Miller Lite (On Samuel Rodriguez)

Derrick Harkins and the DNC's Faith Outreach are publicly stating concerns about Samuel Rodriguez, but not Lisa Miller at the Washington Post. I have written in the past about the strange journalism of Lisa Miller on the subject of Samuel Rodriguez, but her latest column raises the issue afresh. Her dogged determination to portray Samuel Rodriguez as a combination of a victim of Barack Obama and the GOP is striking, as is her breathtaking ignorance of Rodriguez’s complicated, dare we say unstable, track record. For anyone still new to the story of Rodriguez, or in need of a refresher course on his delicate relationship with integrity, I offer the following links.

On Rodriguez’s relationship with Muslims:

http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Samuel-Rodriguez-Extremism-and-the-Oak-Initiative-Greg-Metzger-09-14-2011-.html

http://debatingobama.blogspot.com/2011/09/tabachnick-was-right-i-was-wrong-and.html

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2011/9/2/133338/8422

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2011/9/2/133338/8422

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2011/11/7/101314/647

http://debatingobama.blogspot.com/2011/10/demonstrating-samuel-rodriguezs.html

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2011/11/10/15483/310/Front_Page/Christian_Resistance_to_TheCall_Growing_in_Detroit_and_Beyond

On Rodriguez’s various stances on Environmental Issues:

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2011/11/17/174448/81

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2011/9/26/13031/1119

http://www.creationcare.org/view.php?id=428

On Rodriguez’s unique blend of Christian nationalism and immigration reform:

 http://debatingobama.blogspot.com/2012/11/questioning-hispanic-karl-rove-of.html

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/religious-right-war-room-weekends-awakening-conference

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/washington-jesus-returns-america-jesus-prayer-rally-philadelphia

Questioning the "Hispanic Karl Rove of evangelicals"

In the wake of Mitt Romney's defeat and the historically low support he received from Hispanics it is high time that attention be given not only to Karl Rove, but to "the Hispanic Karl Rove", the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez. The benediction for the opening night of the Republican National Convention was given by Rodriguez, an Assemblies of God leader and the President of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Council (NHCLC). Given that Rodriguez has been known for years as the “Hispanic Karl Rove of evangelicals” it was hardly shocking that Romney chose him for this symbolic task. This July Rodriguez declared that Romney had made a “180-degree turn” in his relationship with Hispanics after a primary in which he had staked out a position to the right of his key competitors. Of Puerto Rican descent, the 42-year old Rodriguez represents, as the Chicago Tribune put it in 2008, “a new generation of evangelical kingmakers on the political scene.” Due to his status as a prominent Hispanic Evangelical and his advocacy for a “compassionate” approach to immigration, Rodriguez has developed a reputation as a progressive-friendly evangelical leader. This reputation, and the privileged access he has enjoyed to the White House during Barack Obama’s first term, is surprising given his outspoken commitments to right-wing causes and organizations. More surprising, and troubling, are the grounds on which he argues for immigration reform, appealing to conservative Christians’ suspicion of Muslims and fear of Christian decline.

Rodriguez has been a prominent conservative activist throughout Obama’s presidency. In 2009 Rodriguez co-founded the Oak Initiative, a right-wing Christian advocacy group, and served until 2011 as its executive vice president. Rodriguez has described the Oak Initiative as a “Christian Tea Party,” and in 2010 he rallied the group with his claim that the Obama administration “has taken over the auto industry, the banking industry, the health industry, soon the energy industry. We have never been in this place before. Our founding fathers are turning in their graves. This is big government on steroids.” Like many conservative groups, the Oak Initiative made strident opposition to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) a central part of its mission. It produced a popular video in opposition to the ACA, which featured the controversial former Pentagon advisor Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin explaining that the ACA moved America simultaneously toward Nazism and Communism and was “laying the groundwork” for a Nazi-esque “constabulary force that will control the population in America.” Under Rodriguez’s leadership the Oak Initiative also distinguished itself as a virulently anti-Muslim organization committed to the notion that Obama is helping to advance an Islamic agenda in America.

In addition to his foundational role in the formation of the Oak Initiative, Rodriguez in 2010 became part of a five-person team leading the Affordable Power Alliance (APA). The APA has played a key role in resisting Obama administration environmental policies that they say would hurt the interests of business. The APA has made a name for itself by claiming that new EPA restrictions amounted to a “war on the poor” and declaring that “the civil rights challenge of our time is to stop extreme environmental policies that drive up the cost of energy.” Nowhere has the effect of the APA been more evident than in its attacks on the EPA’s efforts to decrease mercury poisoning, a regulatory effort that has received widespread report from USCCB and a host of other religious organizations. The APA views this regulation, and the religious groups that support it, as part of a misguided environmental movement that ends up “condemning legions of Third World children to death from real diseases” because of its impact on the global economy.

As his right wing stances solidified Rodriguez began to headline events important to conservatives in general and the religious right in particular. In 2011, Rodriguez promoted and spoke at Texas Governor Rick Perry’s controversial prayer gathering “The Response” and delivered the benediction at the Ronald Reagan award dinner at the CPAC annual convention. He is on the steering committee of the Freedom Federation, an umbrella organization of key conservative Christian groups founded in 2009 to, among other things, “secure the individual right to own, possess, and use firearms as central to the preservation of peace and liberty.” And he has joined the coalition of Christians opposing the HHS Mandate, writing in the Washington Post that “the end of our religious freedom in this country has begun.”

