Sanctions deserved if Uganda adopts hate law

The Obama administration should make it clear to Uganda, now, that passage of the anti-gay law will result in a cutoff of aid. That "legislation is a violation of human rights," as Assistant Secretary of State Johnnie Carson said Friday. Embodiment of the hate it represents in law, without answering consequences from more human nations, will encourage others to take similar actions.

Oppression is already a fact of life for the Ugandan gay citizenry. The New York Times wrote in an editorial on Monday:

The government’s venom is chilling: “Homosexuals can forget about human rights,” James Nsaba Buturo, who holds the cynically titled position of minister of ethics and integrity, said recently.

What makes this even worse is that three American evangelical Christians, whose teachings about “curing” gays and lesbians have been widely discredited in the United States, helped feed this hatred. Scott Lively, Caleb Lee Brundidge and Don Schmierer gave a series of talks in Uganda last March to thousands of police officers, teachers and politicians in which, according to participants and audio recordings, they claimed that gays and lesbians are a threat to Bible-based family values.

Now the three Americans are saying they had no intention of provoking the anger that, just one month later, led to the introduction of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009. You can’t preach hate and not accept responsibility for the way that hate is manifested.

The U.S. should also lead diplomatically in standing against this evil.

Anti-abortion politics and pregnant children

Brazil's Archbishop Emeritus Jose Cardoso Sobrinho -- best known for his efforts to prevent a raped nine-year-old pregnant with her stepfather's twins from receiving an abortion and his immediate public declaration of the excommunication of her mother and others involved in the abortion -- proclaimed last week that pro-abortion candidates "cannot represent honest citizens."

That's a long public step beyond the private denial of communion to pro-choice Catholic political figures in this country -- a practice Randall Terry would like to see in widespread use.

Agree or disagree, it is nonetheless an honest expression of the doctrine which underlay the conflict over the nine-year-old Brazilian girl's abortion.

Catholic figures have since protested that there was no medical necessity involved. But it is not clear that for Catholic clergy the debate was fundamentally over medical necessity, as senior Vatican official was quoted as saying at the time:

"We have laws, we have a discipline, we have a doctrine of the faith," the official says. "This is not just theory. And you can't start backpedaling just because the real-life situation carries a certain human weight."

Remember that the Vatican's top bioethics official, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, who argued in the Vatican newspaper that human and theological "mercy" should have been applied to those involved in the abortion, saw his view rejected in a "clarification."

Republicanism, religion and the 'nones'

We need the nones to see the probable meaning of the most recent Gallup analysis of tracking data for the relationship between intensity of religious faith and political party identification.

First, the Gallup analysis concludes:

The percentage of Americans who identify with or lean toward the Republican Party drops from 49% among the highly religious to 26% among those who are not religious. The percentage who identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party rises from 37% among the highly religious to 56% among those who are not religious. For comparison, the party figures for November among all adults in these data are 40% Republicans/Republican leaners and 45% Democrats/Democratic leaners.

Thus, Republicans are in the plurality among highly religious Americans. For each of the other three groups, Democrats are equal with or higher in number than Republicans. The Democratic edge expands as religiosity decreases. Among the not-religious group, Democrats have a 30-point edge over Republicans.

The 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) found that the "percentage of Christians in America" on the decline and nones are on the rise. Specifically:

The non-theist and No Religion groups collectively known as “Nones” have gained almost 20 million adults since 1990 and risen from 8.2 to 15.0 percent of the total population. If we include those Americans who either don’t know their religious identification (0.9 percent) or refuse to answer our key question (4.1 percent), and who tend to somewhat resemble “Nones” in their social profile and beliefs, we can observe that in 2008 one in five adults does not identify with a religion of any kind compared with one in ten in 1990.

Thus, as long as Republicanism's principal appeal is to the most fervent Christians, as Gallup found, Republican political influence is likely to continue to wane.

Counterfactual overstatement = 'the evil one'

Mainstream Baptist dissects Manhattan Declaration's overstatement and distortion. They are not echoes of righteousness, he explains:

In my mind, there's something about Jesus' injunction to "let your yea be yea, and your nay be nay" (Matt. 5:37) that is applicable beyond oath-taking situations and confirms the truth that "anything beyond these is of the evil one." Christians have no business embellishing the truth and twisting it for political purposes and that is what the Manhattan Declaration does from beginning to end.

