The Reformed Pastor

All right, folks, I need your help. I have got to be missing something. Sojourners contributor Lisa Sharon Harper has written about the House Homeland Security Committee hearing on radical Islam, and in the process seems to be doing exactly the same thing she is so enraged about Rep. Peter King allegedly doing. Is it really possible for a person to be so unreflective, so incapable of self-examination, that they could do what Harper seems to be doing in this article?

Today, another kind of “King” is ascending to make his mark on the annals of history. But his mark will only merit a few ballistic blogs and a few twittering tweets. My tweet read: “Peter King’s anti-Muslim hearing unites Long Islanders, Republicans, Christians to Dennis Kearney and Joseph McCarthy legacy. #kinghearings”

Dennis Kearney’s political posturing and racist rhetoric led to the 1877 Chinese Exclusion Act and Joseph McCarthy’s 1954 guilt-by-association anti-commie campaign led Americans through their own political version of the Spanish inquisition. Kearney and McCarthy fashioned some of the darkest days in American history. They led us away from our values — away from our ideals. Kearney and McCarthy stoked the embers of fear until they became a bonfire that consumed the soul of America, leaving only destruction, alienation, and crushed images of God in their wake. Now it seems Peter King is hell-bent on leading us into darkness again.

The most shameful part of this anti-Muslim-American melodrama is King’s Long Island constituents, his party, and those who share his Roman Catholic Christian faith are being forced to partake in the legacy of King’s like-minded historical players. History will look back on this moment with a “tsk-tsk” and a waving finger, and with all the flying blogs and tweets, King won’t be the only one implicated. People from Long Island will be reminded — they elected him. Republicans will be reminded — they did not censure him. And Christians will be reminded — they sat silent and let their spiritual brother lead the country away from God and into darkness.

I read the rest of the piece thinking, “surely she’s going to say that this was nothing more than an example of the kind of thinking she’s attacking.” But no. She says nothing to indicate that her statements that Long Islanders, Republicans, and Christians will be “implicated” with King is anything but heartfelt.

This is a person who doesn’t want all Muslims tarred with the brush of radicalism, but she turns around and uses the non-violent, balanced, legislative action of a single congressman to claim that three large groups are somehow responsible for what he is doing. Or does she? Am I missing some kind of subtle sarcasm or irony here? Or is she really incapable of seeing herself doing exactly the same thing she accuses King of?

Did you know that today is the National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers? No? I don’t know how you could have missed it, what with the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice spreading the holiday spirit through a cheery, chirpy video:

As a great woman once said, isn’t that extra special! I especially like the woman with the little boy and girl, the latter of whom is holding up a sign that says “thank you” (for not aborting me, presumably). It must be wonderful for mothers such as her to know that if she had taken a mind to extinguish the lives of those two kids before they started, there would have been courageous abortionists standing by to carry out her wishes, all the while defying the evil minions of those awful religious right fanatics who would stand in the way of those children being body-bagged. They’re American heroes, I tells ya.

There’s an article at the United Church of Christ’s web site about some of the goofy ways liberal Christians are observing Lent (among them: a “carbon fast,” which presumably means the participants won’t be exhaling between now and Easter). But what actually interested me was a DVD series that’s mentioned that “while not specifically intended as a curriculum for Lent, would be a welcome addition to a church or small group Lenten series.”

Called “Saving Jesus: Redux” (whatever that means), the list of contributors suggests that the producers were trying to stuff every heresy they could think of into one set. Among the heresiarchs are John Spong, John Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg, Rita Nakashima Brock, Matthew Fox, John Cobb, and Hans Kung. I guess Marcion and Arius weren’t available.

I will admit that I haven’t seen it and have no intention of seeing it, so perhaps I’m being unfair. It may be that these esteemed personages are only seen in the series so that UCC congregations will have the pleasure of hearing their collective nonsense refuted. I consider that possibility as likely as the prospect of Pope Benedict XVI eloping next week with Lindsay Lohan, but hey, it’s not mathematically impossible, is it?

There is no one less connected to reality than an ecumenist  battling the evil forces of racism. National Council of Churches General Secretary Michael Kinnamon demonstrates this in an exclamation point-riddled rant against hearings that Rep. Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, is holding tomorrow.

