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Family Manager - Control Central
10.18.2007
10.16.2007
The Rise of the Religious Left
By STEVEN MALANGA
October 16, 2007; Page A21, WSJ
Everyone knows the potent force of the Christian right in American politics. But since the mid-1990s, an increasingly influential religious movement has arisen on the left, mostly escaping the national press's notice.
This new religious left does not expend its political energies on the cultural concerns that primarily motivate conservative evangelicals. Instead, working mostly at the state and local level, and often in lockstep with unions, its ministers, priests, rabbis, and laity exert a major, sometimes decisive, influence in campaigns to enforce a "living wage," to help unions organize, and to block the expansion of nonunionized businesses like Wal-Mart.
The new religious left is in one sense not new at all. It draws its inspiration in part from the Protestant "social gospel" movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially Baptist Minister Walter Rauschenbusch, who believed that the best way to uplift the downtrodden was to redistribute wealth and forge an egalitarian society. Rauschenbusch called for the creation of a kingdom of heaven here on earth -- just as presidential candidate Barack Obama did last week at a church in South Carolina.
The popular Catholic writer John Ryan also advocated that government enact pro-union legislation, steep taxes on wealth, and more stringent business regulation. When FDR adopted several of Ryan's ideas, the priest was given the sobriquet "the Right Reverend New Dealer." His popularity reflected the tightening alliance between America's mainstream churches and organized labor. That alliance disintegrated during the 1960s, when clerics like the notorious rebel priests the Berrigan brothers began to agitate for a wider range of radical causes -- above all, a swift end to the Vietnam War. The more culturally conservative blue-collar workers who formed the union movement's core wanted no part of this.
The alliance has been revitalized thanks in large part to savvy labor bosses such as John Sweeney, who grew up in a prototypical Catholic pro-union household. When Mr. Sweeney took over the AFL-CIO in 1996, union membership was shrinking -- from 24% of the work force 30 years ago to 14.5% in 1996 (and just 12% today). He told church leaders that "unions need aggressive participation by the Church in our organizing campaigns."
The AFL-CIO launched "Labor in the Pulpits," a program that encouraged churches and synagogues to invite union leaders to preach the virtues of organized labor and tout its political agenda. Nearly 1,000 congregations in 100 cities nationwide now take part annually. Mr. Sweeney himself has preached from the pulpit of Washington, D.C.'s National Cathedral, urging congregants to join anti-globalization protests in the capital.
Under the auspices of Labor in the Pulpits, Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist and Presbyterian clerics have composed guidelines for union-friendly sermons and litanies, as well as inserts for church bulletins that promote union legislation. One insert asked congregants to pray for a federal minimum-wage hike and also -- if the prayers didn't work, presumably -- to contact their congressional representatives. Another urged congregants to lobby Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act -- controversial legislation that would let unions organize firms merely by getting workers to sign authorizing cards, rather than by conducting secret ballots, as is currently required.
The Chicago-based, union-supported Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ) arranges for seminarians to spend the summer months working with union locals. Some 200 seminarians have helped unionize Mississippi poultry workers, aided the Service Employees International Union in organizing Georgia public-sector employees, and bolstered campaigns for living-wage legislation in California municipalities.
Working with IWJ, the labor movement has spawned some 60 new religious left groups, ranging from the Massachusetts Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice to the Chicago Interfaith Committee on Worker Issues to the Los Angeles-based Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (Clue). In Los Angeles, Clue clergy helped crush several 2005 statewide ballot initiatives that unions opposed, including one that gave union workers the option of not paying dues that would fund union political activities.
In Memphis, clergy fought relentlessly -- via newspaper op-eds, public fasts, and preaching -- for the passage of living-wage bills that since 2004 have forced local businesses to hike wages well above the federal minimum. Labor-religious coalitions have worked spectacularly well: Some 125 municipalities have passed living-wage laws.
More than 100 religious organizations support IWJ financially, including the National Council of Churches of the USA (NCC), an umbrella organization of nearly 40 mainstream Christian denominations. The Presbyterian Church (USA), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Episcopal Church are particularly active. The alliance between labor and the religious left also enjoys the powerful backing of the Catholic Church, whose American hierarchy, though often conservative on social issues, is firmly left-wing in its economic views.
Despite decades of economic progress that have reduced unemployment levels to record lows and made America a magnet for opportunity-seeking immigrants, leading clergy of the religious left depict the free market as a vast exploitative force, controlled by a small group of godless power brokers. Clergy describe Wal-Mart, for example, in terms that its thousands of suppliers, millions of employees, and tens of millions of customers would hardly recognize. The Reverend Jarvis Johnson, an IWJ board member, has urged congregants to invite the "hurting, blind and crippled" to a metaphorical banquet. Who are these poor, abused souls? "They are Wal-Mart associates who have to wait six months to a year to qualify for a health-care plan," Mr. Johnson explained.
Religious left leaders blindly refuse to acknowledge the considerable academic research showing that mandated wage hikes often eliminate the jobs of low-skilled workers -- the very people whom it seeks to help. David Neumark, for example -- a researcher at the University of California at Berkeley's Institute of Business and Economics Research and one of the world's foremost authorities on wage laws -- has found that while living-wage laws do boost the income of some low-wage workers, they also have "strong negative employment effects." That is, they vaporize jobs. In one study, Mr. Neumark noted that a 50% boost in the living wage produced a decline in employment for the lowest-skilled workers of between 6% and 8%.
