9 posts tagged “religion”
The Palm Beach Post has an interesting article on religion in schools. The question is: Which expression of religion is less acceptable - Christian songs in chorus or a Christmas themed play?
The article points out - validly - that it is difficult to teach choir without understanding the music of the Christian church. It also points out the contortions that exist when school policies make penguins victims of political correctness in the name of the "wall of separation between church and state."
"How can one principal say penguins and Santa are religious, and another principal says it's OK to sing Christian music?" said Windmill Point Elementary parent Mary Anne Bender
Reading between the lines shows some shrewd believing music teachers in Fort Pierce. They understand the political and legal context that currently exists and devised a clever and - so far - effective way to promote an essential component of life and art - that is faith.
When those in public education continue to clearly demonstrate that they have lost all understanding of common sense by banishing penguins and Santa Claus in the name of religious tolerance, it is a clear sign that the stage is set for the landscape to be altered.
What is required is the very thing the Fort Pierce music teachers implemented: a reasonable strategy that compares the good with the ridiculous.
The middle is mad as fiddlesticks and is not going to take it anymore. So it seems as reported bythe Chicago Tribune in the article Chrisitan Middle Seeking a Turn at the Bully Pulpit.
Former U.S. Senator and current Episcopal Priest John Danforth wants the silent middle to be silent no more.
Seems incredibly dissonant - the unpassionate are more passionate in their anger towards the Religion Right than they are for poverty, environmentalism and the like. How do you motivate the middle in a bi-polar political world? Do these so-called moderates not understand that while they may be upset with the Republicans over abortion and traditional marriage, they will find little "tolerance" in the Democratic Party? Unless there is more behind this "moderate movement"?Predicting a backlash against the increasing political consonance of faith with conservative Christianity and the GOP, Danforth said, "I think the antidote to all of this is for a lot of people to speak out. Beyond people writing about it, the key is for the ordinary citizen to engage with this issue of the use of religion as a wedge to divide the American people."
Danforth said he is convinced the majority of Americans are religious moderates or centrists but that, in line with the very definition of the word moderate, they have not been as vocal or as driven by passion as their conservative counterparts.
"I think that honest, rational people have begun to understand that not everybody who uses the language of religion is religious. . . . They're beginning to see that, in some instances, religious rhetoric and relationships to [religious] institutions have been more about campaign strategy than they have been about the high principles of morality," Gaddy said.
Exactly! The campaign strategy of the Left is to demonize the political reality of the Right - that is - that more of the conservative faithful are motivated and active in voting than the mushy middle of faith. The other fact is that, in the end, movements need candidates. The Left is hoping to capitalize on the ascendence of a great mushy middle moderate for the 08 elections. Now who could that be?
This seems like a disturbing news story - exploiting kids in the name of religion to speak in tongues, and venerate the President. From what I know about the media, there is less to this story than meets the eye.
The media typically take hundreds of minutes of footage and edits it down to a three minute clip, the backgrounds and true context lost on the editing room floor. Knowing this fact, my skepticism is running very high on the whole "worshipping Bush" claim.
We all know various ministries with which we agree, disagree or simply prefer not to participate. The fact is that one "Jesus Camp" in North Dakota does not a movement make.
Part of the footage is encouraging. The evidence of a strong and vibrant youth movement coupled with staunch views on life and sexual wholeness is wonderful to see.
What is worrysome is the claim that any firmly held beliefe is detrimental to the future of our society. More evidence that today's definition of tolerance is one way.
Baylor University has unveiled the first data from a muli-year survey on religion in America. According to Christianity Today's summary, many of the faithful do not consider themselves a part of a denomination or as religiously affiliated.
"Past survey research has tended to consistently depict Americans as a highly religious people, while some of these same surveys have shown that the percentage of Americans indicating no particular religious affiliation has doubled over the last two decades.
"Our survey reconciles any apparent contradiction. It turns out that Americans remain connected to congregations to an extent far greater than they associate with denominations or other religious labels. Also, a fair number of those who claimed 'no religion' in our sample were actually active, engaged affiliates of evangelical congregations who were 'screened out' by previous surveys that concentrated on denominational affiliation."
The Baylor survey, "American Piety in the 21st Century: New Insights to the Depth and Complexity of Religion in the U.S." also plumbs attitudes about religion and politics. Among it's findings:
"Only Evangelical Protestants show a consistency in political opinions. They agree with conservative agenda items and disagree with liberal items. Being Mainline Protestant tells us nothing about someone’s political views on these ten items.
Biblical literalism and religious service attendance are better predictors of political opinions than are Mainline Protestant or Catholic religious traditions."
So Karl Rove was right: The most reliable Republican vote is from voters with high church attendance. Democrats often criticize Rove for "politicizing religion." But, in fact, Rove was just doing what any winning political strategist does - identifies his voters and gets them out to vote.
God's Politcs by Jim Wallis is much like mainline Christianity: lots of concern and serious consternation with little substance. This should be no surprise, Wallis is the president of Sojourners, a "network of progressive Christians."
Reading God's Politics after the Foriegn Affairs article featured earlier on this site was like seeing a real world application of a theoretical concept. Wallis righteously promotes policy alternatives as the way to bring everyone together and address complex social problems. He promotes religon as the way of transforming people and societies to bring about this level of agreement.
True to his liberal Christian form, Wallis' hallmark for engagement in government, politics and social issues is the common good. He is bewildered by conservative Christian's motivation and the thought that the Word of God may be a more substantive foundation of Christian engagement seems to never cross his mind. Wallis does not seem to want to be bothered by the truths of economics or fact that the United States is largest benefactor for the poor and needy.
