The Declaration of Independence and the Fear of God

Russian poet Irina Ratushinskaya grew up in the final gray decades of Soviet communism. Despite, and partly because of, the best efforts of communist indoctrination, Irina became a follower of Christ as she matured into a woman of conscience. In 1983, at the age of 28, Irina was sentenced to seven years of hard labor and five years of internal exile for writing what was seen as anti-Soviet poetry. Before being exiled to the West, she wrote of her experiences in Grey is the Color of Hope.



She relates the unwieldy attempt of communist educators to ingrain atheism. In school, she says, they would learn to read, and then be told there is no God; and then learn math, and be told there is no God; and then science and be told there is no God. Irina says she eventually realized that, indeed, there was a God or they wouldn’t have to try so hard to convince her otherwise.



What Principles, this Principal?

The time is gone when all of the good stories about overcoming odds to discover God came from the communist world. They abound in modern America, as we drift precariously toward godless public institutions.



A rich example is the action of a middle school principal to prohibit Steven Williams, a fifth-grade teacher at Stevens Creek School in the San Francisco Bay area suburb of Cupertino, from introducing in classroom lessons historical documents that refer to God, including The Declaration of Independence. Williams has filed a lawsuit. According to Reuters, Williams asserts in the lawsuit that since May he has been required to submit all of his lesson plans and supplemental handouts to the principal, Patricia Vidmar, for approval, and that she will not permit him to use any that contain references to God or Christianity.



Among the materials she has rejected, Williams says, are excerpts from the Declaration of Independence, George Washington's journal, John Adams' diary, Samuel Adams' "The Rights of the Colonists," and William Penn's "The Frame of Government of Pennsylvania."



"He hands out a lot of material and perhaps 5 to 10 percent refers to God and Christianity because that's what the founders wrote," says Williams’ lawyer. "The principal seems to be systematically censoring material that refers to Christianity.”



It is a classic battle on the front lines of the culture war (there are many other stories to be told). Without knowing more about the particulars and the parties involved in the Cupertino dispute, it is perhaps more productive to ask a question about the action of the principal based on what we do know: What would be the motivation or the justification for prohibiting the study of formational documents that mention or even discuss the role of God?



Or as Jason asks on the Trommetter Times blog: “It’s a season typified by lawsuits against manger scenes, crosses and even the words Merry Christmas. Why are these people so afraid of references to God? The first amendment protects churches from the government. It doesn’t create religion-free zones in public schools.”



Whether dissing the Declaration of Independence or erasing Christmas references, I believe that there are five reasons we are seeing a trend away from traditional religion-related observances: (1) Fear of God, (2) Disdain for Faith, (3) Confusion on Separation, (4) Search for Popularity, and (5) Hatred of Heritage.



Here’s a closer look at each:



1. Fear of God:

In the halls of government, academia, and most public institutions there is a fear of God. Not fear of biblical character or proportion-- awe, reference, and dread—but a fear of allowing God or any vestiges of faith or overt religious expression in the public square. It has become a reactive, irrational response, as demonstrated in this case of disallowing the study of how our founding fathers recognized God as a source of wisdom and strength.



“The naked public square,” to use a term coined 20 years ago by Rev. Richard John Neuhaus of the Institute on Religion and Public Life in his book, has become the assumed norm and attempts to introduce religious content are rejected without question.



There is clamoring for the public square to be a "religion-free zone," in which there is a cleansing of all that is religious from public life. The sources of this vision are diverse and not all secular. To be sure, some citizens support this position because of their secularist philosophies. But some believers are strict separationists in constitutional interpretation, and others are simply people who recoil from endless conflicts. “A plague on both your houses" is their attitude, so the naked public square is the outcome by default.



But when the public square is naked, the result is even less just and workable than an established religion. Not only does this vision favor a worldview in that is the minority in America—secularism; it represents a decisive repudiation of the historic American relationship of faiths and freedom. This can be a lethal blow to sustaining freedom.



2. Disdain for Faith

Among many secularists there has developed a strong disdain for the expression or reliance on faith, and for any yielding to the traditional, dominant Christianity. It’s the French model of 1789, when the people rejected the prevailing church and state.



The revolutionaries' spine-chilling cry: "We must strangle the last king with the guts of the last priest!" In France, religion--viewed as reactionary--went one way, whereas freedom--viewed as progressive--went another. French republicanism was therefore irreligious from the beginning and much of France shows little change today. This French model of rejection of the church is reflected in the attitudes of many of the “cultural elite” in America today.



3. Confusion on Separation

There is total confusion about the separation of church and state, some of it marshaled by personal agenda, much of it created by burgeoning cultural and religious pluralism.



British scholar Os Guinness, a follower of Christ and senior fellow at the Virginia-based Trinity Forum writes with great insight on making A World Safe for Diversity. Guinness cites three reasons for the confusion:



Exploding pluralism: Pluralism and religious liberty have been linked inextricably since the colonial days. On the one hand, religious liberty has made pluralism more likely. On the other hand, pluralism has made religious liberty more necessary. Thus the American story has always been one of steadily expanding pluralism--the Middle colonies in the eighteenth century were among the world's most religiously diverse regions. But for all the steady expansion since then, nothing rivals the explosion of pluralism in the last forty years that now includes members of almost all the world's religions and a marked increase of secularists--significant because so strong among the educated elites.

Emergent separationism: Beyond all question, disestabishment and the separation of church and state are at the heart of both the purpose and achievement of the First Amendment. On the one hand, they remove what in other lands has been a central source of hostility to religion--its established and often oppressive status. On the other hand, they disallow any religion from depending on state power, and so throws each one back on its own resources--thus fostering a climate of entrepreneurial freedom and competitiveness. But this traditional view of separation is a far cry from the "strict, total, absolute separationism" that has become prominent since 1947. Slowly, strict separationism has grown from a theory to a doctrine to orthodoxy to a ruling myth. In the process the relationship between the two Religious Liberty clauses has changed. "No establishment" has become an end, not a means, and a new vision of church-state separation has become dominant--in which public life is inviolately secular and religious life is inviolately private.



4. Search for Popularity

Among many in the chattering class, in education, and in entertainment, actions and attitudes are not driven by ideology, historical inevitabilities, or spiritual convictions but by the potent desire to be popular. To be socially appropriate. People desperately seeking political correctness. We cannot underestimate the peer pressure in the newsrooms, NEA conferences and cocktail parties, where you will become a pariah if you violate the precepts of liberalism. The dogma of the liberal intelligentsia is to protect every secularist and adherents of all faiths from being offended in any way by exposure to the dominant Christian faith.



5. Hatred of Heritage

There is something else at work here. Modernity rejects its roots. There is little admiration for the struggles, sacrifice, and wisdom of our forebears. We don’t need old-time religion, old-fashioned values, or colonial-era inclinations. The leaders of our modern institutions (this has also affected our churches, by the way) believe wisdom comes only with the morning dew. Yesterday’s is gone and forgotten.



Tony at A Red Mind in a Blue State, helping me with my search for truly great short speeches, pointed me to one from 40 years ago, including a passage that relates to this discussion of a public God.



“...The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe -- the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God. We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution....’



Is this from a fundamentalist of an earlier time? No, it’s a selection from John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address. He’d be out of place at a Democratic national convention today! And he could be in trouble if he was a school teacher in California.



It must be mentioned that it would be so much easier to further vital religious pluralism if our allies in retaining a religious presence in public life weren’t so utterly lacking in subtlety. That is not surprising, however. Whether Russian dissidents or pro-life protesters, the zealots of the cause are often socially awkward and uncomfortably abrasive. They are important to progress because they care more about principle than popularity; they slow progress when they choose to defend only some of the important principles.



What then is the right model for addressing the interplay of religion and government? Guinness suggests a “civil public square,” where citizens of all faiths and none are free to enter and engage public life within the framework of Constitutional first principles:



He writes: “The result is neither a naked public square where all religion is excluded, nor a sacred public square with any religion established or semi-established. The result, rather, is a civil public square in which citizens of all religious faiths, or none, engage one another in the continuing democratic discourse. This vision provides a constructive way forward because it goes back to the notion of covenantal, or federal, liberty that lies behind the Constitution itself.”



The answer certainly is not to keep our students from reading historical documents because our forefathers dared mentioned their dependence on the Creator God. Of course that could produce young Christian poets.

