Article VI Blog

Everybody has an opinion about what went down at the Glenn Beck promoted rally in Washington last weekend.  Was it political?  Or was it religious?  Rally or revival?

Well, frankly, it was all of the above.

The United States of America has always been a religious nation without a specific religion.   We have always had something variously called the “civic” or “civil” or “public” religion that was pious, moral, believed in a supernatural and an objective good, but was insufficiently defined ever to rise to the level of an actual, organized religion.  It was a banner under which many religions united to work together as a nation.  This compromise has served us well because religion has flourished in our nation like no other place in history.

The civic religion has served as “battleground” that defined the rules of conflict between competing specific religions, and by keeping that conflict civil, forces that have ripped apart virtually every nation in history have been held at bay.  But some aspects of the civil religion are beginning to fray.  The belief in a supernatural and objective good seems no longer to be part of the common understanding of our nation.  One would think that in such a circumstance those of us that still hold such would unite under a banner to restore it – if we do not, the consequences would be disastrous.  NO religion will survive.

Ross Douthat’s analysis of the Beck rally is both insightful and problematic.  Insightful in this:

Latter Day Saints and evangelical Christians arguably share enough affinities to belong in the same “cultural family,” as Weigel puts it. But you’re more likely to find them in competition, from the streets of American suburbia to the mission fields of the developing world to the 2008 election’s great Mike Huckabee-Mitt Romney throwdown. It’s a case of theological differences trumping cultural commonalities: The two faiths occupy opposite sides of a theological chasm that makes the gulf between Catholics and Protestants look narrow by comparison, and many evangelicals bristle with hostility for what they regard as Mormonism’s cultish pseudo-Christianity.

The problems arise when he then goes on to seemingly fan the flames of the conflict rather than try to quell them.  Yes, we do compete in the mission field, but if our nation cannot maintain its civil religion and accompanying religious truce in governance, there will be no mission field on which to compete – all religion will find itself banned, or an “official” religion will squeeze the rest of us out.

Some, worried that capitalism and politics will become a god, sound warnings that lead others to send for the wrong message at the wrong time. The forces that deeply oppose, those that do not believe in the supernatural and objective good, will – when they get the story straight – use our religious differences to split a coalition that could otherwise preserve the civic religion.  They will try to make us look foolish.  They will look calm and cool and collected while we will look like religious thugs.

The analogy is old and tired, perhaps to the point of triteness, but that does not rob it of its essential truth – It was necessary to ally with Stalin to defeat Hitler.  There was an imminent and violent threat that had to be dealt with before the subtle and quiet threat of communism.

There is an imminent and violent threat to religion in America right now – and it must be dealt with before the religious “cold war” between the faiths can be fought.  The Beck rally in Washington this weekend past was about that pressing threat.  I’ll take any ally I can get.

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A Volatile Mix…

What mix?  Well for starters, Mitt Romney (God forbid anyone would be allowed to forget he’s a Mormon!) is polling very well and came out with an awesome op-ed in the Boston Globe.  Secondly, the religious angle to the Nevada Senate race is getting really ugly. (Pun intended – and for the record, while Sharon Angle did pathetically open this can of worms, it’s Reid that has gone all “attack dog” over it.)  There are religion angles in other mid-term races as well.  And finally, the Ground Zero Mosque controversy just keeps rolling along, despite some enormously silly comparisons. (I don’t get the comparison at all, frankly.)  So, what do we get out of all of this?  (I am not going to go near the “Obama’s a Muslim” meme – it’s just silly.  See some reasonable commentary from Slublog and a CSM blog points out that the man’s lack of convictions creates a vacuum that needs to be filled – but give me a break, some vacuums need to remain empty.)

There are a lot of cries that Romney should be be “out front” of the GZM issue.  After all, he’d be a “hypocrite” otherwise.  Funny how all these calls have come from the left, like Newsweek and CNN.  Allahpundit looks wisely at the political wisdom of Romney’s play here.  Ramesh Ponnuru used the controversy to point out that Evangelicals are not really biased against Mormons so much as they are identity voters.  (Not sure that’s true in Iowa, Ramesh, but you are probably right about the rest of the country.)

