the parish

Gay for God? A Primer on How to Talk to Christians About the Gay Debate

I am officially done with the Right and Left on this issue. Neither seem to understand the issue all that well, especially when the Bible is shoehorned into the conversation. First, let's be clear about one thing; it simply doesn't matter what the Bible says about this issue. It's a Constitutional issue, not a theological one. Our legislators aren't paid to parse Scripture and debate hermeneutics. They suck at English and ethics; we don't want them tampering with sacred texts. (In Oklahoma that's already led to a "no fetus burgers" bill and Sally Kern's ongoing efforts to redefine science.)

Until someone can give me a compelling reason—without citing Leviticus or Romans—that a class of American citizens are denied the same rights and privileges I enjoy, please just admit that the only real arguments you have are theological (i.e., god doesn't like it) or aesthetic (i.e., it's gross). Take away the Bible references, you got no argument save the one about old school conservatism and the wisdom of slow change. Yeah, Edmund Burke has been dead for a little more than 200 years, and he's the last guy that qualified to be called a real conservative. (And if you're still arguing "natural law," please join Sally and the creationists at the back of the class.) 

So, to the Bible, and for you non-Christians, this is important. There are a half dozen things you say that are just dumb and will not work with evangelicals (some of whom are opposed to same sex marriage) or fundamentalists (all of whom are opposed). Here they are in no particular order:

• The Bible says "Don't judge..." No, it doesn't. The entire context of the passage is that we are to judge righteously, which is to say, with a fair standard that we also apply to ourselves. Stop saying it.
• Jesus never mentioned homosexuality. No, he didn't. He didn't mention human trafficking or rape either. Arguing from silence is lame. Stop it.
• The greatest commandment is love. Yes, it is, but you'll never convince a Bible-believing fundangelical that love is synonymous with encouraging another to sin willfully. It's utterly counter-intuitive.
• We're all sinners, and no sin is greater in God's eyes. Um, there are actually at least three categories of sin, graded from menial to unforgivable. First is regular sin, which is like 99.4 percent of all sins. Paul designates another class called sexual sin, which is worse, because it involves another human and the "temple of the Spirit," which is my own body. The absolute worst is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, which Jesus himself calls unforgivable. There are absolutely better and worse sins, and if fundangelicals are right about homosexuality (and I'm sure they are not), then gay marriage and its subsequent nuptial blisses would fall into the middle category, making it worse than punching a baby or stealing from a blind beggar.
• The Bible is just a book written by men. Yes, it is, but I suspect you don't know the difference between plenary verbal inspiration, dictation, and limited inspiration, so best not try to explain to a Christian who might believe the voice of God is in that text why he's an idiot for believing so. You're wasting your time on this one.
• When the Bible was written, the term homosexuality didn't exist. No, it didn't, but same sex acts between people did. This is one that liberal Christians like to use too, and it makes me a little crazy. Imagine that gay sex acts now equals punching babies. The Bible prohibits punching babies in Leviticus (it really doesn't, but we're pretending). 3000 years later, we learn there is a class of people who are born to punch babies, who actually enjoy punching babies. We call them pugilinfantos. They point out that when the Bible was written, the term didn't even exist; therefore, the Bible can't have their orientation in mind. You just want them to stop punching babies. I don't know what to say to this except that I agree that the Bible doesn't address an orientation, but that is a complete red herring here, as the Bible clearly addresses the acts. This one comes down to how much authority you grant the Bible. I give it zero. You won't get a fundangelical to agree to that percentage though.
• Most importantly is the gross misunderstanding non-Christians have about the Old Testament/New Testament relationship. I'm abandoning the bullet points to treat this one.

The non-Christian will typically say something about shellfish, haircuts, and crops in the same field being prohibited in Leviticus, so why don't Christians follow all those too? This is a prime example of an outsider failing to understand basic theological grammar, or what C.S. Lewis used to call "looking at instead of looking along." (Sidenote: what I'm about to say doesn't apply to the non-instrumental Churches of Christ. They typically treat the OT as having been completely superseded by the New.) Christians don't believe they are obligated to keep all the laws in the OT (Jewish Tanakh). There have been splinter groups like the Worldwide Church of God and Seventh Day Adventists that have emphasized certain OT observances and commands more than others, but the overwhelming majority of fundangelicals fall into the category I'm about to describe.

Christians believe that most of those laws you reference were temporary, and they divide the Mosaic laws into three categories: civil, ceremonial, and moral. Only the moral is permanent. I'll grant you right up front that they have no good rubric for choosing which go where, but that isn't the point. They were raised to believe that the laws they believe are part of the moral law are part of the moral law. That's why it's no good to talk about crops. They'll simply understand that was part of the civil law, just as the high priest waving a bloody haunch of ox around was part of the ceremonial law. They don't practice that one anymore either. The contested issue is what constitutes a moral law, and not surprisingly, you're going to agree on a bunch: stealing, lying, rape, incest, bestiality, murder, etc. There is wide agreement. It's clear, to me at least, that an honest read of the OT yields the idea that homosexual acts were considered part of the moral prohibitions, as were all the sex acts listed. The question is whether or not you want Bronze Age people defining allowable sexual ethics.

