Summarizing Bush's Faith-Based Initiatives

Bill Berkowitz has done a masterful job of summarizing the work of the Bush administration's faith-based initiatives. Here's the paragraph that leads into more detailed discussion of six of the worst examples of the corruption and cronyism perpetrated by this administration:

Despite the administration’s ceaseless touting of its “compassionate conservativism” and its desire to unleash the “armies of compassion” to deal with the nation’s social ills, Bush’s faith-based initiative never made it out of Congress; no effective legislation was passed. Team Bush was able to establish Faith-Based and Community offices at eleven federal agencies, and the initiative spread its tentacles into a host of other federal, state, and local government agencies. Thirty-five governors and more than seventy mayors, both Democratic and Republican, have established programs modeled on the federal Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, though it was rife with scandal. In short, despite the lack of congressional approval, Bush’s faith-based initiative has burrowed its way into the political landscape.

Unfortunately, as Berkowitz reveals, Obama plans to continue the office. Without doubt, we will be summarizing his administration's abuses whenever he leaves office. Giving taxpayer money to churches is a bad idea. Only the names and political orientations of the abusers will change.

It will be interesting to observe whether the right-wing religionists so eager to receive government funding start singing a different tune when the dollars begin to flow to liberal churches rather than conservative churches.

Regarding the Abortion Issue

The New Republic has posted a valuable essay by Damon Linker, author of The Theocons, discussing why the religious right will not fade quietly into the sunset after this election. The single issue that prompts millions of evangelicals to vote lock-step with the right is abortion. Linker offers some advice to president-elect Obama. Here's some of it:

Obama could follow the lead of Bill Clinton in combining a stalwart defense of the right to choose with an acknowledgement that the decision to have an abortion is a choice that troubles the consciences of many millions of Americans--including many millions who steadfastly support abortion rights. Clinton's "safe, legal, and rare" served him well in this regard, but surely an orator as gifted as Obama could forge an even finer phrase or passage of prose to capture the often tragic moral complexities surrounding this most divisive of issues.

I agree with Linker that finding some middle ground on the abortion issue is what Obama needs to do to address the concerns and allay the fears of American evangelicals. I disagree, at this late stage in the struggle, that "an even finer phrase or passage of prose" will be enough to make a difference.

Most evangelicals in America are too lazy to reseach both sides of an issue. They rely on authority figures to do their thinking for them.

Obama has the weight of office, but his rhetoric on this issue holds no weight in their thinking. The people whose rhetoric holds weight with them on this issue are their pastors. Most of them have already made up their minds. Their positions are now so rigid that foetal life increasingly trumphs maternal life.

Should any evangelicals decide to examine the complexities of this issue, I have a couple podcasts to recommend. They are an interview (split into two parts) that I did with a member of a church I once pastored. Here and here are links to my 11/28/99 "Religious Talk" radio interview with Rose Pena.

On the Revival of Democracy

Evangelical Christians have long been praying that the United States would experience a third great awakening. Yesterday, when Barack Obama was elected President of the United States, they witnessed the most profound confirmation imaginable that their prayers have been answered.

Ironically, evangelical Christians (mostly Southern Baptists) are the Americans least likely to perceive that a new spiritual awakening has dawned upon our land. More than any other single group in this country, they are blind to the hand of Providence that has become visible at this moment.

A prodigal nation has come home. A loving father is running out to meet us with rings and new robes. The barbeque pit is smoking and the entire world is prepared to join the celebration. Only, the father's elder sons are missing.

Come to the party, evangelicals! This is truly one of democracy's finest hours.

On McCain's Economic Prescription

Listening to John McCain's speech about the economic crisis this morning was difficult for me. I recall that McCain trusts Phil Gramm for economic advice more than anyone else.

Gramm was the co-chair of McCain's re-election campaign until he resigned just two months ago for the distraction he caused McCain's campaign when he said that the U.S. is only in a "mental recession" and "we have become sort of a nation of whiners."

