April 05, 2004
What's Up at The Right Christians
I've been neglecting The Right Christians the past week, but it's been for a good cause. As I explained briefly, I changed webhosts because my old one did not have the software support required for some new software I wanted to employ. The old TRC files were moved successfully last Monday, and the site has been blessed with some much appreciated contributions from Candace but little from me.
What's been going on behind the scenes is the creation of a major new community-building mechanism. If you're registered at DailyKos, then you're familiar with something similar. There will be individual blogs, forums, news feeds, polls and a moderating system for posts and comments. I'm creating two sections--"'progressives' only" and "conservatives invited"--so that content creators can elect to open up their material to comments from everyone or limit it to feedback from those who identify themselves as progressives.
The goal is to create THE web destination for religious progressives. The established print publication sites are fairly static and offer very limited opportunities for community participation. Beliefnet strives for a "balance" that often seems to favor the Right in my view, plus it's old technology run more like a traditional print journal than our more open blog communities. State-of-the-art content management offers us new possibilities for open participation and collaboration while allowing us to limit the disruptive effects of those who constantly want to debate or flame.
What I'm most excited about is that this technology offers us the opportunity to be together. Blogging alone can be a trying experience. There's the constant begging for links as you're getting started. There's the daily search for material. There's the concern that hard-won readership will be lost if you take a few days off. Combining individual blogs on one site eliminates a lot of those problems, especially with the news-gathering features that this site is employing.
I'm hopeful that the new site will be up and running in 24-48 hours. This site will continue where it is and will be updated with my writing on the usual schedule--at least for a while.
Still Needed: A "Golden Rule Club" for CEOs
Bob Herbert writes about the new income distribution scheme prevalent in George Bush's America. No, it's not that evil socialistic effort "rob from the rich and give to the poor." Instead, corporate America is taking the gains in productivity accomplished by American workers and giving the bonus income to their bosses and company stockholders.
American workers have been remarkably productive in recent years, but they are getting fewer and fewer of the benefits of this increased productivity. While the economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, has been strong for some time now, ordinary workers have gotten little more than the back of the hand from employers who have pocketed an unprecedented share of the cash from this burst of economic growth.What is happening is nothing short of historic. The American workers' share of the increase in national income since November 2001, the end of the last recession, is the lowest on record. Employers took the money and ran. This is extraordinary, but very few people are talking about it, which tells you something about the hold that corporate interests have on the national conversation.
Herbert quotes from a study conducted by Northeastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies:
Andrew Sum, the center's director and lead author of the study, said: "This is the first time we've ever had a case where two years into a recovery, corporate profits got a larger share of the growth of national income than labor did. Normally labor gets about 65 percent and corporate profits about 15 to 18 percent. This time profits got 41 percent and labor [meaning all forms of employee compensation, including wages, benefits, salaries and the percentage of payroll taxes paid by employers] got 38 percent."The study said: "In no other recovery from a post-World War II recession did corporate profits ever account for as much as 20 percent of the growth in national income. And at no time did corporate profits ever increase by a greater amount than labor compensation."
In other words, an awful lot of American workers have been had. Fleeced. Taken to the cleaners.
The best long-term solution is greater equality in bargaining power between labor on the one hand and management and capital on the other. That can only be wrought through collective bargaining, but unions have been so decimated over the past 25 years that they will take years to rebuild. In the meantime, how about a little more fairness and a little less greed? It wouldn't hurt management multi-millionaires to cut back on the ice sculptures and give the working folks a raise--or at least not cut their health benefits.
Hebert's full op-ed is here.
April 03, 2004
A Minnesota "Right Christian" Takes on Prejudice
A retired Methodist pastor in Minnesota has an op-ed in today's Star-Tribune that takes on those who would use the Bible to justify prejudice:
Many are now lifting up the Bible to prove that God does not want loving people of the same sex to enjoy the privileges of marriage, though an argument might be mounted on biblical grounds that marriage is a spiritual union of two people who are dedicated each to the other. Or not.Actually, we are hard put to focus on marriage biblical style, because the Bible offers so many variations. Do we settle for the matriarchal model, which can also be matrilinear, meaning that descent is reckoned from the mother, and matrilocal, meaning the husband lives in the wife's home?
