William McKenzie of the Dallas Morning News suggests Pentecostals might be an important demographic group this fall — particularly Hispanic Evangelicals, a very interesting conservative-religious segment:

What does all this mean for the fall election?

John McCain has the edge among Pentecostals, but this is not a done deal.

Mr. McCain’s strategists would be smart to emphasize to Pentecostals his belief in conservative social values and his dedication to finding a better set of immigration laws. The values part would reassure Pentecostals that he won’t unravel the social order. And his devotion to fairer immigration laws will show he’s not one of those Republicans who is out to demonize immigrants, some of whom worship in Pentecostal iglesias in cities like Dallas, Los Angeles and Chicago.

As far as Barack Obama goes, he could play to the younger Pentecostals who have an interest in a fairer economy. And there are black Pentecostals he could win over in large cities.

Read the whole thing.

Elsewhere, this Religion News Service writer wonders if Evangelicals will turn to Barack Obama, who’d love to see them do that.  The article is not persuasive or even informative, because it’s simply a collection of “man/woman in the street” interviews.  Besides, I see no reason why Evangelicals won’t vote their political beliefs first.  Those who tend to have conservative political views will overwhelmingly vote for McCain; those who are more liberal (a minority within Evangelicalism, I believe) will vote for Obama.

Sigh. Simplistic stories about religious voters seem to be favorites f0r lazy reporters.

Finally,  on the political side of the fence, John, e-mailing from Rome, notes this story about a Romney becoming McCain’s Michigan campaign chair.  It’s Scott, Mitt’s brother.  Hmmm . . . .
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To say that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s National Press Club speech dominates Monday’s political news would be more than a gross understatement. It is hard to know what to add to roundups like this one. I’ll just offer a few observations:

1. The Wright controversy is not about religion and politics. It’s mostly about a pastor who rants the extreme, borderline crackpot views of MoveOn.org over his pulpit.

2. Adding to no. 1, the controversy over Wright is not about his theology, it’s about his political statements. The former is almost immune from political attack; the latter are 100% fair game.

3. Wright has established himself as a kook. I almost wonder if he has done so in order to allow Barack Obama to distance himself from Wright once and for all. Obama can now say, “Look, the guy was my pastor and I looked to him for spiritual leadership, but this stuff is beyond the pale and I reject it completely.” I wonder if he will, however.

4. Wright himself seems to be able to articulate the difference between being someone’s pastor and being a political adviser, as Power Line notes. And yet the Rev. Wright seems to have a hard time seeing the difference between preaching the Gospel and simply ranting about the same things one might expect to read on the Daily Kos, or hear on Keith Olbermann’s show (although Wright makes the moronic Olbermann seem almost thoughtful by comparison).

5. Perhaps the most important lesson to be learned from Wright’s pratfalls is that he represents everything wrong about mixing politics and religion - and then some. As a conservative Republican, I’m just relieved that this episode was inflicted on a Democrat, and not on a GOP politician who got too cozy with a religious whacko who happens to be on our side of the aisle.

I just think Wright cannot be taken seriously and does not deserve all the attention he is getting.

John’s comments: I have to disagree with my friend Lowell. Jeremiah Wright certainly wants this to be about politics and religion. Says Eugene Robinson:

But his basic point — that any attack on him is an attack on the African-American church and its traditions…

Indeed, Wright seeks religious cover for political speech. Consider this from the transcript of the speech itself:

To say, I am a Christian, is not enough. Why? Because the Christianity of the slaveholder is not the Christianity of the slave. The God to whom the slaveholders pray, as they ride on the decks of the slave ship, is not the God to whom the enslaved are praying, as they ride beneath the decks on that same slave ship.

How we are seeing God, our theology, is not the same. And what we both mean when we say, I am a Christian, is not the same thing. The prophetic theology of the black church has always seen and still sees all of God ’s children as sisters and brothers, equals who need reconciliation, who need to be reconciled as equals, in order for us to walk together into the future whichGod has prepared for us.

