That’s what I’d like to know, because we all know if this were a Republican speaking to a group at a Catholic mass or a Southern Baptist church with all white people the lunatic left would be screaming for blood. Isn’t it strange how Democrats don’t have to follow the same laws?

LOS ANGELES — Former President Clinton struck a conciliatory tone with black parishioners Sunday, noting the historic nature of the Democratic presidential race in which his wife is a leading candidate and not once mentioning her rival by name. Clinton’s back-to-back appearances at four churches in this city’s historically black heartland appeared intended to smooth over perceptions that he injected race into the campaign in the heated run-up to the Democratic primary in South Carolina.

The State

Well it looks like the attacks on Huckabee keep coming. Huckabee is reported as saying:

“Don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?”

We will have to wait until Sunday to read the article in the New York Times Magazine. As a side note I can not help but notice this AP story was released 5 days ahead of the actual article.

When it comes to faith I believe that none of us truly know what is in another man’s heart. Every Presidential hopeful should head this advice.

Televangelist Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition, endorsed Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani on Wednesday.”It is my pleasure to announce my support for America’s Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, a proven leader who is not afraid of what lies ahead and who will cast a hopeful vision for all Americans,” Robertson said during a news conference with Giuliani in Washington.

My Way News

So people have asked about the endorsements. First of all, the Brownback endorsement is not that big of a deal because I don’t think he may have all that much sway despite how much he is admired by the “Religious Right.” The big one is Pat Robertson’s endorsement of Rudy Giuliani. Based on his words, I get the impression his endorsement comes out of fear of radical Islam spreading throughout the globe and Giuliani has a renowned reputation for being tough on crime. That’s my opinion, who knows. Whether or not this will help Giuliani remains to be seen. As I’ve said before, Rudy isn’t my ideal choice, but I have no issue with him really and will certainly support him as the Republican nominee if he gets it.

Nice sticker placement.

[This has nothing to do with politics so all junkies can quit reading here]
But I just used antidisestablishmentarianism in a blog post.

So I just was flipping through the channels and came upon Al Sharpton vs. Christopher Hitchens on Hardball debating religion. Al Sharpton was the voice of rationality and Christopher Hitchens was on this tirade about how “religions rots everything.”

It was one of the most amazing displays I have ever seen as Hitchens basically looses it and goes off on how everything American society has been destroyed by religion, how religous people are deluded and dangerous, and how the atheists have the keys to America’s future. Sharpton then goes on to point by point eviscerate Hitchens.

I stood there verbally rooting for Al Sharpton and then stepped back and realized I stepped into some twisted alternate reality. Wow.

It is hard to read a lot of inside the beltway chatter without coming across the “new” conventional wisdom. The Republican Party’s domination of religious Americans is waning, evangelicals are now growing concerned with “social justice” and “environmental” issues as much as the life issue. The nascent premise being promulgated by many left of center Catholic, Protestant, and secular thinkers is that the social issues are in some way illegitimate “divider” issues but that issues of social justice and helping the poor are a moral imperative for Christians.

They are right on both counts, but in ways they probably don’t expect. Of course hot button issues like abortion divide people, but just because they divide people doesn’t mean they aren’t a moral imperative. Opposition to abortion has been a tenant of Christianity literally since the beginning. The Didache, basically the earliest Christian writing we have specifically condemns abortion. In fact, all of Christendom until the 1920s condemned all forms of birth control too (not that I am advocating for that as a government policy). So this premise that the Republicans invented this issues to win elections is farcical. There can be no doubt that it has been viewed as a moral wrong by Christians of every stripe since Christ walked the earth.

There second point is that Christians should care about poverty. They are 101% right and it is certainly true that conservatives don’t talk enough about helping the poor. The liberals then make the logical leap that caring for the poor equals big government programs, and thats where I and many other Christians jump off the bandwagon. We don’t oppose these programs out of some want to keep wealth to ourselves and keep the poor down. In fact, we as a group give much more in private charity than similarly wealthy liberal atheists. We just believe that big government programs do tremendous harm to society and have systematically made the poor worse off and destoryed the traditional institutions that used to aid them.