All driven by the desperation of a Christian Right which feels power slipping through its fingers like sand.

Finland still refusing to extradite Baptist minister accused of genocide

The case of a Rwandan Baptist minister accused of genocide took a disturbing turn today when his defense argued that police tortured witnesses to extract evidence against him.

According to YLE:

The 57-year-old suspect sought political asylum in Finland in 2003. The man was arrested in 2007 on suspicion of planning, leading and implementing massacres. Suspicions were aroused in connection with a background study during the consideration of his asylum application.

Finland stands by its refusal to extradite the individual to Rwanda. He is in custody, however. Finland's National Bureau of Investigation expects to have its inquiry completed by summer. An extension of tomorrow's deadline for filing charges has been requested.

Palin prayer on the campaign trail

Sarah Palin said this week that the campaign trail was short of acceptable prayer partners, and former staff members feel cut. You can see why:

"So I'm looking around for somebody to pray with, I just need maybe a little help, maybe a little extra," she said. "And the McCain campaign, love 'em, you know, they're a lot of people around me, but nobody I could find that I wanted to hold hands with and pray." As the crowd laughed, Palin grinned and said she meant no disrespect to the McCain campaign. She said she ultimately prayed with her daughter Piper.

Sen. John McCain didn't clarify things when in answer to a question at the Heritage Foundation this week he said:

Over 50 million people voted for me and Sarah Palin—mostly for Sarah Palin.

Ok.

Most Italians reject the Pope's dismissive view of condoms

A majority of Italians disagreed with the Pope's stand against using condoms to prevent AIDS, revealed a poll published in the newspaper La Repubblica:

The poll said that 52.3 per cent were "absolutely against" the Pope's view - which overshadowed his trip to Africa last week - that condoms are not the answer to the Aids epidemic and on the contrary only "aggravate" it by encouraging sexual promiscuity. A further 21.2 per cent in the poll, conducted by Demos & Pi, said they were "fairly" opposed to the Pope's position, making a total of 73.5 per cent.

News of this poll of nearly 1,700 Italians questioned in the six days immediately following the pope's airborne remarks comes on the heels of two polls finding that the French are losing confidence in the Pope, possibly for similar reasons.

Neither post-facto revision of the Pope's remarks nor any Italian equivalent of conservative pushback against scientific and medical criticism of the Pope's stand were enough to turn the tide of public opinion in his favor. Italians have no trouble balancing such practical concerns with their religion, according to the London Times:

Ilvo Diamanti, a leading sociologist, said that Italians generally looked to the Catholic Church as a "moral compass", especially in "difficult times." This was not the case however when positions taken by the Church or the Vatican were seen as "different from the common consensus or the practical experiences of daily life"

The Italian Catholic newspaper Avvenire criticized the French government for "presuming" to lecture Pope Benedict XVI on AIDS and condoms, and the Archbishop of Genoa railed that the pontiff had been unjustly "mocked and insulted" on the same issue by critics. All without distracting most of the Italian people from applying sound, practical judgment to a life and death issue of daily life.

Evangelicalism's: 'Collapse' or long, rusting decline?

The Four Evangelists by Jakob Jordaens

Because evangelical Christianity is visibly breaking down, Internet Monk's widely discussed prediction of the movement's "collapse" a decade hence, resonates in the minds of all who are concerned.

The animating core of his prediction -- that identification of evangelicals with the culture wars and political conservatism at the expense of faith was a historic mistake -- is a long-simmering cause of general unhappiness (the New York Times wrote about it well last June.).

The political sellout by the Religious Right is especially important among evangelicals under 40, a Barna survey found, while other research says some "don't even want the label any more."

More broadly, in August 2008 a Pew Forum survey found that 52 percent of Americans agreed that houses of worship should keep out of politics.

Or when he predicts the money will dry up, whether you're a religious broadcaster or pastor of an average Southern Baptist Church, you're having that experience or probably fear it. Although catastrophic collapse of a going evangelical enterprise, is rare.

