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Apologies for the lack of a post yesterday - blame AT&T who, in an effort to “upgrade” my Internet connection, simply took it away. Four hours, some of the very wee small ones, out of 24 without such service were devoted to being on the telephone with “tech support.” The last hour of this marathon of a support call(s), was a conference call with 4 individuals inside different AT&T departments - removing forever the impression that the United States federal government is the most convoluted bureaucracy in existence. But in the end connectivity was restored and here we are.

Obama, McCain and The Faith Vote . . .

OnTuesday Obama gave his own faith-based pitch. Tom Bevan has about the best reaction summary in a general political sense. There are some reactions worthy of special note.

Pat Buchanan, really responding to the Dobson/Obama dust-up of last week, comes dangerously close to saying “Obama is not Christian.” More on Buchanan in a minute. But Cal Thomas does not mince words:

Obama can call himself anything he likes, but there is a clear requirement for one to qualify as a Christian and Obama doesn’t meet that requirement.

This is turning into familiar territory, is it not? Clearly Obama’s view of the Christian faith is quite different than mine, or Thomas’, but that is simply something inappropriate to utter about anyone in a presidential campaign - it simply is not material, and it is (Lowell? You’re the lawyer, tell me if I use this word wrong) “prejudicial.” I would not vote for Obama under threat of physical harm, but I am not going to publicly declare the validity of his claimed faith - I think God can figure that out just fine without me.

But one of the more interesting response showed up on Time’s Swampland blog:

At a meeting Tuesday in Denver, about 100 conservative Christian leaders from around the country agreed to unite behind the candidacy of John McCain, a politician they have long distrusted, marking the latest in a string of movement that bodes well for McCain’s general election prospects among the Republican base.

[…]

A second person who attended the event, but asked not to be named, said that the group was motivated principally by a desire to defeat Barack Obama. “None of these people want to meet their maker knowing that they didn’t do everything they could to keep Barack Obama from being president,” the participant said. “You’ve got these two people running for president. One of them is going to become president. That’s the perspective. That that’s the whole discussion.”

That is, in my opinion the right perspective. I am no McCain lover, but he makes a lot of sense compared to the alternative, and I do not even need to comment on the alternative’s salvation status to come to that conclusion. But, the left has no governor when it comes to religion bashing.

Speaking of Buchanan…

He concludes the same piece linked above this way:

The unbridgeable divide between the two portends a troubled future. Can Americans ever come together if we are divided in our deepest beliefs about morality and truth, where one side believes gay marriage is moral progress, the other holds it a moral outrage; where one side views abortion to be a mighty advance for women’s freedom, the other sees it as legalization of mass slaughter of unborn babies?

There can be no peaceful coexistence in a cultural war because it is at root a religious war. Far into the future, Americans seem fated to face each other again and again “at some disputed barricade.” [Emphasis added.]

Fascinating analysis, also a bit nerve-wracking - religious wars tear nations apart. But I think Buchanan is right in this case. When noted and typically wise pundits like Thomas are declaring the validity of a candidate’s faith we have descended into a war of religious rhetoric and those almost always end ugly. Religion, while usually reasonable, is in the end beyond reason, and there is no rhetoric that can resolve a conflict between such things.

Thus, once again, we see there is no place for religious discussion in a presidential race. You can be motivated by your faith, but your rhetoric needs to be based somewhere else.

And Speaking of Left-Wing Religious Bigotry . . .

We have a new one for the pantheon - joining Jacob Weisberg, Ken Woodward, et. al. as purely bigoted hate screed against Mormons. This one by Chris Kelly at HuffPo discussing Romney as a Veep prospect:

Another comforting thing for McCain? There hasn’t been a really serious Mormon assassination plot since Porter Rockwell shot Governor Lilburn Boggs, and that was ages ago.

That is a small example of a piece that is completely, utterly scandalous. This thing is so odious as to be beyond refute. He actually uses the example of a story from the Book of Mormon where a killing was committed and uses it as an argument that Romney would do the same.

So has George W. Bush done something like that? I mean there was that whole King David/Bathsheba’s husband thing.

I should stop, there is an old phrase that applies here, “When arguing with a fool, make sure he is not similarly occupied.”

