Research on Religion

by Matt Sutton

Normally I would not recommend anything associated with the University of Washington. However, they have an excellent political scientist who is moonlighting in the virtual world at Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion. Anthony Gill has begun a wonderful new podcast series entitled Research on Religion, which features in-depth discussions about religion with both practitioners and academics. Past episodes include Philip Jenkins and the ubiquitous Thomas Kidd, and this month Tony interviewed me about my work on Aimee Semple McPherson. Go Cougs!

God's Own Party

by Matt Sutton

Dan Williams’ highly anticipated and excellent new book God’s Own Party: The Making of the Christian Right is now out from Oxford University Press. This book—along with Darren Dochuk’s forthcoming From Bible Belt to Sunbelt—sets a new standard for interpreting the relationship between modern American politics and evangelicalism.

Williams argues that the 1980 election was a pivotal event for Christians. “Evangelicals,” he explains, “gained news coverage during Ronald Reagan’s campaign not because they were speaking out on political issues – they had been doing this for decades – but rather because they were taking over the Republican Party. The history of the Christian Right is thus a story not only of political mobilization, but also of party takeover. And that was an event that was more than fifty years in the making.”

Furthermore, for those of you religious-right lovers, the story continues. Williams makes a powerful and well documented case that “Evangelical leaders and their political organizations will come and go, and their political styles will change, but the underlying rationale for their political campaigns is not likely to go away. . . . Though they have largely succeeded in turning the GOP into ‘God’s Own Party,’ they have not yet been able to make America God’s own nation. Their ninety-year quest continues.” Somewhere Ralph Reed and his tea-panty friends are laughing menacingly.

To make his arguments, Williams’ book spans over ninety years. He does an excellent job of highlighting the political and religious differences and similarities among evangelicals in the north and south and shows how by 1980 true believers from different parts of the country finally put aside regional sympathies and came together to transform American politics and culture.

Buy the book. Read the book.

“God Shaped Hole”

by Matt Sutton

While thumping Team Harvey in Fantasy Football last week, I began thinking about the relationships among celebrity, sports, fitness, and faith. My curiosity peaked when I came across reports of three very different athletes.

First, one of the blog’s favorite sports stars, Broncos bench-warming-quarterback Tim Tebow, is now more famous than ever, boasting record-breaking NFL jersey sales. He has recently joined social media. He has a new twitter account, a new Facebook page (which I cannot access because I don’t believe in Facebook) and a website. The website is fascinating, with its repetition of GB2, which stands for “God Bless and Go Broncos!” The website represents the perfect storm of God, celebrity, and the marketing of Nike and Jockey products. Amen.

Next was the story of Ron Artest. He is the NBA player who a few years ago climbed into the stands in the middle of a game in Detroit, started a brawl, and punched out a fan. Now he is a world champion with the Los Angeles Lakers (GB the Lakers!). When he was interviewed at the end of last year’s divinely ordained championship victory over the Celtics, he famously thanked his psychiatrist (who is actually a psychologist, but, as Artest explained, “psychiatrist” was easier to say in the moment).

He too has been making news. As the LA Times recently explained, “The Lakers star lends his fame to a push for funding for mental health programs in schools, using his own story to tell middle schoolers in Montebello it's all right to ask for and receive help.” Appearing before school children, “Artest talked about being in therapy from the time his parents separated when he was 13 years old. He talked about being counseled for anger issues, marriage issues, parenting issues. ‘I'm like, how can a kid in East L.A … get the same help that I got without paying so much?’ he said. Artest acknowledged the stress of being a father at age 16. He talked about growing up in a family with a history of mental illness. He urged the youngsters to seek out school counselors.”

While Artest, unlike Tebow, is never and will never be touted as a role model, I wonder who is doing more for kids? The guy making Focus on the Family commercials for the Superbowl or the screw-up who talks to kids honestly about being a screw-up?

Then a few days later I learned about B. K. S. Iyengar, a one-man yoga phenomenon who has become a hero to one of my history department colleagues. Yesterday I invoked the evangelical rhetoric of my youth in an effort to throw this colleague off of his racquetball game by asking him if he was using Iyengar to fill his “God shaped hole.” The phrase “God shaped hole” was popularized in the 1990s by the Christian band Plumb. However, my colleague did not know the phrase. He interpreted it as the product of too much abstinence-only education. From there the conversation degenerated into a parsing of the theological and Freudian meanings of having a God-shaped hole. Unfortunately he still kicked my hole on the court.