Both Jacob and Moses did the latter. And among the many biblical examples of a matrilocal society that could be cited are Naomi's words to her two daughters-in-law to "Go back, each of you, to your mother's house." Or should we favor the "mota" form of matriarchal marriage, where the husband periodically visits the wife, as was the case with Samson?
Perhaps we can mount a crusade in favor of marriage by capture, a form popular for centuries in the ancient biblical world, or the habit of powerful biblical characters to have a house full of both wives and concubines.
Or should we pursue marriage by purchase? Neither Rachel or Leah seemed to appreciate it, charging their father with selling them.
A form of marriage very popular among some groups then and now is the patriarchal, where the wife is subservient to the husband. In the most extreme forms, the wife becomes chattel property of the husband. Even in the Ten Commandments the wife is listed along with the house, slaves, donkeys, oxen, or anything else owned by the husband.
The Rev. Gist warns against religion that combines with fear and prejudice:
It's been a very long time since I was in seminary, but already then it was established that homosexuality was not a choice. It boggles my mind that so many years later such is still denied by many people, often on religious grounds.(The problem with religion, of course, is that it so easily melds with prejudice, fear, cruelty, and even war. My own faith is Christian, but I argue that Christianity is not a religion. To make it one shrivels its boundaries and saps its strength).
Denial makes it more legitimate to vex, and even persecute, those who are "different." But it does not justify doing so.
We should be thankful to our GLBT sisters and brothers for courageously pressing this battle that promises to liberate us all from the kind of "religion" that Rev. Gist criticizes.
Suu Kyi To Be Released
Th military dictatorship of Myanmar has promised to release Nobel Prize winner Suu Kyi before May 17. The human rights and democracy advocate has been held under house arrest since last May.
The full story is here.
April 02, 2004
Peace Through Justice
I had the great pleasure yesterday to attend one of John Dominic Crossan's lectures sponsored by the University of South Carolina. Crossan gave an incredible lecture at Trinity Episcopal Church in Columbia. About 200 attended.
Crossan, for those who haven't heard of him, is a professor at DePaul University and a past co-chair of the Jesus Seminar. He has authored many books including: The Historical Jesus : The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant and Who Killed Jesus? : Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus .
His lecture was ostensibly about the life of the historical Jesus in response to Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion of Christ" but little was said about the movie and still less said about Jesus' actual life and ministry. Instead, Crossan gave us a very detailed and excellent lesson on what life was like in first century Israel. It is his contention that being under Roman rule greatly influenced Jesus and how his message announcing the Kingdom of God got him killed.
Crossan spent a great deal of time talking about justice and how our form of justice differs greatly from the form of justice touted by both Judaism and Jesus. We see justice as retribution, but Crossan argues that the Old Testament and Jesus both argue for distributive justice - a form of justice that distributes God's mercy and love evenly to everyone. It's a revolutionary way to view justice and one that, if embraced, could truly change the world.
I've written about my experience in an essay called Peace Through Justice.
Here is a quick excerpt:
I think that if we actually believed that God owns the world then wars and rumors of wars would end. If we truly believed that God's justice is distributive and not retributive then peace would inevitably follow because we would understand our role in the Kingdom of God. We would understand that life is about mutuality, not about "how can I keep mine and get yours." But, since this attitude is "the normalcy of society," of course we keep going back to it. Jesus' challenge to us is to turn our back on society's idea of normalcy and instead live in God's realm - where everyone is equal, where God owns the land, and where mine is yours.
Thoughts, criticism and wild accolades are always welcome.
Bishops Eye Kerry
Bishop John Ricard of Pensacola, Florida is head of an American task force evaluating Catholic politicians. They have their doubts about John Kerry because of his consistently pro-choice stands including his recent vote on the recent bill making it a separate crime to harm a fetus in the process of injuring the mother:
"They are basically struggling with this [Kerry's vote], as we are," said one visiting American, Bishop John H. Ricard of Pensacola-Tallahassee, the chairman of a task force expected to produce guidelines for American bishops on relations with Catholic politicians.Most recently, Bishop Ricard said, the bishops were troubled by Mr. Kerry's vote against a bill that makes it a crime to harm a fetus during an assault on a pregnant woman. President Bush signed the legislation on Thursday, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops immediately issued a news release applauding him.
Bishop Ricard said in Rome: "Of course we were disappointed with Kerry's voting against it. We were disappointed with others who voted against it, but as Catholic lawmakers we hold them to a higher standard."