--James Jewell

More Speeches

I’ve been referred to more great speeches by JD Mays of the Army of One blog, although not all of them are particularly short. Here’s the list.

The great short speech of the day comes from Dead Man Blogging telling a story about Albert Einstein:

I’m told that once Albert Einstein was invited to a reception where he was asked to give a speech. He stood up and said “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sorry, but I have nothing to say.” He sat down, and then got back up and announced “If I think of something to say, I will come back and say it.” Some time later, he did in fact return to give a speech.

--James Jewell

Three Authentic Evangelicals

There are great reminders today of three evangelical Christians who, if I could choose, would be the face of orthodox, evangelical Christianity to the world—Lewis, Colson, and Stott.



Thanks to Double Toothpicks for reminding us yesterday that it was C.S. Lewis’ birthday, and referring us to a great tribute by Chuck Colson. Colson, who I served as chief of staff and communications director for many years, was convicted of his sin and turned to Jesus Christ after reading the chapter on pride in Lewis’s Mere Christianity. Colson has been in many ways a modern-day Lewis, and he suggests in his piece that “the best way to celebrate Lewis’s birthday is to be at our posts, as he liked to say—with renewed spirits and with probing and informed minds.”



David Brooks' column on John Stott today is a must-read for anyone who thinks Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and the like speak well for evangelicals.



Brooks writes:



Tim Russert is a great journalist, but he made a mistake last weekend. He included Jerry Falwell and Al Sharpton in a discussion on religion and public life.



Inviting these two bozos onto "Meet the Press" to discuss that issue is like inviting Britney Spears and Larry Flynt to discuss D. H. Lawrence. Naturally, they got into a demeaning food fight that would have lowered the intellectual discourse of your average nursery school.



This is why so many people are so misinformed about evangelical Christians. There is a world of difference between real-life people of faith and the made-for-TV, Elmer Gantry-style blowhards who are selected to represent them. Falwell and Pat Robertson are held up as spokesmen for evangelicals, which is ridiculous. Meanwhile people like John Stott, who are actually important, get ignored.

--James Jewell

The First Soggy Wafer Award

Vigorous sarcasm is one result of working in the faith community for nearly three decades. It is only natural, then, that in the tradition of the green weenie award, for those of you who remember the Wittenberg Door, we will search the world over for the ridiculous attempting to be sublime, and present the occasional, soon-to-be-coveted Soggy Wafer Award.



The Soggy Wafer Award will recognize the often earnest, but at least temporarily cock-eyed, believers who will be candidates for heaven’s all-fools division.



The initial Soggy Wafer Award is presented to two individuals who define the very essence of the category--the incarnational fried foods owners, Fred Whan and Diana Duyser.



Let me remind you of their stories, which you’ve probably heard:



Fred Whan is an eastern Ontario, Canada, man who is hoping to make a bit of money by auctioning a fish stick he says looks like Jesus. He kept the fish stick in his freezer since burning it at dinner a year ago, but decided on November 24 that it was time to thaw it out so he could sell it on eBay. Whan said he made the discovery while cooking dinner for his kids and several other children he was baby-sitting. "I burned a few fish sticks, and I said, 'Who wants a fish stick?' and no one wanted them because they were burnt, so I thought I'd better give them to the dogs.” When he flipped over one of the pieces of fish to remove it from the pan, it seemed the face of a man was staring up at him. "I said, 'That looks like a rock singer,' and then my son goes, 'It looks like Jesus,' and I said, 'Well, it does, yeah.'"



Fred said he figured it would make a good conversation piece for friends and decided to throw the triangular piece of fish in the freezer to keep it as a joke. It was never about making any money from it, he said. That is until Diana Duyser of Florida recently sold a decade-old grilled cheese sandwich with the toasty visage of what's purported to be the Virgin Mary for $28,000, to GoldenPalace.com.



Diana says she spotted the image after she'd taken a bite out of the sandwich and saw the face staring back at her. She put it on eBay and the page was viewed more than 1.1 million times.



The Soggy Wafer does recognize the entreruprenerial spirit of these erstwhile fry cooks, but the points they pick up for that are overwhelmed by their willingness to prey on the idiocy of people who would actually pay cash for fried food images that they believe possess spiritual significance.



We can’t really say much more about all of this because we’re laughing too hard. But we’re looking very hard at the images and have to say they look more like Sonny and Cher than Jesus and Mary.





- -James Jewell

Inspiring Short Speeches

All of us have probably been challenged at some point to recall one word that was spoken by the commencement speaker at our high school or college graduation. I fail at that test or even remembering who spoke.



Speeches are like that; they may inspire for a time, but the message is soon lost. We can remember only key lines from even some famous speeches, but little more.



The best speeches are short speeches for the above cited reason (something Bill Clinton never learned). I’m on a campaign to find truly great, gloriously short, speeches. Here are my first three:





The Gettysburg Address

The speech was given on the occasion of the dedication of a civil war cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on the fields of Gettysburg (now the Soldiers' National Cemetery). It has been memorized by generations of Americans. Read more about it in the book The Gettsyburg Soldiers' Cemetary and Lincoln's Address, by Frank L. Klement.



Klement has collected a dozen of his published articles on the creation of the Gettysburg cemetery and Lincoln's address. He is an authority on Civil War politics, which is the overriding topic of these articles. Among the myths resoundingly debunked here are that Lincoln's address received a poor reception and that the address was composed on scrap paper on the train to Gettysburg (Klement identifies six copies of the address, none written on the train).



Here is the renowned speech, delivered on November 19, 1863:



Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met here on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But in a larger sense we can not dedicate - we can not consecrate - we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled, here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.





Never give up, by Winston Churchill

On October 29, 1941, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill visited Harrow School to to hear the traditional songs he had sung there as a youth, as well as to speak to the students. This became one of his most quoted speeches, and perhaps the best known very short speech. Interestingly, its fame is due to distortions that evolved about what he said, as related in this explanation.



The myth is that Churchill stood before the students and said, "Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, give up. Never give up. Never give up. Never give up." Then he sat down. In reality, he made a complete speech that included words similar to what are often quoted.



This was one of the inspirations speeches by Churchill during World War II. It is amusing to see how the one section has been changed and quoted as the whole speech:



Almost a year has passed since I came down here at your Head Master's kind invitation in order to cheer myself and cheer the hearts of a few of my friends by singing some of our own songs.

The ten months that have passed have seen very terrible catastrophic events in the world--ups and downs, misfortunes-- but can anyone sitting here this afternoon, this October afternoon, not feel deeply thankful for what has happened in the time that has passed and for the very great improvement in the position of our country and of our home?



Why, when I was here last time we were quite alone, desperately alone, and we had been so for five or six months. We were poorly armed. We are not so poorly armed today; but then we were very poorly armed. We had the unmeasured menace of the enemy and their air attack still beating upon us, and you yourselves had had experience of this attack; and I expect you are beginning to feel impatient that there has been this long lull with nothing particular turning up!

But we must learn to be equally good at what is short and sharp and what is long and tough. It is generally said that the British are often better at the last. They do not expect to move from crisis to crisis; they do not always expect that each day will bring up some noble chance of war; but when they very slowly make up their minds that the thing has to be done and the job put through and finished, then, even if it takes months - if it takes years - they do it.



Another lesson I think we may take, just throwing our minds back to our meeting here ten months ago and now, is that appearances are often very deceptive, and as Kipling well says, we must "...meet with Triumph and Disaster. And treat those two impostors just the same."

You cannot tell from appearances how things will go. Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done. Those people who are imaginative see many more dangers than perhaps exist; certainly many more than will happen; but then they must also pray to be given that extra courage to carry this far-reaching imagination.



But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period--I am addressing myself to the School--surely from this period of ten months, this is the lesson: Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never--in nothing, great or small, large or petty--never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.



We stood all alone a year ago, and to many countries it seemed that our account was closed, we were finished. All this tradition of ours, our songs, our School history, this part of the history of this country, were gone and finished and liquidated.



Very different is the mood today. Britain, other nations thought, had drawn a sponge across her slate. But instead our country stood in the gap. There was no flinching and no thought of giving in; and by what seemed almost a miracle to those outside these Islands, though we ourselves never doubted it, we now find ourselves in a position where I say that we can be sure that we have only to persevere to conquer.