That isn't even the biggest problem, though. The biggest problem is that the other weighty issue here is the one Marcus Borg highlights. Moral laws are typically brought forward into the New Testament, and same sex acts made it. What they mean in context is a matter of debate, but their very presence seems to assure fundangelicals that prohibitions about homosexuality can't be happily ignored. There is enough ambiguity in the Pauline corpus about words like arsenokoites and sodomite that liberal and evangelical scholars will continue to argue for decades. Again, the problem is that same sex issues made it into the NT; whether they are specifically about homosexual sex or economic exploitation or pederasty is one for the scholars. They don't agree on it.

When non-Christians start arguing about the Bible, they've already lost, as it takes the argument to the believers home court, and let's be honest, when it comes to knowing the Bible, most non-believers are straight C-teamers, which won't help much against believers, including most pastors, who tend to be B-teamers. Bible scholars and atheists typically form the starters, by the way. 

Cultural shifts in theology don't occur because important people are suddenly convinced of a new interpretation of Scripture. They come about when the majority of believers begin to ignore the Bible or read it differently for a variety of reasons. They began to ignore it about divorce because so many people were getting divorced. Those people then showed up at their churches. The question was, "What do we do with them?" Grace actually won in most churches. Slavery ended when abolitionists managed to bring the prophetic tradition to the pulpits of the U.S. It wasn't a new interpretation; it was the rediscovery of a tradition that had been lost with enculturation of Christian praxis along the economic, political, and cutlural preferences of the antebellum South.

Christians inside the movement must bring about the necessary changes, and they are winning. It's a war of attrition now, and the oldest generations are dying and taking homophobia with them. Those of us outside the church only need continue to ask hard questions and challenge the authority of a book that has brought as much harm as good, but gently, very gently. The most important task, though, is to move the discussion to the Constitution, not the Bible.

Billy Graham, John Shelby Spong, and the Politics of Sexuality

Billy Graham is opposed to gay marriage. Raise your hands if you're shocked. The man who did more to redefine "gospel" as an empty signifier is now 93, and not surprisingly, like most nonagenarians, he doesn't want gay people in North Carolina to be able to marry or have a civil union. He laments that we are having to define marriage when it's so clearly defined in the Bible (except that it's not). He encourages Christians to vote in favor of NC's anti-gay marriage amendment. He's not as bad as this guy (sorry, Baptist friends), but Graham probably still has enough influence left to influence the votes in his state. In reading through his comments and the comments following the story on some news sites, I was reminded of my recent conversation with retired Bishop John Shelby Spong.

For those of you who don't know, Spong is the former Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, NJ. He's been a longtime supporter of gay rights, as well as a prolific author. I interviewed him in conjunction with an appearance at a UCC church in Norman, OK, a few weeks ago. I'm going to type up my interview notes, focus on the issue of sexuality, and then comment at the end. 

"What do you consider your primary task as a speaker and a writer?

What I try to do all the time is help people get past the explanations of antiquity for what is an internal experience. The Bible uses first century language and concepts to explain the Jesus event. This is a people who also believed in demons, terracentrism, and knew nothing about how diseases were caused. I'm trying to help people separate the explanation from the experience, to translate the experience into the language of the 21st century.

How do you do this?

Education has created problems for people when it comes to the Bible. We can't literalize the text and explain it to people who are educated. They don't believe it. The text has to be explained outside of the model of the three-tiered universe. I'm sure people here in Oklahoma are used to a Sooner football player pointing upward to God after scoring against Texas. The idea is that God is up there. That doesn't work in a post-Copernican age. It also relies on a model of God, call it the manipulative God, that is very popular with people. We try to define God, which is very arrogant. I think we need to define our experience of God, not God, and that requires I admit I might be delusional. I don't know the experience is objectively real. I'm trying to understand the experience outside the context of the tribal deities of the past.

The God who sends plagues, stops the sun to allow his people to kill even more people, and who orders genocide cannot be identical with the god who said, "Love your enemy." In all fairness, it was the prophets of the Hebrew tradition who helped change the perspective on God. People have to be given a way to view the experience with an understanding that our perception causes us to view the world in different ways. We need to talk about God in terms of today's perception of reality.

How do we talk about it in those terms?

Even the language we speak causes us to frame the experience differently. Desmond Tutu pointed out that English assumes male and whiteness. It makes it very difficult to write inclusively, because, as Tutu said, as a black man, he can neve be "tickled pink." All god talk is highly subjective, and we have to admit that up front. It's hard to get people who believe there is an external, objective, revealed standard of ethics to listen, though. I've been to Oklahoma a few times. It's hard to find Christians there who aren't fundamentalist or influenced by fundamentalism. It's very difficult to talk to someone who begins with truth as this fixed, external reality.***

There is more, but I'll post is later. As you can see, most raw interviews rely on comments that are all over the place. When you got 10 minutes and a focused story, there is little time to fill in ancillary gaps. I asked him about the Catholic Church and the birth control/insurance debate that was raging at the time. A poll indicated that the overwhelming majority of American Catholics ignore the Church on this point of doctrine. His response: "I'm not surprised by the numbers. The disparity has been there for a long time. What strikes me is that the Roman Catholic Church is attempting to get the federal government to get their parishioners to follow the doctrines of the RCC."

That's money, folks. And now back to Graham and all the other people of faith (yeah, you Mormons, too) who are trying to do the exact same thing. It's insufficient for these folks to have their own faith-based beliefs about marriage and the freedom to marry as they choose. No, they need the government to help them codify into law their religious belief about marriage, denying fellow citizens the right to marry based on a religious assumption. The North Carolina bill is the worst yet, because it attacks the idea of civil unions, thereby revealing that this is not about religion at all. It's about political power, more specifically the desire of ideologues to shape the nation's politics in ways which comport with their preferences about what America should look like. If you don't believe their religious assumptions, these freedom-loving, American Christians will use the ballot box to enforce adherence, if not actual belief.