Religious left clerics also ignore the evidence that much poverty in prosperous, opportunity-rich America results from dysfunctional -- dare one call it "sinful"? -- behavior. Around two-thirds of poor families today are single-parent households, largely dependent on government subsidies and headed by women with little education. The entry-level, low-wage work for which these mothers are qualified makes it hard to support large families. And the time they must devote to raising their kids makes it hard to climb the economic ladder. Poverty is increasingly about the irresponsible decision to have children out of wedlock. In many inner city communities where poverty is entrenched, 75% of all children are now born out of wedlock.
In any event, the religious left's sympathies do not seem to be those of churchgoers. While the NCC and its member churches pursue a variety of left-wing causes -- even partnering with the activist organization MoveOn.org and featuring speakers like Michael Moore at events -- a Pew poll found that 54% of white, mainline Protestants and 50% of Catholics voted Republican in the 2004 presidential elections. Those who attended church regularly voted Republican even more heavily -- at nearly the same rate as evangelical Christians, in fact.
For four decades, as the leadership of America's mainline churches has moved steadily leftward, those churches' memberships declined as a percentage of the U.S. population while the number of Christian evangelicals exploded. Left-wing clerics may be buying greater political influence with their alliance through organized labor, but the price may be further alienating their shrinking flock.
Mr. Malanga is senior editor at the Manhattan Institute's City Journal, from whose autumn issue this is adapted.
October 16, 2007; Page A21, WSJ
Everyone knows the potent force of the Christian right in American politics. But since the mid-1990s, an increasingly influential religious movement has arisen on the left, mostly escaping the national press's notice.
This new religious left does not expend its political energies on the cultural concerns that primarily motivate conservative evangelicals. Instead, working mostly at the state and local level, and often in lockstep with unions, its ministers, priests, rabbis, and laity exert a major, sometimes decisive, influence in campaigns to enforce a "living wage," to help unions organize, and to block the expansion of nonunionized businesses like Wal-Mart.
The new religious left is in one sense not new at all. It draws its inspiration in part from the Protestant "social gospel" movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially Baptist Minister Walter Rauschenbusch, who believed that the best way to uplift the downtrodden was to redistribute wealth and forge an egalitarian society. Rauschenbusch called for the creation of a kingdom of heaven here on earth -- just as presidential candidate Barack Obama did last week at a church in South Carolina.
The popular Catholic writer John Ryan also advocated that government enact pro-union legislation, steep taxes on wealth, and more stringent business regulation. When FDR adopted several of Ryan's ideas, the priest was given the sobriquet "the Right Reverend New Dealer." His popularity reflected the tightening alliance between America's mainstream churches and organized labor. That alliance disintegrated during the 1960s, when clerics like the notorious rebel priests the Berrigan brothers began to agitate for a wider range of radical causes -- above all, a swift end to the Vietnam War. The more culturally conservative blue-collar workers who formed the union movement's core wanted no part of this.
The alliance has been revitalized thanks in large part to savvy labor bosses such as John Sweeney, who grew up in a prototypical Catholic pro-union household. When Mr. Sweeney took over the AFL-CIO in 1996, union membership was shrinking -- from 24% of the work force 30 years ago to 14.5% in 1996 (and just 12% today). He told church leaders that "unions need aggressive participation by the Church in our organizing campaigns."
The AFL-CIO launched "Labor in the Pulpits," a program that encouraged churches and synagogues to invite union leaders to preach the virtues of organized labor and tout its political agenda. Nearly 1,000 congregations in 100 cities nationwide now take part annually. Mr. Sweeney himself has preached from the pulpit of Washington, D.C.'s National Cathedral, urging congregants to join anti-globalization protests in the capital.
Under the auspices of Labor in the Pulpits, Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist and Presbyterian clerics have composed guidelines for union-friendly sermons and litanies, as well as inserts for church bulletins that promote union legislation. One insert asked congregants to pray for a federal minimum-wage hike and also -- if the prayers didn't work, presumably -- to contact their congressional representatives. Another urged congregants to lobby Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act -- controversial legislation that would let unions organize firms merely by getting workers to sign authorizing cards, rather than by conducting secret ballots, as is currently required.
The Chicago-based, union-supported Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ) arranges for seminarians to spend the summer months working with union locals. Some 200 seminarians have helped unionize Mississippi poultry workers, aided the Service Employees International Union in organizing Georgia public-sector employees, and bolstered campaigns for living-wage legislation in California municipalities.
Working with IWJ, the labor movement has spawned some 60 new religious left groups, ranging from the Massachusetts Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice to the Chicago Interfaith Committee on Worker Issues to the Los Angeles-based Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (Clue). In Los Angeles, Clue clergy helped crush several 2005 statewide ballot initiatives that unions opposed, including one that gave union workers the option of not paying dues that would fund union political activities.
In Memphis, clergy fought relentlessly -- via newspaper op-eds, public fasts, and preaching -- for the passage of living-wage bills that since 2004 have forced local businesses to hike wages well above the federal minimum. Labor-religious coalitions have worked spectacularly well: Some 125 municipalities have passed living-wage laws.
More than 100 religious organizations support IWJ financially, including the National Council of Churches of the USA (NCC), an umbrella organization of nearly 40 mainstream Christian denominations. The Presbyterian Church (USA), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Episcopal Church are particularly active. The alliance between labor and the religious left also enjoys the powerful backing of the Catholic Church, whose American hierarchy, though often conservative on social issues, is firmly left-wing in its economic views.