Sojurners and other of the progressive evangelical movement want us to move beyond abortion to social justice. I say that we should not move beyond abortion, as it is still the key human rights issue of our generation, but should talk about how our programs help the poor. As Fred Thompson recently pointed out, increased prosperity due to decreased government involvement in the economy has resulted in healthier, happier children. Prosperity is not a cure all for sure, but certainly time and time again it has proven a benefit.

Then there are stories like one back in Pittsburgh of an evangelical megachurch that has almost singlehandedly revived and entire neighborhood. Not through taxpayer dollars, but through building a true community and using that community to help their neighbors. No bureaucracy, no red tape, and yet an effect bigger than any of the proposals the “social justice” people are putting out their today.

If we want to help the poor it starts at home. Donating to charities, volunteering time, and building institutions that will help them without Big Brothers wasteful arm involved. From a government level if we want to help poverty lets start with lwoering taxes so people have more money to donate and then lets remove the red tape that 501(c)3 non-profits have to jump through. How much money do non-profits spend every year just to comply with Uncle Sam that could actually be spent feeding the hungry, or building camps for disadvantaged kids, or any number of other worthy causes that instead go to legal fees just to keep Uncle Sam from shutting the operation down.

Then lets deal with the big poverty issue of today: marriage. I am not talking about gay marriage, lets forget about that for now, but talk about regular marriage and how the public policy solutions of the 60s combined with cultural changes have destroyed the #1 anti-poverty organization there is: the nuclear family.

Now unlike the other side, I don’t think that the good brothers and sisters in Christ over at Sojurners are evil or have some grand scheme to hurt the poor. I think they genuinely want to show Christ’s love for the poor, but unfortunately have chosen methods that actually hurt the people they are trying to help. But I would love to discuss the issue rationally, instead of the current situation where opposition to big government programs gets one lableled heartless and anti-poor. We should be able to dialogue not demagogue on this issue.

Former NJ Governor Jim McGreevey to become Episcopal Priest.

Ralph Reed claims 24% of the electorate are “religous conservatives.” Reed is talking about how we didn’t lose becayse we were pro-life but because we are pro-big government.Reed is making some great points, so sad he is compromised by Abramoff.

Ryan Sager is speaking now about the concept of fusionism and how Republicans won’t win until they find the appeal to libertarians again. It seems to me these guys really don’t disagree per se.

Now the big differences come out, as Ryan Sager argues we are on the wrong side of the gay marriage issue. “The biggest civil rights issue of our day.” Reed is responding by talking about a larger agenda that will appeal to libertarians but is talking about gay marriage as the defining part of this argument.

It is interesting point that gay marriage is such a divider. I would like to see polling on how many libertarians vote actually on gay marriage and not economic issues.

I think a point could be made that the pandering of the FMA as a pure political tool is definitely a mistake (politically and morally) but is this an issue that really hurts our party?

Reed talks about the fact that it was a judicial fiat that brought marriage to the forefront. Sager responds that it still was a wedge issue, and demeanizing homosexuals to gin up more evangelical, african americans, and latinos.

One questioner brought up the latino vote and if the family issues weren’t the best way to win them over. Sager responds that libertarianism will win them over. I think this is perhaps Sagers weakest point so far. Reed is talking about the success of the GOP with hispanics in Georgia.

Sager says success was due to school choice not gay marriage or abortion.

Uh oh Terri Schiavo comes up…

Reed lays the smack pointing out that the younger cohort may be pro-gay marriage but they aren’t married yet. But his best point was that the reason we lost all the swing cohorts in 2006 was the war in Iraq and not gay marriage, which is supported strongly by the exit polls.

Reed talks about Casey, Heath Shuler, etc

Gov. Sonny Perdue broke weeks of silence on Wednesday, telling a radio audience that he doesn’t support the effort to permit grocery stores to sell beer and wine on Sundays.

