'Anglo Saxon'? [Updated]

Yes, it was racially provocative. The Mitt Romney campaign offered his "Anglo Saxon heritage" as the basis for a better foreign policy relationship with Great Britain.

Specifically, John Swaine of the London Daily Telegraph wrote:

In remarks that may prompt accusations of racial insensitivity, one suggested that Mr Romney was better placed to understand the depth of ties between the two countries than Mr Obama, whose father was from Africa.

“We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and he feels that the special relationship is special,” the adviser said of Mr Romney, adding: “The White House didn’t fully appreciate the shared history we have”.

Cornell Law School's Eduardo Peñalver, whose duties include a course on Catholic social thought and the law, responded derisively for the Catholic magazine Commonweal:

Shorter Mitt Romney advisor to the British press: He’s white ya’ll. He’s white ya’ll. He’s whitily white white white ya’ll.

As for Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, Irish Catholics, Scottish Presbyterians, African American Baptists, Jews and other citizens who aren't specifically Anglo Saxon, it may comfort some of us to know the reference is silly and outdated. Going back to the London Daily Telegraph, Tim Stanley writes:

There are two problems with the "Anglo-Saxon" bomb. First, the extent of the division between our nations is up for debate. Yes, Obama took the Churchill bust out of the Oval Office and hasn’t been super supportive during Britain’s spat with Argentina. But David Cameron’s last visit to the White House was a veritable love-in (“Get a room, guys”), and Obama’s popularity in the UK is undiminished. Many Brits love him because they see him as an antidote to the misdirected machismo of the Bush years. Few of us are keen to revive an alliance that led to the bloody mess of Iraq and Afghanistan.

More importantly, the adviser has a terrible way with words. The emphasis upon the “Anglo-Saxon” identity of the Atlantic alliance is out of date. Both countries are more multicultural than ever before, and both have forged alliances with countries that are decidedly un-Anglo-Saxon: the US is part of a trading bloc with Mexico and the UK is trapped in the engine room of the EU Titanic.

Update

Predictably, the Romney campaign is most obliquely denying the whole thing. Andrea Saul, Romney's press secretary said:

"It's not true. If anyone said that, they weren't reflecting the views of Governor Romney or anyone inside the campaign," she told CBSNews.com in an email. Saul did not comment on what specifically was not true.

The Daily Telegraph is standing by the story and "has not received a request from the Romney campaign to retract or correct the story." Although MoveOn.org would like Romney to apologize.

Update II

Romney has disavowed the staff claim. ABC News reported:

Team Romney distanced itself from the quote and, in an interview with NBC News' Brian Williams. Romney did some damage control as well: "I can tell you that we have a very special relationship between the United States and Great Britain. It goes back to our very beginnings-- cultural and-- and-- historical. But I also believe the president understands that. So I-- I don't agree with whoever that advisor might be."

'Hare-brained game of pretending' to believe Obama is a Muslim

Campbell University Divinity School professor Tony Cartledge writes of President Obama's visit to Indonesia:

Unfortunately, since Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim population, Obama-haters have used the event to play up their hare-brained game of pretending to believe the president is a secret Muslim (this article cites a number of examples). I never cease to be amazed that so many people are so gullible that they believe believe some of the hogwash they read or hear: a recent Pew Research Center poll reported that 18 percent of Americans believe President Obama -- who self-identifies as a Christian and who reiterated his Christian faith while speaking in Indonesia -- is a secret follower of Islam. That's up from 11 percent in March 2009.

Why confuse a mean-spirited conspiracy theory with something as illuminating as facts and a man's word?

Good grief.

Fundamentally, the voters determined health reform's fate

Nate Silver digs statistically down to the root of it.

He does explore how complex the decision was. Truly complex.

Even so, pull retiring Democratic members of Congress out of the mix. That done, as the chart at right illustrates, and the best predictor of their Sunday votes was "the percentage of the vote that Barack Obama received in each congressional district in 2008.

The voters decided this one, it seems.

Frank Page voted for a Faith-Based Slush Fund

Under the Bush administraion, the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives was a political program. Rather than abolish the entire experiment, the Obama administration took office bent on constructive civil reform. Which, when dealing with slush funds, must include establishing fiscal accountability. Something former Southern Baptist Convention President Frank Page voted against.

Bruce Prescott got the goods on Page from the a report on the White House Web site. The report shows Page voted against requiring "houses of worship that wish to receive direct federal social service funds to establish separate corporations as a necessary means for achieving church-state separation and protecting religious autonomy, while also urging states to reduce any unnecessary administrative costs and burdens associated with attaining this status."

Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State wrote of this matter:

One year after Obama announced his version of the faith-based office, civil rights and civil liberties groups such as mine are still fighting Bush-era battles over tax funding to religious groups that proselytize, job discrimination on religious grounds in public programs and lack of accountability. It's disheartening.

I am not a member of the president's 25-member Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, the body Obama formed one year ago to examine these issues. But I did serve on a task force offering the Council advice on a range of questions.

During our deliberations, I often found myself on the other side from conservative religious activists who resisted even the most benign and reasonable rules that would safeguard the rights of taxpayers and the disadvantaged as well as help preserve the constitutional separation of church and state.

. . .

Conservative religious representatives on the Council disagreed. They want sectarian groups to have access to plenty of government money with very little (if any) meaningful accountability. That's the status quo; they like it.

Resistance to accountability by Page and others like him could provoke a consensus around the view that the entire program is, if not flatly unconstitutional, then unwise.

Attacks on faith-based program reveal its flaws

No one should be surprised that President Obama's faith-based initiatives are drawing fire from liberals and conservatives.

After all, it is known that the program failed to increase churches' social services and some have advocated doing away with the program completely. Also, a broad coalition of organizations jointly said the Religious Freedom Restoration Act was meant to protect religious liberty not lead to discrimination.

So folks like Barry Lynn, head of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and former Southern Baptist Convention president Frank Page, still take issue with the program.

David Waters, who edits an online discussion about faith for the Post and Newsweek and blogs about religion, concludes that the faith-based initiative remains a "fundamentally flawed concept."

"The federal government and U.S. religious groups serve two different masters. The government serves taxpayers, religious groups serve God. When it comes to distributing and overseeing the use of federal tax dollars, government overrules God."

Churches and other faith-based groups that take government funding, should follow the rules, Waters said.

"If not, they can decide to help people the old-fashioned way -- because God calls them to, not because government pays them to."

Well said.

Today's graph: Presidential success from Eisenhower to Obama

Obama has the highest presidential success rate of any president since Congressional Quarterly began scoring presidential success rates in Congress.

Today's graph: Senate health care bill dollars and cents

Analyst Nate Silver runs the numbers and concludes that the outburst of progressive opposition is nuts. Read it here.

Obama promotes religious freedom in China

Before Obama left, questions were raised about what he would do about religious freedom in China. And they have been answered:

Religious freedom advocates are pleased following President Barak Obama's visit with Chinese President Hu Jintao, who spoke out about the need for religious freedom in China. President Obama also emphasized the importance of freedom of information in a question-and-answer session with college students in Shanghai.

Defense/hate-crimes bill signed

President Obama killed some costly defense projects and took the landmark civil rights step of extending federal hate crimes coverage to homosexuals when he signed the defense bill passed last week.

Notre Dame reappoints Fr. Jenkins [Addeneum]

The Notre Dame/Obama uproar helped marginalize the Catholic Right, polling data showed at the time. Yet failure of that broadly unsupported exercise in wedge politics has not chastened the right, which can be expected to greet without applause the Rev. John I. Jenkins reappointment Friday as Notre Dame chancellor.

Commenters like Joseph Lawler at the American Spectator have persistently attempted to recover by arguing that Obama's appearance and acceptance of an honorary degree at commencement was a "debacle" or "fail" for Notre Dame rather than for the political right.

Undeterred, Fr. Jenkins followed the commencement with launch of several campus pro-life initiatives and attendance of the the March for Life in Washington D.C. He has simultaneously been firm in his resistance to pressure to drop trespass charges associated with the commencement protests.

The broad debate continues, as was evident in the mixed reaction to Senator Edward Kenndy’s passing. Fr. Jenkins' reappointment suggests that simple shrill persistence on the right is persistently unproductive.

Addendum: Get Religion wants to know

Where is the mainstream press mainstream coverage of this important, symbolic win on the left? Don't be shy, and tmatt isn't the only one who wants answers.

Saddleback recants (almost)

Confusing, both because correction was delayed until the raging controversy quieted, and because the original statement was clear. Nonetheless, a Saddleback Church minister reportedly told church members that he never intended to say Baptist women are obligated by scripture to stay in violently abusive relations.

It began on Jan. 8 when Associated Baptist Press (ABP) lit a fire simply by reporting:

Rick Warren, the Southern Baptist megachurch pastor chosen to offer the invocation at President-elect Barack Obama's Jan. 20 inauguration, says the Bible does not permit a woman to divorce a spouse who is abusing her.