As much as Wallis condems alternative versions of political action, he promotes his own vision as "God's Politics." His ultimate "God Questions" is not "What does the Bible say about X?" or even "What would Jesus Do?" but "How are the kids doing?" He minimizes concerns about the societal affects of an aggressive homosexual agenda and promotes the ultimate Christian issue as that of addressing poverty.
God's Politics attempts to promote a "third way" between the Religious Right and the Liberal Left. But, in fact, he is trying to dress up the vacant ideas and non-redemptive approach of theologies and denominations that are in serious decline and losing support because of their bankrupt values and moral thought. One example: Wallis attempts to argue that removing our troops from Iraq is pro-life. (I guess?)
Lastly, little effort is spent describing the power of transformation through a personal relationship with Christ. It simply re-hashes liberal polemics in Christian vestments and attacks conservative Christians because they don't subscribe to his theology or policy priorities. Unfortunately, Wallis does not realize that his party and his pews are empty to his call to action.
Once again the Pew Forum on Religion and Politics has done great work in providing a snapshot of the country and its' religious views. This time, Pew has focused on the country's perception of the faithful's involvement in politics and the two parties' open-ness to religion.
The lastest poll demonstrates that the Republican party is still more accepting of religion and its influence than the Democratic party. For the most part, the GOP is much more accepting than the Dems. No surprise there. The fact that many white evangelicals are less happy about the Republican party than they were last year is very intersting.
"The Democratic Party continues to face a serious "God problem," with just 26% saying the party is friendly to religion. However, the proportion of Americans who say the Republican Party is friendly to religion, while much larger, has fallen from 55% to 47% in the past year, with a particularly sharp decline coming among white evangelical Protestants (14 percentage points)."
Looking at the poll numbers, it seems that Evangelicals are upset that the Republicans haven't done more to advance a conservative religious perspective and that Democrats are upset that religion has too much influence in government and politics.
"Most of those who say that religion's influence on government is declining believe this is a bad thing. But Republicans and Democrats who perceive a growing religious influence on government differ over the impact of this trend. Overall, about a third of Republicans say religion's influence over government is growing, and by a wide margin (23% vs. 10%) they say this is a good thing for the country. Among Democrats, 45% say religion has a greater impact on government today, but they generally say this is a bad thing (28%) rather than a good thing (14%). Independents, for the most part, share the views of Democrats."
This distinction between Republicans and Democrats is fascinating. Roughly third of Rs believe religion's influence is growing and that it is good thing it is growing. But nearly half of Ds are wary of the growth of religion's influence. This explains a lot of why candidates that hold Christian conservative credentials only have so much support. Whether there ever was a moral majority can be debated. The fact is, it certainly no longer exists.
The prestigious journal Foreign Affairs, has a cover story asking the question God's Country? This is a great review of America's religious makeup, the essential differences between Fundamentalism, Liberal Christianity, and Evangelicalism, and the effect religion in America has on foreign policy.
Rarely has such a well-balanced and thorough treatment of the country's differences of religion been presented. This article is objective, respectful and insightful in terms of how and why American faith is so closely aligned with politics and policy.
The author, Walter Russell Mead, accurately points out some of the motivation, rationale, and implications of involvement of the faithful in politics and policy on domestic as well as international issues. Therefore, it is wholly appropriate to generalize the focus of this article from international relations to religions interest in domestic political or policy matters.
Mead's conclusion is that "evangelical power is here to stay for the foreseeable future, and those concerned about U.S. foreign poliicy would do well to reach out. As more evangelical leaders acquire firsthand experience in foreign policy, they are likely to provide something now sadly lacking in the world of U.S. foreign policy: a trusted group of experts, well versed in the nuances and dilemmas of international situation, who are able to persuade large numbers of Americans to support the complex and counterintuitive policies that are sometimes necessary in this wicked and frusterating -- or, dare one say it, fallen -- world."
Let us adopt this objective both domestically as well as internationally.
The Huffington Post has a classic tirade by Deepak Chopra about President Bush, religion and politics, and stem cells. It's too bad the HP posted this since it basically consists of a temper tantrum blaming everything on 'stupid Bush and his closed minded religious ideology.'
Chopra, "a spiritual speaker who fuses Western science with Eastern wisdom," is claiming to point out the
"bad science" of the Bush Administration's rejection of public monies to fund the destruction of embryos for experiments. It's dumbfounding that someone who has made a living from the intersection of the spiritual and scientific can so summarily reject that with which he does not agree. Furthermore, it's equally bewildering that he seems so ignorant about the distinctions of religion, ethics, and public policy.
There is plenty with which to be dissatisfied by the Religious Right but Chopra blames the coming end of our beloved Republic on his mis-understanding of American politics and the role of faith in shaping our society and government. That serves little but does mark Chopra as a hack for the 'anti-Bush, anti-conservative Left.'
One thing that is constructive from this display of anger is the clear perception that those on the anti-religious Left hold Christianity and those who integrate their faith as undeserving of their place in the polity. It is incumbent upon those of us, therefore, who believe that our faith cannot help but affect our ethics and politics to prove them wrong.
Kudos to the Raliegh News Observer for interviewing Randall Balmer and soliciting his thoughts on the Religious Right. Balmer always brings up good points about Christianity and society.
Balmers book Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory, is classic contemporary commentary on the Evangelical subculture. The PBS special of the same title is wonderful. particularly when he goes to an Evangelical music festival and interviews the attendees and their articulations of faith.
Balmer has a new book that is sure to be provocative. It's called Thy
Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America.
A more contentious title one could not select.
Look for a review here soon.
Back to the News Observer interview. Balmer addresses public displays
of the Ten Commandments, abortion, HIV/AIDS in Africa ,
and the power of James Dobson and the Evangelical media empire. He goes directly to the heart of the Right's sacred cows.
Enough already. Click the link, read the article and let's discuss.