…

“Think of it this way…It really helps you plan ahead for the rest of your life — buying on Saturday, rather than Sunday,” the governor said. “Time management.”

Give me a friggin’ break. I would expect this to come if we had someone like, say, Ralph Reed in office. This “time management” hogwash is his way of nicely giving Georgians who want to drink a beer on a Sunday (gasp!) the middle finger. Clearly Father Sonny thinks he, not the citizens of Georgia, knows best on such trivial matters. This is absolutely absurd. You can read my original post on the matter here.
The funny thing is, Sonny had the audacity to add this:

“Some things rise to the level of referendums — such as, I felt, the symbol, the flag that represented Georgia, which I felt rose to that level. But you can’t do government really by referendum. And so, I don’t support that, and I don’t know whether it will pass the Legislature or not, but it’ll have a pretty tough time getting the last vote….

Now I’m not going to go into Flagger mode, here, because I think the flag issue is dead and quite frankly I’m ok with that (not to mention I think it’s hilarious that our current flag is based on the first official flag of the Confederacy, as opposed to the old flag having an unofficial battle flag). But for Sonny to trot this out as an excuse not to allow a referendum on alcohol sales on Sunday is pure baloney. Sonny signed off on the Democratic legislature’s edited bill that struck the 1956 flag from the ballot completely, and made the referendum worthless by making it non-binding.

The full article is here. Hat tip to Peach Pundit.

In a move pleasing fraternity members and NFL fans all across Georgia, the Georgia Legislature is considering allowing local communities to decide for themselves whether to allow alcohol sales on Sunday.

As an undergraduate student and conservative myself, I favor this bill for practical and ideological reasons - why should the state government tell me what I can and can’t buy just because of the day of the week (especially Sunday, which is clearly religiously motivated)? And, why am I allowed to go to a restaurant, get sloshed, and then drive home but not to go to a store and buy beverages to consume safely in my home?

From Georgia’s Legislative Watch:

Local communities would be able to decide for themselves whether beer and wine sales should be allowed on Sunday. The legislation introduced on by state Sen. Seth Harp, R-Midland, sets up what is likely to be one of the hot battles under the gold dome this session. Georgia, Connecticut and Indiana are the only three states that ban the Sunday sale of all alcohol for off-premises consumption.

The Orthodox and Catholic Churches are healing old wounds, but the Episcopal Church is on the verge of splintering.

Two of the country’s largest and most historic Episcopal congregations — both in Fairfax County — will vote next week on whether to leave the U.S. church on ideological grounds and affiliate instead with a controversial Nigerian archbishop. The decision could lead to a bitter court battle and the loss of $25 million in property.

Many members of The Falls Church and Truro Church, as well as some conservative leaders around the country, hope a split will establish a legal structure that would make it easier for dozens more like-minded congregations to also depart the national denomination.

At center of the split is the continuing divide between liberal and conservative wings of the Episcopal Church.

Some conservatives in the Episcopal Church, the U.S. wing of the worldwide Anglican Communion, believe the church abandoned Scripture by installing a gay bishop in New Hampshire in 2003, among other things. Those feelings of alienation were strengthened when Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori — who supports the New Hampshire bishop — was elected this summer to lead the national church.

It goes further, The Anglican Church, the Episcopal Church’s English brother, recently backed calls to end the life of babies born with severe disabilities. This movement is already prevalent among many US doctors and is simply Eugenics under a different name. Embryonic stem cell research being another tenant of the same meme.

It is the adoption of these and other liberal doctrines that threatens all of Christendom. The Epicopal Church fracture will setup opposing extremes that are more political than Biblical.

If the votes at The Falls Church and Truro succeed, as their leaders predict, the 3,000 active members of the two churches would join a new, Fairfax-based organization that answers to Nigerian Archbishop Peter J. Akinola, leader of the 17 million-member Nigerian church and an advocate of jailing gays. The new group hopes to become a U.S.-based denomination for orthodox Episcopalians.