You sang here a verse of a School Song: you sang that extra verse written in my honour, which I was very greatly complimented by and which you have repeated today. But there is one word in it I want to alter - I wanted to do so last year, but I did not venture to. It is the line: "Not less we praise in darker days."



I have obtained the Head Master's permission to alter darker to sterner. "Not less we praise in sterner days."



Do not let us speak of darker days: let us speak rather of sterner days. These are not dark days; these are great days--the greatest days our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race.





William Booth, Founder of The Salvation Army

One of history’s most interesting characters is General William Booth. General Booth was the founder of The Salvation Army. In about 1910, Booth had become an invalid. His eyesight was failing him, and one year he was in such bad health that he was unable to attend the Salvation Army Convention in London, England. Somebody suggested that General Booth send a telegram or a message to be read at the opening of the convention. Booth agreed to do so. When the thousands of delegates met, the moderator announced that Booth would not be able to be present because of failing health and eyesight. Gloom and pessimism swept across the floor of the convention. Then, the moderator announced that Booth had sent a message to be read with the opening of the first session. He opened the message and began to read the following:



Dear Delegates of the Salvation Army Convention:



Others!



Signed, General Booth.



Lord, let me live from day to day

In such a self-forgetful way

That even when I kneel to pray,

My prayer shall be for others.

Others, Lord, yes, others;

Let this my motto be.

Help me to live for others

That I may live like Thee.



The power of what may be the world’s shortest message was great because it had behind it the credibility of a life of service committed to the Lord and to other people, of all conditions and stations of life.





Two of the Speechmakers Meet

There is this fascinating account of a meeting between William Booth and Winston Churchill, from Booth’s memiors related at a Salvation Army website.



I went to Whitehall for an interview with Mr. Winston Churchill, the Home Secretary, with respect to proposed plan of working for the Criminal in prisons in conjunction with the Government. I expected to find Mr. Churchill alone. . . . With Mr. Churchill I found, however, Mr. Masterman, the Under Secretary, and Sir E. Troupe, the Permanent Secretary of the Home Office. The interview lasted an hour and a quarter, and might, so far as I could judge, an hour and a quarter longer, judging from the interest manifested by Mr. Churchill and the other parties present. Nothing could very well be more frank and anxious than all appeared to be.I talked on the principles, methods, and success of our work among these classes, and in general terms, and each acknowledged their agreement, with trifling exceptions, with all I argued for. That was satisfactory, but it was more satisfactory still to get a definite promise, or what amounted to one, for the following methods of operation by the Army in the prisons: (details of proposed prison work). . .



We parted in the most genial manner — Mr. Churchill saying with a smile, “Am I converted?”

We had talked much about conversion from our standpoint. “No,” I said, “I am afraid you are not converted, but I think you are convicted.” He added something about my seeing what was in him.



To which I replied, “What I am most concerned about is not what is in you at the present, but [what] I can see of the possibilities of the future.” It was one of the most interesting interviews of my life, it may turn out to be one of the most important.

--James Jewell

Praise God, From Whom All Blessings Flow

The worst time for an atheist, it is said, is when he is grateful and he has no one to thank. While Thanksgiving can be a day of unadorned gluttony and football for such, it is doubly satisfying for the believer, who is thankful both for the provision, and for the One to thank.



Thanksgiving is celebratory and solemn for the believer. It is a celebration of bounty—material, spiritual, relationship, or social; and it is a celebration of a sovereign God who is present and active in both the good times and the bad.



It is a solemn affair because it forces a realistic reflection of personal undeservedness, and an awareness that most in our world do not enjoy most of the personal pleasures, freedoms, and promise that we take for granted.



The first Thanksgiving feast was celebrated in 1621 after a devastating winter in which nearly half of the new arrivals at Plymouth Bay Colony had died. Then, during a time of drought the 1623 proclamation of prayer and fasting was changed to another thanksgiving celebration when rains came during the prayer.



Throughout American history, there were many thanksgiving proclamations and celebrations. In 1789, George Washington proclaimed a National Thanksgiving Day on the last Thursday in November, in honor of the new U.S. Constitution. Thomas Jefferson later discontinued it, calling such a proclamation “a kingly practice.”



The tradition was resurrected by Abraham Lincoln who, in 1863, proclaimed Thanksgiving a national holiday. American presidents have issued Thanksgiving proclamations every year since.



As with most of our religious holidays, Thanksgiving endures in the “naked public square” of modernity because the ACLU can find a secular application—they can just be thankful to the Constitution or the Indians, or to no one. But in reality, American observations through the years have a common thread. In the best of times and in the worst of times, the thanks are offered to God.

--James Jewell

Moral Character That Leads to Sharing

Comedian Jack Benny loved to tell the story of a mugger who accosted him and said, “Your money or your life!” After an appreciable silence, the mugger says, “Well?” And Benny replies, “Don’t rush me. I’m thinking. I’m thinking.”



Of course, the more that money becomes our life, the harder the choice becomes.



I noticed in the Monday obituaries (no I haven’t begun to read the obituaries every day to see if I’m listed, as Mark Twain claimed he did in his old age), that theologian Langdon Gilkey died. Before he went to the University of Chicago Divinity School to teach, Gilkey went to China as a young man and taught at Yenching Univeristy, near Beijing. As World War II unfolded, he was rounded up by the invading Japanese and spent 2½ years at an internment camp. He later wrote a book called The Shantung Compound, based on the journal he kept there. (Incidentally, Henry Luce—founder of Time magazine—was born in the camp; and missionary doctor Eric Liddell, hero of Chariots of Fire, died during internment there).



As we come to the time of the year when many people do their only thinking about generosity and about others, Gilkey's book is a good read, in its treatment of greed and sharing in the compressed community of a concentration camp.



Here’s a passage:



“I suddenly saw, as never so clearly before, the really dynamic factors in social conflict: how wealth compounded with greed and injustice leads inevitably to strife, and how such strife can threaten to kill the social organization. Correspondingly, it became evident that the only answer was not less wealth or material goods, but the development of moral character that might lead to sharing and so provide the sole foundation for social peace.”



The best guardian of that character, to be sure, is the understanding that all we have comes from the hand of God, and we must give it freely, as from His hand.



St. John Chrysostom, a bishop of the early Christian church (347-407), wrote: “For you too are stewards of your own possessions. . . For even though you have received an inheritance from your father, and have in this way come to possess everything you have, still everything belongs to God.”



A great homily for Thanksgiving eve.

--James Jewell

What Holds Our Nation Together?

One of the most interesting questions of our time is that of the great divide in America—the culture wars, liberal/conservative, red/blue, pro-life/pro-choice, north/south, religious/secular, and many, many more. The nation is divided countless ways. Is that a problem? What is it that holds us together? They are questions I have been contemplating enough to begin a book on the topic; a piece of fiction. Hope I can find the time to finish it.



In the meantime, my brother-in-law Doug Payton has brought up the question and provided some good thoughts over at Considerettes today, citing a dialogue begun by the Homespun Bloggers.



What are your thoughts?

--James Jewell

Desperate Values Voters

The battle is on. As conservative activists set forth the case that what the voters meant by moral values was their chosen object of attack—abortion, same-sex marriage, Internet porn, etc.—the liberal activists are demeaning the evangelicals as ignorant, or defining moral values as issues such as peace and environmentalism, etc.



The critique of those who voted for moral values continues to show that it is a complex and diverse group. And before we beatify these voters, the research also shows that they enjoy their own sins of choice. Particularly when it comes to entertainment.



This article by Bill Carter at the NY Times points out that “in interviews, representatives of the four big broadcast networks as well as Hollywood production studios said the nightly television ratings bore little relation to the message apparently sent by a significant percentage of voters.

The choices of viewers, whether in Los Angeles or Salt Lake City, New York or Birmingham, Ala., are remarkably similar. And that means the election will have little impact on which shows they decide to put on television, these executives say."



One measurement used in this analysis is the acceptance of the raunchy new TV series Desperate Housewives on ABC.



