Thanks to Robert Cunningham for sending me the link to Public Theology that called my attention to an article that was in Tuesday’s Washington Post.  Howell Raines, the former executive editor of the New York Times, had some very interesting things to say about the PR war going on to win votes to elect a President.  Here’s what he had to say about the war to win Southern Baptist hearts and minds:

The Republicans’ new cultural populism has created an odd couple of a different sort.  In their heart of heart, the party’s leadership in Washington and the conservative think tanks disdain the social rigidity and common tastes of the party’s NASCAR wing.  They worry a bit that George W. Bush seems to have a genuine liking for the slumming required of a self-created cultural populist.  But GOP strategists and think-tankers are able to stifle these concerns, because there’s been no one since Ronald Reagan so good at getting votes from Southern Baptists trying to raise families on 40 grand a year.

Raines has helped me see two things:  1) I now know how to define “family values” – it’s a Southern Baptist trying to raise a family on 40 grand a year.  2)  I also discovered how I got so out-of-step with the Southern Baptist worldview.  I’ve never been to a NASCAR race. 

The last time I felt so out-of-place was when I was informed that over 60% of Americans watch professional wrestling at least once a week.

Thanks to Baptists Today for providing a link to an article in today's Casper, Wyoming Star Tribune.  It looks like Wyoming is cracking down on schools that provide fake credentials to people looking for a shortcut to the benefits of an education.  Appropriately, the law only applies to secular degrees and not to religious or theological degrees.  The First Amendment protects the right of all religions to grant worthless diplomas.

There were a number of people who started seminary with me who were merely looking for credentials and a shortcut to a comfortable pastorate.  Few of them made it through the degree program in those days.  Some did find their way to a pastorate and they were often seen manning the buses that led to the Fundamentalist takeover of the SBC. 

In the end, they proved their point.  They didn't need an education to pastor a Southern Baptist church.  All they needed to know is in the footnotes of the Scoffield Reference Bible and the Criswell Study Bible.  It's too bad that they decided to turn six seminaries, once fine institutions of higher learning, into indoctrination centers and diploma mills to prove their point.

I'm confused.  Today's Washington Times says "white evangelicals" are supposed to be flocking to the GOP.  

Ethics Daily has posted a RNS news story about the Federal Bureau of Prisons taking steps to prevent "religious extremism."   The story says "more than a dozen changes" have been made "in its selection and supervision of Muslim religious services."  Apparently the Justice Department's office of the Inspector General advocated the changes "to increase security and prevent the potential spread of anti-American ideology."

I am absolutely amazed that the Justice Department has discovered that it has the authority to determine whether certain Islamic beliefs and convictions are "anti-American."  Federal prisons have been breeding grounds for a Neo-Nazi, White Supremecist, Christian Identity ideology for decades and the Justice Department never claimed the authority to determine whether their beliefs and convictions are "anti-American" -- even after "Christian" ideologues killed 168 people blowing up the federal building in Oklahoma City.

The Justice Department's actions make perfect sense if you believe that America is a "Christian Nation" and that the First Amendment applies only to "Christian" sects.  How long will it be before the Justice Department decides that church-state separationists are a "potential" threat to national security because we spread an "anti-American ideology" about the First Amendment guaranteeing freedom of religion to everyone -- to people of all faiths and to people of no faith?

Kudos to Dr. Welton Gaddy and the Interfaith Alliance for initiating dialogue with Presidential candidates about eliminating the faith-based office.  They are doing our country and our constitution a great service by calling for a return to a government that is benevolently neutral toward religion.

There is evidence that the faith-based office in Oklahoma began with the intention of serving majoritarian faith groups while neglecting those of minority faiths.  The Oklahoma office has been plagued with bad advice and muddled thinking from the beginning.  The federal office is equally as ill-advised.

The truth is, faith-based offices are little more than inefficient, paper pushing bureaucracies siphoning away resources that used to go directly to aid the poor (in Oklahoma funding came from Temporary Assistance to Needy Families [TANF] funds).  Their chief accomplishment is to drive a bulldozer through the wall separating church and state.

First the Fundamentalists lied and said they weren't trying to create a creed.  Then they lied and said that the 2000 BF&M was a confession, not a creed.  Then they lied and said that career missionaries would not have to sign the new creed.  Then they said adoption of the 2000 BF&M would have no effect on the local church.  Now denominational agencies are refusing to work with churches that refuse to adopt the creed.

In September 2000 Mainstream Baptists in Oklahoma organized forums to warn Oklahoma Baptists about the 2000 BF&M.  At those forums, we warned Baptists that the 2000 BF&M was the mechanism by which Fundamentalists intended to takeover their churches.  Affirming their creed is like handing the keys to your church over to Paige Patterson and Jerry Falwell.  Pious, apolitical moderates in the crowd routinely belittled the idea that there was any way the 2000 BF&M could be imposed on them and their churches. 