Akinola and the Nigerian government are wrong for jailing those who commit homosexual acts because their is no grace in doing so, but are correct in standing up against the doctrinal lapses of the Anglican Communion. When the Episcopal Church splits, as it most certainly will, American Episcopalians may find themselves in a bitter feud that could last another 1000 years or until the 2nd coming.

An absolutely must read account of the Vicar of Christ on Earth and the Eccumenical Patriarch of Constantinople’s participation in a Divine Liturgy.

Bartholomew ascends to the iconostasis and welcomes Benedict in Greek. Benedict, aware of the cameras surrounding him, replies in English. We must, he says, recall Europe to its Christian heritage before it is too late — and we must do it together. Then they emerge into the cold sunlight of a cold day. They ascend to a balcony overlooking the courtyard where we gather in expectation. They speak briefly. And then, they clasp hands, Pope and Patriarch, smile and raise their arms together. Tears come to my eyes, and I am shocked to see several media personnel crying openly. For an instant, the Church is one. For a shadow of a second, the dreams of Christendom are again real.

Under the Turkish guns, the Christians roar.

Several hundred years from now, this may be looked back upon as a real turning point in history of the West & East. The Papal office arguably has retaken a role it has not had in several centuries, chief defender of Christendom. Let us all pray for the unity of all Christians.

Must read WSJ article today

I think the pope is right that the West is engaged in a decisive intellectual competition with the ideas of radical Islam. This won’t end with the battle for Baghdad. Will scientific agnosticism defend the West against militant Islam? With what? In Europe, its intellectuals can barely mount an argued defense against internal threats. Externally, as in Afghanistan, they won’t even fight.

As yesterday was Constitution Day, where the Framers signed the document 219 years ago, The Evening Bulletin saw it fit to run my column challenging people to see a more holistic view of the document by examining the history that preceded it.

“Looking Beyond The Constitution.”

Excerpt:

“In 1824, Pennsylvania Judge Thomas Duncan upheld in an opinion that Christianity was part of the common law. His opinion is perhaps one of the most telling understandings of religious freedom in America, ‘Christianity, general Christianity, is and always has been a part of the common law of Pennsylvania; Christianity without the spiritual artillery of European countries; for this Christianity was one of the considerations of the royal charter, and the very basis of its great Founder, William Penn; not Christianity with an established church, and tithes and spiritual courts; but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men.’”

John Dickerson has an interesting article over on Slate magazine regarding the future of Evangelical Christian loyalty in the GOP:

The greatest re-ordering in evangelical politics may come in the 2008 presidential
race. George Bush’s policies, personal conversion, and political acumen won him 78 percent of the evangelical vote in 2004. There is no current candidate who can match that, and none have a strategist like Karl Rove, who fixated on building the evangelical vote.

U.S. Senator Barack Obama urges the Democratic Party to “acknowledge the power of faith in the lives of the American people,” and compete for Evangelical voters last Wednesday. His remarks earn him the wrath of liberal bloggers on CorrenteWire:

This is pre-presidential run pandering, plain and simple. The last thing we need is more evangelical Christianity in the political process. Perhaps even more importantly, it’s ridiculous to think that evangelicals are ever going to vote for a Democratic candidate. Yo, Barak- look a little closer at the numbers. Who is the strongest, most reliable, most regular Republican voter group today? Evangelicals, you fool. If you think they’re going to vote for your black ass just because you make a speech or two about “protecting” religious expression, you’re way more stupid than I thought. You can give speeches like this till the cows come home; what you say to the press has absolutely no weight when compared to what they are told by their ministers. And you know what that is? Vote Republican.

Its vitriolic remarks found on that post that underscores the Democrats big problem for Evangelics: they leave us virtually no room in their Party.

When faced between liberal and liberal-lite or do-nothings, Evangelicals will likely stay home and not vote.