Kinnamon starts off with the slaughter of American Indians, slavery, and the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. Starting off with wild rhetorical excess (a better comparison, if he was actually interested in being fair, might have been the Army-McCarthy hearings of the early 1950s), he then proceeds to complete distortion:

Today, we look back on these horrifying events with anguished remorse; and yet I wonder if we’ve learned anything from history.  Today, millions of Muslim Americans are subjected to thoughtless generalizations, open discrimination, and outright hostility because of a tiny minority whose acts of violence deny the teachings of the Quran and are denounced by other Muslims!  No matter what Rep. King may say, his hearings convey the implicit message that Muslims aren’t part of “us”—and to this sort of bigotry, all citizens of conscience must say NO!  When the family portrait of this country is painted, Muslims should have, must have, an honored place in it.

For the record, the hearings are titled, “The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community’s Response.” In other words, King is trying to determine the extent to which radical Islam–a murderous creed that has spurred adherents to kill tens of thousands in the United States and around the world–has infiltrated into the Muslim community. The idea is not to demonize Muslims in general, but to determine how far radicalization has gone in order to aid moderate Muslims to confront it and root it out.

This is what was done in congressional hearings in the 1990s on the militia movement, the Aryan Nations, and other radical elements that claimed ties to Christianity. Yet I recall no outrage from the NCC at that time over the attempt by Congress to “convey the implicit message that [Christians] aren’t part of ‘us’.” In fact, what Kinnamon is doing here is undermining the support he wants to give to the Muslim community, by implying that the extremist elements in their midst are somehow immune from investigation, unlike those of other communities. He sounds like those people in the 1950s and 1960s who said that Congress had no business investigating the Mafia because it would besmirch all Italian-Americans. But the rest of the country is smart enough to be able to distinguish between the small sub-set of a community under investigation and the rest of it.

As this indicates, Rep. King’s assertion that Muslims have not spoken out forcefully enough against extremism is simply wrong—indeed, it is slanderous.  If he wants to investigate extremism, then do so—but do not target one entire religion!

What? Has Kinnamon even bothered to look over the witness list to see who will be testifying? The witnesses include two fathers whose sons were radicalized and went on to commit murder and acts of terror; the sheriff of Los Angeles County, a strong supporter of the Committee on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR); the head of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy; and two congressmen, Frank Wolf of Virginia and the first Muslim member of Congress, Keith Ellison of Minnesota. That indicates, not a witch hunt, but a specific focus on a particular form of extremism that is an undeniable threat to public safety and homeland security. It also indicates a attempt at balance rather than an expression of bigotry. But Kinnamon is apparently not the type to let the facts get in the way of a good rant.

As General Secretary of the National Council of Churches, I care deeply about US security and about the wellbeing of Christians in places where extremism is prevalent.  But so do millions of Muslims across this country!  In the same way, the churches of the NCC affirm that we must care about the wellbeing, the dignity, of Muslims in our midst.  On behalf of the fifty million members of our churches, I declare as loudly as possible that whenever Muslims are threatened or demeaned, so are we—because “today we are Muslims, too”!

The only Muslims threatened by the King hearings are those whose activities in support of terrorism might get exposed. If those are really the kinds of people that Kinnamon wants to defend, whose activities he wants to keep under cover, let him do it, as the NCC slides ever farther down into the dustbin of history.

UPDATE: For one Muslim perspective on this, check out this piece by Asra Nomani in the Washington Post. And don’t miss the comments–they give a good illustration of why hearings such as these are needed.

UPDATE: Jim Wallis takes on what he thinks is the “theological mistake” of the hearings:

One cause is that the terrorists are making gains in the theological battle. The terrorist’s ideology claims that every action they take is part of a global battle between Islam and the West. They want to convince the world that Islam is right and good, and that the West is wrong and Evil. And it helps the terrorists immeasurably when Americans say, in effect, that West is right and good, and that Islam is wrong and evil. Every time American voices say or imply that, it is counted by the terrorists as a victory. They love to point to those stories in the American media, and to use them to justify their cause, make themselves more righteous, and recruit more terrorists.

I would agree with him, if that’s what was happening. In fact, American political leaders have bent over backward to be clear that we have no quarrel with Islam. Rather, our fight is against the radicals who despise our values of religious freedom, individual liberty, and gender equality, and who are more than happy to destroy the West in order to destroy those values. President Bush began sounding that note within a week after 9/11, and it has been the consistent mantra in both the executive and legislative branches–including by Peter King–ever since. It has been those on the irresponsible left who have been trying to obliterate that distinction, and trying to claim that any attempt to stop radical Islam is an attack on Islam itself.

Wallis says that he understands the need to fight terrorism, and to stand up to radical Islam, but he, like Kinnamon, has bought into the idea that you can’t distinguish the two. If we can’t, however, it becomes impossible to fight the genuine threat.