The point Ramesh makes is applicable here as well, there is no bias at play in the GZM controversy – it’s not a First Amendment issue at all, it’s a land use/zoning issue.  No one is saying that Muslims cannot worship freely and openly in Manhattan, just not on that spot in Manhattan.  In the ‘08 cycle, so many were quick to point out that despite Article VI of the constitution they were free to exercise their privilege in the voting booth as they saw fit.  That’s something we never contested.  We, like Ramesh, wondered about the wisdom of voting by identity, but never abouit the right to do so.

There is little Romney can do to help himself here.  Should he step out on GZM on a Constitutional level he will elevate the issue to a place that it clearly does not belong and blow his excellent conservative credentials on matters legal and constitutional.  Should he attack it on a zoning/land use level he will fuel those that did exercise anti-Mormon bigotry last time to do so again.

Besides, it’s really a local matter, not a federal one.

Also-rans…

People run for POTUS for a lot of reasons – they want to inject a specific issue into the campaign; they want to accumulate personal power for other political purposes; they want to accumulate public recognition for a career in media in some fashion – the list could go on for a while.  The point is that the simple descriptive “former candidate for president of the United States” buys a person quite a bit.  Right now, the media-discussed Republican “field” is full of such people.

This can be a good thing or it can be a bad thing.  It is a good thing when they bring something to the campaign that might otherwise not be picked up. That’s probably why a Rick Santorum run continues to become a higher probability.   Santorum will never get elected, but a credible run on his part will keep social issues somewhere in the mix in an election where they could be off the table altogether.  With the economy in the state it is in, they certainly should not be front and center, but they are important.

The presence of Haley Barbour in the mix may be good or bad.  He is a formidable fund raiser and his presence in the race, at least for a time, can increase that ability – which can certainly aid other more viable candidates.  He also, as Santorum, can serve as a target for some of the more cartoonish attacks from the left leaving the serious players a more open playing field.  However, problems can arise if in his desire to use his fund raising prowess to serve as “kingmaker” he ends up being more self-serving rather than party-serving. (Lowell interjects:  Barbour is a former RNC Chairman who has a history as a party man.  So I like to think – hope? – he would not be self-serving.)

Need an example of the whole self-serving model?  Look no further than our old “friend” Mike Huckabee.  He is polling well in Iowa, but that is about as surprising as ice in Antarctica.  We will not review here (we’ve done it already) how Huckabee, by hanging around like he did without an iceberg’s chance, mucked up ‘08.  Huckabee is currently billing himself as “a preacher who accepts all, a politician that never plays politics and a host unlike any other.”  Do I think he’ll run?  At this point, yeah – I do.  Which means the serious players will have to make Iowa unimportant which will neutralize him for the rest of the campaign.  Huckabee will be aided by a press that desperately wants Iowa to matter – which will be fine for Huckabee since media is really what he is after.  But we cannot let him serve the party another mediocre candidate.

Inside Evangelical Politics…

Last week we pointed out that it seems like it is always the left that gets truly rhetorically nasty.  That rule seems to hold true inside Evangelicalism as well as out of it.  Last week Jim Wallis did an interview and he turned absolutely uncharitable on Marvin Olasky.   At the Corner, Jay Richards said:

What to say at this point? At the very least, Wallis has abandoned even the pretense of civil discourse here. Olasky has evidence of Soros grants to Sojourners, so the most that Wallis would be justified in saying is that Olasky is mistaken and that the evidence is misleading or fraudulent (which seems unlikely). Instead, he says that Olasky is lying for a living.

Hugh Hewitt said:

So Marvin Olasky was slandered by Jim Wallis, as was Glenn Beck.  Wouldn’t a man seeking to represent Christians be quick to apologize to both?  If Wallis has done so, I haven’t seen it.

Wallis has corrected his incorrect factual assertions, but his tone and demeanor have remained unchanged.  Is it any wonder people do not like us so much?

And while we are on the subject – R.R. Reno had some interesting thoughts on civility.

Those Mormon Ads…

Are still being discussed a bit – mostly by bitter, unhappy people.  The CJCLDS continues to make the “Romney denials.“  I do want to comment that it takes a very narrow view of a church, any church, to think that advertisements for the church are about presidential candidates from within the church – or even about Prop 8.  Jan Shipps has argued again and again that while the Mormons were historically more ethnicity than church, they have transformed since WWII with the geographical diaspora it created among them,  into pretty much a standard American “come on in on Sunday” church with some rather idiosyncratic theology.