Savage Mockery, or How not to do Youth Ministry

Dan Savage, anti-bullying spokesman and founder of the "It Gets Better" campaign, offended Christian teens and adults at the National High School Journalism Conference by calling portions of the Bible "bullshit." In context, he said,

"We can learn to ignore the bullshit in the Bible about gay people...the same way we learned to ignore the bullshit in the Bible about shellfish, about slavery, about dinner, about farming, about menstruation, about virginity, about masturbation. We ignore bullshit in the Bible about all sorts of things. The Bible is a radically pro-slavery document...We ignore what the Bible says about slavery because the Bible got slavery wrong.

To that point I'd have to agree with him. Most in the crowd did, as there was raucous applause at a few key points, and there was particularly heavy laughter when he suggested the GOP might eventually have state constitutions amended to allow stoning non-virgin girls on their wedding nights. What he did next simply crossed the line. He referred to the "Bible guys" who had left the room, saying they could come back because "I'm done beating up on the Bible." To which he added: "It’s funny, as someone who’s on the receiving end of beatings that are justified by the bible, how pansy-assed some people react when you push back.”

Yeah, too far. You can't be anti-bullying and then call people names, even people who likely have been bullies themselves. Christian teens are no more immune to being the bullies than they are likely to abstain from sex, but that isn't the point. I understand that as a gay man Savage was probably the target of malicious teens repeatedly in his life, especially his school years, and he is right that the primary justification for anti-gay behavior and ideas in America is the Bible, but you can't become the bully, especially when loud applause is the reward, which he received. You've now crossed the line into othering and mocking young people. He should apologize for the pansy-ass comment. Period.

As for the teens who walked out while he was going through his issues with the Bible, they should have sat in their damn chairs and heard him out. It's what journalists do. You don't get to leave an interview because you're offended. You don't get to listen to just the parts you like. I've been writing professionally for 22 years, and before that I did my duty on a high school newspaper, learning the ethics and vocabulary, if not the real rigors of the job. At no point has an editor or teacher ever said, "As soon as he offends you, stop the interview and leave. That'll teach him." No, the entire point is to hear the person out, especially if you disagree.

Savage is right, and the teens need to hear it. I won't say he shouldn't have used profanity. It was very effective in the context, and quite frankly, when discussing the Bible's life lessons on slavery, virginity, women's equality, and sexuality, that word probably works best. He made valid points. Why should we take seriously a book that, as Savage put it, doesn't tell us not to own slaves, but how to own them? He cites Sam Harris in his Letter to a Christian Nation where Harris points out that the Bible gets wrong the easiest moral question in history: should people own people? If it can't get the easisest right, Savage asks, why would we trust it on something as complex as human sexuality? He's absolutely right. Why listen to a book with sexual ethics that were formed when women had no rights and married 30-year old men as soon as they menstruated? It's ludicrous, but Savage won't make his point to the Christians in the room by engaging in the kind of behavior he's worked so hard to eradicate. It was a shameful moment for him, moreso because you can see the pride in his demeanor as he accepts his applause. One thing the Bible can teach Savage is that you don't get to return evil for evil. It's not what the good guys do.

Richard Land Sort of Apologizes for Failure to Attribute, not Plagiarism

I did two stories yesterday as a follow-up. One fairly general for Religion News Service that was picked up by the Washington Post. And a longer, more detailed piece for Ethics Daily. Land subsequently sort of apologized for his racist remarks, but it's clear he doesn't know the difference between a sincere apology and "apologizing" that someone mistook his words. Sigh.

Editing the Godhead, or A Lesson for Young Writers

I started my writing career in the most bizarre of ways. I first sold a biker story to a now defunct biker magazine. I've never been on a Harley, but I do like boobs, and the story's ironic twist (kind of a pornified O. Henry conceit) centered on boobs and a snake tattoo. Yeah, glad that's off my chest... That was 1990. A year later, I sold a story about a homeless guy who organized a street church service to David C. Cook publishing because they thought it was non-fiction. Yes, it's often better to be lucky than good. I then struggled for years trying to get something else published. It was incredibly frustrating. This was due in large part to my penchant for preaching; I've always struggled with fiction because I tend to be more concrete than abstract, a fact that will surprise some of you, I'm sure.

I was also a Christian at the time, but had grown up on Mad and Cracked, so satire was one of my primary languages. I finally discovered The Door in the late 90s. Thanks in large part to Harry Potter and Left Behind, I was able to convince the editors that a piece called Harry Potter gets Left Behind was a brilliant idea. I wrote a dozen or so pieces for them before they folded.That was right about the time I started writing regularly for the Oklahoma Gazette. Journalism is a joyless form, necessarily so. I've been at it for nearly 10 years now, and I've often felt my brain lurch when I try to shift writing styles. This blog has helped keep me from becoming completely entrenched, but I do find the journalism world frustrating and rewarding in almost equal parts. 

This week is about frustration and resignation. I've written a few pieces over the years for the Gazette's satirical column Chicken Fried News. These are actual news stories with snark and satire added as commentary. I've had fun with churches giving away Harleys for Easter, SBC issues, and a host of other insanities. This last week was one of the best I've written. I just read the edited version that went to print. I never do this! Never. I shouldn't have, but I had to this time to be sure I wanted to link it on fb. They are non-byline pieces, and on many, the whole writing and editing staff contribute so that what is left is often better than when it started. Occasionally, it's worse.

