MainlineTruths

Mainline Influence?

Mainline church leaders are giving themselves high marks for getting "a clean sweep of voter-approved wage increases in Ohio, Colorado, Montana, Missouri, Arizona and Nevada" although the real influence of the Mainline on the initiatives is questionable. A search on Google News yielded only 24 articles 30 days before the November 7 vote featuring the "Let Justice Roll" campaign, many of which were press releases.

USA Today: Don't count the Mainline Churches out yet

USA Today's Cathy Lynn Grossman has been all over a study released in September by Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion. As a follow-up to her original story of the study, she now looks at Mainline Churches and profiles St. Mark Evangelical Lutheran Church in Virginia. Contrary to studies showing a decline in Mainline Churches, St. Mark's is growing "from 500 to 1,200 people since 1997".

To highlight the "revival" of mainline churches, the article  points to Diane Butler Bass' book  Christianity for the Rest of Us which is full of anecdotal stories of success. From the USA Today article:

Yet church historian Diana Butler Bass argues that St. Mark is not an anomaly but a signpost of revival. It's living proof that headline-dominating conservative and fundamentalist churches aren't the only face of American Christianity.

In her new book, Christianity for the Rest of Us, Bass visits churches coast to coast to bolster her claim that the mainline is not dead — yet.

"Mainline" is shorthand among historians, statisticians and theologians for the Protestant faiths of the Founding Fathers, housed in landmark churches on downtown corners, still preaching the social justice teachings that have shaped many political, academic and philanthropic leaders to this day.

Bass set out on a Lilly Foundation grant to find 50 mainline churches rooted in the Gospel, rich in worship, strong in social justice, creative in spirituality and radiating hospitality. Instead, she found 1,000 thriving congregations from California to Virginia. St. Mark, nestled in the town where the British surrendered to Colonial forces 225 years ago, is one of the 10 churches highlighted in her book.

Bass' book is a sort of white-wash for declining Mainline Churches. Her projections of "strong in social justice, creative in spirituality and radiating hospitality" is not new message in Mainline Churches and it certainly is not driving growth for Mainline Churches whose numbers have continually declined.

While anecdotal stories of growth are good signs, Bass' book and the Baylor study don't seem to address the decline of membership in Mainline Churches while the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention are growing. Many people point to theological differences being the reason, but I'm not convinced. The late management guru, Peter Drucker, identified growing churches (and in particular, 'Mega-Churches') as those that foster community. When you look at what St. Mark's is doing to generate growth It's hard to disagree with Drucker's conclusions.   At some point, Mainline Churches will either get the message or simply fade away.

Andrew Sullivan jumps the shark

In the early days of the internet, I read Andrew Sullivan's blog religiously. Not because I agreed with him as much as I felt intellectually challenged by him. I followed him through his initial support of the Iraq war and agreed with much of his criticism as the lessons of the war were revealed. In the early days, he wanted to be recognized as something more than just an outspoken gay Roman Catholic and Sullivan had the unique ability in the early blog world to rise above ideology to make constructive political arguments that would always make you think. Unfortunately, Sullivan, like many successful people in the blog world, has morphed into the ideologue that I think he himself would have despised just 5 years ago.

This became stunningly obvious in the October 3 discussion of his new book between himself and David Brooks at the Cato Institute which aired on C-SPAN (Real Video player required). Where Sullivan used to be able to escape his own world view to critique all people and policies across the political spectrum, he has now confined his opinions within the narrow spectrum of a gay Roman Catholic - as if that were all there was to this brilliant philosopher. In his opening comments and and in his response to questions later, Sullivan repeatedly scorched Evangelicals as a narrow, monolithic bunch as Brooks, who is Jewish, was left to mop up Sullivan's mistakes.  I'm not an Evangelical and I'm not inclined to defend evangelicals, but it's more than a little ironic that Brooks had a better understanding of the diversity within Christianity than Sullivan himself. Sullivan's obvious inability to separate Christian Fundamentalists from Evangelicals (and specifically Mainline Evangelicals) not only demonstrated a lack of intelligence, it's a reflection of just how small the window in which he views the world has become. 

Sabeel Conference in Kansas

It's tough to say just how much influence Sabeel still has over Protestant churches in the United States. After the Presbyterian Church (USA)'s General Assembly rescinded its decision to specifically target Israel for divestment, it is hard to believe there is still a market for its "end the occupation and the violence will end" narrative offered by Sabeel. This prescription has proven useless with the events of this summer. Rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip increased after Israel's withdrawal in 2005 and Hezbollah attacked from territory Israel left in 2000.

