by Jennifer Hahn

Bill Maher is thanking God for Sarah Palin. His new film “Religulous” – which skewers Western religious traditions as at best laughable, at worst apocalyptic, and never deserving of a place in politics – is set to debut amid speculation that our vice presidential nominee, a Pentecostal, may have at some point spoken in tongues and makes policy decisions based on “God's will.”

Maher wants us to believe that the world is made up only of secular rationalists, as he calls himself, and religious fanatics like Palin and the subjects of his film. If the press falls into the trap of simply agreeing with Maher or dismissing him, we will miss an opportunity to intercede with a more nuanced discussion of faith and politics in this country. Not all religious people are irrational, thinly-veiled theocrats, just waiting to impose their bizarre beliefs on the rest of us.

But Maher shouldn't be dismissed entirely. One need look no farther than 9/11 to see that religious fanaticism can lead to horrific things, and he's right to challenge an America in which once “you say the world 'faith,' the debate is over – no matter what incredibly nonsensical, destructive, ridiculous tenet comes out of your mouth.”

Early reviews of the documentary, set to open October 3, impress in their ability to get beyond Maher's rationalists vs. fanatics construct without totally dismissing his point. The Chicago Sun Times' Jim Emerson cleverly observes that Maher's “smart-ass tone sounds as dead-certain, smug, smarmy and self-righteous as Jerry Falwell or Ted Haggerty” and finds the film guilty of “the same kind of distorting selectively that Maher (rightly) accuses religion of promoting.”

Still, Emerson also seems to admit that Maher's project of tackling “dumbness and narrow-mindedness,” is worthwhile, even if the film “too often stoops so low that it practices what it preaches against.”

Noel Murray of The Onion's A.V. Club challenges Maher's black and white view of religion by taking him to task for not being “quite fearless enough to interview or lay into the multitudes of moderately devout folks who use their religion as a cultural signifier and a way to make a difference in their communities.” But he also sees value in some of Maher's critiques, calling the film's montage of religions worst moments in the past 20 years “thrilling.”

Though Maher's goal is no doubt to provoke, hopefully coverage of his film will not totally dismiss him for his bravado, but take his critique as a jumping off point to make more intelligent points about religion and politics in this era of Palin.

Jennifer Hahn, whose work has appeared in Ms. magazine and Los Angeles CityBeat, is currently a master's degree candidate in specialized journalism at USC.

by B. Adriana Venegas-Chavez

Now that Hillary Rodham Clinton has dropped out of the presidential race, Republican nominee John McCain is in a good position to secure a significant portion of the coveted Latino voting bloc. Most of Clinton's liberal Latino supporters have switched over to presidential nominee Barack Obama, and more conservative Latinos, many of whom did not agree with McCain's liberal conservatism, were simply going to stay home in November, as USA Today reports. That's until McCain chose Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate.

Alaska Governor Palin is a conservative evangelical who adamantly opposes abortion and gay marriage, as the Boston Globe tells us. Two stances that the Latino evangelical population fervently supports.

In an interview with Dallas Morning News editorial columnist William McKenzie, Rev. Mark Gonzales, who chairs McCain's national Hispanic advisory council for Hispanic evangelicals, said, “Even though [Palin is] not Hispanic, or from the part of the country where many Latinos live, she resonates with her everyday life story and her values.

She's pro-life and pro-family, and that's what connects her to Latinos.” Gonzales continues, “Family issues resonate no matter where you are. She's going through a tough situation at the moment, and this will bring out compassion for her. There's a struggle going on as well in Hispanic families, often because of immigration.”

According to a Pew Research poll, “Latinos, who now comprise about 6 percent of the overall evangelical Protestant population in the U.S., are similar in many ways to their white evangelical counterparts when it comes to religious beliefs and practices.” The difference is that Latino Evangelicals tend to be even more conservative than white evangelicals. For instance, 86 percent oppose gay marriage, compared with 79 percent of white evangelicals. And 77 percent of Latino evangelicals think abortion should be illegal, compared to 61 percent of their white counterparts. In terms of mixing religion and politics, 62 percent say their religion influences their political decision.