Gramm was my congressman when I attended seminary. When he first ran he was a Democrat, but his economic philosophy was more palatable to Republicans and he changed parties.

More than anyone else in Congress, Gramm was the force behind the deregulation of the finance industry that led us into our current financial mess. He got plenty of help from his wife, Wendy, who sat on the board of Enron.

McCain's solution to the economic crisis is to fire the head of the Security and Exchange Commission and prosecute Wall Street executives for doing what Phil Gramm's legislation authorized them to do. Without saying so explicitly, McCain indicated he would also undo the effects of Gramm's legislation.

I wonder whether McCain realizes that Phil Gramm's policies -- policies that he supported -- are at the root of our current economic crisis?

I not sure McCain gets it yet.

America's Three Wise Men?

Today's Washington Post has published an article about the three key leaders guiding our country and the world through the current economic crisis. A crisis that some say may dwarf the Great Depression. Here is some basic information about America's three wise men:

Paulson, 62, is an investment banker who rose through the ranks of Goldman Sachs to lead the firm. A lanky former Dartmouth College offensive tackle and an intense workaholic, he said he agreed in 2006 to become the Bush administration's third Treasury secretary to prepare the government for a possible market crisis.

Bernanke, 54 and calm of demeanor, is one of the foremost scholars of financial crises, especially the Great Depression. Before being named Fed chairman in 2006, the largest organization he had run was Princeton University's economics department.

Geithner, 47, was a career staff member at the Treasury Department when Lawrence Summers, then a Treasury undersecretary, plucked him from obscurity in the early 1990s. He became a key member of the group that guided the Clinton administration's response to the international financial crises in the 1990s and has been honing his knowledge of Wall Street since taking over the New York Fed in 2003.

The key thing to note is that both Paulson and Bernanke took their jobs in 2006 with full knowledge that they would be dealing with the current economic crisis. It didn't come as a surprise to them or to many other people in this country.

Few in positions of leadership or in the mainstream media would listen to warnings about the housing bubble that the Bush administration created to prop up the economy while we went to war in Iraq. If you weren't afraid of listening to "liberal" voices on the internet (-- the only place they could find a voice), you could find repeated warnings that this would be the result of neo-conservative policies.

Palin Wanted to Ban Baptist Minister's Book

Howard Bess, an American Baptist minister, wrote one of the books that Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin wanted to ban from the library in Wasilla, Alaska. Bess authored the book entitled "Pastor, I am Gay" about his experiences counselling homosexuals.

Here's a brief excerpt from an article about "The pastor who clashed with Palin" by David Talbot in Salon Magazine:

"She scares me," said Bess. "She's Jerry Falwell with a pretty face.

"At this point, people in this country don't grasp what this person is all about. The key to understanding Sarah Palin is understanding her radical theology."

Bess -- a fit-looking, 80-year-old man in a gray University of Illinois sweatshirt and blue jeans – spoke with me over coffee at the Vagabond Blues, a cafe in Palmer with a stunning view of the nearby snow-capped Chugach Mountains. The retired minister moved to the Mat-Su Valley with his wife, Darlene, in 1987, after his outspoken defense of gay rights at Baptist churches in the Santa Barbara, Calif., area and Anchorage landed him in trouble with church officials. In the Mat-Su Valley, Bess plunged into community activism, helping launch an assortment of projects, from an arts council to a shelter for the mentally disabled.

Inevitably, his work brought him into conflict with Palin and other highly politicized Christian fundamentalists in the valley. "Things got very intense around here in the '90s -- the culture war was very hot here," Bess said. "The evangelicals were trying to take over the valley. They took over the school board, the community hospital board, even the local electric utility. And Sarah Palin was in the direct center of all these culture battles, along with the churches she belonged to."

Country First?

One American political party has adopted "country first" as a campaign slogan. That same party is the party of political preference for the bulk of the evangelical community in our nation. I have been waiting for the significance of that statement to dawn on someone in the conservative evangelical community, but to date they seem to be blissfully unaware of the idolatrous overtones of their politics.