Despite decades of economic progress that have reduced unemployment levels to record lows and made America a magnet for opportunity-seeking immigrants, leading clergy of the religious left depict the free market as a vast exploitative force, controlled by a small group of godless power brokers. Clergy describe Wal-Mart, for example, in terms that its thousands of suppliers, millions of employees, and tens of millions of customers would hardly recognize. The Reverend Jarvis Johnson, an IWJ board member, has urged congregants to invite the "hurting, blind and crippled" to a metaphorical banquet. Who are these poor, abused souls? "They are Wal-Mart associates who have to wait six months to a year to qualify for a health-care plan," Mr. Johnson explained.
Religious left leaders blindly refuse to acknowledge the considerable academic research showing that mandated wage hikes often eliminate the jobs of low-skilled workers -- the very people whom it seeks to help. David Neumark, for example -- a researcher at the University of California at Berkeley's Institute of Business and Economics Research and one of the world's foremost authorities on wage laws -- has found that while living-wage laws do boost the income of some low-wage workers, they also have "strong negative employment effects." That is, they vaporize jobs. In one study, Mr. Neumark noted that a 50% boost in the living wage produced a decline in employment for the lowest-skilled workers of between 6% and 8%.
Religious left clerics also ignore the evidence that much poverty in prosperous, opportunity-rich America results from dysfunctional -- dare one call it "sinful"? -- behavior. Around two-thirds of poor families today are single-parent households, largely dependent on government subsidies and headed by women with little education. The entry-level, low-wage work for which these mothers are qualified makes it hard to support large families. And the time they must devote to raising their kids makes it hard to climb the economic ladder. Poverty is increasingly about the irresponsible decision to have children out of wedlock. In many inner city communities where poverty is entrenched, 75% of all children are now born out of wedlock.
In any event, the religious left's sympathies do not seem to be those of churchgoers. While the NCC and its member churches pursue a variety of left-wing causes -- even partnering with the activist organization MoveOn.org and featuring speakers like Michael Moore at events -- a Pew poll found that 54% of white, mainline Protestants and 50% of Catholics voted Republican in the 2004 presidential elections. Those who attended church regularly voted Republican even more heavily -- at nearly the same rate as evangelical Christians, in fact.
For four decades, as the leadership of America's mainline churches has moved steadily leftward, those churches' memberships declined as a percentage of the U.S. population while the number of Christian evangelicals exploded. Left-wing clerics may be buying greater political influence with their alliance through organized labor, but the price may be further alienating their shrinking flock.
Mr. Malanga is senior editor at the Manhattan Institute's City Journal, from whose autumn issue this is adapted.
10.11.2007
S.N.L. Skit Spoofs Thompson - The Caucus - Politics - New York Times Blog
A sure indication that perceptions of Fred Thompson, the Republican presidential candidate, as a little slow-off-the-mark are already beginning to solidify in the public mind: “Saturday Night Live” featured a couple of jokes painting him as such, and, most potentially devastating, Darrell Hammond did an impression of him as doddering and playing HARD off his “Law and Order” fame.S.N.L. Skit Spoofs Thompson - The Caucus - Politics - New York Times Blog
9.28.2007
HEATED DEBATE-Split Over Global Warming Widens Among Evangelicals
Texas Christians Cite Conflicting Scripture; Staying 'On Mission'
By ANDREW HIGGINS
September 28, 2007; Page A1
WACO, Texas -- Suzii Paynter, director of the public policy arm of Texas's biggest group of Baptist churches, traveled to central Texas early this year to talk to a local preacher about a pressing "moral, biblical and theological" issue. She wanted to discuss coal.
Christians have a biblical mandate to be "good stewards of God's creation," Ms. Paynter says she told the Rev. Frank Brown, pastor of the Bellmead First Baptist Church here in the county where President Bush has his ranch. So, Texas Baptists should demand that controversial plans to build a slew of coal-fired power plants be put on hold.
Mr. Brown was not impressed. God, the pastor said, is "sovereign over his creation" and no amount of coal-burning will alter by a "millisecond" his divine plan for the world. Fighting environmental damage is "like chasing rabbits," he recalls telling her. It just distracts from core Christian duties to spread the faith and protect the unborn.
Ms. Paynter and Mr. Brown, devout Baptists both, stand at opposite ends of a debate over the environment that has been roiling America's potent but often fractious community of evangelicals. Christians have been arguing about coal in Texas, oil drilling in Alaska and hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico. The most charged issue of all is climate change, a focus of world attention this week with conferences at the United Nations and in Washington, D.C. America's Christians are divided on basic questions: How serious is it, what causes it, and what should mankind do about it?
All sides cite the Bible. Ms. Paynter points to a New Testament passage that says the good shepherd does not exploit his sheep and to a psalm that declares "the earth is the Lord's and all its fullness." Mr. Brown quotes an Old Testament verse promising that "while the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease."
Behind the theological disputation, however, is a struggle grounded in the here and now. Who speaks for American evangelicals, and on what issues? Evangelicals in the U.S. share a cluster of core principles: belief in the authority of the Bible, a determination to spread the faith and a commitment to salvation through Jesus. But defining the group beyond that is difficult. They also have a long history of quarrels over their agenda and tension over leadership, particularly since the rise in the 1970s of the formidable political force known as the "religious right."