Quick addition from Lowell: I don’t know who Chris Kelly is, or whether he has ever engaged in responsible journalism, blogging, or thinking; but he did none of those in his malicious little post. He writes like a hack. (At least Jacob Weisberg and Ken Woodward can write bigoted content well.) For example, Orrin Porter Rockwell was arrested, tried, and acquitted of the crime involving the infamous and odious Governor Boggs. Some “assassination plot.”

As for Cal Thomas, his comments remind me of the tendency left-wingers have to call conservatives with whom they disagree “fascists.” When we apply words like that to people who do not deserve them, we gut the word of meaning: When a real fascist comes along, we don’t have credibility in using the word. Thomas is doing something similar here. He claims that Obama - a man whom millions of Americans have no trouble considering a Christian - is not a real Christian. Doesn’t that weaken the meaning of the word? Obama’s version of Christianity is not mine, but I do not want to declare him outside of Christianity — perhaps because so many have tried to do that same thing to my fellow Mormons and me. Besides, as John notes, it’s irrelevant.
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Yes,  the title is a “rock musical” reference, which should tell you we are getting desperate for titles.

Good News!?

Mike Allen, Politico:

In a surprise to many Republican insiders, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is at the top of the vice presidential prospect list for John McCain.

But why is he there?

One of the chief reasons the Massachusetts governor is looking so attractive is his ability to raise huge amounts of money quickly through his former business partners and from fellow members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Mormons.

Cash is good, but will Mormons pony up down ticket like they did when competing for the top spot?  Should they?  The question directly - should they contribute simply because Romney is Mormon?  Gosh, I hope not.

Lowell chiming in:  Oh, please.  I cannot imagine that any serious, knowledgeable analyst thinks that access to Mormon money is a reason to add Romney to the ticket.  There just are not enough Mormons and of those few people, not enough of them are wealthy.  Now, if we are talking about Romney’s economic expertise or his turnaround experience, that makes more sense.

Another “leader” in the Veepstakes, Minnesota’s Tim Pawlenty talked to CBN’s David Brody:

“John McCain is a person of faith and he is a committed Christian and he is somebody that I think is probably less comfortable being overt about that than perhaps some others might be but his value system and his belief in Christ I think is something that is part of who he is as a person and I think he is somebody who would be well received by Christian leaders and Evangelical leaders and I just want to encourage the McCain campaign to make that effort and to reach out and they are but I think there are a lot of Christian leaders, evangelical leaders who haven’t yet been contacted or who haven’t been part of meetings who are feeling perhaps, are they going to reach out to me and at a minimum we want to make sure that he is speaking on issues of concern to them and I think you’ll see perhaps more of that in the summer and fall.”

Part of being Evangelical is that you are overt about your faith.  I relate to what Pawlenty is saying here.  My father was a deeply committed Christian, but he never uttered the Evangelical formulation “Jesus is my Savior” in his entire life.  Dad was raised Lutheran - it’s a thing with them.  But I am bothered, deeply bothered, by the fact that we were treated to countless calls, Brody being a primary voice among them, for Romney to “explain his faith,” and yet we are willing to let McCain be covert about his?

Lowell:  I hate to say it but that is a direct product of religious Mormon-bashing by a minority of Evangelicals who find Mormonism so upsetting that they cannot abide the idea of a Mormon present.  To my mind that is the plain, unvarnished truth.  I am hoping we we are moving beyond that, or at least listening to those folks less and less.

Obama and Evangelical “Disarray”…

Reid Wilson, RCP:

 While the Republican brand suffers and independent voters focus on issues that favor Democrats, John McCain should be able to rely on one key voting bloc that overwhelmingly favors his party: evangelicals. But Barack Obama is doing more than any Democrat in recent memory to win over religious voters and, facing an opponent in McCain who has been historically shy about his own faith, Obama could close the “faith gap” better than any Democrat come November.

Lisa Miller, Newsweek:

The leaders of the religious right don’t have great affection for John McCain. They think he’s too moderate on immigration, embryonic-stem-cell research and campaign-finance reform, and they think he doesn’t do enough to promote his pro-life positions.

That’s where they agree. But as the 2008 general election unfolds, it’s clear that their movement is in disarray—in a transitional period that could diminish its influence this cycle. For decades, right-wing kingmakers used their sway with voters to pick candidates and set a national agenda at the polls and in the courts. But McCain’s candidacy has tamped down their enthusiasm, exposing fractures that make a rallying of the troops in the pews unlikely.