Yet, while Rodriguez has been at the forefront of an array of religious right initiatives, he has also managed to maintain a counter-image as a kind of “new evangelical,” one open to progressive political action and worthy of considerable access to the Obama White House. Rodriguez was one of a small number of religious leaders who led a private prayer service on the morning of Obama’s inauguration. In July 2010, Rodriguez was one of a group of leaders of Hispanic organizations who met with Obama to discuss a push for immigration reform. That same year Rodriguez served on the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, which published a report on “Fatherhood and Healthy Families.” In July 2011, even as he continued as a leader of the “Christian Tea Party” he had helped to found, Rodriguez visited the White House with Jim Wallis and ten other progressive religious leaders representing the “Circle of Protection” coalition, formed to resist Tea Party efforts to balance the budget by cutting aid to “the poor and suffering,” as Rodriguez put it at the time. He returned to the White House with a delegation from the National Association of Evangelicals to meet with the president later in 2011. In the spring of 2012 Rodriguez shared the podium with Michelle Obama at a Florida rally for her “Let’s Move” campaign. To this day, the Faith Outreach Director of the Democratic National Committee, the Rev. Derrick Harkins, serves on the Board of Advisors to Rodriguez’s NHCLC.

Rodriguez’s ability to simultaneously stoke the fires of anti-Obama extremism and maintain access to the White House mystifies observers of the Religious Right. He owes his paradoxical image to his unique position on immigration reform, the issue that brought him to national prominence during the George W. Bush administration. Beginning in 2006, Rodriguez’s public advocacy for the needs of undocumented Hispanics centered on convincing white evangelicals, whom Rodriguez accused of promoting “racial profiling, discrimination,” and ethnic hostility, to support immigration reform. Sydney Blumenthal credited Rodriguez with helping to defeat a Republican congressional plan calling for the potential deportation of 12 million Hispanics, a plan Rodriguez called an example of “political expediency, xenophobia and extremism” that “defeated reason, compromise and reconciliation.” Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Ted Kennedy welcomed Rodriguez to high-profile meetings on immigration reform, and many religious progressives rushed to embrace a theologically conservative Hispanic who seemed to share their values.

Thus was born the image of Samuel Rodriguez, post-partisan evangelical and bridge to the burgeoning Hispanic Protestant community. Major media outlets like Newsweek, CNN, and the Wall Street Journal named him as a major Hispanic leader. He became a regular contributor at the Washington Post’s On Faith website and was featured on Bill Moyers Journal. In all cases Rodriguez was presented as a politically moderate, theologically conservative Pentecostal/evangelical whose opinions about the emerging Latino vote could be trusted. In some cases, as in a 2009 report on CNN, media outlets went so far as to describe him as the leader of millions of Hispanic evangelical. Individuals and institutions seeking to unite progressives and moderates seized on Rodriguez as an embodiment of the goal. In 2007 he was one of seven evangelical founders of the Come Let Us Reason Together movement, which sought common ground on culture-war issues. He also formed a bond with the progressive evangelical leader Jim Wallis: he has lectured at Wallis’s Georgetown University class, he serves as a contributing editor for Wallis’s Sojourners magazine, and Wallis wrote a foreword for Rodriguez’s 2009 book Path of Miracles. Mainstream evangelicals have followed Wallis’s lead and embraced Rodriguez and his NHCLC as a key entry point to Hispanic Protestants. Rodriguez serves on the boards of an array of major moderate evangelical and Pentecostal organizations, including Christianity Today, Gordon Conwell Seminary, and the Assemblies of God, and his NHCLC is the official sister organization to the National Association of Evangelicals.

Rodriguez’s conflicting positions and dueling alliances have never been fully acknowledged in national media. When he signed a major statement by evangelical Christians in support of the EPA’s policy to increase regulation of mercury while at the same time heading up the American Power Alliance, which was decrying these regulations as part of a “war on the poor,” news reports focused only on his support of the progressive petition. This lack of scrutiny may be due to the fact that, while Rodriguez has staked out a number of policy positions far to the right of most Hispanics, on the need for comprehensive immigration reform he has generally pushed for policies clearly consistent with the desires of the Hispanic community and largely in keeping with his post-partisan image.

It is this essential issue, however, that raises the most troubling questions about Rodriguez’s positions and arguments. While religious and mainstream media have ignored his reasoning, an abundance of public documents and videos shows that Rodriguez’s pro-Hispanic-immigration activism draws explicitly on anti-Muslim ideology and the promise of a renewed Christian America. While he makes use of arguments focused on human rights and biblical compassion to justify his call for immigration reform, those concepts do not for him preclude arguments that denigrate Islam, promote the salvation of Christian America, or emphasize competition with Catholics.

When Rodriguez speaks to conservatives his appeal for immigration reform centers around three suppositions. First, he argues that support for Hispanic immigration will prevent the United States from becoming what Europe is becoming—a Muslim continent. By emphasizing the threat of a Muslim Europe, Rodriguez taps into a vein of conservative thought that has come to prominence post-9/11. He has spoken about the threat that he believes Europe faces from its growing Muslim communities, and the Oak Initiative continuously plays up the supposed threat to America from stealth efforts to impose sharia law. “There is a crisis in Europe,” he said in 2009, because “Europe is now the emerging Islamic continent in the world. It is not post religious. It is growing in religion but it is not Christianity. It is Islam. It is the Muslim faith. And in America we are blessed that the immigrants that are coming here still believe that Jesus Christ is Lord and have a strong Christian faith commitment.... I look at this community emerging in America as a firewall against…an assault on our biblical worldview.”