Since I live in Atlanta, deep in Red America the following from the article was interesting to me:



"Desperate Housewives" on ABC is the big new hit of the television season, ranked second over all in the country, behind only "C.S.I." on CBS. This satire of suburbia and modern relationships features, among other morally challenged characters, a married woman in her 30's having an affair with a high-school-age gardener, and has prompted several advertisers, including Lowe's, to pull their advertisements. In the greater Atlanta market, reaching more than two million households, Desperate Housewives is the top-rated show. Nearly 58 percent of the voters in those counties voted for President Bush. And in the Salt Lake City market, which takes in the whole state of Utah and parts of Nevada, Idaho and Wyoming, "Desperate Housewives" is fourth, after two editions of "C.S.I." and NBC's "E.R."; Mr. Bush rolled up 72.6 percent of the vote there.”



"We say one thing and do another," said Kevin Reilly, the president of NBC Entertainment. That sounds like message from the Apostle Paul, and it is great fodder for our church pulpits. It’s clear, though, that the message from the values voters to politicians is another old saying: “Do as I say, not as I do.”

--James Jewell

A Rather Expected Departure

We need to be clear about something. Dan Rather departed CBS because he knew a review panel would find that he had violated a cardinal rule of the MSM. Maintain plausible deniability in the liberal coloration of the news. In the quiet watering holes of New York and the private places of their hearts, national journalists know that the scribes and voices of the nation’s major media are colossally more liberal that then the national norm. And they believe that it is honorable to demean the philosophies of the center and right through their work.



They also know that it has to be done in such as way as to maintain deniability. It is a time-tested skill.



Whether because of advancing age or political passion, Rather violated the cardinal rule. He was exposed. The back rooms were aghast at the carelessness. It endangered the honorable quest to undermine the unwashed masses and their silly conservative ideology.



We predicted bloodshed at CBS in this spot on October 29:



“CBS News will emerge from this election the most damaged media entity and it is likely that there will be big changes in the offing. Can you imagine how Edward R. Murrow would feel about his network criticizing soldiers in the field during a time of war. He’s doing somersaults in his grave.”



Even CBS’ comrades-in-arms at the NY Times said today, “Mr. Rather's decision represents an abrupt, somewhat ignominious end to the nearly 24 years that he spent in one of the most visible jobs in journalism.”



Rather had become too obvious, and as such, too dangerous to the cause.

--James Jewell

Green Tea, Moral Values and the Elites

During the presidential campaign, Candy Crowley of CNN found herself sitting with John Kerry in a super-ordinary coffee shop in Dubuque, Iowa. The veteran political correspondent ordered coffee. The senator, from Massachusetts, ordered green tea. The waitress was puzzled.



I spent many of my formative years in eastern Iowa, and I can assure you that while Iowans are not all a bunch of hayseeds, green tea is not high on the beverage list, and this story is quite revealing.



The Crowley incident is related in a column today by Terry Mattingly, a longtime journalist covering the Christian community and now a professor at Palm Beach Atlantic College. His column is syndicated by Scripps-Howard. It is another good analysis of the impact of evangelicals and moral values on the election. Mattingly writes:



Crowley grew up in the Midwest and she thinks she can tell red zones from blue zones. Democrats have cornered the green-tea crowd, she said. Republicans are winning what Capital Beltway insiders now call the “Applebee’s vote.” This schism may have as much to do with cappuccinos and chainsaws as with the New York Times and the Southern Baptist Convention.

Faith played a major role, but it’s simplistic to say that religious people voted for President George W. Bush and secularists for Kerry, said Crowley. The religious left has its own moral and spiritual beliefs and it will, in future elections, find ways to express them in the public square.



It would also be inaccurate to claim that evangelicals marched into voting booths and seized control. Bush won 52 percent of Catholic voters, facing a Catholic candidate, and 59 percent of the overall Protestant vote. The New York Times noted that the president, in four years, raised his share of the Jewish vote from 19 to 25 percent, winning two-thirds of the Orthodox Jewish votes.



The elites just didn’t get it. “Somewhere along the line, all of us missed this moral-values thing,” said Crowley.

--James Jewell

No Need to Puff Graham in LA This Week

Billy Graham is preaching a crusade in Los Angeles this week, 55 years after the tent revival there that was “puffed” by William Randolph Hearst’s papers and launched the remarkable international Christian ministry of the world’s most famous Protestant. A NY Times article yesterday recounts the straightforward Gospel message that his been the staple of the 86-year-old evangelist.



Mainstream reporters seem amazed that preachers like Graham focus mostly on issues of personal faith, probably because their only exposure to evangelicals has been when the faith community takes on politically charged issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage.



The Times writes of Graham: “Much of his message seemed focused on personal responsibility. ‘You kill and covet but you cannot get what you want. You quarrel and fight; you do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives. Sin has affected our minds. We go to church. We pray. We're good people. We're moral people. But He looks at us through His own righteousness and He sees the defects in all of us. Sin.’"



Graham’s whole message is geared to generating decisions among his listeners to receive Jesus Christ as Savior. (President Bush credits Dr. Graham for leading him to Christ.) The evangelist is old and bent. The issues swirling around the world are different. But Gospel message he preaches is indistinguishable from 55 years ago.

--James Jewell

Talking Dirty on Television

As a culture we have allowed almost every private or prurient thought to be shown or suggested on television or radio. When someone in the media crosses the few remaining lines, we cry to the FCC. But determining media content has never been the true role of government, and it has shown itself to be awkward, ineffective, and uncomfortable at drawing and enforcing the limits of permissible speech or content.



When a an sexually provocative skit is used to lead into a primetime football game, as ABC did last Monday; or a breast is bared during a Super Bowl half-time show, we turn to government to enforce our outrage. Politicians huff and millions of households bemoan the drift from decency. But the penalties are laughable—CBS was fined $550,000 for the Super Bowl offense; ABC’s punishment probably won’t reach that level—and unsatisfying.



The role belongs to the people; to all of us as viewers and consumers. Media content is a reflection of our cultural mores. Although we blame Hollywood or New York, our attention has to be corporate board rooms. Media content does not endure if it is not supported by advertisers and viewed by those who consume the advertisers’ products.



Our outrage is selective. The provocative ABC skit featured a comely actress from their surprise hit, Desperate Housewives, the content of which is so much more sexually explicit than the skit that it makes the reaction to the pre-football gambit a little hollow. We have come to the point as a culture where the only lines we draw are timetables, not decency or social edification. As long as Johnny or Suzy are probably in bed, roll out the crud.



As decision makers in the entertainment industry continue to push up against and frequently cross the lines of acceptability, the Americans who voted for moral values in the last election will push government to do something. However, the call for action is misdirected. It is for the newly discovered “values coalition” to organize consumer action, not government hand slapping.

--James Jewell

Blogerror: Interstate 69 Story Was a Hoax

In a demonstration of amateur blogging, I used information from a blog I was unfamiliar with as a source for my previous post on Interstate 69. The link for a report on legislation by Rep. Hostettler was to The Hoosier Gazette, which if had I looked more closely I would have seen that it is a site that uses both fiction and real-life stories. The story was apparently a total hoax. I apologize to the Indiana congressman, and congratulate the Gazette on very funny gag, which snagged me and other bloggers.

Christian Statesmanship and Absurdity

Throughout history it is clear that a statesman who lives an robust and authentic Christian life is of much good to the republic. Where would the world be without Britain’s William Wilberforce, who because of Christian conviction persevered his entire Parliamentary career to end the British slave trade? Where would the nation be without the solid Puritan ethic of John Adams? Where would our national soul be with the conviction of Abraham Lincoln? Would populism have advanced without the powerful voice of William Jennings Bryan? (See this excellent article on what Christians have done with political power historically.)



It is perilous to single out men and women of our time as Christian examples, because the partisanship that rules the day sours the analysis. But some try, as they should. This summer the Center for Christian Statesmanship in Washington, D.C. presented its annual Distinguished Christian Statesman Award to Indiana Congressman John Hostettler. The Center said it gave the award to Hostettler because: “When he has to make decisions on Capitol Hill, he always prays about those decisions and seeks God’s guidance and direction. This is a person who is striving to serve Christ in the public arena.”



I’d never heard of Congressman Hostettler, so I can’t argue with the Center’s choice. Unfortunately, my introduction to the Hoosier legislator was continued in the blogosphere, where I learned that Hostettler is introducing legislation in the House that would change the name of an Interstate 69 extension to a more moral sounding number. As Dave Barry would say: I’m not making this up. Perhaps we should renumber the new Indiana highway Interstate 3, after the Trinity. Or the number of Christ, 7. Maybe 12, for the disciples. It would advance the Kingdom if we could eliminate the number 69 all together, and just count 66...67...68...70. While we’re at it, let’s get rid of the number 6, so we can’t come up with 666. And the number six sounds too much like sex.