The Huffington Post has an article today that indicates that Jewish groups in San Francisco are not happy with the proposed First Amendment violation that would deny them the right to practice their religion by circumcising male infants. There’s a link to an Agence France-Presse article that offers this:

Jewish organizations have pledged to fight the measure should it be placed on the ballot. Anti-Defamation League director Daniel Sandman called Schofield’s effort discriminatory and misguided.

“This is hurtful and offensive to people in the community who consider this a coveted ritual,” he said.

Abby Porth of the Jewish Community Relations Council charged Schofield with wasting city resources for an inappropriate political stunt that was unlikely to become law.

“This is one of the most fundamental practices to our tradition of over 3,000 years,” she said. “It’s symbolic of our covenant with God.”

Just so. The main reason I’m posting on this subject again is that while HuffPo used the AFP article as the foundation for its own, it added this tidbit to it:

Health professionals are split, with no clear conclusions on the harms or benefits of the procedure. Supporters of the procedure frequently argue that it helps to prevent the transmission of diseases like HIV. Opponents counter that circumcision is a painful procedure causing decreased sexual sensation.

Now, let me get this straight. Opponents of circumcision, who near as I have been able to discern are overwhelmingly politically liberal, have a problem with the procedure because it is “painful” and [might] cause “decreased sexual sensation.” At the same time, they have no problem with abortion, which is done without anaesthetizing the infant, which involves inflicting far more pain and suffering, and which results in the total loss of future sexual or any other sensation. The former, therefore, must be banned despite the breach of the First Amendment, while the latter must be allowed in any and all circumstances, for any and all reasons.

San Francisco: too small to be set loose as an independent country, too big to be an insane asylum.

More abortion absolutists have weighed in at the “On Faith” column in the Washington Post. You’ll remember from my earlier post that the column asked this absurd question:

The U.S. House of Representatives voted last week to eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood, which provides abortions, along with a variety of health care services for women. The Virginia General Assembly last week approved legislation that requires abortion clinics to be regulated as hospitals, and providers say the stricter regulations will force many of them out of business. Both measures were pushed by anti-abortion activists. Should personal and religious views be allowed to prevent women from having access to a legal medical procedure?

To answer “no” to this question is essentially to say that pro-life views have no legitimate place in American political discussion, and that the First Amendment and foundational democratic principles don’t apply when the sacred right to abortion is involved. Former seminary professor of ethics Valerie Elverton Dixon is more than willing to take that plunge:

Personal and religious views ought not to be allowed to prevent a woman from having access to a legal medical procedure. She ought to have access to the procedure whether or not her own personal and religious views constrain her from seeking the procedure. Women are rational and free human beings capable of making decisions about their own health care needs. The state ought to both respect and protect a woman’s right to make these decisions. To do otherwise is to press the coercive power of the state down upon the bodies of women.

Every day, the state uses its coercive powers to restrict countless decisions that involved our bodies: whether to shoot heroin; whether to drive drunk; whether to wantonly spread diseases, etc. The argument from “choice” has been losing steam precisely because people realize that the issue isn’t choice, it’s the rightness or wrongness of the particular choice being made. Dixon is apparently willing to say that the state should get inside the heads of those who oppose the abortion license, and rule impermissible those views that are “personal and religious.” The determination of such impermissibility would, presumably, be made by the high priests of the culture of death.

The decision in the United States House of Representatives to cut federal funding of Planned Parenthood is a move to restrict access to safe and legal abortion, but it also restricts access to the other health services that Planned Parenthood provides for both men and women. Further, it is another in a long parade of offenses intended to keep woman identified with and limited to her biological function of child-bearing. A woman is more than a womb.

Not only does she provide no evidence for this assertion, I don’t even know what it means. I had a colonoscopy yesterday–does that mean that the doctor was treating me as nothing more than a digestive system? From the evidence, it would seem that at least some Planned Parenthood clinics treat their “patients” as nothing more than cash cows, but Dixon can spare no indignation for that.

In the United States of Amnesia, we have to be intentional about remembering history. So, in honor of Women’s History Month, let us recall in brief the history of family planning in the United States. Planned Parenthood grew from the birth control movement of Margaret Sanger and others that started around 1916. Sanger was a nurse working among the poor in the slums of the Lower East Side of Brooklyn, New York.

The women she worked with suffered from chronic pregnancy and many died from homemade abortions. The Comstock Act of 1873, an anti-obscenity law, made it illegal to give women information about birth control. Such information was considered pornographic. Sanger broke the law in acts of civil disobedience because she understood the connection between unrestrained fertility and poverty, between a lack of birth control and infant and maternal mortality. The Comstock Act stood until 1965 when a Supreme Court decision–Griswold v Connecticut–overturned it.