The dispute over the environment has gained urgency in the run-up to next year's presidential election. Liberal Christians have long championed green issues. Some of their more conservative brethren, particularly in Washington, then joined them in that cause. Now, as anxiety over the environment seeps into the evangelical heartland of the South, pastors and ordinary believers are also wrestling with what was long scorned as a left-wing fetish. A look at how the struggle is playing out in Texas shows the different forces at work -- and suggests its outcome is unlikely to be resolved soon.
"Global warming is a proxy battle," says the Rev. Jim Ball, a graduate of Baylor University, a Baptist college in Waco, and now head of the Evangelical Environmental Network, a group set up in 1994. The combatants are "those moving forward on a broader agenda, and those who want to keep evangelicals focused on just three things -- abortion, judges and gay marriage."
The split is also a struggle between generations, says the Rev. Benjamin Cole, a 31-year-old Baptist preacher from Texas. A blogger on Southern Baptist affairs, Mr. Cole says some younger evangelicals are tiring of lock-step loyalty to the Republican Party. "We wake up each morning and see an elephant on the pillow next to us," he says.
But many veteran leaders of the religious right regard the green movement as a dangerous distraction. Shortly before his death in May, Virginia Baptist preacher the Rev. Jerry Falwell denounced the clamor over global warming as "Satan's attempt to redirect the church's primary focus."
Evangelical Christians have been the Republican Party's most-loyal constituency in recent years. In 2004, 78% of white evangelicals voted for George W. Bush, according to exit polls. Democrats are working hard to dent this alliance. Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a churchgoing Roman Catholic, frequently refers to scripture to support her calls for action against global warming.
"They've really got traction going when it comes to planting trees and reducing greenhouse gases," says Paul Weyrich, an early pioneer of Republican outreach to conservative Christians who heads the Free Congress Foundation, a Washington think tank.
An episode this spring brought national attention to the brewing dispute. Mr. Weyrich joined two dozen other conservative Christian leaders in warning that global warming "is dividing and demoralizing" evangelicals. In a letter to the National Association of Evangelicals, they denounced the umbrella group's Washington-based vice president for governmental affairs, Richard Cizik, an outspoken champion of action against global warming. They demanded that he shut up or resign.
The NAE's board backed Mr. Cizik, who has continued to speak out. Combating climate change, says Mr. Cizik, is no longer just for "latte-sipping, endive-eating elitists from Harvard" but a core issue for all Christians.
How many evangelicals share this view is hard to assess. Each side has its own poll results. A summer survey commissioned by the Evangelical Climate Initiative, group of prominent Christians alarmed by rising temperatures, found that 70% think climate change will pose a "serious threat" to future generations and 64% want immediate action to curb it. The unpublished survey, due to be released next month, was carried out by Ellison Research, a private company. A separate poll carried out around the same time by Barna Group, a conservative Christian research outfit, used a narrower definition of evangelicals and found that only 33% consider global warming a "major problem."
Splits among Baptists in the South are particularly pronounced. Former Vice President Al Gore, a churchgoing Baptist from Tennessee, has become the nation's best-known campaigner against global warming. But the Southern Baptist Convention, which claims more than 16 million members, stands with skeptics. "We don't believe in global warming," said a veteran preacher at the convention's annual meeting this June in San Antonio, Texas. The meeting passed a resolution that dismissed as "very dangerous" proposals to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions and asserted that scientists disagree on the cause of rising temperatures.
Earlier this year, an international panel of hundreds of scientists concluded that human activity is "very likely" the main driver of global warming.
David Gushee, a Southern Baptist professor of Christian ethics, denounced the San Antonio resolution as akin to the organization's previous refusal to combat racism. Mr. Gushee, who helped draft a Southern Baptist Convention apology for past racism in 1995, says, "I don't want to be writing another resolution of regret in 50 years time" about the environment.
American evangelicals are a vast community with sometimes widely divergent views. They are generally thought to number upwards of 100 million people but estimates vary widely depending on how they are defined. In the 19th century, evangelicals split on the issue of slavery. The civil-rights movement in the 1960s caused further splintering, as did a host of theological and personal squabbles. The 1960s also saw wrangling over the environment.
In speeches at Wheaton College in 1968, Francis Schaeffer, a hugely influential evangelical intellectual who died in 1984, criticized fellow Christians for neglecting "God's creation." Though a conservative, he hailed "hippies" for their attacks on "the poverty of modern man's concept of nature." His remarks were collected in a 1970 book, "Pollution and the Death of Man."
But Mr. Schaeffer's call to arms over the environment was soon drowned out by another cause he championed: the war on abortion. He became a fiery leader of pro-life Christians following the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing the procedure.
"Suddenly, abortion was a litmus test for everything," recalls Mr. Schaeffer's son, Frank, who followed in his father's footsteps but has now broken with conservative evangelicals. Frank Schaeffer, who has just written a memoir called "Crazy for God," says the late Mr. Falwell and others "deformed and distorted" his father's legacy. He is rooting for those who want to widen the evangelical agenda to include action on global warming.
Francis Schaeffer's role as both a pioneer of the pro-life movement and an early environmentalist underscores the varied strands of the conservative evangelical movement. Those strands are on full display in Texas.
One fan of the late Mr. Schaeffer is the Rev. Jack Graham, chief pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church, a stadiumlike house of worship in Plano, Texas, that seats 7,000 faithful. Mr. Graham, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, is a big supporter of President Bush, but says he is happy to challenge stereotypes about evangelicals. "We don't believe the Earth is flat," he says.