In public appearances, Rodriguez’s prayerful rhetoric occasionally gives way to crude caricaturing of Islam. In a 2010 sermon, Rodriguez repeated an aggressively Christian prayer he said he had offered at an interfaith rally for immigration reform. Boasting about his refusal to “compromise truth” in that “politically correct environment,” he explained that a Muslim imam had been asked to offer a prayer before Rodriguez. He described the Imam’s prayer this way: “I come in the name of Allah, Allah and the Prophet Mohammad, blah, blah, blah, pass the ammunition, all that good stuff.”

Second, Rodriguez claims, support for Hispanic immigration will be the salvation of Christianity in America. He speaks in near-messianic terms of the impact Hispanic spirituality will have on America if it is allowed to flourish. In a recent appearance with Pat Robertson on The 700 Club, Rodriguez said, “We are two syllables—‘His’ ‘panic.’ We are His, capital ‘H.’ We may very well be God’s ‘panic’ to the kingdom of darkness in the name of Jesus in America…. At the end of the day the Hispanic electorate may be the salvation of the conservative movement and the Christian Church in America.” An article by Lisa Miller in the Washington Post, “Why Are Evangelicals Supporting Immigration Reform?” quoted Rodriguez explaining that, in convincing the leadership of Focus on the Family to sign a pro-immigration-reform statement, “I spoke about the need. I talked about the possibility of deporting the very salvation of the evangelical community in the twenty-first century.”

Third, Rodriguez argues that support for Hispanic immigration will help Hispanic evangelical and Pentecostal churches gain converts from Catholicism. For example, The Washington Post’s Miller wrote that Evangelicals had not worked directly with Catholics in forming a statement on the need for immigration reform “because competition for Hispanic souls in America is so fierce,” adding that Rodriguez told her, “We call it strategic recruitment.”

Samuel Rodriguez is a prominent figure in Hispanic Christianity, in the debate over immigration reform, and in the Religious Right. Given his central role in Mitt Romney’s abysmal efforts to secure important Hispanic support it is time that he faces careful scrutiny in religious and political circles. While Rodriguez’s success in encouraging right-wing voters and politicians to consider immigration reform is on some level promising it should not be interpreted as representative of a broader progressive or moderate policy agenda and it should not be misconstrued as evidence of a commitment to religious pluralism. In fact, this may be the most distressing part of Rodriguez’s rising profile. By linking the cause of Hispanic rights to the denigration of Muslims he has exchanged one form of prejudice for another, and done so in explicitly Christian terms. While blending social justice for Hispanics with a type of religious supremacism has helped Rodriguez advance his standing among conservatives it is a recipe for further decay of Christian social witness and continued Republican ineptitude among the vast majority of Hispanics in America.

Gerson Blinks, Brooks Doesn't

I have been laying low about the whole 47% video, very much content to see big-time center-right thinkers like David Brooks lay bare the reality of the Romney-Ryan ticket’s adoption of the worst elements of conservative/libertarian social policy. Now, however, I am breaking my silence because another significant center-right figure, Michael Gerson, has written a column, “Ideology without promise”, for the Washington Post that I think misses the crucial point. While Gerson does go to great lengths to distance himself from the spirit of Romney’s 47% comments, and to suggest alternative rhetoric to replace it, he completely misunderstands the policy reality that the GOP’s Romney-Ryan ticket represents. He asks the right central question: Does the video reflect “Romney’s view of the nature of our social crisis?” but the muddled answer he gives is profoundly mistaken and very much at odds with David Brooks’ (correct) view. Instead of weighing the policy proposals, vice presidential selection and views of wealthy donors to the campaign—all things that would reasonably suggest whether or not the video is “Romney’s view”—Gerson falls back on a familiar center-right dodge. He claims without evidence that Republican politicians, chiefly Romney, are merely “mouth[ing] libertarian nonsense”, “parroting” Randian concepts and playing to “stereotypes” of conservative Republican ideology. Gerson suggests that Romney policies will be something different all together than the abundant rhetoric flowing from Romney, Ryan and GOP leaders. This hopeful view fits Gerson’s understanding that there are only a “few libertarians” in the GOP who actually believe this stuff, but Republican politicians and operatives have mistakenly turned to that rhetoric rather than the language of “Burkean conservativsm” and the “Catholic tradition of subsidiarity” to explain their policies and vision. Instead of seeing the GOP and the Romney-Ryan ticket as a reflection of the radical libertarian policies of the Tea Party movement Gerson believes that “Given Romney’s background, record and faith, I don’t believe that he” is one of the “few libertarians” in the GOP.

Make no mistake, Michael and I would agree that if libertarian policies were the true nature of the Romney-Ryan ticket then it would be awful for the country. He rightly and eloquently says these views offer “No sympathy for our fellow citizens. No insight into our social challenge. No hope of change…relentless reductionism… Social problems…reduced to personal vices. Politics …reduced to class warfare on behalf of the upper class.” Amen, I say. But where Gerson and I disagree is with his faith-based notion that Romney-Ryan do not actually share those views but are just speaking as if they do. It is striking to me that Gerson offers no concrete policy proposals from Romney-Ryan that show that they will govern in accordance with “Burkean conservatism” or “Catholic subsidiarity” rather than “ideology pitting the 'makers' against the 'takers'”. In the absence of facts and policies to buttress Gerson's faith I will continue to believe the words of David Brooks:

The Republican Party, and apparently Mitt Romney, too, has shifted over toward a much more hyperindividualistic and atomistic social view…[and] doesn't have a basic commitment to provide a safety net for those who suffer for no fault of their own.