Religion Generally…

…is under attack. (Hey! – we told you so.)  “On Faith” is recycling the same old question in new circumstances.  It’ll be interesting to see how different the answers are with a different person and religion.  The fact that there is a difference is the actual heart of the problem.

Patheos, the new religion site that has been getting much buzz lately with collections of essays on the future of Catholicism and Evangelicalism has now done such a collection on Mormonism.  This one seemed particularly interesting.  Patheos may prove to be a great resource, but so far they are resisting our technical attempts to monitor their content remotely – this is not good when you try to track as much info as we do.

The line between sports humor and religious/political attack is a fine one.  Is Keith Olberman a trailblazer?  Far as I know, he has never been near Portland.

Some are saying American Protestantism is the most destructive religion in history.  Call me when a Presbyterian flies an airplane into a skyscraper.

Some say the Shakers are “sinister.“  Wrong on some things – perhaps, but “sinister?!”  Nah, no bone to pick with religion here.

The courts are at it again.  I wonder if soon we are going to have to disguise churches that can be seen from highways?  And what about this puppy? – I saw it a few weeks ago – it is big!

And in Australia, the church/state line is getting way too blurry for my taste.

Lowell adds . . .

For those who missed it, Hot Air offered an interesting twist last week on the news media’s apparent double standard on presidential religion.  The whole post is worth reading.  A key paragraph:

As I’ve said, I don’t really care what Obama believes. What bothers me is that the press only seems to think a president’s religion is important when his faith can be used to question his policy priorities. If those priorities go against the views of those in the media, then Christianity is a scary fringe faith that needs examining. If the president is progressive, then his faith is pure and he’s only trying to do what’s best for the country. No reason to ask uncomfortable questions.

The writer’s  point is that the news media expressed great discomfort, concern, and curiosity about G.W. Bush’s faith and its impact on his actions as president, but seem to think Obama’s Christianity is simply admirable, normal,  and pretty much beyond inquiry.

I think we see a variation in the same phenomenon with Romney and even Huckabee.  Long-time readers of this blog will remember a news reporter’s confession that while on a visit to Romney’s home she actually snooped around his bathroom, hoping to find a sample of his uniquely Mormon underwear.  (I can tell you it would have been hard for her to tell it from anyone else’s Fruit of the Loom.)   Huck, despite being my least-favorite Republican in the 2008 cycle, drew my sympathy because his Baptist faith was constantly under the microscope and treated as a real curiosity and a matter of serious public interest.

Which is my way of saying that in the presidential arena, religion has become a reporters’ tool that is too often used to shape the narrative – but mainly by the MSM and the liberal punditocracy, and only when it suits their favored candidates’ purposes.  As we’ve often said here, a presidential candidate’s religion is important only about 10% as often as the news media seems to think it is – and even that may be an exaggeration.

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The Left’s First Mormon Strike of 2012?

…Could very well be this Salon piece.

If you’re a resident of one of nine seemingly randomly selected mid-sized (mostly) non-coastal American cities, you’re the lucky audience for a new series of commercials advertising… Mormons. They are not quite explicitly ads for the Church of Latter-day Saints, they are just ads for Mormons, themselves. They are about how Mormons are regular people who enjoy things like surfing and riding motorcycles.

[...]

Mormons, obviously, want to prove that they are regular people, just like us, and some of them are even cool, young, attractive people who ride skateboards.

But… are Mormons just trying to convince Americans that Mormons are “normal,” so that in 2012 they’ll consider voting for Mormon King Mitt Romney? (These ads are running in four or five potential swing states, after all.)

They do go on to report that the CJCLDS refutes the claim but as they say, the bell has rung.  There was reaction in The Washington Independent, a Pittsburgh TV station and the Mormon Times.  EFM passed it on, and seemed to get in some hot water – please people do not be so sensitive – EFM are the good guys.

I think we are beginning to see the Mormon meme developing as the left will likely deploy it.  Straight religious attack (”the founding whoppers of Mormonism”) is not going to play this time – it’s been delegitimized on both sides of the aisle.  However, with the passage of Prop 8 and the ensuing “blame the Mormons” cries that arose from the left, they have come to think of the CJCLDS as some sort of conspiratorial organization and the hidden hand of right wing forces.

We have seen the “Mormon Mafia” pieces in the business pubs recently.  Dan Brown’s completely fictitious novels (The DaVinci Code) have produced images of religious institutions as conspiratorial organizations bent on promulgating deceit and cover ups.   Watch this space, “Mormons as bilderbergers” may be the meme of choice for 2012.

