NYT on Democrats and religion (NOT election blogging)

There is an interesting sentence in this New York Times piece on religion and the Democratic Party:

Some Democrats worry that the party might bend too far to please religious voters. Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, a Democrat and a Jew, argued that there was no evidence that more people voted 'based on faith' this year than four years ago. If Mr. Bush renews his popular calls for federal financing of social services that hired on the basis of religion, Mr. Nadler contended, Democrats still need to oppose it. 'If you use federal funding, you can't discriminate,' he said. 'We can't compromise on that.'

I think that the conclusion to the article both perpetuates and reflects the unfounded assumption that Jews as a religious group are (a) the major religious "other" in American politics and (b) hostile to Christian religious priorities. Perpetuates, because Protestants and Catholics are the only Christians quoted, and Jerrold Nadler the only non-Christian quoted. And reflects, because Jewish communal organizations, in my view, have confused the separation of church and state with the "de-religification" of Jewish advocacy. One exception to this trend is the Progressive Jewish Alliance (of which I am an active member).

The Disputation of Arlen Specter

NewDonkey Ed Kilgore opines (parodically) that the only way out of his political dilemma is "to dramatically announce a conversion: no, not just to Movement Conservatism, or to the views of the Right to Life Committee, but to Christianity."

But seriously, what would happen if Specter announced that his deeply-held Jewish faith obliges him to hold a largely pro-choice position as a matter of religious conscience?

It's Here!

From the prophetic to the prosaic: revising the NAE Civic Engagement platform

[Update: Welcome, readers of The Revealer and other blogs. Here's a summary for those who don't want to read through each change. The numbers in parentheses refer to the numbers below.

• The most extensive changes are those in which Biblically-sanctioned views are softened, particularly those related to economics and social welfare, perhaps to accommodate social or political convention (1st revision: 13, 22, 24, 25; 2nd revision: 1, 2, 6, 7).
• Accurate but "politically incorrect" observations are deleted (1st revision: 4, 22; 2nd revision: 3, 4).
• The shift from third person ("Christians") to first person ("we") does make the statement less dry, but it also deflects attention from instances where Christians have not lived up to their own standards (1st revision: 8, 14; 2nd revision: 5).
• In some instances, the document is strengthened (1st revision: 10, 11, 15, 16, 26, 28), but often this is accompanied by a reiteration of a popular politically conservative position, such as the "strengthening" of marriage or federalism (1st revision: 9, 12, 17, 27).]

The original post begins here:

Some attention has been given of late to National Association of Evangelicals's recently released " For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility."

It's interesting to compare the official version of the document, available here, with its draft versions. The September 9 version still is available here and I have an offline copy of the original draft version.

Please note that italics represent text added from one version to the next. Strikethrough text appeared in a previous draft but was deleted.

From the June draft to the September revise, the following substantive changes were made:

1. The title "For the Health of the Nation" was changed to "For the Health of the Nations"

2. The subtitle "An evangelical declaration" was dropped.

3. Modified sentence:

Secular media outlets have long acknowledged evangelical involvement in prolife and family issues, but are taking belated notice of evangelicals’ global involvement in activities such as disaster relief, refugee resettlement, and the fights against AIDS/HIV, human rights abuses, slavery, and sexual trafficking, and prison rape.

4. These sentences were amended as follows (note the deletion of the second sentence):

Despite our common commitments and this moment of opportunity, American evangelicals continue to be ambivalent about our commitment to civic engagement. Christianized versions of interest group politics during the last two decades of the twentieth century produced access without influence and discouraged many who had become engaged for the first time.

5. Garnet was added to this list of "historical exemplars" as follows:

Scholars and leaders have inspired us by drawing attention to historical exemplars of evangelical public responsibility from Wilberforce and the Booths in England to Edwards, Backus, Garnet, Finney, and Palmer in America.

6. In the following section "Church" is decapitalized:

We know that we must wait for God to bring about the fullness of the kingdom at Christ’s return. But in this interim, the Lord calls the Church church to speak prophetically to society and work for the renewal and reform of its structures. The Lord also calls the Church church to practice the righteous deeds of the kingdom and point to the kingdom by the wholeness and integrity of the church’s common life.