And still Sabeel is flogging this narrative at a Presbyterian church in Kansas.

Anyone interested in attending the event might want to bring this list of questions with them.

Having been to a fair number of Sabeel events myself, I'm not confident these questions will elicit direct responses. I offer them in the off chance that they might be heard by someone in the audience who realizes that peacemaking begins with truth-telling.

Hint: If you get to the microphone ask your question as clearly, quickly and politely as possible. Long speeches will not work. Just asking a good question will let journalists in the room know that there are legitimate challenges to Sabeel's narrative.

And by gum, one of the speakers at the conference will be James M. Wall, a man who seems unable to untangle the chronology of the recent conflict between Hezbollah and Israel!

Quote of the day

"This message that has been sent out to Christians for a long time now: that Jesus came primarily for a political agenda, and recently primarily a right-wing political agenda - as if this culture war is a war for God. And it’s not a war for God, it’s a war for politics. And that’s a huge difference."

-David Kuo, former #2 guy at the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives on 60 Minutes

And it's not just limited to the Religious Right... the point will be completely lost on both extremes of the political spectrum who live in a fog that justifies "God the politician".

Foley scandal ripe for political opportunism

Hans Johnson's article on "The Role of the Religious Right in the Foley Affair" caught my attention this morning. You wouldn't expect anything less from Johnson on this, but one part did catch my attention:

Complete lack of independence from the GOP is one reason the religious right has a hand in scandals like the Foley affair. Americans hold it as a kind of axiom that clergy should stand apart from politicians and call out their defects and excesses when necessary. Such was the case in the Lewinsky affair, even among progressive ministers. For instance, in 1998, Rev. Joan Brown Campbell of the National Council of Churches opened the door to congressional censure of then-President Clinton for what she called “sinful acts.” Yet no such independence is observed among the religious right. This June, Dobson had to devote a page of the magazine to coming clean about his ties to Jack Abramoff and the other Republican corruption scandal. In classic Dobson fashion, the disclosure was wrapped in an attack on “liberal” philanthropist George Soros and titled, with the subtlety of a schoolyard taunt, “We’re calling your bluff.” So much for mea culpa.

Campbell's position on Clinton is a little distorted here and Johnson pulls the reference from the New York Times out of context. Here is what Campbell said:

One nationally prominent minister who will attend Friday's breakfast, the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, said she was not prepared to call for Clinton's resignation.

"That is a rush to judgment that I am not prepared to make," Ms. Campbell said.

But she added, "The nation has to be clear that when people do sinful acts -- which we all do -- there have to be consequences."

She said she thought that a censure by Congress of Clinton "might be necessary" for the country to feel it was moving ahead.

Clearly, Campbell called for censure as a stop-gap to those calling for Clinton's resignation. It's not as if Campbell (or any progressive/mainline leaders for that matter) was leading the charge for censure out of a concern for the moral lapse of the President and Johnson's characterization as such is a distortion.

On the flip side of this, the United Church of Christ became the first mainline church to speak out on the issue this week when it issued a politically opportunistic press release calling for Representative Dennis Hastert (R-IL) to resign his position as Speaker of the House:

Because UCCTakeAction focuses primarily on legislation rather than individuals, we have never encouraged our 21,000 members to call for anyone’s resignation in Washington, DC.  However, today we are breaking precedent by asking you to e-mail your member of Congress to call on Representative Dennis Hastert (R-IL) to resign his position as Speaker of the House.  For over a year, and maybe longer, House leaders knew of Congressman Mark Foley’s (R-FL) appalling behavior of sending sexually explicit instant messages and emails to underage high school students serving as congressional pages.  And they did nothing.

Yes, it's political opportunism at it's worse, but it's also tough to disagree with. The more we find out, the worse it looks for Hastert.

Church and State collide in Columbus

The Church and State in Ohio's Electoral Politics forum discussion in Columbus, Ohio today was both entertaining and educational. The discussion featured Rev. Barry Lynn (Executive Director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State) and Jay Sekulow (Director of the American Center for Law and Justice). In addition, the panel included Phil Burress (Citizens for Community Values), Russell Johnson (Fairfield Christian Church), Marcus Owens (counsel to All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, CA) and Eric Williams (North Congregational United Church of Christ).

