Once more on Mr. Duck Dynasty

The controversy that Duck Dynasty "patriarch" Phil Robertson got himself into the middle of with his nasty comments about gays and his warm appreciation of the virtues of segregation reminds me more than a little of Vice President Dan Quayle's criticism of the fictional character Murphy Brown in the 1992 Presidential campaign.

Here's a short VH1 clip that gives the background of that particular Dan Quayle foot-in-mouth episode, i love the 90's murphy brown:

Here's a Candy Crowley retrospective from ten years later, 2002 - Dan Quayle '69 & 'Murphy Brown' 10 Years Later:

The two situations have obvious differences. Dan Quayle was better able to construct grammatical sentences than Sarah Palin, one of Pore Ole Phil's more famous defenders.

And Quayle was criticizing a fictional character, while Pore Ole Phil's supporters are defending a real person, although a real person most everyone knows about from the fictional character of himself that he plays on a TV "reality" show.

What strikes me as similar in both is that it was a moment where a popular culture issue incited partisan and ideological passions and caught a lot of attention. In both cases, the Republican/Christian Right critics claimed to be defending "family values." In the Murphy Brown case, they were defending the presence and necessity of fathers in the "traditional" heterosexual nuclear family, a perspective which Candy Crowley's report pretty much let's Dan Quayle define in her more-or-less lazy report. With Pore Ole Phil the Patriarch, they claim to be defending the traditional heterosexual family by criticizing homosexuality.

How they looks to those not inside the Republican/FOX/Christian Right bubble is different. Quayle was appealing to the "traditional" slut-shaming of women having babies outside of marriage blessed by clergy. Phil the Patriarch compared to gays to people who have sex with animals and praised racial segregation, which sounds like your basic homophobic and white racial bigotry to most people.

The Murphy Brown case was scarcely an historic matter, though it became a minor symbol of the Republicans' tone-deafness that year to the concerns of female voters. The Pore Ole Phil episode is likely to be remembered as one of the seemingly endless series of "culture war" complaints that the Christian Right continually produces.

Both are signs to me of an underlying ugliness in Christian fundamentalism, especially as it manifests itself in Christian Right politics. But it's harder to see the Pore Ole Phil flap in a benign light than the Murphy Brown one. While Quayle's criticism of a fictional character sounded like cheap slut-shaming, he could make a semi-plausible case that he was pointing to the importance of responsible fatherhood. And, despite, the impression one might get from Crowley's report, the Democratic Party and non-fundamentalists were not generally known in 1992 for opposing responsible fatherhood.

But, as I've noted in an earlier post, the fans of Pore Ole Phil were very pointed about defending his position as sound Christian doctrine. Neither the nasty comments about gays nor the praise of segregation seemed to raise any moral or Scriptural problems for them. He did say "vagina" and "anus" in the interview, though, and the former especially is a dirty word for Republicans these days. So he drew some criticism for the "coarse" language he used. Dan Quayle wasn't know for either political shrewdness or intellectual heft. But he didn't come off that nasty.

Gene Lyons has a sensible take on Pore Ole Phil in Duck Dynasty Bigots Will Fade Into Obscurity National Memo 12/11/2013: "Duck Dynasty may be this month’s right wing cause célèbre. Longer term, however, unapologetic bigots always fade into obscurity, basically because they embarrass people." A longtime Arkansas resident, Gene evaluates the show that made Pore Ole Phil a star this way:

Now that I’ve actually seen a few episodes, Duck Dynasty is relatively harmless entertainment. Whatever “reality TV” means, it’s definitely not that. It’s a semi-scripted sitcom, basically cornball self-parody. Think Hee Haw without the music. I find it utterly inane, but then I don’t watch TV with children.

The "tell" is the show’s women; cute Southern sorority girls turned mommies. In real life, no way would those women tolerate their "menfolk" running around looking like a truckload of ZZ Top impersonators. They're also not going on TV with hay in their hair like some Hollywood director’s idea of a country girl. Every comedy needs a straight man; on Duck Dynasty it’s the women.

But realism? Please. The beards, hair and overalls are costumes every bit as theatrical as the outfits the Rolling Stones wear onstage. In the rural Arkansas county where I live, you could hang around the feed store for a month without seeing anybody like Duck Dynasty "patriarch" (and head bigot) Phil Robertson. And if you did, his wife wouldn't have any teeth.

A&E reportedly edited out nasty "culture war" type comments in the filming of the TV show. A&E wanted the cornpone comic edge, not a we-hate-gay-and-blacks one.

Josh Barrow looks at the controversy in When You Defend Phil Robertson, Here's What You're Really Defending Business Insider 12/21/2103.

Here's another segment from The Young Turks on The DD Patriarch, Cracker Barrel Heeds Call To Bring Back Duck Dynasty Products 12/23/2013:

Kevin Sessums, an author who's one of the more famous graduates from my undergraduate alma mater Millsaps College, had this to say on Facebook around 12/28/2013:

You know what gripes my ass about all this Duck Dynasty brouhaha as someone who grew up in the south. It once again gives credence to the southern redneck bigoted stereotype - not only because of the racist and homophobic claptrap spouted by Phil Whatshisname, but also because so many southerners came to his defense. He proudly flaunted his ignorance and vitriol and they proudly backed him up. And then they all - as is their wont - played the victim for being called out on their bigotry because they self-righteously rationalize their earthly bigotry with religiosity, a curdled kind of Christianity. I felt as if I were in a 1960s time warp. And they wonder why the rest of the country has a preconceived notion about the southern redneck bigoted stereotype. Maybe because it has yet again been proven true. In some deep and abiding way it breaks my heart just as the region I call home always ends up doing.

Personally, as a born and bred Mississippian, I'll throw in my lot with another man of the south, a great one named Faulkner, who bemoaned "the rubbish and claptrap of a people who have not yet quite emerged from barbarism, who two thousand years hence will still be throwing triumphantly off the yoke of Latin culture and intelligence of which they were never in any great permanent danger to begin with."

Matt Taibi focuses on the comments by the White Princess on the DD Affair in Sarah Palin's Impressively Incoherent 'Duck Dynasty' Rolling Stone 12/19/2013:

Conservatives have always had trouble grasping the difference between public censorship and private enterprise. With a few exceptions, like whistleblower laws and National Labor Relations Board protections against being fired for off-site discussions about work conditions (exceptions that, in almost every case, conservatives bitterly opposed), there is no legal or constitutional right to free speech on private property.

You can be fired for calling your boss a dick, and you can just as easily be let go by a profit-seeking media company for imperiling its relationship with advertisers. And incidentally, this is the way true conservatives, and especially true hardcore speech advocates, have always wanted it. ...

Palin's inability to grasp the difference between a first-amendment violation and corporate calculation is amazing because she literally just published a book on the subject. Her newly-released War-on-Christmas diatribe, Good Tidings and Great Joy, is all about the efforts by evil Jesus-hating atheists to sue the Christmas out of our public lives. (It's one of the funniest things ever written, by the way. I would write a review but I don't think I could make it all the way to the end without a cardiac episode).

In writing this new book, Palin presumably spent the whole of the last year or so staring right at the issue of what may be said on private property versus what may be said on public property – the difference between putting up a nativity scene in front of a courthouse and putting one up on your lawn. Yet as this latest controversy shows, the underlying issue is still a total blur to her.

And our old pal Bro. Wade "Sword-of-Vengeance" Burleson manages to defend what Pore Ole Phil said while upholding the sacred right of private owners to do whatever the heck they like: Duck Dynasty and a New Television Network Istoria Ministries 12/19/2013.

The Internet and Twitter are on fire over Phil Robertson's removal from Duck Dynasty. The arguments are typical. We Christians are furious over A&E's removal of the 67-year-old star from the show for saying that homosexuality is "a sin." That the secular media and A&E called Phil Robertson's comment "explosive" says more about the truncated and short-sighted historical knowledge of the secular media than it does Phil Robertson. Until a few years ago, homosexual behavior was illegal in America. Just because the government decriminalizes homosexual behavior doesn't mean homosexuality isn't a sin anymore. The government is not God nor vice-versa.

Yet, on the other hand, I would argue that A&E has every right to remove Phil Robertson from its hit television show. We Americans believe in free speech and free markets. Don't forget the latter. A&E is a for profit television network and has the right to operate freely according to their views of market profitability. That means just as we fight to secure free speech in America, we ought to fight for the right for A&E to do anything they want with their own shows. They must make a profit. Let them do what they believe is best. [emphasis in original]

Bro. Sword-of-Vengeance obviously comes down hard on the let-business-run-wild side of the contradiction that Matt Taibbi identified, while the White Princess lands on the other.