Religion is hard to write about, especially satirically if you don't want to alienate everyone. Anyone can write satire that mocks believers, but the task, and it's one which The Door got right, is to satirize for the sake of redemption. In religious satire, as in blowjobs, the appropriate amount of teeth is crucial. I'm posting the piece as it appeared in the Gazette, followed by the original. You tell me what you think. I'm used to being edited. Any writer who thinks he is above editing is a beginner or an asshole. However, I don't like being defanged, and I think this is exactly what happened. Note: The reference to Mary Fallin is about a recent Lost Ogle story about our governor spending thousands in tax dollars to get her hot tub and pool temperatures correct.

Gazette:

In a move that’s sure to confuse almost everyone, the Oklahoma House last week approved a measure creating an official state motto. Authored by Rep. Danny Morgan, House Concurrent Resolution 1024 would make “Oklahoma — In God We Trust!” the official state motto. Morgan told The Christian Post that research and review of the Oklahoma Constitution revealed that the state has no motto. As to the “Labor Omnia Vincit” (Labor Conquers All) on the state seal, Morgan explained that was only in the Constitution as a description of the seal.

Although the U.S. and Florida both use the phrase, The Christian Post reported that the exclamation point and the state name makes the new motto totally legal. Morgan, a Democrat who is former mayor of Prague — home of the National Shrine of the Infant Jesus of Prague — said no church or religious group had supported or endorsed the proposal. Presumably, the measure has the endorsement of God. At least we trust that’s the case.

Original:

In a move that is sure to confuse almost everyone, the Oklahoma House of Representatives approved HCR 1024 in March. The resolution, authored by Rep. Danny Morgan (D-Prague), would make “Oklahoma -- In God We Trust!” the official state motto. 

Morgan gave The Christian Post an interview after the fact, wherein he informed the online publication that research and review of the Oklahoma Constitution revealed that Oklahoma has no motto. As to the “Labor Omnia Vincit” (Labor Conquers All) on the state seal, Morgan explained that was only in the constitution as a description of the seal. Clearly, then, it would seem the seal’s designers were only looking for a cool Latin phrase as opposed to an actual motto.

Although the United States and Florida both use the phrase, the Christian Post reported that our use of an exclamation point and the state name makes the new motto totally legal. That’s sure to be a relief to some, but what of all the gods that will be lining up to be the object of our trust?

Morgan, the former mayor of Prague, home of the National Shrine of the Infant Jesus of Prague, said no church or religious group had supported or endorsed the proposal. No word on whether that list includes the infant Jesus of Prague himself.

The truly good news is that now that God is getting a shout out from Oklahomans, it’s possible our governor can get her pool fixed gratis. We hear that Jesus guy is awesome around water.

Choosing My Confession, or Campaigning on a Prayer

The news was supposed to be shocking. Nearly 40% of Americans think there has been too much discussion of religion in this year's campaign. It seems they've already forgotten the last campaign wherein Sarah "I've got more Jesus than You" Palin was prayed over by an African evangelist famous for running a witch out of town. President Obama was damn near forced to say the Sinner's Prayer on national television to prove he's a Christian (and still most Republicans in the South think he's a Muslim...sigh). The President's pastor, Jeremiah Wright, was vilified by a bunch of uber-religious crackers for saying "God damn America," in a sermon not one of them listened to. Listen to it in context and see if you disagree with him. (If you do, you don't know dick about that Bible you're supposed to be reading.) Mike "I've got almost as much Jesus as Sarah" Huckabee made absurd statements about Mormonism and "Islamofascism." That Mormon guy who's running and likely winning the nomination this time ran last time, and all the questions about Joseph Smith, golden plates, and Jesus and Lucifer being brothers popped up. In short, there was plenty of religion last time.

This one does seem a little wearying in the number of religion related stories, though, but I have an explanation of sorts, I think. Members of the press are adamant that evangelicals have made a comeback when the rest of the country thought they were politically dead. (And just who the hell thought that? The press. They're constantly amazed that religious people are religious.) Allegedly, the story is that evangelicals are helping shape this election cycle by showing up to champion their favorite evangelical, Rick Santorum. Except he's a Catholic, and he sounds much more like a fundamentalist than an evangelical, but the press, most of whom couldn't define evangelical to save their jobs, aren't much into nuance, nor do they understand the complexity of an actual confession of faith. Did the guy say Jesus? Yup. Evangelical. Never mind that evangelicals can't even decide who is in and who is out. It's a word that is almost as useless as Catholic now. 

The press seems mystified that Catholics aren't supporting Santorum. It's as if they haven't noticed that Catholics, with the exception of South and Central American immigrants, have always been more moderate than conservative. You absolutely need a qualifier before even using the word Catholic. Latin American Catholic means something far different than Massachusetts cracker Catholic. The first group isn't going to support Santorum because of his ridiculous views on immigration. Newt is the only one making sense on this issue, but the other two buffoons are trying so hard to woo the hard Right they're essentially handing Obama the election. Alienate Latinos and women and then try to get elected. Who the fuck wrote your strategy? Steve Schmidt? Are either of them planning on pulling a woman out of his hat at the last second? Be sure to pick one for whom glossolalia is a tertiary or quaternary language, right after English, domestic policy, and foreign policy. The cracker Catholics aren't supporting Santorum because he's not one of them. He doesn't even sound like them. Catholics aren't typically social or theological conservatives. The press seems to listen to the Catholic hierarchy and assume the parishioners believe the same things. Clearly, they do not.