First, it is amazing to note that here Wright is making exactly the same argument, the “different god” argument, that was made to EXCLUDE Mitt Romney from consideration, for the INCLUSION of his views, which he does in the name of diversity. Now that is an argument we have advanced on this blog time and time again. The problem is, he is using it to place his essentially political statements above the fray and outside the realm of political criticism.

Yet, during the Q&A Wright seeks to draw a definitive line between religion and politics:

So I started it off in prayer. When he went out into the public, that wasn’t about prayer; that wasn’t about pastor-member. Pastor- member took place downstairs. What took place upstairs was political.

But it seems a mighty convenient division., a division based only in action, but not in thought speech, or idea.

This, frankly, is a nightmare for our nation. By seeking religious cover, Wright has essentially invited in depth scrutiny by press and our government into what goes on in our churches. Wright’s formulation would here, for example, prevent government observation of what goes on in any mosque in this country, up until the point that someone is actually hurt. Terrorists could feel free to use mosques for planning and logistics because it is not political until it is action.

But worse, imagine court cases where churches are invaded and efforts are made to sort religious and political speech. Where churches are invaded by press and pundit seeking political ammunition when they should be worshiping. Yes, I know it happens now, but imagine it cut loose in the fashion that Wright here proscribes. Consider our interview with Hugh Hewitt when his book, “A Mormon in the White House?” came out:

JS: The next place I think we’ll go — you mention this in the book, Hugh, and it was something Lowell and I found out very, very early on when we started the blog, somewhat disappointingly. There appears to be a great dearth of case law related to Article 6, and I’m just wondering why, and what does that mean?

HH: It’s self-executing . That’s why. For the longest time everyone understood what it meant, that one did not ever suffer penalty for their religious faith in the public life of the United States. Much like the 14th Amendment removed disabilities to African Americans serving in the public life of the United States. However, the internalization of that ethic seems to have frayed, even after the 1960 campaign. And I was talking with Bill Bennett about this this morning. The bar is so low when it comes to attacks on Mormons vis a vis any other minority, that it is shocking. And I think that is because simply opinion leaders have not educated those who take their cues from them about what is and what is not acceptable concerning Mormon bashing. And unless and until they do, it is going to continue, until it becomes unacceptable, or — we internalize from public figures, how to act. And thus, many of us have watched the decline of Catholic bigotry. We have watched the decline of attacks on gays and lesbians. We have watched the decline of attacks on African Americans, on Muslims because of the public debate about those. That has not yet happened about Mormons. It has got to.

Wright here, by seeking to blur the line between religious speech and political speech, challenges the “self-executing” nature of Article VI. Were he successful, our nation would be a much worse place.

Now, having said all that, I do not, thankfully, think the good Reverend was successful in his arguments. But they are dangerous arguments nonetheless. as I pointed out, they are arguments that were used to exclude in the Republican primary, and frankly that is the effect I think they will have on the Democrat side as well, despite Wright’s intentions.

OH and by the way, having been to a few black churches in my life - I am pretty sure it is the same God.
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This story out of Washington, via the Salt Lake Tribune, will cause some buzz. It will especially excite those who, like Al Mohler, seemed very afraid that Mitt Romney’s success would put the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in a positive light. In a public address, Elder Russell M. Ballard, of the Church’s Council of Twelve Apostles, commented on that subject:

“I’d much rather have people talking about us than ignoring us.” . . . The biggest problem we face is apathy. Still, we have learned a lot. One thing we have concluded is that even after 178 years, there is more misinformation out there than we had imagined.”

. . .

Ballard, one of the first LDS leaders to speak out about the race’s impact, says anxiety about Mormons primarily came from conservative Christians who are against the LDS Church’s doctrine and, from the other end of the spectrum, those who oppose the church’s position on moral issues such as abortion or same-sex marriage. . . .