Tags: albert mohler, christian right, phil robertson, radical right, russell moore, segregation, white racism

The Duck Dynasty guy and what the Christian Right sees as sound Christian doctrine on gays and racial segregation

We've had some strange expressions of the holiday spirit during this Christmas season. One of the strangest what from Phil Robertson, the Duck Dynasty star who used a GQ interview to blast some of his favorite targets. Or, as he would put it, expressing his Christian love toward them.

I did a Facebook post on it that was more-or-less these next three paragraphs.

On the "Duck Dynasty" blowhard who don't like them thar gays and cain't see what thur wuz so bad about segregation : It's one thing to defend him on some kind of free speech grounds. In my own un-romantic version of Jeffersonian freedom of speech, the basic idea is that everyone should be free to say any dang fool thing they want, as long as everyone else is free to say what a dang fool thing it is they've said. Entertainment figures do take a risk with saying obnoxious things, despite the show-business truism that any publicity is good publicity. Ask the Dixie Chicks. Speaking of the Dixie Chicks, it would be painfully easy to list instances of screaming hypocrisy over the Duck Dynasty guy controversy. (See also: Sarah Palin/Martin Bashir) But since it's the Christmas Season and we're all into putting Christ back into Christmas - or at least keeping "happy holidays" out of the mix (but aren't they supposed to be "holy-days"?) - then I'm wondering what's so "Christian" about comparing gays to people who have sex with animals, which Robertson did.

This article for the conservative evangelical Christian Post (Alex Murashko, Greg Laurie on Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson, A&E Controversy: What Is Being Asked of Christians Is Not Tolerance, But Acceptance and Endorsement of Sin The Christian Post 12/20/2013) for instance, whines profusely about how poor ole Phil is being picked on by them mean libruls. (Are A&E execs liberals? Beats me.) But anybody old enough to be shooting off their mouths on the subject knows that comparisons like this *do* promote not just contempt and hatred but occasionally violence against gays and lesbians. This article delicately omits the bestiality part. What kind of Christianity is it really that heartily defends this white-trash-talk as being an expression of Christian faith? Again, assuming someone is old enough to be shooting off their mouths about it all, there are a variety of ways to express personal disapproval without being an a*****e. It's actually pretty common knowledge that various Christian churches and denominations disapprove of homosexual conduct. But, you know, if you're going to tell somebody to their face that they are like somebody who has sex with animals, you can expect to be punched in the face. Which is why anyone older than ten or so will assume that someone saying that is being sleazy and hostile. So if your goal is to advertise Christianity, much less proselytize somebody to the faith, how in the world can that be a good way to do it?

And hasn't it struck anyone defending Robertson on the grounds of his being allegedly persecuted for his Christian beliefs that his comment about the Good Ole Days of segregation show somewhat less than, say, the minimal awareness of a sentient American adult, much less any kind of Christian spiritual perspective: "I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once. ... Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues."? (Black people weren't "singing the blues"? Maybe this guy really is just an idiot.) I grew up in a Mississippi town that is haunted in meaningful ways to this day by the lynch murders of two 14-year-old African-American boys in 1942. The first public school I attended appeared in the phone book as "Shubuta White Elementary School." And Robertson's comment sounds to me like pretty much what every hardcore segregationist I ever came in contact with would say. And nobody I know that doesn't want to be thought of a hardcore segregationist would express themselves that way. Jonathan Merritt gives a slightly more generous take on it here: The Real Duck Dynasty Scandal: Phil Robertson's Comments on Race The Atlantic Politics 12/19/2013. Ta-hisi Coates, who would not have been allowed to attend my elementary school, does, too: Phil Robertson's America The Atlantic Politics 12/20/2013. But I'm guessing they're both Yankees. And Yankees tend to try to see the best in people over stuff like this. I'm more inclined to think that people who talk to interviewers using expressions normally favored by sorry-ass bigots are probably, well, sorry-ass bigots. And who's to say if they're "real" Christians? But they sure ain't good advertisements for the Christian faith.

Yesterday, the conservative evangelical news outlet The Christian Post published a story by Katherine Weber called, Twitter Blocks '#iStandWithPhil.com' Supporting 'Duck Dynasty's' Phil Robertson Following A&E Suspension 12/23/2013. The claim in the title is described at length in the article, which is apparently based almost exclusively on a group called Faith Driven Consumer, which presents itself as a group that promotes Christian shopping.

They must be singing "I'll be paranoid for Christmas" over at the Christian Post. I saw their story within three hours of its being posted. Being mildly curious, I looked up the hashtag on Twitter and it listed all kinds of tweets there. Including one from the Christian Post! It doesn't make the ".com" part appear in red like the rest of it. But it's there. If it appears in red, it's a hotlink to the website, and I'm pretty sure the hashtag mark "#" at the start of a website address would make any web link not function as a hotspot on Twitter.

I posted a tweet with the hashtag and it popped up there. (Even though I think Patriarch Phil was being a jerk in his now-infamous GQ interview.) If you're going to run a story about how Twitter is censoring a hashtag about Pore Ole Phil, shouldn't you at least check to see if the hashtag appears on Twitter? Or maybe the reporter just doesn't understand how Twitter even works. But if someone need to just make stuff up to get a persecution story, well, maybe they're just blowing smoke.

I'll offer up this clips from The Young Turks to show some examples of what his actual critics are criticizing Pore Ole Phil for. Vagina Better Than Anus Says Duck Dynasty Guy 12/18/2013:

Duck Dynasty Racist Anti-Gay Phil Robertson - Hate Or Ignorance? 12/19/2013:

Duck Dynasty Family Ducks Behind The Bible/Quacking Under Pressure 12/20/2013:

New Video Of Duck Dynasty Phil Robertson Passionately Anti-Gay 12/20/2013:

Roy Edroso applies his usual analytic skills and good humor to the Pore Ole Phil controversy in Rightbloggers Prove They're No Sissies By Supporting Duck Dynasty, Beating Up Pajama Boy Village Voice 12/22/2013.

As of this writing, The Christian Post hasn't added a correction or update to their article, which features this quote from supposedly amiable Mike Huckabbee:

Similarly, former Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee said in a Facebook post that the social media network had also blocked him from accessing his pro-Robertson Facebook page, "Stand with Phil And Support Free Speech," which promotes an upcoming event in support of Phil Robertson.

Huckabee wrote on his Facebook page that he believes the social media network is intentionally trying to censor those supporting Phil Robertson. "Phil Robertson of 'Duck Dynasty' isn't the only one censored by the media thought police. When we put up an event page to show support for our pal Phil, FB blocked access to the page! What is happening to free speech for Christians? Have you seen the stuff FB allows when people attack me because of my faith? I allow the attacks on me on my own page. But when we try to show support for a Christian brother FB pulls the entire page! It's time to demand that 'tolerance' includes tolerance for Christians too!"

I'm not sure if Katherine Weber knows the difference between Twitter and Facebook. There is also no indication whether Weber did any actual reporting and checked Huckabbee's claim, either. I'm not going to bother following up on that one, myself. Trying to run down paranoid rightwing rumors can quickly become a fool's errand.

The Christian Right is heavily invested in promoting the notion that Christians are being actively persecuted in the United States. By which they mean fundamentalist Christians. And if you press them a bit, they wouldn't be so sure whether those fundamentalists from other denominations are really Christians, either.

So there will be stories like this popping up as long as they remain invested in that persecution narrative, which in practice is a variation of what I call the whiney white people routine. Because so far, the only evidence I see for the claim is based on very borderline cases of some public school administrator going too far in the restrictions placed on Christmastime celebrations.

But I'm also struck in the Pore Ole Phil case about how insistent his defenders are in defending the whole of his CQ interview as sound Christian religious positions. I don't agree with his position on homosexuality, not with my own Catholic Church's official position on the subject. I'm not committed to a so-called literalist reading of the Christian Scriptures. So the fact that St. Paul seems to have gotten bent out of shape over it, and about pretty much anything related to sex for that matter, doesn't bother me a lot.

But it's also clear to me as a citizen in a democracy that public policy and law need to recognize medical facts and the lack thereof. As Freud came to recognize long ago and the American psychiatric establishment somewhat more recently, there are no medical reasons to consider homosexuality or bisexuality as illnesses. Nor is there any reason based on facts, as opposed to imaginary fears, for law in a contemporary society to ban homosexual conduct or to deny gays and lesbians the right to legal same-sex marriage.

