Today’s Reading List – October 15, 2007 | Article VI Blog

Attitude Journalism…

The coverage of the DeMoss letter continues, this time from Slate. You remember Slate – "Anti-Mormon Bigotry Central" courtesy of Jacob Weisberg. Well, for reasons completely unknown, and despite the fact that they reprint Demoss' letter in toto, they feel compelled to summarize it. In so doing, and by the sheer tone of of the summary, they manage to cast aspersions in any religious direction they can find. It is a bit like reading about the discovery of a toxic waste dump.

Funny, I get that feeling sometimes when I try to talk about Slate . . . .

Though not related to the election – Dana Milbank wears the same attitude.

In the meantime, some people are getting DeMoss' message in spades.

Lowell: Meanwhile, Bob Novak is still at it. His latest column (appearing this morning) takes off on a recent poll that suggests churchgoers support Giuliani:

In an aggregation of 1,690 interviews with Republicans and Republican-leaning independents in four Gallup surveys during August and September, Giuliani led with 27 percent (to Fred Thompson's 24 percent) among those who said they attended church once a week. Even more startling was the result of interviews with adult voters without regard to party preference. Among churchgoing Catholics, Giuliani led with a plus-38 favorable rating (trailed by Sen. John McCain with a plus-29 and Clinton bringing up the rear with a minus-9).

No mention of how Romney stacked up, but all this poll shows me is that churchgoing voters felt the same way about the race in August and September as the rest of the electorate did. Moreover, I don't think the "churchgoer" demographic necessarily matches up with the "values voter" demographic. In other words, I don't think the Gallup data tells us much as all. Am I missing something?

John comments on Novak: There is some insight in the Novak piece:

The Gallup data suggests that Dobson and the Salt Lake City group may be out of touch with rank-and-file churchgoers.

That is true – but that has ALWAYS been true. They represent a small segment of the wider church-going public. It is the candidate that rallies the wider Christian voting base, and the fact of the matter is, Guiliani is doing little or nothing to attract that group, while Romney, by talking to Dobson, et. al., and many other things, is trying to attract that group. What the polling says is not that Guiliani is the guy; what it says is that the Christian conservative vote is still up for grabs. Given the Romney strategy, name recognition still matters a lot in this race, and will until the initial votes are cast.

And the wheel turns…

We had an interesting exchange with Kevin McCollough a while back. They guy is starting to warm up to Romney, just a bit. There will undoubtedly be more breathless reporting to follow–

"Lordy, Lordy, more of them Evangelical types are thinking about voting for that Romney fella."

Case in point, Jonathon Martin tries to make the case for Huckabee. And seems a little incredulous that we Christian conservatives are not flocking to our "brother in Christ." There are a couple of things about Martin's piece that I find interesting, both of them presumptions on Martin's part. For one, he presumes Christian conservatives will vote their theology. Secondly, he presumes that something like ability to win the election shouldn't be a factor for ideologues like we religious voters. Despite quotes by many to the contrary, Martin seems a bit stunned that this is not going as simply as the labels say it ought to.

Witness the Post Chronicle, which opines, albeit quite belatedly, that Dobson has created an opening for Romney.

The poor MSM, I guess we are just not quite as dumb as they want to think we are. Here is some more evidence of that fact.

Meanwhile, in the world of the really serious…

Our friend Stan Guthrie and my once-admired Tony Campolo exchange notes. Just when the press had decided we all think alike.

Looks like Evangelicals are "maturing" politically. True enough, but something about the consultation of scholars makes this seems a little snotty.

Jonah Goldberg links to a very deep discussion on religion and politics and international relations. He quotes Mark Lilla's opening essay:

Considered with even a little historical perspective, contemporary American debates over religion and politics are astonishingly provincial. Whether our arguments take place in the press, in seminar rooms, or on the stump, we keep coming back to the same basic themes: toleration, church-state separation, freedom of assembly, conscience, values, community, and a few others. These terms reflect the way we see religious phenomena at home and abroad and also shape how we see them. Having read our Tocqueville, we understand how deeply rooted in American experience these concepts and categories are. Many of the first settlers were fleeing religious intolerance and persecution at home, and for them establishing a constitutional framework guaranteeing toleration and church-state separation was the first order of political business. Nothing goes deeper in American collective consciousness.