Each element he cites has some gut-level or analytical validity for those who are involved in or close to the movement.

Collapse is a powerful word. The concept of collapse may also sell well among people whose faith speaks of "the end times." Although we agree with, Tony Cartledge, associate professor of Old Testament at Campbell University Divinity School and contributing editor to Baptists Today, who isn't buying:

Spencer has clearly seen the spiritual hollowness that pervades much of evangelicalism, and I believe he is correct that elements of the movement will fade in influence as years go by. The idea that evangelicalism will collapse within ten years, however, appears clearly overstated. Methinks the monk has underestimated the power of inertia.

Like newspapers which are printed on paper, evangelicalism will persist and appear to be wonderfully influential during a long decline, while its eminent death is persistently forecast. And while saving reforms are persistently resisted.

Should we be bowling with Barack? Or let it go?

One from-the-beginning Obama supporter says the passing Tonight Show slight of Special Olympians requires a passing, personal apology.

Yes? Real repentance.

Or is he making too much about to little?

Marriage definition ‘adjustment’

Seriously. Are you upset because Merriam-Webster's lexicographers are doing their jobs?

Just askin'.

Anti-condom evangelicals had their political way with Bush

Christian evangelicals pushed the Bush administration to an anti-condom position like the one which has called down fire on Pope Benedict XVI's head. They even drove insufficiently anti-condom evangelicals out of the administration. Jamie Kirchick wrote at TNR:

Anne Peterson, an assistant administrator for global health in the U.S. Agency for International Development and an evangelical who had worked with Christian aid groups in Africa, incurred the wrath of Focus on the Family founder James Dobson during a 2004 meeting at his Colorado Springs headquarters. There, Dobson asked Peterson for her position on condoms, to which she replied that they were an essential feature in HIV prevention alongside the encouragement of abstinence and monogamy. Soon after, Focus on the Family issued a paper criticizing her, and she eventually resigned under pressure. Peterson was replaced by Kent Hill, an evangelical Christian activist with neither a medical degree nor public health experience, who is currently the acting administrator of USAID.

Do the apologies to Limbaugh and others so publicly tendered of late have ethical value?

Seriously? United Methodist Church ethicist Kenneth Carder of Duke University Divinity School in Durham, N.C., said Thursday:

When apologies are deeply rooted in confession, contrition, a recognition of the damage that one has done and one’s implication in the hurt of others-- in the context of genuine repentance and confession with a goal of restoration of integrity, restoration of relationships and restitution for damage done, then apologies have depth.

That doesn't sound like a Republican functionary after a visit to I'm Sorry Rush, or whatever non-satiric equivalent Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele visited after speaking dismissively of conservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh last week.

Republican political apologies were just part of a recent blizzard of recent, high-profile apologies.

Those included "Yankees superstar Alex Rodriguez, who apologized for using steroids; Olympic gold-medalist swimmer Michael Phelps, who apologized for smoking marijuana; The New York Post, which apologized for but defended a cartoon with racist images; and former U.S. Senator Tom Daschle, who apologized for not paying taxes that he owed."

Carder told Linda Green of the United Methodist News Service that the church has “contributed" to the "superficiality” which is the distinguishing characteristic of most of those public apologies.

For at the heart of the Christian community is the practice of confession, assurance of forgiveness and reconciliation. A tradition that has been less well-practiced of late, Carder said. Prayers of confession have been eliminated from many worship services. That example has broader social consequences:

But, when we, as a church, no longer practice confession, forgiveness and accountability, we should not be surprised if the broader culture substitutes for genuine confession a political spin or superficial healing of wounds.

There are, then, three general requirements to meet if one is to make a sincere apology. Genuine apology requires an understanding of the harm done, a commitment to personal change so that one does not inflict that kind of harm again, and some kind of restitution, Methodist ethicists explained.

“A false apology is usually accompanied by bogus or insincere guilt, which is often confused with appropriate shame,” said Theodore Dalrymple, a physician and author of “Our Culture, What’s Left of It: The Mandarins and the Masses.” In our current rush of public apologies, the understanding, commitment to personal change and any but superficial restitution all appear to be absent.