And, no, the routine claim by opponents of same-sex marriage equating it with polygamy does not make any sense. Two-person marriage provide enough complications, both legal and practical, and multiple-partner marriages multiply them. As anyone who ever watched the TV comedy-drama series Big Love will know. In Utah in particular, polygamy is a still a practical issue, if only on the more-or-less cult fringe of society. (Jim Dalrymple II, Federal judge declares Utah polygamy law unconstitutional The Salt Lake Tribune 12/07/2013)

In countries where it's practiced legally, and in cult polygamy arrangements in the US, polygamy (one man, plural wives) is severely discriminatory against women. It's an interesting thought experiment to imagine how formalizing polygamous, polyandrous (one female wife, plural husbands) and polyamorous (multiple partners regardless of sex) marriages would look. But two-partner marriages are complicated enough that it's a miracle legal structures can even handle those!

In reality, of course, love and attraction have never been easy to keep in any institutional boundaries. But that's a longer story.

Getting back to Pore Ole Phil, Roy Odroso characterized his "Christian" message on gays and lesbians this way: " one of the Duck Dynasty guys tells gays they're basically the same as pig-fuckers." Not exactly High Theology.

And, as I said above, his defense of segregation is pretty darn clear. Which is both anti-democracy and anti-any-decent-brand-of-Christianity.

His defenders seem to want us to think those two very obviously obnoxious statements have nothing to do with how anyone regards Pore Ole Phil.

Here's another one from the Alex Murashko, Greg Laurie on Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson, A&E Controversy: What Is Being Asked of Christians Is Not Tolerance, But Acceptance and Endorsement of Sin The Christian Post 12/20/2013:

Phil Robertson, who mentioned homosexual behavior among a list of other sins, said Christians cannot judge whether someone is going to heaven or hell, and argued Christians should love those with same-sex attraction.

The growing number of Christian leaders and politicians who have publicly expressed outrage – with some not at all surprised by the controversy –over the suspension include: Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, and Russell Moore.

The article's readers would not learn from it about the gays-are-like-pig-fuckers and blacks-were-happy-with-segregation comments.

The blog's old friend Bro. Al Mohler weighed in on Pore Ole Phil with the ominous-sounding You Have Been Warned—The “Duck Dynasty” Controversy 12/19/2013. Bro. Al describes himself at his webpage as "president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary - the flagship school of the Southern Baptist Convention and one of the largest seminaries in the world." Bro. Al quotes Pore Ole Phil's comment about bestiality and concludes, "Christians will recognize that Robertson was offering a rather accurate paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 6:9-10." So it's good Christian thankin', in Bro. Al's view. But Bro. Al thought he talked a little to much about anatomy and stuff: "To be fair, Robertson also offered some comments that were rather crude and graphically anatomical in making the same point." Bro. Al is a master at mealy-mouthing. So he can claim he criticized something about Pore Ole Phil's GQ interview. But not anything about Pore Ole Phil's view of gay sex, it seems:

Phil Robertson would have served the cause of Christ more faithfully if some of those comments had not rushed out. This is not because what he said was wrong; he was making the argument that homosexual acts are against nature. The Apostle Paul makes the very same argument in Romans 1:26. The problem is the graphic nature of Robertson’s language and the context of his statements.

Bro. Al also didn't think it was such a great idea to give an interview to GQ anyway: "But GQ magazine? Seriously? ... GQ is a 'lifestyle' magazine for men, a rather sophisticated and worldly platform." It's a lifestyle magazine for men (if you know what he means, and I'm guessing you do).

On the anatomy issue, Pore Ole Phil used the word "vagina," which good Christian white folks of the Bro. Al type think "vagina" is a dirty word. Eyder Peralta, Michigan State Rep Barred From Speaking After 'Vagina' NPR 06/14/2012. In this brand of Christianity, comparing gays to people who have sex with animals: a very "Christian" thing to do. Talking about how blacks were so happy under segregation: a very "Christian" thing to do. Saying "vagina": oh, no, he said a cuss word! Cover the children's ears! He named one of those icky ladyparts out loud!!

Bro. Al also gets in a dig at them thar Catholics, claiming that the Pope says the same thing as Pore Ole Phil. Except for, maybe, you know, the gays-are-like-pig-fuckers and blacks-were-happy-with-segregation stuff. Otherwise Pope Francis I and Duck Dynasty "patriarch" Pore Ole Phil are pretty much just alike! "But Pope Francis is on the cover of TIME magazine and Phil Robertson is on indefinite suspension. Such are the inconsistencies, confusions, and hypocrisies of our cultural moment." Maybe the Catholics are conspiring with The Jews in the War on Christmas that the fundies and FOX News are pleased to imagine is going on.

Here's Bro. Al on CNN holding forth on the topic, Albert Mohler on "Duck Dynasty" Suspension: He's "Unquestionably Faithful to the Scripture 12/20/2013:

Russell Moore, President of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, weighs in with Duck Dynasty? Moore to the Point 12/18/2013, with a bit of mealy-mouthing of his own.

Now, I thought his reported anatomical comparisons were ill-advised and crude. But that doesn't seem to be where the controversy lies.

The comments that seem most offensive to people are his moral assessments of sex outside of conjugal marriage, which were more or less just a recitation of the Apostle Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 6. As Christians, we believe that Jesus is lord over sexuality, and he says that sexuality is expressed rightly only in the marriage of a man and a woman. That's not new. We also think we’re all sinners, and that God calls us all to repentance. That's not new either.

I can't help but notice that neither of fine gentlemen and men of God manage to say that it's sleazy or something other than pure Christian doctrine to associate gays with pig-fuckers or to tell propaganda howlers about the virtues of segregation. Only that it is bad PR, maybe a little tacky, to talk like that in front of the heathen. And, of course, decent people just don't say "vagina" for those icky ladyparts down there.

You can watch Bro. Russell on the subject in CNNers Argue Over Whether Duck Dynasty Star's 'Hate Speech' Invites Anti-Gay Bullying 12/19/2013:

Tags: albert mohler, christian right, phil robertson, radical right, russell moore, segregation, white racism

Brother Al on Obama and Commies

I periodically refer to the work of Brother Al, aka, the Rev. Albert Mohler, leading theological of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) and president of its flagship seminary, because he provides a good glimpse at what kind of thinking is prevalent among Republican conservatives. The SPC is the largest Protestant denomination in the US. And Brother Al provides his political dictates in more restrained form with more intellectual pretensions than Republican Party chief ideologist Rush Limbaugh or his imitators on hate radio.

Brother Al, in other words, provides a vocabulary that people can use to agree with Rush and Glenn Beck and Mad Annie Coulter without sounding like a bloviating junkie bigot or an clinically-disturbed, hate-filled harpy.

In The President, the Pill, and Religious Liberty in Peril 02/02/2012, Brother Al tells us that Obama opposes Christianity. "The edict from President Obama to religious institutions is this — violate conscience and bend the knee to the government, or face the consequences," the good Reverend declares to his readers.

What, you say? You hadn't heard that federal agents were going to be force-feeding birth control pills to respectable Baptists ladies who don't believe in having sex?

Well, what Brother Al is talking about is that under the Affordable Care Act regulations, religious institutions will be required to provide their employees access to health insurance that includes bill control pills. You have to be pretty willing to bend the truth to twist this, as Brother Al does, no doubt with the noblest of Christian intentions, into the accusation that the President "has trampled religious liberty under the feet of the leviathan state, forcing religious employers to do what conscience will not allow. Religious organizations such as schools, colleges, and hospitals will be required to pay for services that they believe to be immoral and disobedient to God."

Nonsense. Nobody is forcing employees of these institutions to take birth control. For that matter, the minimum wage laws that also apply to these institutions don't prevent employees who think they are overpaid from giving half their wages back to the religious institution with which the employer is associated. They would even get a tax break from the Leviathan State for doing so.

Another example of how Brother Al is willing to give voice to gutter extremism (but with a nice shave) is his podcast Christianity and the Cold War: A Conversation with Paul Kengor, apparently from 12/04/2011 (transcript here dated 01/11/2012). It's stock anti-Communist sleaze-slinging right out of the 1950s, which was more directed at Democratic liberals than at actual Communists. It has the same vague guilt-by-association nonsense and spectacular non-sequiters that at standards parts of this kind of extremist discourse.

The main point of this seems to be that public schools have a secret purpose to promote Communism and atheism and destroy the family, whatever the latter might mean. How do Brother Al and his guest reveal this remarkably well-hidden Communist conspiracy? (One change for the 1950s: then they could have called it a Red conspiracy, because that was the color used to designate Communists then, rather than Republicans as it is now.)

Well, you see: The philosopher John Dewey was influential in the early half of the 20th century on American pedagogical theories. And the Soviet government in Russia had some of his books translated into Russian. So Dewey must be a Commie. And Commies hate religion and want to destroy the family so American public schools are trying to destroy religion and the family.