Former Congressman, anti-war activist and Georgetown Law professor Bob Drinan notes the irony in the changes that have taken place since 1960:
President Kennedy had to overcome accusations from non-Catholics that he would follow the bidding of the pope. Now, Mr. Kerry faces accusations from some within his own church that he is not following the pope's bidding closely enough."Kennedy settled the problem that a Catholic couldn't become president," said the Rev. Robert F. Drinan, a Catholic priest and former Democratic congressman from Massachusetts.
"That's not an issue now," said Father Drinan, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, who described Mr. Kerry as a friend and a strong Catholic. "The issue with Kerry will be, is he good enough as a Catholic."
While Catholic officials are not free to make an official endorsement of Bush over Kerry, they might be able to embarrass the Democrat by refusing him communion or withdrawing an honorary degree.
The full NYT story is here.
Young Repubs Enthusiastic About Bush
The Republicans ridiculed and castigated Howard Dean for the way he tried to inspire enthusiasm among young people. Now George Bush shows us how it should be done. In case you missed the Letterman show, here's a slide show of the "incident."
Get your morning off to a humorous start here.
What's not as funny is the strange story involving the White House, CNN and Letterman that grew out of this tape.
This morning, Krugman takes this episode and asks some hard questions about the press's responsibility for repeating smears coming from the White House and the Bush campaign.
CNN ran the Letterman clip on Tuesday, just before a commercial. Then the CNN anchor Daryn Kagan came back to inform viewers that the clip was a fake: "We're being told by the White House that the kid, as funny as he was, was edited into that video." Later in the day, another anchor amended that: the boy was at the rally, but not where he was shown in the video.On his Tuesday night show, Mr. Letterman was not amused: "That is an out and out 100 percent absolute lie. The kid absolutely was there, and he absolutely was doing everything we pictured via the videotape."
But here's the really interesting part: CNN backed down, but it told Mr. Letterman that Ms. Kagan "misspoke," that the White House was not the source of the false claim. (So who was? And if the claim didn't come from the White House, why did CNN run with it without checking?)
In short, CNN passed along a smear that it attributed to the White House. When the smear backfired, it declared its previous statements inoperative and said the White House wasn't responsible. Sound familiar?
After noting how Wolf Blitzer had repeated outrageous charges against Richard Clarke made by unnamed "officials," Krugman writes:
Look, I understand why major news organizations must act respectfully toward government officials. But officials shouldn't be sure — as Mr. Wilkinson obviously was — that they can make wild accusations without any fear that they will be challenged on the spot or held accountable later.And administration officials shouldn't be able to spread stories without making themselves accountable. If an administration official is willing to say something on the record, that's a story, because he pays a price if his claims are false. But if unnamed "administration officials" spread rumors about administration critics, reporters have an obligation to check the facts before giving those rumors national exposure. And there's no excuse for disseminating unchecked rumors because they come from "the White House," then denying the White House connection when the rumors prove false. That's simply giving the administration a license to smear with impunity.
Krugman's op-ed is here.
April 01, 2004
Nothing New Here?
The horrors portraying to us on last night's evening news inspired this fine piece from Phil Kennicot at the Washington Post:
There was a convenient political caption to these pictures from Fallujah that emphasized that distance, the lessons of a year's experience. It is a serviceable caption that should please, depending on the spin, both those who favored this war and those who refused its allure. "There's nothing new here," we can say, collectively.Presidential spokesman Scott McClellan was saying just that, in effect, at the White House: Democracy is on track, stay the course, there's nothing new here. Anyone sick of this war, sick of the dog-bites-man headlines -- "Violence Flares Around Fallujah" -- could say much the same. When it comes to the justifications for war, the expectations of success, the estimates of its cost, yes, everything is always shifting, but when it comes to violence, death and cruelty, there's nothing new here.
One could also look back into Iraq's history and comfortably say, with the smug satisfaction of historical confirmation, that there's nothing new here. In 1963, when Iraqi President Abdul Karim Qassem was executed, Baathist radicals displayed the former leader's body on television, his corpse riddled with bullet holes. The camera panned in and a soldier "sauntered around, handling its parts," according to Kanan Makiya, who recounted the episode in the book "Republic of Fear." It was, according to Makiya, nothing particularly new for Iraqis, used to bloody displays, though television had extended its reach.
