousness). I derived this definition from my exegesis for a sermon I gave on what some think is the central biblical text for an understanding of conscience -- 2 Corinthians 5:10-11.

Then I began to read the early Baptists to see if I could find evidence of these two components -- sympathetic imagination and reflexive self-consciousness -- in their discussions of conscience. I’ve not had much time to devote to this research, but I found it easy to find evidence of both components in the thought of Roger Williams (1603-83) – the great champion of “liberty of conscience” and religious liberty.

Williams studied the language and customs of the indigenous peoples of North America and published the first text on a Native American language -- a task requiring no small extension and exercise of the first component -- sympathetic imagination. The second component -- reflexive self-consciousness -- is apparent in a number of passages in William’s book, The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution. Many are found within the context of his concern for the integrity of the Christian witness as it was shared cross-culturally. Here is one of the clearest expressions of a socially constructed conscience in William's thought:

Two mountains of crying guilt lie heavy upon the backs of all men that name the name of Christ, in the eyes of Jews, Turks, and pagans.

First, the blasphemies of their idolatrous inventions, superstitions, and most unchristian conversations.

Secondly, the bloody, irreligious, and inhuman oppressions and destructions under the mask or veil of the name of Christ, etc. (Bloudy Tenent, page 8)

In the little bit of research that I’ve done into the understandings of conscience put forward by contemporaries of Williams and thinkers who followed him, it has been hard to find evidence of both components. It is much easier to find them in more recent discussions by philosophers and social scientists talking about the social construction of conscience.

In the current political climate, if securing the first colonial charter in history granting full religious liberty to people of all faiths no longer suffices to earn Williams recognition as America’s first prophetic voice, perhaps he deserves the distinction for his understanding of conscience.

Uncle Sam Doling Out to Churches

Now that evangelical voter's values are in ascendancy, we are discovering that free market principles are fine for families of workers whose jobs have been outsourced overseas but not for religious institutions. As it cuts funding to assist elderly and disabled people and reduces temporary assistance for needy families, congress is finding heaps of new money for elderly, decaying and needy churches.

For the past 215 years Americans have thought that church and state should be separate because genuine faith could sustain itself in the free marketplace of ideas. That, however, was when faith was strong and vibrant. Today it is weak and puny and needs the help of government to renovate and restore its decaying edifices.

Thankfully, organizations like Americans United for Separation of Church and State still believe that faith needs to have the vitality to sustain itself. They are filing a lawsuit challenging those who would let lazy religious institutions depend on handouts from the government.

On Tacitly Established Religion

The United Church of Christ (UCC) has developed an nationwide ad campaign to show that all people (including homosexuals) are welcome at their churches. In a press release yesterday the UCC revealed that CBS and NBC have refused to air their ads because, "the Executive Branch has recently proposed a Constitutional Amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, this spot is unacceptable for broadcast on the [CBS and UPN] networks."

No matter what your position is on the morality of homosexuality, when TV Executives are screening the messages of mainline Christian denominations for conformity with White House initiatives, it is obvious that some form of government sanctioned religion is being tacitly "established." Frederick Clarkson, author of Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy, makes the implications clear:

There are 1.3 million members of the UCC and tens of millions more who are members of Christian denominations, and other religious traditions that will recognize that if CBS can turn down an ad because they are afraid the White House won't like it, the First Amendment protection of religious freedom is in jeopardy.

Here's a link where you can see the UCC's ad over the internet. (NOTE: All the links to the UCC site are running extremely slow today. Right now, thousands of people around the world are trying to go to the same links.)

Economic Armageddon?

Today's Ethics Daily has posted a story quoting Tony Campolo saying the Church will suffer for partisan politics. Campolo is undoubtedly correct. The Religious Right has sown to the wind and the whole world is reaping the whirlwind.

Those interested in spotting new storms before they strike might be interested in reading an article about Stephen Roach, chief economist at Morgan Stanley, who is privately warning wall street about the "economic armageddon" that is rapidly approaching. His concerns are echoed by Paul Krugman and Robert Reich.

Once Americans experience the full wrath of economic depression, they are sure to give full credit for their suffering to the influence of evangelical Christians on politics.

On Fundamentalists Taking Over Moderate Churches

Kudos to Rick Jordan for his column today on Ethics Daily that discusses "Moderate Pulpits: The Next Target." He writes,

Anecdotal stories of “stealth fundamentalists” interviewing for known-moderate churches are abundant. Sometimes these ministers will say whatever it takes to convince a search committee that they are the one to present to the church.

Jordan gives some good advice on how to prevent Fundamentalists from taking over your church. Jordan is right to contend that the key is an informed laity.

