Politics

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Thinking along with Stephen L. Carter: What's at stake in Salvation Army culture wars?

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We live in an age, alas, of predictable reporting and predictable opinions coming from the keyboards of predictable writers.

However, Yale University law professor Stephen L. Carter has, for a couple of decades, been one of the pundits who — in his essays, columns and books — very, very rarely fit into the predictable molds seen in the chattering classes.

This weekend’s think piece is a perfect example of Carter doing that thing that he does, in a Bloomberg column that ran under this double-decker headline: “The Salvation Army's Actions Speak Louder Than Its Theology — Judge volunteers on their actions, not their religious beliefs.”

The hook for the piece is, logically enough, the Thanksgiving weekend and the appearance — from coast to coast — of the familiar Salvation Army red kettles and the bell ringers asking shoppers to make donations to help the poor and needy.

This image of American life and community has, of course, become controversial in recent years for a simple reason — the Salvation Army is a church that clings (hello President Barack Obama) to traditional Christian teachings on the Bible, marriage and sex. Toss in the decision by Chick fil-A leaders to add some waffling to their chicken and you have a mess in the public square.

So what does Carter have to add to this discussion?

… (In) keeping with the season of giving thanks, I want to focus on a different problem: the effects on the volunteer sector of any boycott based on the teachings of a religion. 

Religious groups, regardless of their theology, provide assistance to millions who are unable to help themselves. Without religiously motivated volunteers, we would have scarcely any volunteer sector at all.


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Friday Five: Thanksgiving, God and Trump, LATimes vs. Fuller, Jimmy Carter, Satan

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We interrupt this day-after-Thanksgiving holiday to update you on the latest religion headlines.

I hope you and your family are enjoying a wonderful time of Black Friday shopping or — if you’re like me — watching football and eating leftover chocolate pie while spending precious time with my family.

In my case, I am enjoying quality time with my 1-year-old grandson, Bennett.

Anyway, let’s dive right into the Friday Five:

1. Religion story of the week: We posted earlier in the week on those news reports that Rick Perry believes God “ordained” Donald Trump (not to mention Barack Obama) to be president.

The Post and Courier of Charleston, S.C., has an interesting follow-up piece on that — tied to comments by Nikki Haley — concerning whether politicians are chosen by God.


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Let's give thanks that it's Dolly time, even if New York folks don't get all that faith stuff

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Greetings and a Happy Thanksgiving nod from here in the mountains of East Tennessee, a unique and proud region that includes the kingdom of Dollywood.

I think that folks in these parts — the ones who pay attention to elite media — are a bit bemused about the current wave of Dolly Parton-mania in places like New York City and Los Angeles. I mean, lots of people in these hills have thought, for ages, that Parton deserved more attention and respect as an artist, songwriter and business maven.

There are mysteries about Dolly, of course, and I’m not just talking about all those questions about whether her arms are covered with tattoos and where she heads every now and then — under cover — with her husband in their RV. This is one colorful lady.

But here is another mystery: It’s clear that Parton’s intense Christian upbringing is still a part of who she is, but it’s hard to know what she actually believes. This is a subject that, like politics, Parton is very careful with in public remarks. Then again, one can always listen to what she says in her music.

But this brings back to the current Dolly-mania, which recently reached the ultimate high ground — The New York Times. Once again we face the same issues that I wrote about the other day in a post with this headline: “LA and New York scribes ask: How does Dolly avoid politics while embracing gays and church folks?”

In that post I wrote the following, which also fits with this New York Times article (“Is There Anything We Can All Agree On? Yes: Dolly Parton”):

How good, how complete, is this article? How you answer that question will probably pivot on which of the following questions matter the most to you: (1) How does Parton appeal to Democrats and Republicans at the same time? Or (2) how has Dolly, for a decade or two, managed to be a superstar with both LGBTQ and evangelical audiences?

Once again, we are talking about Parton as safe ground in the Donald Trump era.

Once again, there are nods to her unique stance in cultural no-man’s land between drag-queen culture and Pentecostal hillbillies.


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Does the Vatican's quasi-official newspaper have a 'fake news' problem?

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The Vatican gets its fair share of coverage from news organizations around the world. Even those newspapers who don’t have a dedicated religion beat writer have Vatican coverage in its pages, either in the form of a foreign correspondent or via subscribing to wire services such as The Associated Press or Reuters.

It isn’t lost on Pope Francis that the news media ecosystem, saying this past May that journalists should use the power of the press to search for the truth and give voice to the voiceless.