So we can place this in the Mogadishu file, or the Iraqi history file, both of which suggest precedents and lessons that blunt the power of the imagery, and both of which (whether we acknowledge the implicit message or not) suggest that this is the kind of thing people unlike us -- people who don't look like "us," people in poor, sandy parts of the world -- just happen to do, from time to time.
Yet there's a dignity owed to the charred corpses in Fallujah that demands we argue with any easy interpretation of these images, at least until they are superseded by newer, even uglier images and messages. Perhaps this is what people unlike us do, from time to time, but it's also what we do, when motivated by pure, unyielding hatred -- from time to time. A foreign commentator, trying to make sense of James Byrd's mangled body, kicked, beaten and dragged by the ankles behind a pickup truck in Texas in 1998, might well have called upon his knowledge of lynching and racism and said, well, this is what these people do. It's in their history, their blood, their nature.
We could look to the haunting precedent of Mogadishu and satisfy ourselves that no good deed goes unpunished. Or that America will always be resented for its magnanimity. Or that it's time to stop trying to fix the no-hoper nations of the world.
But the dignity owed to the blackened bodies requires not so much an interpretation or moral conclusion as a simple facing of facts. The people who killed those contractors in Fallujah hated them, hated us, hated America so much that the little click of objectification went not through one mind but the many minds of the crowd, through the minds of old men, young men and boys as well. This is what hatred looks like. Try to see it without distractions, without the exoticism of the locale, the strange dress, the incomprehensible chants.
This is what it looks like to objectify people. We should know, we've done it before, to our own people and to others. We couldn't have gone to war, in the first place, if we hadn't used our powers of abstraction, distancing and objectification, to minimize the human consequences of our still-fruitless search for weapons of mass destruction.
Read it in full here.
Thanks to reader Andrea for the pointer.
Obscure Bible Passage of the Day: 2 Kings 10:6-8
Then he [Jehu] wrote them a second letter, saying, "If you are on my side, and if you are ready to obey me, take the heads of your master's [Ahab's] sons and come to me at Jezreel tomorrow at this time." Now the king's sons, seventy persons, were with the leaders of the city, who were charged with their upbringing. When the letter reached them, they took the king's sons and killed them, seventy persons; they put their heads in baskets and sent them to him at Jezreel. When the messenger came and told him, "They have brought the heads of the king's sons," he said, "Lay them in two heaps at the entrance of the gate until the morning." (NRSV)
Comment
The Bible has more than its share of gruesome tales of body mutilation but none worse than what happened to the family of Ahab.
Child Abuse Prevention Crisis in Mississippi
When state budgets are tight, who suffers? Usually it's the most helpless among us. In Mississippi, a grossly inadequate child protection system has completely collapsed with the advent of the state's $150 million budget deficit:
Underlying those statistics are individual horror stories:
Among the plaintiffs in the Children's Rights lawsuit are four siblings in Forrest County who were reportedly malnourished and living in an unsafe home. Instead of referring the case to the county's youth court, a caseworker sent the children, ages 2 to 9, to the home of their elderly great-grandmother, who was already struggling to care for six other children, the lawsuit alleged.When the woman protested, according to the lawsuit, she was told the children would otherwise be given to strangers and she might never see them again. When the woman had a stroke, the caseworker sent the children back to the mother, who had earlier been determined to be unfit.
Court documents cite another plaintiff, Jamison J., 17, who has spent most of his life cycled through 28 foster homes and institutions, some of them abusive. The lawsuit claims the Division of Family and Children's Services ignored opportunities for adoption and later sent the boy back to the home of his mother, where he witnessed the beating of another child. Despite his complaints to a caseworker, the child was later killed by the mother's companion.
Another case involved an 18-month-old child who had been sexually abused whom overburdened caseworkers were trying to send back home because there was nowhere else to place her.
One critic said, "It's like a house on fire that we're all watching burn."
If you read this and only rejoice that you don't live in Mississippi, I have a suggestion. Arrange to spend an afternoon at your local family court this month. Become familiar with what some children who live in your community endure both before and after they enter your state's child protection system. The fires of Mississippi are spreading to your neighborhood.