Where are those pious, apolitical moderates now? 

During their debate Falwell said, “Jim Wallis likes to go under the evangelical flag, but he’s about as evangelical as an oak tree.” Amidst the debate Wallis responded with, “Jerry, you’re an ideological name caller.”  After the debate Wallis spoke with Tony Campolo and they agreed that “the next time either of us is in a debate with Falwell, we will name him for what he really is, a fundamentalist who has stolen the word evangelical.”

1. War is contrary to the will of God.  While the use of violent force may, at times, be a necessity of last resort, Christ pronounces his blessing on the peacemakers.  We look for political leaders who will make peace with justice a top priority and who will actively seek nonviolent solutions to conflict.

Sometimes you have to have the wisdom of Solomon and the mind of an attorney to sort through church-state legislation.  Dealing with the Workplace Religious Freedom Act (WRFA) is one of those issues.  The organizations I generally trust for guidance on such matters are divided.  Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) are against the act.  The Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs (BJC) and The Interfaith Alliance (TIA) are in favor of the act.

WRFA would change Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to require that employers comply with the religious needs of their workers unless the accommodation would cause "significant difficulty or expense."  AU and the ACLU think WRFA, in its current form, could undermine civil rights laws and employer nondiscrimination policies and harm the health and safety of people seeking medical care or other needed services.  They propose amending the bill to limit the scope of its provisions to make accommodation only for religiously prescribed dress, grooming and time off.  Their concern is that an "overly broad" interpretation of religious accommodation could be used to justify religiously motivated harassment of homosexuals at the workplace, allow police officers to leave abortion clinics unguarded, and permit medical personnel to refuse to perform medically necessary reproductive health care.

BJC and TIA, along with a broad and diverse coalition of more than forty religious groups, do not believe that the bill permits any broader interpretation on those specific issues than does current legislation and legal precedent.  They believe the legislation is needed, at a time of increasing religious diversity, to deal with the increasing indifference of some employers to the vital importance of faith in the lives of their employees.  Their concern is that limiting the scope of religious accommodation would make civil liberties divisible and allow the government to pick and choose the level of protection it accords a fundamental right based on whether society or the government viewed the content of the belief with favor or disfavor.

I'm still scratching my head on this one. 

Since the SBC approved the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message (BF&M) that elevated the Bible above Jesus  and turned a deaf ear to the Holy Spirit, it has become increasingly apparent that the SBC is proclaiming a new gospel.

In essence, the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20) has been reinterpreted to read, "And Jesus came and said to them, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to you.  Go therefore and make converts of all the nations, baptizing them on the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all the "biblical worldview" of the 2000 BF&M, and lo, the Holman Christian Standard Bible is with you always, even to the end of the age.'"

Didn't the apostle Paul say something about people who preach a different gospel being cursed?  (Galatians 1:8)

Ethics Daily is reporting that Barna Research has concluded that Mel Gibson's film "The Passion" had little impact on evangelism.  One third of all Americans have seen the film, but fewer than one half of one percent of those who viewed the film said they accepted Christ as a result of seeing the film.  Another one half of one percent said the movie influenced them to share their faith with others.

While it is worthwhile when even one person makes a decision for Christ and even one person begins to share their faith, the movie clearly failed as a tool for evangelism.  That failure certainly had nothing to do with the cinematography, the quality of the acting, the emotional impact of the story, or the historical realism of the subject being portrayed.  Perhaps the failure is due to the nature of the medium that delivered the message.

Our Lord commanded us to deliver the message in person -- not in film.  Passion plays have their place and films have an impact, but both are poor substitutes for living, breathing disciples of Jesus who are willing to embody the good news and able to share it in person.  Pictures may be worth a thousand words and motion pictures may be worth more still, but one disciple who will meet people face to face and show them the love of Jesus is best of all.

In his book The Great Unraveling, Paul Krugman lists some rules for interpreting news related to revolutionary powers.  They are:

 1)  Don't assume that policy proposals make sense in terms of their stated goals.  Revolutionary powers know what they want and make whatever argument advances their goal.  They have no compunction about lying or misrepresenting their goals.

3)  Don't assume that the usual rules of politics apply.  Revolutionary powers don't feel obligated to play by the rules.

4)  Expect a revolutionary power to respond to criticism by attacking.  They don't accept the right of others to criticize their actions.  Those who raise questions should expect a no-holds-barred counterattack.  Revolutionary powers always feel threatened.  Absolute security can only be guaranteed by neutralizing all opponents.

5)  Don't think that there's a limit to a revolutionary power's objectives.  As Kissinger said in the quote below, revolutionary powers are willing and eager to push their principles to their ultimate conclusion.

It's the last rule that made the deepest impression on me.  How many times have we deluded ourselves into believing that the Fundamentalists would moderate and start handling the institutions and agencies of the SBC with respect and begin to treat the people within them with dignity?  Krugman is right.  There's no limit to their objectives.