7. The section "THE METHOD OF CIVIC CHRISTIAN ENGAGEMENT" is retitled as "THE METHOD OF CHRISTIAN CIVIC ENGAGEMENT"

8. Note the change from third to first person:

The more carefully and precisely we Christians think about the complex details of both, the more clearly they we will be able to explain their our views to others and understand—and perhaps overcome—disagreements with others.

9. A significant rewrite:

Evangelical Christians seek in every area of life to submit to the authority of Scripture (2 Tim. 3:16-17; Rom. 15:4; 1 Cor.10:11), and where the Bible and contemporary social agendas are in conflict, believers are rightly wary of the alleged findings of social science. Nevertheless, many contemporary political decisions—whether about climate change environmental science, HIV/AIDS, or international trade—deal with complex sociological or technological issues not discussed explicitly in the Bible. As Christians engaged in public policy, we must do detailed social, economic, historical, jurisprudential, and political analysis if they we are to understand our society and wisely apply our normative vision to political questions. Only if we deepen our Christian vision and also study our contemporary world can we engage in politics faithfully and wisely. From the Bible, experience, and social analysis, we know that society is altered as a result of learn that social problems arise and can be substantially corrected by both personal decisions and structural changes. On the one hand, personal sinful choices contribute significantly to destructive social problems (Prov. 6:9-11), and personal conversion through faith in Christ can transform broken persons into wholesome, productive citizens. On the other hand, unjust systems also help create social problems (Amos 5:10-15; Isa. 10:1-2) and wise structural change (for example legislation to strengthen marriage or increase economic opportunity for all) can improve society.

10. Note the shift:

While individual persons and organizations may rightly are at times called by God to concentrate on one or two issues, faithful evangelical civic engagement must champion a biblically balanced agenda.

11. Another major rewrite:

Christians engaged in political activity must maintain their integrity and keep their biblical values intact. When we as Christians engage in political activity, we must maintain our integrity and
keep our biblical values intact. While they we may frequently settle for “half-a-loaf,” they we must never compromise principle by engaging in unethical behavior or endorsing or fostering sin. Evangelicals should join political parties and fully express their biblical values. In doing so, they must be careful not to equate Christian faith with partisan politics. As we rightly engage in supporting legislation, candidates and political parties, we must be clear that biblical faith is vastly larger and richer than every limited, inevitably imperfect political agenda and that commitment to the Lordship of Christ and his one body far transcends all political commitments.

12. Another rewrite:

As Lord Acton noted, power tends to corrupt and absolute power tends to corrupt corrupts absolutely. Thus we thank God for a constitutional system that decentralizes power through the separation of powers, free fair elections,and limited terms of office, and division among national, state, and local authorities.

13. A particularly interesting deletion:

As Christians we confess that our primary allegiance is to Christ, his kingdom, and Christ’s worldwide body of believers, not to any nation. Therefore, as we express legitimate patriotism, we must be careful to avoid the excesses of nationalism.

14. Additional switches from third to first person.

15. An interesting softening of language and acknowledgment of religious pluralism:

But we also resist government when it exercises its power in an unjust manner (Acts 5:27-32) or tries to dominate all other institutions in society. A good government preserves the God-ordained responsibilities of society’s other institutions, such as churches, other faith-centered organizations, schools, families, labor unions, and businesses.

16. Note the additional sentence:

We work to protect religious freedom and liberty of conscience. God has ordained the two co-existing institutions of church and state as distinct and independent of each other with each having its own areas of responsibility (Rom. 13:1-7; Mark 12:13-17; Eph. 4:15-16, 5:23-32). We affirm the principles of religious freedom and liberty of conscience, which are both historically and logically at the foundation of the American experiment.

17. Caveats and additions:

The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause was designed to restrain governmental power and was not intended to shield others from exposure to religious viewpoints. Nor do exemptions from regulations or tax burdens violate the First Amendment, is directed only at government and restrains its power. Thus, for example, the clause was never intended to shield individuals from exposure to the religious views of nongovernmental speakers. Exemptions from regulations of tax burdens do not violate the Establishment Clause, for government does not establish religion by leaving it alone. When government assists nongovernmental organizations as part of an educational or social-service program evenhanded educational, social service, or health care program, religious organizations receiving such aid do not become “state actors” with constitutional duties. Courts should respect church autonomy in matters relating to doctrine, polity, and the application of its governance governing documents, church discipline,clergy and other staff employment practices, and other matters within the province of the church (Acts 18:12-17). Religion is not just an individual matter, but also refers to rich communal traditions of ultimate belief and practice. We resist the definition of religion becoming either radically individualized or flattened out to mean anything that passes for a serious conviction. Thus, while the First Amendment protects religiously informed conscience, it does not protect all matters of sincere concern.