Yet his skepticism about science runs deep. Prestonwood's bookshop stocks a host of books seeking to debunk the theory of evolution, and its parking lot is packed each Sunday with gas-guzzling sports-utility vehicles. "I have a lot more people asking, 'How can I get through the week?' than about the future of the planet," says Mr. Graham. Christians, he says, have to be careful not to "worship creation instead of the Creator."
Nonetheless, he says, they must not abuse nature, either. Mr. Graham is agnostic on the main cause of global warming but thinks science is "tilting towards human activity as contributing to the state of the world."
Prestonwood last year began a drive to save energy and, in December, was named America's "best green church" at a Dallas conference of church builders, suppliers and managers. It recently installed a computerized system to control its outdoor sprinklers and cut down on wasteful watering of its 140-acre grounds. The church has throttled back on air conditioning, started switching to environmentally friendly fluorescent light bulbs and taken lights out of many vending machines. A full-time "energy manager" prowls the premises after hours, leaving admonishing notes for staff who neglect to turn off lights and computers.
One big motive for all this is money. Prestonwood, which has its own school, TV station, five basketball courts and eight sports fields, has cut its utility bills by $1.1 million since summer last year, when it hired Dallas-based Energy Education Inc. to advise it on how to save energy. But, says Mr. Graham, another reason is the Bible. "Biblical Christianity," he says, quoting Francis Schaeffer, "has a real answer to the ecological crisis."
Other Texas Christians are also trying to conserve energy, including Ms. Paynter, who heads the Christian Life Commission, the public-policy branch of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, a group that Mr. Graham views as insufficiently conservative. Ms. Paynter's Baptist church in Austin, pastored by her husband, teaches "creation care" at summer Bible camp, gets a portion of its power from a renewable-energy grid and has set up recycling bins.
But unlike Mr. Graham, Ms. Paynter is in no doubt about man's role in global warming and considers air quality and other environmental issues as matters of urgent concern. She says her interest was sparked when, at an event for children, she noticed that about 10 of 35 kids present had asthma inhalers.
In poorer, more rural parts of Texas, however, green issues still struggle for a hearing from believers infused with "end times" theology, the conviction that the world will inevitably come to a cataclysmic end and that nothing can or should be done to delay this.
After his discussion with Mrs. Paynter, Mr. Brown, the Baptist preacher in Bellmead near Waco, wrote a lengthy blog entry denouncing environmentalism as a red herring. "Our concern is not to spend hours and hours on how to keep the globe from warming; that is the enemy of hope," he wrote. "Our command is that...we storm the gates of Hell and keep the enemy on the run by the grace of GOD!"
When Ms. Paynter urged Baptists to join the coal power-station debate, she got angry phone calls and messages from outraged preachers and ordinary Baptists. "I do hope our tithes and offerings are not supporting this type of activity," read one email. "Let's stay on mission and keep proclaiming the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ."
But other Baptists cheered. Mary Darden, a deacon of a big Baptist church next to Waco's Baylor University, organized a group called "Keep Waco Green." Though a firm Democrat, she rallied both liberals and conservatives in opposition to plans by TXU Corp. and another utility to create what environmentalists called a "ring of fire" around Waco with plans to build four coal-fired power plants in the region.
The Waco region's Baptist association helped out by informing members about a public meeting to protest the plants.
In March, opponents of the plants declared victory after investors announced a buyout of TXU and promised to scale back on their expansion plans. Ms. Darden organized a celebratory dinner and dance. The "Coal Plant Victory Bash" was attended by secular environmentalists, a conservative state legislator and Christians of all political stripes. Among them was John Wessler, a conservative Christian and a "Keep Waco Green" activist. "God created a balance and we were about to go way out of balance in Waco," he says.
Mr. Wessler, a health-care adviser, says he got involved out of fear that the plants might spew toxins such as mercury and hurt the health of his family. His daughter has asthma. Now he says he's paying more attention to global warming, too, and thinks it "logical" that man is to blame. He's thought about buying a Toyota Prius hybrid car to replace an old Mercedes. But, he says, "I'm not there yet."
By ANDREW HIGGINS
September 28, 2007; Page A1
WACO, Texas -- Suzii Paynter, director of the public policy arm of Texas's biggest group of Baptist churches, traveled to central Texas early this year to talk to a local preacher about a pressing "moral, biblical and theological" issue. She wanted to discuss coal.
Christians have a biblical mandate to be "good stewards of God's creation," Ms. Paynter says she told the Rev. Frank Brown, pastor of the Bellmead First Baptist Church here in the county where President Bush has his ranch. So, Texas Baptists should demand that controversial plans to build a slew of coal-fired power plants be put on hold.
Mr. Brown was not impressed. God, the pastor said, is "sovereign over his creation" and no amount of coal-burning will alter by a "millisecond" his divine plan for the world. Fighting environmental damage is "like chasing rabbits," he recalls telling her. It just distracts from core Christian duties to spread the faith and protect the unborn.
Ms. Paynter and Mr. Brown, devout Baptists both, stand at opposite ends of a debate over the environment that has been roiling America's potent but often fractious community of evangelicals. Christians have been arguing about coal in Texas, oil drilling in Alaska and hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico. The most charged issue of all is climate change, a focus of world attention this week with conferences at the United Nations and in Washington, D.C. America's Christians are divided on basic questions: How serious is it, what causes it, and what should mankind do about it?