Half a year passed before Saddleback Teaching Pastor Tom Holladay, who actually voiced the controversial audio clip, said in a statement to Saddleback Church members that it was all a misunderstanding. According to ABP, he said he was just trying to explain to explain "the difference between an angry exchange between spouses and domestic violence" and:

"We believe that one violent incident is obviously more than enough to demand the need for a separation ... ." And if an abusive spouse refuses to repent and try to change, there eventually comes a point at which he or she has abandoned the marriage and it cannot be saved.

That's a little convoluted but not incomprehensible. Even so, in the course of the audio clip (transcript) he said, “I wish there were a third [reason for divorce] in Scripture, having been involved as a pastor with situations of abuse… There is something in me that wishes there were a Bible verse that says, ‘If they abuse you in this-and-such kind of way, then you have a right to leave them.’”

Momlogic has former Saddleback Church member Sheri Ferber's account of receiving the kind of counsel apparent in the now-deleted audio clip. Momlogic notes that Saddleback has been asked to comment but has failed to do so.

This is of more than passing importance in part because Warren was chosen to give the invocation at Barak Obama's presidential inauguration, in part because Warren has a politically active ministry which includes calling presidential candidates to his Faith Forum and in part because the submission Southern Baptist doctrine requires of women can be dangerous.

The foundations, impact and validity of that submission are a matter of ongoing debate. But the necessity of keeping the vulnerable safe should not be.

Sanctions 'are inevitable' [maybe]

Our attention-eager friends on the Religious Right surely did not anticipate seeing Iran quickly give ground in the face of "weak" President Barak Obama by offering to have its nuclear experts meet with U.S. scientists.

Although they must have known of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's statement last week, echoed today, that "Sanctions are seldom productive but they are sometimes inevitable." If they knew, you see, our friends were demanding what they had good reason to suspect was in fact inevitable. That's, well, an easy victory.

As real events proceed apace, however, their hyperventilating open letter begins to look a bit, er, undignified.

May God be with him

Amen, Tony.

A prayer unanswered

The Washington Post's "On Faith" panel of 19 writers discusse the "State of our Disunion" while lamenting how Rick Warren's Inauguration Day prayer is far from being answered.

Warren prayed that Americans would "have a new birth of clarity in our aims, responsibility in our actions, humility in our approaches, and civility in our attitudes, even when we differ."

Instead, note the Post's Sally Quinn and Jon Meacham, "clarity, responsibility, humility and civility seem to have given way to self-righteousness, anger, resentment, and what columnist Kathleen Parker calls 'a political era of uninhibited belligerence' that is finding expression in sermons, at town hall meetings, on radio talk shows, even on the floor of Congress -- especially when we differ."

Susan Jacoby, whose entry has attracted about 400 comments, discusses how faith and hatred often co-exist. She says:

What we are seeing is the rage of a minority--we don't know exactly how large, but we do know that it is almost entirely white and concentrated in the South and Southwest--at an African-American president who is considered not only wrong in his policies but illegitimate as the leader of our nation.

Jacoby also tells of a college student afraid to tell her parents she supports Obama for fear they'll no longer pay her tuition and writes:

Many Americans spent a good deal of time last November patting themselves on the back for having elected an African-American president. What we are seeing now is the bitterness of an unreconciled minority that will never accept the legitimacy of that election.

Would it be that she were wrong but the full sweep of post-Civil War Southern history says she isn't.

Still, we long for the day when Warren's prayer is answered.

President Anti-Christ? Dangerous crazy says Schaffer ...

Frank Schaeffer's harsh summary to Rachael Maddow:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Responding to the Rev. Steven Anderson and others

An anti-violence protest group plans regular Sunday demonstrations outside the church of "Why I Hate Barack Obama [.mp3]" Pastor Steven Anderson's independent Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, AZ.

Anderson, among whose parishioners is Chris Broughton, who recently brought an AR-15 rifle and a handgun to an Arizona Obama rally, may be seen as part of an organized politics of hate. Frederick Clarkson chronicles the mix of theology and right-wing politics of which Anderson is apparently a part. In a June, Clarkson reports, Anderson spoke at a rally of the Constitution Party, which has a focus on theocratic governance [excerpts from party platform via the Southern Poverty Law Center].