18. Another interesting rewrite:

But governments should understand that people are more than autonomous individuals; they live in marriages in families families and many are married.

19. "Pornography" added to this list of "social evils": "alcohol, drug, gambling, or credit-card abuse, pornography, sexual libertinism, spousal or child sexual abuse, easy divorce, abortion on demand"

20. Psalm reference added: "And because the Bible reveals God’s calling and care of persons before they are born, the preborn share in this dignity (Ps. 139:13)."

21. Additional reference added to "the unborn":

A threat to the aged, to the very young, to the unborn, to those with disabilities, or to those with genetic diseases is a threat to all.

22. More changes:

Christians must witness in the political sphere to the limits of our creatureliness and warn against the dangers of dissatisfaction with normal human limits. ...As technologies related to cloning and creating inheritable genetic modifications are being refined, society is no longer less able to create a consensus on what is good and what limits we should place on human modification. The uniqueness of human nature is at stake, and we face the serious prospect of discriminatory societies in which some human beings are devalued because of factors intrinsic to their being.

23. A very interesting evisceration of the draft economic platform:

God identifies with the poor (Ps. 146:5-9), and says that those who “are kind to the poor lend to the Lord” (Prov. 19:17), while those who oppress the poor “show contempt for their Maker” (Prov. 14:31).If we fail to show concern for the poor and the vulnerable, God despises all our acts of religious devotion (Isa. 58:1-7). Jesus said that those who do not care for the needy and the incarcerated imprisoned will depart eternally from the living God (Matt. 25:31-46). The vulnerable may include not only the poor, but women, children, the aged, persons with disabilities, immigrants, refugees, minorities, the persecuted, and prisoners. God measures societies by how they treat the people at the bottom. America has a tragic history of mistreating Native Americans, the cruel practice of slavery, and the subsequent segregation and exploitation of the descendants of slaves. While the United States has achieved legal and social equality in principle, the legacy of racism still makes many African Americans, Hispanics, and other ethnic minorities particularly vulnerable to a variety of social ills. Our churches have a special responsibility to model good race relations (Rom. 10:12), and Christians should support well-conceived legal remedies for the lingering effects of our racist history. Throughout the Bible, God’s prophets call God’s his people to create just and righteous societies (Isa.10:1-4; 58:3-12; Jer. 5:26-29; 22:13-19; Amos 2:6-7; Amos 4:1-3; 5:10-15). The prophetic teaching insists on both a fair legal system (which does not favor either the rich or the poor) and a fair economic system (which does not tolerate perpetual poverty). The Bible makes clear that a just social order will do more than simply reward those with superior ability, who work harder, or who have fortunate connections. Though the Bible does not call for utter economic equality, it condemns gross disparities in opportunity and outcome that cause suffering and perpetuate poverty. When social structures result in such gross disparities and suffering, the Bible writers envision structural solutions, such as periodic land redistribution (Lev. 25:8-28) and it calls us to work toward equality of opportunity. God wants every person and family to have access to productive resources so that if they act responsibly they can care for their economic needs and be dignified members of their community. Christians reach out to help others in various ways: through personal charity, generous effective faith-based ministries, and other nongovernmental associations, and by advocating for effective government programs and structural changes. The Bible calls rulers to shoulder certain responsibilities for the economic well being of their people. We urge Christians who work in the political realm to shape laws pertaining to wages, education, taxation, immigration, health care, and social welfare that will protect those trapped in poverty and empower the poor to improve their circumstances. Such economic justice includes both the mitigation of suffering and also the restoration of wholeness.