Land Trying to Shed Lapdog Image

Today's New York Times has an interesting article saying "G.O.P. Constituencies Split on Tax Change." Richard Land and Grover Norquist are said to be at odds about strategies for reforming the American tax system. Norquist favors a "stealth tax overhaul" that would gradually lead to a system that only taxes consumption. Land says, "People are not going to give the kind of support necessary for tax reform that leaves the investor class untaxed."

Has Land suddenly become a socialist and decided to challenge wealthy investors? Or, is he merely trying to get some leverage on Norquist to effect the legislative agenda where the President will spend the "capital" he gained from the last election?

Who will win in the battle to influence the President's agenda? Who got Bush elected? Social conservatives or economic conservatives? Who is setting the agenda? Economic conservatives or social conservatives?

A Faustian Bargain

Thanks to Carlos Stouffer at the Jesus Politics blog for calling my attention to yesterday's outstanding essay by Charles Haynes at the First Amendment Center. Haynes quotes from James Madison's Memorial and Remonstrance and writes,

Madison understood then what leaders of the religious right would have Christians forget today: When churches join forces with any political party, they are lured into a Faustian bargain — trading the authentic power of faith for the fleeting rewards of worldly influence.

Politics Trumps Principle -- Even on Abortion

As loyal Republican votaries, Richard Land and James Dobson are muting their opposition to Sen. Arlen Specter's confirmation as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and meekly retreating to the sidelines. Baptist Press quotes Land as saying,

I'm disappointed that Senator Specter is going to be chairman, . . . But I'm not surprised given the ways in which the senators of both parties tend to cherish, if not worship, seniority.

As I wrote on Nov. 4th, when it comes to getting things done in congress, it is Grover Norquist that crafts the message and sets the agenda for Republicans. Norquist will see that the President's agenda stays focused on economic issues and not social issues. Again, here's Norquist's agenda as reported in the Nov. 4th edition of the New York Times:

Social conservatives are a very important part of the base, but they are not enough alone," said Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform and a conservative strategist close to the Bush administration, noting that in Illinois, Alan Keyes had taken a drubbing in the race for the Senate after running a vigorously conservative campaign on social issues.

Mr. Norquist eagerly predicted the accomplishment of a long agenda of government reduction: repealing the estate tax, privatizing Social Security, restricting medical and other liability lawsuits, closing military bases, opening more government jobs to competitive bidding to lower costs and weaken unions, imposing new disclosure requirements on organized labor, and expanding health care and investment savings accounts.

Once again evangelicals deliver the votes but can't effect the changes they say they are after. When are evangelicals going to realize that politicians will patronize them just long enough to get elected? When are Baptists going to realize that abortion has never been the real issue?

The real issue has always been securing a place at the table of power for people like Land and Dobson and Falwell. The problem of abortion could have been solved decades ago if the religious right had been willing to reach a compromise (See my Oct. 1 blog). But if they had done that, how could they keep motivating people to vote for "conservative" candidates?

On Second Thought

The previous post was from my charitable side. I do want to give everyone -- even Fundamentalists -- the benefit of a doubt. Experience, however, sometimes makes me cynical.

My cynical side tells me that BGCO's calling their first ever female VP was a deft public relations move. It is perfectly timed to help deflect the glare of publicity that is coming as the story about Molly Marshall's treatment at Southern Seminary is being remembered and her appointment as President of Central Baptist Seminary is being announced. Molly is a native of Oklahoma and a graduate of Oklahoma Baptist University.

I will discover which side is right -- charitable or cynical -- when I see how long it takes for BGCO to elect another woman to serve as Vice President. I suspect it will take more than a hundred years before they elect a woman to serve as President of BGCO and longer than that before a woman could be called as President of Oklahoma Baptist University. You can be sure that it will be a cold day in Hades before a woman ever serves as President of a Southern Baptist Seminary.

A Pleasant Surprise

I was pleasantly surprised to read that the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma has elected a woman to serve as Vice President of the state convention. Here's a quote from Baptist Press:

Oklahoma Baptists made history when messengers to the annual meeting of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma elected a woman to one of its three top offices.

Marty Odom, a member of Quail Springs Baptist Church in Oklahoma City, was elected second vice president without opposition.

It is rare that I find much to commend about the leadership of Oklahoma's Fundamentalist dominated state convention, but this action is truly commendable. It sets a precedent worthy of wide and frequent emulation.

Once Oklahoma Baptists discover that thunderbolts won't rain down on them for placing a woman in a position of some authority over the state's pastors, perhaps they'll learn that they have nothing to fear when a Baptist church feels led to call a woman to serve as pastor.