I am not sure what all of this says about our culture and the different idols we have. But this I do know: God loves the Lakers, hates the current Broncos regime, and is probably pretty impressed by Iyengar. Me too.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation (Know Your Archives Part IX)

by Matt Sutton

I was hesitating to do a 2010 version of “Know Your Archives” for the sake of the Springfield, MO, Chamber of Commerce. But since Paul asked for it…

In late May I returned to the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center for research. I was there eight years ago, on my first major research trip as a graduate student. At that time, I had no funding, but was offered access to a confidential file I really wanted to see on the condition that I show up in person. I did. I stayed as a shady Red Roof Inn and took the public bus to the archives each day. I figured my less-than-favorable view of the area was colored by my economic status at the time.

This summer, traveling as faculty of an under-funded state institution, I managed to swing a room at the Holiday Inn Express (with a view of the minor league baseball field) and a rental car (a very manly Chevy HHR) from Enterprise. The Assemblies’ archivists continue to be wonderful, and while there I met a recent Duke PhD who regaled me with stories of DVDs she had been watching of “amateurs and their machine guns” when not perfecting for herself the name-it-and-claim-it philosophy she was studying (she landed a great job—it must work). We checked out the picture of Grant Wacker’s grand-daddy in the pentecostal Hall of Fame and I learned that the father of another famous religious historian played a role in one of my favorite movies, A Thief in the Night.

Sadly, Springfield still looked the same as it did almost a decade ago. Jogging through downtown reminded me of walking around Detroit. It is a sad, bombed-out city.

From there I went to New York, first to do research at the Schomberg Center. Either New York is regressing, or I was in the wrong places at the wrong times. At one point a guy on the subway started flipping out. A woman pulled a canister of pepper spray out of her purse, un-holstered it, and threatened to pull the trigger. I prayed that I would not experience the effects of pepper spray in a small, confined, underground area (luckily I didn’t).

From there it was off to the NY Public Library. I spent a few hours working at a computer while another man quietly worked next to me. At one point another patron, intrigued by something on my neighbor’s screen, stopped and asked him about it. Out of nowhere he started screaming at her, calling her all sorts of expletives. Ah… big city life.

With the subway and the library providing some challenges, I decided to relax by jogging in Central Park. All was well until I passed an older Russian man, who for reasons that are still not clear to me, started screaming—at me. He must have known that I spent the ‘80s watching Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Red Dawn, War Games, and Spies Like Us. I just kept jogging.

From there it was on to the FDR library in beautiful Hyde Park. Trying to save some money, I opted not to rent a car and instead to stay in the Golden Manor Motel across the street from the library. I booked the $55/night room, but got a free upgrade to the $65/night room. It smelled worse than a hundred-year old Michigan basement on a hot humid day. I will spare you the rest of the details. An up-and-coming new Yale PhD told me that it was a decent place to stay. Apparently Yale is also suffering from the financial crisis. Nevertheless, the local pizza, a forty from the quickie-mart down the street, and the television remote-control (which I had to check out from the front desk) made for one exciting evening watching justice prevail as the Lakers stomped the Celtics to win the NBA championship.

Despite these travails, I returned home with suitcases full of scanned images and photocopies. Now, I better get back to actually writing this stuff up…

The Black Church(?)

by Matt Sutton

There has been a lot of debate recently among academics about the “black church.” First Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., buried it on the Huffington Post. Then, Religion Dispatches asked some prominent scholars to respond to Glaude. Some dumped more dirt on the grave, others claimed that the church had never died, and others still asserted that it had never existed in the first place. In the midst of the forum Ed Blum inadvertently provoked a firestorm. Now he turns his attention away from the bizarre-o world of the academy to take on a bigger churcher—Barack Obama. See his excellent piece in the Washington Post here. Nice work Ed!

Rick Warren meets the Jonas Brothers

by Matt Sutton

There were a lot of things (in addition to spilling seed) that infuriated my fundamentalist friends during the interwar era. These included: Christians (and not) who desecrated the Sabbath by attending movies; ministers who lured visitors to church with unholy amusements; and churches that commercialized religion. What would they think of this: Rick Warren (of “I am Bono’s friend and we will save the world together” fame) has just abandoned my U2-loving generation for the younger set. This year the Jonas Brothers will be playing Saddleback Church’s Easter service at Angel Stadium. What could be more (un)holy than that?