24. Revision of draft welfare policies:

Since healthy family systems are important for nurturing healthy individuals and overcoming poverty, public policy should encourage marriage and sexual abstinence outside marriage, while discouraging early onset of sexual activity,out-of-wedlock births, and easy divorce. Government should also hold fathers and mothers responsible for the maintenance of their families, enforcing where necessary the collection of child-support payments. Restoring people to wholeness means that public governmental social welfare must aim to provide opportunity and restore people to self-sufficiency. While basic standards of support must be put in place to provide for those who cannot care for their families and themselves, incentives and training in marketable skills must be part of any well-rounded program. We urge Christians who work in the political realm to shape wise laws pertaining to the creation of wealth, wages, education, taxation, immigration, health care, and social welfare that will protect those trapped in poverty and empower the poor to improve their circumstances.

25. Foreign policy:

We further believe that care for the vulnerable should extend beyond our national borders. We link arms with Christians everywhere in calling on individuals, churches and governments to do more to reduce the scandal of widespread poverty in a time of abundance. American foreign policy and trade policies often have an impact on the poor. We should try to persuade our leaders to change patterns of trade that harm the poor and to make the reduction of global poverty a central concern of American foreign policy. We must support government policies that encourage honesty in government, correct unfair socioeconomic structures, and generously support effective programs that empower the poor, and foster economic development and prosperity. We urge the US government to increase its commitments to developing democracy and civil society in former colonial lands, Muslim nations, and formerly Communist countries. Christians should also encourage continued government support of international aid agencies, including those that are faith based. ...We support Christian agencies and American foreign policy that effectively correct these political problems and unfair social promote just, democratic structures.

26. Some deleted language makes a reappearance and reference is made to a non-biblical source:

Insofar as a person has a “right,” human right, that person should be able to appeal to an executive, legislative, or judicial authority to enforce or adjudicate that right. We believe that American foreign policy should reward those countries that respect human rights and should not reward (and possibly even prudently employ certain sanctions against) those countries that abuse or deny such rights. We urge the United States to increase its commitments to developing democracy and civil society in former colonial lands, Muslim nations, and countries emerging from Communism. Because the Creator gave human beings liberty, we believe that religious liberty, including the right to change one’s religion, is a foundational right that must be respected by governments (Article 18, Universal Declaration of Human Rights).
...America has a tragic history of mistreating Native Americans, the cruel practice of slavery, and the subsequent segregation and exploitation of the descendants of slaves. While the United States has achieved legal and social equality in principle, the legacy of racism still makes many African Americans, Hispanics, and other ethnic minorities particularly vulnerable to a variety of social ills. Our churches have a special responsibility to model good race relations (Rom. 10:12). To correct the lingering effects of our racist history, Christians should support well-conceived efforts that foster dignity and responsibility.

27. Clarity about what environmentalism does and doesn't mean:

As we embrace our responsibility to care for God’s earth, we reaffirm the important truth that we worship only the Creator and not the creation. God gave the care of his earth and its species to our first parents. That responsibility has passed into our hands. We affirm that God-given dominion is a sacred responsibility to steward the earth and not a license to exploit or abuse the creation of which we are a part. We are not the owners of creation, but its stewards, summoned by God to “watch over and care for it” (Gen. 2:15). This implies the principle of sustainability: our uses of the Earth must be designed to conserve and renew the Earth rather than to deplete or destroy it. ...Because clean air, pure water, and adequate resources are crucial to public health and civic order, government has an obligation to protect its citizens from the effects of environmental degradation. This involves both the urgent need to relieve human suffering caused by bad environmental practice and the responsibility to use foresight in regulating the use of land and resources to minimize the effects on the poor and others who are less able to protect themselves. ...We urge Christians to shape their personal lives in creation-friendly ways: practicing effective recycling, conserving resources, and experiencing the joy of contact with nature.

28. And in conclusion:

We call on all Christians to vote and to become informed and then to vote, as well as to regularly communicate biblical values to their government representatives. We urge all Christians to take their civic responsibility seriously even when they are not fulltime political activists so that they might more adequately call those in government to their task.

From the September revise to the October release, the following substantive changes were made:

1. The title "For the Health of the Nations" was changed back to "For the Health of the Nation"

2. Softened sentence #1:

Never before has God given American evangelicals such an awesome opportunity to shape public policy in ways that could improve contribute to the well-being of the entire world. Disengagement is not an option.

3. Softened sentence #2:

Evangelicals will inevitably disagree may not always agree about policy, but we realize that we have many callings and commitments in common:

4. Softened sentence #3:

We must take care to employ the language of civility and to avoid demonizing denigrating those with whom we disagree.

