The Reformed Pastor

I don’t know how Chris Johnson at Midwest Conservative Journal finds these things, but he does, and they deserve wide dissemination. It seems the U.S. Department of Justice is looking for lawyers to staff the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division (they need ten, so apparently the CRD operates on the minyan principle). In addition to all the usual information (qualifications, etc.), there is this notice:

The Civil Rights Division encourages qualified applicants with targeted disabilities to apply. Targeted disabilities are deafness, blindness, missing extremities, partial or complete paralysis, convulsive disorder, mental retardation, mental illness, severe distortion of limbs and/or spine.

Feel free to write your own jokes. I’m too busy watching the “Mythbusters” episode that demonstrates that it is possible to shoot fish in a barrel….

A coalition of the Usual Suspects has sent a letter to Nancy Pelosi, declaring that the “religious community” is against free speech if it involves groups of people (other than themselves, of course). Organized by Common’s Cause’s Bob Edgar–the former National Council of Churches head and congressman who just can’t get away from mixing the two–they speak with the usual divine faith about a issue of prudential politics:

As religious leaders, we believe in equality and justice for all people and in building the common good. In a democracy, these ideals cannot be realized, however, if the rules governing the electoral process actively or passively favor one segment of the population over another.

Silliness, right from the start. They are apparently unaware that there are already elements of the electoral process that favor certain segments of the population. For instance, residents of small states have greater power in the Senate because every state has two, giving, for instance, Wyomingites vastly greater say, proportionally speaking, than Californians. Members of the two major parties also have a built-in edge over, say, Libertarians, by virtue of their automatic place at the top of ballots in most jurisdictions. But civics is not these people’s strong suit.

We believe existing campaign finance laws already permit the unfair influence of persons and groups with extraordinary wealth over the political process by providing them with special access to elected officials. This special access ultimately results in legislative outcomes that reflect the needs of those with the financial means to make political contributions, and not the needs of the poor or disenfranchised.

Actually, campaign finance laws don’t give any kind of access to politicians. Politicians do that. And speaking of access, who has had the most access to the White House this year? Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), partner with the NCC in health care reform lobbying, whose power derives from the collective weight of his membership, who’s dues have contributed to SEIU being able to spend $85 million on political campaigns in 2008. But Edgar’s friends don’t care about unions’ involvement in politics; it’s corporations, including small groups of Americans such as Citizens United, that get their goat.

We believe Congress must address both the Citizens United decision and the problems of the current campaign finance system by passing the Fair Elections Now Act (S. 752 and H.R. 1826). This measure would empower average people to participate in politics with small donations, and would return the gaze of our elected officials solely to the needs of their districts and the nation as a whole, rather than the interests of those with significant financial resources for campaigns.

The legislation they mention–hereby dubbed the Incumbent Protection Act–would be public financing for Congress. It would require thousands of small contributions for eligibility, and provide equal amounts to incumbent and challenger (thus providing a built-in advantage to the former). It would give the same amount to House candidates ($900,00) regardless of where the district is (giving an even bigger advantage to incumbents in large–and therefore expensive–media markets). It would give Senate candidates $1.25 million, plus $250,000 per congressional district. They would be given media vouchers ($100,000 fro House races, $100,000 per congressional district for Senate races–drops in the bucket of what’s needed to overcome an incumbent’s advantages). As for “empowering average people” to make small contributions, last time I checked that was already allowed, and several million people did in 2008. And because such a requirement would be unconstitutional, there is no mandate that all candidates participate, so that if one (think Barack Obama) decided that he could raise a lot more by refusing public financing, there would be nothing to stop him from outspending his opponent by whatever margin he could raise.

With a strong Fair Elections system in place, candidates will spend less time courting the narrow slice of Americans who currently fund campaigns and engage a larger, more active citizenry.