And I guess this means that public school teachers are Commie or Commie dupes, too.

This is the kind of froot-loops thinking promoted by the leading theologian of the largest Protestant denomination in the United States.

Tags: albert mohler, christian fundamentalism, christian right, radical right, southern baptists

Brother Al vs. the Liberals (2)

As I mentioned in the first post on this topic, our friend Brother Al Mohler recently did an aticle that I find fairly revealing about his approach to theology: Air Conditioning Hell: How Liberalism Happens 01/26/10. It's about promoting fear-based theology. But the argument is couched in terms of a menace he considers allied with Hell if not even more dangerous: liberals.

I broadly summarized the history of Christian fundamentalism in America in the last post. Because to understand the way fundis see "liberals" as enemies, you have to realize that in fundi-speak, "liberal" doesn't just mean civil libertarian or someone who supports health care reform. (Most of them are likely only vaguely aware of what "liberal" means outside US borders, if at all.) For the fundis, "liberals" are theological enemies out to undermine the True Religion, enemies of God, allies of Satan.

Brother Al cites in his column a 24-year-old article by Martin Marty, a leading American religious historian, "Hell Disappeared. No One Noticed. A Civic Argument" The Harvard Theological Review Jul-Oct 1985, which doesn't seem to be available on the open Web. Marty's article was adapted from his 1984 Ingersoll Lecture on Immortality of the same title at the Harvard Divinity School (which also doesn't seem to be available on the open Web).

Marty's argument wasn't so much about the theology of Hell as it was about the claims by the Christian Right that teaching religion or "values" in the public schools would result in better behaved young people. He argues that for any kind of religious instruction to have the claimed salutary effect, it would have to carry the threat of punishment. Which means, as Marty puts it, it would have to include some form of teaching about "hell", i.e., eternal retribution for sins.

But Marty also explains that fear of Hell has become "culturally unavailable" for use in public schools. What he means is that so few people in America, even among active churchgoing believers, really take the threat of Hell seriously. If they believe in it at all. And for those who do believe in it, most are pretty confident that it's going to be the eternal residence of someone else other than themselves. His main point is directed at the claims advocates of "values" education make for such courses in public schools that without being able to credibly invoke some sort of eternal punishment, a concept that is "culturally unavailable" because too few people take it seriously, the claimed benefits of improving behavior through "values" classes are unlikely. As Marty puts it:

Rewards and punishments already exist on the sub-God, secular level. There are report cards, demerits, merit badges, trophies, rewards, awards, detentions, expulsions, suspensions, blue ribbons, congratulatory letters, parent conferences, diplomas, and the like to assure some framework, some structure for regulating and endorsing or disapproving action. If religion is to be an enhancement of the above, then there must be specifically religious sanctions or rewards. Indeed, rewards and punishments would be the very linchpin of the system, and these relate to and derive from the character of the One who does the rewarding and punishing. This is the substantive issue that would come up sooner, not later, if and when God comes with content and attributes as God must in moral education.

I love the concept of "sub-God".

Brother Al in his article quotes from Marty's argument only, "Hell disappeared. No one noticed." He follows that immediately by writing:

The liberal theologians and preachers who so conveniently discarded hell did so without denying that the Bible clearly teaches the doctrine. They simply asserted the higher authority of the culture's sense of morality. In order to save Christianity from the moral and intellectual damage done by the doctrine, hell simply had to go. Many rejected the doctrine with gusto, claiming the mandate to update the faith in a new intellectual age. Others simply let the doctrine go dormant, never to be mentioned in polite company.

Interestingly enough, and despite the impression Brother Al's placing of the Marty citation gives, Marty actually makes the point that Christian thinkers should give more attention to the fact that Hell has largely dropped out of credibility among American Christians, even conservative ones.

He makes clear that he is not nostalgic for the prominence of the concept of Hell in Christian theology and preaching. His point is that in the Catholic tradition, in the Protestant Calvinist tradition and in the teaching of Jonathan Edwards, who was so influential among American Christians in the early years of the Republic, Hell was used "as a metaphor or threat ... in ways that should not permit dismissal by simple derision."

This is a way of saying that, if and since hell has largely disappeared from the culture, and even from the mentality, of its church members, someone ought to notice. Religious agencies can come up with other props for moral action with respect to God. Civil institution which lack such props because they are not constituted as agencies of salvation might, lacking the threat of eternal punishment, do well to elaborate moral system which do not, merely superstitiously or routinely, invoke the syllable "God" as an instrument for promoting "traditional values".

If Brother Al read more than the title of Marty's article, his own piece doesn't show any sign that he took this reflective passage to heart.

My point here is not to dissect the results of Brother Al's fundi theology. It's to point out the attitude in the article is very characteristic of the way many fundis approach politics as well as religion. Enemies are especially important for this outlook. And Brother Al mentions the following enemies: "Theological liberals" "theological liberalism" "theological liberalism" (again) "classic liberals" "modernists" "modernism" "secular culture" "the Enlightenment" "Protestant liberalism" "European sources" (no, not those!!!!) "Liberal theology" "Unitarianism" "revolution and intellectual liberty" "the larger culture".

Brother Al argues that shying away from the doctrine of Hell as understood by 18th- and early-19th-century Calvinists is one avenue by which true Christian doctrine gets onto that slippery slope that to liberalism, atheism and voting for the Democratic Party. Okay, that's my short version, he doesn't specifically mentioned the Democrats. Here's how he puts it:

Are we embarrassed by the biblical doctrine of hell?

If so, this generation of evangelicals will face no shortage of embarrassments. The current intellectual context allows virtually no respect for Christian affirmations of the exclusivity of the gospel, the true nature of human sin, the Bible's teachings regarding human sexuality, and any number of other doctrines revealed in the Bible. The lesson of theological liberalism is clear—embarrassment is the gateway drug for theological accommodation and denial.

Be sure of this: it will not stop with the air conditioning of hell.

Now, the fundamentalist posture and to a significant extent the largest born-again Christian approach (which isn't synonymous with fundamentalism) stress what we could legitimately call counter-cultural themes, though to them "counter-culture" still means hippie dope-smokers. They take pride in positioning themselves as possessors of God's Truth in the midst of a hostile majority culture. Although, as I discussed in the first part of this post, they manage to identify at the same time with what Nixon famously called the Silent Majority, who they assume share their basic approach to "family values" and American nationalism. You'll never understand American Christian fundamentalism if you try to see it as functioning according to an overarching formal logic.

But it's fairly conspicuous of Brother Al's polemic in favor of Hell - or at least the doctrine of Hell - that he doesn't give an real picture of what role he thinks Hell should play in the fundi worldview and preaching.

This is where Martin Marty's observations about the doctrine of Hell having in practice lost its terrors even for many of the most conservative Christians is relevant to the point Brother Al is making. Or, in Marty's phrase, "culturally unavailable" to them. Even the fundis that take it seriously tend to view Hell as the place their enemies are destined to wind up, not as a particular threat to their own eternal fate.

I would suggest that the other enemies mentioned by Brother Al in this column, as well as the terrible pressing immediate mortal threat represented by a few Islamic fanatics hiding in caves in the badlands of Pakistan, largely plays the role of conformity-inducing fear the Hell might once have played in the consciousness of fundamentalists and evangelicals. Along with voodoo-worshipping Haitians in a Pact With The Devil and other bogeymen that pop up from time to time.

So the question is, just what the hell does Brother Al want to do with the doctrine of Hell?

Tags: albert mohler, christian fundamentalism

Brother Al vs. the Liberals (1)

Our friend Brother Al Mohler recently did an aticle that I find fairly revealing about his approach to theology: Air Conditioning Hell: How Liberalism Happens 01/26/10. It's about promoting fear-based theology. But the argument is couched in terms of a menace he considers allied with Hell if not even more dangerous: liberals.

Brother Al cites in his column a 24-year-old article by Martin Marty, a leading American religious historian, "Hell Disappeared. No One Noticed. A Civic Argument" The Harvard Theological Review Jul-Oct 1985, which doesn't seem to be available on the open Web. Marty's article was adapted from his 1984 Ingersoll Lecture on Immortality of the same title at the Harvard Divinity School (which also doesn't seem to be available on the open Web). In this post, I'm commenting on Marty's article and some of the background of fundamentalist theology. In the second and final part tomorrow, I'll address Brother Al's article.