On Three Marks--Tooley, Hatfield and Malan

When I was in college in the 1980s one of the evangelical leaders who most shaped was a man by the name of Mark Malan. Mark, a leader in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, was as committed an evangelical Christian as I have ever known. One of the stories I heard about Mark was that in his frustration over national politics in America in the 1970s and 1980s he had taken to casting his vote for president by writing in the name Mark Hatfield, a legendary Senator from Oregon and an evangelical of international significance. I mention Hatfield because, as I said here a while back, I will be attending a conference on September 14 at Georgetown University very much in the spirit of the great Hatfield. The gathering, entitled “Evangelicals for Peace: A Summit on Christian Moral Responsibility in the 21^st Century”, interested me because it was being planned in part by the group “Evangelicals for Peace”. This new organization is one I came to learn about through Aaron Taylor. When he told me the reasons for the event and the people who were planning to come I knew I had to be there. Now, as the conference draws near, the planners and participants of the event are the subject of the kind of rhetorical hit-job that has become so sadly common on the Religious Right. Mark Tooley, President of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), has determined the real reasons for this event and published them under the headline “Evangelical Left Plots D.C. Pacifist Summit”. Here are the key claims Tooley makes against our gathering:

1. Tooley says we are “Determined to neutralize historically pro-national security evangelicals.”

2. He says we believe “evangelicals join most Americans in being too enthusiastic about defending the country rather than offering the preferred mournful apologies.”

3. He thinks the conference is “slanted towards voices prone to portraying America as the chief threat to peace in the world.”

4. He intuits that the conference will “primarily be a gabfest uninterested in deep moral reflection and instead seeking the rhetorical satisfaction of denouncing violence and its ostensibly wicked advocates.”

5. He determined that “the chief direction seems to be the attempted emasculation of evangelical support for a just and decent world that desperately requires American strategic strength.”

I want to thank Mark for his extraordinary ability to read code words and translate them into their actual meaning. I had no idea that these were the motives behind the conference, especially because the main description of the event says the following:

On Friday, September 14th a group of evangelical scholars, journalists, activists, and pastors are convening for the first ever Evangelicals for Peace summit. The stated goals of the summit are:

• To build and birth a network of evangelical scholars and activists committed to the pursuit of a Biblical, comprehensive, and proactive peace

• To reduce violence, work toward human flourishing, and prevent war

• To mobilize and educate a new generation of evangelicals committed to the pursuit of peace

• To convene a gathering of non-profit and pastoral leaders who are actively working for peace with justice throughout the world

• To give a special focus on peace as it relates to U.S. foreign policy

As I was trying to understand the disconnect between Mark’s translation of those goals into the language of America’s culture wars and scorched earth political discourse I came across a fascinating post that gave excellent historical background on the IRD and Tooley’s style of “analysis”. David Swartz, Professor of History at Asbury University, notes that Tooley’s opinions reflect the institutional bias of the IRD and its tactics of simplistic demonizing those it disagrees with. He offers this excerpt from his forthcoming book:

In 1983 conservative activists repeatedly disrupted a conference on peacemaking at Fuller Theological Seminary. During a workshop on Central America, one protester shouted his objection to evangelical accommodation with Communist totalitarianism until delegates ushered him out of the room. Another protester berated the 1,700 delegates from a balcony during a plenary session. When the disturbance brought the proceedings to a halt, the audience sang the hymn “Amazing Grace” to drown him out. A display table manned by the Institute for Religion and Democracy urged delegates to sign a “research report” accusing Senator Mark Hatfield and Sojourners’ Jim Wallis of advocating Soviet-style communism. These scenes and what they represented—an increasingly vocal and activist right-wing coalition of Christians—appalled progressive evangelicals.

When I first read Mark Tooley’s post I admit it discouraged me, but as I read this broader narrative in which the IRD once spoke of Mark Hatfield as “advocating Soviet-style communism” I am encouraged. If the IRD spoke of Mark in that way, and they speak of this gathering in an equally distorted way, then Evangelicals for Peace is in good company. My simple goal is to gather with other followers of the One who blessed peacemakers and to pray for a more faithful witness to Him.  

David French and the Christian Partisan

David French recently wrote a refreshingly candid piece explaining his journey to being an unapologetic Christian culture warrior. It is a thoughtful first person narrative and together with a recent set of reflections by his fellow Patheos blogger, Timothy Dalrymple, is representative of the kind of discourse left-leaning Christians like myself need to consider and engage with. French’s argument in his “Open Letter to Young, ‘Post-Partisan’ Evangelicals” is not addressed to me—I am neither young, easily defined as Evangelical (although I consider myself evangelical) or post-partisan in the sense French seems to have in mind--but I am actively engaged in the debates French writes about and I am a more than casual participant in the cultural moment that French unfortunately insists on viewing as a culture war. In this work I have the occasion to read French and other self-described Christian conservatives and I think I could perhaps offer him a richer explanation, based on a different example of French’s own work, for why many young evangelicals, and many other folk of different ages and beliefs, are tempted to describe themselves as post-partisan.