OK, lets separate the facts from the wishful thinking here.   Energy from the religious right, heck the right in general, is at a low ebb right now, agreed.  They did not get who they wanted in the primary, but come on let’s be real - that group of people is going to vote for Obama?  I don’t think so.  (The staff at RCP’s VP Watch blog, commenting on the Pawlenty interview above, seem to agree.) They might sit it out, but the more Obama stands far enough to the left to make John McCain look like the second coming of Ronald Reagan, the more energized that group is going to become.

What Obama IS doing in energizing the religious left.  They were always there, but they have been the ones sitting quietly until recently.   Maybe even registering as Republicans because they did not want to stick out too much.There is no “disarray” inside Evangelicalism, there is simply a debate between left and right that has been nascent until this cycle.  There is competition for political space inside Evangelicalism, which there has not been for a couple of decades, but that is very different than “disarray.”

Of course, the Old Gray Lady would have us think that Obama is going to shift the entire religio-politcal landscape.  What’s really funny about that is that even if the landscape does shift, it will not be Obama’s doing.  He might catch the train, but that baby was in motion long before he came along.

One thing I know with certainty.  This is not going to play out like any of these pundits expect.

Lowell:  What happened in 2008, among other things, was that Evangelicals forgot how to be in a coalition and ended up nominating McCain.  Now many of that movement are unhappy.  That is not necessarily a permanent situation.  The MSM glee over religious conservatives being in disarray really does seem to be wishful thinking, or at best premature.

Dobson and Obama - Who Started It?

Collin Hansen In Chistianity Today regarding last week’s dust-up between Obama and James Dobson:

Politicians understandably fear to tread where theologians rule, the field of hermeneutics. Here theologians debate how to interpret the Bible and apply it across time and culture. In his 2006 speech Obama made a hermeneutical point when he doubted that the U.S. Defense Department could survive application of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. If we knew what was in there, Obama implied, we wouldn’t find it such a simple thing to say our politics were based on Scripture. “So before we get carried away, let’s read our Bibles,” Obama said. “Folks haven’t been reading their Bibles.”

[…]

Usually, politicians want no part in these theological debates. Otherwise, they would provoke Christian leaders such as Dobson to say, “He is deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology.” But Obama is no typical politician. That which makes him interesting makes him controversial.

Look, Obama did cross a hermeneutical line first, but I still don’t think Dobson should have responded as he did.  Obama’s statements simply do not pass any sort of serious test, it is blatant, even lousy, proof-texting (a phrase one uses when doing hermeneutics to mean “taking a verse out of context to support a point I want to make,” as opposed to letting the Bible tell me what to think).  In my opinion, so much so that res ispa loquitur (the thing speaks for itself) should apply.

By picking up the hermeneutics ball, as it were, what Dobson did was invite continued debate along those lines.   That is NOT a debate we want to have in the political arena.  Unlike Obama, there are any number of left-wing theologians out there whose arguments and not quite so self-negating.  All it would do is confuse things.

As we found out last week from the Pew Forum, most people like their faith a mile wide and an inch deep.   A theology debate in the public square is just going to drive them away in droves, and they are likely to side with the guy that “feels” right.  Right now, Obama has got it all over us on the “feeling” thing. Capice?
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The New Nixon Blog is pretty doggone good.  Friday David R. Stokes wrote about parallels between Obama and Jimmy Carter when it comes to Evangelicals.

But quoting stuff out of context is commonplace among politicians and spin-doctors.

Why is this kind of thing effective with people who should know better – those who profess to believe the Bible and follow Jesus? Well, the sad fact is that we are dealing with an often underestimated and ignorant illiteracy in many evangelical circles today. As more and more people find theology and doctrine dry and irrelevant, and matters of the soul, eternal life, and moral imperatives not nearly as important as SOCIAL ACTION, the situation is ripe to be exploited by someone with a message that sounds right.

Now, on the one hand, I agree with that analysis, but it really should not be pertinent to a presidential race.  See here is the thing - the best response to that would be for the average Evangelical to study theology more.  But what we saw in the primary was that more theologically astute Evangelicals drove out the candidate that was most likely to represent their theological views?  Or did they?  It could also be argued that if they truly understood their theology, as opposed to simply wore a tribal label, they might have understood that it would be fine to vote for someone from another “tribe.”  However, to make that case, I would have to get much deeper into the theology than our self-imposed rules allow on this blog.