And while we are on the subject, this letter to the SLTrib concerning moves in talk radio in the local market is not at all helpful:

At a time when stellar and faithful Mormon Mitt Romney needs every ear, now is not the time to cancel his strong supporter, Sean Hannity.

If you are Mormon, do not vote for Romney because he is Mormon, any more than an Evangelical should vote against him because he is a Mormon.  And if you do support him for the right reasons, saying that in a public forum is just not helpful.

Prop 8 Ruling Continues to Roil…

An emailer poses a hypothetical:

…imagine this scenario: Judge Vaughn Walker is the proud father of seven children, grandfather of eight, happily married for 42 years and a former LDS stake president. He hears and carefully evaluates the same evidence presented in the trial and writes a 12 page opinion validating the will of the people. Do you think the media would dismiss his LDS and family views as inconsequential to the result, much as they have discounted Judge Vaughn’s homosexuality? I am convinced, given the well known impartiality of the media, that they would ignore his background.

The emailer is, of course, being sarcastic.  And of course, it need not be a Mormon – if it were little ‘ol Presbyterian me, the point would hold just as well.  If the “shoe were on the other foot,” as it were, the media would have been all over the ruling like white on rice.  And the media is bad enough, but I am concerned legally about this.  Any right leaning judge with as much personally at stake in a case as Walker had in this one would have recused him (or her) self.  Walker’s ruling is, as best as I can tell, two things unprecedented in American national history:

• a blatant attack on religion as a moral force in our nation by the power of government, and
• an attempt to rule by straightforward fiat on a level easily comparable to our days as a colony.

As reaction, I thought this piece by William McGurn was on point.

The effect this will have on the forthcoming elections is difficult to measure.  Dan Balz seems to think the focus will remain on the economy.  Looks like Glenn Beck does too.  (So much for Mormon conspiracies!)

Here’s my analysis – As an issue, same sex marriage is likely to stay on the back-burner.  However, the effect of this ruling will be highly significant in an indirect fashion.  There is enormous resentment building in this nation against the currently empowered left as they are moving too far, too fast, and doing so by force without the overwhelming consent of the governed.  Walker’s ruling is indeed the most strident, direct and effrontive of those moves.  People flat out will not stand for it.

The next couple of election cycles are likely to transcend issues, they are going to be about tone, attitudes and the very definition of democracy.  Successful candidates are going to figure that out and ride that wave.  People that get too focused on issues are gong to miss the boat electorally.  The First Thoughts post I linked to above on Beck is trying to hammer Beck because they see abortion and marriage as the preeminent issues.  On the other end of the spectrum is our old pal Fred Karger who has finally attracted some big time political press.

If Karger makes it on stage in those debates, he’ll join a line of single-issue candidates that have had some degree of success over the years.

There will be no room for “single issue candidates” this time around.  There is too much at stake.  The very heart of what it is the be the United States of America is in play.

Which brings me to…

…2012 News

I thought this MSNBC break down of the field was interesting:

You can look at the emerging GOP 2012 field this way: the establishment (Romney, Barbour), the new faces (Pawlenty, Daniels, Thune), the evangelicals (Huckabee and Santorum), and the cable TV personas (Palin and Gingrich).

There is a lot of sorting to do before this gets serious, but that is a taxonomy that might prove useful.  Some of those folks are going to the Iowa State fair, and some are not.  There is more strategy buried in who is and who is not than you might think.  Clearly Haley Barbour is making forays into Iowa, but is he dropping the forty pounds?  Romney and Palin are the clear leaders, but I still do not think Palin is going to run.

There are some unsmart things happening.  Politico wonders in “offbeat” candidates are going to hurt Republicans this time around.  I do think the very high levels of resentment out there are going to result in some unusual choices.  The party is going to have to tread very lightly as it works its way through this minefield of resentment.  Not all the candidates Politico is attempting to cast as “offbeat” are that bad, and they are preferable to the Democrat mainstream, but it is going to be interesting.

This is not offbeat, it’s stupid:

An influential group of religious conservatives said Monday it would sit out the fall gubernatorial election as promised after candidates it favored lost in last week’s Republican primary.

And thus the fallacies of “one issue” are revealed.  They don’t get what they want and so they don’t get anything at all.  In politics there are lots of battles, and as we have seen here, when we only fight a few, we lose the bigger picture.