Christians are warned not to divide their loyalties. We put "God first" or else God is not God in our lives. Nothing in scripture authorizes God's people to equate their loyalty to God with loyalty to their nation. There is much that forbids it. Jesus commands us to be singlemindedly devoted to God and his kingdom (Matt. 6:24-34). His kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36).

Christians should not even put "country second." Discipleship requires that we share the same priorities as our Lord. If God so loved "the world" that he sent his only Son to die for it, and the Son was obedient unto death, then the good of the world as a whole deserves more concern from his disciples than the good of any single nation. At best, then, country only comes in third.

That's not a message that most American evangelicals have ears to hear. They don't have ears because they have no desire to pay attention to the genuine demands of discipleship. The thought of self-conscious self-sacrifice for the benefit of strangers is completely foreign to them. They're looking for cheap grace. They only have ears for those who will tell them what they want to hear and who ask them to make sacrifices only for what is near and dear.

It would be hard for me to conceive of a more damning indictment of American evangelicalism if it weren't for the research that indicates how widely evangelicals defend the government's use of torture as an investigative technique.

Hats off to David Gushee, Bill Underwood and Mercer University for their prophetic witness against torture last week.

On Turning Down Dialogue With Muslims

I got an e-mail this morning from a Muslim friend who was distraught to discover that every member of Oklahoma's Congressional delegation declined to accept his invitation to a dinner and dialogue with moderate Muslims.

My friend, Vahap Uysal, a professor at the University of Oklahoma, travelled to Washington, D.C. to personally extend invitations asking Congressional leaders to participate in an Iftar Dinner -- the sumptuous meal taken by Muslims to break their fast during their month of Ramadan. Muslims associated with the Turkish scholar Fetulah Gulen and the Institute of Interfaith Dialog have been hosting such dinner and dialog events for several years in cities around the United States.

Fetulah Gulen is a moderate Sufi Muslim who has devoted his life to promoting a peaceful "Dialogue of Civilizations" rather than the violent "Clash of Civilizations" that some in both Christian and Islamic societies believe to be inevitable as East and West come together in a global economy.

Since the attacks by Islamic extremists on 9-11, Fetulah Gulen has been at the forefront of the mainstream, moderate Muslim community that condemns committing violence in the name of God.

The Institute of Interfaith Dialog was organized to promote peace by fostering respectful dialogue between Christians and Muslims. The Institute sponsors Iftar dinners, conferences, and trips to Turkey -- where Eastern and Western civilizations meet -- to promote interfaith understanding. Their Iftar dinners and discussions bring people from a broader political range and from more diverse religious perspectives than any other events taking place in Oklahoma. These Muslims consistently take the initiative in helping to find common ground, in building bridges of understanding, and in fostering a climate conducive to the creation of peaceful, equitable and just relations between people of different civilizations.

I have been to several Iftar dinners, have attended several Institute conferences, and have travelled to Bosnia, Croatia, Romania and Turkey with associates of Fetulah Gulen. In every instance and on every occasion, I have found them to be humble and gracious hosts. While they respect people of all faiths and are tolerant of a widely divergent range of political perspectives, they are very quick to denounce any suggestion that violence in the name of God is tolerable or appropriate.

It is hard for me to understand why the elected representatives of the state of Oklahoma would turn a deaf ear to people who are so demonstrably committed to reducing the kind of misunderstandings that lead to conflict and violence.

Our representatives have a legal and moral obligation to work to secure peace and to preserve the kind of tranquility that makes civilized life possible. They also have a legal and moral responsibility to secure peace and preserve tranquility with as little force and violence as possible.

Unfortunately, they do not seem to be as conscientious as are these Muslims in fulfilling their duties and responsibilities.

Parham and Mohler Debate Online at Washington Post

The "On Belief" section of the Washington Post has posted opposing essays about the effect that Sarah Palin's VP nomination is having on Southern Baptist theology. Al Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Robert Parham, Executive Director of the Baptist Center for Ethics, square off over whether SBC fundamentalists are being honest and consistent in their presentations of the role of women in public life.