Southern Baptist pastor Paul Brewster deals with important elements of the theology involved. For example, Brewster wrote in a LifeWay Viewpoints column:

According to the pastor's church website, he prides himself on his commitment to soul-winning and on retaining a robust doctrine of hell. But of all people, soul-winners should live to see men delivered from judgment and not to condemn men to it. As one who believes I have escaped the wrath of God for my sins only because of the grace of God available by faith in Christ, I can take no delight in the thought of others who might perish. Beyond this, to think that we are in the position of pronouncing judgment over souls is to usurp authority that has not been delegated to us in this life. We are always called to warn people of the awful reality of hell, but with humility, tears, and aching hearts.

The protest group, People Against Clergy Who Preach Hate, responds to Anderson's call for Obama's death [.mp3] on its FaceBook page, saying in part:

This is the type of disgusting behavior which has destroyed and is continuing to destroy not only the democratic civilization of Arizona but of the United States of America as well. We ask that you please join us in publicly standing non-violently against these hate-mongering clergy who are liable to be the cause of the next act of American terrorism by the hateful brain washed people they are provoking to violence against our loved ones and our family.

Pastor and owner of Anderson Fire and Security Inc. Steve Anderson apparently didn't fellowship with the roughly 125 People Against Clergy Who Preach Hate protesters Sunday, according reporter Stephen Lemons of Phoenix New Times:

It was a diverse crowd, with a smattering of Christian ministers, young girls strumming guitars, a faux monk, and Code Pink's Liz Hourican offering free hugs. She wanted to offer Anderson a hug, but Anderson only briefly stuck his head out the front door of his church, declining to address the flock of press present. He did, however, reaffirm that he hated Obama, and that, "I'm not changing anything that I said."

Lemons is the reporter whom Anderson called "a jerk" during an intense discussion of Anderson's use of the same mailing address for the church [directions] and for his business, Anderson Fire and Security Incorporated, and of use of church facilities in association with that business. Anderson says in ABC15's raw video of the extended, church-door conversation with Lemons, that his business pays the church rent for space in which to store equipment for the business.

Web pages and the YouTube site of Anderson Fire and Security Incorporated have apparently been deleted since Anderson's conversation with Lemons. A screen shot of the former andfire.com credentials page with the business address is here. A screen shot of the former andyfire.com home page is here. A screen shot of the former YouTube page is here. Video of with images of the demonstration is below:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIW27p4BI_g&feature=player_embedded]

Anderson became a right-wing celebrity of sorts after being tasered by the Border Patrol in April of this year. A month ago, Yuma police said they charged Anderson with disorderly conduct after a group he was with confronted border patrol agents and a manager at a pizza restaurant. He's a confrontational attention-seeker, and that's one of the issues he raises.

Mark Silk at Spiritual Politics suggests we consider "how much attention to give, and how much significant to attach, to marginal characters like Broughton and Anderson."

Certainly Brewster was right to make clear, gentle distinctions between Anderson and other evangelicals, specifically Southern Baptists. Given the rise of the militias documented by the SPLC, ignoring the problem is unwise. Rational, secular expressions of dissent from the rhetoric of violence have an important place as the phenomenon of which Anderson is a part manifests itself.

Fundamentalist Christians find their voices on Obama's school speech

American Christian fundamentalists aren't wearing tin-foil school-speech hats with conspiracy-theory conservatives. They are instead speaking in faithful, reasoned support of President Barack Obama's school speech tomorrow.

Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, calls conservative uproar over the speech "a national embarrassment:"

Furthermore, this controversy smacks of disrespect for the President and, by extension, disrespect for the presidency itself. Both fly in the face of Christian responsibility to pray for those in authority. Respect for our government, though never as an end in itself, is part of our Christian responsibility. This controversy threatens to sow seeds of permanent distrust and suspicion in the hearts of the young. In an age of rampant cynicism, this is inexcusable.

John Piper, the well-know Minneapolis author and pastor, wrote of his own embarrassment at remarks by the governor his state and prayed for the president's success:

Father, the condition of our schools and families is so broken that nothing seems to be working, especially for the poor in our urban centers. Help our president to have the courage to use his amazing place of influence to speak into this situation in such a way that boys and girls would take their studies seriously

Piper, who recently saw a tornado as God's warning against homosexual-tolerant policies to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, concluded his blog on Obama's school speech: "I hope my daughter hears the speech."