Congressman, what are you thinking? With the wind of Christian conviction at your back, address the important issues of state. On the other hand, it does give us something to laugh at.

--James Jewell

Religious Rights at Christmas

About this time each year I conduct an informal search--both tragic and humorous-- for Christmas cards that have any reference to the birth of Jesus Christ. One store was kind enough to set aside a section of the Christmas card holdings and title it “religious.” If you think about it, that’s like setting aside a section of a bookstore for books. Of course, most people just don’t think about it.



Arguing against the secularization of the Christmas holiday by our culture is at this point like pushing a rope uphill, but it is still worth fighting as Christians for our right to observe Christmas as a sacred holiday.



From that battleground comes this story from Portland, Oregon:



An Oregon school district has agreed to change its policy prohibiting students from handing out religious Christmas cards to their classmates.



The case involves a 6-year-old kindergarten student who tried to hand out a card explaining the meaning of the candy cane at a class party last December. The card noted that candy canes are shaped like a "J" for Jesus, with white symbolizing Jesus' purity and red representing the blood Jesus shed for his followers.



"We are pleased to resolve this issue in a manner that safeguards the constitutional rights of our client and all students in the Gresham-Barlow School District," said Stuart J. Roth, Senior Counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, which represented the student.



"It is unfortunate it took a lawsuit to bring about this change -- but it is encouraging that students will now be able to exercise their free speech rights in the classroom -- including the use of religious references and religious messages if they so desire -- without being censored."



Imagine that.

--James Jewell

More on What Evangelicals Want

There is good discussion among evangelicals concerning the aftermath of the election and what their response and opportunities could and should be. I made my initial sentiments known on November 5, and now appreciate this good new list of evangelical concerns by Christian journalist Stan Guthrie.



In the piece, I’m pleased to see this quote from Charles Colson:



Some fear limiting ourselves to a quid pro quo relationship with Caesar. Says Charles Colson, a former Watergate insider who now heads Prison Fellowship, ‘I disassociate myself from anyone who says, ‘Now we voted for you, it’s payback time. Give us our due.’ That’s what special interest groups do, and we’re not a special interest group. We vote our conscience and what we believe is in the best general interest.”

--jwpj

The News That Wasn’t: Scott Peterson is a Convicted Nobody

One of the top national stories of the week was not national news at all.



Have you ever heard of Russ Smith, Fred Neulander, Nikoly Soltys, Richard Sharpe, Mark Winger, or James Pitts. Probably not. These were men who were convicted recently of murdering their wives in celebrated local cases that never received more than brief mention in the national news. They all killed their mates. A prosecution presented evidence of their guilt, a defense attorney argued that they were innocent, and a jury decided there was their guilt was beyond a reasonable doubt. They left grieving families, and often motherless children.



But none of this was significant news beyond the locale where the crimes were committed.



The true-life crime shows--entertainment fare—might have been interested, but not the national news shows. That’s because every year some 572,000 women are the victims of violence committed by an intimate (spouse, ex-spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend), according the Bureau of Justice Statistics. One-third of the 90-100 women killed in America every week are murdered by husbands or boyfriends.



There was no good reason to treat the trial or conviction of Scott Peterson any differently. To the nation, Scott Peterson was a nobody who murdered his wife, was convicted by a jury of his peers, and will pay for it with his life—either by execution or the slow death of life in prison. It became national news because media decided to make it news.



Media gatekeepers not only decide which news to present; they decide what they will define as news. The O.J. Simpson Trial was such a media hit that decision makers decided to duplicate it without the benefit of a celebrity. At least we knew Simpson and even liked him, or at least admired his athletic prowess and broadcasting ability.



Scott Peterson could have easily been another Smith, Neulander, Soltys, Sharpe, Winger, or Pitts, but for a few media gatekeepers who decided his story had the drama and salacious appeal necessary to attract wider attention. Their reading of the prurient interest of the audience was right, of course. It had all of that and more. Their news judgment was wrong. It was never national news, and it still isn’t



Conservative media darling Fox News Channel was the worst offender, and the network bragged often in recent days about their blanket coverage. In this case, in their drive to overtake the news operations of the major networks, the decision makers at Fox News Channel more closely resembled the poor taste of their cousins at the Fox network.



Of course, at the end we were all interested in the verdict, but that doesn’t validate the over-coverage by media. It simply demonstrates media power to control the national discussion.



Let’s grant Scott Peterson the lonely agony he deserves. Move on to something else. This was never national news.

--James Jewell

Blogs Praised and Prodded at Online News Association

The AP reported Saturday that blogs took center stage at the ONA conference. The article reads in part:



Blogs have begun to play a major role in both elevating politics-related stories to more established media outlets and punching holes in flawed journalism by those same newspapers and television news programs. But some at the gathering said they can face a near-constant struggle to establish the credibility enjoyed by professionals.



Blogs have begun to play a major role in both elevating politics-related stories to more established media outlets and punching holes in flawed journalism by those same newspapers and television news programs. But some at the gathering said they can face a near-constant struggle to establish the credibility enjoyed by professionals."



Things get picked up by bloggers that take awhile to get picked up by the mainstream media," said Mark Glaser, a columnist for the Online Journalism Review who writes about Web logs.



"Bloggers have to start from scratch in building trust."Glaser noted the importance of bloggers in tearing down CBS News' election season story about President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard. The constant barrage of questions and charges from the Web kept heat on the network until it admitted a mistake in relying on fake documents for the story, which said Bush's commander felt pressured to sugarcoat an evaluation after the future president failed to take a medical exam.



Mindy McAdams, a journalism professor at the University of Florida, applauded the work by bloggers, but urged them to adhere to ethical standards held by mainstream journalists."Our credibility is suffering with so many people rushing to publish things without checking them out," McAdams said after Cox's speech.



"Blogging is really great. I like that more and more people have a voice. That's good ... But it doesn't give people who call themselves journalists an excuse to not check out the information."

--jwpj

Back Down the Sawdust Trail

Just as the longed-for influence of evangelical Christian voters is being acknowledged in nearly every quarter, and strategists from both the West Wing and the Left wing are asking how to deal with this powerful group of believers, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson have stepped back on stage and provided the caricatures our adversaries need to force the faith groups back outside, back to our tent meetings.



The old leaders of the religious right are celebrating the role of evangelicals in the recent election, as they should. But they are also seeking to have a major voice in the discussion to come, something they should avoid.



This week, Falwell announced that he was launching the Faith and Values Coalition. "The group's central premise is to utilize the momentum of the November 2 elections to maintain an evangelical revolution of voters who will continue to go to the polls to 'vote Christian,” Falwell said. “Essentially, the Coalition is a 21st century resurrection of the Moral Majority.”



For years, Robertson and Falwell have been the two most-reviled conservative Christian figures in America. Much of the bile is unfair; unfortunately, part is deserved. The last time we heard from Robertson was just a few weeks ago, when he was playing for ink by dissing the President on Iraq (remember: he told the president that Iraq would be messy). The last time we heard from Falwell he was characterizing the attacks of 9/11 as the judgment of God on America for its tolerance of homosexuality and other social sins.



This is no time for their re-emergence. It will divide the cultural conservatives that came together powerfully in this election, and make the new coalition vulnerable to the wiles of liberals who will soon be schmoozing its fringes and singing Amazing Grace at every gathering. Yesterday in The Washington Post, Sojourners head Jim Wallis, an evangelical liberal, said: “There is a vast religious middle, including progressive evangelicals, resurgent mainline Protestants and socially conservative African Americans, that could be attracted by biblically based prophetic appeals to make peace, fight poverty and spread social justice.”

It is wrong to conclude that America has found Jesus. And even more wrong to conclude that when voters cited moral values they were signing membership cards to the new Moral Majority. The values voters were a blend of white evangelicals, conservative Catholics, family-oriented blacks and Hispanics, and other deists who connected with the morality and goodness of the President. Many will run the other way when Jerry comes calling.