Prophetic Voice: James 1:27
Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. (NRSV)
Comment
James picks up on the Hebrew Bible's concern for orphans and widows and applies it to the Christian community.
March 31, 2004
Access Problems
I've received e-mails from two regular readers that they're receiving "403" error messages when tryng to access the site. Apparently many of you are getting through, but if you're having intermittent problems, please use the feedback e-mail link to let me know. I'm working to resolve the problems those readers are experiencing.
Denver Area Discusses Religion, Same-Sex Marriage
Denver-area Coloradans met last night to discuss religion and same-sex marriage.
One of the country's most sought-after experts on the issue, Steven Greenberg, believed to be the only openly gay Orthodox Rabbi, was one of two guest speakers and talked about his own experiences.Ultimately, he believes, such passages allow room for interpretation.
They allow gays, lesbians, bisexuals and the transgendered to observe their faiths, he said.
"Traditional religions have the resources . . . for dealing with anything that's human," said Greenberg, author of Wrestling With God & Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition, set to be released today.
Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO), who represents both heterosexual and asexual cattle in northwest Colorado, was not in attendance.
The full story is here.
Republicans With a Heart
Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) joined Christopher Dodd (D-CT) in a successful effort to add $6 billion for child care to a bill that renews the 1996 welfare "reform" law. Snowe explained why she sought the increase:
If the aim of welfare reform is to move people off the welfare rolls and onto payrolls, if we want families to leave welfare and to stay off welfare, we have to provide them with affordable child care. Only one in 7, or 15 percent, of eligible children are now receiving assistance with the cost of day care.
Thirty-one Republicans joined 46 Democrats in voting for the amendment. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) agreed that increasing child care funding goes "hand in hand" with increasing work requirements. Even Senate majority leader Bill Frist voted in favor.
The White House vociferously opposed the additional monies claiming that they weren't needed. Rick Santorum represented the Bush administration's views in the Senate debate:
Mr. Santorum said the increase in child care money far exceeded what was needed to comply with the work requirements. "The idea that there isn't enough money out there for day care is a ruse," Mr. Santorum said. He asserted that advocates of the child care proposal wanted welfare recipients and low-wage workers to be "dependent on the state, married to the state."
And as Mr. Santorum would be happy to inform us, God intended marriage to only be between a man and a woman, not a woman and South Dakota.
The full story is here.
March 30, 2004
Massachusetts Compromise Sparks More Controversy
The Massachusetts legislature approved a compromise measure yesterday that responded to the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling by banning gay marriage while establishing civil unions for same-sex couples. Governor Mitch Romney wants the Mass Supreme Court to stay its order until the legislation clears two more hurdles: passage on a second reading in 2006 and approval in a referendum. The state's Attorney General has refused to request the stay, declaring that the court has already spoken.
The NYT article provides good background on the strategy of proponents of equal rights for gays and lesbians. They voted with the amendment that passed against more conservative proposals as the measure made its way through the legislative process, but voted against the measure in the end.
The full story is here.
So Far, Pretty Good
The switch has been made to a new webhost, and things have gone fairly smoothly as far as I can tell. Let me know if you're having any display problems.
There was one serious flaw in the process, however. The export/import process did not preserve the original post numbers since some posts had been deleted, etc. As a result, there are broken links in intrasite links and I'm afraid that a lot of links to my posts from others will be broken. There's not much that I can do, unfortunately, except to apologize. I'll try to fix broken links within TRC as a come across them. For those who have been gracious enough to link to my posts, I'm sorry.
March 29, 2004
God Bless America
Allen has graciously offered me a chance to do a guest blog here and I'm very appreciative. This is my first time blogging so forgive any errors or poor blog etiquette!
A bit about me: I am a recovering Southern Baptist and the founder of Whosoever, an online magazine for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Christians at http://www.whosoever.org. I am a graduate of the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. I am ordained through an independent congregation in Atlanta, although I now live in South Carolina. (They laugh that I'm their missionary to S.C.!) I'm also studying to be a spiritual director through the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta. I am truly ecumenical - SBC by birth, Methodist by education, Independent by ordination and Episcopalian by spiritual training!)
