California Catholic Daily writes:

Other religious groups have taken an active stand against same-sex marriage and for the November ballot initiative. The Mormon Church has issued a statement (read on Sunday, June 29), urging members to donate “your means and time” to the initiative. “The church’s teachings and position on this moral issue are unequivocal. Marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God,” says the letter.

At a meeting of Catholic and Muslim scholars at Rancho Palos Verdes, May 27-28, the Muslim participants asked their Catholic counterparts to join the Muslim Shura Council in opposing the state Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage decision. The Catholics – the Rev. Francis Tiso, Dr. June O’Connor, the Rev. Alexei Smith, Msgr. Dennis Mikulanis, the Rev. Dennis McManus, and the Rev. Rafael Luévano – said they would make available U.S. bishops’ conference documents on same-sex unions and would “network with the the California Council of Bishops’ offices for social justice,” said a June 16 SperoNews story.

Note that there is widespread agreement, inter-religiously, on this issue. This shows enormous public will to oppose the CA Supreme Court ruling and to pass the amendment to the California constitution. Now of the three groups mentioned, Roman Catholics, Mormons, and Muslims, each brings to this table unique religious perspectives, doctrines, and even scriptures.

If each of these groups were to begin to argue their case from those perspectives, doctrines and scriptures, what would happen? Well, one good guess is they would break down into fighting over who had “the truth” and lost in the fray, completely, would the the shared goal of reversing the California’s Supreme Courts autocratic ruling concerning same-sex marriage.

This is yet another, in the increasingly long list, of reasons that when our religion informs our politics, we have to find other means of arguing our points than religious ones. Note sadly, there is no mention of Evangelicals. Which brings us to the question…

Does Dialogue Help?

Peggy Fletcher Stack writes in the Salt Lake Tribune on Dick Mouw’s recent Beliefnet article. We did not previously link to the Mouw piece because he does not say much that he has not said repeatedly. He is a proponent of Evangelical/Mormon dialogue and cooperation. Stack; however, points up a truly interesting dilemma with the whole idea:

Not all Mormons think Mouw’s proposal is feasible.

The differences between Evangelicals and Mormons is more than theological, says Kathleen Flake, who teaches American religious history at Vanderbilt University. It’s also organizational and systematic.

Evangelicals are only loosely organized around a set of principles; not least emphasizing the primacy of the Bible over theology, Flake says. Latter-day Saints, on the other hand, “are tightly organized around an enlarged canon of Bible-based narratives. These are loosely employed to express personal conviction of God’s contemporary and revelatory immediacy.”

Mouw’s invitation for official, Vatican II-like negotiation makes sense, she says, “only if you think that Evangelicals and Latter-day Saints have a theology sufficiently systematized to speak definitively. It seems to me that neither does.”

We have also examined Flake’s work on this blog extensively. What Flake is driving at here is incredibly important; let me phrase it a bit differently. Evangelicals and Mormons, and Roman Catholics, and mainstream Protestants, and Buddhists, and Hindus, and . . . have fundamentally different views of what religion actually is. Let’s narrow the field a tad for purposes of this conversation.

Evangelicalism is nothing but a set of ideas. There are loose associations built around those ideas, but in the end the only thing that defines Evangelicalism is ideas. Many would argue that it therefore does not rise to the level of religion, certainly Christian religion - it lacks elements that are typical of most other expressions of Christianity - among those elements being the ecclesiastical and the mystical. It could be argued that Evangelicalism is more philosophy than religion. And yet, in America, Evangelicalism is held and practiced, and most importantly people take their identity from it, as religion.

Roman Catholicism most notably, and mainstream Protestantism to a lesser but nonetheless significant extent, and the LDS have strong ecclesiastical components to them. They are defined not just by doctrine, but by entities, the church. Mormonism shares with eastern mystical religions and Pentecostal expressions of Christianity, a strong mystical component.

This incredibly brief outline explains, I think, why Evangelicals have such a hard time getting along with anybody. All they have is to be “right.” So dialogue, such as that proposed by Mouw, tends to always break down into arguments about who is right when Evangelicals are involved - because such argument is the only thing that defines Evangelicals.

(Aside to our Mormon audience: I am a bit unique, although there are quite a few of us, as a mainstream Protestant holding Evangelical views, that affords me the best of both, unlike many of my purely Evangelical brethren.)

In the end, I need to disagree with Dick Mouw here. Dialogue would be a purely academic exercise - I think action is called for. If Evangelicals are really serious about changing the culture/country, they need to set aside the question of who is right and just get busy. The efforts on a marriage amendment in California would be a great place to start!

The Veepstakes Continues

Lowell starts off:

Dick Polman, in the Philadelphia Enquirer, goes through every potential GOP veep nominee named so far, and rejects them all as not feasible. Then Polman comes up with this:

Unless McCain goes below the radar - and chooses somebody such as South Dakota Sen. John Thune, whose claim to fame is that he defeated Tom Daschle - it appears that the best choice is . . . Mitt Romney.

On paper, Romney’s got the assets: telegenic, scandal-free, vetted by the press, and a cash cow. He can raise big money through his Mormon and business networks, at least until McCain presumably takes public financing. He can talk economics far better than McCain. He has roots in Michigan, a state McCain covets. He has fans in the conservative base. He’d do no harm in the vice presidential debate, having demonstrated his unflappability in such forums. He’s panting after the job like a dog circling the dinner table for scraps.

There’s only one problem: A lot of Christian conservatives in the South are hostile toward his Mormon faith. And wait, there’s another problem: Romney, in his rightward political journey, has flip-flopped on more issues than even McCain.

(Emphasis added.) Well, I’m glad Polman came along and shared all these fresh and penetrating insights with us!

Seriously, it would be nice to see some actual data, instead of referring simply to “a lot of Christian conservatives in the South.” Will those voters vote the same way they voted in a three-way primary when the choice is between a McCain-Romney ticket and Obama-Whoever? We can all guess, but without data that’s all we’re doing.

Perhaps not incidentally, Jonathan Martin thinks it’s important to report that McCain went to church today “for the second time in three weekends:”

McCain, who either didn’t attend worship services during the primary or didn’t make his visits known, was in the same pews two weeks ago and visited Franklin and Billy Graham last Sunday at their home in North Carolina.

I think I know what Martin is trying to say, but still . . . . Reporters are keeping close track of a candidate’s church attendance, and that alone speaks volumes about this year’s race.

Back to John:

Speaking of Evangelicals that don’t fully get it, RCP comments on an AP piece. Just remember, some took away from the meeting things other than Huck for Veep - Thankfully.

The “Prince of Darkness” (NRO’s increasingly apropos nickname for Robert Novak) continues his one-note on Romney. Discussing Veep choices, Novak said on “Political Capital with Al Hunt”:

Robert NOVAK: “For Obama, my first choice is Joe Biden. They’re gonna put a gag on him, and he’ll be a good candidate. And the governor of Virginia, Governor Kaine …. On the Republican side, number one isRomney , I think is a very dangerous choice, I think the Mormon question is difficult, he’s got a lot of negatives. And the other one is Rob Portman — a lot of people are saying he’s a Bush person, I think he’s still the best candidate they can get.

I hereby officially conclude that NOVAK IS THE ONE WITH THE PROBLEM WITH MORMONS!

Elsewhere . . .

Yet another look at the history of religion and politics in America.

Obama keeps talking about his faith.  Hugh Hewitt notes the lack of mention of Jeremiah Wright in the latest telling. What I find fascinating is how quickly the discussion descends into a laundry list of typical left-leaning causes.

Lowell:  Such lists always seem to show up as politicians cynically use religion as a way to get votes.
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