Marty's argument wasn't so much about the theology of Hell as it was about the claims by the Christian Right that teaching religion or "values" in the public schools would result in better behaved young people. He argues that for any kind of religious instruction to have the claimed salutory effect, it would have to carry the threat of punishment. Which means, as Marty puts it, it would have to include some form of teaching about "hell", i.e., eternal retribution for sins.

But Marty also explains that fear of Hell has become "culturally unavailable" for use in public schools. What he means is that so few people in America, even among active churchgoing believers, really take the threat of Hell seriously. If they believe in it at all. And for those who do believe in it, most are pretty confident that it's going to be the eternal residence of someone else other than themselves. His main point is directed at the claims advocates of "values" education make for such courses in public schools that without being able to credibly invoke some sort of eternal punishment, a concept that is "culturally unavailable" because too f ew people take it seriously, the claimed benefits of improving behavior through "values" classes are unlikely. As Marty puts it:

Rewards and punishments already exist on the sub-God, secular level. There are report cards, demerits, merit badges, trophies, rewards, awards, detentions, expulsions, suspensions, blue ribbons, congratulatory letters, parent conferences, diplomas, and the like to assure some framework, some structure for regulating and endorsing or disapproving action. If religion is to be an enhancement of the above, then there must be specifically religious sanctions or rewards. Indeed, rewards and punishments would be the very linchpin of the system, and these relate to and derive from the character of the One who does the rewarding and punishing. This is the substantive issue that would come up sooner, not later, if and when God comes with content and attributes as God must in moral education.

(I love the concept of "sub-God".)

David Weeks in a review discussing opposition to Woodrow Wilson's League of Nation among many conservative American Protestants (Politics and Religion Apr 2009) gives a good description of how "liberalism" came to be the bogeyman that it still is for Christian fundamentalists:

Although the Social Gospel [a variety of Christian teaching that emphasized secular reform to address social evils] was a source of consternation among evangelicals, they were very apprehensive about a world turned upside down by the recently minted intellectual forces of historicism, positivism, Darwinism, and Marxism. Theological liberalism was just one additional expression of evangelicalism’s bête noire, modernism run amuck.

It was during the late 19th-Century that modernity took a turn that gave pause to many Christians. Individuals such as Fyodor Dostoevsky, G. K. Chesterton, and Pope Pius X expressed deep-rooted reservations about the ideological temptations arising from the marriage of Enlightenment rationalism to German historicism, which had unleashed the notion that human reason inevitably would restructure the world, relieving all that ails humanity. Conservative evangelicals also opposed this trend in ways consonant with the theology distinctive of their denominations, thus finding themselves at odds with powerful political forces.

Christian fundamentalism as we know it today first emerged then. It built on earlier ideas. But its suspicion of science and "modernism", and its chronic posturing as being persecuted even when they are plainly not in any meaningful sense of the word, were established in the latter part of the 19th century. The name Fundamentalism was derived from a series of essays published under the title The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth beginning in 1909.

But the belief structure obviously preceded that, because these articles were summarizing a particular trend in Protestant theology going back to the 1870s, that had strong apocalyptic (millenarian) beliefs, held that the Scritures are verbally inspired by God and without error in their orginal forms ("autographs", which are no longer extant), and emphasized combatting scientific theories like evolution by natural selection ("Darwinism") that they found threatening.

One of the challenges of defining Christian fundamentalism historically is that the fundis had at least as much of an inclination toward schism as other Protestants, probably more. And fundamentalism was and is a cross-denominational phenemenon. Ernest Sandeen in a 1970 aricle ("Fundamentalism and American Identity" The Annals Jan 1970) noted that despite their claim to be holding to the true and original faith, fundamentalism was "a theology with no more seniority than modernism, and, in a real sense, the product of the same culltural complex".

While fundis actually created a kind of counterculture of their on over decades, they both considered themselves a minority holding out against a wicked majority culture but at the same time took pride in defending that culture against various perceived enemies: modernists, teachers, scientists, Commies, hippies, black people. But it's also important to remember that, as Sandeen put it:

Fundamentalism lives in symbiotic relationship with its adversaries. ... The very breath of life seems to be provided for the Fundamentalist by those whom he opposes, each of his positions and opinions beingh conceived through opposition to a liberal tance or utterance.

Christian fundamentalism, in other words, has always strongly identified itself by its opposition to its enemies: "the liberals" being the most persistent target.

Sandeen's conclusion on the viability of Christian fundamentalism as a social/religious/political movement are worth quoting. Because liberals in 1970 tended to see fundamentalism as a throwback movement on the decline, not one on the rise. Sandeen wrote in refutation of arguments made by Richard Hofstadter and William McLoughlin had made earlier in the 1960s:

We exist in a fragmented and divided culture, not in one pervaded by consensus. We live in a society in which most of the problems are created by sub-groups whose values and ideals are threatened by changes in technological, economic, or political practices, and who doggedly refuse to drop their claims or change their attitudes as the result of a little more education or the passage of a little more time. Prayer in the public schools, Negroes living in white neighborhoods, the guaranteed annual wage, the new morality, Communist infiltration of government agencies, deficit spending -the list of issues seems almost infinitely expansible. It seems very much to the point, in the face of such a catalogue of grievances - each with its own organization dedicated to maintain ing that particular truth and defeating the agents of innovation - to challenge the pollyanna of progress, and to recognize that this century is seeing American culture in a new context.

Tags: albert mohler, christian fundamentalism

It's almost like a throwback...

... to those long-ago days when TV news was actual news instead of bad infotainment.

Brother Al defends the controversial Christian adoption business taking Haitian children

ABC News actually did a segment asking questions about what's up with the Christian adoption business with Haitian children, putting it in the context of the white Idahoans who got busted trying to take 33 children out of Haiti illegally: Saving Haiti's Children 02/03/10.

This report raises some real questions, not just about this very suspicious Idaho group, but about how Christian adoptions of Haitian Christians children were being carried out even before the earthquake emergency.

This segment features our friend Brother Al Mohler, one of the most prominent honchos in the Southern Baptist Convention, seemingly defending the whole enterprise and, at least by implication, the Idaho crew. He makes it sound almost like a civil rights project. And Brother Al doesn't seem to think that the Librul Media quoted him out of context, because he posted a link to the segment on Twitter:

Brother Al also put out a defense of adoptions in Haiti at his blog: Adopted for Life ... and in Death 02/03/10. His blog post comes days after the arrest of the white Idahoans, and it doesn't so much as mention the case. Instead, it's a maudlin defense of foreigners adopting Haitian children. According to the ABC News report, even before the earthquake some of these adoptions were of children that had parents and were giving them up for American adoption. And it's clear that less missionary-oriented adoption services think even the technically legal practice is often downright unethical. Does Brother Al mention any of this in his article? No. But he assures his readers, "Adoption is perhaps the most powerful depiction of the Gospel found in the Bible."

There's a larger story here. The very fact that a high-profile Southern Baptist like Brother Al is defending the Idaho kidnappers, albeit very cautiously and by implication (but clear implication to those following the story), tells me that more is going on here than one quirky Southern Baptist church in Idaho setting up there own international mission to help little black children in Haiti.

Responsible government agencies and the press need to start taking a much harder look at the adoption business run by conservative Christian groups. I posted earlier about this story concerning Christian adoption services called "crisis pregnancy centers" targeting young mothers who don't want to have an abortion but who initially feel unable to properly care for a child: Shotgun Adoption The Nation 08/26/09. Some of the practices reported there are ugly.

Tags: albert mohler, christian right, haiti kidnapping

The Christian Right and Haiti

California Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown encourages people to donate to help Haiti and be careful about fraud when doing so: Brown Encourages Californians to Donate to Haitian Relief Effort, but Warns Donors to Avoid Charity Scams 01/14/09. His article provides links to California State information resources on charities.

Just as a tragedy like that in Haiti touches the best impulses with most people, it brings out the worst in others. Scamming is one example. Blatant racial and religious bigotry is another. Below is a list of links providing information on the bizarre accusation by Pat Robertson and on similar hate-spewing incidents.

Robertson is a high-profile Christian Right leader still with real influence among fundamentalist and Pentecostal Christians (see Tristero's heated rant linked below). But it some ways it's more concerning to me to see our old friend Brother Al Mohler endorse this territorial demonology, which is normally more at home in Pentecostal congregations than in those of Brother Al's Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).

Brother Al doesn't have to TV presence or notoriety of Pat Robertson. But he is the president of the SBC's flagship Baptist Theological Seminary, and I've seen him called the leading theologian of today's SBC. The SBC remains the single largest Protestant denomination in the United States, counting at one time former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton and elected President Al Gore among its members. I don't know about Clinton or Gore, but Carter has separated from the SBC over the hardline, dogmatic fundamentalism and political radicalism of their leadership.