Yes, by all means, let’s remember history. Sanger was a racist eugenicist who sought to control if not eliminate “inferior” people, including those of color like Dixon. Planned Parenthood started out as an instrument of eugenics, and evolved into an instrument of population control. As for Dixon’s history, I haven’t heard that anyone–anyone–is proposing we return to pre-Griswold days. By the way, the Supreme Court didn’t overturn the Comstock Act, which is still on the books. It ruled unconstitutional the provisions regarding contraception information and equipment being sent through the mails. Bans on contraception had been overturned in 1936. Details, details.

Anyway, Dixon then meanders into some uninteresting, irrelevant stuff about Woman as the Other, but then gets back to the subject at hand, and essentially says that no one has a right not to be killed until she says so:

In March 2011, the madness continues, and the right of women to exercise choices remains under attack. This is done in the name of an unborn child. Let us be clear: there is no right to be born. Birth is a gift. A coerced gift is no gift at all. Thank God and your mother for your life.

“Birth is a gift”–the Lord giveth, and the abortionist taketh away. So it appears that Dixon is a supporter of abortion for any reason, at any time, via any method. RU-486, partial birth, to kill girls, destroy Down’s syndrome children, it’s all good. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about an eighth-month, fully viable, healthy child–to Dixon, it’s still nothing more than a mass of inconsequential cells with that can be disposed of at will. Dixon, of course, doesn’t bother to explain why there is a moral difference between a child one day before birth and one day after. Apparently, just like in real estate, it’s all about location, location, location. One day the abortionist can rip you apart, the next day he goes to jail for exactly the same action performed on exactly the same individual.

The state’s primary purpose is to protect the rights of individuals once they are born. So, in the collision of concerns–the rights of women to control her own body and the concern for an unborn fetus–the duty of the law is to protect the rights of the woman. Therefore, we must necessarily leave the protection of the fetus to the judgment of the woman. Here religion may play a part in persuading her one way or another. However the coercive force of law in this instance is unjust.

This is a striking thing for a person such as Dixon to say. She’s a contributor to Sojourners, and has many times used the expression “the least of these” to refer to those whom the state has an obligation to protect, support, and help. But apparently that protection doesn’t extend to those who truly are the most helpless among us, who have no voice of their own, and who cannot defend themselves when those stronger than they are decide that their lives may be dispensed with. And because those defenseless ones are of no consequence to Dixon, she has no trouble saying that no one should be allowed to do for them what they cannot do for themselves.

United Church of Christ pastor Susan Smith takes up the refrain:

I cannot figure out why the reproductive rights of women cannot be left alone by politicians and others who disagree with the right of a woman to choose to have an abortion.

Apparently she thinks that abortion is a trivial matter than shouldn’t give anyone any pause. Therefore, she finds it inconceivable that there are actually people who think of abortion not in terms of “reproductive rights” but of the killing of innocent children, and who therefore think it should be stopped. I mean, why get all bent out of shape? It’s only a “fetus.” The echoes of those who defended slavery right all too true.

I do not like the fact that abortions happen. Honestly, in these days of the ready availability of so many types of contraception, it is hard for me to understand why anyone who doesn’t want to get pregnant …gets pregnant. I don’t believe in the “oops” phenomenon, amongst the vast numbers of women who are in child bearing age. It is simply too easy now to not get pregnant.

But when a woman does get pregnant, and does not want to be pregnant, I cannot figure out why people – politicians and others – just don’t leave them alone.

After all, there’s no one else involved. It’s just a woman and her unwanted growth, like a wart. Just let her have it cut off, won’t you?

Opponents of abortion want to protect the unborn fetus. OK, I get it. But those same protectors of the fetus turn their attention away from the babies once they are born. There is no outcry to take care of the children once they are here. In fact, lawmakers right now are proposing budget cuts that will cut funding for education of these little children. Headstart programs are being targeted for cuts. Health care for children has not been a priority of lawmakers in this country.

This is a standard calumny directed at pro-life people, one that is voiced a hundred times a day by pro-aborts who never, ever provide a shred of evidence other than political differences on other issues. The idea that those who are against abortion might actually think that there are better ways of caring for children once they are here never enters her head. The truth is, though, that even if pro-lifers agreed with Susan Smith down the line on the existential necessity of every government program ever conceived of, she’d simply find another way to attack them.

If abortion were outlawed, and everyone delivered the babies they conceived, then what? The fetuses would all be protected. They would be born…but if their mothers didn’t want them, and there was no extended family to take care of them, what would the anti-abortion proponents want to do then?