5. Another one:

We also support democracy because we know that since the Fall, persons, even Christians, people often abuse power for selfish purposes.

6. A deletion:

We urge followers of Jesus to engage in practical peacemaking locally, nationally, and internationally. Transformative peacemaking initiatives are not the exclusive property of the “peace churches.” As followers of Jesus, we should, in our civic capacity, work to reduce conflict by promoting international understanding and engaging in non-violent conflict resolution.

7. Even the final sentence takes a step back from courage:

Above all, we commit ourselves to regular prayer for those who govern, that God may prosper their imperfect efforts to nurture life, justice, freedom, and peace.

To sum up, in my view, the changes from the first draft to the second draft move the piece from the truly prophetic to the mostly prosaic, and from the second draft to the final draft systematically remove any possible "zing" that could grab people's attention. You be the judge.

Found it!

I've been looking for this and imagine others have as well--a map (thanks, One Sweet Dream) showing only those counties that switched parties one way or the other from 2000 to 2004.

Now I'm done election-blogging. I promise.

An anniversary to acknowledge

Via Crooked Timber, the fifteenth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Anyone who didn't vote in the recent U.S. elections should read, reflect, and reconsider what it means to be a citizen in a free society.

2008: First truly open race since 1952?

Apropos of absolutely nothing, assuming that Vice President Cheney serves a full 2nd term, the 2008 presidential race will be the first time since 1952 that the race for president includes neither an incumbent nor a sitting Vice President. I have not seen this noted anywhere in the blogosphere, so here are the details:

1952 - Eisenhower v. Stevenson (completely open race - neither candidate was President or VP at the time)
1956 - Eisenhower re-elected
1960 - incumbent VP Nixon loses to Kennedy
1964 - Johnson "re"-elected
1968 - incumbent VP Humphrey loses to Nixon
1972 - Nixon re-elected
1976 - incumbent President Ford loses to Carter
1980 - incumbent Carter loses to Reagan
1988 - incumbent VP Bush defeats Dukakis (first sitting VP to win since Martin Van Buren in 1836)
1992 - incumbent President Bush loses to Clinton
1996 - Clinton re-elected
2000 - incumbent VP Gore loses to Bush
2004 - Bush re-elected
2008 - no incumbent (neither President nor VP) running....

Enough already

OK, this is my last post on the Democrats-need-morality stuff. Steven Waldman's got a great round-up at Slate, with more here.

Read & make up your own mind, and if you want to see if Democrats actually are listening, keep an eye on Ed Kilgore's NewDonkey (center-left "New Democrat" thinking) and The American Prospect's TAPPED (left-progressive thinking). I'm a longtime DLC fan, but I'm also smart enough to know that Democrats won't move forward without commitment from both progressives & centrists.

And now back to my dissertation.

Don't forget--there were "New Democrats" before there was a "New Labour"

Across the Atlantic from one another, Nicholas Kristof and Jonathan Freedland propose the British Labour Party's 14-year transformation as a model for U.S. Democrats.

Freedland notes that New Labour "dropped what had once been a defining set of beliefs in order to persuade Britons that Labour was not alien, but saw the world the way they did." Kristof observes that "winning [is not] just a matter of presentation ...it involves compromising on principles."

I don't agree that Democrats will win by "dropping ...beliefs" or "compromsing." Compromise is a sure way to defeat, particularly where values are concerned. But Democrats do need to figure out how to "major in the majors and minor in the minors." Beyond reframing, Democrats need to figure out three or four key principles (opportunity, responsibility/accountability, community, etc.) and then structure policy positions around those principles. Some issues (same-sex marriage? partial-birth abortion?) necessarily will become 2nd- or even 3rd-priority. That's what New Labour did, so that when it dropped outdated commitments (like Clause 4), the effect was to reinforce an existing commitment to principle, rather than to seem like it was shedding inconvenient policies.

Given that Tony Blair studied at the Bill Clinton School of Politics, it's ironic to see the students cited as the teachers ...how quickly they forget....

"Confessions of a 'moral issues' voter"

A self-identified Democrat explains his vote for Bush.

More on "moral values"

The NYT's always intelligent Peter Steinfels weighs in:

"Whatever this large chunk of voters may have in mind by moral values, those things need to be identified and addressed, not simply steamrolled over by pointing to other issues that may be equally moral and equally or even more important.