“While we do speak authoritatively for the church,” Ballard said, according to prepared remarks, “we look to our responsible and faithful members to engage personally with blogs, to write thoughtful, online letters to news organizations, and to act in other ways to correct the record with their own opinions.”

Well, we’ve certainly seen plenty of that.

John adds some thoughts: While I cannot disagree with the basic analysis Ballard here presents, I would caution our LDS readers to not commit the same “sin” my evangelical brethren have. It is easy to paint with a broad brush. For some Evangelicals “flip-flop” meant flip-flop - they may not have done their homework on Romney’s record, but they did not commit religious bigotry.

So what to do? - and here I do disagree with Ballard. writing letters to the editor saying “Mormons are not like that,” even if they really are not, will tend to perpetuate the battle. I have simply had too many conversations with Evangelicals where they were arguing with the literary constructs of the LDS rather than with LDS people.

The only Mormon most Evangelicals know they have ever met is the missionary that has annoyingly knocked on their door - “annoyingly” because they feel guilty about their own lack of evangelical zeal when it happens.

My suggestion to my LDS friends can be wrapped up in one word - “Engage.” Find an Evangelical neighbor and invite them to dinner, let them know you are LDS (the Evangelicals will be frightened you are going to try to convert them, so once you identify, be quiet about it.) Try to start joint humanitarian projects with more mainline Christian organizations.  Yes, such will strip such activities of any “religious content,” but might it not be worth it for the relationship bridge that is built?

My point is simple, the best way to remove the Mormon “stigma” is to be a Mormon that “is not like that.” Most of you that I know are not, but then I KNOW YOU. See my point?

Lowell jumps back in:  John’s comments are excellent, and for Mormons who have been paying attention, they mirror what Elder Ballard himself has encouraged members to do.  Here’s Elder Ballard’s classic 2003 address about that very subject.

As for engaging, we are now faced with the challenge of engaging in the Internet.  I am sure that Elder Ballard’s recent exhortations have been in large part inspired by the way the LDS faith is protrayed in cyberspace.  If you Google “Mormon,” 90% of what you find will be anti-Mormon, some of it viciously and virulently so.  Engaging with neighbors, whom you can see and with whom you can converse, is hard enough; engaging with nameless folks in the Internet is even more difficult. 

But John’s right - both Mormons and Evangelicals need to do a better job of engaging in a constructive and Christ-emulating manner.  I see it as an opportunity for everyone.  With rare exceptions, neither side is going to convert the people with whom they engage on-line, but we all need more friendships with people of good will and similar values.
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This past weekend has seen two stories evolve that illustrate to me that the American people may be willful, sometimes bigoted, often prejudiced; they can be narrow minded and sometimes thoughtless, but they are not dumb.

The first story concerns Obama’s “small town” comments of last week. I was offended by the reflection of Karl Marx and the denigration of religion inherent in the comments. As the outrage has evolved through the weekend, it is more about the insult offered small town America than it is intellectual vapidity, but outrage has emerged nonetheless. America gets it when they are being played for dumb, and they do not like it.

The other story that reflects the general intelligence of the American public is the raiding of the Warren Jeff’s polygamous compound in Texas of several days ago and the ensuing coverage. That story is better than 10 days old now and this post from a very small blog is the first one I have seen that even attempted to make any Mitt Romney related political comment out of it. Of course it is in the negative, and wrongly so.

The press coverage of the Texas events has been uneven in terms of its identification of the compound as “Mormon,” “breakaway,” or simply labeling it “polygamous sect,” but it seems clear to me that most Americans have gotten the message that this bust has little to do with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and certainly that is has nothing to do with Mitt Romney.

Interestingly, anti-Mormon sentiment was an undeniable factor in the primary campaign. I have always thought the root of that sentiment was ignorance about what the modern CJCLDS looks like. There does appear to be more at play than that.
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This blog often defies characterization.  We seem liberal to the extent that we want to lessen religio-speak in campaigns, at least from their current levels, but we are rock solid conservative when it comes to our values.  To meet our mission we have even defended the right of Obama’s pastor to make his abysmal statements , even though he makes many purely political statements under the guise of religion.  But there are limits.