No, they won’t. If incumbents can fool their opponents into signing on to this, they’ll do so too, and rub their hands together in glee. If their opponents won’t, they won’t, and we’re back in the same place. In any case, let’s get real. What this is about is that these religious leaders–to whom no one pays attention when it comes to their political opinions–can’t stand the idea that there are others with the means to get their message out and heard by the citizenry, so they want to put a stop to it. But if there’s anything America should be standing for, it’s the maximization, not the curtailment, of speech.

PS: Among the signers of this soon-to-be-forgotten letter:

Michael Kinnamon, General Secretary National Council of Churches
Bishop Gabino Zavala, Bishop President, Pax Christi USA
Archbishop Vicken Aykazian, past president of the National Council of Churches
Rabbi Michael Lerner, Editor, Tikkun; Chair, The Network of Spiritual Progressives
Jim Winkler, General Secretary, United Methodist General Board of Church and Society
Dr. Ronald J. Sider, President, Evangelicals for Social Action
The Rev. Dr. James Forbes, former Senior Pastor, Riverside Church in New York
The Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, President, Interfaith Alliance
The Rev. Peter Morales, President, Unitarian Universalist Association
Marie Dennis, Director, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns
Mary Ellen McNish, General Secretary, American Friends Service Committee
The Rev. Dr. Susan Thistlethwaite, Professor of Theology, Chicago Theological Seminary
Dr. Walter Brueggemann, Professor Emeritus, Columbia Theological Seminary
The Rev. Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock, Director, Faith Voices for the Common Good
The Rev. J. Philip Wogaman, Emeritus Professor of Christian Ethics, Wesley Theological Seminary

Like I said, the Usual Suspects. I do wonder where Katharine Jefforts-Schori, Gradye Parsons, and Mark Hanson were, though.

UPDATE: This is where Gradye Parsons (PCUSA) is:

The January 21, 2010, decision of the Supreme Court to reject 35 years of legislation to limit campaign spending by corporations challenges the democratic ethos of the United States and threatens to magnify the already-powerful role of special interests in US politics. In light of historic Presbyterian wisdom about the dangers of corruption by special interests, I am concerned about the pressures this decision puts on individual candidates and office holders and on the integrity of the election system as a whole.

Without addressing the legal status of corporations, now determined to be legal persons with “free speech,” able to use unlimited corporate (or union) funds for political purposes, this decision shows an innocence about human power and sin that Reformed Christians must question. Because this decision is likely to reshape the political process in profound ways, and to reduce the voice of citizens, churches and other groups without unlimited money, it is important to re-state the position of many General Assemblies.

It’s a funny thing about that “innocence about human power and sin.” To listen to the leadership of the mainline churches, the one institution that seemingly never has a problem with “human power and sin” is the government (except when it tries to regulate abortion or use the military, of course). Despite the fact that the First Amendment (the whole original Constitution and Bill of Rights, in fact) was designed specifically by people who understood that government power needed to be curbed, and that speech–especially political speech–needed to be as free as possible, Mr. “Innocence About Human Power and Sin” wants to increase the government’s authority to regulate political speech. I’d say that’s about as strong a challenge to the democratic ethos of the United States as you’re ever going to see.

The World Council of Churches today announced the launch of a web site for its “Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum,” thus giving the rest of us a better look inside the mind of the Israel-bashing WCC. According to the site, the “core actions” of the PIEF are:

•Actions challenging government support for the occupation
•Actions challenging public support for the occupation
•Actions challenging theological and biblical justifications for the occupation and
•Actions maintaining viable the Palestinian Christian presence in the Holy Land.

Well, that’s nicely balanced. But surely the PIEF is going to do something to indicate that it isn’t simply the Geneva arm of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, right? Umm…no. Here’s a list of issues the Forum will tackle:

Via Viola Larson, this request goes out for Fair Oaks and First (Roseville) Presbyterian churches in California. They are two churches that have been received into the EPC after reaching an amicable settlement with the Sacramento Presbytery, only to have it blocked by the actions of a disgruntled liberal whose disdain for presbyterial self-governance was such that he’s left the PCUSA to do some kind of interfaith thing. Anyway, after the Synod of the Pacific got involved, the matter  got taken to court, where the two churches have lost, according to the Metropolitan News-Enterprise of Los Angeles:

The Third District Court of Appeal on Friday reversed a ruling allowing two Sacramento-area Presbyterian churches to take their property with them as they left the national church.