FYI, Angel Stadium is in Anaheim (Orange County); not in any way, shape, or form Los Angeles for you baseball fans duped by the Angels’ brass.

Randall: I presume you will be there reporting for us on the Jonas Brothers? And Ed, remember it is just a short drive from San Diego to the OC. You should be there too to keep Randall from crashing the stage.

Things I Wish Were True

by Matt Sutton

1) I found the following over the weekend on the internet (so it must be true): In the 1930s Huey Long impregnated Aimee Semple McPherson and the fetus was preserved cryogenically for thirty-some years until it was implanted in a surrogate. The result was Sarah Palin. Too bad I missed this scoop when I was working on my book.

2) That Focus on the Family was irrelevant. Instead they pulled off what has to be the most sophisticated anti-abortion ad ever—by not making it about abortion. I was amazed when I actually saw the Tebow Superbowl ad. That Focus successfully got the talking heads and bloggers discussing and debating a ministy’s right to run an anti-abortion ad for months before the ad aired got the abortion issue back into the nation consciousness. Then, to actually see the ad and realize that it wasn’t even about abortion… Focus deserves a lot of credit for playing me and a whole lot of other people for suckers. You can see the ad here.

3) That the Denver Broncos were still coached by Mike Shanahan and quarter-backed by Jay Cutler. Oh yeah, and that they won the Superbowl.

Going Rogue Zionist Style!

by Matt Sutton

This post is more derivative than usual. It started as an article in the Baltimore Jewish Times, which got picked up by a Baltimore Sun blog. Now, for your reading pleasure (and because Harvey likes it when I write about Palin) here it is for you.

Apparently Barbara Walters asked Palin last week about the Obama administration’s opposition to Israeli expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Palin's answer:

“I disagree with the Obama administration on that,” the former Alaska governor told interviewer Barbara Walters. “I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon because the population of Israel is going to grow. More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead. And I don’t think that the Obama administration has any right to tell Israel that the Jewish settlements cannot expand.”

What makes this especially interesting is that it is totally contrary to actual Israeli immigration trends. According to the original blogger, Michael Felson, "Since 2002—the year in which the major wave of immigration from the former Soviet Union came to an end—there has been a consistent downward trend in immigration to Israel. By 2006, immigration was down to 1980s levels, during which time 9,000-24,000 people immigrated annually. And in 2008, the number was 13,681, representing the lowest ratio of immigrants to Israelis since the establishment of the State – 1.9 immigrants per 1000 residents."

This, of course, raises the question: what is Palin's source of information? You guessed it. The books of Daniel, Ezekiel, and Revelation. That serious political candidates take premillennial apocalypticism seriously is great news for me; but it might not be such good news for the country (or the Palestinians). Sarah: keep rogue-ing it up!

American Prophet in Paperback!

by Matt Sutton

Cornel West said the following about Edward J. Blum’s W. E. B. Du Bois, American Prophet:

"This book is a marvelous probing into the unknown and unexplored dimension of the great W. E. B. Du Bois's life and work: his self-styled religious and spiritual temperament. Edward Blum is to be congratulated for this grand contribution!"

Paul Harvey, in turn, said the following: "Blum illuminates the entire range of Du Bois's writings, showing him as a prophetic thinker at times, a deliverer of jeremiads, a composer of creeds, an appreciator of the spirituality of everyday folk, and a visionary who anticipated trends in black theology and womanist theology. A truly valuable contribution to African American and American religious history."

Who should you trust? At least Cornel West, even if the credibility of Harvey, who is rumored to have gone on the road with Palin’s book-tour entourage, is suspect.

Last and least, I too think American Prophet is a phenomenal book.

And now, just in time for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Festivus, it can be yours in paperback. More important, it can be your students’ for a low, low price. Assign this book!—by the way, it works best in classes of 5,000 students or more.

Congrats Ed!