I founded Whosoever in 1996 because I was tired of getting bashed by just about every Christian publication I read. I love to read Christian literature, even the stuff I disagree with, but I was getting tired of being bashed on every other page in mainstream Christian mags like Christianity Today and Moody's. I thought it would be neat if a magazine for GLBT Christians was created. I kept thinking what a great idea it would be until God made it clear to me that it was indeed a great idea and I was the person to do it. I had been a journalist in a former life, spending my last 6 years of a 20 year career at CNN. I had the talent and the tools so with much trepidation, I started the magazine.
Now, eight years later, Whosoever has thrived. The hate mail is even enjoyable! I've always asked for it to pay for itself and it has done so. All the writers are volunteers, which is another miracle! Usually writers are very picky about that pay thing, but people have been very generous in their writings.
I hope you'll check out the magazine and let me know what you think!
By way of introduction to some of the things you'll find at Whosoever, I invite you to check out my article entitled God Bless America.
Here is a short excerpt to whet you appetite:
The United States, as a nation, does not possess any of the qualities of blessedness that Jesus spells out. We are a rich nation, where the meek, the hungry and the peacemakers are marginalized, not only in society at large, but within the nation's churches, as well. We are not God's chosen nation -- we are a nation forsaken by God -- a nation that has forgotten that to be truly blessed is to be humble and meek.
Note: Allen's name listed as author at the bottom of the post is a result of the switchover to a new webhost. Candace is author.
Member of the Community is Ill
Stuart Buck, a regular commenter at TRC, has suffered a pair of strokes according to Mike Drake at Strange Doctrines. Stuart's spouse reports on his condition here. You can e-mail Stuart or leave your best wishes on his blog.
We hope your recovery is rapid and complete, Stuart.
Reader Advice Sought
As part of a BIG PROJECT, I'm moving TRC to a new webhosting service that has MySQL and PHP. While the long-range plan is to leave MT behind and go to Drupal, I'm going to first move the MT site to the new server and then switch the DNS entries so downtime is minimized.
Any advice out there about how to conduct this process efficiently? What files must be moved? Do I have to move those huge log files? Etc.
Bush Claims Ownership of the Bible
John Kerry dared to quote a little scripture at an appearance in a St. Louis area church on Sunday and now the Bush campaign is upset according to unofficial campaign spokesperson Nedra Pickler:
Kerry never mentioned Bush by name during his speech at New North Side Baptist Church, but aimed his criticism at "our present national leadership." Kerry cited Scripture in his appeal for the worshippers, including James 2:14, "What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds?""The Scriptures say, what does it profit, my brother, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?" Kerry said. "When we look at what is happening in America today, where are the works of compassion?"
Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said Kerry's comment "was beyond the bounds of acceptable discourse and a sad exploitation of Scripture for a political attack."
Another member of the Bush seemed to warn Kerry that lightning might follow if he dared enter a church again:
Nicolle Devenish, a Bush spokeswoman, said Mr. Kerry was ``walking a fine line'' by campaigning in a church, adding, ``I think that's a sacred thing.''
Apparently, religious venues and language are off-limits only for Democrats. Schmidt, Devenish and Pickler voiced no concern when Bush took the pulpit at Bethel Union A.M.E. church in New Orleans back in January:
Bush used himself as an example of the good that religion can do, referencing his own decision to stop drinking at age 40 "because I changed my heart.""My attitude is, the government should not fear faith-based programs -- we ought to welcome faith-based programs and we ought to fund faith-based programs," he said from the pulpit of the packed Union Bethel A.M.E Church in a run-down, crime-plagued neighborhood near this city's downtown. "Faith-based programs are only effective because they do practice faith. It's important for our government to understand that."...At Union Bethel, in a speech laced with religious references - and at a meeting with community leaders -- Bush renewed his push to open more federal spending on social programs to religious groups.
Contrary to what some Republicans will claim, "Christian Democrat" is not an oxymoron. Kerry is on the right track by using allusions and quotes that resonate with religious progressives. One thing though: his speechwriters need to get a gender inclusive translation.
March 28, 2004
Is This a Religion?
The Billings, Montana Gazette carries a profile of a frightening extremist group with religious pretensions that calls itself the "Church of the Creator." It's difficult to decide which is more bizarre: the group's teachings or its leadership:
Creators eschew Christianity and worship the white race, believing whites to be the creators of all worthwhile culture and civilization. Klassen's books, with such titles as "The White Man's Bible" and "Nature's Eternal Religion," fuel the group's beliefs and sales of the books serve as the church's main source of income.The church rallies to the cry "RAHOWA!," which stands for racial holy war.