The problem is really, that we were treated throughout the primary to legitimate theologian after legitimate theologian making sure, in some cases to define the distinctives, before declaring support, we understood, in excruciating, detail the difference between LDS and more orthodox Christianity.  We had debates over the word “cult” and the word “Christian.”  Yes, with the possible exception of Joel Belz in World Magazine, the real bigotry came from the left,  but the in-depth analysis came from the right.  Analysis that while generally true, was not useful.

Many will remember the cartoon I have here at the left - It’s an old Far Side.  The dog does not hear most of what it is being told.  If Stokes is right, and he probably is, then all that came from all that theological hair-splitting, all most people heard, was “Not one of us - Not one of us - Not one of us.”

The great political lesson of the 2000 race was that people do not generally vote the issues, they vote identity.  But that game is not good for the nation and it is a game we really, really need to stop playing.

Maybe I will have to post that theology?

Speaking of Theologians . . .

. . . Obama apparently has one to call his very own.  As I watch my own church rip itself apart between left and right, to consider putting the force of a presidential race behind such debates is truly terrifying to me when it comes to the future of the church.  I could easily see a day where rather than trinitarian questions dividing LDS and creedals, it will be questions about global warming - and somehow in that transition, what has really suffered is the gospel of Jesus.  Think about it . . .

Speaking of Religious Divides . . .

A letter in the NYTimes:

Roger Cohen suggests that Barack Obama “should visit a mosque” to “break the monolithic, alienating view of a great world religion that is as multifaceted as Judaism or Christianity.”

How come nobody called for George W. Bush to appear at a Mormon Temple (well, outside one) to break any associated monolithic views there?  Hmmmmmm?

And, Does This Help?

Friend of this blog, Peggy Fletcher Stack, had a piece Friday in the SLTrib on former Mormon candidates for the presidency.  Interesting bit of history, but it appeared under the sub-head “LDS Quest for the White House.”  That sounds a bit ominously conspiratorial to me.  If a church, any church,  is setting policy to gain legitimacy by having one of its own in the office of POTUS - they have sacrificed some claim to being a religion and become a political party.  Given the political neutrality of the CJCLDS, I don’t think that is a problem here, and now.

Lowell:  Nope!

And McCain needs this, but:

After the meeting, Franklin Graham issued a statement praising the Arizona senator’s “personal faith and his moral clarity.”

The moral clarity seems like a good thing to say, but what about that other part, especially if say, Romney, had prevailed?

From the AP:

Leavitt, from Pompano Beach, Fla., is asking his siblings and children on the West Coast to choose family over a call from Mormon church leaders to support a November ballot initiative to define traditional marriage California’s constitution.

A letter from Thomas S. Monson, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was to be read from the pulpit in church congregations Sunday.

Since the letter began circulating on the Web last weekend, hundreds of Mormon blog posts have expressed disbelief, disappointment and outrage at the church’s decision to wade into politics.

You know what - throughout history, the church has established marriage, and in this country and some others, the government simply chose to put its imprimatur on it - because it was the very foundation of society.  This is really more about politics sticking its nose in religion’s business.  Which is why the two are never completely separable - they are both ruling institution competing for ruling space.  And given that this past week, my church made all sorts of stupid moves with regards to homosexuality, I am pleased to see the LDS stand up this way.

Lowell:  What’s interesting about the Florida story is the “hundreds of Mormon blog posts” expressing “disbelief, disappointment, and outrage.”  What?  This decision by the First Presidency to support the amendment is one of the least surprising LDS developments in the last 50 years.  The Church also endorsed the federal Constitutional amendment

In fact they are on the exact same page as Focus on the Family.   So why can Dobson agree with Monson on this and not on a candidate?

This Does Help.

Religion in a more proper political perspective.   Yes, the kind of thing discussed in this NYTimes piece can be over extended and become just another leftie-schill, but it worked here and it is worth noting.

The Vatican chimes in with some smart thinking in this realm as well.