And in closing, let’s consider what our illustrious president said Friday evening concerning the ground zero mosque:

This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable.

Let’s see how much he reminds his supporters of that should his 2012 opponent be a Mormon.

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Fortune Telling…

The new site on religion, Patheos, ran a series last week on the future of Evangelicalism.  Included therein was a sub-series on the political divides inside Evangelicalism.  Again confirming the wisdom of the strategy recently floated by the nascent Team Romney – you can’t court something as non-cohesive as Evangelicals, you can just let those that are on your side join the party.

The Mormon organization FAIR held a conference recently.  One presented looked at what would happen if a Mormon were elected president:

If the scenario were true, Watkins said, members of the media would scrutinize his tax returns and wonder why 10 percent went directly to his church. Devoting three or more hours to church meetings and other duties, home teaching and national coverage of Sister Johnson’s sacrament meeting talk might turn some heads. General conference would be a major media event. Attending the temple would become complicated.

And think of the possible political satire. “Saturday Night Live” would have a field day.

Dear friends, if that is all that happens – consider it a blessing.  Any person of faith is considered an “oddity” in this age and EVERYONE is made fun of on Saturday Night Live, usually distastefully.  I am far more concerned about mining Mormonism for political ammunition.

But this is the 2012 meme that I am seeing and hearing more and more of and find disturbing:

Our fear must be that through the 2012 primaries and caucuses, the winnowing process will bring the GOP back to its boring, staid old self – and thus turn off the Tea Party fervor which is the hottest political movement in decades.

What we should be looking for in our 2012 candidate is a conservative who can sell conservatism – and also attract middle-of-the-road independents – all the while being pleasantly on the attack against the liberals, using humor and a light touch to harness the underlying fear and anxiety we are all feeling about our country’s future.

The current administration is evidence of what happens when a party goes for pizazz over substance.  Ronald Reagan was an extraordinary human being in his capability to both sell conservatism AND administer the nation, but he would have been an abject failure if all he could do was sell conservatism.  The first qualification to run for president is not the ability to “sell conservatism” – it’s the ability to actually run the executive branch of government.  2012 is going to be the “get serious” election and we have some candidates that are very good at getting serious.

Sitting around an pining for something better is a sure path to losing.  Just look at the last election.

The Field…

The Christian Science Monitor surveys the field.  They seem to be thinking star power more than serious capability.  That’s a mistake.

But this New York magazine article just cracked me up:

It’s not exactly groundbreaking news, but according to an MIT study, a candidate’s aesthetic appeal holds a lot of sway with voters. In short, respondents from the United States, Mexico, and India pretty much agreed with each other about which candidates “would make a better elected official” just by looking at photos of them. And the candidates they picked were often the ones that actually got elected.

[S]imply knowing which candidate the participants judged to have a superior appearance allowed the researchers to correctly predict the winner in 68 percent of Mexican elections and 75 percent of some Brazilian elections.

Luckily for John Thune and his chiseled face, he will probably have the “superior appearance” in whatever race he runs in.

Wait?! – I thought Romney was the one with the “chiseled good looks?”  Has our nation really turned so superficial that we will vote for the “it” president?  Are we so superficial that handsome today is “old and ugly” tomorrow, not just in our Hollywood starlets, but our presidential candidate?  Well, on the left maybe…

The Meme To Watch For…

Remember that story we ran into a few weeks ago about Mormons in financial institutions?  Well, if this piece out of the UK is any indication, a meme is forming:

They are nicknamed The mormon mafia. Its followers are taking over the corridors of power on Wall street, heading companies in the Forbes 500 and have already made a bid for the White House. “You’ll find mormons in many board-rooms wielding influence and shaping society,” says one leading  mormon businessman. “We’re trained for success.”

Last cycles antics have made the “cult” charge unusable this go around so it look like they are going to use “conspiracy theory” this time.  Watch this space.

…Or not

Chris Cillizza this social issues will make a comeback, particularly in light of last week’s judicial ruling on Prop 8.  First of all, they never have been quite as dead as some would like to think, but that said, he’s wrong.  This stuff does not hit national until the Supremes rule.

Finally, ugliness…

Here and here.  It takes smart serious people to do religion and politics.  These are not them.

Lowell adds . . .