The Apocalyptic Visions of the Left

by Matt Sutton

While not busy watching the libertarians skewer Harvey for daring to give us his take on a new book’s strengths and weaknesses (which last time I checked is what you are supposed to do in a book review, right libertarians?) or witnessing the continuing implosion of my fantasy football team (thanks for nothing this week Cedric Benson) I am finally catching up on some old reading. In the May issue of Harper’s Jeff Sharlet (of The Family fame) has a fascinating article entitled “Jesus Killed Mohammed.” In it he examines the continuing problem of hyper-Christian rhetoric and ideology in the U.S. military, which is a particularly troubling phenomenon in the context of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. I have two problems with the article; one petty and one more significant. First, the petty. He writes:

“Every man and woman in the military swears an oath to defend the Constitution. To most of them, evangelicals included, that oath is as sacred as Scripture. For the fundamentalist front, though, the Constitution is itself a blueprint for a Christian nation. ‘The idea of separation of church and state?’ an Air Force Academy senior named Bruce Hrabak says. ‘There’s this whole idea in America that it’s in the Constitution, but it’s not.’” Sharlet then condescendingly points out: “That’s technically true; it’s in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.”

This, of course is both inaccurate and not the issue Hrabak is raising here. As all readers of this blog—and Jeff Sharlet—are well aware, the establishment and the free exercise clauses have been interpreted in different ways over the centuries. The First Amendment may have meant “separation of church and state” in Thomas Jefferson’s mind, at least when he was writing to Danbury Baptists, but it has not always meant that and it has certainly never been consistently interpreted that way by American courts. Americans United for the Separation of Church and State can happily provide legions of violations of the supposed “high wall of separation.” Hrabak is not an idiot in making the claim above; Sharlet does him a disservice by not unpacking his statement in the context of the culture wars and competing views of the American past. It is not as if we good humanist liberals all agree on the meaning of the First Amendment while the fundies keep making stupid sh*t up.

The larger question (problem?) I have with Sharlet’s work is the representativeness of the people he profiles. He certainly finds tantalizing handfuls of rogue nuts and dozens of their asinine statements. Furthermore, he rightly points out that evangelical and conservative Catholic proselytizing of Jews, Muslims, and secularists in the military is a serious problem that needs to be taken seriously. But I am not sure that his evidence is sufficient to build the case that a secret group of behind-the-scenes and off-the-record fundamentalists lurking in the hallways of power (in Congress in his previous work, in the military here) will soon dominate the nation. Maybe he is right, but I suspect that most of the people, most of the time—even soldiers and former Republican presidents—know better than to tell Muslims that Jesus killed Mohammad. If they don’t than we really are in for a world of trouble.

Harry the Devil

by Matt Sutton

I have never liked Harry Potter. My wife discovered the Potter books just before we left for our honeymoon in Maui. Much to my dismay, she spent most of the week in bed with the wizard of Hogwarts, when there were many, many other things she could and should have been doing besides reading.

So, I was glad to learn in the L.A. Times today that according to ex-Bush official Matthew Latimer the White House chose not to give Potter author J. K. Rowling a U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom. The Bushies apparently felt that since the Potter books “encouraged” teen witchcraft, they should not get the blessing of the White House. Amen and amen.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation--Know Your Archives, Part IV

BY MATT SUTTON

Indeed, I have many thoughts on archives I visited recently (while my wife and kids lounged on the California beach). Unlike those of you who experienced the beauties of an un-caffeinated Provo or the modernist wealth and splendor of the bean-town Congregationalists, I went on a fundamentalist/ evangelical greatest hits tour. And I only visit archives made of brick, as the images below illustrate.

University of Washington (I know, not exactly a bastion of fundy/evangelical truthiness): nice research room; great archivists (thank you tax-payers); and student assistants who make things interesting by not always putting the correct collection/box/folder numbers on your copies.

Moody Bible Institute: limited collections and multiple perimeters of security to navigate ninja-style before you find the archives room.

Biola University: No research room, but a friendly archivist who does her best to accommodate researchers while simultaneously attending to one of her hundreds of other library assignments.

Gordon-Conwell: it ain’t Boston, but the Puritans still live nearby. One of the best collections of early-to-mid twentieth century Christian magazines anywhere. You can stay on campus on the cheap if you want to re-live your college glory days of shared bathrooms, no TV, and sleeping on a cot.

Bob Jones University: despite my dress shirts, khakis, and short hair, everyone, and I mean everyone, knew that I was an outsider on the compound. BJU security knows when you come, when you go, and what you do. Greenville must be a more dangerous place than I realized because the campus is entirely surrounded by a gate, much of the faculty live on campus, and there are K-12^th classes on campus so that faculty and their kids never have to leave. Eating is done communally in the cafeteria--the library shuts down from 5-6 so everyone can eat together. The archivist at BJU is incredibly accommodating and will go to great lengths to help researchers. He also lets you eat donuts and drink coffee (in my case Pepsi) in the archives room--so take that Turner.