Evangelicals, really fundamentalists, are supporting Santorum, though, and that has the press in a lemming-like fugue as they churn out story after story about how evangelicals are shaping this election. It's total bullshit. The amorphous group known as evangelicals (and we'll pretend for a second that we can even define that concept) isn't politically dead, but they sure as shit can't get anyone elected either. It's a little pathetic, honestly. Their man Santorum stands zero chance of winning the nomination, not to mention the election. Here's the truth: neither Republican candidate can beat Obama right now, so if Romney gets the nomination and loses, evangelicals have managed to back a candidate that will lose badly to the loser. What this election cycle has shown is that white fundamentalists in the South are more deeply entrenched in allegedly traditional cultural assumptions than we'd thought possible, a position that will continue to alienate them from the larger culture. Religious leaders like Richard Land, Al Mohler, Tony Perkins, and their ilk reveal a staggering degree of ignorance when they want to make contraception an issue, as if evangelicals and Catholics are united in their hatred of contraception. This election doesn't even require satire, as it's satirical at its core. The press just needs to notice.

Genuine evangelicals are all over the map in terms of cultural assumptions; many even support Obama. There is no monolithic voting block. It's time the press learned the difference between fundamentalists and evangelicals. It's also time they learned the difference between a Southern conservative and a Southern racist. And it wouldn't hurt if they'd ask a few questions of the "Christians" who show up in these stories to deduce whether they are in fact practicing Christians or people who simply believe a few important doctrines about Christianity. Religion isn't really shaping this election. It ought to be. Romney's faith is fair game. Jeremiah Wright's name will likely come up again, and it'll only be fair for Obama's team to start churning out the questions about Mormonism's more bizarre teachings and Romney's adherence to those doctrines.

Please Smoke Pot in the Name of Jesus, or The Fungibility of Biblical Authority

Yes, Pat Robertson is for the legalization of marijuana. He said it in a New York Times piece, and it was confirmed by his publicist for the Washington Post. There is no reason to take him seriously, but at least this time he's saying something sane. His reasons for being in favor of legalization have nothing to do with his desire to smoke it; rather, it's a pragmatic position based on the impact on the family and our nation's budget of the idiotic War on Drugs.

Robertson is better known as an erstwhile presidential candidate, jeremiad-spinning weather interpreter, and election predicter. (I guess it isn't really a prediction if God told him.) What is unique to this latest statement, though, is that it will likely cost him dearly in terms of viewers and support, assuming he has any of either left. What is "second verse, same as the first" about this is that yet another Christian celebrity feels very comfortable opining on what ought to be. Robertson's previous forays into Ezekiel-like fever dreams have been standard schlock among Pentecostal and Charismatic "prophets" since the days of David Wilkerson's The Vision: A Terrifying Prophecy of Doomsday that is Starting to Happen Now scared the shit out of this Pentecostal kid in 1977. I was unaware of Hal Lindsey's The Late Great Planet Earth at the time, although it came out in 1970. I wasn't reading scary prophecy books when I was 6, but I sure as hell was at 13.  

Wilkerson's book wasn't particularly special, as there was nothing new about "interpreting the signs," but it did go farther than most inasmuch as he claimed to have a special revelation from God about what was to come. Most satisfied themselves with interpreting what had just happened—fire, flood, tornado, drought,etc.—only offering the occasional general prediction of more wrath to come. The Pentecostal movement produced a slew of Sister Sharon Falconers and Elmer Gantrys (Kathryn Kuhlman, Aimee Semple McPherson, Oral Roberts, William Branham, etc.), each equipped with some sort of tin cans and string contraption connecting them to God. The midwest has always been a perfect place to read weather signs, as tornados appear obediently every year like the fingers of Marduk scraping the sin off the Wheat Belt. 

I am probably too young to remember how political some of the sign reading was in those days. I'm sure some evangelist somewhere thought Goldwater or Humphrey was the antichrist. They certainly perceived the feminist movement as evil. The recent election cycle is likely to take sign reading to a new level. While Romney has largely stayed out of the faith wars (with good reason...Kolob, anyone?), Santorum has gone after Obama's "phony theology" with glee. When his speech at Ave Maria University in 2008 wherein he said, "Satan has his sights set on America," made the Drudge Report, Santorum quickly explained that the comments weren't relevant to this election. Um, of course not. That you believe in a diabolical creature with nearly unlimited power to thwart god's plan on the earth, and that you can interpret various political realities as part of Old Scratch's nefarious scheme to undermine America's virtue, and that you can do it while ignoring your own theological tradition simply to appeal to evangelical and fundamentalist voters has nothing to do with your fitness for the office of POTUS. Nope. Nothing at all.

I could toss in Mark Driscoll's freewheeling sexual exegetical method here, too, but that would be tedious. You get the point. The beauty of biblical authority is that it begins with a text that is assumed to be accurate. That sounds lovely. Here is the book; here is what it says; now we know the truth. Unfortunately, hermeneutics doesn't work that way. The words have to be interpreted as to what is actually meant. When an event occurs in the Bible, the immediate question is how to apply that to a current context. Is the passage descriptive, prescriptive, or proscriptive? Even if you assume the text to be accurate, which I typically don't, the true believer is left to answer the question of "is that something god does now?" If massacring an entire nation is a "god thing," why be opposed to genocide now? Does god no longer operate that way? Or are we just waiting for him to tell us which nation is next? And if he allegedly does, how will we test his words? What two or three witnesses will establish this as the kol YHWH?