Tennessee Baptist Colleges have opportunity to repudiate Bibliolatry

ABP reports that Tennessee Baptists voted to investigate the biblical views of three of their Baptist colleges. In an attempt to breathe life into a state convention takeover attempt that has been failing in Tennessee, Fundamentalists got the Tennessee Baptist Convention to launch a heresy hunt at the Baptist colleges in Tennessee.

Tennessee Baptist colleges are at a crossroads. Will they identify the true heresy -- the bibliolatry of the 2000 BF&M -- or will they try to pretend that there is no difference between the 2000 BF&M and what traditional Baptists believe and teach?

Here are a few more links related to bibliolatry and the 2000 BF&M:

The Baptist Faith and Practice

On Bible Idolatry

The Chief Sin of Fundamentalism

Testing Inerrantist Truthfulness

SBC President Assigns Attributes of Deity to the Bible
Mainstream Baptist Correspondence with Paige Patterson, SBC President

OK Pastor Defends "Divinity of the Scriptures"

On Clarifying Bible Beliefs

Making the Bible an Idol

Who Controls the Bible?

Holding Baptist Republican's Feet to the Fire

Kudo's to Robert Parham for setting a clear agenda for the public witness of Ethics Daily. One of his objectives is to begin expecting Baptist Republican's to work to exercise influence on their party that accords with their Baptist Heritage. Here's what Parman says:

A sharper justice commitment means that we will challenge the religious right’s anointment of the GOP, as God’s Only Party. We will take on the religious right’s definition of the nation’s moral agenda and refuse to let those off the hook who enable the right’s distortions. We will expose the religious right’s hypocrisy, point out its idolatry of nationalism and critique its campaign promise to strengthen families based on false fears and faulty analysis.

Equally important, we will look for opportunities to highlight the leadership of Democrats and Independents who are active Christians, as a way to counteract the lie that the only Christians are Republicans. We will encourage Baptist Republicans to remain true to their Baptist heritage and faithful to the biblical witness.

I'll second what Parman says with a hearty Amen! It's time for the Mainstream Baptists who are Republicans to start exerting some influence within their party to preserve separation of church and state.

The New Precedent at Central Baptist Seminary

Kudos to the Trustees at Central Seminary for calling Dr. Molly Marshall to be President of the Seminary. She is the first woman to serve in such a capacity at any ATS accredited Baptist Seminary. As the school's press release said:

The Board of Directors of Central Baptist Theological Seminary unanimously elected Dr. Molly T. Marshall as the seminary’s 10th president. . . . This is the first time a woman has held this position at any Baptist-affiliated seminary accredited by the Association of Theological Schools.

Al Mohler, Paige Patterson and all the rest of the Fundamentalist leaders of the SBC have reason for worry. The glory has departed from your schools and the Holy Spirit is about to use the brightest ember from an extinguished torch of learning to spark a revival at Central.

The Pride of Liberalism

Thanks to Mercer's Baptist Studies Bulletin for publishing Henlee Barnette's last Op-Ed on "Why I am Proud to be a Liberal." At a time when most Baptists would rather be viewed as "conservative" than be observed following Christ's teachings at the Sermon on the Mount, Barnette's essay comes as a breath of fresh air.

Barnette's essay is also a healthy corrective to the social darwinism that underlies Amit Ghate's appeal for liberals to join libertarians in making an individualistic economic argument to defend separation of church and state. Ghate and other libertarians would do well to reflect on these words from Barnette:

I am a liberal because I know what it is like to work under a conservative and an oppressive economic system. In the "good old days" (1925-1935) I worked in a cotton mill ten hours per day, five and one-half days per week. Beginning pay was eighteen cents per hour. There was no medical care, no retirement program, no minimum working hours, and no minimum wage. A worker could be fired for no reason at all. All members of the family had to work to survive. This was so-called "free enterprise." Progressive liberals changed the system and we now have legislation that provides a quality of life more in harmony with the principles of The Constitution, the Declaration, and the Bible. Practice of these principles saved us from revolution that plagues other nations.

Neo-cons denounce economic and social progress led by liberals: minimum wages and working hours, Medicare, social security, and welfare for the poor. (Conservatives oppose welfare for the poor, but not for the corporate welfare.) Ironically, they gladly accept these government services for their retired parents and grandparents and will for themselves when they become older. Too, they argue for less big government and fiscal responsibility. But that is changing with the Bush administration. Government control of all areas of our lives is occurring and we have the largest US debt in history.