And… some reason from WaPo o the Dobson/Obama dust-up.  But then, this blog was there first.
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Yesterday, we looked at “The Ongoing Erosion of The Religious Conservative Voter’s Voice in 2008.” We discussed conservative Evangelicals that were “shooting themselves in the foot.” Seeming, initially, to refute our claim was a post at First Things by J. Daryl Charles. In reality; however, Mr. Charles is combating the NYTimes, not us:

In this hour of “new day” presidential politicking, it is difficult to distinguish prophecy from wishful thinking, especially among those in the electronic and print media. Take, for example, the purported radical shift in alignment among religious conservatives that was reported as a cover story in the New York Times Magazine in October 2007. Under the definitive title “The Evangelical Crackup,” David D. Kirkpatrick announced that the “conservative Christian political movement” today shows signs of “coming apart beneath its leaders.” And this, we were told, when “just three years ago,” by Kirkpatrick’s reckoning, “the leaders of this movement could almost see the Promised Land.”

Lowell and I were just talking about mistakes made by Evangelical leadership (well, in Dobson’s case; I doubt Keller could lead a parade in progress), Mr. Charles is refuting a somewhat twisted narrative that is making the round concerning Evangelical shifts. The real heart of Charles’ argument is:

Conspicuously absent from Kirkpatrick’s reporting, a genre that rests on the perpetuation of false or exaggerated stereotypes, are several inconvenient facts. First, it ignores the remarkable—and seldom reported—diversity among evangelicals on matters social and political. Those of us who teach at the university level cannot help but be impressed by the current generation of young evangelicals, who possess a remarkably sensitized social conscience that is far more diversified and progressive than evangelicals of a previous generation. This development, it needs reiteration, has been measurable since the 1980s and is both heartening and to be encouraged. To describe this as a “recent” phenomenon or a “desertion” of traditional priorities or a major leftward political shift, as Kirkpatrick does, is pure fiction. Kirkpatrick need only consult a recent Pew study that reports “a small increase in the number of Democrats” that is coupled with an increase in the number of “independents and politically unaffiliated Americans.”

I think what is going on may be a bit more complicated. “Evangelical” was originally a theological term describing a particular approach to Protestant Christianity. The press really did pick it up to mean something along the lines of “Idiot redneck believers too stupid to understand things so they vote dogmatically.” There have always been liberal voices inside Evangelicalism, but they could not get press attention. Now they can — largely, it would appear to me, because the Democrats have identified religious voters as important to their efforts.

But also, missteps by conservative Evangelical leadership, like those Lowell and I discussed yesterday, have served to energize the Evangelical left. Which brings us back to identity politics. People that identify as part of your group, in this case Evangelicals, but who are told either explicitly or implicitly, that they are not “really” a part are going to get ticked off. So, in this case, when Evangelicals have allowed the press to define Evangelicals in this way, and in so doing sent either an implicit or in some cases explicit, message that you had to be conservative politically to be Evangelical, well you can count on the Evangelical left to respond - strongly.

That’s what happens when you make a theologically defined group political. United in your differences simply becomes divided. That is what is going on here.

Speaking Of The Evangelical Left . . .

. . . Their chief spokesperson, Jim Wallis, appears to have been caught in a bit of an embarrassing “flip-flop” himself.

On his blog yesterday, the liberal evangelical Jim Wallis, reacting to comments made about Barack Obama by Focus on the Family’s James Dobson and Tom Minnery, said this:

Dobson and Minnery’s language is simply inappropriate for religious leaders to use in an already divisive political campaign. We can agree or disagree on both biblical and political viewpoints, but our language should be respectful and civil, not attacking motives and beliefs.

I agree with Wallis about the need for civility and respectful language. I wonder, then, what Wallis would say about these aspersions, made by a professing Christian not long ago:

I believe that Dick Cheney is a liar; that Donald Rumsfeld is also a liar; and that George W. Bush was, and is, clueless about how to be the president of the United States. And this isn’t about being partisan… I’ve heard plenty of my Republican friends and public figures call this administration an embarrassment to the best traditions of the Republican Party and an embarrassment to the democratic (small d) tradition of the United States. They have shamed our beloved nation in the world by this war and the shameful way they have fought it. Almost 4,000 young Americans are dead because of the lies of this administration, tens of thousands more wounded and maimed for life, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis also dead, and 400 billion dollars wasted—because of their lies, incompetence, and corruption.

