Today’s Reading List – September 4, 2007 | Article VI Blog

Been A While Since We Have Seen Some of These…

You know, local pieces, almost completely unrevealing, but that discuss The Question out of some sort of sense of journalistic obligation. (Lowell: And that do so as if The Question were something new.)

This one out of West Virginia is fascinating. All states have political importance on some level, and West Virginia's proximity to D.C. gives it, despite its small size, a very unique place. But this piece seems designed to vault off The Question to give WVa a larger role in the race than it actually has. It is almost as if they are whining that their state matters in the religion wars too.

Out of South Carolina, an article that says almost nothing new at all, and from a paper that has printed it all before! Although it is nice to see them talking to our friend Mark DeMoss.

Here is one of those odd twists…

The Boston Globe writes about candidates' use of keyword auctions to try and get attention on the Internet. One of the more disgusting, and little talked about aspects of the Internet campaign is how many articles about Romney mention his faith which then attracts Google ads about Mormons. Those ads usually feature salacious headlines like "Mormon Underwear!" and often lead to quite inflammatory, ugly, and decidedly bigoted anti-Mormon sites.

Almost any conceivable defense against this on the campaign's part would backfire in charges of squelching free speech or something like that.

But here is the question. Let's pretend, no make that fantasize, that Mike Huckabee gets the Republican nod. What happens when rabid secularists start playing the same games with anti-Baptist sites? Something to think about, isn't it?

On religion and politics in general…

A short reading list. Interesting, but left-leaning. Oh yeah, and that last book. I am fairly confident that the only thing that can be learned from the French and French history about religion and politics is how NOT to do it. I'm reading some stuff on the role of religion in the French Revolution and its aftermath right now and those people were just nuts . . . .

An Op-Ed on what are legitimate religious inquiries of a candidate:

First, is the candidate widening the public conversation or narrowing it?

[...]

Second, is the candidate talking about the religious and moral beliefs of the citizenry, or simply talking about himself? [Ed. comment: Is the press giving him a chance to do that?]

[...]

Third and finally, does the discussion of faith translate into good and just public policies?

These are reasonable questions, but I think in general this is too shallow a consideration of the entire phenomenon.

And speaking of sweet reason…

One of the best pastor/bloggers out there, Tod Bolsinger, links to a blog post by Fuller Theological Seminary President Dick Mouw:

I once heard an evangelical leader speak out against a certain group with whom we evangelicals have significant disagreements. I happened to have studied this group’s teachings in considerable detail, so I listened very carefully to how he made his case against them. Much of what he said was on target, but at one point he seriously misrepresented what the group believed.

Later I approached him privately. I told him that I admired his effort to warn his fellow Christians against the group’s false teachings. But on one key point he was attributing to them something they had explicitly denied teaching. There is enough bad stuff to criticize in what the group believed, I said, without accusing them of something that is not really a part of their system.

The leader responded angrily: “You intellectuals have the luxury of making all of these nice distinctions! But I don’t have time for all your polite stuff! My job is to warn God’s people against false teachers. These folks are false teachers and they don’t deserve to be treated fairly!” He had a sneer on his face when he said that last word, “fairly.”

This leader had adopted an anything goes strategy in opposing a group he disagrees with. When you think about it, though, there is something very strange about that approach. We want to oppose false teachers because they do not teach things that are true. But if in our attempts to defeat them we play fast and loose with the truth, by attributing to them things that they don’t in fact teach and if we don’t really care whether we have it exactly right or not then we have become false teachers: teachers of untruths!

I knew there was a reason I went to Fuller!

Finally…

I have read and reread this piece, I think it is just a transcription of a reporters notes; barely formed sentences summarizing Romney's stump speech. But the amazing part is the headline under which it appears: "Mitt Romney says he's not too nice," and yet, not a single mention of the word "nice" appears ANYWHERE in the story. There is little doubt that "nice" is a code word for "Mormon" – making this the single most arbitrary and gratuitous religious shot I have yet to encounter.

Lowell adds: I expect to see more of this, especially if Romney gets the nomination. Romney seems to have set, and lived up to, high personal standards of behavior. His wife and sons seem to have done the same. That drives most MSM writers nuts, and they will either ridicule him as a goody two-shoes or work very hard to find some flaws in what they see as a too-perfect persona. Example: On a hunch, I did a Google search for "Romney" and "Stepford," and sure enough, the first hit was this cartoon, which combines the "too perfect" slam with the "Romney's kids didn't serve in the military" slam. That's just the beginning; there are pages and pages of hits on news articles, op-ed pieces, and blog posts referring to Mitt as the Stepford husband, Ann as a Stepford wife, and the sons as Stepford sons. Add that to the endless Osmond comparisons, and I think John has a point.

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