That’s a tough one. Let’s see. What could we do about that kind of situation…I’ve got it! Let’s try getting other people to take in those children whom no one else wants. We could call it something that sounds appealing like, say…adoption! Yeah, that’s the ticket!

There is something not just pathetic, but frightening about a person whose answer to the question, “what should we do with the unloved and unwanted?” is, “kill them.” Oh, Smith makes the usual noises about not liking abortion, but not only suggests nothing to stop it, but can’t even think of a way to deal with such children, except to allow their parents to kill them.

There is a danger when any of us insert our personal and political beliefs to become issues when it comes to practicing medicine. Early in America’s history, white hospitals would not treat black patients, and many people died because of it. The fact that personal and political beliefs are the bullies driving policy as concerns Planned Parenthood and clinics which provide, in addition to general women’s health care, abortions, is troubling, it is wrong, and it is unethical.

So it is unethical to follow one’s Christian conscience and so much as express the opinion in the public square that killing unborn children is wrong. She must have taken Valerie Dixon’s class.

Then there’s PCUSA pastor Janet Edwards, who also can’t seem to conceive of the possibility of anyone disagreeing with her:

The answer to this question is one that I hold dear, both as a Christian minister and as an American. And in a country like ours that has a fundamental constitutional value of separation between church and state, it couldn’t be more important.

The answer is No. Personal religious views cannot and should not prevent a woman from having access to a legal, medical procedure. I trust that left, right, center, religious and secular all agree upon this fundamental principle of our constitution.

Uh, no, Rev. Edwards, they don’t, and only a smug, self-absorbed intellectually bankrupt person would think so. So unexamined are her views, so self-evident her worldview, that she is seemingly incapable of grasping the notion that someone might actually disagree with her, and for good, solid, well formulated reasons. It really does boggle the mind that someone so completely detached from the world of reasoned discussion, so entirely cocooned in her own little ideological world, is given responsibility for the spiritual and intellectual development of a congregation of Christians.

Oh, and did I mention that the reference by pro-aborts to the separation of church and state is a red herring? I’m sure I’ve said that somewhere.

Obviously I disagree with the people I’ve been Fisking–Flynn, Lynn, Thistlethwaite, Dixon, Smith, and Edwards–about the morality of abortion. But there’s something more at work in this motley collection of abortion supporters. There’s a totalitarian streak that says that those who disagree do not have the right to voice that disagreement, do not have the right to change the political arrangements, so not have a right to follow their conscience in a way that the American system allows. For these people, abortion really is the right that trumps all others, a secular sacrament that must be not only permitted but funded by all. And five of these people are certified leaders in the mainline churches and, in one instance, contributors to an allegedly evangelical magazine. For some, it really does seem as though Moloch has usurped the place of God.

If you only read one thing today, make it Kirsten Powers‘ column at the Daily Beast. Powers is a liberal Democrat, a former employee in the Clinton administration, and she does as fine a job of shredding one of Planned Parenthood’s main defenses as anyone I’ve seen.

Her argument, based in part on figures recently released by the Guttmacher Institute (a creation of Planned Parenthood), is that PP’s claim that without its contraceptive services, abortion would go up is factually false, and that availability of contraception is in fact not a reason why abortion happens at all. She writes:

[A] 2009 study by the journal Contraception found, in a 10-year study of women in Spain, that as overall contraceptive use increased from around 49 percent to 80 percent, the elective abortion rate more than doubled. This doesn’t mean that access to contraception causes more abortion—though some believe that—but that it doesn’t necessarily reduce it.

A January 2011 fact sheet by the pro-abortion rights Guttmacher Institute listed all the reasons that women who have had an abortion give for their unexpected pregnancy, and not one of them is lack of access to contraception. In fact, 54 percent of women who had abortions had used a contraceptive method, if incorrectly, in the month they got pregnant. For the 46 percent who had not used contraception, 33 percent had perceived themselves to be at low risk for pregnancy; 32 percent had had concerns about contraceptive methods; 26 percent had had unexpected sex, and 1 percent had been forced to have sex. Not one fraction of 1 percent said they got pregnant because they lacked access to contraception. Some described having unexpected sex, but all that can be said about them is that they are irresponsible, not that they felt they lacked access to contraception.

Now, it is probable that some percentage of those who used contraception got it from Planned Parenthood, but PP is hardly a sole provider. You can get condoms at any convenience store, and for medical methods, there are lots of outlets. Powers expresses astonishment at the response this argument gets:

Asked about the “Contraception” study, the Guttmacher numbers and why no women were saying they got abortions due to lack of access to contraception, a Planned Parenthood spokesman emailed this Orwellian response: “I think the biggest barrier is access to affordable contraception.”  Huh?