That was clear in 2004, when 56 percent of Latino evangelicals voted for George W. Bush, up from 44 percent in 2000, according to a Pew Hispanic poll.

Despite the Republican Party's lack of popularity among Latinos in general, and even though some are still deciding whom to vote for–Latino evangelical Richard Ramos, who voted twice for Bush, told Newsweek, “It's a really tough decision for me”–conservative Latino evangelical leaders are quickly mobilizing their followers to support McCain and Palin.

Rev. Luis Lopez, Assemblies of God Pastor, Chairman of the Florida Hispanic Clergy Association and CONLAMIC Vice-President, said,  “Gov. Sarah Palin is a successful and talented politician. What matters most to us, is that Sister Palin acknowledges God in her life and her personal testimony affirms her true values and assurance of a strong Woman of Faith.”

What's most important about conservative Latino evangelicals is that they can be the deciding factor in states that will likely decide the 2008 election. As Reuters reports, the “numbers are concentrated in key swing states that could go either way in November like Colorado, New Mexico and Florida. So in a close election they could be a key vote in both battleground states and battleground faiths.”

Amid all the criticism McCain has received in choosing Sarah Palin as his partner, this should be very good news for the Republican ticket. But will conservative social values or progressive immigration reform ultimately sway Latino evangelical voters? Stay tuned!

B. Adriana Venegas-Chavez is an M.A. candidate in the print journalism program at the University of Southern California.

By Tara Graham

Republican presidential nominee John McCain is a long-time Episcopalian who now claims to be Baptist, despite having never been baptized in a Baptist church. This, in addition to McCain's reference to certain leaders of the Christian-right as “agents of intolerance” in 2000, has produced a degree of skepticism amongst evangelical conservatives about McCain's spiritual and political footing.

Many argue that McCain's selection of Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate was a strategic move to gain favor with the Republican Party's evangelical base. Palin currently attends the Wasilla Bible Church and has a reputation for maintaining a strictly conservative stance on many controversial issues, including abortion and homosexuality.

Taking the bait, many of the mainstream media stories regarding Palin after the Republican National Convention focused on her religious credentials. Sunday's edition of The New York Times featured a rather run-of-the-mill story on Palin's place of worship, devotion to prayer, and emphasis on the biblical tradition. Fox News discussed the positive impact of Palin's faith on the Republican ticket. The Associated Press and Time, however, looked beyond the present and into Palin's religious past.

Apparently, someone's been playing a game of Pentecostal dodge ball.

Although born into Catholicism, Palin was baptized into a Pentecostal Assemblies of God church as a teenager. The Associated Press reports that when asked about her early Christian roots, Palin sidesteps the Pentecostal label by maintaining that she has attended “non-denominational churches” throughout her life.

Why the dodge? “The public still perceives [Pentecostals] as sectarian and uncompromising, and those traits will not help Palin's image,” Grant Wacker of the Divinity School at Duke University told the Associated Press.

Amy Sullivan supports this position in Time by arguing that Palin's extreme religious conservatism may even polarize younger evangelicals and independent swing voters who hold more moderate policy views.

Mark Stricherz of Get Religion could not disagree more with Sullivan, however. He first questions Sullivan's methodology by noting that there is no hard data to support the position that Palin will scare off the young evangelical and swing voting blocks, and goes on to report that Pentecostalism is one of the largest denominations within evangelical Protestantism — hence, the voter support is there for the taking.

Supporting Stricherz's claim, the World Christian Database reports that Pentecostals now represent at least a quarter of all Christians, ranking second only to Catholics. And the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life claims that Pentecostalism and related spirit-filled movements are among the fastest growing.

All of this begs two questions: If too little religion isn't presidential enough, and too much religion isn't presidential either, then how much religion does a politician need? And if Pentecostalism is indeed on the rise, what role might it play in the political discourse and election outcomes of the future?

David Pepper, the pastor of Church on the Rock, a charismatic congregation in Wasilla, Alaska, told Charisma magazine that Palin's candidacy has inspired much of his congregation to get involved in electoral politics and vote.

Just as the evangelical movement became a major player in the political arena of the 1970s and '80s, the global Pentacostal movement will certainly be a force to reckon with in the 21st century. Alaska governor Sarah Palin is proof of that.