While the discussion was intended to focus on the mix of church and politics in Ohio (and in particular Williams' IRS complaint against Johnson's church for his support of Ken Blackwell's candidacy for Governor of Ohio), the controversy over an IRS investigation at All Saints Episcopal Church dominated the discussion as rivals Lynn and Sekulow both agreed that the IRS should not be in the business of monitoring speeches in churches. While Lynn tried to differentiate between issue advocacy and overt political endorsements, Sekulow cut through the distinction by reading parts of George Regas' clearly partisan, anti-war speech (given on the eve of the 2004 Presidential Election). Sekulow mused that it would be like a conservative church speaking out against abortion only to conclude by saying "Now, go vote for the Republican of your choice".

While there were some comparisons made between the All Saints case and the Blackwell case, Williams was oddly careful about the distinctions that led him to complain to the IRS and instead spoke in generalities about his feelings on church and state. Sekulow made it clear there's not much difference between a partisan speech in a pulpit and an overt political endorsement. While he disagreed with the content of Regas' speech, Sekulow noted that he supported his right to say it.

One of the lighter (and ironic) moments of the discussion came when Marcus Owens (counsel to All Saints Episcopal Church), while sitting just to the right of Williams, accepted an offer from Johnson to discuss the IRS compalint against his church and implied that he was open to defending them also.

It's election season: Politicians discover religion... again

It seems to be a theme... every election season spurs political web sites that try to convince the faithful that their candidates like religion too. During the last Presidential election, the Clergy Leadership Network was formed to galvanize liberal religious voters with secular funding from people like billionaire George Soros (who really didn't have a religious interest in the election). When that experiment failed, the group changed it's name and tax status to the Clergy and Laity Network before it eventually bankrupted itself. Now, on the verge of a new election season, yet another group has formed called FaithfulDemocrats.com. From the Kingsport Times-News:

(Tennessee state Sen. Roy) Herron, who co-chairs the FaithfulDemocrats.com site, admitted Democrats have been slow to grasp faith issues.

"I plead guilty to having been reluctant to talk about my faith in a political setting," he said. "My own hesitation is out of a concern that there is a temptation to seek to use God instead of being used by God. What compels me to speak up now is the realization that if one lets falsehoods be told repeatedly without responding with the truth, then people tend to believe the lies. ... There are God-fearing good people of faith who are being told that they have to be members of a particular political party.

"I don't think our God is so small or so weak that he can be held hostage by any political party. I think it's dangerous both for the church and the country for people of faith to be misled by those who seek partisan political gain. To put it simply, the Scripture teaches us that the church is to be the bride of Christ, not the prostitute of any political party."

Herron is right but the timing of the site is suspect. Why is it only going up when there's an election coming up?

Palestinian churches burned over Pope's comments

Rabbi David Rosen calls it Muslim hypersensitivity. That's probably an understatement. From Forbes:

Palestinians wielding guns and firebombs attacked five churches in the West Bank and Gaza on Saturday, following remarks by Pope Benedict XVI that angered many Muslims.

No injuries were reported in the attacks, which left church doors charred and walls pockmarked with bullet holes and scorched by firebombs. Churches of various denominations were targeted.

It's interesting that no one in the media is really seizing on the simple fact that non-Catholic churches were attacked as well as Catholic churches. Apparently, low intelligence and hypersensitivity go hand in hand.

Christian Century Stonewalling on Star Columnist's Error

-Dexter Van Zile

Christian Century magazine, the house organ for mainline Protestantism in the United States, has refused to correct a serious misstatement of fact in a column written by its star columnist, James M. Wall. In a piece entitled "War Plan," which appeared in the Sept. 5, 2006 issue of Christian Century, Wall condemns Israel for attacking Hezbollah rather than negotiating after Hezbollah abducted two Israeli soldiers in an attack on July 12.

Wall's preference for rewarding Hezbollah for abducting Israeli soldiers is questionable, but he is welcome to his opinion. He is not welcome, however, to make up his own facts. Wall falsely reports, "It was not until after Israeli attacks inside Lebanon that Hezbollah began to fire rockets into northern Israel." Later in the same piece, Wall characterizes Israel's air strikes in Lebanon as a "preemptive strike."

Wall is wrong.

Read the whole thing.