Although the SBC likes to point to its traditional of the local autonomy of its churches, that doesn't mean that national Convention doesn't exercise considerable doctrinal discipline. On the contrary, deviations from fundamentalist positions are viewed with great suspicion in the SBC and its pastors and teachers know that much straying from the national positions can severely limit their careers in the denomination. All of this is a long-winded way of saying that Brother Al's position are taken very seriously by many people in the country's largest Protestant denomination.

Brother Al holds forth in Does God Hate Haiti? AlbertMohler.com 01/14/09.
Here's Brother Al's explanation of why the Pact With The Devil myth is framed in a mealy-mouthed way so that he can deny he explicitly endorsed the notion. But it's hard to see how any reading of this passage could come to a conclusion other than that he's saying very clearly it's a legitimate interpretation. And he puts this one forward before his alibi explanation of how God works in mysterious ways and really does love all those awful demon-worshipping black people down yonder and so on.

In truth, it is hard not to describe the earthquake as a disaster of biblical proportions. It certainly looks as if the wrath of God has fallen upon the Caribbean nation. Add to this the fact that Haiti is well known for its history of religious syncretism -- mixing elements of various faiths, including occult practices. The nation is known for voodoo, sorcery, and a Catholic tradition that has been greatly influenced by the occult.

Haiti's history is a catalog of political disasters, one after the other. In one account of the nation's fight for independence from the French in the late 18th century, representatives of the nation are said to have made a pact with the Devil to throw off the French. According to this account, the Haitians considered the French as Catholics and wanted to side with whomever would oppose the French. Thus, some would use that tradition to explain all that has marked the tragedy of Haitian history -- including now the earthquake of January 12, 2010.

Does God hate Haiti? That is the conclusion reached by many, who point to the earthquake as a sign of God's direct and observable judgment.

God does judge the nations -- all of them -- and God will judge the nations. His judgment is perfect and his justice is sure. He rules over all the nations and his sovereign will is demonstrated in the rising and falling of nations and empires and peoples. Every molecule of matter obeys his command, and the earthquakes reveal his reign -- as do the tides of relief and assistance flowing into Haiti right now.

A faithful Christian cannot accept the claim that God is a bystander in world events. The Bible clearly claims the sovereign rule of God over all his creation, all of the time. We have no right to claim that God was surprised by the earthquake in Haiti, or to allow that God could not have prevented it from happening. [my emphasis in bold]

To me, the most striking part of that comment is, "Haiti is well known for its history of religious syncretism -- mixing elements of various faiths, including occult practices. The nation is known for voodoo, sorcery, and a Catholic tradition that has been greatly influenced by the occult."

Despite political alliances with conservative Catholics, it's still not unusual for cracks like this to show up from fundamentalists indicating they don't think Catholics are real Christians. But Brother Al's accepting of the occult as a real spiritual force capable of shaping the forces of nature is really striking. Without digging too much into the weeds of conservative Protestant doctrine, most Christian ministers in the US would presumably take some form of the position while occult/New Age/esoteric practices fall somewhere between harmless fun and a potential psychologically damaging obsession. Conservative but non-fundamentalist Christians would be inclined to take a harder line, i.e., only those who accept Jesus as their Savior (Christians, in other words) will spend eternity in Heaven and everyone else goes to Hell. In that scheme, any belief system including occultism that leads a person not to be a Christian has unpleasant consequences for one's soul.

But Christianity has also pretty much from the start distinguished between religion and superstition. And the idea that you can conjure the Devil to kill your enemies is just plain old superstition. Now, from Robertson's and Brother Al's versions, that old pact with the Devil back in the day didn't seem to deliver much positive for Satan's alleged Haitian pact-partners. But Brother Al says it's personally reasonable to believe that God decided to make an earthquake to punish those dirty black Satan-worshippers. After all, says Brother Al, "We have no right to claim that God was surprised by the earthquake in Haiti, or to allow that God could not have prevented it from happening."

For those of us cursed with an actual interest in theology, it can be endlessly fascinating to hash over issues like theodicy, the question of the origins of evil. But if your religious outlook excludes the laws of plate tectonics, something is really wrong. Brother Al would have us believe in something like an inverted Santa Claus theory of God, in which He tallies up whose been naughty and nice. And if he sees too many voodoo-loving black people walking around in a place like Haiti, he giggles the earth and kills off a few tens of thousands of them. In traditional religious terms, this is a magical rather than a religious conception, magic in this sense meaning the idea that human beings can conjure divine forces into doing certain things. In the context of the Haitian Pact With The Devil myth, it's kind of a reverse conjuring with God doing the opposite of what the people might want. But it's still literally childish, a little child's sense that if something bad happens, someone must have done something naughty.

In other words, Brother Al and his followers need to grow the hell up in their thinking about God.

A more sensible, and entirely orthodox, Christian view would be to say that in some fundamental sense, all of creation is grounded in God. And that in some way that we don't understand and don't need to understand, God set physical creation in motion. But he set in in motion with its own laws that work the way they work. Including plate tectonics that generate earthquakes. Divine interventions into those laws occurred during Biblical times for the purposes of revelation of God's presence. Official Catholic theology allows for the possibility of such interventions taking physical form, even now, but view the Age of Miracles as having closed with Biblical times. Theologians that embraced a more fully modern paradigm, like the great Protestant theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher, are willing to understand the physical miracles described in the Scriptures as essentially literary/mythological symbols. Symbols which convey important truths but cannot and should not be taken as equivalent to a present-day technical description of physical events.

And Jesus, Mary and Joseph! The point of the Exodus story is not that God made locusts attack Egypt and parted the waters of the Red Sea. The point is that the slaves escaped from their slavery and that God was on their side in doing so! The Haitian Pact With The Devil pseudohistory that Brother Al is defending was a propaganda story invented by defenders of slavery to smear slave revolting for their freedom. Slaves rejecting their master and seeking freedom, that would be the side God supports. According to the Christian Bible. So why is Brother Al defending an anti-God story like that?

Brother Al is a tad slicker in doing so than Pat Robertson. But the story he's defending is still a big, stinking, superstitious, white racist pile of horse manure. I'm just sayin'.

This article in the Christian Post, Robertson Chided for 'Arrogance,' 'Ignorance' Behind Haiti Curse Remark by Jennifer Riley 01/14/09, uses Brother Al's God-works-in-mysterious-ways comments in that article after the paragraphs quoted above to make it sound as though Brother Al was completely rejecting Robertson's statements. But, as I've just explained, that's not at all the case.

Links on the Pact With The Devil story and the religious bigots who are pushing that and other racist sleaze about Haiti:

Haitian Catastrophe: For Racists, a Good Laugh by Mark Potok SPLC Hatewatch 01/14/10

Pat Robertson Is Far More Important Than You Will Ever Be by tristero Hullabaloo

Pat Robertson Not Alone in Demonizing Haiti by Rachel Tabachnick TalktoAction 01/14/10

America and the Devil's (Robertson) Curse by Frank Schaffer Frank Schaffer Blog 01/14/09 (article also appears at the Huffington Post)

The Religion Dispatches site has a number of pieces on the fundamentalist/Pentacostalist demonology over Haiti, including one by the invaluable Sarah Posner:

Pat Robertson and the Curse of Unyielding Ignorance by Anthea Butler 01/13/09 (The term "militant ignorance" also works well for this phenemenon.)

The Theo-logic Behind Pat Robertson's Offense By Matt Recla 01/14/09

Judging Pat Robertson’s Influence by Sarah Posner 01/14/09

“Biblical” Disaster: Understanding Religion in Haiti by Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado 01/13/09

Pat Robertson: No Longer a Relevant Player by Becky Garrison 01/14/09. Good analysis of his message but she understates his continuing influence among conservative white Christians in America.

Tags: albert mohler, christian right, pat robertson, white racism

Brother Al on Polanski and "Hollywood" - and just what *does* "Hollywood" mean to our "cultural warriors"?

Brother Al Mohler, Jr., who as President Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville KY has a large influence on Southern Baptist theology, uses the Polanski case to bash liberals and "Hollywood" in Morality, Hollywood Style Christian Post 10/04/09.

Mohler is too slick to slip into crass anti-Semitism. But, as the late blog pioneer Steve Gilliard used to remind us, to many conservative Republican Christians, "Hollywood" and "cultural elite" are among other things, synonyms for "Jews". So when I see big-name rightwingers start bashing groups they identify that way, I try to pay attention to what subtexts may be at work.

And its worth it for Democrats and liberals to actually use their heads on this one.