Clearly, the week was marked by a rush of false apologies and their well-earned ridicule. We are rich in bad behavior.

Nostalgia: Our doughty “duck and cover” turtle (1950)

"Duck and Cover" survival of a nuclear attack was the improbable goal of this sweet cinema and many others. It was shown in public school classrooms in the sweeter, kinder, gentler, stress-free 1950s when atomic annihilation was offered as a constant companion:

Internecine religious conflict returns to post-Mumbai India

Mumbia terror created a temporary sense of common ground among the religiously divided citizenry of India.

It's over. Sumit Ganguly of Indiana University writes for Newsweek:

Religious violence and cultural parochialism are on the rise. Much of these forces seem to be fueled by the global economic downturn, which is bringing out the worst political tactics. In such a turbulent economic climate, scapegoating ethnic and religious minorities may well prove to be irresistible for those seeking to divert attention from serious questions of unemployment and growing economic disparities. Matters may become even worse as India's national election approaches in May of this year. In attempts to solidify their political bases, political parties, regardless of their ideological orientation, may well start kowtowing to religious and cultural zealots. Several recent developments underscore the dangers that they pose for the well-being of India's plural polity and society.

Ganguly holds the Rabindranath Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations and is an Adjunct Senior Fellow of the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles.

Read the rest here.

Liddy Dole's 'Godless' attack ad had nothing to do with religion; didn't cost her the race

Those "Godless" ads deployed by losing incumbent U.S. Sen. Liddy Dole (R, N.C.), did not cost her the race with Kay Hagan, as was widely theorized at election time. Or so argues Dole campaign manager Marty Ryall in Politics Magazine:

Many in the media, especially on the liberal side, were quick to point to the ad and claim it backfired, costing Dole the election. Nothing could be further from the truth. When a football team is trailing by 7 points and throws a “Hail Mary” on the last play of the game, they don’t lose because they failed to complete the play, they lose because they were down 7 points and time was running out.

By his account, the ads had nothing to do with religion or faith. They had everything to do with rational, poll-driven campaign strategy. The Dole team had the material, poor though it was. They were losing. They were in the final days of the campaign. They needed a "game changer." Something with shock value that would command media attention:

The “Godless PAC” issue was all we had that could possibly achieve that in the short time remaining. We knew that Hagan would have to respond to the ad. We anticipated her response would be that we were attacking her faith; clearly she could not defend attending the event. So we prepared two ads. The first on the Godless issue, and the second—that would run when her response aired—that we were not attacking her faith, but her judgment.

He excuses the ads' flaws, dismissing without serious consideration the idea that they falsely attacked the faith of a Presbyterian lay leader and saying there was no intent to fake her voice saying "there is no God" in a voiceover. He portrays the latter as the single tactical error of an attack that had no apparent effect on the election's outcome:

Our last tracking poll on the Thursday before the election had us down 8 points and virtually no one was mentioning the Godless issue.

His only regret is that the strategy failed.

Science, Creation Care, re-enchantment and re-connection with our natural world

Cheryl Bridges Johns of the Church of God Theological Seminary on creation care and reconnecting to the natural world:

“I believe that we can re-enchant the world,” she said. “As a person of faith, I believe I can live an enchanted life of faith, a spirited life, where I see, sometimes as the ancient Celts, that the veil between this world and the world that is to come getting very, very thin in certain places. And sometimes I see that in nature and it’s a glorious expression of that which is to come.

So creation care and caring for creation, to me, means that we become enchanted, we become re-enchanted,” Johns continued. “We can be great scientists and wonder. We can be astute physicians and wonder. We can be wonderful people, who are teachers and lawyers and pastors, and wonder, can’t we?”

There's more.

Bumper-mounted idolatry

American license-plate worship has recently broken out like the hives, nowhere as intensely as in South Carolina. There, only a temporary federal injunction prevents state sale of cross & stained-glass illustrated "I believe" license plates.