Suppose that these barriers to pursuing the question of moral values can be overcome. What then? The endgame should not be some expedient concession or cosmetic exercise to garner votes next time around. The endgame should be an honest discussion of the moral stances dividing Americans, each side (and there may be more than two) addressing the contending arguments at their best and not at their worst. It is not unthinkable that a few minds might be changed, and a great many people feel less alienated.

The Catholic Vote

Here is where Democrats could look at the faith question: other than among Hispanic Catholics, the only Catholics who preferred Kerry, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, were those "who said they did not attend Mass weekly." These Catholics, who outnumbered more frequent Mass attendees, voted for Kerry 50%-49%. That's a number that should have been even more pro-Kerry, and Democrats could start by asking those voters what it would take to earn their trust back.

Reframing the discussion - three perspectives

Harold Meyerson at The American Prospect argues,

America has gone through periods where cultural issues have dominated presidential elections [and] periods where economic polarities were the ones that mattered.... George W. Bush has now waged two successful campaigns in which he culturally polarized the nation to his advantage. Democrats must find a way to do a little better on this polarized terrain, while working simultaneously to alter it fundamentally.

Matt Stoller at the NDN Blog proposes that "fundamentally, Democrats believe that liberty is sacred. Evangelicals and corporate fundamentalists, who have captured the Republican Party, believe that restriction is sacred." This is a crucial misreading of evangelicals and if pursued will lead to further Democratic losses.

And Robert Reich at The American Prospect has got it right: "Unless or until Democrats return to larger questions of public morality, they won't inspire the American public. Plans and policies are important, of course. But there's no substitute for offering a vision of what we can become as a nation -- and giving citizens the faith we can get there."

There is some irony that the centrist New Democrat Network (though not the centrist Democratic Leadership Council) seems more resistant to talking about faith than the more liberal American Prospect. I'm not sure what to make of it.

Democrats, are you reading this?

Brad Warthen, editorial page editor for TheState.com, South Carolina's Home Page:The conflict between faith and partisanship:

My daughter was highly indignant when she came out of Mass Sunday and found a flier on her windshield, paid for by the National Right to Life PAC, urging her to vote for Jim DeMint.

What offended her was the assertion that there was a “pro-life” candidate in this Senate election.

My daughter, who has an “Inez” sticker on her bumper, knows Mrs. Tenenbaum doesn’t agree with us Catholics on abortion. But that doesn’t equate to a vote for Rep. DeMint.

Sure he opposes abortion in words, but “It’s people like him that are the reason women have abortions,” she said. She said it was because of attitudes like his that “women feel like they can’t carry their babies to term.” Why? Because if he had his way, “they’d lose their jobs and their livelihoods.” She meant his statement that single, pregnant women shouldn’t be allowed to teach.

My daughter had a point — a very Catholic point. I, too, was offended by the fliers. I’m sick of partisans and ideologues in this country thinking they can use Catholics for their purposes.

This is an opportunity, if Democrats are smart (and respectful) enough to listen to Mr. Warthen and his daughter....

A worthwhile exchange on Democrats and "moral values"

Via Crooked Timber, Jim Henley at Unqualified Offerings criticizes the "Democrats need moral values spiel." Henley's right and wrong. He's right that religious voters don't need or want "honeyed words about faith." But he's wrong if he thinks that all people of faith are obsessed with the "prohibition of abortion and the marginalization and if possible elimination of homosexuality." Pace Kieran Healy, "Christian morality is itself perfectly well-able to issue condemnations of torture or the death penalty or hate-based policy initiatives, or what have you. So why haven’t the Democrats been able to do this?" The point is that Democrats need to reframe (a) progressive issues in religious terms and (b) religious issues in progressive terms.

More on religion and politics from the NYT

Two interesting articles in Thursday's NYT:
• Economic Scene: God and the Electorate -- "Have religious issues become more important in politics because too few Americans go to church?" Put another way, when only half the population goes to church, the result is religious extremism, because speakers communicate only with their core constituents and no-one else.

