The Church’s Sins Are Ours

Edd Doerr (arlinc.org) thinks that Frank Bruni op ed ( Nov 4 NY Times) “The Church’s Sins Are Ours,” re sex abuse scandals" is right on target.

"It’s fashionable among some conservatives to rail that there’s insufficient respect for religion in America and that religious people are marginalized, even vilified.

That’s bunk. In more places and instances than not, they get special accommodation and the benefit of the doubt. Because they talk of God, they’re assumed to be good. There’s a reluctance to besmirch them, an unwillingness to cross them.

The new movie “Spotlight,” based on real events, illuminates this brilliantly.....

“If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one,” says a character in “Spotlight.” Indeed it does: a village too cowed, and a village too credulous."

There were 414 comments on this OpEd including:

"American history is replete with examples of religious institutions and ministers betraying their spiritual mission through the pursuit of political influence. Catholic authorities who valued the church's power and influence over the welfare of the faithful violated, in the most egregious manner, the commission they believed they had received from Christ. The Protestant evangelist, Billy Graham, while innocent of any criminal behavior, also betrayed his spiritual calling when he used his pulpit to claim that God wanted Christians to vote for Richard Nixon...."

Below it the comment Edd posted in the Times on-line is a good column.


Bruni's point is reinforced by the 2014 book, Potiphar's Wife: The Vatican's Secret and Child Sexual Abuse, by church-law trained lawyer Kieran Tapsell.


Also note a report this week in the National Catholic Reporter by Jack Ruhl titled "NCR Research: Costs of sex abuse to US church underestimated."


Ruhl's research shows that the sex abuse scandal has cost the Catholic Church in the US $4 Billion in the past 65 years. Ruhl adds that "separate research recently published calculates that other scandal-related consequences such as lost membership and diverted giving has cost the church more than $2.3 Billion annually for the past 30 years." That adds up to a total of $69 Billion! No wonder church officials have been seeking public funds through vouchers and tax credits for their shrinking system of private schools.

Who Won the Battle Over the Church-State Wall of Separation in 1832?

by Gary Berg-Cross

As we advance (or is it retreat?) into the primary season we are likely to see a “faux pas” of wedge issues as part of the cultural wars that pols use.  Issues about religious beliefs and the separation of church and state context are type of these. Examples include lingering issues over religious exemptions to the Affordable Health Care Act and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act but new ones continue to pop up.  

A recent one concerned a family bakery owned by a Christian who refused to make wedding cakes for homosexual couples. The Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that he can’t refuse them. The baker was on Fox News' "The Kelly File" to present his point of view and a counter view was argued by Rob Boston.  You can see the snippet at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXZTBd0GFUk

A sad aspect of contemporary life is that our political and judicial systems are quite damaged and sometimes sweep things under the rug rather than addressing challenges.

I happen to be reading Jon Meacham’s American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House ( a free google books version is available.) which provides a view of when a wedge issue was dealt with pretty directly by populist, 7^th president Jackson rebutting early attempt by Evangelicals to break through the wall of separation by inserting prayer as a wedge issue into the political process.

Meachen notes (see also a related article) that on religion Andrew Jackson was a surprising figure in American life. While respected the religious aspect of life he refused to formally join the Presbyterian church while in public life.  He thought it would be seen as craven to wave one’s religion at people. And while grew more faithful as he aged  presidentially, as far as politics he was essentially Jeffersonian on church and state, endorsing Jefferson’s “wall of separation.” He did so partly because he believed the church could be corrupted by the state and certainly in part because he could see it corrupting politics in his own time.

Jackson did have real battles with the clergy on moral issues and their calls for the formation of what was to be called the “Christian party in politics.” Jackson was a political enemy of the Evangelical Protestants of the day, who denounced his policies and supported his opposition - the Whig Party and Henry Clay. In the midst of these cultural wars political

opponents like Clay counted  on the Evangelical vote to defeat Jackson in the election year  of 1832 when Jackson ran for a 2^nd term.  And a cholera outbreak (natural event but looked on as divine punishment by some) provided an  issue –should the Federal government intervene in a terrible cholera epidemic by appealing to prayer?  Jackson refused to endorse legislation setting up a national day of prayer to address the cholera outbreak.