“Huh?” is right. See, contraception, as well as all other family planning services other than abortion (except in instances of rape, incest, and when the life of the mother is endangered) is covered by Medicaid. In other words, there is effectively no financial barrier for anyone to get birth control, and no necessity for them to get it from Planned Parenthood.

Powers’ conclusion is dead on:

To preserve its federal subsidy, Planned Parenthood continues to claim that without its contraception services the abortion rate will go up. This deception smacks of a fleecing of taxpayers in an effort to promote an ideological agenda, rather than a sincere effort to help women plan families.

What is that ideology, exactly? To find out, you have to dig through Planned Parenthood’s tax forms because the group certainly isn’t going to tell you. According to its most recent tax filing, the purpose of Planned Parenthood Federation of America is to provide leadership in “[a]chieving, through informed individual choice, a U.S. population of stable size in an optimum environment; in stimulating and sponsoring relevant biomedical, socio-economic, and demographic research.”

So it is, in reality, a population-control organization. Funny, this was never mentioned in the gauzy $200,000 advertising campaign launched last week. It also doesn’t make it into the “About Us” section of the group’s website, which repeatedly claims its mission is to protect women’s health, when in fact the real mission is to keep the birth rate at whatever level the leaders believe it should be.

To hear Planned Parenthood and their supporters, they exist only to provide Pap smears or breast exams or prenatal services. In fact, President Cecile Richards has gone so far as to erroneously imply that they provide mammograms. (A spokesperson for the group confirmed to me that this is untrue.)

Planned Parenthood officials are allowed to believe whatever they want and to pursue whatever goals they choose. But their dishonesty in how they present their organization to the public, along with ignoring basic statistics about their area of expertise, makes you wonder what else they are hiding. It’s also hard to deny that they are at core a blindly ideological organization, not a run-of-the-mill charitable nonprofit.

Whatever you think of abortion rights, this is not the kind of organization that taxpayers should be funding.

Read it all, and pray that more liberals will stop drinking the Planned Parenthood Kool-Aid, and take the stand that Kirsten Powers has.

Back in the mid-19th century, there was a political organization called the “American Party,” better known by as the “Know Nothing Party.” According to Michael Holt of Northern Illinois University, it was anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant, proposing “to increase the naturalization period for immigrants from five to twenty-one years while proscribing all immigrants and Catholics from public office.”

In recent years, a new form of Know Nothingism has arisen that decries the influence of certain religious believers–conservative evangelicals–in the American political system, proclaiming them “dangerous” and unAmerican.” While those tossing these epithets may not overtly campaign to ban evangelicals from political life, they demonize them in ways designed to bring about that result de facto, if not de jure.

Diana Butler Bass is a contributing editor at Sojourners, a formerly evangelical publication that has been so consumed by left-wing politics that its theological roots are now forgotten, and even mocked by some of its writers and editors. Bass offers her contribution to 21st century Know Nothingism in the Huffington Post:

As the stand off between workers and Governor Scott Walker continues in Wisconsin, religious leaders have weighed in on the dispute. Roman Catholic bishops came out on the side of the unions, urging the governor to protect worker’s rights. Many mainline pastors, including Lutherans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Congregationalists, and American Baptists have written letters, issued statements, and preached sermons supporting labor, unions, and collective bargaining. In Madison, interfaith prayers and proclamations have upheld and encouraged the teachers, police, firefighters, and other public employees in their resistance to the governor’s plan to break their union.

This is an impressive religious group by any standards–particularly so in Wisconsin where traditional faith still plays an important role in the life of a large number of its citizens. Wisconsin is almost evenly split between the three largest American religious groups: 29% are Roman Catholics; 24% are evangelical Protestants; and 23% are mainline Protestants.

Yet none of these prayers or sermons has swayed Scott Walker. He has steadfastly stayed on his original course, unfazed by the full weight of Roman Catholic authority or the mainline social justice tradition pressing upon him and urging him toward compromise and change.

It doesn’t seem to occur to Bass that Walker could not have gotten elected even if every evangelical in Cheesehead Land had voted for him. To get 52% of the vote, he had to have gotten a lot of Catholics, mainline Protestants, Jews, Muslims, atheists and others to vote for him. That suggests that on the issue currently roiling Wisconsin, a lot of people voted in a way that would have them disagreeing with those issuing the letters and statements and preaching the sermons in the alleged name of their parishioners.