When I am tempted to use the term post-partisan, and often when I encounter people using the term, it is in reference to a frustration with a style of partisan argument that so completely distorts its opposition’s views and so cartoonishly portrays the moral and political choices people must make that I want to wad up the paper or punch the computer screen. The frustration turns to spiritual sadness when these types of partisan arguments are made by people of Christian faith who are therefore bearing witness to a watching world. Partisans of both the left and the right are capable of these distortions, as my open letter to Jim Wallis demonstrates. It is at moments like that when I am tempted to throw up my hands, yield the debate to the warriors and attempt to fashion myself a neutral, “Jesus only” observer and commenter. French is correct that such a stance is not wise or even really possible, but he is sadly the source of such frustration in ways that I hope he will consider and rethink. Allow me to explain.

In a June 13 column for Lifenews French unwittingly displays precisely the kind of Christian partisanship that leads people to wonder if the culture warrior mentality is  beneficial to the Church’s witness to the public truth of the gospel. In his article “Why do ‘Social Justice’ Christians Ignore Pro-Life Issues?” French engages in three culture warrior practices that give partisanship a bad name:

Culture Warrior Practice #1: Fail to engage real people and their real arguments and instead rely on your own worst-case descriptions to describe the entirety of the perspective you want to defeat. Here is the clearest example of this in French’s article:

Again and again I see young social justice-focused evangelicals abandoning any effective voice for the unborn for the sake of an ephemeral, culturally-fashionable concept that as a practical matter means little more than advocating a utopian ideal through a grab-bag of banal, functionally socialist policies. Moreover, the embrace of social justice often drives them functionally into the arms of a political party and political movements that are dedicated to protecting and even subsidizing the “right” to kill children on a vast, industrial scale.

If he sees examples of this way of thinking among young evangelicals “again and again” then it should have been easy to link to even one example of these views.

Culture Warrior Practice #2: Present current debates in a way that is beneficial to “your side” but distorted to such a degree as to raise questions about your commitment to truthful discourse. As even casual observers know, the issue of the environment is one that drives many Christians, particularly young evangelicals, away from conservative political values. It makes sense, then, that French would address the issue. But look at how he does it:

Let’s take the environment. Social justice Christians just adore the environment. (Don’t we all?) They want us to be good stewards of creation (who can disagree with that?) and as a result decry dependence on fossil fuels and tend to embrace the full agenda of the environmentalist Left — carbon taxes, cap and trade, emissions caps, etc. etc. etc… in exchange for adopting fashionable leftist policies that at worst actually harm the people they’re trying to help and at best represent debatably-effective solutions to complex and intractable problems, the social justice Christian Left has thrown under the bus the most vulnerable citizens of this (or any) culture — unborn children.

What is interesting about this is that the leading evangelical environmental group espousing the kinds of policies French finds wanting—the Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN)—consistently uses pro-life arguments to buttress their policy descriptions. Far from “throwing under the bus” unborn children (what a terrible image to place on another’s perspective), the EEN has made a point of marshalling its energies around environmental issues that damage the unborn. This is not a convenient fact for French, but it is a major one and it has been the subject of intense debate within the evangelical community (Christianity Today even devoted a special feature to the EEN’s actions so it is not an obscure debate). Perhaps French is completely unaware of this debate, but I find that hard to believe. It seems more likely that instead of addressing the pro-life merits of the EEN and their explicit claim to being completely pro-life, he has chosen to distort evangelical environmentalists as those who silence the pro-life cause. This fits neatly with his vision of himself as a culture warrior for the unborn, but at the cost of any recognition of the complex context of the debate between leading evangelical environmentalists and the broader pro-life community

Culture Warrior Practice #3: Finish your article by reducing your opponents to a label they reject and then claim to have discerned the true intentions and motivations of anyone who fits your simplistic description. Here is French’s concluding paragraph:

So, please, let’s drop the false moral pretense of “social justice.” You’re not fooling anyone. You’re a leftist seeking leftist solutions to known cultural problems, and in so doing you’ve elected to side with those who seek the legal right to intentionally kill children. Oh, you may claim to be pro life even as you work diligently to maintain and increase the power of those individuals and institutions that advance and protect our abortion regime, but you’ve made your choice in the real world.

That probably speaks for itself, but I would be remiss if I did not point out that the greatest voice for the unborn in French’s and my generation, John Paul II of blessed memory, regularly and consistently gave voice to the specific policy prescriptions on the environment and the war in Iraq that French equates with the social justice/leftist position. Did John Paul, of all people, really “maintain and increase the power of those individuals and institutions that advance and protect our abortion regime”? Is it any wonder that young evangelicals wonder about the merits of Christian partisanship when they see it practiced in a way that reduces moral and spiritual giants like John Paul II to the moral equivalent of abortion apologists?

Anti-Abortion Democrats and Anti-War Republicans---Worth a Try

Jimmy Carter is out voicing support for efforts to change the Democratic Party's Platform on abortion. These efforts have been spearheaded by the outstanding organization Democrats for Life of America (DFLA). Given the harsh divides represented by slogans like "War on Women" and "War on Religion" we need voices like DFLA that point to the deeper moral imagination of what Ron Sider used to call "completely pro-life" voices in the Christian community. Having been an anti-war Republican in the past, and an anti-abortion on demand Democrat in the present, I am used to feeling like an alien presence in the culture war foxholes our political discourse invites us to enter. I am glad to see voices like DFLA pushing for a big-tent in the Democratic Party on abortion just like I welcome the efforts of American Conservative magazine to push the envelope on national security questions in the Republican Party.