The court held in an unpublished opinion that the trust in which the local churches held property for the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. could only be revoked by amending the national church’s constitution, not through amendments to the local churches’ articles of incorporation.

The guy who started all this, the Rev. David Thompson, essentially played spoiled child in response to the settlement, crying that the presbytery didn’t get enough money or that the churches should leave behind their buildings. Now he’s gone, and the court has laid a temptation before the presbytery to go back on its agreement with the two churches and grab the property. There are obviously lots of sane and charitable folks in the Sacramento Presbytery, so I’ll be praying that they will tell the Synod to take a hike and proceed with the settlement as originally agreed upon.

Well, there were a lot of great suggestions for the contest to find the best absurdist signs to use against the psuedo-Christians of Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka. Here are my favorites:

You Are a Figment of My Imagination (Kate)

I Don’t Think We’re in Kansas Anymore (Kate)

I Brake For Whales! (L.V.)

Nuke a Gay Whale for Jesus (Rev. Dave)

Hire the Morally Handicapped (Robert Hughes)

Don’t Ask (Bill in Ottawa)

MORONS FOR JESUS (Jim D)

Love Is Not Rude (Beloved Spear)

And my personal favorite…

This is a Sign From God (Jim the Puritan)

…which manages to combine a theological statement, a pop culture reference (Ghostbusters) and a self-referential absurdism in one handy phrase. Well done, everybody!

Sally Jenkins is a sports columnist for the Washington Post, and today she throws to touchdown as she comments on the brouhaha that has erupted around Tim Tebow’s Super Bowl ad. Her point is dead on: those so loudly complaining (NOW, NARAL, and the odious Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice) are demonstrating beyond question that they are not only intolerant of dissent from pro-choice orthodoxy, but in fact profoundly pro-abortion:

I’m pro-choice, and Tebow clearly is not. But based on what I’ve heard in the past week, I’ll take his side against the group-think, elitism and condescension of the “National Organization of Fewer and Fewer Women All The Time.” For one thing, Tebow seems smarter than they do.

Tebow’s 30-second ad hasn’t even run yet, but it already has provoked “The National Organization for Women Who Only Think Like Us” to reveal something important about themselves: They aren’t actually “pro-choice” so much as they are pro-abortion. Pam Tebow has a genuine pro-choice story to tell. She got pregnant in 1987, post-Roe v. Wade, and while on a Christian mission in the Philippines, she contracted a tropical ailment. Doctors advised her the pregnancy could be dangerous, but she exercised her freedom of choice and now, 20-some years later, the outcome of that choice is her beauteous Heisman Trophy winner son, a chaste, proselytizing evangelical.

Pam Tebow and her son feel good enough about that choice to want to tell people about it. Only, NOW says they shouldn’t be allowed to. Apparently NOW feels this commercial is an inappropriate message for America to see for 30 seconds, but women in bikinis selling beer is the right one. I would like to meet the genius at NOW who made that decision. On second thought, no, I wouldn’t.

By all means, read it all. The way she describes Tebow should warm the heart of any Christian, and I love her conclusion:

Tebow’s ad, by the way, never mentions abortion; like the player himself, it’s apparently soft-spoken. It simply has the theme “Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life.” This is what NOW has labeled “extraordinarily offensive and demeaning.” But if there is any demeaning here, it’s coming from NOW, via the suggestion that these aren’t real questions, and that we as a Super Bowl audience are too stupid or too disinterested to handle them on game day.

(Via Hot Air.)

UPDATE: The panel question at the “On Faith” column at the Post today is about whether the Tebow ad should be run by CBS. Here’s a sampling of the negative responses:

CBS would not accept an advertisement from the United Church of Christ for broadcast during a previous Super Bowl. And now they are prepared to broadcast an ad from Focus on Family.