I am sorry to have been so absent from the blog lately. Vacation plans called, followed by a severe and unexpected attack of employment.

The FAIR conference speaker’s comments on the impact of a Mormon president reminded me of a concern raised on Al Mohler’s radio program back in the 2008 presidential cycle.  Mohler had two guests on his show and one of them expressed a fear about Romney (or any Mormon) winning the White House:  That a Mormon president would “mainstream” Mormonism.  That fear creates what Mohler called a issue of “Christian discipleship” for him:  Could he vote for a Mormon if he knew that the religion may consequently become more attractive to possible converts, causing them to be deceived and to lose their salvation?

I am not raising this to make fun of Mohler.  I do not doubt his sincerity or that of his guest, although I think they are both terribly wrong-headed about the matter.  If the FAIR speaker is right (and he probably is, largely), then people will indeed learn a lot about Mormonism if Romney is even nominated, much less elected.  I recall the 1976 election, when Jimmy Carter’s nomination led to a great deal of news media coverage of what were then called “born-again Christians” (now known more precisely as Evangelicals).  I don’t know what direction the Evangelical response will take if there is similar attention paid to Mormonism, but it will be important, both in the GOP primaries and in the general election.  As John said, watch this space!

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Never Underestimate How The Other Side Will Cause Trouble…

Remember, our primary thesis at this point is that our opponents, the Left and Democrats, will be the primary players of the religion card this forthcoming cycle.  They do so because, thanks to Mike Huckabee, we divided ourselves last time allowing them to elect Obama.  They will use any tool and any means to drive the wedge in us.  Never has it been more evident than it was last week.

On Thursday, Mark Kirkorian put up a post at the Corner that, while it made some excellent points, did so rather intemperately.  The issue was birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens.  Less than a day later, Eric Kleefeld put up something at the excruciatingly left “Talking Points Memo,” delineating a list of Republicans that had proposed something on the subject in the past.  Number 5 on his list was Mitt Romney, about whom he wrote:

The funny thing here of course is that Romney’s own family has its links to Mexico — his father George Romney was born there, as part of a Mormon colony founded by polygamists. (George Romney’s own parents were monogamists.) Interestingly enough, George Romney’s U.S. citizenship was taken for granted when the family moved to the United States when he was a child, and he later was elected governor of Michigan and even ran for president in 1968 — an office that of course has the much higher bar of “natural born citizen” that the birthers often talk so much about.

Not only did he manage to play the religion card in a story where it has no reasonable connection, but he managed to bring up polygamy with it!  Problem is, Kirkorian created the window for Kleefeld to do this.  Of course, that does no mean we have to squelch out own internal debate, but it does mean we need to use some common sense about how we have our internal debate.

The intemperance with which Kirkorian made his points served as signal to the other side that they were presented with a place where driving a wedge might be effective, and sense they believe from the last election that the religion wedge is also effective, they will work hard to work it in.  We have got to find a way to disagree and debate that does not create the appearance of such weak points.

And the sarcasm of the left is just intolerable, why set ourselves up for it.  And the Canadians seem to work in one of those out-of-the-blue Mormon references we have not seen in ages.  Although sometimes the left makes sense – Like this guy at Salon that has sized up Newt Gingrich pretty well:

…Newt Gingrich, whose flirtation with the Oval Office began anew this month when he declared in Iowa, “I’ve never been this serious [about a White House bid].”

But do not be fooled: “This serious” isn’t that serious. Like Stevenson, Newt Gingrich isn’t running for president (though he’ll go along with an “if-you-must-have-me” nomination, if they’re offering). What Gingrich is going for is something closer to running for ex-president.

It’s a campaign to be treated like that of the elder statesman he sees every time he looks into the mirror, to retain the dignitary-behind-the-closed-door lifestyle. Whether for his personal or professional failings, Newt never secured the permanence in stature afforded to former heads of state and Washington giants, the lasting transition from middle-aged gray hair to senior citizen graybeard. And he wants it. Desperately.

And speaking of Huck - this made me chuckle a bit – which is just about the only way I want to speak of the Huckster.