As for that game of dodge ball — Palin doesn't stand a chance.

Tara Graham is an Annenberg Graduate Fellow and online journalism M.A. candidate at the University of Southern California.

 

 

Count Down

Rodney Stark likes to throw curve balls, and his new book What Americans Really Believe continues the trend. In this new outing, Starke takes on Robert Wuthnow, the pre-eminent sociologist of religion, and other prominent scholars who, by his lights, skew questions, misinterpret data and otherwise downplay salient findings about Americans' religious beliefs and behaviors.

Stark and his colleagues at Baylor's Institute for Studies of Religion asked the Gallup Organization to do three surveys of U.S. religion between 2005-2007. Comparing results with polls done 40 years ago, Stark lifted up two key aspects of American religious life—stability and diversity.

 To demonstrate stability, Stark argues that denominationalism—far from dying out, as Wuthnow and others predicted—is alive and well. Liberal groups have lost members, but children of the unchurched often return to conservative congregations. Likewise, churches are not really “losing” their youth (teens and 20-somethings always go off before returning), and membership rolls are not plunging. On the contrary, a record 69% of us belonged to churches in 2005.

Similarly, Stark finds we're a mystical lot, many of us have heard God's voice or witnessed healings, and many more describe ourselves as both spiritual and religious. I've long suspected that the dichotomy between the two was more a media creation than an on-the-ground reality.
 
Most interesting is the finding that most Americans conceive of a God who is more concerned with the world's well-being than with punishing human sin. The strong partiality for a loving and compassionate God may help explain why Americans are (more or less) tolerant of others' beliefs (though we tend to be suspicious of unbelief) and assume there is a real heaven that isn't restricted to Christians only.

Is it possible to extrapolate political predilection from theological leanings? If so, a message of hope should have more resonance than one rooted in anger and fear. The fall-out from the Democratic and Republican conventions should tell that tale, but the news media may not be listening. The media have never been partial to theology, especially when it gets in the way of a good story.

Diane Winston

 

What's in a Prayer?

To pray or not to pray?

That was the question an evangelical magazine publisher faced after he was asked to give the benediction at the end of the opening night of the recent Democratic National Convention.

In the end, Cameron Strang, founder of the young adult-oriented Relevant magazine, skipped the prayer, saying he didn't want to pick sides. Instead, he asked his friend, author and speaker Donald Miller, whether he was up to the task. Miller gladly obliged.

The Associated Press, CNN and Fox News reported on Strang's initial acceptance and later refusal to cover the convention. But surprisingly, the AP and Fox News reports only had a brief reference to the prayer by the far more well known Miller, whose autobiographical book Blue Like Jazz has sold more than a million copies. The CNN report did not mention Miller at all.

If the mainstream media had probed a little deeper, they would have uncovered a revealing online discussion about the role of religion in public life.

Though several online commentaries gave Miller props for his prayer, some complained that he focused too much on the Democratic Party platform, while others took him to task for saying that Jesus gave his life to illuminate the forces of injustice (rather than that Jesus died to atone for the world's sins). As could be expected, many folks also complained that Miller had sold out by praying at an event hosted by a political party that supports abortion rights.

Miller, a pro-life Democrat, told Christianity Today's Sarah Pulliam in a video interview that he wants Democrats to understand that he “will not be in their pocket.” He also stated in a written online interview conducted by Pulliam that he felt many evangelicals have made themselves beholden to the Republicans, who have talked about making abortions illegal but have proved powerless to curb them.

A few days after Miller's appearance in Denver, Dr. Joel Hunter of Northland Church in Orlando, Fla., raised the abortion issue in his DNC benediction. Hunter, a Republican, asked for God's blessing on babies and children as well as for the poor, sick, enslaved and persecuted.

Despite the fact that he addressed abortion, many evangelical bloggers took Hunter to task for asking convention attendees to close the prayer in accordance with their own faith traditions, while he prayed “in Jesus' name.” Some You Tube comments said Hunter's decision negated Jesus Christ's claiming to be “the way, the truth and the life.”