Unlike what our liberal friend from CorrenteWire says, Evangelicals are issue-voters, not Party loyalists. I say this despite the fact that I’m an Evangelical and an elected Republican Ward Leader. Evangelicals support the GOP in strong numbers for very big reasons. Namely the Democratic Party’s embrace of Roe vs. Wade, denying the personhood of the unborn, forcing the homosexual agenda on the American people, and showing hostility towards public expressions of faith from the Pledge on down to Valedictorian speeches and saying grace in school cafeterias. Worse of all: using the courts to rewrite the Constitution to force all of this on the American people, who would never have chosen it for themselves.

If the Democrats backed away from those issues named above, maybe they could become competitive among Evangelical voters.

I constantly weigh the issue of how I honor God with my politics. So far I’ve managed to conform my politics to the Bible while arguing for the same goals in secular terms. For instance, my religious interpretation of the Bible leads me to believe that the unborn are people, but there are secular arguments, libertarian and feminist even, that lead to the same conclusion.

But how far can Evangelical Christians compromise in our society? How does the Bible guide our views? There are some issues that we simply cannot compromise and Wayne Grudem discusses them in this sermon on October 17th, 2004 concerning the Presidential election. You can download the MP3 here.
Wayne Grudem is a professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and author of Systematic Theology.

He first makes a distinction regarding means to an end in politics. Both parties claim to have similar goals, but different means to achieve those goals (as conservatives, we know that liberals claim to care but their policies actually hurt those they claim to help, but that’s a digression.) As Christians, we have an obligation to analyze those means on our own and make our own choice. This leaves open the issues of economics and government spending for Christians.

He then gives us an imperative on why we must engage society on social issues. Liberals and RINOs should take notes:

“Should Christians speak out at all about the large, moral issues facing our nation, issues of abortion or homosexual marriage or any of the other things we can think about? Should Christians say anything about those things or is that just politics and we should stay out altogether?

“I think Christians should speak out on these things. Why? Because if Christians do not speak out about the moral and ethical issues that face a nation, who will? If Christians do not speak out about moral and ethical issues, where will people learn about ethics? Where will our nation learn about matters of right and wrong? What will be the source of ethical norms? Well, if we don’t speak out, I guess people will learn about ethical norms from Hollywood movies and from feelings and conscience– those feelings and conscience may or may not be instructed by God’s principles. Or they’ll learn about ethical norms from friends at work, or from friends at the local bar that they talk to, or they’ll learn about ethical norms from going to professional counselors, or children will learn about ethical norms, I suppose, from their kindergarten teachers. …

“But that just throws the question right back again, where do kindergarten teachers learn about right and wrong? Or where do professional counselors learn about right and wrong? … Where do we learn about right and wrong? Where is the source for ethical norms?

“The simple fact is that if Christians don’t speak about what the Bible says about issues of right and wrong, there aren’t really many other good sources for finding out any transcendent sources of ethics; any source outside ourselves. So I think its right for us, both when speaking to Christians and even to non-Christians– I think its right for us to speak up and say ‘This is what the Bible says,’ or ‘This is what I understand the Bible to teach’ and then people can accept it or reject it as they wish, but at least we borne faithful witness.”

Liberals should think about Grudem’s words the next time they tell us to be quiet and just keep our views to ourselves or that our morality in our society is “constantly progressing.”

Grudem also discusses at length in his sermon various social issues:
purpose of government
abortion
homosexual marriage
embryonic stem-cell research
military force
Supreme Court power and judicial activism

Cardinal talks about “moral relativisms” dangers

Cross-posted at our religion blog, Areopagus Blog.

This post is meant as a bit of an ad/preview of what is available at the other blog I am involved in, Areopagus Blog. Please consider adding it to your reading list.
-Mark

Fun With Transubstantiation
“Transubstantiation,” a word that strikes fear of idolatry into the hearts of some and a call home to Rome in the case of others. This odd term, which deals with the Catholic/Orthodox doctrine of the “Real Presence” of Jesus in the Eucharist (Lord’s Supper) is one that has been a dividing point for Christianity since the Reformation. It has split Christianity in the West assunder, and yet, it is one of the most fiercely defended dogmas of the Catholic Church.