Conservative news websites in the United States have increasingly set their sights on Francis in recent years. Catholic news sites that lean left doctrinally have also have a strong readership. Both need to be read by journalists who cover the Vatican and the pope. Another source they need to read is L’Osservatore Romano, a once great and influential newspaper that has over the years declined in both influence and stature.

For those who have never heard of it, L’Osservatore Romano is a daily newspaper printed in Italian with weekly editions in six languages, including English, and once a month in Polish.

The newspaper reports on the activities of the Holy See and owned by the Vatican — but is not considered an official publication. The Holy See’s official publication is the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, which acts as a government gazette. The views expressed in L’Osservatore Romano are those of individual writers unless they appear under the byline “Nostre Informazioni” (Italian for “Our Information”) or “Santa Sede” (Holy See). In other words, one needs a media literacy course in order to fully understand what this newspaper is reporting.

The publication founded in 1861 — and available at newspaper stands across Rome, via subscription and online — continues to play a major role in interpreting the papacy and the role of the Vatican in the loves of Roman Catholics around the world. Problematic for the Vatican’s semi-official newspaper has been its editorial standards as of late.


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Religious Freedom Restoration Act: AP story shows why this is a law liberals could love

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Many of us may have heard of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which has been in effect since 1993 during the administration of President Bill Clinton. This was an era in which a broad coalition of liberals and conservatives often worked together on religious liberty issues.

Of course, RFRA has been vilified by liberals as a sop to conservatives, chiefly because it was used successfully in the 2014 U.S. Supreme Court “Hobby Lobby” case that allowed the crafts store chain to not provide birth control coverage for its employees. RFRA is frequently connected to religious liberty debates linked to LGBTQ issues, as well.

But now, many critics of RFRA are praising it after it was employed in the defense of Scott Warren, a Unitarian who was charged with harboring illegal aliens near a border crossing in the Arizona desert in January 2018. Our own Bobby Ross wrote about this case here and here.

A new Associated Press analysis describes why RFRA suddenly became important again:

Religious liberty is often a high priority for conservatives, but last week’s acquittal of an Arizona man prosecuted for aiding migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border is spotlighting the ability of religious freedom law to shield people of faith regardless of political ideology.

The case of Scott Warren, a college instructor and volunteer with a humanitarian group that helps migrants, gained nationwide notice as he challenged what he called the government’s “attempt to criminalize basic human kindness.”

Much of that attention focused on Warren’s acquittal on felony charges of harboring. But he was also acquitted Wednesday of a separate misdemeanor charge after his lawyers argued that his religious beliefs motivated him to leave water for migrants crossing through a desert wilderness area.

This was written by Elana Schor, the AP reporter for religion and politics who is part of AP’s new global religion reporting team, announced Sept. 5 that’s being paid for by a grant from the Lilly Endowment. (I broke the story about the grant here back in April 2018).

Warren’s acquittal this past week was a huge victory for the Religious Left.


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About those media reports that Rick Perry believes God 'ordained' Donald Trump to be president

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Rick Perry, the outgoing U.S. energy secretary and former longtime governor of Texas, stirred up a pre-Thanksgiving social media storm with his comments on Fox News about God’s role — as Perry sees it — in choosing the president.

Not surprisingly, some major media reports boiled down Perry’s perspective to say that Donald Trump was “ordained by God” to lead America.

That is an accurate but wholly incomplete assessment of Perry’s words.

“How media misinformation spreads...” is how one Twitter user — Steve Krakauer — characterized CNN Politics’ tweet.

The thing is, for those who bothered to click the CNN link, the actual headline and story (by religion editor Daniel Burke) were pretty good. The headline mentioned Trump and Obama, and Burke put Perry’s words — all of them — into a helpful context:

(CNN) Like a lot of evangelical Christians, Energy Secretary Rick Perry believes in a God who gets involved in every aspect of our lives -- including the election of Donald Trump as President.

"I'm a big believer that the God of our universe is still very active in the details of the day-to-day lives of government," Perry told Fox News in remarks aired on Sunday.

"You know, Barack Obama doesn't get to be the President of the United States without being ordained by God. Neither did Donald Trump."

Perry went on to say that being God's instrument on Earth doesn't mean that Trump is a perfect person. Echoing the argument of other white evangelical Christians, the Texas Republican went on to cite several biblical figures, including King David, whose private lives didn't always align with biblical standards.

Perry is just the latest evangelical Christian in the Trump administration to say they believe the President is divinely ordained.


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Rolling Stone purrs for Buttigieg's generous accusations of right-wingers' spiritual hypocrisy

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Rolling Stone has devoted 2,200 words to a brief Q&A interview with Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg, and it should surprise nobody that interviewer Alex Morris is a fan. On the bright side, the interview likely dabbles in more theology per square inch than Rolling Stone has published since its last lengthy interview with Bono.