The static around the convention prayers highlights the complications that occur when faith and politics collide in the public life of a democracy. It's a relationship that has challenged evangelicalism in the past when many of its leaders aligned themselves with the Republican Party, and it will surely challenge Democrats in the future as they begin to court younger left-leaning evangelicals.

To borrow an old evangelical cliché, many church leaders will be trying to find ways to be “in the world, but not of the world,” and it will likely be a tough tightrope to walk.

Jonathan Partridge

Can I complain? School's starting here and it's still impossibly hot. It's hard to write lectures when you're sweating. But the good news is that a new crop of graduate students will soon be practicing press criticism. The better news is that will enable us to update more frequently.

Unlike my colleague at Get Religion, I found no fault with Amy Harmon's story on a high school biology class in Florida. Writes Mark Stricherz, “My problem with Harmon's story was its presentation of evolution. It posits scientific consensus on this idea. Is that true? I have my doubts. Three years ago, Michael Powell of The Washington Post wrote a fair minded and balanced story about Philip Johnson, the father of the intelligent design movement. Harmon's story does not address those doubts.”

That's exactly the point: Intelligent design is not science—at least according to recent court decisions. As Harmon notes: “The Dover decision … dealt a death blow to “intelligent design,” which posits that life is too complex to be explained by evolution alone, and has been widely promote by religious advocates since the Supreme Court's 1987 ban on creationism in the public schools. The federal judge in the case called the doctrine “creationism relabeled,” and found the Dover school board had violated the constitutional separation of church and state by requiring teachers to mention it.”

Kudos to Marty Kaplan, a USC colleague, for his Jewish Journal piece on race and religion in the Obama campaign. Marty argues that the widespread misconception that Obama is (or was) Muslim is a way for white Americans to express discomfort with his race.

“The Muslim issue is a way to talk about race without talking about race, and without having to squirm about saying that race is not an issue. To enough voters that it matters for the outcome of this election, Muslims are as other, if not more so, as blacks.”

I'd meant to give a shout out to Marty last week when he tackled quantum physics, string theory and the God particle.  In both instances, his eloquence and insights sucked me in and left me the wiser for it.

Lastly, anyone who doubts the importance of abortion to American politics has been snoozing for the last 30 years. So I'm wondering why so few legacy media outlets made much of the pro-life sentiments at the Democratic Convention in Denver. M.Z. Hemingway took note of the goings on in the National Review Online as did Electa Draper at the Denver Post. But few others did.

That's too bad because the Democrats decision to (finally) allow alternate voices—Bishop Charles E. Blake of Los Angeles spoke against abortion during a prayer service and Sen. Robert Casey referenced his opposition during a convention speech—are surely noteworthy (even for those who deem it too little too late).

The morning after Rick Warren's presidential forum, Salon dubbed him the event's “real winner.” But as the days pass, it's increasingly difficult to distinguish winners from losers in Saturday's faith-based revival of civil society.

Did McCain have an unfair advantage? And what did Warren really know of McCain's whereabouts? (If the Times is correct, McCain wasn't in a “cone of silence.”) Was Obama too thoughtful? Or did his purpose-driven BFF give him a shot at the elusive white evangelical vote?
 
You can track pundits across the blogosphere debating these and more substantive issues raised at the church. (Don't bother looking in the legacy media, because you won't find much.) But I'm interested in what Warren did and did not do and why we should care.

Warren said he wanted to model a new and improved civic discourse that demonstrated we can “disagree without demonizing each other.” By offering  ample time to answer value-laden questions, he hoped to elicit a deeper, fuller, and truer picture of the candidates than the media usually provides.

Although good in theory, the practice was far from perfect. Warren seemed more intent on moving through a litany of questions than in probing his guests. Rather than push back on changed positions, bad decisions, and ethical dilemmas, he moved along. When McCain said his first marriage was his greatest moral failure, Warren could have asked why and how? Likewise when McCain stated his unequivocal pro-life position, Warren might have raised his support for stem cell research. (Even when McCain alluded to this later, Warren let it be.) Likewise, how did Warren allow Obama's quip about his pay grade go unchallenged? And couldn't he have asked the Illinois senator for more specifics on Iraq, welfare reform and taxes?