As discussed by Meachem, Jackson was called on by members of Congress along with “influential” religious leaders (they of the 2^nd Great Awakening) to call for a national day of prayer and fasting in response to a cholera epidemic. It does harken back to an era when infections were not understood and religious tradition dictated appeals to divine power to heal what doctors could not. Cholera was perceived, sort of like Hurricane Katrina to some, as divine retribution among many pious evangelicals.  To them prayer was a necessary as part of the remedy.

In a word Jackson refused (and prevailed).  To be sure he softening the argument by not challenging the efficacy of prayer. Indeed he could say that hoped “that our country may be preserved from the attacks of pestilence....  

But he opposed government participation in something that should be up to individual conscience and not act for government.  For to make the federal government involved would be, he said:

“While I am constrained to decline the designation of any period or mode as proper for the public manifestation of this reliance. I could not do otherwise without transcending the limits prescribed by the Constitution for the President “

and he feared that this religious encroachment could:

“disturb the security which religion now enjoys in this country in its complete separation from the political concerns of the General Government and without feeling that I might in some degree disturb the security which religion nowadays enjoys in this country in its complete separation from the political concerns of the General Government.”

It might not be Supreme Court law, but it is historical precedent that contemporary, populist pols might look to: avoid craven responses and be guided by constitutional limits and founder wisdom to handle these type of wedge issues.

An Hypothesis on the Secular Vote in 2016

by Gary Berg-Cross


Bill Scher, the Online Campaign Manager at Campaign for America's Future, (and the executive editor of LiberalOasis.com), often blogs about the problems that the Republican Party & Conservative Pols face. Recent ones include "Why Republicans Can’t Stop The Iran Deal (And Shouldn’t Want To) and "Republicans On Track To Lose The Latino Vote, And The Election, Again." But the most recent one (JULY 20, 2015) to catch my eye was, "Republicans Can’t Win Without Solving Their ‘Secular Problem. ’

The idea is simple, the highly religious and fundamentalist vote is maxed out.  The less religious and nones are growing and up, like the Latino vote, for being grabbed.

Scher points out some trends starting with an 2006 exit poll data that showed that:

'Democrats crushed Republican among voters who went to church “a few times a year” (60-38 percent) and “never” (67-30 percent), while the Republican margin among those who attended church “weekly” was slashed from 16 points in the previous midterm to seven."

The trend contnued in 2008, and Sher argues that the Republican secular problem was magnified:

'…In 2008, Sen. John McCain received 39 percent support of voters who seldom attend religious services, and 30 percent from those who never go. Both numbers represent a 6-point drop from what Bush received in 2004…

…Obama received 43 percent of the vote from voters who attend religious services weekly or more than weekly. For Kerry, those numbers were 41 percent and 35 percent…'

The idea here, which jives with the type of things we see among the current crop of GOP candidates  is that conservatives are aiming at keeping their Evangelical base.  The battle is for the more casual religious.

Scher reports that in 2012 an openly religious Obama did no better than Kerry among the  42 percent of voters who said they were regular worshipers. (The secular vote is also about 42%) Although a very religious Mitt did worse than Bush's 2004 results among the 57 percent who "never went to services or who went irregularly."

President Obama carried Religiously Unaffiliated voters 70% to Mitt Romney’s 26% according to a report from The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life exit poll data of the 2012 election. Although the President’s percentage was lower than in 2008, it still continued a trend of the nones supporting the Democratic candidates. The exit poll numbers were larger than a similar election poll in September when the President held a 65 to 27 lead on Romney. (from  President Obama Wins A Landslide From The Religiously Unaffiliated)

So 2016 shapes up in this view to having a new swing vote group he call the Secular. Candidates need to speak to them on secular topics. Renouncing “religious freedom” laws

that would permit discrimination is one he sites along with women's freedom to choose. Supporting equal rights for the LGBT community is obviously one that appeals to young seculars in particular based on their experience.  Even if they are not persuaded by a liberal candidate they find offense in how a socially conservative candidate  panders to the Conservative base on these and other Judeo-Christian inspired topics that do not respect the separation of Church and State. 