So why is Hitler Mussolini Mubarak Walker ignoring the collective wisdom of Catholic and mainline leadership? Because he’s one of them:

Scott Walker is neither Roman Catholic nor a mainline churchgoer. The son of a Baptist pastor, born in Colorado Springs, the heartland of the Religious Right, Walker is a member of Meadowbrook Church in Wauwatosa, a non-denominational evangelical church. Meadowbrook’s statement of faith, a fairly typical boilerplate of conservative evangelical theology, includes beliefs in biblical inerrancy, sin, exclusive salvation through Christ, and eternal damnation.

Apparently, standard evangelical/Baptist theology is now “boilerplate” to Bass. I guess that’s what churches get labeled these days when they don’t include a political platform alongside their theology. Anyway, that “boilerplate,” and Walker’s membership in a “boilerplate” church, apparently explains his inexplicable refusal to bow down to the liberal consensus of his ecclesiastical betters.

In other words, Scott Walker does not give a rip about pronouncements by the Roman Catholic Church, any Lutheran, Episcopal, or Methodist bishop, or the Protestant social justice pastors. These religious authorities, steeped in centuries of theology and Christian ethics mean absolutely nothing in Scott Walker’s world. His spiritual universe is that of 20th century fundamentalism, in its softer evangelical form, a vision that emphasizes “me and Jesus” and personal salvation.

Actually, considering that Bass wrote last year of separation of church and state that it is among the “things that guide Protestantism, the insights that animate the followers of one of Christianity’s great traditions,” one wonders why Walker should “give a rip” about what a bunch of people with divinity degrees think about the specifics of collective bargaining policy.

No, check that. He has every reason to listen to all of his constituents, including those with whom he doesn’t agree. What is baffling is why Bass thinks he has to agree with those to whom she refers. The distinction of their theological pedigree does nothing to guarantee the rightness of their political opinions, and Walker has clearly come to different conclusions about the issues. But for Bass, that must mean that he, and the religious tradition that she assumes is formative for his political views, must be simply stupid, and certainly worthy of empty name-calling.

She goes on to disparage Walker’s faith, and his personal testimony, and even his favorite hymn (“Trust and Obey”). She concludes her personal attack on the Wisconsin governor this way:

Walker has no spiritual “check” on him, no authority other than the ones he hears in his own head, and no moral culpability in this situation. He’s the good Christian soldier, just following God’s lead.

To say that contempt drips from this screed–contempt for Walker, but even more contempt for the theological tradition being caricatured–is evident. But it’s more than just contempt. It’s Know Nothingism:

And this is why Scott Walker’s religion is actually dangerous in the public square. Because it lacks the ability to compromise, it is profoundly anti-democratic. Many faith traditions actually possess deep spiritual resources that allow them to participate in pluralistic, democratic, and creative political change. But those sort of traditions tend emphasize the love of God and neighbor over strict obedience to an unyielding Father God. Despite anything Scott Walker might say, the confident dictum of the old hymn, “Trust and Obey” is not the best way to govern a state.

And we all know what has to be done about religion that is dangerous and anti-democratic.

Note: I heard about this article from Mark Tooley at the Institute on Religion and Democracy, who wrote about it himself for FrontPage Magazine.

The latest effort to breach the sacrosanct wall between church and state comes from PCUSA Staed Clerk Gradye Parsons, who writes to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker urging him to adopt PCUSA doctrine as the standard for the current labor standoff:

I am writing on behalf of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) on the matter of collective bargaining by public employees of state governments. The policies of our General Assembly, the highest governing council of our church, have repeatedly addressed matters of unionization and collective bargaining. We fully support the urgent communication you have received from the John Knox Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), our regional judicatory based in Madison, Wisconsin, and repeat what they have quoted for you–a portion of our long-standing commitment to the right of workers to bargain collectively:

The 1995 General Assembly statement (“God’s Work in Our Hands”) specifically provides: “Justice demands that social institutions guarantee all persons the opportunity to participate actively in economic decision making that affects them. All workers … have the right to choose to organize for the purposes of collective bargaining.”

Therefore, The Presbytery of John Knox, meeting on February 19,2011 in Muscoda, Wisconsin, called upon Governor Scott Walker and Wisconsin’s other elected representatives to enter into good-faith negotiations with Wisconsin’s public employee unions to deal with Wisconsin’s current budget issues and to respect the rights of all workers to collectively bargain for wages and benefits.

As Presbyterians we base the rights of all workers, corporations and governments in a doctrine of covenant or mutual accountability that undergirds all contracts and includes our social contract in the United States. We share with many people of faith the conviction that collective bargaining is a concrete measure by which burdens and benefits are shared in a manner deeply consistent with both our faith and our democratic values. Our doctrine of vocation affirms that all human beings have a calling from God to serve the common good.