Mohler, in an essay entitled "Palin and Baptist Theology" says,

Our confession of faith does not speak to the appropriateness of women serving in political office. It does speak to the priority of motherhood and responsibilities in the home, but it does not specify any public role that is closed to women.

Parham, in an essay entitled "Palin and Baptist Revisionism" says,

Well, no, the confession of faith doesn't speak literally to women running for office. But when his wife served on the committee that wrote the family statement, neither she nor he spoke up for women working outside the home.

In fact, when I said in June 1998 that Southern Baptist fundamentalists "hope to make June Cleaver the biblical model for motherhood, despite numerous biblical references to women who worked outside the home," fundamentalists responded with the claim they were only being faithful to the Bible.

Southern Baptists have a long heritage of "only being faithful to the Bible" when the interpretations they are being faithful to reinforce their personal prejudices. Southern Baptists first distinguished themselves this way by defending the legitimacy of slavery.

Southern Baptists also have a long heritage of reversing their previous positions when it becomes politically expedient. It took them more than 140 years to repudiate their defense of slavery. Now they are repudiating their family statement within a decade. Progress is being made.

Isn't it a bit ironic that the woman they are elevating to national prominence comes from a Christian tradition that recognizes God's call of women to pastoral ministry?

How long will it be until it is politically expedient for Southern Baptists to acknowledge that God calls a lot more women to be pastors than he calls to be politicians?

What Mary Fallin Didn't Say

Oklahoma Representative Mary Fallin just spoke at the Republican National Convention this evening. She linked the 1995 bombing by domestic terrorists in Oklahoma City with the 2001 bombing by foreign terrorist in New York City. Her speech was followed by a video entitled World Stood Still that was designed to elicit visceral reactions among fearful Americans.

The video and Fallin’s speech were meant to drive home the message, made explicit by Fallin, that the most important task of government is to assure the safety and security of its citizens. She neglected to mention that securing that safety has involved surrendering many of our freedoms.

From a speech I gave in the House Chamber at the Oklahoma State Capitol a month before our nation launched an unprovoked war against Iraq, here's what Fallin could have said, but did not say:

We must especially beware that any liberty we suspend for fear of terrorists could easily be forfeited for generations to come. The freedoms we enjoy in our democratic society are worth whatever dangers we will face, whatever risks we must take, and whatever sacrifices we choose to make. America must not retreat from two and a quarter centuries of hard won civil liberties. Never before have we settled for being the land of the safe and the home of the secure. We’ve always had the courage to strive to be the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Instead of the frightful overreaction we have witnessed since September 11th, our nation would do better if it would respond to terrorism the way the people of Oklahoma responded to the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building. That bomb did not prompt us to surrender our civil rights or to infringe on the rights of others. Unlike our federal government:

We did not suspend the constitution.

We did not send the police out to round-up, lock-up or expel all the foreigners and immigrants in town.

We did not hold suspects indefinitely without access to the courts or to counsel.

We did not tape conversations between suspects and their lawyers.

We did not suspend the laws requiring probable cause for wiretaps or search warrants.

We did not expand the role of the military in domestic law enforcement.

We did not torture suspects to obtain information, nor did we allow surrogates to torture suspects for information.

We did not create a military tribunal to try and execute suspects without applying the Constitution or state and federal laws.

We did not endorse assassination as an alternative to capture.

We did not create a private foundation to issue ID cards to all citizens.

We did not create a network of free-lance spies to report anything that might be considered suspicious.

We did not create a massive computer system to keep tabs on every aspect of our citizen’s daily lives.

And, we did not use the bombing as an excuse to suspend the first, second, and fourth amendments and then attack militias or invade white supremacist compounds to make them disarm.

What we did was to rescue survivors, clean-up the wreckage, rebuild our city and bring the criminals to justice. The bombing of the Murrah Federal Building did not destroy the freedom-loving, risk-taking, self-sacrificing spirit of the people of Oklahoma. Neither should the criminal acts of a few terrorists destroy the freedom-loving, risk-taking, self-sacrificing spirit of our nation.