Klassen led the church up until he committed suicide in 1992. During that time, a Florida "reverend" associated with the church murdered a black Gulf War veteran. Another member firebombed a regional office of the NAACP in Washington state and yet another was arrested for placing a bomb on the stoop of a law enforcement officer's Maryland home.The violence continued after Illinois native Matt Hale took over the group in 1996. Hale was appointed Pontifex Maximus at the church's annual rendezvous at Slim Deardorff's shack outside Superior. He changed the group's name to the World Church of the Creator after the Church of the Creator, a religious group in Oregon, sued for trademark infringement.
In 1999, church member Benjamin Smith went on a shooting spree in the Midwest. Targeting minorities, Smith killed two and wounded eight before killing himself.
The group's legal troubles and propensity for suicide have left it in shambles:
The group splintered several times after Hale was jailed. His attempt to move church headquarters to Riverton, Wyo., in 2003 was unsuccessful and over time, factions split off from The World Church of Creator as members struggled for power. Hale eventually disavowed Montana's main activists Slim Deardorff of Superior, Dan Hassett of Missoula and Rudy "Butch" Stanko, formerly of Billings.Stanko now lives in Nebraska, and Hassett, who left the group in 2002, said he no longer has anything to do with racist groups.
In 2003, Dane Hall of California was appointed to lead the Montana faction, and he and Deardorff remain its only active members.
Making It in Radio
David Skinner has the sort of reaction to the launch of Air America Radio that one would expect from a Weekly Standard writer, but I was intrigued by his efforts to explain the rise of Rush Limbaugh:
Limbaugh, as Paul Colford reported in his 1993 book The Rush Limbaugh Story, was not even registered in the first 12 years he was eligible to vote and so (insincerity catch!) never went to the polls for his hero Ronald Reagan. Colford also quotes a producer who worked with Rush: "I don't think it was his intention to become this big, conservative icon for so many people. A lot of it was just shtick. Still is shtick."Except Limbaugh's shtick didn't take aim in some random, but bipartisan, fashion. Covering the 1984 Democratic National Convention, Rush got it in his head that the hotel bar was a gay bar. He went in to do some interviews, Limbaugh's KMBZ colleague Ray Dunaway told Colford. Rush "tried to tape an interview with one of the patrons, thinking the guy might say it was a gay bar, and that way Rush could then say that homosexuals were supporting Walter Mondale." At this time, Limbaugh was still doing radio in Kansas City, before he even got hired to replace Morton Downey Junior in Sacramento.
I guess homophobia sells.
March 27, 2004
Why Bush Must Go
Melanie at Bump in the Beltway points us to a book by "right Christian" Bennett Sims. Sims, a retired Episcopal bishop, has written a "faith-based challenge" to George W. Bush's leadership. Check out a review and other information here.
Abuse Problem Among Jehovah's Witnesses
A group called "silentlambs" is meeting this weekend to highlight the problem of sexual abuse among Jehovah's Witnesses. William Bowen, a former Witnesses leader, makes some startling claims:
Bowen contends that the Witnesses organization is a "pedophile paradise" because of the strong authority exercised by local elders and their overseers and the unusual way in which cases are handled.As members of the faith understand biblical teaching, an accusation of wrongdoing must be supported by two people with direct knowledge, which silentlambs says is impossible in most molestation cases. Without such corroboration, the accused person is deemed innocent, silentlambs says, and victims and parents can be "disfellowshipped," or excommunicated, for slander if they speak up.
For a Witness, excommunication is a very harsh punishment. It means being cut off from relatives, friends and business associates. Bowen and other whistle-blowers have been excommunicated for raising abuse complaints against the organization.
The full story is here.
UPDATE:
In a somewhat related matter, persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses is increasing in Russia where a judge ruled in favor of Moscow prosecutors who sought to ban the group under a law prohibiting religious organizations that incite hatred or intolerant behavior. A Canadian lawyer for the Witnesses warned that the move was indicative of a move toward more widespread persecution:
Religious minorities are often a litmus test for where a society is going ... this is an ominous signal," Burns said.Defence lawyer Galina Krylova argued that the decision has no legal foundation, as the prosecutor simply cited the denomination's religious literature.