It is our understanding that your state workers have already agreed to significant sacrifices as an appropriate part of the overall effort to reduce expenses. To take away their future right to collective bargaining is an attack on a basic principle, rather than simply a cost-cutting measure. We challenge your administration to embody fairness and the sharing of burdens in your tax and wage policies, and to lead by your own example.

Three points on the letter: 1) He is completely mistaken if he thinks that the power of collective bargaining has nothing to do with the state’s fiscal condition. When politicians and public employee unions set up the kind of backscratching relationship that both cultivate, the taxpayer–and the state budget that he funds–is always going to be the loser. 2) Note that he slides from the PCUSA statement, which speaks non-specifically of “the right to choose to organize for the purposes of collective bargaining,” to the assumption that that means collective bargaining on every issue. 3) Given his belief that collective bargaining on all issues is a “basic principle,” I assume he will soon be writing to President Obama to decry the violation of basic principle, nay, the involuntary servitude under which federal employees currently labor.

For the umpeenth time, please note that the same people who are among the loudest to cry “church and state! church and state!” when conservatives bring religious principles to bear in public policy debates are among the loudest to use religious principles of their own when it comes to policy outcomes they favor.

The anti-Semitism that runs through the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Center is well-established. (I just wrote about the latest bigoted blast from Sabeel head Naim Ateek a few days ago.) Now, former emergent guru, current religious leftist Brian McLaren has jumped on the Sabeel bandwagon. At his web site, he comments on the statement that was made at the end of the most recent Sabeel conference:

This statement from Sabeel deserves your attention … especially if you are a Christian in America.

He then quotes the statement in its entirety and concludes:

If you pray for the peace of Jerusalem, can you do so without praying for a resolution to the current conflict that is pro-Israeli, pro-Palestinian, pro-Jew, pro-Christian, pro-Muslim, pro-justice, and pro-reconciliation? I’m thankful for courageous voices like these raised in behalf of peace through truth, justice, mutual respect, the dignity of every person, and reconciliation. The alternative of seeking peace through half-truth, injustice, favoritism, hypocrisy, and domination is not the way of Jesus or the kingdom of God.

So what did the statement include to warrant such glowing praise?

Sabeel’s Eighth International Conference To Our Friends and All People of Conscience As the margins of Empire began to crumble in the Arab world, Sabeel’s Eighth International Conference convened in Bethlehem inside the prison walls of imperial rule. We, the participants,300 people from 15 countries, met from 23rd to 28th February, 2011, to discuss “Challenging Empire: God, Faithfulness and Resistance,” surrounded by the unavoidable and cruel effects of empire’s rule on the Palestinian people and their land.

Yeah, that’s some prison, and some empire, when 300 activists from around the world can get together and hate on the supposed jailers.

We heard how Jesus resisted the arrogance, violence and repression of Empire and became a model for us when he drove out the money changers and confirmed the people’s independence from Caesar.

Huh? The moneychangers were Jews who were as much oppressed by the Romans as any other. As for “independence from Caesar,” I have no clue what that means or to what it refers.

Jesus helps us overcome fear and stand in solidarity against Empire. We must follow his example and pray for his courage to resist imperial power, aligning ourselves with the poorest and most oppressed.

Oh, you mean in North Korea, or Iran, or Darfur, or Zimbabwe, or…oh, never mind.

We support the Kairos Palestine document and encourage all Christians to read it and act on it.

I take it that McLaren, by his comment, is here endorsing this vile document that lays the fault for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict entirely on Israel, and ignores both the history of Arab aggression and the reality of terrorism.

Confronting the root causes of the conflict, this document urges all Christians and people of conscience to help end the military occupation that deprives Palestinians of their rights and condemns both peoples, Israelis and Palestinians, to a distortion of their humanity. We see boycott and divestment as non-violent tools for justice, peace and security for all.

And apparently McLaren has also endorsed the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement, which is led by extreme leftists whose ultimate aim is the destruction of the Jewish state.

As we depart this conference we hold the United States responsible for the obstacles it has placed in the path of peace, including its veto of a U.N. resolution that condemned Israeli settlement building in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, contrary to U.S. policy stating that settlements are illegal.

Right. The United States has built obstacles to peace, despite numerous attempts to broker a peace giving Palestinian 95% of what they demand, all of which have been rebuffed. Oh, and as I mentioned the other day, the last statement is simply false, though it makes for good propaganda.

Now compare this statement with McLaren’s response, and draw your own conclusions about the author of A New Kind of Christian and A New Kind of Christianity.