I object to the message of the ad and its placement. Yet this strikes me as a free speech issue. If it was unfair of CBS to deny the UCC ad, then people of conscience should have raised a hue and cry then — not seek a quid pro quo by asking the network to squelch free expression again, just because some folks disagree with the message. (Rabbi Jack Moline, former chair of the Board of Directors of the Interfaith Alliance.)

The UCC ad was rejected because it clumsily and without subtlety criticized other churches that don’t possess the UCC’s particular brand of moral rectitude. Maybe it should have been run as a matter of free speech, but you can understand why a company such as CBS preferred to avoid complaints from tens of millions of less morally advanced Christians.

I support free speech and don’t like to see ads censored. I would still prefer no advocacy ads. But if CBS allows the Focus ad, it should allow controversial ads with opposing messages. Perhaps Super Bowl commercials will evolve from arguments about “Tastes great! No, less filling!” to “Jesus is Lord! No, Jesus is myth!” I’ve participated in debates on the latter topic, but there’s a time and place for such discussions. The Super Bowl is neither the time nor the place. (Herb Silverman, president of the Secular Coalition for America.)

Herb’s just jealous because atheists couldn’t come up with enough scratch to run one of their “There’s Probably No God” ads.

CBS is certainly within its legal rights to broadcast an anti-choice ad during the Super Bowl, but the network, under current Federal Communications Commission fairness rules, would certainly have to broadcast a pro-choice ad, if an organization could pay for it. There’s the catch: pro-choice organizations don’t have anything like the money that an outfit like Focus on the Family does. (Susan Jacoby, professional author and atheist.)

Ditto, except that Jacoby’s more explicit about it.

Should CBS allow Focus on Family to air its message is also a wrong question to ask. The key question is should CBS be allowed to allow or disallow advocacy messages. Should they have the authority to make a value based assessment on which of the many richly endowed messages is worthy of airtime and which is not? I think that given the track record of the corporate sector, it is safer and wiser to assume that they cannot be trusted with this responsibility. Entities for whom the bottom line is the driving force morality and public goods are of secondary significance. (Muqtedar Khan, director of Islamic Studies at the University of Delaware.)

This is a different approach. Khan is essentially arguing that, because broadcasting messages on public issues costs money that some can’t afford, no such messages should be broadcast. Presumably, this also applies to political candidates. It’s a bizarre notion–unless there is equality in the distribution of the means of free speech, no one should have any.

This survey wouldn’t be complete without a word from the Center for American Progress (read: Center for the Advancement of the Democratic Party and Liberal Politics) scholar and former UCC seminary president Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite. She mostly whines about the UCC ad and the unfairness of it all:

This Super Bowl ad featuring Ted Tebow plays politics with faith. I have no doubt that Tebow is a person of faith, and he is entitled to his beliefs. Others are entitled to their beliefs. So, show everybody’s faith-based ad, or don’t show any. Otherwise, CBS is allowing ad time during the Super Bowl to become a political football.

CBS specifically refused to show the United Church of Christ’s ad for our “God is Still Speaking” campaign that portrayed the UCC belief that the exclusion of gays and lesbians from the church was wrong. Two men holding hands are turned away from a church, while others are allowed in. “Jesus didn’t turn people away…neither do we,” the voice over states.

Thistlethwaite, of course, hasn’t seen the ad, and so doesn’t know whether it “plays politics with faith” or not. The interesting thing that has been said about the ad by FOTF, however, is that it doesn’t address public policy or mention abortion. The UCC ad, on the other, explicitly showed not just gays but also people of color being turned away from a church by guys that looked like bouncers. In case you don’t remember it, here it is:

Again, CBS is distinguishing between an ad that in effect slanders hundreds of thousands of non-UCC churches and one that sounds like it is a simple affirmation of making a loving choice to have a child against the odds. I can see why Thistlethwaite would be upset about that.