Since September 11, 2001 it has become commonplace to say that the world changed that day. Some things did change. Several thousand precious, unique and irreplaceable lives were lost and the lives of many more were irreparably harmed.

I must object, however, to assigning any significance to the evil that transpired that day. In my mind, the most important lesson to be learned from that day is to be found in the images of heroism and the examples of self-sacrifice demonstrated by the men and women of the New York City fire department and police department and others like them.

We need to learn from the people who left places where they were safe and secure and walked courageously into harm’s way to rescue the victims of a grave injustice. From them we learn that there are some things in life that are more important than safety and more valuable than security.

Only those who have learned that lesson have the capacity to truly calculate the price of freedom and security.

Community Organizing Networks Respond to Palin

A network of community organizing agencies have responded to vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's statement that they lack "actual responsibilities" on the Faith in Public Life website.

Here's a quote from Bishop Roy Dixon, prelate of the Southern California 4th ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Church of God in Christ, member of the San Diego Organizing Project and former board chair of PICO National Network:

"As a life-long Republican, the comments I heard last night about community organizing crossed the line. It is one thing to question someone's experience, another to demean the work of millions of hard working Americans who take time to get involved in their communities. When people come together in my church hall to improve our community, they're building the Kingdom of God in San Diego. We see the fruits of community organizing in safer streets, new parks, and new affordable housing. It's the spirit of democracy for people to have a say and we need more of it."

Palin Compares Herself to Truman

Sarah Palin's comparing herself to Harry Truman this evening gave me pause.

Harry Truman became President when an aging President died in office. Harry Truman is the only person in the history of the world to use nuclear weapons.

If Palin is trying to prove that, should circumstances elevate her to the office of chief executive, she's prepared to make use of nuclear weapons, she must not realize that any such analogy with Truman is impossible.

Truman dropped the bomb when no other country on the planet could respond in kind. Destruction was unilateral. That has not been possible for more than fifty years.

Today, using atomic weapons means you are prepared to participate in the mutually assured destruction of all human civilization.

Lieberman Makes the Case for Why He Should Have Been the GOP VP Nominee

Watching the Republican National Convention this evening I felt Joe Lieberman gave the best speech of his life.

I didn't agree with half of what he said, but think Lieberman clearly won over many of the evangelical Christians who were opposed to his nomination.

Should McCain have to throw his current unvetted nominee under the bus, it will be much easier for him to put Lieberman in her place.

On Women Heading Countries but not Churches

Christianity Today is reporting that Richard Land is ecstatic about the nomination of Sarah Palin for Vice President. He's also eager to label as "asinine" any question about the logical consistency of his theology and politics. Here's a quote from his interview with Sarah Pulliam:

The enthusiasm gap has been closed considerably. Let me answer a question you haven't asked me. I had two secular reporters ask me, "Dr. Land, you as a Southern Baptist believe that women are not to be pastors of churches and women are not to be head of the home. Wouldn't it mean that if Sarah Palin were elected vice president, her husband would tell her what to do? And I said, "If you don't mind my saying so, that's an asinine question, but I'll answer it." Mrs. Thatcher said that her husband was head of her home and she ran the country. Queen Elizabeth said that Prince Phillip was head of the home and she was head of the country. If Mrs. Thatcher had been an American, I would've enthusiastically supported her for president of the United States.

The only restrictions we find in Scripture are, that for whatever reason women are not to be in charge of a marriage and women are not to be in charge of a church. That has nothing to do with governor, or senator or the House of Representatives, or president, or vice president.

It is fairly simple to discern when you've identified a weakness in Richard Land's thought. Just probe a little and wait for him to insult your intelligence or integrity. Land always bolsters his weakest arguments with ad hominem arguments.

Land's most egregious use of ad hominem argument to bolster a weak case was at the 2000 meeting Southern Baptist Convention when he flirted with the unpardonable sin by insinuating that those questioning the revision of the denomination's confession of faith were influenced by "demonic spirits." That revision inserted a prohibition against women serving as pastors of Southern Baptist churches.