As a personal aside, Real Presence is what brought me back to the Catholic Church. I could no longer deny it as untrue and thus had but one option, returning home to Rome. I’ve been spending much of my free time (what free time you might say, since I am runnign for State Rep, well… I read at night, and in my twisted brain, I read theology for fun… I know… its messed up, but I digress.) reading books on theology. I’ve been spending a lot of time on what is known in Catholic circles as “resourcement” and “orientalism” in Protestant circles, basically studying the roots, early centuries fo the Church.

A class I took with Dewey Wallace at GW sparked my original interest in the topic, and eventually caused me to rejoin the Church. I am currently reading a book called “The Mass of the Early Christians” that is a book of primary sources of the early Church that talks about what the early worship of Christians looked like. One inescapable conclusion that becomes apparent was that the dogma of Real Presence or Transubstantiation was widespread within one generation of Jesus. Writings in the Didache, St. Justin Martyr, Oriegen, Cyprian, and Tertullian are used to drive the point home.

The strongest evidence comes from St. Ignatius of Antioch, a likely contemporary of both Peter and John, making his claim to having heard proper teaching extroadinarily strong.

“Let no man decieve himself. For both the beings of heaven, the glorious angles, and the rules both seen and unseen, incur condemnation if they do not believe in the blood of Christ… Consider those who hold a different opinion regarding the grace of Christ that has come to us — how opposed they are to the will of God. They have no regard for love; no care for the widow, the orphan, or the oppressed; the eslaved or the free; the hungry or the thirsty.

They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, in His goodness, raised up again. Those therefore, who speak against this gift of God, incur death in the midst of their disputes. Yet it would be better for them to treat it with respect that they also might rise again.”

-SMYRNAEANS 6-8

“Take care, then, to have only one Eucharist. For there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup to show forth the unity of his blood; one altar, as there is one bishop, along with the priests and deacons, my fellow servants. All this is so, so that, whatever you do, you may do it according to the will of God”

-PHILADELPHIANS 4

Now the Catholic Church does not hold that St. Ignatius was in any way perfect in his interpretation of the Faith, but if he is wrong on what he obviously considers such a major point of theology, then the Church has been wrong from the very begining and there is no real “true” church to return to. We can only wander in the dark hoping to pick up a few good bread crumbs because the Church never physically existed in any plausible manner, as it had taught heresy (Real Presence) from the begining.

I accept the other option. The Church has been right from the begining and that Ignatius being instructed by St. Peter and St. John learned the correct teaching, Real Presence.

Anyway, discuss amongst yourselves.

**SAVE THE GOP READERS CAN SEE THE DISCUSSION OVER AT AREOPAGUS BLOG**

From a charming DailyKos commenter:

I wouldn’t laugh (0 / 0)
Anytime the nutcase Republicans bring up religion, they WIN.

When will we realize that we Dems are the losers on this issue.

Christians in America are overwhelmingly retarded. They’ll buy shit shit of Santorums.

We need to educate Christians. They are the morons that have ruined America. Laughing at the Repubs who use them won’t work.

Whackos get their info thru the Christian right. We’ll bring them out to vote against something and make sure the public lets the whole thing slip past them.

by chemsmith on Mon Apr 03, 2006 at 05:48:41 AM PDT

The context of this argument is remarks Sen. Santorum made about Europe dying due to the loss of Christianity. How that is self-apparent to most people I do not understand. Santorum’s speech as I mentioned earlier was great, and the fact the Dems are in such a tizzy is a good sign. The main point here is that the commenter is right, when GOP talks religion it wins. The “stupid” Christians who actually believe in an objective right and wrong, which apparently is passe. How sad.