Less inflammatory but still important, which ethical behaviors are important and how are they to be understood? Take "biblical marriage" for example. Santorum and the evangelicals he wants to reach use the term as if its meaning is clear. To substantiate the claim that biblical marriage is one man and one woman forever faithful, they cite Jesus and Genesis. How convenient. They ignore polygamy and concubinage. They even ignore Paul who will later say "husband of one wife," a passage that likely means polygamous Christians, not divorcees. When discussing war or capital punishment, they cite Genesis, Joshua, and Paul. Hmmm. Who is missing in that line-up? Oh yeah, the One who said "love your enemies."

Fungibility is the quality of exchangeability. If I can sub one Bible verse for another, then authority is established, because, well, it's still the Bible. Never mind that an exegetical and hermeneutical method ought to be consistent. Absent a consistent rubric, I'm free to interpret signs and passages as I see fit, which is to say, in concert with my own desires or preferences. Call it what you want, but I'm still going with idolatry, and I don't even practice the faith.

Black Robe Regiment, or Do Only Wizards and Patriots Wear Robes?

The Black Robe Regiment is growing in Oklahoma! When I first did a story on the group in summer 2009, there were only a few in the metro. Now, according to a story in the Oklahoman, the group has seven members. Seven. Truthfully, there are probably more, but I'm too lazy to look them up on the national database. If you've never heard of this group, it's probably because you don't attend a fundamentalist Baptist church, frequent Christian nation message boards, give a shit about Glen Beck and David Barton, or identify yourself as one of the other fringees who think every conservative is attempting to create a theocracy. 

The group believes they are resurrecting a practice of speaking about politics from the pulpit as pastors did in the lead-up to the Revolutionary War. The group is silly. Not Dr. Seuss silly—that shit is redemptive—but "this ought to be satire but it's real" silly. More on the Oklahoman article and the utterly awful reporting in a moment. For now, here's what Paul Blair, current candidate for state senate from Edmond, Okla., and senior pastor of Fairview Baptist Church, said in my article:

"...a great revival that began in the pulpits was responsible for the birth of this nation, (and) I believe that another revival is necessary for America to continue as a free country, governed by 'We the people,' where we have personal liberty and personal responsibility."

Huh? The revival led to the American Revolution and the founding of this country? See, I thought it was the thinking and writing of Locke, Paine, Jefferson, the Philosophes, and others who weren't, um, speaking from pulpits. It's the kind of revisionist history that sees God's activity behind every event, so that the actual causes of the Revolution become only proximate causes subsequent to God's will as ultimate cause. This is, of course, a Biblical position that goes all the way back to "go into the land and kill everything," but it's not terribly heartening in the context of a national political debate. It's not difficult to see how patriot pastors can read providential tea leaves to confer the imprimatur of God's will on the causes they most support. How then would we tell them God says otherwise? Who would be right? How could we know?

Speaking of patriot pastors, Carla Hinton, the "journalist" who wrote the Oklahoman piece, has always been a really bad reporter. Really bad. We go way back. We once had a discussion via email about how a lack of any cynical impulse makes her inadequate as a reporter. You can't report on anything, most especially religion and politics, if you believe everyone is telling you the truth. That seems axiomatic to the reporting job. Hinton sees herself as some sort of PR person for good religion, but in doing the job that way, she consistently misses the real story. For example, note the use of "biblical patriotism" in the lede. What the hell is biblical patriotism? Where does the concept patriotism occur in the Bible? Is the message of the gospel the promise of a moral nation on this earth, or the promise of a kingdom and city which cannot be shaken—surely metaphors for a nation of justice in "the world to come," not a Proverbial promise of shit running properly now as long as we "choose blessing and not cursing."

Alas, this isn't the worst of it. The group is responsible for the silliest ideas. First, how many preachers wore black robes in the 18th century? Wanna guess? Yeah, most. Ever see the pictures of Spurgeon in his black robe? Was he too a patriot pastor from his pulpit at Metropolitan Tabernacle in London? What of John Wesley in his black robe? Was he too a patriot pastor in the fields and mines of England, or when he worked with the Moravians? How little they knew of the real significance of their clerical garb! Clearly these pastors are so ensconced in a low church tradition that they see black robes as somehow more historically important than the minister's who actually wore them as part of an ecclesiastical tradition, irrespective of their being Tory or Whig.

Here's the silliest idea, though. They believe that they are somehow qualified to speak to these issues, and that their congregants want them to speak to these issues. They believe the first even as they listen to Glen Beck and David Barton twist history and distort the truth. They believe the second even though they've experienced the reality of losing congregants over pastoral hubris. They see this not as hubris, of course, but as the consequences of faithfulness. It's clearly hubris.

Scot McKnight asked John Fea, a real historian, to write on his blog back in September '10. I'll let you read it, but this quote, with which I'll close, stood out:

Historians concerned with the integrity of the past and the integrity of their work must also note that John Adams rejected the doctrine of the Trinity.  They should mention that George Washington deliberately avoided taking communion.  They must also tell the whole truth about the so-called “Black Regiment.” Most of these clergymen were blatantly anti-Catholic.  Others blurred Biblical teachings on freedom (from sin) with political teachings on freedom (from George III). These Christian America pundits tell just one side of the story because the so-called “rest of the story” does not suit their political needs in the present.