True civil discourse requires engagement. Warren had a shopping list. Given his venue, his expressed intentions, and his relationship to both men, he had a responsibility to speak truth to power or, in simpler terms, to ask tough questions.

Of course, it's a bit hypocritical to criticize Warren for what most reporters don't and won't do. But he did set himself up by promising to do what the media doesn't: push, probe, and penetrate.

If Warren didn't demonstrate a new model for civil discourse, he did provide a new face for evangelicalism. He is central casting's conjuring of the not-your-father's-Jerry Falwell pastor. From his trim goatee to his larger-than-life size, Warren embodies the same cool/compassionate, hip/square persona that made Oprah America's confessor. Warren's committed to ending abortion and saving stem cells but he's also concerned with climate change and adopting orphans. His easy embrace of both Obama and McCain bestowed blessings on two candidates who've hardly been evangelical poster boys.  Just as significant, their presence in his church hallowed his role as a political player—and his message that faith and politics are entwined.

The legacy media needs to take note: How will Warren's enhanced standing play out in the evangelical world (already James Dobson seems to be chafing) and beyond? Now that Warren has an entrée with both parties, what will he seek after the election?

Similarly what does Warren's forum say about religion, politics and the media? One possibility is that voters want new models for debate and discourse, coverage and content. The blogosphere's lively and democratic interchanges reflect this impulse. There's less resistance to religion online and more appreciation for novelty, irreverence, and the next big thing. Just as citizen journalists are calling for a new kind of reporter, Rick Warren is calling for a new kind of discourse (including political coverage). The fact that the presidential candidates went along is noteworthy.
 

Rick Warren “takes on the world” or so says Time magazine.

The famously purpose-driven pastor is not only aiming for global PEACE (promote reconciliation, equip servant leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, educate the next generation), but also hopes to “redefine presidential politics“. To that end he is hosting Barack Obama and John McCain this week at his 23,000-member Saddleback Church in Orange County, California.

“These are friends of mine that happen to be very different in leadership style, philosophy and background,” Warren said [to the Orange County Register]. “I would like America to get to know them the way I do and make a decision based not on campaign ads that tend to caricature the other guy. I'm going to ask questions that are very different from a lot of the debate and town hall forums.”  (Disclosure: I am quoted at length in the article.)

Both Time and the Register's stories raise salient points about covering religion and politics this year. Time's piece brings up issues of tone and balance, while the Register's suggests untapped possibilities.
 
Time praises Warren as the prototypical “new evangelical” leader. Reaching beyond the Religious Right's “control-the-body” issues (gay marriage, stem cells, and abortion), Warren has embraced a broad set of social concerns, including the environment, poverty and HIV-AIDS. 

Warren's energy, intellect, compassion and vision make him sound like a better candidate than the ones already in the presidential race: “He is a natural leader, a pathological schmoozer, insatiably curious and often the smartest person in the room.”

Bottom line: Does Warren really walk on water? Since his PEACE outreach began in Rwanda in 2005, almost 2,000 volunteers have tackled health and development issues there. But according to one USAID-funded worker, the “purpose driven” volunteers have had little impact on the nation's deep-rooted problems.

When Warren hears the criticism he laughs, saying Time's reporter spoke to the “wrong guys.” Working through churches produces change that Western-style measurements can't identify. In other words, Warren's following God's plan, which can't be judged by human standards.

When reporter David Van Biema tweaks Warren, he glosses over the pastor's emerging model for being religious in the 21st century world: “Warren may not aspire to global mogulhood, but he is clearly near giddy over occupying a globetrotting catalyst status normally reserved for ex-Presidents.”  The line says a lot about Warren, but does not begin to probe his influence and impact.

Time pulls its punches by using descriptive language. Words like “giddy,” “coronation,” and “sales pitch,” elicit images that undercut the positive picture that the magazine otherwise elaborates. Likewise, the magazine's attempt at “balance”—is Warren really accomplishing anything?—is not seriously engaged. What are the measures for success in working in countries like Rwanda? Are there different standards for secular and spiritual outreach? Has Warren developed benchmarks for his programs? The questions are salient, especially as the number of religious NGOs grows.