The Theocratic "Shadow" Campaign

Kudos to Max Blumenthal for his article "The Christian Right's Humble Servant." Blumenthal is one of the few journalists who knows where to find the fingerprints of the right-wing cabal that is methodically pushing our nation toward theocracy. Here's an interesting paragraph:

When the official Bush/Cheney re-election campaign kicked into high gear, the religious right's shadow campaign had been underway for nearly a year. The Southern Baptist Convention's Land had created a program to cultivate "values voters" called IVoteValues, which included a Web site rating candidates according to issues of concern to conservative Christians. Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, a legal arm of the Christian Coalition, sent mailers to 45,000 conservative pastors explaining how to rally support for Republican candidates without threatening their church's non-profit status. The Presidential Prayer Team, a private evangelical group bankrolled by Arizona Diamondbacks owner Jerry Colangelo ran ads during the summer on 1,200 radio stations urging listeners to get on their knees and pray for the president.

While Blumenthal gives a lot of print to the issue of homosexuality, Brad Carson, a Baylor grad who lost to theocrat Tom Coburn in the recent campaign for one of Oklahoma's U.S. Senate seats, has recently written in The New Republic about the role that the issue of abortion played in his campaign. Here's a quote from his article:

After the morning rituals, the pastor called me to the stage, and we engaged in a lengthy discussion about abortion, homosexuality, "liberal judges," and other controversial matters. After leaving the stage, I rejoined the congregation, and the pastor launched into an attack on the "pro-choice terrorists," who were, to his mind, far more dangerous than Al Qaeda. Yes, he acknowledged, thousands had died on September 11, but abortion was killing millions and millions. This was a holocaust, he continued, and we must all vote righteously. Vote righteously! In 13 months of campaigning across the vast state of Oklahoma, I must have seen or heard this phrase a thousand times, often on the marquees of churches, where, outside of election season, one finds only clever and uplifting biblical bromides. But it was not until that September Sunday in Sallisaw, one of the most Democratic towns in Oklahoma, that I first understood that the seemingly innocuous phrase "vote righteously" was the slogan not of a few politicized churches, but the cri de coeur of millions--millions who fervently believe that their most deeply held values are under assault and who further see this assault as at least tolerated by the Democratic Party, if not actually led by it.

One of the best responses I've seen to the theocratic rights' fixation on sexual ethics is an editorial in the last issue of the Texas Baptist Standard. Marv Knox writes:

But (high school boys' imaginations to the contrary) there's more to this world than sex. And every American, particularly every person of faith, who is motivated by "moral values" should press our leaders to act on a wider range of issues. They include, but aren't necessarily limited to: (I'm just giving the headings without Knox's discussion)

Poverty . . . Healthcare . . . Environment . . . Debt . . . Nationalism

SBC President issues book for "Holy Warriors"

As Baptist Press admits, Bobby Welch and Broadman-Holman Press are trying to "capitalize" on the war in Iraq and on the country's spiritual interest as they issue the book You, The Warrior Leader.

It is hard to imagine an image more contradictory to the Spirit of Christ and more incendiary to the Muslim world than the cover of Welch's book.

Having gained positions at the top of the Baptist world, Welch and his publishers may not be fearful of losing their souls. They do need to consider that it would be better for millstones to be tied around their necks and be cast into the sea, than for them to cause any little one to sin by confusing human warfare with spiritual warfare. (Luke 17:1-2)

Falwell driving to be "boss man" for "values voters"

Fifteen years ago, Jerry Falwell stepped down from spearheading the "Moral Majority" saying that, under Fundamentalist rule, the SBC would be doing the work of the organization. Yesterday, Americans United (AU) issued a news alert and Associated Baptist Press (ABP) issued a report that show that Falwell is positioning himself to reassume control of a well oiled political machine that Richard Land and the Fundamentalists controlling the SBC have created for him. Both AU and ABP leave the impression that Falwell is trying to "cash in" on the values vote. I think they've misread Falwell. He's not after money, he wants to be "boss." He's after power and control.

For the past fifteen years many Baptists around the country have been sending a tithe of their tithes to the SBC to support missionaries who have dedicated their lives to sharing the gospel around the world. Throughout that time the Fundamentalists have been methodically dismantling the system supporting professional, career missionaries that made our work effective. They've been micromanaging missionaries until they resign in frustration, firing missionaries who could not conscientiously support their bibliolatrous theology, and selling off/closing down the system of schools and hospitals in foreign lands that we created to earn a hearing for the gospel. In place of the former system, the Fundamentalists have created a system designed for short-term evangelistic work by a workforce with rapid turnover. In brief, our mission boards have become a placement center where SBC seminary graduates receive a brief internship before being dumped back into our churches. SBC Seminaries and Mission Boards have become little more than Ferris wheels that indoctrinate our churches in Fundamentalist theology and political ideology.

Missions is the bait that keeps money flowing to the SBC, but the money has been systematically switched to efforts to oil a machine that can control the secular political life of this country. To see this happening, all you have to do is look at the size of the increases for the past fifteen years in the budgets of the SBC's Executive Committee and the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. Now that this political "Hummer" is up and running, "Boss" Falwell is receiving the keys and will soon be in the driver's seat.