The Mormon Moment, or Presidential Underwear

I'm waiting for the moment Bill Clinton's MTV moment is repeated during the Romney campaign. Remember the townhall type Q&A Clinton had with a young MTV audience. One young pothead finally asked: boxers or briefs? It was a watershed moment in U.S. politics, primarily because Clinton took the opportunity not to be a self-important twat, and in enjoying the moment, he endeared himself to millions of young people around the country.

I suspect Romney's moment will be a bit different, and you just know the subject of magical underwear has to come up; it just has to. Writing for Martin Marty's Sightings column, Terryl Givens, a lit and religion professor at Richmond, observed:

In the century since the Chicago fair, Mormons have been lauded for their choirs and their football. They are largely respected as good, decent, family-centered people, who are welcome to sing for presidents and dance with the stars—and everyone agrees to avoid theological questions.

The theological questions will come up, though, right? I recently did a story for the Oklahoma Gazette wherein I asked some Oklahomans about the issue. Congressman James Lankford did a soft shoe around the question, as is wise for a U.S. Congressman of the same party as the candidates. Lankford is also Southern Baptist. I asked the Reverend to respond to the same questions I put to Lankford. He was more forthcoming when I asked if Romney's faith would have an impact.

Normally, I would knee-jerk and offer a hearty, “Yes!” But, Former Representative Istook, a Mormon, seemed to avoid the potential polarizations that Romney seems to be generating among religiously Christian voters around the Country. This leads me to wonder if Romney’s politics will take center stage in Oklahoma or will it be his chosen religious identification? I may lean to the former in light of our past with Istook. Conservatism really seems to be the central issue for Oklahoma voters.

Excursus: I'm forced to agree. Santorum will win in Oklahoma on Tuesday. Mark it down. Independents can't vote in an Oklahoma primary, so someone like me who would normally choose Romney over Santorum's relentless pandering to the far right is precluded from having an impact. That means Santorum wins in this the most conservative state.

As to the question of a nationwide response to Mormonism's more esoteric elements, the Reverend replied:

Some will be distracted. There is little doubt some of the elements more familiar to initiates will draw a range of responses from laughter to scorn. I think this has already happened on a small scale. Others may not find the peculiarities any more problematic than any other religious expressions. It is hard to say. Likely one’s personal experience and interactions with Mormons will play a large role in national public discourse.

Again, I suspect he is correct. I would have no problem voting for a moderate Mormon, irrespective of the beliefs in sacred underwear and an unknown planet called Kolob. Every faith believes weird shit. Talking snake, anyone? Sun standing still? Angels? Demons? And on and on. Givens is right that the LDS leadership has brought some of this confusion upon themselves by refusing to have a public discussion. He writes:

But this is only true because in acquiescing to the compromise, Mormons have largely left others to frame the theological discussion. In opting to emphasize Mormon culture over Mormon theology, Mormons have too often left the media and ministers free to select the most esoteric and idiosyncratic for ridicule.

It's an odd time for a Mormon moment. At the end of January, Reuters reported that Mormons are leaving the church at a brisk rate, especially in the U.S. (As with Christianity, LDS growth is solid in the Southern Hemisphere, which is to say in barely industrialized nations.) Elder Marlin Jensen told Reuters that the rate of defection has increased in the last 5 to 10 years, but declined to provide actual numbers. This is partly due to the ability of young (and old) Mormons to get online and read for themselves what critics and scholars say about some of the church's more dubious claims.

Excursus: This is the same movement that Santorum criticizes without understanding the historical context. In a bizarre move, he accuses Obama of attempting to have more students enrolled in college so that the numbers of the "indoctrinated" will increase. He even cited a figure (without attribution) of 62 percent of students with faith commitments losing those commitments in college. That doesn't make college an "indoctrination mill." College is often the first time students are challenged to think beyond the stock answers provided by overprotective parents and youth pastors. High school teachers are not free to deconstruct faith claims—college professors are, inasmuch as the deconstruction serves the purpose of critical thinking. Access to the Internet and college courses will always provide an opportunity for members of a faith community to defect. Faith communities that practice honesty about the difficult questions instead of protectionism or strawman arguments will likely see less defections. Those that can't contextualize their theology will always find a revolving back door spinning with redline efficiency. And Santorum seemed unaware of recent studies that show religious belief is stable across decades in this country. Those kids that leave the faith in college return when they have kids of their own, almost every time.

Charles Kimball is the director of the religious studies program at the University of Oklahoma. In discussing how conservative Christians will respond to Romney in particular and Mormons in general, he too cited the differentiating factor of actually knowing a Mormon. People who know them, tend to respect them, especially when their ethics are the focus. He does see trouble ahead with the theological claims, though.

Generally speaking, it's much easier to process different or odd beliefs when the tradition is very distant from one's own. If the traditions both incorporate the teachings of Jesus, then different becomes harder to accept.