Those of us that remember the dark days of potential world-wide communist domination remember one of Marx’s fundamental maxims: “Religion is the opiate of the masses.”  Marx is long dead, as is communism in large part, but that idea survives today and defines the hard left.  Which means that Barak Obama defined himself yesterday when he said:

But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

If that is not a restatement of the Marxist ideal, I do not know what is!  Worse yet, it is the antithesis of the America ideal for religion and politics.  In this statement Obama, literally sees government as the true savior and religion as the false substitute.  I need to take a deep breath here.

It is hard to know where to begin with something like this.  This statement is so charged, and so wrong on so many levels (philosophically, historically, theologically, constitutionally. . .) that I could go on for hours.   It is the weekend and I do not want to get that deep.  Fortunately, this mode of thought has been so analyzed over the last century precisely because of Marx that if you google around a bit, you will read everything you need and even more you don’t.

I will limit my brief comments to political.  We shall here discover whether Obama really is the press’ golden boy.  If this statement stays under-reported and does not reach the general public in overdoses, we can conclude that the media is in the bag for him.  You know all that stuff we have been looking at here over the last couple of years about liberal Evangelicals and Democrats wooing the religious vote, and so forth.  Well, that all should, at this point, be swirling the bowl.

Even the religious left believe their faith is real and valuable, not merely a substitute for government, not some construct designed to mollify an otherwise dissatisfied citizenry.

This statement is also fascinating on a social/cultural level and it ties in deeply with whole Oprah phenomena, but I don’t want to get into that right now.  Think about it though.

Spread the word on this one, dear reader.  A McCain presidency looks more likely every time you do.  And frankly, while Mr. McCain was not my personal choice in nominees, he is looking better and better by the minute with opposition like this.

Lowell adds:  The problem is, the majority of the legacy news media sees “the heartland” the same way Obama does.  It will be interesting to see how the story is played.
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John Mark Reynolds, as usual, has written a persuasive post that gets to the heart of the Article VI religious test question, in the context of Obama’s membership in The United Church of Christ and its impact on the Senator’s policy positions.

Also as usual, Professor Reynolds’ post is so meaty that it defies excerpting. So although I can share this taste, you need to read the whole thing:

When Mitt Romney ran for president, I argued on the Washington Post site that mainstream religious groups and their theological ideas are not relevant to the political process except where they touched on civic affairs. Since the LDS Church supports traditional American views on human life and the family, voters who wanted to experiment with both life and the family had reason to ask hard questions of Romney. This was especially true when he was claiming to be “pro-choice.” His religious convictions, one of the most consistent things about him, were at odds with his stated political views. His shift to a pro-life position actually made sense of his church affiliation.

It is fair to ask a politician where he agrees or disagrees with the stated civic goals of his religion. . . .

I propose no “religious test” for Senator Obama. However, much of [Obama’s United Church of Christ] practice and “theology” is not religious in the traditional sense of that term, but secular or civic. It is a social gospel in line with the left-of-center social gospel of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Does Senator Obama agree with this point of view? If he does, it will have powerful implications for his views in office. This is no different than noting that the Thomism and natural law theology of a Catholic jurist will also be meaningful.

In other words, it’s eminently fair to ask a politician who attends a particular church that has stated civic, as opposed to religious, goals whether he or she subscribes to those goals. Sounds pretty simple to me.

For those interested in the demographic and cultural impact in the West of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, this Salt Lake Tribune article is a good read. I suspect our readers will be interested from the standpoint of understanding the Church’s political influence, which is considerable in certain parts of the West outside Utah. (Note: Many, including me, will quibble with the completeness and context of some of the article’s statements; so those who are unfamiliar with the Church should not take those statements as . . . well, gospel.)

Here’s a response to our post Monday about the World Magazine article reporting on Paul Weyrich’s apparent regret over not backing Huckabee.

And that’s what we have for today.
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