"The activities of Jehovah's Witnesses weren't the subject of the court trial ... the subject was the religious beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses ... doctrinal arguments," Krylova said.
Among Jehovah's Witnesses doctrine is a prohibition against blood transfusions, based on an interpretation of the Bible, and an obligation to share their Christian faith with others.
The U.S. State Department also criticized the Russian court decision.
"We deplore the recent decision ... to ban the religious activities of Jehovah's Witnesses in Moscow and to liquidate their legal entity," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Friday in Washington.
"We urge local authorities and the Russian government to honour their commitments to respect the right of all faiths to religious freedom," he added.
The full story is here.
Slingshots Banned
Republicans think it's an outrage that Bush has some viable opposition in this campaign. Specifically, they're mad that the Democrats have money to buy ads and are using their heads in how they're spending their funds.
"It is coordinated contrary to the law," said Benjamin L. Ginsberg, a Republican lawyer representing the Republican National Committee and Mr. Bush's re-election campaign. "It would appear to an unbiased observer that there's got to be coordination by the fact that they're in the same market, not in the same market. They split up the day in a particular way."For instance, Mr. Ginsberg said, it seemed suspicious to him that neither the groups, nor the Kerry campaign were running advertisements in Miami or Pensacola, Fla., in mid-March, while all of them were running spots in Little Rock, Ark., where, for at least one weeklong period earlier this month, they outspent Mr. Bush.
Mr. Ginsberg said he was especially suspicious of the Media Fund because one of its consultants, Jim Jordan, used to manage Mr. Kerry's presidential campaign.
But officials of Moveon.org, the Media Fund and Mr. Kerry's campaign say there has been absolutely no coordination between them.
"Absolutely, positively untrue," said Jim Margolis, one of Mr. Kerry's media consultants. "There is no contact whatsoever on what anyone is running, on anything that's being produced, and we are being meticulously careful about that."
Officials of Moveon.org and the Media Fund, which share media buyers and pollsters, said they did not have to coordinate with the campaign because it is easy to complement each other's efforts without ever speaking.
All they have to do, they said, is monitor Mr. Kerry's advertising purchases and those of Mr. Bush through the many services that do so to figure out what needs to be done and where. Anyway, they said, they were all targeting similar sorts of voters — core Democrats and others open to liberal arguments — who happen to live in specific areas.
By far the best line came from Wes Boyd of Moveon:
If we were doing an ad the headline would be `Goliath demands slingshots be confiscated. It's very worrisome this idea that opposition voices would be silenced and stripped of the ability to talk about powerful men.
The most ruthless political operation in history and all they can do is whine.
Catholic Blogger for Kerry Fired
Via Matt Zemek at Wellstone Cornerstone:, a sad story about a Catholic with three kids being fired from his job because he's supporting Kerry for President:
It all started in late February when Deal Hudson, publisher of Crisis magazine and a key player in the Bush campaign outreach to Catholic voters, revealed in his widely distributed weekly "e-letter" that Ekeh hosted the pro-Kerry site. Hudson is a leader of efforts to get U.S. bishops to publicly confront pro-choice Catholic elected officials."Look," wrote Hudson, "it's one thing for a Catholic to be a pro-life Democrat -- that in itself is a perfectly legitimate position and consistent with our Catholic Faith. However, it's completely unacceptable to follow Ekeh and trade away our pro-life responsibilities."
Ekeh "even goes so far as to defend Kerry against the explicit directives from the Vatican and the USCCB that condemn political support for abortion and gay marriage." Concluded Hudson, "As Kerry advances down the presidential campaign trail, and as other Catholics equivocate on his blatantly pro-abortion record, it will become more and more vital for the bishops to speak out. And for the members of the conference itself, the issue is getting a bit close to home."
Two weeks after Hudson's column appeared, Ekeh sat down with his boss and the human resources director at the bishops' conference offices in Northeast Washington, D.C.
"They did a comprehensive review of all my postings on the Catholics for Kerry Web site and on my personal Web log [an online journal] and said that my tone toward the church and the bishops was negative," Ekeh told NCR. Ekeh was asked to explain his role in the Catholics for Kerry e-mail list. "I told them that I was the founder and moderator of the group."
I'm very reluctant as a Lutheran to comment on this story. After 30 seconds of biting my tongue, all I'll say is:
Here's the full story.