Meanwhile in Utah…

The CJCLDS discusses online proselytizing.  For what my opinion is worth on the subject, which is not much my not being Mormon and all, such has not worked well for Evangelicals – I think it sort of sends the wrong message about what a religion is and does.  But more, the last thing I thinks Mormons should do, if they are concerned about Romney’s potential candidacy is raise the proselytizing profile – it will make it appear that his run is really juts to aid the church (see section above – DO NOT put it past the left to work very hard to drive just such a story home)

However, on the other hand, this Deseret News story on Romney and Huntsman makes Huntsman seem dishonorable to me:

In a recent Fortune magazine interview that appeared on CNNMoney.com, his Mormon credentials were described as “soft,” unlike his more devout family. His father, Jon Huntsman Sr., is an Area Seventy in the LDS Church.

The former governor noted in the interview that his children attend Catholic schools, and his adopted daughters come from different religious cultures, one Buddhist, the other Hindu.

“I can’t say I am overly religious,” Huntsman is quoted as saying in the interview, which refers to his consideration of a 2012 run. “I get satisfaction from many different types of religions and philosophies.”

I have no idea of Huntsman is a “Jack Mormon” or what – but to run away from one’s professed faith like that indicates to me someone that lacks principles.  That’s the amazing thing about all the stuff that was hurled at Romney last time about flip-flop, etc.  He stood on his core beliefs – his faith – when denying it would have benefited him greatly, far more than any change of position of one issue or the other.   Nancy at EFM seems to note the same thing.  And Ben Smith at Politco fund Huntsman’s religious bet hedging worthy of passing on.

Silly People…

…abound.  This one makes no sense to me.  This one is just ugly and makes me really unappreciative of the “pay for play” publication sites.  Particularly in an age when getting noticed is not that hard.

Ross Douthat illustrates that he is not exactly in the Romney camp.

And the Anchoress makes the point that the left is very willing to use the silly among us to pain all of us.  *SIGH*  Sometimes I am deeply embarrassed by my coreligionists.

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What About Evangelicals?

Last cycle we talked a lot here about how hard it is to put your finger on who are evangelicals and what is evangelicalism.  It’s a theological viewpoint that has spread across multiple religious institutions.  It’s a culture of sorts.  It’s has been a bit of political movement.  Sometimes it’s even an ersatz form of denomination.  We looked last week at an article that wondered who spoke for Evangelicals.  This week sees a post on the diversity of view amongst Evangelicals on something as rudimentary as creationism and evolution.  Some see the Religious Right as strong as ever and some see Evangelicals growing elitist.  And of course, there is a great deal of internal religious debate between the political left and right.

There is fascinating empirical evidence that freedom and religion go hand-in-hand:  (HT: Instapundit)

Official Chinese surveys now show that nearly one in three Chinese describe themselves as religious, an astonishing figure for an officially atheist country, where religion was banned until three decades ago.

The last 30 years of economic reform have seen an explosion of religious belief. China’s government officially recognizes five religions: Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Islam and Daoism. The biggest boom of all has been in Christianity, which the government has struggled to control.

All of which brings me to an interesting, if very heady and academic, debate around Godblogging about how Christians should approach changing things:

As a result of this totalization of politics, the evangelical imagination about how to change the world has been sorely stunted. This was most evident in the recent health care debate, where the only question that was pursued by evangelicals of all ages was which statist solution we should implement to the problems that we face.

What’s more, rather than being motivated by a vision of the good and by care for the world, evangelical politics, left and right, has—according to Dr. Hunter—been fueled by ressentiment, or a strong sense of injury. So conservative evangelicals are held captive by stories of secular institutions who refuse to allow the Christian worldview into their discourse about the nature of the world, stories which are used well to raise funds, but which reinforce a culture of negation and hostility toward those with whom we differ.

As a descriptive account of evangelical political culture, this is hard to disagree with. Indeed, the purported leftward shift among my peers away from issues like gay marriage, abortion, and other traditional social conservative issues has been fueled in my estimation less by a serious and substantive disagreement over policy and philosophical issues, and more by the distaste we have at this sort of political world.

And yet.

There is a danger in describing the political culture of evangelicalism to relativize the political theories that motivate evangelical political action. In other words, because conservative and liberal evangelicals are both driven by anger and a sense of injury, which option we choose is irrelevant for solving the problem of a totalizing politics. Though I don’t think Dr. Hunter would agree with this, it’s not hard to interpret his book that way.

Very interesting points, but I want to put my two cents in on something that I see few addressing.  Religious political action is not nearly as effective as most would like it to be.  In presidential politics that we follow here, the best it seems to be able to do is spoil – it cannot act decisively.  Like a petulant child, tantrums can be thrown, but nothing positive seems to be accomplished.  Some of this is the result of acting out of a sense of injury and anger as described above, but much of it also stems from the relative lack of institutionalization that marks the current state of Evangelicalism.