All that remains to be seen is how long it will be before "Boss" Falwell becomes President of the SBC. Will it be 2006 or 2008?

SBC Hardwiring to GOP Exposed

Monday the Washington Post reported that Richard Land, head of the SBC's political action committee, was a frequent participant in weekly conference calls with Karl Rove and other White House officials running the president's campaign for re-election. The report said,

The White House struggled to stay abreast of the Christian right and consulted with the movement's leaders in weekly conference calls.

. . .

According to religious leaders, the conference calls with White House officials started early in the Bush administration and became a weekly ritual as the campaign heated up. Usually the participants were (Karl) Rove or Tim Goeglein, head of the White House Office of Public Liaison. Later, Bush campaign chairman Ken Mehlman and Ralph Reed, former executive director of the Christian Coalition and the campaign's southeast regional coordinator, were often on the line.

The religious leaders varied, but frequent participants included the Rev. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, psychologist James C. Dobson or others from the Colorado-based Focus on the Family, and (Charles) Colson.

Such a revelation is not entirely unexpected. What is surprising is the overweening naivete that could swallow the idea that this, "mobilization of evangelical Protestants and conservative Roman Catholics . . . took off under its own power."

These revelations make it clear that the head of an SBC agency was coordinating political activity on a weekly basis with leaders of a partisan political campaign.

There was a day when Baptist preachers and lay people would have been alarmed by and indignant about this egregious violation of the Baptist principle of separation of church and state. Today Southern Baptists are so cowed by and subservient to their denominational overlords that it will hardly raise an eyebrow.

Francis Schaeffer credited with influencing 2004 Election

Kudos to Max Blumenthal who, as far as I know, is the first journalist to trace the results of the 2004 election to the influence of Francis Schaeffer. There is no doubt that Schaeffer was instrumental in awakening an evangelical reaction against abortion and he was not shy about denouncing homosexuality.

Evangelical readers of Blumenthal’s article may feel uneasy about his linking Schaeffer’s influence to militant anti-abortion groups like Operation Rescue. There is no doubt, however, that there is a direct link between the militant rhetoric of Schaeffer’s A Christian Manifesto and the militancy of anti-abortion groups like Operation Rescue.

For a fuller understanding of the influence of both Schaeffer and his colleague, Rousas Rushdoony, the founder of Christian Reconstructionism, on militant anti-abortionists read Jerry Reiter’s Live from the Gates of Hell: An Insider’s Look at the Antiabortion Underground and Frederick Clarkson’s Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy.

Bush's New Agenda

The Religious Right delivered the vote for Bush. Now they anticipate a "revolution" and expect him to deliver on their social agenda. But, already there are signs that the thrust of Bush's agenda will be more economic than social. Below is a quote from Grover Norquist in today's New York Times. When it comes to getting things done in congress, Norquist crafts the message and sets the agenda for Republicans. Here's Norquist's agenda:

Social conservatives are a very important part of the base, but they are not enough alone," said Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform and a conservative strategist close to the Bush administration, noting that in Illinois, Alan Keyes had taken a drubbing in the race for the Senate after running a vigorously conservative campaign on social issues.

Mr. Norquist eagerly predicted the accomplishment of a long agenda of government reduction: repealing the estate tax, privatizing Social Security, restricting medical and other liability lawsuits, closing military bases, opening more government jobs to competitive bidding to lower costs and weaken unions, imposing new disclosure requirements on organized labor, and expanding health care and investment savings accounts.

The End is Near

The end is near for the First Amendment of the Constitution. It had a good run -- 215 years -- and it may coast along for a little bit longer. The 2004 elections, however, make it clear that it’s days are surely numbered.

Death won’t come suddenly. It will be a slow, convulsive and painful death as people of conscience gasp for the last breaths of the air of freedom that made dialogue about religion civil in this country.

Chief among those choking the life out of religious liberty are Baptists. Seminal in conceiving liberty of conscience and instrumental in giving it birth as a civil right, Baptists are now eager to bury it alive and cover it over with the dirt of civil religion.

Perhaps it will flower again in the soil above the graves they are digging for those who are prepared to take up a cross and follow Jesus. Some sort of crucifixion is sure to befall all who stand against an imperial civil religion's claim to divine blessing for a nation that willingly embarks on crusades to exercise dominion over all the peoples of the earth.

Voting Considerations

Thanks to Carson Snow for sending me the link to John Hay, Jr.'s blog on “Seven Considerations I Make When Voting.” Here's a sample of what Hay has to say:

PARADOXES IN THE PLATFORMS. Earnest Christians are faced with tough choices in the voting booth. Whoever one casts a vote for, it may feel like something less than making a clearly Christian choice. There are paradoxes in the candidates and their platforms. I hope folks struggle hard and long with how they will vote, and then second-guess themselves all the way home from the polls.