On the less bright side, the chat is nearly obsequious because Morris presents Buttigieg as a promising solution to Democrats’ long-bewailed failure to outperform Republicans in playing the God card. 

Worse, what Rolling Stone’s headline calls “The Generous Gospel of Mayor Pete” is weighed down with motives-bashing and presumptions about people’s interior lives. He refers repeatedly to conservatives’ hypocrisy, as though there is no other explanation for their making political decisions after facing a Hobson’s choice.

Morris quotes the now-iconic speech in which Buttigieg addressed Vice President Mike Pence’s purported problem with the mayor. This was a conflict wholly of Buttigieg’s making, unless it is now apostasy to disagree with the biblical interpretations of Mayor Buttigieg, or to make political choices that bother him.

Morris observes that “the Democratic Party has allowed itself to be cast as not just [areligious] but also anti-religious,” but the candidate she perceives as the antidote attacks the beliefs and character of any Christians who have supported President Donald Trump.

Even Blaise Pascal, one of the subtlest theologians in Christian history, falls afoul of Morris, and Buttigieg does nothing to suggest there may be more to the man than one of his arguments for believing in God:


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NYTimes highlights 2020 Democrats' unapologetic support for abortion rights, sans religion

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Is it possible to write a consequential news story on the role of abortion in the 2020 presidential race without mentioning religion?

The New York Times has attempted it with an in-depth piece on a survey it did on Democratic candidates’ positions on the issue.

The Times reports that 2020 Democratic contenders — all of them — “unapologetically support abortion rights.”

The lede boils down the survey’s major findings:

The Democratic presidential field has coalesced around an abortion rights agenda more far-reaching than anything past nominees have proposed, according to a New York Times survey of the campaigns. The positions reflect a hugely consequential shift on one of the country’s most politically divisive issues.

Every candidate The Times surveyed supports codifying Roe v. Wade in federal law, allowing Medicaid coverage of abortion by repealing the Hyde Amendment, and removing funding restrictions for organizations that provide abortion referrals. Almost all of them say they would nominate only judges who support abortion rights, an explicit pledge Democrats have long avoided. 

Very few support restrictions on abortions late in pregnancy. Seven say abortion pills should be available over the counter. Nine want a federal approval process for state abortion laws. And Joseph R. Biden Jr., whose ambivalence on abortion rights has been a theme for decades, is seeking to recast himself as a full-throated champion of them.

Click the link by Biden’s name, and a previous Times story delves into some of the issues related to the former vice president’s Catholic faith and his position on abortion. That’s a topic that we’ve covered at GetReligion recently (here and here, for example).

But the word “Catholic” does not appear in this new report on Democrats and abortion. Nor do terms such as “religion” and “faith” or even “pro-life” or “anti-abortion.”


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Think about this: Digging down into that all-to-familiar 'God gap' in American politics

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I think that the first time I encountered the term “pew gap” was in the middle-to-late 1980s, as the side effects of the post-Roe v. Wade era began to emerge.

That was when people started talking about the impact of the Religious Right on the Republican Party and the growing secularization of the elites at the top of Democratic Party structures, where old-school labor union Catholics were being replaced by various kinds of white-collar groups linked to academia and feminism.

At the end of the 20th Century, the “pew” or “God gap” was a given. I know that I have used it before, for this piece of the “Blue Movie” essay that The Atlantic ran in 2003 remains perfect:

Early in the 1996 election campaign Dick Morris and Mark Penn, two of Bill Clinton's advisers, discovered a polling technique that proved to be one of the best ways of determining whether a voter was more likely to choose Clinton or Bob Dole for President. Respondents were asked five questions, four of which tested attitudes toward sex: Do you believe homosexuality is morally wrong? Do you ever personally look at pornography? Would you look down on someone who had an affair while married? Do you believe sex before marriage is morally wrong? The fifth question was whether religion was very important in the voter's life.

Respondents who took the "liberal" stand on three of the five questions supported Clinton over Dole by a two-to-one ratio; those who took a liberal stand on four or five questions were, not surprisingly, even more likely to support Clinton. The same was true in reverse for those who took a "conservative" stand on three or more of the questions. (Someone taking the liberal position, as pollsters define it, dismisses the idea that homosexuality is morally wrong, admits to looking at pornography, doesn't look down on a married person having an affair, regards sex before marriage as morally acceptable, and views religion as not a very important part of daily life.) According to Morris and Penn, these questions were better vote predictors — and better indicators of partisan inclination — than anything else except party affiliation or the race of the voter (black voters are overwhelmingly Democratic).


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