As I mentioned in my post on the Polanski case last week, I was uncomfortable with how Katha Pollitt formulated her criticism of what she called "the liberal cultural elite" in Roman Polanski Has a Lot of Friends The Nation Online 10/01/09: "The widespread support for Polanski shows the liberal cultural elite at its preening, fatuous worst. ... No wonder Middle America hates them." As I said in the earlier post, seeing as how even TV news has morphed into infotainment, I'm not convinced that "Middle America" hates Hollywood stars and directors.

Brother Al quoted those same words (without the ellipsis.) Hey, Brother Al, if you picked that up from my post you could have at least given me an "h/t"! Maybe Brother Al will pick me as the Unknown Liberal to pray for me to see the error of my Democratic ways. But he couldn't even cite her approvingly without identifying her as, "the feminist left-winger supreme". Which in Christian Right circles is pretty much the same as calling her a Satan-worshipping witch.

But Patrick Goldstein in the industry's hometown paper the Los Angeles Times writes in Is Hollywood really a hotbed of support for Roman Polanski? 10/06/09, responding to a claim by Terry Teachout in the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal:

Teachout rattles off the names of a host of filmmakers -- including Woody Allen, Jonathan Demme, Sam Mendes, Mike Nichols and Martin Scorsese -- who signed an international petition that "demands the immediate release of Roman Polanski."

There's only one problem: All of those filmmakers, along with Harvey Weinstein, live far, far away from Hollywood and, with occasional exceptions, make their movies outside of Hollywood as well. If you look up the rest of the names on the best-known petition in circulation, it is filled with the names of foreign filmmakers, writers and actors -- including the likes of Pedro Almodovar, Wong Kar Wai, Alfonso Cuaron, Isabelle Adjani and Salman Rushdie -- who also rarely set foot in Hollywood. If critics like Teachout want to claim that high-brow artists and writers have rushed to Polanski's defense, fair enough. But to say that Hollywood is in his corner, as part of a political argument that Hollywood is a liberal elite woefully ignorant of mainstream values, is just hogwash.

There's no petition going around with the names of the real Hollywood elite -- A-list filmmakers and studio chiefs like Steven Spielberg, Alan Horn, James Cameron, Amy Pascal, Jerry Bruckheimer, Brian Grazer, Tom Rothman, J.J. Abrams, John Lasseter or Michael Bay -- because the real Hollywood elite isn't supporting Polanski. In fact, they haven't offered the slightest hint of backing for Polanski. It's only European and New York-based artists, who clearly see the world in a very different light than the real Hollywood elite.

His observations apply to what Brother Al and to Katha Pollitt wrote, as well.

It's perfectly possible for people to have a more complex position on a complicated issue than for-or-against. It's also possible to take a straight-up for-or-against position on Polaski's extradition and still pay attention to reality. I would like to think that a leading writer for a liberal flagship publication like The Nation would take the time to do a little of the research Goldstein did for his article before holding forth with rightwing "culture war" buzzwords like "the liberal cultural elite" and applaud the (dubious) notion that "Middle America" (whoever she thinks that might be) "hates them" and with good reason.

Goldstein incorporates and essay by screenwriter Josh Olson into his article which is worth reading. Olsen reports that he counted 650 signatures on the two pro-Polanski petitions that he knew of that were circulating in Hollywood, and in using an expansive definition of which ones really belong to Hollywood, he finds only 35 names. Citing two writers who had said in the LA Times that “Hollywood is rallying behind the fugitive filmmaker,” he responds:

Well, speaking as someone who actually lives and works right in the heart of the city and the business, I can assure you that this isn’t even remotely true.

Their entire argument rests on just three things -- an incredibly poorly conceived off-the-cuff comment by Whoopi Goldberg, a petition that Harvey Weinstein is circulating, and that there isn’t a great hue and cry from Hollywood demanding that Polanski be brought to justice. I cannot speak to Ms. Goldberg’s painfully unfortunate comment, except to say that I have no doubt she didn’t mean it to come out quite the way it did. As for the lack of a hue and cry, I’m not entirely sure what we’re supposed to do.

I cannot pretend, as some have, to have spent the last thirty years gnashing my teeth at the fiend Polanski’s escape from justice, but neither can I pretend to be outraged that a convicted criminal who fled prosecution has been caught. Perhaps I missed the meeting where these things were explained, but it just never occurred to me that I was supposed to stage a rally when something happened that doesn’t bother, interest or affect me in the least. ...

What we are NOT, however, is sitting around fretting about whether or not Roman Polanski will be displeased with us if we publicly state that we think raping children is a bad thing. ...

Then there’s Jonathan Kuntz, who’s quoted as believing “the local reaction may be a version of the ‘there, but for the grace of God, go I.’" Well, again, no, but thank you for the extremely ugly insinuation, and when DID you stop beating your wife, Mr. Kuntz? Does it occur to ANY of these people that we’re not all sitting around in a clubhouse smoking crack, patting each other on the back and hoping not to get caught molesting children? [my emphasis]

Melissa Silverstein has a blog called Women and Hollywood from a feminist perspective. She did a post just today called Women in the Entertainment Business Speak Out About Polanski. Among those she finds not siding with Polanski are Rosie O’Donnell, Eve Ensler, Rosanne Barr (who Republican rightwingers particularly hate), and Jamie Lee Curtis.

It's also very possible for someone to use the Polanski case to talk about the problem of this kind of rape without giving easy ammunition to rightwing culture warriors to bash all them thar' Hollywood Jew elitists. Silverstein provides a couple of good examples in these posts, Rape is a Feminist Issue 10/01/09 and Does Being an “Artist” Trump Being a Rapist 09/29/09. In the earlier post, she notes that the actual "Hollywood" that she saw had signed on to the pro-Polanski petition didn't include any women from Hollywood. She's also critical of what she sees as the silence of feminist leaders and Hollywood notables on the issue. But what she says on the latter is quite interesting and does not pander to rightwing stereotypes, e.g., "In my gut, I believe that the women of Hollywood are appalled by what is happening. The fact that they are silent is a reminder of how little clout they have."

This is already long. But I want to get back to Brother Al. As a very influential leader in the country's largest Protestant denomination, is it too much to expect that he would also have done some basic fact-checking (beyond quoting Katha Pollitt's careless generalizations) on just how many prominent figures in the movie business in Hollywood were actually supporting Polanski in fighting extradition before he used the case to bash "Hollywood"? Here's what Brother Al has to say:

The response of so many Hollywood leading lights to the arrest of filmmaker Roman Polanski now suggests that, at least when it comes to one of their own, sex with children is within the pale. This deserves and demands a closer look.

The cultural left has responded to the arrest a week ago of Polanksi with outrage -- directed not at Polanski but at the arrest. [my emphasis]

He goes on to claim, apparently with no basis in fact, that "over 100 Hollywood luminaries had signed a petition demanding Polaski's release." And he effectively adds this to the Christian Right's bill of complaints against all them Jew liberal Democrat elitists:

The moral gap between Hollywood and "Middle America" is vast, though for some reason many Americans blind themselves to this fact. The Hollywood embrace of Roman Polanski and their outrage at his arrest in Switzerland shines a floodlight on this gap.

Are art and artists above moral accountability? The Hollywood elite seem to believe so -- and even to be willing to lend their names to the defense of the morally indefensible. Is the celebrity above the law? Watch this case closely. [my emphasis]

On the latter point, as I explained in my earlier post, the careless reporting that has become chronic with our Establishment press will make it too easy to claim that Polanski got off light because of his alleged "Hollywood" support. As I understand it, even the most stringent sentence is likely to be no more than a year in prison. And given what seem to be real misconduct problems in the first trial - and, yes, even confessed scumbags have the right to a fair and legal trial - it's more likely that Polanski won't do any jail time.

I'm guessing that one of the Law and Order franchise shows will do an episode this season based on this case. Maybe their version will have a more satisfying outcome than the real-life one is likely to bring.

Tags: albert mohler, christian right, culture war, fourth roman polanski

Brother Al endorses atheist position

Charles Darwin, 1854

No, Brother Al hasn't declared himself an atheist. But he does agree with the "village atheist" notion that you can't believe in God and also acknowledge biological evolution (Evolution and Christianity Impossible to Reconcile, Says Evangelical Theologian by Katherine T. Phan Christian Post 02/15/09):

"If you understand Christianity or even Theism – the belief of a sovereign creator God – and evolutionary theory in its dominant form, I find it impossible to reconcile the two," Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said on his radio program Thursday, the 200th birthday anniversary of Charles Darwin.

While the Bible doesn't explain all the mechanisms God used to create the world, it gives believers many non-negotiables about what that creation is, who is behind it, and for what purpose it was created, said Mohler on "The Albert Mohler Program". ...