American Baptist Archives (Atlanta): $10 a day to do research; $.50/copy; and two and a half months later, I am still waiting for my copies to arrive. Enuf said.

Fuller Seminary: Beautiful research room with no windows or doors. O.K., I guess there was one door. I got in somehow. Staring down at you is a giant portrait of the late Wilbur Smith (of “The Atomic Bomb and the Word of God” fame.) It is a little eerie to read his papers while he watches.

Wheaton/Billy Graham Center Archives: still the best, most comfortable place to work on evangelicalism. Professional, smart archivists, plenty of room to work, friendly policies, and they even have trains going by outside all day, which make for a nice distraction perfectly suited for a three-year-old or the father of a three-year-old. And that is how I spent my summer vacation.

Religion and Foreign Policy: Crusading Modern Style

by Matt Sutton

GQ has an excellent article (“And He Shall be Judged”) in this month’s issue about the use of biblical passages on the cover sheets of war-time classified intelligence documents created by top military brass and delivered to George W. Bush by Donald Rumsfeld. The article begins:

on the morning of Thursday, April 10, 2003, Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon prepared a top-secret briefing for George W. Bush. This document, known as the Worldwide Intelligence Update, was a daily digest of critical military intelligence so classified that it circulated among only a handful of Pentagon leaders and the president; Rumsfeld himself often delivered it, by hand, to the White House. The briefing’s cover sheet generally featured triumphant, color images from the previous days’ war efforts: On this particular morning, it showed the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down in Firdos Square, a grateful Iraqi child kissing an American soldier, and jubilant crowds thronging the streets of newly liberated Baghdad. And above these images, and just below the headline secretary of defense, was a quote that may have raised some eyebrows. It came from the Bible, from the book of Psalms: “Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him…To deliver their soul from death.” This mixing of Crusades-like messaging with war imagery, which until now has not been revealed, had become routine.

GQ has also created an amazing slide show of such documents, available here.

As outrageous as this is, it is not new. I have just begun reading William Inboden's Religion and Foreign Policy, 1945-1960: The Soul of Containment (priced in typical Cambridge University Press fashion at $80), which looks like a great book that is very much relevant to our understanding of the intersections of religion and foreign policy today.

Here is the jacket blurb:

The Cold War was in many ways a religious war. Presidents Truman and Eisenhower and other American leaders believed that human rights and freedoms were endowed by God, that God had called the United States to defend liberty in the world, and that Soviet communism was especially evil because of its atheism and its enmity to religion. Along with security and economic concerns, these religious convictions also helped determine both how the United States defined the enemy and how it fought the conflict. Meanwhile, American Protestant churches failed to seize the moment. Internal differences over theology and politics, and resistance to cooperation with Catholics and Jews, hindered Protestant leaders domestically and internationally. Frustrated by these internecine disputes, Truman and Eisenhower attempted instead to construct a new civil religion. This public theology was used to mobilize domestic support for Cold War measures, to determine the strategic boundaries of containment, to appeal to people of all religious faiths around the world to unite against communism, and to undermine the authority of communist governments within their own countries.

This is a great article and a great looking book that together provide a troubling commentary on the state of American foreign policy in recent decades. Not as troubling though as my own memories of my years growing up as a "Crusader." Of course we did kick the asses of the L.A. Baptist Knights in basketball, so maybe God does favor the Crusader mascot!

God is not Dead

by Matt Sutton

In 1966, Time magazine made waves by proclaiming that “God is Dead.” Now Newsweek is trying to do the same thing. Last week’s cover story is entitled “The Decline and Fall of Christian America,” by editor Jon Meacham. The story is based on the American Religious Identification Survey (which we have blogged about below). “This is not to say that the Christian God is dead,” Meacham writes, “but that he is less of a force in American politics and culture than at any other time in recent memory. To the surprise of liberals who fear the advent of an evangelical theocracy and to the dismay of religious conservatives who long to see their faith more fully expressed in public life, Christians are now making up a declining percentage of the American population.” As much as I appreciate Meacham’s interest in religion and the fact that he sells a helluva lot more books than me, his articles never seem to be as original or as profound as he thinks they are. While numbers of adherents are changing, I am not yet convinced that religious conservatives are losing their ability to mobilize their troops or to raise the money they need to influence the political process—especially since the survey shows that the mainline denominations are faltering, not evangelical churches. In fact, we might read the survey the other way. While Christianity is becoming more polarized itself, conservatives are becoming increasingly dominate.