.

Integrity and Political Behavior

by Gary Berg-Cross

How and why Eric Cantor lost to (convincingly) to a Tea Party challenger has been a big story in Washington. The political elites and chattering class of pundits didn't see it coming, but flash-mob hypothesized about it. One early theory of the “shocked and bewildered”, as Time put it, was religious and cultural in tone:

“One of the more fascinating threads that emerged from the cacophony of ideas put forward in the days following the primary was the effort to find a Jewish dimension to the story. Cantor, the House Majority Leader, was the highest ranking Jewish lawmaker in American history, with aspirations to be Speaker of the House. When one adds to that the fact that Brat is a religious Christian who speaks frequently of his faith, the temptation to uncover a Jewish angle became irresistible. The New York Times, the Washington Post, the leading Jewish weekly the Forward, and a variety of other publications duly turned out articles examining, from every perspective, the Jewish and religious sides of the election…. David Wasserman, a normally sensible political analyst, got things going with a much-quoted statement to the Times suggesting that anti-Semitism was at play in Cantor’s defeat. Cantor was culturally out of step with his redrawn district, according to Wasserman, “and part of this plays into his religion. You can’t ignore the elephant in the room.” Sensationalist headlines soon followed. The Week, a news magazine, ran a story entitled “Did Eric Cantor lose because he’s Jewish?” And the Forward ran an opinion column with the headline “Did Eric Cantor Lose Because He’s Jewish? You Betcha.”

But there was no elephant in the room. There wasn’t even a mosquito in the room. “Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, a writer and lecturer, was President of the Union for Reform Judaism from 1996 to 2012. His writings are collected at ericyoffie.com.

Culture may have played a part (Eric Cantor was called the leading advocate for Jewish/Israeli issues in Congress) and we’ll have to see if conservative Jewish pols and evangelical Christian pols start to diverge. But another factors seems to be Cantor being perceived as lacking in integrity and political deftness. As Time also noted:

“Cantor’s problem was less ideology and more a sense that he stood more for his own ambition than for any definable policies. He frequently reinvented himself with splashy policy speeches, and toured the country raising money and gathering chits for an eventual run for House Speaker.”

There are several character issues here about what Cantor really stood for (aside from what some presume his conservative Jewish culture.). These were noted by a number of observers:

“[It's a] serious wake up call to all incumbents,” said Scott Reed, the top political strategist for the establishment-friendly Chamber of Commerce. “Time for candidates to run like they are running for sheriff… not prime minister.”

I think this is a point to note. In a functioning democracy the welfare of constituents (there perception o this at least) are the ultimate law, at least every 2, 4 or 6 years.

To his up close constituents Cantor showed a mix of avarice, as demonstrated in his numerous steak feasts mixed with a hint of phoniness, folly & cowardice. It’s was, in part, a classic words vs behavior issue. Cantor tried to have it both ways on so many things.  Was he loyal to his base and constituents or to Wall St. and lobbyists?  What does his behavior show?

What did he stand for on immigration reform? His early rhetoric on last year’s government shutdown that had excited the Tea-base (and sunk GOP’s poll numbers)

ended up making him look weak.  It was not enough that Cantor pose as a tea party conservative—his actions must be tea party peevish.  Without real action the veneer, the sheen of words wears off. As Cicero said, “false pretensions fall as do flowers, nor can anything feigned be lasting.”

Cantor like many of the privileged pols we have now (Jewish or otherwise) forgot that reputation and integrity are important. People expect that when in power you will follow through on what you say you’re going to do. It's walking the walk.

Cantor’s credibility eroded rather than built over time if only because people who heard his words could see the contrast to his actions as well as his paid for steak dinners. Perhaps you still can't fool all American voters for very long. Something must ring true.

In the end people and policy are more important than politics...or ideology.