To grasp how conflicted many evangelicals are about Palin's nomination, one needs only to read some of the weblogs by conservative mothers.

It's going to take incrementally more bluster and nearly perpetual filibuster from fundamentalists like Land both to contend that women can be the "head" of nations and to continue to deny that they can be "head" of families and churches. They will not be able to maintain a static "dead head" understanding of headship for the family and church while at the same time affirming a "living metaphoricity" of headship for the nation. Ultimately, one perspective or the other will prevail.

Evangelicals Conflicted About Palin

Desmoinesdem at Daily Kos has scoured the "mommy blogs" written by Christian conservatives and has found considerable uneasiness about casting a vote for Sarah Palin as Vice President.

The main concern is that it will send a mixed message that undermines their understanding of family values. They like her political positions, especially on abortion, but are concerned that the prominence of her position would undermine their witness concerning subordinate roles for women and their conviction that mothers should remain in the home and nurture their husbands and children.

Ironically, James Dobson, Richard Land and other vocal advocates for "family values" are also the most enthusiastic supporters of Sarah Palin.

Land's support for Palin is fairly strong evidence that the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention -- a takeover that was fueled by conservative opposition to both the equal rights amendment and the acceptance of women in the ministry -- was more about politics than theology. Among contemporary Southern Baptist fundamentalists, theology always takes a back seat to secular politics.

On Sarah Palin's Qualifications

Richard Land has endorsed Sarah Palin for Vice President:

Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission: "Governor Palin is a vice-presidential selection which shows that John McCain at the age of 72 today is still able to think outside the box. Governor Palin will delight the Republican base. She is pro-life. It appears that Senator Obama played it safe in picking Senator Biden and Senator McCain made the bold and unconventional choice in picking Governor Palin."

I find it ironic that Land was so quick to endorse the nomination of Sarah Palin for Vice President of the United States.

In Richard Land's eyes, Sarah Palin is fully qualified to be a heart-beat away from having the authority to lead the most powerful nation in the history of the world. Powerful enough to incinerate our entire planet with nuclear weaponry at a moment's notice.

In Richard Land's eyes, however, neither Sarah Palin nor any other woman will ever be qualified to have the authority to lead even the smallest Southern Baptist church.

How long will it be before Southern Baptist churches stop discriminating against women? Their secular politics leaves much to be desired, but it is still more Christian than their ecclesiology.

Thieves in High Places

The Economic Policy Institute has published information revealing the extent to which middle class working families have lost economic ground since the turn of the millenium.

When adjusted for inflation, median salaries have fallen by $2,000, while the average output per hour has increased by 18%. And these figures don't include the skyrocketing inflation numbers for 2008. When 2008 is added on, the line on the chart will look like it has fallen off a cliff.

If trickle down economics makes any sense (and I'm not sure that it does), it only makes sense when the people in charge are honest and conscientious. When crooks and thieves are in charge, the working classes get robbed.

Suggestions for Mary Fallin's GOP Convention Speech

In Oklahoma the big news today is that Oklahoma Republican U.S. Representative Mary Fallin will be speaking during primetime one hour before John McCain at the Republican National Convention next week.

Her job is to talk about how the people of Oklahoma responded to the bombing of the A. P. Murrah Federal Building by domestic terrorists.

On February 11, 2003, a month before our unprovoked invasion of Iraq, I delivered a speech on the floor of the Oklahoma State House of Representatives that touched on the very topic that Fallin is supposed to address. Here's an excerpt from that speech:

Our material wealth can be forfeited and regained, but the spiritual wealth of our civil liberties and personal freedoms are not so easily exchanged. We must especially beware that any liberty we suspend for fear of terrorists could easily be forfeited for generations to come. The freedoms we enjoy in our democratic society are worth whatever dangers we will face, whatever risks we must take, and whatever sacrifices we choose to make. America must not retreat from two and a quarter centuries of hard won civil liberties. Never before have we settled for being the land of the safe and the home of the secure. We’ve always had the courage to strive to be the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Instead of the frightful overreaction we have witnessed since September 11th, our nation would do better if it would respond to terrorism the way the people of Oklahoma responded to the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building. That bomb did not prompt us to surrender our civil rights or to infringe on the rights of others. Unlike our federal government:

We did not suspend the constitution.