All sides cite the Bible. Ms. Paynter points to a New Testament passage that says the good shepherd does not exploit his sheep and to a psalm that declares "the earth is the Lord's and all its fullness." Mr. Brown quotes an Old Testament verse promising that "while the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease."
Behind the theological disputation, however, is a struggle grounded in the here and now. Who speaks for American evangelicals, and on what issues? Evangelicals in the U.S. share a cluster of core principles: belief in the authority of the Bible, a determination to spread the faith and a commitment to salvation through Jesus. But defining the group beyond that is difficult. They also have a long history of quarrels over their agenda and tension over leadership, particularly since the rise in the 1970s of the formidable political force known as the "religious right."
The dispute over the environment has gained urgency in the run-up to next year's presidential election. Liberal Christians have long championed green issues. Some of their more conservative brethren, particularly in Washington, then joined them in that cause. Now, as anxiety over the environment seeps into the evangelical heartland of the South, pastors and ordinary believers are also wrestling with what was long scorned as a left-wing fetish. A look at how the struggle is playing out in Texas shows the different forces at work -- and suggests its outcome is unlikely to be resolved soon.
"Global warming is a proxy battle," says the Rev. Jim Ball, a graduate of Baylor University, a Baptist college in Waco, and now head of the Evangelical Environmental Network, a group set up in 1994. The combatants are "those moving forward on a broader agenda, and those who want to keep evangelicals focused on just three things -- abortion, judges and gay marriage."
The split is also a struggle between generations, says the Rev. Benjamin Cole, a 31-year-old Baptist preacher from Texas. A blogger on Southern Baptist affairs, Mr. Cole says some younger evangelicals are tiring of lock-step loyalty to the Republican Party. "We wake up each morning and see an elephant on the pillow next to us," he says.
But many veteran leaders of the religious right regard the green movement as a dangerous distraction. Shortly before his death in May, Virginia Baptist preacher the Rev. Jerry Falwell denounced the clamor over global warming as "Satan's attempt to redirect the church's primary focus."
Evangelical Christians have been the Republican Party's most-loyal constituency in recent years. In 2004, 78% of white evangelicals voted for George W. Bush, according to exit polls. Democrats are working hard to dent this alliance. Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a churchgoing Roman Catholic, frequently refers to scripture to support her calls for action against global warming.
"They've really got traction going when it comes to planting trees and reducing greenhouse gases," says Paul Weyrich, an early pioneer of Republican outreach to conservative Christians who heads the Free Congress Foundation, a Washington think tank.
An episode this spring brought national attention to the brewing dispute. Mr. Weyrich joined two dozen other conservative Christian leaders in warning that global warming "is dividing and demoralizing" evangelicals. In a letter to the National Association of Evangelicals, they denounced the umbrella group's Washington-based vice president for governmental affairs, Richard Cizik, an outspoken champion of action against global warming. They demanded that he shut up or resign.
The NAE's board backed Mr. Cizik, who has continued to speak out. Combating climate change, says Mr. Cizik, is no longer just for "latte-sipping, endive-eating elitists from Harvard" but a core issue for all Christians.
How many evangelicals share this view is hard to assess. Each side has its own poll results. A summer survey commissioned by the Evangelical Climate Initiative, group of prominent Christians alarmed by rising temperatures, found that 70% think climate change will pose a "serious threat" to future generations and 64% want immediate action to curb it. The unpublished survey, due to be released next month, was carried out by Ellison Research, a private company. A separate poll carried out around the same time by Barna Group, a conservative Christian research outfit, used a narrower definition of evangelicals and found that only 33% consider global warming a "major problem."
Splits among Baptists in the South are particularly pronounced. Former Vice President Al Gore, a churchgoing Baptist from Tennessee, has become the nation's best-known campaigner against global warming. But the Southern Baptist Convention, which claims more than 16 million members, stands with skeptics. "We don't believe in global warming," said a veteran preacher at the convention's annual meeting this June in San Antonio, Texas. The meeting passed a resolution that dismissed as "very dangerous" proposals to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions and asserted that scientists disagree on the cause of rising temperatures.
Earlier this year, an international panel of hundreds of scientists concluded that human activity is "very likely" the main driver of global warming.
David Gushee, a Southern Baptist professor of Christian ethics, denounced the San Antonio resolution as akin to the organization's previous refusal to combat racism. Mr. Gushee, who helped draft a Southern Baptist Convention apology for past racism in 1995, says, "I don't want to be writing another resolution of regret in 50 years time" about the environment.
American evangelicals are a vast community with sometimes widely divergent views. They are generally thought to number upwards of 100 million people but estimates vary widely depending on how they are defined. In the 19th century, evangelicals split on the issue of slavery. The civil-rights movement in the 1960s caused further splintering, as did a host of theological and personal squabbles. The 1960s also saw wrangling over the environment.
In speeches at Wheaton College in 1968, Francis Schaeffer, a hugely influential evangelical intellectual who died in 1984, criticized fellow Christians for neglecting "God's creation." Though a conservative, he hailed "hippies" for their attacks on "the poverty of modern man's concept of nature." His remarks were collected in a 1970 book, "Pollution and the Death of Man."
But Mr. Schaeffer's call to arms over the environment was soon drowned out by another cause he championed: the war on abortion. He became a fiery leader of pro-life Christians following the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing the procedure.