Why are the Vatican and Elizabeth Warren Blaming the Banks? Ask Gramm and Schumer

Just a couple weeks ago I posted this quote from Elizabeth Warren on my facebook page: "The people on Wall Street broke this country, and they did it one lousy mortgage at a time. It happened more than three years ago, and there has been no real accountability, and there has been no real effort to fix it.” I was challenged by a friend who claimed that the banking system should not be singled out for the economic collapse. I explained that I agreed there were multiple causes, but that part of the reason I appreciate Warren’s language is that the bank’s role in this has been downplayed, and in fact the bank’s have managed to right their ship with massive taxpayer funding and are now back making enormous profit. In light of all that, I support Warren’s focus on the banks.

I thought of that exchange when I read this portion of the Vatican’s new statement on the global financial crisis that I blogged about last night:

In recent decades, it was the banks that extended credit, which generated money, which in turn sought a further expansion of credit. In this way, the economic system was driven towards an inflationary spiral that inevitably encountered a limit in the risk that credit institutions could accept. They faced the ultimate danger of bankruptcy, with negative consequences for the entire economic and financial system…A liberalist approach, unsympathetic towards public intervention in the markets, chose to allow an important international financial institution to fall into bankruptcy, on the assumption that this would contain the crisis and its effects. Unfortunately, this spawned a widespread lack of confidence and a sudden change in attitudes. Various public interventions of enormous scope (more than 20% of gross national product) were urgently requested in order to stem the negative effects that could have overwhelmed the entire international financial system.

The consequences for the real economy, what with grave difficulties in some sectors – first of all, construction – and wide distribution of unfavourable forecasts, have generated a negative trend in production and international trade with very serious repercussions for employment as well as other effects that have probably not yet had their full impact. The costs are extremely onerous for millions in the developed countries, but also and above all for billions in the developing ones.

The Vatican’s analysis, rooted in over a century of Catholic Social Teaching, was released by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace at a press conference given by the Council’s President, Cardinal Peter Turkson, and its Secretary Bishop Mario Toso.

Before people dismiss Warren and Cardinal Turkson as simplistic, consider the way in which two of America’s leading politicians over the last 20 years, one a Republican and one a Democrat, have operated with regards to banks and the broader financial sector.

First the Republican, former Senator Phil Gramm of Texas:

Back in 1950 in Columbus, Ga., a young nurse working double shifts to support her three children and disabled husband managed to buy a modest bungalow on a street called Dogwood Avenue.

Phil Gramm, the former United States senator, often told that story of how his mother acquired his childhood home. Considered something of a risk, she took out a mortgage with relatively high interest rates that he likened to today’s subprime loans.

A fierce opponent of government intervention in the marketplace, Mr. Gramm, a Republican from Texas, recalled the episode during a 2001 Senate debate over a measure to curb predatory lending. What some view as exploitive, he argued, others see as a gift.

“Some people look at subprime lending and see evil. I look at subprime lending and I see the American dream in action,” he said. “My mother lived it as a result of a finance company making a mortgage loan that a bank would not make.”

On Capitol Hill, Mr. Gramm became the most effective proponent of deregulation in a generation, by dint of his expertise (a Ph.D in economics), free-market ideology, perch on the Senate banking committee and force of personality (a writer in Texas once called him “a snapping turtle”). And in one remarkable stretch from 1999 to 2001, he pushed laws and promoted policies that he says unshackled businesses from needless restraints but his critics charge significantly contributed to the financial crisis that has rattled the nation.

Second, Senator Charles Schumer, New York:

As New York’s senior senator, Schumer has represented lower Manhattan, the Mount Olympus of the nation’s finance sector, since 1999, and has had a say in every major piece of legislation affecting the industry over the past decade, say Senate sources.

Contributions from securities and investment firms to the DSCC nearly tripled during Schumer’s tenure as chairman.

Securities and investment firms gave $5.7 million to the DSCC when it was headed by former Sen. Jon Corzine (D-N.J.) in the 2004 election cycle.

These firms gave nearly $15 million last cycle under Schumer’s watch. In 2007 and 2008, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Fortress Investment Group and Citigroup ranked among the DSCC’s top 20 donors, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Three of those firms, Goldman, JPMorgan and Citigroup, have accepted TARP funds. (From The Hill.)

Over the course of his career, Schumer has raised half a million dollars from Goldman Sachs – and nearly as much from Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase. Between 1989 and 2010, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Schumer took in nearly $9 million from the entire securities and investment industry, a haul that helped him become one of the most powerful politicians in America, a deep-pocketed kingmaker with unrivalled connections among the wealthiest players on Wall Street.

The seeming contradiction between Schumer’s public posture and his closed-door fundraising efforts had gone little-noticed by the general public before the financial crisis. But when the securities and investment industry was thrust into chaos – and the spotlight – in 2008, Schumer’s Wall Street ties suddenly became a political liability.