But I don’t favor impeachment, as some have suggested. I would wait until after the election, when they are out of office, and then I would favor investigations of the top officials of the Bush administration on official deception, war crimes, and corruption charges. And if they are found guilty of these high crimes, I believe they should spend the rest of their lives in prison - after offering their repentance to every American family who has lost a son, daughter, father, mother, brother, or sister. Deliberately lying about going to war should not be forgiven.

It turns out that these disrespectful and uncivil words, attacking motivations, came from … Jim Wallis, back in November. How terribly inconvenient for Wallis.

Says my friend and fellow-blogger Rick Moore:

A lefty is a lefty is a lefty. It really doesn’t matter what their faith, or lack thereof. They are interested only in the advancement of their political causes, and past statements cease to become “operable” the moment they are uttered.

‘Nuff Said!

Now, About McCain . . .

Says Philip Elliot on the AP:

If Christian conservatives stay on the sidelines during the fall campaign, presidential hopeful John McCain probably stays in the Senate.

Christian conservatives provided much of the on-the-ground, door-to-door activity for President Bush’s 2004 re-election in Ohio and in other swing states. Without them, the less-organized and lower-profile McCain campaign is likely to struggle to replicate Bush’s success. And so far, there’s been scant sign that the Republican nominee-in-waiting is making inroads among these fervent believers.

Not a bad analysis, and it points out the problem when you back yourself in a corner a la Dobson. Not voting for McCain is voting for Obama. With McCain we may not get what we want. With Obama, we will undoubtedly get much that we flat-out oppose. BIG difference, that. Worth thinking about, is it not?

Lowell adds: I will point to my favorite reason for not staying home and sulking on election day: The U.S. Supreme Court.

Today the Court held, in the Heller case, that the Washington, D.C. ban on handguns is unconstitutional - by a single vote, 5-4. We were one vote away from a decision that would have lasted for the rest of this Republic’s history saying that an entire city can declare itself off-limits to handguns.

One vote.

Just a few days ago in the Boumediene case, the Court held, 5-4, that enemy combatants have habeas corpus rights. We’ll be living with that decision for a long, long time. By one vote, the Court gave al-Quaeda members greater rights for crimes on the battlefield than American soldiers have.

One vote.

Back in 2000, in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, the Supreme Court decided that the Constitution gave the Scouts the right to exclude openly gay men from serving as Scoutmasters. What was the vote? Yes, 5-4 again.

One vote.

If John McCain is president, he may well appoint some Supreme Court justices of whom I will disapprove– but he has promised to appoint justices like Roberts and Alito. But if Barack Obama becomes president, we are guaranteed to have justices appointed who will vote like the four dissenting justices in Dale, or the five majority justices in Boumediene.

And they will be on the Court for decades.

So if you are sitting at home, upset that John McCain was rough on Mitt Romney, or unhappy that he does not respect Evangelicals; and you’re thinking that you’ll sit this election out, so that in 2012 a conservative can rise up like Ronald Reagan did; ask yourself: Even if you are right and history does repeat itself that way, how long will it take to undo the damage? Obama’s appointees will be on the Supreme Court until long after “the next Ronald Reagan” has left office.

Don’t shoot yourself in the foot. Vote for a candidate who can win and who will appoint justices who won’t damage the Constitution.
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That title may seem a bit overblown, but I really think this is a significant year in the history of religion in public life.

Consider this: It has not been a great year for James Dobson. Now he has picked a fight with Barack Obama over a speech Obama gave in 2006, says the Associated Press. The debate’s focus is on Obama’s understanding of the Bible. Dobson thinks Obama employs a “fruitcake” interpretation, Obama is essentially dismissing Dobson - directly.

To my Obama-opposing, Republican, non-Evangelical eye it looks like Obama is getting the better of Dobson in this one. You need to read the whole AP piece, but note this bit of backlash Dobson has provoked:

The Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, a Methodist pastor from Texas and longtime supporter of President Bush who has endorsed Obama, said Tuesday he belongs to a group of religious leaders who, working independently of Obama’s campaign, launched a Web site to counter Dobson . . . . The site highlights statements from Obama and Dobson and asks visitors to compare them.

So now there’s evidence of squabbling within religious creedal Christians, provoked by Dobson’s apparent over-the-top efforts to stay relevant.