"Suddenly, abortion was a litmus test for everything," recalls Mr. Schaeffer's son, Frank, who followed in his father's footsteps but has now broken with conservative evangelicals. Frank Schaeffer, who has just written a memoir called "Crazy for God," says the late Mr. Falwell and others "deformed and distorted" his father's legacy. He is rooting for those who want to widen the evangelical agenda to include action on global warming.
Francis Schaeffer's role as both a pioneer of the pro-life movement and an early environmentalist underscores the varied strands of the conservative evangelical movement. Those strands are on full display in Texas.
One fan of the late Mr. Schaeffer is the Rev. Jack Graham, chief pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church, a stadiumlike house of worship in Plano, Texas, that seats 7,000 faithful. Mr. Graham, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, is a big supporter of President Bush, but says he is happy to challenge stereotypes about evangelicals. "We don't believe the Earth is flat," he says.
Yet his skepticism about science runs deep. Prestonwood's bookshop stocks a host of books seeking to debunk the theory of evolution, and its parking lot is packed each Sunday with gas-guzzling sports-utility vehicles. "I have a lot more people asking, 'How can I get through the week?' than about the future of the planet," says Mr. Graham. Christians, he says, have to be careful not to "worship creation instead of the Creator."
Nonetheless, he says, they must not abuse nature, either. Mr. Graham is agnostic on the main cause of global warming but thinks science is "tilting towards human activity as contributing to the state of the world."
Prestonwood last year began a drive to save energy and, in December, was named America's "best green church" at a Dallas conference of church builders, suppliers and managers. It recently installed a computerized system to control its outdoor sprinklers and cut down on wasteful watering of its 140-acre grounds. The church has throttled back on air conditioning, started switching to environmentally friendly fluorescent light bulbs and taken lights out of many vending machines. A full-time "energy manager" prowls the premises after hours, leaving admonishing notes for staff who neglect to turn off lights and computers.
One big motive for all this is money. Prestonwood, which has its own school, TV station, five basketball courts and eight sports fields, has cut its utility bills by $1.1 million since summer last year, when it hired Dallas-based Energy Education Inc. to advise it on how to save energy. But, says Mr. Graham, another reason is the Bible. "Biblical Christianity," he says, quoting Francis Schaeffer, "has a real answer to the ecological crisis."
Other Texas Christians are also trying to conserve energy, including Ms. Paynter, who heads the Christian Life Commission, the public-policy branch of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, a group that Mr. Graham views as insufficiently conservative. Ms. Paynter's Baptist church in Austin, pastored by her husband, teaches "creation care" at summer Bible camp, gets a portion of its power from a renewable-energy grid and has set up recycling bins.
But unlike Mr. Graham, Ms. Paynter is in no doubt about man's role in global warming and considers air quality and other environmental issues as matters of urgent concern. She says her interest was sparked when, at an event for children, she noticed that about 10 of 35 kids present had asthma inhalers.
In poorer, more rural parts of Texas, however, green issues still struggle for a hearing from believers infused with "end times" theology, the conviction that the world will inevitably come to a cataclysmic end and that nothing can or should be done to delay this.
After his discussion with Mrs. Paynter, Mr. Brown, the Baptist preacher in Bellmead near Waco, wrote a lengthy blog entry denouncing environmentalism as a red herring. "Our concern is not to spend hours and hours on how to keep the globe from warming; that is the enemy of hope," he wrote. "Our command is that...we storm the gates of Hell and keep the enemy on the run by the grace of GOD!"
When Ms. Paynter urged Baptists to join the coal power-station debate, she got angry phone calls and messages from outraged preachers and ordinary Baptists. "I do hope our tithes and offerings are not supporting this type of activity," read one email. "Let's stay on mission and keep proclaiming the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ."
But other Baptists cheered. Mary Darden, a deacon of a big Baptist church next to Waco's Baylor University, organized a group called "Keep Waco Green." Though a firm Democrat, she rallied both liberals and conservatives in opposition to plans by TXU Corp. and another utility to create what environmentalists called a "ring of fire" around Waco with plans to build four coal-fired power plants in the region.
The Waco region's Baptist association helped out by informing members about a public meeting to protest the plants.
In March, opponents of the plants declared victory after investors announced a buyout of TXU and promised to scale back on their expansion plans. Ms. Darden organized a celebratory dinner and dance. The "Coal Plant Victory Bash" was attended by secular environmentalists, a conservative state legislator and Christians of all political stripes. Among them was John Wessler, a conservative Christian and a "Keep Waco Green" activist. "God created a balance and we were about to go way out of balance in Waco," he says.
Mr. Wessler, a health-care adviser, says he got involved out of fear that the plants might spew toxins such as mercury and hurt the health of his family. His daughter has asthma. Now he says he's paying more attention to global warming, too, and thinks it "logical" that man is to blame. He's thought about buying a Toyota Prius hybrid car to replace an old Mercedes. But, he says, "I'm not there yet."