We Are The Mainstream

The values voters are now centrist, Atlanta writer Shaunti Feldhahn argued in the Journal-Constitution:



“Many media leaders were shocked that moral values topped the list of "most important issues" in the election, that being a regular churchgoer was the best predictor of presidential choice, and that the religious right came out in such numbers.



That surprise demonstrates just how out of touch the elite media and the liberal establishment are. For values voters are not the "religious right." We are the mainstream.

Our values are absolutely in keeping with the mores that founded this country and run deep through our culture to this day --- including among minorities who voted for Sen. John Kerry in spite of his social stands, not because of them



As strange as this sounds after years of media messages to the contrary, this election demonstrated that those holding traditional moral beliefs are centrist. Those who say otherwise prove that they are actually the ones out of the mainstream, way off on the left bank somewhere.



This makes the recent calls for President Bush to stop pandering to his right-wing base and govern from the center all the more nonsensical. On moral issues at least, he has been governing from the center --- the center of America, just not the center of a party divide that has increasingly skewed left. That the Democrats felt comfortable putting the race in the hands of their most liberal senator --- who opposed a ban on partial-birth abortion, for goodness' sake! --- shows how far left the party has drifted.”



Right and Wrong

James Dobson may have captured one aspect of these voters: “A values voter,” he said, “is someone with "a Christian worldview who begins with the assumption that God is -- that he not only exists, but he is the definer of right and wrong, and there are some things that are moral and some things that are immoral, some things that are evil and some things that are good. Although liberals may mock Bush for his good-vs.-evil approach to the world, it is seen by many of us not as a negative but as a positive.”



A Good Man

"The first thing that drew me to Bush was his morals and his character," said Nancy Wallace, 44, a homemaker in suburban Columbus. "There was never really a choice for us," Mrs. Wallace said. “And I'm speaking not only for me but for my husband and neighbors. He's just an honest, hard-working, good man who had a tragedy to deal with and I think he did a great job.”



Character Can Trump Self-Interest

The new values coalition is full of people who see character as more important than self-interest. The Marin (CA) Independent Journal reported: "When Sausalito resident Marty Krasney was in Ohio this month working on the Kerry campaign, he met a woman with a life-threatening disease who lacked health care insurance and could have benefited from stem cell research. Krasney was surprised when the woman told him she planned to vote for George W. Bush, not John Kerry. 'I can't vote for a baby killer,'” she told him. It is this combination of conviction and character that has Democrats across the country scratching their heads and pondering just what they need to do to restore the party's majority status.



Evangelicals Have Many Concerns

Even if the new values coalition was comprised completely of evangelicals, there is not unanimity on many issues and (as I argued on Nov. 5 in this space) the bloc is not concerned only about the issues of the old Moral Majority.



I have helped Jerry Falwell in a number of public relations challenges over the years and I have a high opinion of him as a person. He’s a much better man than the nation knows. He’s a good and compassionate person, and a loving father and grandfather. He’s fought the good fight. But his day is past. He can no longer be effective in helping the movement go forward because he is a polarizing figure and he divides the new values coalition. Jerry, please pass the torch.



If the old guard of the religious right demands the spotlight, the MSM will be more than glad to grant it to them, and the new Christian values coalition will head back down the old sawdust trail.

--James Jewell

What About Freedom?

I noticed a post on a website called Dolphin while surfing the Blog Explosion earlier this week, and since I had to actually work on something then that I could bill my time for, I promised him I would respond this week. So here we go.



Dolphin, you showed in your post that you don’t know squat about evangelicals. But that’s OK. The reason you don’t is because you’ve made the mistake of listening only to the most vocal leaders of the religious right. You quote Pat Robertson in your piece. To assume that Pat Robertson speaks for the broad coalition of what is already being called “values voters” makes as much sense as conservatives quoting Michael Moore as the representative of the Democratic Party. They represent the extremes and crystallizing our impressions around their positions does nothing constructive.



I contend in another post today that the new values coalition is much broader than the white evangelicals of the old Moral Majority (which I sense you are too young to remember). And last Friday, Nov. 5, I explored what it is that the broader evangelical community may want from the Administration. These pieces will give you a more complete view of evangelical Christians.



Conservative Judges

Cultural conservatives will indeed argue for judges who are strict constructionists. It’s not likely that Roe v. Wade will ever be overturned, but the entire judiciary has drifted to activism that is not healthy for our republic, so putting more conservatives on the bench is a worthwhile goal, in my view.



No Homosexual Marriage

There aren’t many evangelicals that really want to think about what you do in your bedroom, straight or gay, not to mention restrict your freedom to engage in whatever consensual activity you wish. Have at it; it’s your body and your soul.



There is a range of opinion in the evangelical community and among cultural conservatives—and certainly in the larger coalition of values voters—on what rights and benefits should be provided to homosexuals in committed relationships. And that is where the homosexual community and those who took up their cause made such a grievous tactical error. Done gradually, homosexual couples would have eventually received all of the important benefits, such as insurance coverage, afforded married couples. There would be continuing opposition among the most conservative groups, but they would be on the losing side.



Through either stupidity or arrogance, those pushing what evangelicals call the “gay agenda” instead went for broke in Massachusetts, and then San Francisco, and New York, and on and on. By threatening the definition and what Christians believe is the sanctity of what Western Civilization has called marriage for 4,000 years, the liberals pushed a dangerous button. The values voters said “no” in a big way. Gay marriage is dead in America for our lifetime, at least. It’s a non-starter.



How did restricting the right to gay marriage make me feel any better? You have to look at an issue such as the institution of marriage outside the realm of personal rights or freedoms. Societal institutions are important glue to maintaining civilization, as we know it. Preserving marriage as marriage does keep a piece of the foundation in place. Doesn’t help my marriage—my wife and I have the challenge of keeping it together. But I believe it is one of the pillars of our society.



The homosexuals will have to come up with something new. God gave this one to the men and women.



Stop Abortion

Many people believe that aborting a fetus is murder. Strip away all of the extra rhetoric and the argument comes down to your answer to the question of whether ending the life of a fetus is murder or tissue removal.



Those who believe that an abortion is an act of murder are committed to doing what they can to restrict the freedom to murder. If you don’t believe that abortion is murder, you will never understand why the pro-life people so passionately want to take away your freedom to do so.



Dolphin, I don’t really think you’re in a freedom deficit. You’re just whining! That’s the way I see it.

--James Jewell

A Veteran of the Greatest Generation

Veteran’s Day 2004

When I think of veterans on their day I picture proud but bowed men now in their seventies and eighties speaking hesitantly about their service a lifetime ago in the killing fields of Europe and Asia. We owe our nation to them, because of their moral strength, their youthful sacrifices, and their country-building ethic.



There has been much courage and dreadful sacrifice by veterans in the intervening years, but for me Veteran’s Day 2004 is a memorial for my favorite veteran, my father, who left us in January of this year at the age of 79.



“They were better than we are,” said the commentator, probably Tom Brokaw, about the generation that saved the world from the last century’s Axis of Evil. The stark statement is true, we know. My father, Harry Jewell, was better than I am, I know.



Dad was a member of what they’re calling The Greatest Generation. He served his country mostly in Italy during World War II, and he was a hero of the American variety—putting his life on the line to save the world, and spending his life to serve his family, assuring their well-being in so many ways.



Dad told very few stories of the War, like most of his comrades in arms who saw their service as opportunities for duty, not celebrity; and didn’t relish the ugly memories. But from time to time we’d pull out a remarkable tale. Such as the time he was racing his jeep across an open field, with German artillery following him, but missing by just a few paces each time. Or the time he and others stepped inside a building, and their friend was obliterated by a shell on the front step. Death was always so close.



A sense of purpose prevailed and soldiers like Dad never asked why. Evil is evil, but men like Dad didn’t have any trouble recognizing it, as many seem to today.



A man of deep faith, my Dad demonstrated his peace with God in his final days and his homegoing. In life and at death he was an example to all of us.



Thank you veterans then and now. And thanks Dad. I miss you.

--James Jewell

The Dearth of Judicial Purity

One of the consequences of a toxic political environment is that there is little integrity in political rhetoric. Not to say there isn’t integrity in individuals (a different discussion), just not in the discussion and application of political philosophy.