We did not send the police out to round-up, lock-up or expel all the foreigners and immigrants in town.

We did not hold suspects indefinitely without access to the courts or to counsel.

We did not tape conversations between suspects and their lawyers.

We did not suspend the laws requiring probable cause for wiretaps or search warrants.

We did not expand the role of the military in domestic law enforcement.

We did not torture suspects to obtain information, nor did we allow surrogates to torture suspects for information.

We did not create a military tribunal to try and execute suspects without applying the Constitution or state and federal laws.

We did not endorse assassination as an alternative to capture.

We did not create a private foundation to issue ID cards to all citizens.

We did not create a network of free-lance spies to report anything that might be considered suspicious.

We did not create a massive computer system to keep tabs on every aspect of our citizen’s daily lives.

And, we did not use the bombing as an excuse to suspend the first, second, and fourth amendments and then attack militias or invade white supremacist compounds to make them disarm.

What we did was to rescue survivors, clean-up the wreckage, rebuild our city and bring the criminals to justice. The bombing of the Murrah Federal Building did not destroy the freedom-loving, risk-taking, self-sacrificing spirit of the people of Oklahoma. Neither should the criminal acts of a few terrorists destroy the freedom-loving, risk-taking, self-sacrificing spirit of our nation.

I won't be holding my breath to see if Mary Fallin uses any of my lines.

Lynn Raps Dems for Orchestrating Faith Meeting

Barry Lynn is taking Democrats to task for orchestrating an interfaith gathering at the Democratic Convention center in Denver. He says it was "so highly promoted that it had the whiff of pandering."

There's no denying the fact that Democrats have been falling all over themselves this year to demonstrate that they are friendly to people of faith -- people of all faiths. That is one way that Democrats can distinguish themselves from Republicans who have a sizeable constituency that refuses to accept placing a Mormon on their ticket.

I am as uncomfortable as Barry is about the prominence of religion in the electoral process. Martin Marty hits the nail on the head when he says both parties are "Using God Politically."

All that the interfaith gathering in Denver demonstrates is that religious people from all faiths and people on both sides of the political aisle are willing and eager to let their faith become a tool in the hands of politicians.

On Religion as Public Utility

There have been a lot of insightful analyses to Rick Warren's forum for Presidential candidates at Saddleback Church last week. Aaron Weaver at the Big Daddy Weave blog provides links to many of the best responses by Baptists.

The best analysis I've seen is by church historian Martin Marty who faults Warren, McCain and Obama for "Using God Politically." Here's a quote:

William Lee Miller a half century ago noted that the American founders, friendly to religion as they were, found ways to draw a line of distinction between religion and the civil authority but still found religion useful. Just as there are "water works" and other utilities, religion (and God) became utilities, noted Miller. They would support morality. Fine. But in the world of party politics it is almost impossible to talk about candidates' inner spiritual life without putting them in the place where they give answers that will help them build support or lose it.

When a Jimmy Carter said that as a Baptist he believed in "soul liberty" and held views about human rights that could complicate foreign policy, we were alerted and took that into consideration when voting. Voters knew what they were getting in policy, not in matters of the heart. Ronald Reagan did the same with other policy issues. But if or when either of them or their successors had or has to show how much they love Jesus and how fervently they call upon God, they are asked to step over a line, and they do. Religion is then a "public utility," something which confuses public policy and does authentic religion no favor

No, it is not violating the separation of church and state to ask and answer "soul" questions, and yes, you cannot keep faith and politics apart. But "faith" as it affects policy is one (admittedly tricky) thing; faith as faith cannot be enlarged upon in the public forum without coming close to exploiting religion and making God part of campaign slogans.