9.25.2007
NPR : Bishops Move to Ease Concerns on Homosexuality
Bishops in the Episcopal Church have crafted a document they hope will ease conservatives' concerns in the United States and abroad. In Africa and South America, which have the most active members in the worldwide Anglican Communion, bishops wanted a statement from the Americans about the direction of the church — and specifically on its views on homosexuality.NPR : Bishops Move to Ease Concerns on Homosexuality
Worship Goes Big-Screen and Hi-Fi, With Direct-Deposit Tithing - washingtonpost.com
"At First Baptist Church of Glenarden in Prince George's County, parishioners who don't make it to church on time are directed to an overflow room to watch the Sunday service on a huge projection screen. If they can't make it to church at all, they can catch the service online, anytime."Worship Goes Big-Screen and Hi-Fi, With Direct-Deposit Tithing - washingtonpost.com:
9.24.2007
8.28.2007
Joe Carter on God’s Warriors on National Review Online
For several weeks CNN has been hyping their miniseries God’s Warriors as an “unprecedented six-hour television event.” The series dedicates two hours each to “God’s Jewish Warriors,” “God’s Muslim Warriors,” and “God’s Christian Warriors.” Prior to the first airing, CNN invited several bloggers to preview a few clips from the series and to submit a question for Christiane Amanpour to be answered during a special webcast.
Joe Carter on God’s Warriors on National Review Onliner
Joe Carter on God’s Warriors on National Review Onliner
Robert Rector on Poverty on National Review Online
The Census Bureau will release its annual report on poverty in America tomorrow. The report will show, as it has in recent years that around 37 million people live in official poverty. Presidential candidate John Edwards, who hopes to lead the nation in a new crusade against poverty, will, no doubt, seek to reap much publicity from the report.
Robert Rector on Poverty on National Review Online
Robert Rector on Poverty on National Review Online
8.13.2007
Youngest Brother was going to kill Oldest Brother, but Middle Brother tips hime off...
Dan,
Jon asked me to keep this a secret, but I thought you should know.
See the forwarded message below.
Tim
On Aug 7, 2007, at 3:43 PM, jon harper wrote:
Tim--
I have been thinking about killing Dan. No real reason, just
something to do. Also, there is a cool new reality show on the CW
tonight. Don't tell Dan. I mean about killing him. You can tell him
about the show--who cares if he watches it if I'm going to kill him.
Authentically yours,
Jon
Jon asked me to keep this a secret, but I thought you should know.
See the forwarded message below.
Tim
On Aug 7, 2007, at 3:43 PM, jon harper wrote:
Tim--
I have been thinking about killing Dan. No real reason, just
something to do. Also, there is a cool new reality show on the CW
tonight. Don't tell Dan. I mean about killing him. You can tell him
about the show--who cares if he watches it if I'm going to kill him.
Authentically yours,
Jon
FOXNews.com - Fred Thompson, the Second Coming of Ronald Reagan? - Opinion
In 1980 presidential candidate Ronald Reagan transformed American politics when, speaking to an audience of Evangelical Christians, he declared: "You can't endorse me, but I endorse you."
FOXNews.com - Fred Thompson, the Second Coming of Ronald Reagan? - Opinion
FOXNews.com - Fred Thompson, the Second Coming of Ronald Reagan? - Opinion
I Heart Huckabee: 'Likeable' Mike Takes Second Place in Iowa Straw Poll -- 08/13/2007
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee says he has new momentum heading into the next phase of the Republican presidential campaign following his second-place finish in the Iowa Straw Poll on Saturday.
'Likeable' Mike Takes Second Place in Iowa Straw Poll -- 08/13/2007: "Huckabee "
'Likeable' Mike Takes Second Place in Iowa Straw Poll -- 08/13/2007: "Huckabee "
8.02.2007
7.17.2007
John Edwards Vows To End All Bad Things By 2011
John Edwards Vows To End All Bad Things By 2011 | The Onion - America's Finest News Source: "AMES, IA—In an effort to jump-start a presidential campaign that still has not broken into the top Democratic tier, former Sen. John Edwards made his most ambitious policy announcement yet at a campaign event in Iowa Monday: a promise to eliminate all unpleasant, disagreeable, or otherwise bad things from all aspects of American life by the end of his second year in office."
7.13.2007
6.27.2007
6.21.2007
Focus on the Family - Small Changes
Oneplace.com: Focus on the Family (Dr. James Dobson) - Broadcast Archives: "'Houston, we have a problem.' Just a two-degree shift in Apollo 13's homeward course would have caused the spacecraft to miss the earth by thousands of miles. Indeed, minor changes can make a big difference. The same principle applies in daily life. For example, how long did you maintain your New Year's resolution to lose 20 lbs? Setting the bar too high often leads to discouragement, but smaller, more manageable changes can increase your likelihood of success. Psychologist and author Dr. John Trent discusses simple adjustments that can lead to life-changing results.
'How in the world such can a small degree of difference lead to such a great effect? I don’t meet couples that, when they got married, were 11,121 miles apart. They started off two degrees [apart] and all of a sudden they woke up one day and were miles apart.' - Mr John Trent "
'How in the world such can a small degree of difference lead to such a great effect? I don’t meet couples that, when they got married, were 11,121 miles apart. They started off two degrees [apart] and all of a sudden they woke up one day and were miles apart.' - Mr John Trent "
6.08.2007
6.07.2007
"It is Finished!"
After approximately 630 hours of class time, 288 hours out of the country, and 252 hours meeting with my study group I am finished with my studies. I am now a holder of a Masters in Technology Management from George Mason University.
As I was walking to accept my diploma you'll notice I am grinning from ear to ear at the thought of being able to spend time with my wonderful family and friends again. Thanks to all of you, especially my wife Shari, for all of your support over the last 18 months.
If for some crazy reason you would like to order a picture for yourself go to http://www.gradimages.com and type in customer number 743517. The other picture of me is goofy though so don't pick that one :)
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