One of the joys of a post-election honeymoon is that for a season people drop their guard and tell the truth. But after what is likely to be the shortest post-election honeymoon in history, there is already an eruption of disingenuous debate about the nomination of a new chief justice and, over four years, additional justices. (Of course, Rehnquist may rally and the others granted additional stamina, making all of this theoretical).



There are few purists when it comes to jurists, and none of them would be candidates for legislative confirmation. Over time, the acceptable range of judicial philosophy has included both strict and broad constructionists and varied degrees of recognition of social dynamism or change.



There is no successful strict constructionist who would say that slavery should have been continued because it was implied in the original Constitution; few would call for the vote to be taken from women because the Constitution didn’t grant it. On the other hand, civil libertarians become Constitutional purists when there is an attempt to restrict pornography or to avoid same-sex marriage.



(This just in: President Bush has launched an internal review of the pros and cons of nominating Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as the chief justice if ailing William Rehnquist retires, the Drudge Reported claimed. A top White House source familiar with Bush’s thinking explains the review of Thomas as chief justice is one of several options currently under serious consideration. But Thomas is Bush’s personal favorite to take the position. What an interesting trial balloon.)



Pure judicial philosophy is rare in modern society. If (in theory) abortion had been prescribed by the Constitution, those of us who are pro-life would be looking for the same judicial and legislative activism that outlawed slavery. But the right to an abortion was created out of whole cloth by an activist court; so the pro-life movement needs a pride of conservative tigers on the bench.



The courts have been drifting dramatically left in recent years and legislating from the bench has been commonplace. The need for a return to restraint is seen in many areas where activists have established laws and rights with only incidental reference to the Constitution. (Judge Bork on Hannity Monday night pointed out that in modern history there isn’t an example of a Supreme Court justice drifting right, but many examples of leftward drift).



A court with more strict constructionists may or may not result in the reversing of Roe v. Wade. Nonetheless, preserving the authority of the Constitution and the intent of the founders is important. Strong constitutions are essential in the origin and health of nations.



There shouldn’t be a topical litmus test of any kind. Judges should be chosen for legal competence, integrity, and reasoned judicial philosophy. Not for what their philosophy may lead to in the way of social change. But, of course, that would have real integrity.

--James Jewell

The Supreme Court and a Second Term President

In 1936, Franklin Roosevelt won a second of four elections as President by 10 million votes, and while he certainly enjoyed what today we would call a mandate, he had problems with the justices of the Supreme Court, most of whom had been appointed by Republican Presidents. The Court's opposition to some of his proposed New Deal legislation upset Roosevelt, who resented the fact that they could veto legislation that clearly had the support of the vast majority of the public.



Roosevelt suggested that their age was a major problem, as six of the judges were over 70. He announced that he was going to ask Congress to pass a bill enabling the president to expand the Supreme Court by adding one new judge, up to a maximum off six, for every current judge over the age of 70. Washington called it “packing the court.” Talk about second term hubris!



In a radio speech on March 9, 1937, Roosevelt said:



“If by that phrase "packing the Court" it is charged that I wish to place on the bench spineless puppets who would disregard the law and would decide specific cases as I wished them to be decided, I make this answer: that no president fit for his office would appoint, and no Senate of honorable men fit for their office would confirm, that kind of appointees to the Supreme Court.



But if by that phrase the charge is made that I would appoint and the Senate would confirm justices worthy to sit beside present members of the Court, who understand modern conditions, that I will appoint justices who will not undertake to override the judgment of the Congress on legislative policy, that I will appoint justices who will act as justices and not as legislators - if the appointment of such justices can be called "packing the Courts," then I say that I and with me the vast majority of the American people favor doing just that thing - now.”



Notice that Roosevelt’s strategy is to imply that the justices on this conservative court are legislating, not interpreting the Constitution. That sounds familiar.



While the legislation didn’t make it through Congress, Roosevelt got what he wanted. One justice announced that he had changed his mind about voting against minimum wage legislation. Chief Justice CharlesHughes also reversed his opinion on the Social Security Act and the National Labor Relations Act and by a 5-4 vote they were now declared to be constitutional. Then Willis Van Devanter, probably the most conservative of the justices, announced his intention to resign. He was replaced by Hugo Black, a Democrat and a strong supporter of the New Deal.



The Court caved. Roosevelt had the satisfaction of knowing he had a Supreme Court that was now less likely to block his legislation.



Check out a line from Roosevelt’s 1937 speech:



“I hope that you have re-read the Constitution of the United States in these past few weeks. Like the Bible, it ought to be read again and again.”



The Bible! Today, the ACLU would be up in arms.

--James Jewell

The Kingdom of God Does Not Arrive on Air Force One

During the Reagan years, when Christian conservatives first were experiencing a modicum of political power, former Nixon aide and evangelical powerhouse Charles Colson warned famously: “The Kingdom of God does not arrive on Air Force One,” and cautioned that politicians play religious leaders like a fiddle (as he did when he was twisting arms for President Nixon).



How is 2004 different than the 1980s? Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative public interest law firm in Washington, D.C., speaking about religious conservatives, said in the Nov. 5 Newsday: "This is not the same movement that we saw in the 1980s. This is a religious resurgence, and also a retooling. This is a much more diverse group of people, united across a broad range of issues."



This comparison is worth exploring more completely another day.



Now, How Will Bush Govern?

Kim Lawton of PBS’ Religion and Ethics Newsweekly asked Joe Loconte of the Heritage Foundation about pressures by the evangelicals on President Bush. Loconte said:



“Surprisingly, I think we are going to see President Bush govern more like a principled pragmatist than many of his critics are right now assuming. They are assuming that he owes his great debt to his religious, conservative base on certain issues and that he is going to push the cultural agenda forward. But I don't think that's really Bush's governing style, 'cause he has shown real restraint on some of these cultural issues, these hot button cultural issues -- stem cell research, for example. He was only kind of pulled into the gay marriage debate, somewhat unwillingly. So I think there is going to be much more of a kind of a principled pragmatism to deal with these issues in the next months and years.



[The evangelicals] are certainly going to want to see the president hold the line on embryonic stem cell research -- no federal funding for that. Bush has said plainly in the debates, he's against federal funding for abortion -- he'll hold the line on that. Let's take Supreme Court judges, where the cultural issues tend to bubble up so much. Bush's line here has been that he wants judges who will -- who know the difference between their own opinions and settled constitutional law. So I don't think that Bush is going to bring before the court, for example, a judge who would overturn ROE V. WADE. And Bush himself has said he doesn't think the country is ready for that. So, certainly, Bush is going to hold the line on some of these issues, but I think be very, very cautious about trying to push the cultural agenda much further than where a general consensus of the country is.”



Pro-Bush Writer Finds Herself in Minority

Humorist Judy Gruen tells. Religion News Service: As a journalist and religious Jew, I am not threatened by the basic Christian values of America and of President Bush. I am more threatened by the moral relativism of the left, where third-trimester abortions are coyly framed only as a woman's "right to choose," and those who fight to preserve the institution of marriage are called bigots. Most likely, I'll remain a minority among journalists for my conservative views. But I hope that in the next four years, the good effects that I expect from President Bush's policies for the entire country will at least make me seem less strange to my colleagues on the left.



Gruen provides interesting perspective on the rough and tumble presidential contest:



“Let’s face it: the presidential election season was rife with accusations of war-mongering, bitter party divisiveness, media bias, fears of election fraud, worries about a tie in the electoral college, and even disputes about how to handle relations with France. All this is true . . . of the presidential election of 1800. In reading David McCullough’s fantastic biography, John Adams, I have been struck by how much history from the earliest years of our nationhood mirrors our own, but in far more extreme measures. In fact, the poisonous atmosphere surrounding the presidential election of 1800 makes what we have seen in the current election seem like a game a whiffle ball. Back in 1800, many Americans worried that the country might not even survive such a bitter election. And yet it did, despite the election ending up a tie in the electoral college, with Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr receiving an equal number of votes. Jefferson became president when the vote was sent to the House of Representatives.”



Presidential Faith and Fortitude

This from Rebecca Hagelin at Heritage:



"'Life is bigger than politics.' This is an astounding statement from a political figure who has been twice elected as the most powerful man in the world. But it is precisely because the American people know that George Bush understands what is of value that they have given him a mandate and the privilege of power. America knows that for George Bush, being president isn't about politics … it's about life itself.