Nevertheless, Meacham was not the only one burying the idea of Christian America last week. Speaking in Turkey, President Obama said "one of the great strengths of the United States" is that it does not consider itself "a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values."

Hmmm. On the one hand I am glad that Obama is decoupling the nation-state from an explicit religion. After all, how can a nation be “Christian?” I have long wondered what makes any non-human entity Christian. Is there a Christian hamburger? My vote would have to be for In-N-Out burgers (monster style) since they put Bible verses on the bottoms of their Coke cups. What about a Christian football team? We know the Denver Broncos are no longer “Christian” since they made the Antichrist their new coach and then he traded their savior to Chicago. But the more significant point Obama raises is Americans’ common commitment to a particular set of “ideals and a set of values.” What are those values? After two-plus decades of culture wars, and a few years of torturing our prisoners, do we really have a fundamental set of ideals and values? No. The nation is as divided as ever.

God is dead, however, to former Los Angeles Times reporter William Lobdell. The New York Times has a fascinating new review of his book detailing his conversion to Christianity and then his move away from the faith. In the same issue, the Times has also reviewed God is Back, which, of course, challenges the idea of Christian (and religious) decline.

So what have I learned in the last ten days? To dream that someday In-N-Out will make it to eastern Washington and to start shopping for a new football team. Those are my values.

Aimee Strikes Again. And again. And again.

By Matt Sutton

For those of you who missed the American Experience production Sister Aimee (based on my book) when it aired on PBS almost two years ago, Monday is your lucky day. It will be re-airing nation-wide on March 23 (at 9pm in most regions, but check local listings). In the interest of full disclosure, and according to at least one prominent religious historian who I recently met at a conference, I am “much better looking in real life than on T.V.” (Going on TV right after your wife has a baby is tough, and PBS doesn’t have the same make-up budget as American Idol.)

More importantly, have I got a deal for you. As you begin to think about placing fall book orders for your classes, you might want something smart and sophisticated like Blum’s W.E.B. DuBois. Or you might want something based on impeccable research, like Stephens’ The Fire Spreads. Or you might want something profound like Harvey’s Freedom’s Coming. Then again you might want a great read like Turner’s Bill Bright. But for those of you who are sensitive to these trying economic times, and who really care about your students’ mounting debt, you can order what is cheap. Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America is coming to paperback in a few weeks. You can pre-order it on Amazon for a measly $12.89. Your students will love you for it and so will God.

Christian Bash-a-thon 2008

by Matt Sutton

As a graduate student I read R. Laurence Moore’s brilliant Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans. Moore argues that religious groups have historically gained cultural power by positioning themselves as outsiders, even when they were/are not. Apparently the tradition of playing oppressed minority despite all evidence to the contrary is still going strong. The Christian Anti-Defamation Commission (I didn’t realize that such a group existed) has compiled a list of “top ten Christian-bashing incidents” of 2008. Coming in at #10 was the Jack Black video that I blogged about here. In the top three spots are:

#3: Barack Obama Defames Christianity
According to research into President Elect Obama's own statements about faith, and an examination of Obama's position on moral issues, CADC has determined that by any biblical and historic Christian standard, Barack Obama is not a Christian, although he claims he is a "devout Christian."

[You can also see their list of seven reasons why Obama is not a Christian here]

#2: Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin Is Attacked
Alaska Governor, Sarah Palin, came under sharp attack by some in the mainstream media because she self-identifies as a Christian. The Washington Post published a cartoon by Pat Oliphant mocking Palin because she has a background as a Pentecostal/Charistmatic Christian. A suspicious arson fire at Sarah Palin's home church recently caused over $1,000,000 in damage.

#1: Radical Homosexuals Assault Prop 8 Marriage Supporters in California
During and after the November campaign stories flooded in of pro-Prop 8 signs being taken, people verbally and physically assaulted, church property and private automobiles vandalized, and person's jobs and pastor's lives threatened simply for exercising their right to campaign and vote in support of traditional marriage.
-------------
Apparently we should quit picking on Sarah Palin, pick on Barack Obama a whole lot more, and work to protect our most vulnerable and oppressed members of society, our pastors, from hate crimes. Hmmm…..