The statistics on the mainline protestant denomination (Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists…) are frightening – they are shrinking.  Recently, even Baptists, who are very loosely affiliated, are showing a bit of a decline.  What is growing are completely independent congregations – what I have come to call entrepreneurial churches – almost all of which are evangelical in outlook.  This is a problem for political action.  There is a debate about whether they are in competition with denominations.  I am not sure they are on a religious level as most functional denominational congregations are turning very evangelical in style and outlook.  As a resource, a new site – Patheos – is looking into the future of the denominations. (HT: Kruise Khronicle)  Some find the lack on institutionalization in the entrepreneurial, evangelical church problematic.

Which brings me back to political action.  These entrepreneurial, evangelical churches are often idiosyncratic and personality driven.  The typically result becasue an individual is identified as “a leader” and he hangs up a church shingle, as it were, and builds a church.  Often this leader identification happens in the context of another congregation, driven by another personality, and the new church forms out of a schism of some sort.  In other words, these are people that are not good at large movements, they are good at carving out niches’.  Put plainly, they make herding cats look easy.

Successful political action by Evangelicals, who are mostly entrepreneurial has occurred when they have joined an effort that is underway, like when they joined with Roman Catholics and Mormons in the Prop 8 fight.  They just cannot organize themselves sufficiently to take a lead role.  As a denominationalist myself, I hope this bodes well for the denominations.  At the moment we seem to continue to tear ourselves apart, but the need for organizational capability does give me hope.

What this observation says is that the approach to Evangelicals that was whispered by the Romney camp a few weeks ago (not so much “punt” as the media would have it, but come join us, we are not going to court you) makes a lot of sense.  A national candidate cannot court that many niches.  But they can unite behind parade that is moving in the same direction they are.  That is essentially what Reagan did in 1980.

There will be some petulance from those that expect to be courted and there will be some tantrums from the unenlightened Mormon-bashers, but all in all this cycle will look very different from the last if one gets past the vitriol and looks at the general trends.  Be sure and read past teh deadlines.  Which brings me to…

Pure Politics

Tim Pawlenty has been making a big splash in the last week or so.  The Fix, Politics Daily, and Dan Balz all saw fit to discuss it.  Pawlenty is very much where Romney was this time last cycle, minus the religious baggage.  However I think Romney’s now large name recognition and the fact that the religious baggage is out of steam means that Pawlenty will never get enough traction to go very far.  He’ll finish second unless Palin or Huckabee actually run, but I just don;t see him making an impact this cycle.

Sarah Palin is the top Republican Candidate is how Politico sees it.  Some think she is the ultimate running mate for Romney.  (Nice note on Huck’s role last cycle in that one too) Interesting idea, but I honestly think she has no desire for the second slot.  Some think Republicans are bigger misogynists than they are Mormon haters.  The later is an opinion that lends a great deal of credence to the survey CBS reports here:

If former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin decides to jump into the 2012 presidential race, liberals would be thrilled, an unofficial poll released today shows.

As we have said, the left-leaning media will do whatever they can to prevent a Romney candidacy.  He is the most serious of the bunch and is the hardest “target.”  (I’d love to know what JournoList has to say about Romney?)

Jeb Bush is not running. *Yawn* Only surprizing to silly people.

Romney looks like Ted Danson. *Double Yawn with a Smirk*  In other Romney news, the Boston Phoenix, which typically misses no opportunity to make Romney look bad, analyzes proposes changes to the primaries, reasonably, if only in the concluding paragraph.  (Ignore the headline.)  Chris Cilizza names Romney’s “inner circle.“  There have been intimations that last week’s Palin crack emanated from this circle – NONSENSE!

Finally, a local Utah columnist looks at last week’s impenetrable Anderson/Volokh post and concludes that Romney will still have to deal with his faith this cycle.  Yes he will, but it will play very differently than last time.  The charges will come almost exclusively from the left and they may, if played properly serve to unite the right against a common foe.

And on a final note…

…and speaking of Mormon stuff, I found this interesting.  Faith an immigration is going to get really interesting, and I think the current administration may try to use it to divide us like Huckabee used the Mormon question last cycle.  Beware.

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