This blog is so good that it is hard to limit myself to quoting a single paragraph. I encourage readers to use this link to read the entire essay. Kudo's to John Hay, Jr. for succinctly expressing what weighs on the hearts of many moderate evangelicals.

On Godless Constitutions

Last Friday the heads of state in Europe signed the European Union's first constitution. The Pope viewed it as a setback. Instead of explicitly recognizing Christianity, the European Constitution separates church and state and upholds religious freedom.

Two hundred and fifteen years ago the United States of America became the first nation in history to separate church and state and grant religious freedom to all its citizens. The most reputable religious leaders of the day viewed it as a setback. They wanted a system of government that united church and state like the ones in Europe. They denounced the new constitution as being "a godless constitution" and prophesied doom and gloom for people of faith. Today, however, faith is recognized as being more vibrant and extensive in America than it is in Europe.

Ironically, at the very moment when Europe is officially endorsing the principle of voluntary religion that made America so attractive to people of conviction searching for religious freedom, many Americans are being mobilized to cast votes that will ensure legislation and adjudication that will require every citizen to acknowledge a religious "worldview," practice a form of "ceremonial deism," and live by the moral codes of a subset of a single religion.

Should the theocrats succeed, there is little doubt in my mind that, two hundred years from now, faith will be more vibrant and extensive in Europe than it is in America. Faiths resort to force when they are in decay. Strong faiths grow by the persuasiveness of their convictions.

Former Hostage Accused of Being Soft on Terrorism

AFP News is reporting that Terry Anderson, who was held hostage for seven years by Muslim extremists in Lebannon, has been accused of being soft on terrorism by his opponent for a seat in the Ohio State Senate.

There was a time when attacks like this would have been condemned by people in both major political parties. Today it is routine for people in both parties to turn a blind eye when their parties' candidates cross the line.

Civility will not return to our public discourse until partisans will no longer condone such outrageous tactics by the politicians of their own party. When the end can justify any means, anarchy reigns.

Crossing the Line

Americans United has asked the IRS to investigate partisan political activities on behalf of John Kerry at churches in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

The IRS is already investigating the NAACP for partisan political statements made at its annual convention last July.

Is the IRS investigating Jerry Falwell and Southwestern Seminary for partisan political activities in a chapel service last August?

Speaking of Faith

Thanks to Robert Cunningham for sending me the link to the Speaking of Faith radio program.

Here's a link to a program on The Legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer that looks very interesting.

Here's a link to a program on The Power of Fundamentalism that also looks interesting.

Falwell literally advocates Holy War

Thanks to David Currie of Texas Baptists Committed for calling my attention to the debate between Jerry Falwell and Jessie Jackson that was on CNN's Late Edition Sunday night. Here's a link to the transcript of that program (You'll have to scroll down to nearly the bottom of the page to get the dialogue between Falwell and Jackson). Here's an excerpt from that transcript:

JACKSON: Let's stop the killing and choose peace. Let's choose negotiation over confrontation.

FALWELL: Well, I'm for that too. But you've got to kill the terrorists before the killing stops. And I'm for the president to chase them all over the world. If it takes 10 years, blow them all away in the name of the Lord.

JACKSON: That does not sound Biblical to me. And that sounds ridiculous.

I suspect Jackson was so shocked by Falwell's rhetoric that he conflated what sounds "biblical" with what sounds "Christian." There is a lot of "holy war" rhetoric in the Old Testament. In the New Testament such rhetoric, and the actions incited by it, are unwaveringly denounced and rejected by Jesus.

Even taking into account Falwell's penchant for rhetorical exaggeration, Falwell's statement reveals a mindset more comfortable with "Dominionist" thought than with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

CNN is an international stage. Falwell's statements are being translated and broadcast to people around the world. Falwell's is one of the most prominent faces of Christianity being broadcast to the non-Christian world. Now that Fundamentalists like Falwell have hijacked our faith and turned the "good news" about God's love and grace into an explicit threat to "blow them all away in the name of the Lord," why would any unbeliever care to know Jesus?
Now, more than any other time in American history, it is time for faithful Christians to join those of us who are Confessing Christ in a World of Violence.

The Myth of Christian America

Thanks, to Robert Cunningham for calling my attention to the story on BeliefNet about the Republican National Committee (RNC) hiring David Barton as a political consultant. Barton has long been proclaiming that the United States is a "Christian Nation" (i.e. a theocracy) and that separation of church and state is a "myth."

Several books have reviewed and debunked Barton's fallacious claims. My favorite is Mark Whitten's The Myth of Christian America.