World Magazine [via GetReligion] referred us to Craig Dunham, who teaches at a Christian school in the St. Louis area, and who wrote:

Am I missing something here? If it’s not in the home (and why a homeschooling family would not use this as an opportunity for discussion I have no idea – we are), I would think parents would at least want their kids engaging live presentations like President Obama’s in a Christian school, where I as a teacher am going to ask questions like “What can we affirm?” (importance of education, faithful study, etc.) or “What needs to be challenged?” (ideas different from Scriptural truth, etc.). It shouldn’t matter who the speaker is – these are the conversations I would think a parent would be PRAYING to take place. Why keep your kids home from them? This logic does not compute; after all, why are they/we here?
At some point, folks, Christians have got to stop putting the mental in fundamentalist and start interacting with the world. Teaching our kids to stick their heads in the sand and ignore anyone they may not totally agree with is, in a word, unChristian. Folks, we can’t counter the culture unless we encounter the culture, so let’s take off the blinders, read through Acts 17 again, and be some salt and light around here for crying out loud.

The sadly counterfactual Christian Coalition of American blog hyperventilating about Obama's speech still has none of the corrections good journalism requires, but other sources are getting the facts out.

Public opinion polls thus far suggest that attempts to inspire a political panic were not only an embarrassment, they were also a failure. The two available -- one in California and the other in Missouri -- show overwhelming support for the speech. No surprise, because a President of the United States who encourages children to stay in school and get an education is in that a thoroughgoing reflection of mainstream American values.

Prophetable blogversation about the Anti-Christ

John D. Pierce at Baptists Today Blogs writes:

Someone at prophecies.org has revealed the staggering news that (drum roll, please) President Barack Obama is the Anti-Christ.

Unless it was an earlier president?

For his part, Pierce goes on to say:

My professors through the years explained that biblical prophecy is more about speaking truth to a current situation that predicting future events. Less crystal ball, more course-correction warnings.

We feel the entire piece is worth your time. Read it here.

Bush's Glorification of Osama bin Laden and Obama's reversal

In Commonweal magazine's After the War on Terror, Jack Miles writes:

President George W. Bush first used the fateful phrase “war on terror” in an address to Congress on September 20, 2001, identifying what he later called “the defining struggle of our time.” And though initially the 9/11 attacks united the West while embarrassing and dividing the Muslim world, in time the rhetoric of a “war on terror” reversed those terms. With just three words, the president managed to transform Osama bin Laden from a criminal fugitive into a historic military commander, the head of a new, potentially world-changing army of fanatics. The subsequent invasion of Iraq, centerpiece of the Bush war on terror, only confirmed bin Laden in many Muslim eyes as a Saladin rather than a mass murderer.

Erasing that phrase from the U.S. diplomatic lexicon, the Obama administration has put Bin Laden back in his proper place and the administration "has replaced a grandiose, counterproductive fantasy with realistic attention to a set of grievous but real problems."

Read the entire piece here.

Catholic debate over church political role continues

Debate over the University of Notre Dame's awarding of an honorary degree to President Obama in May continues in conservative Catholic reaction to the announcement that Obama will deliver a eulogy at Senator Edward Kenndy's funeral mass at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica in Boston.

Not that the debate ever quite stopped.

Archbishop John R. Quinn argues in the Aug. 31 issue of America magazine that had Notre Dame refused to award Obama an honorary degree, it would have done harm to the church's and its mission by fostering "false messages" about itself. He argues instead for "a policy cordiality:"

It proceeds from the conviction that the integrity of Catholic teaching can never be sacrificed. It reflects a deep desire to enshrine comity at the center of public discourse and relations with public officials. It is willing to speak the truth directly to earthly power.
Yet the Holy See shows great reluctance to publicly personalize disagreements with public officials on elements of church teaching. And the approach of the Holy See consistently favors engagement over confrontation. As Pope John Paul II put it, “The goal of the Church is to make of the adversary a brother.”

Bishop John D’Arcy of Fort Wayne/South Bend, writing for the same issue, "restates his case against inviting the president to speak at commencement and awarding him an honorary doctor of laws."

Grant Gallicho of dotCommonWeal writes:

While one might disagree with Bishop D’Arcy’s version of events, it’s tough to take much issue with the way in which he has voiced his displeasure. In other words, he’s never approached the unhinged shenanigans of some of the protesters at Notre Dame. (Speaking of, I never thought Randall Terry could jump the shark. Wow, was I wrong.)

Bishop Sheehan of Sante Fe in an interview with the National Catholic Recorder this week said:

I don’t feel so badly about Obama going [to Notre Dame] because he’s our president. I said we’ve gotten more done on the pro-life issue in New Mexico by talking to people that don’t agree with us on everything. We got Governor Richardson to sign off on the abolition of the death penalty for New Mexico, which he was in favor of. ... We need to be building bridges, not burning them.

Expect more of this debate.