What we seem to have forgotten is how unique the circumstances were that made possible the establishment of the American compact on religion and politics.

The unique American "compact" on religion and politics is a huge part of what has enabled us to thrive and become the most powerful nation in history, doing so without conquest and subjugation. That is why this discussion is so important. If a "religious test," even one exercised individually in the voting booth, goes unchallenged we erode that compact and we therefore erode this great nation. There is much at stake.

You would think something at Harvard would be serious, but if we weren't invited, can it be?

Common sense from a "missionary to elected officials."

Lowell interjects: Here's a SLTrib columnist who starts off on a good foot, decrying extreme anti-Mormon demonstrations in Salt Lake City. Then he reaches a very questionable conclusion:

To me, it's no coincidence that since the fundamentalist Christian Right has gained influence in the George W. Bush version of the national Republican Party we have become much more divided as a country.

And the Mormons in this reddest of the red states are among the victims of the ensuing bigotry.

"The ensuing bigotry?" Excuse me? The irony of red-state Mormons being abused by a tiny minority of boorish Evangelical zealots is real, but is that supposed to be George W. Bush's fault– or even evangelicalism's fault? Sorry, but the cause and effect relationship here looks a little tenuous.

Insight from the trenches...

A story out of Arizona, interviewing local Republicans, is mostly the same old yada, yada on The Question, but it contains this great line:

"If the media wasn't out there all the time talking about it, I don't think anyone else would," he says.

Lowell adds: Here's a marginally relevant story from the Chicago Tribune, and here's a companion story. My first reaction to them was to sigh and mutter, "Here we go again," but maybe there's another message here: As much as many of us want this election not to be about a specific religion, it's going to be about Mormonism to a certain extent– perhaps only enough to address the unfamiliarity problem, which we think is a big part of any religion problem Romney has.

As John has often said, neither the 2008 campaign, nor Romney's candidacy (nor even his success, if he wins the presidency) are going to make everyone feel OK about Mormonism. But I think for Romney to succeed, a significant chunk of the electorate needs to feel that he subscribes to America's "public religion" (discussed often here). For them to feel that way, they need to get over their discomfort/unfamiliarity with Romney's faith. If I'm right, then stories like these are probably helpful.

John responds to Lowell: Oh my, Lowell and I are going to disagree a bit here. I agree with Lowell that people do have to come to understand that Mormons subscribe to the "public religion." To that extent, the early part of the first article is a good piece. However, as things then break down into the Mormon distinctives, I am not sure it helps. Most people, creedal Christian and Mormon, are far more dogmatic than they are understanding of their faith. Discussing the distinctives drives the wedge deeper.

We do both hold the public religion, but discussing where we are different tends to blur that fact. There is plenty of information available about what Mormons believe, and some of it is good, but I cringe every time the press tackles it. They cannot get what creedals believe right most of the time and they are far more familiar with us than with Mormons. There is a very fine line here.

Lowell rejoins: We do disagree, but I think that's only as to our degree of resignation to the discussion that's under way. John thinks the discussion's a bad thing; I think it's inevitable, regardless of whether it's good or bad. I hope it's clear from my comments above that I am ambivalent about the Chicago Tribune stories and their helpfulness; in part, that's the result of a lifetime of watching the MSM getting religion wrong or abusing religion– particularly mine. But that same lifetime has taught me that discussions like this are simply going to occur, especially when a Mormon is one of the leading candidates for the presidency of the United States. The ChiTrib articles seem fair and careful to me, and at the end of the day, as long as The Question is going to get attention and focus, fairness and accuracy are much better than the alternatives.

And in the world of really horrific…

What if Romney did something like this?

The God-o-Meter. Furious