After all, Schumer’s biggest donors were the very folks who President Obama would later, in response to public anger, deem “fat cat bankers.” In the years leading up to the crisis, Schumer had been pushed hard to deregulate the financial industry; as the New York Times documented in the wake of the crisis, he had repeatedly protected the industry from oversight and helped companies avoid billions of dollars in taxes and fees. Schumer didn’t turn his back on his allies. He was one of the major drivers behind passage of the $700 billion bank bailout approved by Congress in the midst of the crisis. The bailout, which spawned the conservative Tea Party movement and was hugely unpopular with the left, was a literal lifesaver for the financial services industry. (CBS News story)

The powerful interests that Warren and the Vatican rail against are reflected in the senatorial careers of Gramm and Schumer. The picture of the Senate under a cozy bipartisan agreement to favor the financial sector is confirmed by one of the few Senators honest enough to confront it, Jim Webb the Virginia Democrat.

Webb has pushed for a onetime windfall profits tax on Wall Street's record bonuses..."I couldn't even get a vote," Webb says. "And it wasn't because of the Republicans. I mean they obviously weren't going to vote for it. But I got so much froth from Democrats saying that any vote like that was going to screw up fundraising. People look up say, what's the difference between these two parties? Neither of them is really going to take on Wall Street. If they don't have the guts to take them on, and they've got all these other programs that exclude me, well to hell with them. I'm going to vote for the other people who can at least satisfy me on other issues, like abortion. Screw you guys. I understand that mindset." (Real Clear Politics)

Colson and other conservatives on Perry/Jeffress issues

While I wish conservatives had raised the alarm over Rick Perry's manipulation of religious identity earlier, it is refreshing and notable to see that alarm being raised now. These commentators recognize that Perry's campaign is not "more of the same" and that criticism of it is not simply "secular paranoia", but can be due to profound concerns about the constitutional order and the integrity of the Christian community. 

Charles Colson

I want to say this to every Christian listening to my voice: Let’s stop criticizing candidates for their religious convictions.

And let me make a few things, as my former boss used to say, perfectly clear.

First, there is no religious test for public office. If you don’t believe me, check out the Constitution of the United States, Article VI, Paragraph 3. The public statements of some evangelicals that they wouldn’t vote for Romney because of his Mormonism would cause the Founding Fathers to spin in their graves.

Second, as voters we are to choose the most competent people to be God’s magistrates to do justice, restrain evil and preserve order. That’s what the Bible calls for. And in our country, where we have the precious liberty of choosing our leaders, we are responsible for picking competent men and women. …To sum up, I’m with Luther, who reportedly said that he would rather be governed by a competent Turk than an incompetent Christian... Come on: Stop talking about the candidates’ religion. It’s distracting and it marginalizes Christianity in the public debate. Let’s continue instead to work to advance the Kingdom of God and pick, to the best of our ability, a candidate of competence and sound character who will preserve order and promote justice in our land.

 Douglas Baker:

When Robert Jeffress endorsed a presidential candidate on the grounds of the candidate's faith and theology, he departed from the intent of the Founders and from the essence of the Baptist tradition and its experience of religious persecution…Madison did not mean to remove every vestige of faith from the public square. Rather, he intended for the diffusion of power among political leaders to prevent "the establishment of a national religion that could breed spiritual coercion and hypocrisy."

Timothy Dalrymple

I blame the Rick Perry campaign.  If you believe that they had no idea what Dr Jeffress intended to say, then you must not follow politics much.  This was calculated, and executed as intended.  Whether Perry himself knew what was coming, of course I cannot say.  But you can be confident his campaign knew.  With their support in free-fall, and anxious to reestablish themselves as the Romney-Alternative for evangelicals, they used a pastor proxy to say that Mitt’s a “cult” member and that no Christian, given a good Christian alternative candidate, should vote for him.  You can also be sure that the Perry campaign is, even as we speak, speaking with evangelical luminaries and trying to line up their support and keep the Mormonism critique going.  They want Perry to be The Evangelical Candidate, and they’re doing so by posing themselves over against The Mormon Candidate.

Make no mistake.  ”Cult” is an explosive term, and they knew what they were doing.  Some have tried to walk that language back and say that Mormonism is a “cult” in the theological but not sociological sense.  That’s nonsense.  James Emery White, for instance, defines a “cult” as “a religious group that denies the biblical nature of God, the full divinity of Jesus Christ, and that we are only saved through His atoning death on the cross through grace.”  By that definition, anything other than Christianity, and arguably anything other than Protestant evangelicalism, is a cult.  Richard Land argues that “cult” has a specialized sense in Baptist circles, referring to sects that claim to be Christian but are not Christian.  Yet the point is: the Perry/Jeffress camp were not addressing the Southern Baptist Convention.  They knew full well that the American people associate “cult” with poisoned Koolaid and the Branch Davidians and Charles Manson.  The implication is that Mitt Romney is a cult member, and we all know cultists are unstable, weird, irrational and subject to control.

This, in my view, was a shameful slander of a good man on the basis of his religious beliefs, and a shameful manipulation of religious language and religious sentiments for the advancement of a political campaign.  It was divisive, destructive, and misleading.  I’m sorry that it was self-proclaimed evangelicals who did this.  There was nothing gracious about it.  It harmed the witness of the church, not because the world hates it when we “speak the truth boldly” but because it showed evangelicals with partisan political commitments stooping to personal religious attacks in order to help their guy.