It's a shame that no one at the RNC bothers to read anything but Religious Right propaganda. If they took the time to look, they could discover a lot of valuable information about Barton on the internet. Americans United has several articles exposing Barton's errors in back issues of their Church & State Magazine. And, here's a link to their brochure about "Is America a Christian Nation?"

Here's some good advice for the RNC. Don't waste money hiring political consultants on church/state issues who can't pass this basic online test. Unless, of course, one of the goals of the RNC is to rescind the First Amendment and create a Christian Theocracy. If that's the objective, then Barton's your man.

A Good and Faithful Servant

Baptist ethicist Henlee Barnette died yesterday. Thanks to Ethics Daily for posting a picture of Barnette with Martin Luther King. It is good to see those two modern day Baptist prophets side-by-side. Neither of them were greatly appreciated by the communities in which they were raised.

In the early 1960's, King and others found it necessary to leave the National Baptist Convention and start the Progressive National Baptist Convention when the former community objected to his efforts on behalf of civil rights for African-Americans.

In the late 1970's, Barnette was hounded into retirement by administrators appeasing those who would take over the Southern Baptist Convention. Today, SBC Fundamentalists insist that their takeover had nothing to do with their earlier reactions to efforts of white moderates like Barnette on behalf of civil rights. Though they have made some recent apologies for their history of racism, "methinks," to quote Shakespeare's Hamlet, they "doth protest too much." Many who are familiar with Baptist life through both the civil rights era and the decade of the takeover, find it hard not to view the takeover as, in some sense, the Fundamentalist's way of settling of old scores.

Baylor Communitarian Descry's Biblical Illiteracy

Baylor's Provost, David Lyle Jeffrey, has sparked a debate with a speech that blamed "anarchic, postmodern advocacy -- or radical subjectivism" for a decline in biblical literacy.

Sadly, too many of our Baptist educators still appear to reside in the rut of rational apologetics. Their solution to the postmodern legitimacy crisis is to elevate "communal freedom" at the expense of "individual freedom" and advocate "reciprocal accountability" while undermining "Divine responsibility."

Any theologian worth his salt knows that the relation of an individual to a community and the relationship between freedom and responsibility is not an either/or issue. These are dialectical or "dialogical" relations.

In "praxis," weight must be given to one of the poles of the dialectic while maintaining tension with the other pole. Historically, Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, and most other Christian denominations have given weight to the pole of communal freedom and reciprocal accountability. Traditionally, Baptists have given weight to the pole of individual freedom and Divine responsibility. At bottom, that is the significance of the Baptist doctrine of "Soul competency under God."

Some at Baylor, like the current leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention, seem to be prepared to surrender this Baptist distinctive, mimic other denominations, and give weight to the pole of communal freedom and reciprocal accountability. That will assure that Baptists speak with a communally approved voice but it will also silence prophetic voices.

To grasp the significance of the loss of prophetic voices, you need only look at the "anarchic, radical subjectivists" in Baptist history whose influence these communitarians wish to replace. Three of their favorite whipping boys are Roger Williams, John Leland and E.Y. Mullins -- none of whom could be called biblical illiterates or accused of encouraging biblical illiteracy.

What Would Jefferson Do?

Thanks to Carlos Stouffer of the Jesus Politics weblog for calling my attention to Robert Kuttner's essay, "What Would Jefferson Do?"

Kuttner speaks with the assurance of someone who has actually read some of the primary documents from the time of our nation's founding -- and not just the books that are listed at the beginning of his essay. He's definitely on target when he writes about the Baptist legacy favoring church/state separation. Here's a quote from his essay:

Many denominations have themselves been strict separationists -- out of regard for religion. Jefferson's secular republic was the fruit of a tactical alliance between freethinking Deists like himself and evangelical denominations like the Baptists. Evangelicals held that the individual Christians communicated directly with the divine, with no intermediation by a priest, much less by the state. More practically, they feared that if the United States were a Christian republic, majority denominations such as Anglicans and Calvinists would gain effective control at their expense. Most Baptists remained strict separationists for 200 years. Not until the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan threw himself at fundamentalists of various faiths, did the Baptists switch camps.

It's a shame that so few Baptists are aware of the separationist legacy that Kuttner describes so succinctly.

Reader Responds to Military Pagan

Steph's challenge to Katherine Yurika's report about Dominionists, Gen. Boykin and SBC President Bobby Welch has generated some heated discussion. Here's a comment I received from one of my readers:

Steph made material misrepresentations about Yurica’s article. First, Yurica is a careful researcher; she makes no assumptions nor conclusions. The article has 163 footnotes. What is reported about Boykin are his links to the Southern Baptist Convention, and Bobby Welch, the SBC president. Boykin enters again over his role in Abu Ghraib. The connections between Boykin and Christian dominionism are totally ignored by Steph. She asserts that the essay claims the “SBC is ruling the Chaplains Corps or the Department of Defense.” That is completely false. No where does the Yurica essay assert or imply such a thing. She states the report “focuses on high profile and wealthy Christian leaders that General Boykin consorts with from time to time.” That is another totally false statement. I recommend Yurica's companion article: "The Despoiling of America." For an honest review of the Yurica essay read this blog.