Since Mormons and Christians draw on the same lexicon to describe messiah, salvation, savior, etc., differences are parsed as heresies, not exotic beliefs in "fake" gods. Kimball said he expects Romney to continue to do what he's been doing, which is respond with some variation of "I'm not running for the bishop of an LDS ward; I'm running for POTUS." Realistically, I think Christians with some notable exceptions are able to put aside theological squabbling for the sake of their poorly defined "conservative values." Romney could have benefited from that compromise, but he's taken a more moderate approach on some issues (immigration not being one of them). That will hurt him among conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists, but likely not among Republicans overall and Independents who lean conservative. If he loses the nomination, it won't be because he's a Mormon, just as Santorum won't lose because he's a Catholic. As Mormon moments go, this is a good one for the LDS church, but I suspect no one is going to question Romney about his faith, not in any formal setting, and if there are Romney/Obama debates, President Obama is unlikely to say, "Kolob? Really?"

Phony Presidential Theology, or Literalist Catholics (All 1 of Them)

In a very old episode of The Simpsons, Bart is talking to his teacher about creating a half man, half monkey creature. The teacher replies: "I'm sorry; that would be playing God." Bart quickly snaps back: "God schmod, I want my monkey man." It's the first think I thought of when reading an old gaffe and a new gaffe by erstwhile senator and current confused Catholic Rick Santorum. HuffPost dug up an old interview with Senator Santorum from 2008, wherein the former senator and current confused Catholic made the unbelievable claim that he didn't believe in "liberal Christianity" and that Obama's former church had "abandoned Christendom" and used a non-literal interpretation of the Bible.

Before we get to the current "fake theology" quote, I feel compelled to ask how many Catholics out there are Biblical literalists. That would have to be the second smallest demographic in the Christian family, second only to UCC Biblical literalists. You're more likely to find a literalist in the Jesus Seminar than you are in all of the RCC. Apparently, Mr. Santorum is confused about what his church actually believes about the Bible. He's clearly unaware that the Bible is not the sole locus of authority in Catholicism. It's joined to the Magisterium and Papal decrees ex cathedra (an incredibly rare thing these days) to form a sort of three-legged stool of ecclesial authority. Ideally, all three work together, and the literal text of the Bible has never been a beginning point for Catholic hermeneutics. For the RCC, theological assumptions about authority and apostolic succession, as well as the person and work of Mary, clearly take precedence over a literal text. Also, I'm pretty sure no one is better with The Revelation in terms of sorting out the seven sets of images and symbols telling the same story than the Oxford Annotated Bible. 

That Mr. Santorum doesn't know he's part of a tradition that has always eschewed literal interpretation in favor of more complex ecclesial authority, a tradition in which the  earliest theologians and pastors made allegorical and euhemeristic hermeneutics the de facto method of mythological interpretation, only shows one of two things: he's absolutely ignorant of his tradition, or he's absolutely ignorant of his tradition AND fundamentalism has even encroached on mainstream Catholics. (This is at least partly true where eschatology is concerned, but I wasn't aware it was an issue in hermeneutics.)

Pick your favorite branch of theology before reading farther: angelology, christology, cosmology, anthropology, hamartiology, soteriology, pneumatology, eschatology, ecclesiology...did I miss any? To the non-theologian, half that list is foreign, maybe three fourths. I suspect that Mr. Santorum couldn't define half the words, yet he feels comfortable accusing the president of holding to a "phony theology" by which he again means liberal Christianity. I don't know what a comprehensive systematic theology that isn't at least partly "phony" would look like. Every systematic theology I've read is flawed in major ways, thereby rendering them at least partly phony.

One only need ask a Pennsylvania Protestant what they think of their former senator's Mariolatry to cut a neat incision between Santorum's Catholic theology (dogma, really on this point) and mainstream Protestantism, yet Santorum would allow that neither he nor conservative evangelicals have a phony theology. Santorum here clearly means to bring conservative Christians to his team, but he's doing it with yet another empty signifier; what exactly does "phony theology" mean except "I don't like certain aspects of your politics or worldview or theology; therefore, I'm labeling the whole thing phony." Certainly if the president believes Jesus is the redeemer of all humankind, Santorum wouldn't call that phony, nor would he disagree much if Obama insisted that the cross was the locus of Jesus' redemptive work. What he means to do is go after the president for supporting social and moral issues with which the erstwhile senator and current confused Catholic disagrees. He seems to believe that Obama is guilty of not reading the Bible literally about certain things, but the issues with which he disagrees, he's almost completely wrong on.

The Bible says nothing literally about abortion. The Biblical view of marriage is an hysterical invention of the evangelicaldom, as the view is actually all over the place. It says nothing of capitalism. It says nothing of health care (unless you count the 600 plus passages about justice, care for the poor, the widow, and the orphan). It says nothing of illegal immigration. Where it does speak literally, we might discover that Mr. Santorum is far from silly, hippie Jesus: love your enemy, do not resist evil, give to him who asks expecting nothing in return, turn the other cheek...an entire breviary of ethical behavior almost completely ignored by the good erstwhile senator and his religious tradition. Conveniently, it's also ignored by those he most wants to reach, making his claims about the president's "phony theology" so much more delightfully ironic.

Bart wanted what he wanted, and no inconvenient truths were going stop him from getting his monkey man. Santorum wants the support of conservative evangelicals, Catholics, and fundamentalists, and he's not about to let silly, hippie Jesus get in the way. In Grand Inquisitor fashion, Santorum stands as the cardinal who won't tolerate a non-conservative Jesus, and with equal dexterity, he plays the role of Alyosha, who with wide-eyed wonderment can't understand what Ivan is on about. Who is this one who stands silently and won't return the strident arguments of the Grand Inquisitor? Yeah, same guy you always ignore or kill.