Time's middle of the road approach seeks to satisfy all readers. Warren sounds like a great guy but the zingers are hidden in plain sight for those who can see them. Attempts at balance fall short, and most surprisingly, the article fails to place Warren in historical context. By adopting a broader social agenda, is he seeking to realign American evangelicalism with its 19th century roots? Evangelicalism has a long tradition of melding religion and politics in the service of creating a better world (at least according to its lights). How does Warren see himself in regard to this tradition?

The Register's more modest coverage of the upcoming Saddleback Civil Forum on Leadership and Compassion raises questions about covering religion and politics. How does a reporter approach the forum? (And do you send your religion or your politics person?) Is this a vital experiment that can help redefine what the public wants and needs to know about candidates? Can a minister preside over a “civil” discussion? Will candidates reveal aspects of their identities that go beyond sound bites and moments of scripted compassion?

Warren is correct: current political coverage neither tells us what we want or need to know. I am happy to give him an opportunity to show the media how to do it better. I hope, for our sake, he succeeds.

Within the world of religion reporting—that is, reporting on religion—the story of the week, if not the summer, has been the Lambeth Conference of Anglican Primates. Held every ten years, the meeting gathers members of the global Anglican Communion in Canterbury, England, the Communion's titular home, for consultation, collaboration and fellowship.

Someone living in a cave, totally unplugged from all forms of media, might not know that this year's meeting was shadowed by talk of schism. Many bishops from the developing world (the global South) are outraged by the growing acceptance of homosexuality among the Episcopal Church in the United States and similarly liberal Anglican outposts.  The 2003 decision by the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire to ordain an openly gay man as bishop brought their dissatisfaction to a crisis point.

Since the Conference ended Sunday August 3, you can read scores of blogs, articles and analyses of what did and did not happen at Lambeth. As you pick and choose among these, check out an article in America, the Jesuits' weekly magazine.

Writing from a Catholic perspective, Austen Iverleigh opines that the problem is ecclesiological not doctrinal, and commends Archbishop Rowan Williams' attempts to hold the communion together. This is in contrast to opinions from the two “sides” which tend to paint Williams as an appeaser at best, but more often as a coward.

For most Americans—hyper-individualistic to a fault—the idea of sacrificing for a greater good is not a natural turn of mind. But Iverleigh raises significant questions about what the purpose of organized religion should and could be.

Religion's social role—one that we're more comfortable commenting on here—is more explicit in other stories this week. Consider religion and science: “Religion may have helped protect ancient humans from disease,” according to a new report by two scientists from the University of New Mexico. “Although religion apparently is for establishing a social marker of group alliance and allegiance, at the most fundamental level, it may be for the avoidance and management of infectious diseases.”

That would be news to many in Hollywood who, whether from the left or the right, consider religion an infectious disease. The Weekly Standard has an in-depth story about a new movie from a conservative director that has a new spin on religious liberals. (If the writer, Stephen F. Hayes is correct, conservatives in Hollywood are about as rare as collectivists in the Anglican Communion.) David Zucker, the auteur behind Airplane! and The Naked Gun! Is finishing up a film that makes fun of Michael Moore, lefties and opponents of the war on terror. This may not sound like a premise for a comedy but it does have some big names and, according to Hayes, big laughs. For example:

“In the film, a rotund comedian named Rosie O'Connell makes an appearance on The O'Reilly Factor to promote her documentary, The Truth About Radical Christians. O'Reilly shows a clip, which opens with a pair of nuns walking through an airport—as seen from pre-hijacking surveillance video—before boarding the airplane. Once onboard, they storm the cockpit using crucifixes as their weapon of choice. Next the documentary looks at the growing phenomena of nuns as suicide bombers, seeking 72 virgins in heaven.”

If you're scratching your head, maybe it's time to return to old-fashioned, follow-the-money journalism. That's not something you find a lot of in religion coverage, mostly because the money is so hard to find. That's why Erik Gorski's recent piece on televangelist Kenneth Copeland is a stand-out. Gorski is following up on Sen. Charles Grassley's Senate Finance Committee investigation of financial accountability at six evangelical ministries. He deserves kudos for a job well done.