Of course, the faith and fortitude that has come to characterize George Bush was most vividly evident in the days immediately after 9-11. The world saw a president who was calm, determined, resolved and absolutely committed to fighting evil. And the same demeanor has been continuously evident ever since through all the difficult and gut-wrenching days of war and criticism.George Bush is not the world's best debater or smoothest talker. We all love a great speech, a witty debate, a clever comeback. But what we desire – what we need in this age of uncertainty – is a leader who lives his faith, adheres to core principles and remains steadfast in the face of adversity.”

--James Jewell

What Do The Evangelicals Want?

To the dismay of the secular left and the surprise of even many conservative Christians, the evangelicals appear to have been the cavalry in George Bush’s charge to victory. It was the MSM that first reported this and it has been the most prominent point in post-election analysis.

The next question being asked is “What will the evangelicals expect from the President?”



At the President’s first post-election press conference, he was asked how in choosing the next Supreme Court justice he would balance the pressure from evangelicals and his stated desire to reduce the nation's partisan tensions. He said only that there is no current vacancy.



Michael Cromartie, director of the Evangelicals in Civic Life project at the Washington-based Ethics and Public Policy Center, said evangelicals may not win every political battle ahead, but there is no question they will loom large in the Republican Party for years to come. "They're not taking over the party," he said, "but they are major players in the party. They're major players at the table of Republican discourse."



But just what is it evangelicals want? What will evangelicals request of a President who was re-elected because they worked so hard for it?



A few thoughts here. First, it is interesting to observe the MSM now calling the group “evangelicals,” not the Christian right, or religious right, or fundamentalist fringe. That’s a new thing.



Second, it is more complicated than some may think to answer the question of evangelical desires, because evangelicals are not a monolithic group, any more than Catholics or union members, or Hispanics. On many issues of economic policy or foreign policy evangelicals have many views. In fact, the group can’t agree on many theological issues—its made up of the dispensationalists and the charismatics, the Wesleyans and the Calvinists, the fundamentalists and the grace movement. They say if you have two Baptists in the room there are three opinions.



But there are some actions that a large majority of evangelicals would want from President Bush in his second term. Here’s what I believe are the 10 things evangelicals want from the President:



1. Conservative Supreme Court Justices. Evangelicals believe that many of their set-backs are the result of an activist judiciary. This isn’t just about Roe v. Wade. We agree with Bush’s statement at his press conference that he should choose justices who know "the difference between personal opinion and the strict interpretation of the law."



2. Constitutional Amendment on Marriage: Although evangelicals have varied opinions on what recognition and benefits should be provided to gay unions, most believe that the Federal Marriage Amendment is necessary because the courts still pose a danger to definition of marriage. Evangelicals believe the only way we are going to settle it once and for all is by an amendment to the Constitution.



3. Compassionate Conservatism: Encourage American citizens to care for the poor and give a lift to those who are struggling to make it. Without increasing the role of government, advance the efforts of the church-based and non-profit sectors, of volunteerism, and the efforts of what the first President Bush called “points of light.”



4. Security for America and Western Civilization: Strengthen America in the War on Terrorism and also in the clash of civilizations against radical Islam. Evangelicals recognize and can say what the Administration has had to be more diplomatic about—this battle against terrorism is largely against Islamic extremists who are seeking to dominant the world.



5. Religious Freedom Around the World: Defend the persecuted Church and others of faith around the world, and drive for religious freedom as a part of emerging democracies, even in the Muslim world and in China.



6. Religious Influence at Home: Defend the right of people of faith in this country to be part of the free exchange of ideas, to include religious thought in the public square. Evangelicals want a level playing field in our own country, with no preference given to secular thought or even Islam.



7. Personal Moral Leadership: Evangelicals expect the President and his Administration to demonstrate personal morality. While recognizing that the President is not minister-in-chief, when morality is modeled in the Oval Office, it is more widely honored throughout the country.



8. Sanctity of Life: Apart from the question of the Supreme Court, evangelicals want the President to do what he can to preserve the sanctity of life by resisting the encroachment of abortion, euthanasia, cloning, and embryonic stem cell research.



9. Promote Character: Use the “bully pulpit” to speak out against real racism, to call for personal responsibility, to call for people to grasp opportunity and take initiative, and to argue against the victimization mindset. Evangelicals believe in hard work, taking responsibility, and accepting the consequences of bad decisions.



10. Human Rights: Emphasize in foreign policy the protection of human rights, whether it's stopping sex-trafficking, slavery and genocide in Sudan, the spread of AIDS in Africa, or the remaining human rights abuses in China.



Congratulations, Mr. President. There’s the list. It’s what the evangelicals waited in line for on election day. Now you know.

--James Jewell

Thank You, Mayor Newsom

One question that I’ve heard this week is “who was most responsible for Bush’s re-election.” In addition to the President himself, there are several candidates,—Karl Rove is one that comes to mind. But the leading candidate may be San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.



Back in March 2004, Mat Staver, president of Liberty Counsel, the law firm that filed suit against Newsom and other public figures that were playing fast and loose with the gay marriage issue, wrote:



“My hat’s off to Mayor Newsome for waking up the rest of the sleeping Americans who were fooled into thinking that the same-sex marriage movement was about tolerance and equality. It’s not, and it never has been. Mayor Newsome has clarified what the movement is all about. His message is loud and clear. America has heard and they will respond.”



Respond they did. Now, the Democrats are suggesting that the San Francisco action had its toll. "I believe it did energize a very conservative vote," Senator Dianne Feinstein, a fellow Democrat and Newsom supporter said of the same-sex marriages in San Francisco. "I think it gave them a position to rally around. I'm not casting a value judgment. I'm just saying I do believe that's what happened."



On the other hand, there are a lot of candidates in naming the one who most energized the conservative base. Michael Moore and Whoopi Goldberg also come to mind.

--James Jewell

Simply Picking a Good Man

Those who spend their time obsessing on politics and the intricacies of governing forget that most people in the country are living their lives, raising their kids, finding good entertainment, going to church, walking the dog, and shopping at Walmart. As we expect a politicized America, what we find mostly is America doing other things and paying attention to politics when they have to.



With this as a premise, I found the most compelling reason that George Bush won re-election so handily in a New York Times article yesterday titled War? Jobs? No, Character Counted Most to Voters.



"The first thing that drew me to Bush was his morals and his character," said Nancy Wallace, 44, a homemaker here in this tidy suburb of Columbus.



Mrs. Wallace grew up in a family of Democratic union members and coal miners but abandoned the Democrats two decades ago, or, as she put it, they abandoned her. She voted for Mr. Bush in 2000, she said, and never wavered in her support in the dark days that followed: Sept. 11, a recession that hit Ohio especially hard, the war in Iraq.



"There was never really a choice for us," Mrs. Wallace said. "And I'm speaking not only for me but for my husband and neighbors. He's just an honest, hard-working, good man who had a tragedy to deal with and I think he did a great job."



Many of those who voted for Mr. Bush said they often disagreed with his actions. Some opposed the war in Iraq, disapproved of his handling of the economy, differed on stem-cell research or abortion. Several said they feared he would appoint Supreme Court justices who are too far to the right.



But even when they disagreed with Mr. Bush, they said, they admired his resolution, a trait Mr. Kerry portrayed as stubbornness.



"Bush doesn't let polls influence him," said Sandy Johnson, 45, who had just finished listening to Mr. Bush's victory speech on the radio in her home office in Carver County, Minn., which went overwhelmingly for Mr. Bush. "Even when he makes decisions that may not be popular, even on security, he does it in the best interest of the country and he does what he thinks is right. So in a way, all of that comes down to integrity."



Ms. Johnson said she grew tired of the accusations that Mr. Kerry had "flip-flopped." Still, she said, "I came away from this thinking that Kerry lacked integrity. I wasn't sure what he believed. He needs to be everything to everybody around the world. You cannot say that about Bush, even if you don't agree with him."



She described an American cultural divide in a deeply personal way.



"I have been made to feel by the liberal people that my faith makes me weird," Ms. Johnson said. "I don't wear my religion on my sleeve either; I'm quiet about it. But I firmly believe that my country was founded on faith, and when I saw the popular vote this time, it made me feel like I'm not such an outsider, that there are others like me, and a lot of them."

--James Jewell