Robert Marsden (Monty) Knight, pastor of First Christian Church in Charleston, S.C. and is one of four clergy plaintiffs in the lawsuit challenging his state’s proposed “I Believe” license plates. He told DisciplesWorld:

It’s just politicians trotting out a shallow veneer of Christian piety to court the Christians here in South Carolina. [The governor didn’t endorse it] He said, in essence, if your faith is no deeper than a license plate, it’s pretty shallow. There are other special plates…but this one came straight from the legislature- it was a violation of the First Amendment from the get-go.

Faith as deep as a license plate, as wide as chrome door trim? Faith politically demeaned by legislators.

Clear-eyed about OFANP

Melissa Rogers, director of the Center for Religion and Public Affairs at Wake Forest University School of Divinity, was a signal addition to the advisory board of Obama's Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

Her interview with the Greensboro News and Record this week revealed why. There are two key comments.

First, on hiring and firing at groups which receive grants:

When a group receives a government grant, it should not be able to discriminate based on religion for government-funded jobs. If there are jobs that the group is funding itself with its own money, then they should be free to hire and fire on the basis of religion. If the jobs are funded with government grant funds, then all the taxpayers that contributed to that funding should be able to compete for those jobs.

Second, on reforms at OFANP. We've boldfaced part of her comment because those views are a marked separation from the Bush administration's use of faith-based funds for political purposes, and the Obama administration's human services goals:

It's very important for the administration to continue to welcome religious and neighborhood groups to partner with government. There's a need to increase funding for programs that help people of low income - and there is a need to bring the partnerships in line with certain constitutional principles and to be careful about guarding against cronyism and religious bias in the peer review grants process.

Clear-eyed policy guidance is her job as a member of the OFANP advisory board, and she's one of the best.

Now, if we can persuade her to start blogging again.

Montana church's speech rights violated by treatment as a political committee

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that Montana election law was unconstitutionally applied to an East Helena church which supported a 2004 ballot initiative to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

Howard M. Friedman explains that Canyon Ferry Road Baptist Church "advertised and hosted a one-time screening of a video in support of the amendment and made petitions available in its foyer for signing."

Reversing a lower court decision, 9th Circuit ruled that "disclosure and reporting requirements are unconstitutional as applied to the Church’s de minimis activities," violating the church's right to freedom of speech under the First Amendment.

Circuit Judge John T. Noonan, in a concurring opinion, argued that the matter should have been decided on freedom of religion grounds:

“What has happened here is that a small congregation has been put to trouble and expense in order to exercise its right to speak on an issue seen by it to be of vital religious significance. One lesson of history is that small incursions on freedom are to be resisted lest they grow greater,” Noonan wrote.

This is an Alliance Defense Fund case and, because it tends to erode a previously defined boundary, a signal that the already contentious issue of religion in politics is destined to become more so.

Freedom of Choice UnAct, the uncampaign and key story

Amid the uproar over the still-unintroduced Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), one news story occasions almost as much refutation as the Time magazine article describing a fear-provoking, Catholic-led campaign against nonexistent legislation. That story had been largely ignored since its publication on Jan. 26, until cited by Time

At Catholics in Alliance for the Good, the story says [their summary]:

Internet rumors to the contrary, no Catholic hospital in the United States is in danger of closing because of the Freedom of Choice Act. As a matter of fact, the Freedom of Choice Act died with the 110th Congress and, a week after the inauguration of President Barack Obama, has not been reintroduced. But that hasn't kept misleading e-mails from flying around the Internet, warning of the dire consequences if Obama signs FOCA into law and promoting a "FOCA novena" in the days leading up to Inauguration Day. Sister Carol Keehan, a Daughter of Charity who is CHA president and CEO, was equally sure that FOCA poses no threat to Catholic hospitals or to the conscience rights of those who work there.

Time's Amy Sullivan didn't write a perfect article, but the current campaign is still against legislation which has not been introduced, is unlikely to pass if introduced and may do far less harm to opponents' interests than they suggest.

Perhaps the purpose of current efforts is to cut a firebreak. That's a part of ordinary American political life, charges and counter-charges and all.

On abortion rights issues like this one, with a pro-choice president in office, expect more intensity. Not less.