Whereas the Biblical account of creation accepts the role of a Creator, the theory of evolution "suggests that natural selection is indeed the mechanism and that it is entirely natural and in no case supernatural," said the theologian.

"There is no way for God to intervene in the process and for it to remain natural," he asserted.

This is evidently the broadcast: Charles Darwin and the Modern Mind 02/12/09. In a blog post of the same title and date, Brother Al links to various of his polemics against natural selection ("Darwinian" evolution). He returns to the subject against in a blog post of 02/16/09, Christianity and Evolution -- Seeing the Problem.

Brother Al doesn't really grapple with the fact that there actually are many people who do believe in God and adhere to the Christian religion and don't have a problem recognizing the evidence of evolution by natural selection. Although he does take note of arguments by the late Stephen Jay Gould and a Pastor Harry Brinton that the two are different categories, "non-overlapping magisteria" in Gould's formulation.

Evolution was never the agonizing problem for Catholic theology that it still is for fundamentalist Protestants. In fact, the Vatican is currently holding a five-day conference on Darwin to discuss his theories and to emphasize their compatibility with Christian teaching (Vatican hosts Darwin conference by David Willey BBC News 03/03/09).

As Willey's article points out, there have been traditionalist Catholics who took a different position. He cites one example I find particularly regrettable:

But the Catholic Church never condemned Darwin, as it condemned and silenced Galileo. ...

Yet as recently as 2006 a leading Catholic Cardinal, Christoff Schoenborn, of Vienna, a former student and friend of Pope Benedict XVI caused controversy by saying that Darwin's theory of natural selection was incompatible with Christian belief.

Cardinal Schönborn, when he became the Archbishop of Vienna, was seen as a possibly more moderate candidate for the papacy. It's too bad to see him adopt such a reactionary, anti-science position. The Church did make it clear that Schönborn's position was not an official Church position.

In connection with the Vatican conference, San Francisco's former Archbishop and now Cardinal William Levada, currently head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly the Holy Office, aka, the Inquisition), stated explicitly that scientific evolution is compatible with Christianity.

Phan's Christian Post article describes the Catholic position as "theistic evolution". Brother Al doesn't accept it:

... he firmly rejected theistic evolution.

"God was not merely fashioning the creation of what was already pre-existent, nor was He merely working with a process in order to guide it in some generalized way, nor was He waiting to see how it would turn out," said Mohler.

"As Genesis indicates, He created the world in order that the world might be the theater of His glory for the demonstration of the Gospel of Christ and He created human beings as the only beings made in His image, as His covenant partner," the Protestant theologian explained.

Yet Brother Al himself finds it hard not to display an obvious problem with this Bible-as-science-textbook approach:

Although Mohler said he rejected evolution as a way to explain the origin of all things, he acknowledged that there are changes in animals that take place over time.

"No Conservative Christian should deny there is a process of change that is evident within the animal kingdom. And there is even a process of natural selection that appears at least to be natural," he said, adding all one has to do is look at a herd of cattle to find evidence of adaptation and a competition of genes.

Natural selection is the process of evolution. And if "natural selection ... appears at least to be natural", how can Brother Al say he doesn't accept evolution and that it's incompatible with the Christian faith? He even says that no conservative Christian should deny natural selection.

This is the kind of mind-numbing sophistry to which fundamentalist anti-evolution thinking leads. Catholics save a lot of headaches by sticking to the formula that I'm told goes back to St. Augustine, that the Bible is meant to teach us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go. Or, in other words, it ain't a science textbook!

Tags: albert mohler, christian fundamentalism, christian right, natural selection

Brother Al, Britney, and separation of church and state

Getting a piece of what you want (non-gratuitous picture of Britney)

Our old friend Brother Al (Albert Mohler) is shocked at a news report that Obama requires public prayers offered at his events to have their texts approved beforehand.

In This Prayer Approved by the White House? 02/27/09, he refers to this story: A New Tradition for Obama's Presidential Events: Opening With a Prayer by Dan Gilgoff US News & World Report Online 02/24/09.

Brother Al finds this "ominous and troubling".

Uh, Brother Al. Isn't this what all you folks from the Christian Right wanted, to have politics and government and religion merged? Did you think that the influence was only going to go one way, from Church to State and not the other way?

And I seem to recall that there was some discussion last year about a very, very scary black minister who had been the pastor at Obama's church in Chicago for years. Gee, you reckon any of that controversy might have made Obama and his team concerned about the potential for trouble over something a minister might say in a prayer at an Obama event?

I know Brother Al is the president of the flagship seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention and all. But maybe he needs to brush up on why Baptists in the US for most of their history were pretty insistent on separation of church and state.

Brother Al even finds himself in agreement with a man who is usually regarded by the Christian Right as a howling banshee from Hail:

Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, offered a most interesting response to the revelation that the Obama White House is vetting prayers: "The only thing worse than having these prayers in the first place is to have them vetted, because it entangles the White House in core theological matters."

An ardent and radical Church/State separationist, Barry Lynn has argued that no prayers at government-sponsored events or ceremonies should be delivered, citing both constitutional and theological reservations. I rarely find myself in agreement with Barry Lynn, but I am with him on this issue -- at least with respect to his argument that this practice "entangles the White House in core theological matters."

Of course it does. When a White House approves or edits prayers, it has entered theological territory and takes on a theological function. The President of the United States is our Commander in Chief, not our Theologian in Chief. [my emphasis]

Say, Brother Al, maybe you should check out the Constitution of the United States again, too. It says right there in plain English in Article II, Section 2: "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States."

The President is the Commander-in-Chief of soldiers on active duty. He's not my Commander-in-Chief. He's not Brother Al's, either, unless he's on active duty in the military. Which would probably be a big relief for Brother Al to realize.

Not having the President pose as "Theologian in Chief" was a big reason why the first Congress passed the Bill of Rights, with the first words of the First Amendment reading, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof".

The Founders in the first Congress were the same distance in time from the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) as we today are from the US Civil War (1860-1865). The Thirty Years War had been largely (though not exclusively) a big, bloody war of Protestant kingdoms and principalities against Catholic ones. It was by far the worst war in Europe prior to the First World War. It came in the century after the Protestant Reformation occurred, which swiftly led to what historians call the Wars of Religion in the 16th century.

So the Founders were intensely aware of the great harm that institutionally mixing religion and politics could cause.

Some European democracies like Britain still have either established churches or formal institutional agreements with churches. Some of those situations might make worthwhile study for Brother Al, too. The British Parliament sometimes finds itself debating internal affairs of the Church of England. The Government of Austria has the right under their formal agreement with the Catholic Church to veto any appointment of a bishop in Austria of which they disapprove.

You don't have to look at wars, Brother Al, to see ways that mixing church and state can get very inconvenient for churches as well as the state.

A couple of other things are worth point out about this issue.

Dan Gilgoff reported on three cases of ministers who had their prayers pre-approved by the Obama White House. "None of the three invocation givers at Obama's presidential events, who were put in touch with the White House by local political operatives and elected officials, said they were asked to change their prayers after vetting."

So apparently Obama isn't rewriting the Christian Bible quite yet.

Brother Al also specifically called attention to the experience of a minister in Ft. Myers, FL. From Gilgoff's account:

During Obama's recent visit to Fort Myers, Fla., to promote his economic stimulus plan, a black Baptist preacher delivered a prayer that carefully avoided mentioning Jesus, lest he offend anyone in the audience. ...

James Bing, the pastor of the Friendship Baptist Church in Fort Myers, Fla., said he chose to self-censor his prayer. "For some strange reason, the word Jesus is like pouring gasoline on fire for some people in this country," he said. "You learn how to work around that."

Like maybe the large Jewish population in Florida?

I don't see anything wrong with a Christian minister making a prayer at a secular public event non-sectarian. Even though Brother Al and Pastor Bing grump that "some people in this country" [nudge-nudge, wink-wink] don't approve it.

Maybe Brother Al could also listen to Britney Spears song, "Are You Sure You Want A Piece of Me?" When the church gets a piece of the state, that can have some of those "unanticipated consequences" about which conservatives worry so much when a social program is up for debate. (Not so much when a war of choice in Iraq was under debate.)

But then the fundis have never forgiven poor Britney for auditioning at Jive Records years ago using the song "Jesus Loves Me."

So I know Bruce Springsteen isn't a Baptist preacher, either. But his song "With Every Wish" might make valuable listening for Brother Al:

Before you choose your wish you better think first
'Cause with every wish there comes a curse

Tags: albert mohler, britney, britney spears, christianism