I warned in an earlier post about a ”subtle blurring of the lines between the church and the state amongst Perry and his devotees” — and took a lot of grief for it — but this is what I was talking about.  When one candidate becomes The Evangelical Candidate, then the witness of the evangelical church becomes tied, for better or worse, to the actions of that candidate.  That is not in the interest of the kingdom of God.  Just as Romney does not present himself as a representative of Mormonism, Perry should not present himself as a representative of Evangelicalism.  But he’s doing so in order to attract the support, votes and money of evangelical conservatives.

From one Republican to Another

A Plea From the GOP to the GOP

When I speak to friends and family about my concerns about the radicalization of the Republican Party I am often met with skepticism by moderate/centrist folk who imply that I am naïve about how the real nature of politics as practiced by everyone and outright hostility by conservatives who think that I am a partisan hack just trying to score points. While I admit to idealism, I do not think I am naïve and I have written about liberal political assaults in the past (part of the reason I supported Obama over Clinton in primary was lasting disgust over the Clinton’s own role in “the politics of personal destruction”). But it is partly that experience in politics that causes me to see genuine changes in political discourse—new lines being crossed, new tactics being deployed. So, for instance, I have written about how in the 1980s the Democratic Party and liberal interest groups injected something new and destructive into our politics when they “borked” Robert Bork’s nomination to the Supreme Court. And while I am now an Obama supporter, I have in the past supported Republicans, having twice voted for George W. Bush (one of the few Americans who liked his father less than him). My pro-life beliefs are strong and my revulsion at John Edwards’ character/demagoguery way before his sex scandal kept me voting for Bush even in 2004. I know many doubt it, but I am deep at heart a Lincoln Republican.

But if you do think that I am too naïve or biased, I have a new source for you to consider when thinking about whether or not the Republican Party of today is substantively different from politics of recent times. This man is neither naïve—he was a political operative for nearly thirty years and has scalding things to say about the Democratic Party—nor Democratic—he worked for the GOP for years and maintains serious reservations about Obama. So when Mike Lofgren writes about the uniqueness of the current Republican Party, he deserves a hearing. His article “Goobye to All That” is making waves and for good reason. The story of his decision to give up on the GOP deserves consideration from people of all political stripes. Here is a taste:

both parties are not rotten in quite the same way. The Democrats have their share of machine politicians, careerists, corporate bagmen, egomaniacs and kooks. Nothing, however, quite matches the modern GOP…It is not clear to me how many GOP officeholders believe this reactionary and paranoid claptrap. I would bet that most do not. But they cynically feed the worst instincts of their fearful and angry low-information political base with a nod and a wink. During the disgraceful circus of the "birther" issue, Republican politicians subtly stoked the fires of paranoia by being suggestively equivocal - "I take the president at his word" - while never unambiguously slapping down the myth. John Huntsman was the first major GOP figure forthrightly to refute the birther calumny - albeit after release of the birth certificate.

American Conservative Editor on Perry/ Republican Debate

 I missed the debate tonight, but had a chance to read Twitter, where I follow the always thoughtful (even when I disagree!) Daniel McCarthy. His tweets bring to mind a comment I received recently on the piece I did on Perry in which the reader said assumed I was a “leftist” based on my article. Well, Daniel McCarthy is no leftist, that’s for sure. He is an editor at American Conservative, for crying out loud, and here is what he tweeted while watching the debate. It is a sharp reminder that disillusionment with the Republican Party’s embrace of militarism and anti intellectualism can be a result of conservative reflection not merely partisan passion. And it is a lot of fun to read!!

Tweet #1: Vote Newt off the island. He's not there to debate, he's there to sell books.

Tweet #2: They're playing "Bitter Sweet Symphony" at the debate? Backhanded? Or just schmalz?

Tweet #3: Good for Huntsman saying bring the troops home.

Tweet #6: Rick Perry loves Gitmo and can't pronounce "Keynesian." He's also dodging the interventionism question with abstractions.

Tweet #7: Good question for Bachmann on support for Bush doctrine. She's dodging too. No surprise: she presents suriprsingly well, but she's a Bushie.

Tweet #8: What does Bachmann think was America's national interest in Iraq?

Tweet #9: Santorum is not pro-life, he's pro-war.

Tweet #10: Nation-building is Santorum favorite issue.

Tweet # 11 (retweeting Ryan Lizza): Bizarre how isolationism now means "pulling troops out."

Tweet #12: Next question for the GOP candidates should be how old is the earth.

Tweet #13: I'm genuinely ignorant: nitrous oxide -- laughing gas -- is a major pollutant? If so, I've learned from Perry. Not many people can say that.

Tweet #14: I have indeed learned something about nitrous oxide. The evening is not a complete waste.

Tweet #15: Perry gets applause for his executions. He's never struggled with the idea that he's probably executed innocent people.

Tweet #17: This is the part of the debate where Ron Paul is put down the memory hole.

Tweet #18: That was a depressing two hours.

Tweet #19: It's one thing to support the death penalty. To applaud it -- especially Perry's abundant use of it -- is sick.

Tweet #20: This was a different Ron Paul from 2008 -- still uncompromising, but more eager to take on the other candidates. He knows Perry's a horror.

Tweet #21: (retweeting @PatriotsUSA )I wonder if abortion-rights supporters would actually cheer for abortion. We'll find out in 2016 Dem debates.


Tweet #22: Rick Perry, and those who applaud him, should read George Orwell