You Too Can Own a Piece of Paradise

by Matt Sutton

Good news for the atheists, agnostics, and Religion in American History Blog editors out there. According to a new Pew poll, the vast majority of Americans, American Christians, and even American Evangelicals believe that there are multiple paths to eternal salvation. Jesus may have said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” but apparently most Americans think that he didn’t really mean it. Of course the blog editors’ salvation is all premised on the fact that God is a democrat (note the little ‘d’—I don’t want a bunch of angry responses from folks who mistakenly think I am calling God a big ‘d’ Democrat. The Almighty actually votes Green Party). So, if God cedes to majority rule, we are set. I wonder if there are in fact cheeseburgers in paradise?

Newsweek and the Problem of Hermeneutics

by Matt Sutton

For those of you who have missed the controversy, Newsweek’s Lisa Miller wrote a cover story on the religious case for gay marriage. To make her point, she essentially tried to debunk the more conservative interpretations of Pauline texts such as Romans 1 (“And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet”). To nobody’s surprise, she did not convince the anti-gay marriage crowd to rethink how they read their Bibles. Instead, she enraged them. Who is she, they asked, to be telling them how to read their scriptures?

They are right. Journalists don’t have the right to tell any community how to interpret their sacred texts, whether they are Jews, Muslims, or evangelical Christians. Asking conservatives to rethink Romans 1 and other controversial passages based on some scholar’s analysis of the “true” cultural context is futile. It would be more helpful to engage with the conservatives in a discussion of their own hermeneutical principles.

In true post-modernist style, I prefer to enter the evangelicals’ hermeneutical world. Once I have granted their interpretive presuppositions, I begin asking questions based on those presuppositions. Rather than deal with gay marriage head on, I want to know what the Bible says about marriage in general. Of course the evangelical understanding of marriage begins with Genesis 2: “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.” What is this “one flesh”? And when can it be re-divided? According to the ultimate authority, Jesus, a marriage can only be dissolved in the case of adultery. In the book of Matthew, Jesus preached, “But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.”

Yet how many evangelicals welcome divorcees into their churches? Even more important, how many ministers freely officiate over heterosexual re-marriages? Almost all of them.

If conservatives really believe that allowing homosexuals to marry is going to undermine God’s immutable laws and therefore wreak havoc on American society, they need to deal first with the problem that is closer at hand and FAR more prevalent—divorce. Until they fight to make church policy and American law reflect Jesus’ teachings on divorce, their efforts against gay marriage will continue to look much more like a crusade of hate than a legitimate response to the teachings of their scriptures. We need to either throw out the divorcees and the gays, or welcome them both to the altar. I prefer the latter.

Jack Black and Jesus Christ

by Matt Sutton

The controversy surrounding the passage of California's anti-gay Proposition 8 continues to swirl. Hollywood has once again gotten into the action. A number of stars put together a hilarious video clip that puts the blame for Prop. 8, rightly or wrongly, on the state's religious population. It’s not often that my home state of California gets accused of having too much religious fervor. Making the point is none other than JB as JC, Jack Black as Jesus Christ. If I was not a technological idiot who has to call my brother every time I need computer help, I would embed the video clip here. Since I am not that smart, you have to follow this link to see it.

Don’t Fear the Pistol-Packing Pentecostal (For Being a Pistol-Packing Pentecostal)

By Matt Sutton

It is true. I have been unfaithful. While my ultimate loyalties are to this blog, I have been on occasion posting elsewhere. Here is what I promise will be my last word on Sarah Palin (unless she and McCain actually win).

Sarah Palin has problems. A lot of them. Nevertheless, we have nothing to fear from her faith. Ever since John McCain announced that the pistol-packing, moose-dressing, beehive-sporting hockey mom from Alaska was his vice presidential nominee, journalists, bloggers, Democrats and even the cast of Saturday Night Live have all been in a fury. Does Palin speak in tongues? Does she believe that the battle of Armageddon is imminent? Does she believe in casting out demons? Does she talk to God? Does she believe the Rapture is coming?

The answer to all of these questions is probably yes. But so what?

The rest of the article is here, over at the History News Network.