In response, Tom Minnery, a Focus on the Family spokesman made this thoroughly fascinating statement:

Without question, Dr. Dobson is speaking for millions of evangelicals because his understanding of the Bible is thoroughly evangelical.

It seems to me that by that utterance Mr. Minnery has helped marginalize Dobson and his worldview as the “Evangelical” view. How does that help anyone, other than Obama? Ironically, by trying to stay relevant, Dobson seems to be slipping closer and closer to irrelevancy.

U.S. News summarizes pretty well where we are:

Anybody who thought faith and the values voters wouldn’t play a big role in the next presidential election might be having second thoughts by now. In the primaries alone, we saw a Baptist minister come out of nowhere to make a surprisingly strong showing, while a highly accomplished candidate and presumptive front-runner unexpectedly went down in flames, possibly in part because of his Mormon faith. Assorted “pastor eruptions” nearly derailed a Democratic candidate who had seemed eloquently at ease with his faith. And the Republicans ended up choosing a candidate who appeared to have difficulty even explaining what his religion was.

Yet while it’s clearly a force, religion appears to be a more complicated variable than it was when evangelicals and other conservative Christians lined up behind George W. Bush in 2000 and even more solidly in 2004. . . .

Read the whole thing.  It’s unremarkable, but worthwhile.

John comments: U.S. Snooze (sorry Rush) seems a bit oxymoronic to me. If indeed religion as a political force is fracturing, and I think it is, then those very fractures will reduce its political relevance.

Sadly the political battles are drawing lines inside the churches. Check the news from the current General Assembly of the PC(USA) or the forthcoming Anglican Lambeth Conference, and you can watch churches fracture as well as political alliances.

When political stances become religious ones and religious identity becomes based on those stances, these sorts of fractures become inevitable. There is a difference between stating that “My faith causes me to believe abortion is wrong, and I should fight it in the political arena,” and “If you believe in abortion you cannot be a Christian.”

Bill Keller Watch

Meanwhile, the attention-addicted nutty pastor from Florida is in a bit of trouble. Blogger David Bernstein at The Phoenix observes:

Since last year, the Christian right has been talking about challenging [IRS rules against partisan political advocacy] in ‘08. But their carefully laid plan of attack has been snarled by the wonderfully loopy Bill Keller — “world leading Internet evangelist.” Keller has insulted many famous people, from Oprah to Obama, but he is most famous for his classic line: “A vote for Romney is a vote for Satan.”

The IRS is now investigating whether that statement pushed Keller over the line, and outside the rules for tax exemption. Keller argues that he was merely making a religious statement about the tenets of Christianity vs. Mormonism. But it sure sounds like a political statement against voting for a specific candidate. Where’s the line? And what about Keller’s more recent assertion that Barack Obama is an “enemy of God,” complete with Biblical explanation for his use of the phrase?

That’s two very different religious leaders (Dobson and Keller)  shooting themselves (and their supporters) in the foot.

John chimes in: I am not so quick to group Dobson and Keller. Keller is a numbskull, media whore with a penchant for the idiotic. Dobson is a different story altogether. though I agree he is shooting himself in the foot right now. Sitting one out is no way to build political authority.

Dobson simply trapped himself. Sources tell me that he wanted to back Romney, but felt that to overtly do so would simply cause his constituency to back away. His strategy, apparently was to back his constituency into Romney by bad-mouthing Rudy and McCain. Remember all those antics back when, the Colorado Springs meetings, the declarations of a possible third party, etc? Unfortunately, the Huckster stuck his attention seeking face up and what that strategy did was drive Dobson’s group to Huck not Mitt. Rudy stumbles, McCain drives through the gap - here we are.

Now, Dobson finds himself without having someone to vote for - having denounced McCain so badly in the primary. He knows McCain is far preferable to Obama, but he already swore he would never vote for McCain. He has nothing left but to attack Obama. And then he gets ham-fisted about that. Dobson is mistake prone, but he is trying to make lemonade out of lemons.

The lesson learned here is it is better to build than to tear down. If Dobson had taken the risk he should have, this would be a different world. He may have believed, as he said, Evangelicals would never vote for a Mormon, but his failure in leadership when confronted with that fact, his attempts to get too tricky, have dug him in a very deep hole. In the end, all he will have accomplished here is to hold his audience, he will not have expanded it, and he will not have moved closer to his political goals. It’s a shame.
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