Steph responded by adding links to her sources on her weblog.

Meanwhile, the Axis of Logic website has given a big vote of confidence for Yurika. They posted a version of Yurika's story on their website.

Military Pagan Sets Record Straight

Thanks to Steph of the Military Pagan Network for setting the record straight about some inaccurate inferences and exaggerated concerns about the military and their chaplains in Katherine Yurika's article about Dominionists "Infiltrating the Military."

Should Dominionists begin to exercise some influence in the military, it is probably safe to conclude that neo-pagans like Steph would be among the first to be effected.

Kerry Crosses the Line

Both The Interfaith Alliance and Americans United for Separation of Church and State have taken Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry to task for crossing the line separating church and state.

Two days ago, The Interfaith Alliance called on Kerry to stop politicizing religion. They cited concerns for the sanctity of houses of worship and the need to preserve the integrity of religion.

Yesterday Americans United announced that it has asked the IRS to investigate partisan political activities on behalf of Kerry at an African American congregation in Florida.

As I have had to explain to a variety of liberal and progressive ministers over the past few weeks, the IRS laws prohibiting churches from engaging in partisan political activities do not place unnecessary restrictions on free speech. Ministers are always free to speak about issues -- but not endorse candidates and parties -- from the pulpit and in the church.

Ministers who insist that they need to endorse candidates and parties from the pulpit should also be prepared to operate under the same rules that apply to every other partisan political organization. That would require that they give up the federal tax exemption for contributions to their organization. Contributions to partisan political organizations are not deductible from federal income taxes. Otherwise, some partisans would be subsidized by taxpayers in their political activities while others were not.

Southern Baptists' "Kingdom Warriors"

Kudos to Katherine Yurika of the Yurika Report for documenting some of the connections between SBC President Bobby Welch, Gen. Boykin and other Dominionists in the U.S. Military. She provides some of the most extensive documentation that I have seen in print (Be advised that the article on "Infiltrating the U.S. Military" is forty pages long when printed).

Yurika is a journalist who has extensively reviewed tapes and transcripts of interviews on Pat Robertson's 700 club and has written for Christianity Today.

Her definition of "Dominionism" is broader than the precise theological definition of "Christian Reconstructionism," but it serves well as a signal of the strength of the undercurrent of Reconstructionist thought that is flowing through modern evangelicalism.

Yurika is very good at unmasking subtle cues and signals in the language used by Dominionists. At times, I feel she reads more into a quotation than is warranted. On occassions, however, further research has borne her observations out.

On Fundamentalism

Kudos to Fisher Humphreys and Philip Wise for their new book Fundamentalism. Unlike the admittedly perspectival advocacy that you'll read on the Southern Baptist Convention's website and on this website, Humphreys and Wise do a very good job of presenting a fair case for both sides of the theological controversy between Fundamentalists and Moderates. To get an idea how they approach the subject, here's a link to the book's table of contents.

I must admit that, while reading the book, there were times that I was among those that Walter Shurden described as thinking the book "cut Fundamentalism too much slack." I'm also certain that many Fundamentalists will think the book cuts moderates too much slack.

Few scholars have the ability to explain theology with the clarity, precision and concision of Fisher Humphreys and Philip Wise. This book should be on everybody's reading list. And while you're at it, every Baptist ought to put Fisher Humphrey's The Way We Were on their reading list as well.

The Quest for a Christian America

Kudo's to Ethics Daily for posting Jim Evans' essay on "The Quest for a Christian America." Evans' essay deserves wide distribution. It is an insightful and succinct summary of Fundamentalism's infidelity to the gospel and its corruption of the mission of the church. I particularly liked these paragraphs:

In the not so distant past, evangelicals led by the likes of Dwight Moody and Billy Graham believed the best way to convert America to Christianity was by means of persuasive preaching. They believed that if the church was faithful to its mission a “great awakening” would eventually sweep the nation like a mighty rushing wind, transforming people and institutions as it blew. A bit utopian, for sure, but at least faithful to the faith.

Healing and transformation are possible when we properly observe the principles and practices of our faith. But forcing those principles into practice by rule of law does not work. Faithfulness cannot be legislated. The effort to legislate religious beliefs only serves to corrupt our faith practices and empty them of their power and significance. This is no utopian dream—it is a political and religious nightmare.