• The Voters: Moral Values Cited as a Defining Issue of the Election--among voters "who chose "moral values" as their top issue, 80 percent voted for Mr. Bush. (For people who chose the economy/jobs, 80 percent voted for Mr. Kerry.) Nearly one-quarter of the electorate was made up of white evangelical and born-again Christians, and they voted four to one for Mr. Bush. Mr. Bush beat his Democratic opponent in almost all religious categories except among Jews, three-fourths of whom favored Mr. Kerry."

Moral indignation

Dave Pell of Electablog ties to explain, with no little irony, "why half of this country is not only in a state of depression, but utter disbelief" (italics mine):

So where do the Dems stand on the issue of moral values? Well, neither Kerry nor Edwards supported gay marriage. Nearly every politician is fully supportive of the word god in the pledge. Few have spoken out about the shift of public money to religious groups. Which Democratic candidate even positioned things like free speech, minority rights and thousands of deaths in a pre-emptive war as moral issues? Only one side is really fighting these culture wars. When it comes to the morals debate, the pandering Dems are like the GOP-light. Why would any of the moralists choose diet god?

And what of the massive number of those voters who think that the version of morals being pedaled by the GOP and millions of evangelicals is way off the mark and ultimately bad for America? Well, at least through this election, they have no strong voice in American government. And until this election, I'm not sure they realized that they really needed one. They didn't even know that this was that big of an issue.

Check the scoreboard. It is.

Please indulge my use of a Star Trek metaphor. Evangelicals aren't the Borg, but Democrats are behaving as if they are. I don't think the Democrats will get anywhere by demonizing evangelicals as some religious version of the Borg, against whom resistance is futile and battle must be waged unmercilessly. The Borg always won those battles.

The metaphor Democrats need is the virus, not overwhelming force. Democrats should remember Locutus of Borg, in whom the crew of the Enterprise instilled a sense of self-identity. The Enterprise treated Locutus with respect, gave him the tools he needed to explore intellectually and politically, and kept asking challenging questions. Democrats should look for and do the same with evangelical Locuti.

They're out there.

Kerry, Bush, and God

At the conclusion of his concession speech, John Kerry said something very interesting:

So with a grateful heart, I leave this campaign with a prayer that has even greater meaning to me now that I've come to know our vast country so much better thanks to all of you and what a privilege it has been to do so. And that prayer is very simple: God bless America. Thank you.

Speaking from "a grateful heart" and calling "God bless America" a prayer (which of course it is, though you wouldn't know it the way politicians usually throw it around) highlights the distinction that I'm arguing Democrats need to learn how to make.

Amy Sullivan and Jim Wallis make my point better than I do, so please read on:
• Sullivan, The Politics Of Piety
• Wallis, High Stakes For Church and State

and Wallis's post-election reaction is here. Key point:

We didn't lose the election, John Kerry did, and the ways in which both his vision and the Democratic Party's are morally and politically incomplete should continue to be taken up by progressive people of faith.

In a deeply polarized country, commentators reported that either political outcome would "crush" the hopes of almost half the population. So perhaps the most important role for the religious community will come now, when the need for some kind of political healing and reconciliation has become painfully clear. In the spirit of America's greatest religious leader, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., the religious community could help a divided nation find common ground by moving to higher ground. And we should hold ourselves and both political parties accountable to the challenge of the biblical prophet Micah to "do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God."

The kind of thinking we need

This Gadflyer article by Joshua Holland is along the lines of the creative thinking that liberal/progressives will need to explore in order to come back from defeat. There are some problems with it, but the main idea is that while the number of abortions declined under Bill Clinton, who used the language of "safe, legal, and rare," the number of abortions has skyrocketed under the pro-life George Bush. Therefore, pro-life voters should seriously consider John Kerry.

Holland writes, "Decreasing unwanted pregnancies leads to fewer abortions – it's that simple." But it's his closing paragraph that really gets the job done:

So ask yourself what these issues mean to you. If you enjoy talking about them – and getting angry – then Mr. Bush is your man. He will certainly speak of a 'culture of life' in a way that you'll embrace. But if you are genuinely concerned about abortion, you might want to consider voting for a candidate that will make them safe and rare.

And now, back to our regularly-scheduled culture war....

While George Bush is poaching Jewish voters, Mel Gibson may be poaching Jewish heroes: jewschool reports that Mel is shopping for a Maccabees script and wants to buy the rights to Howard Fast's My Glorious Brothers.

What is it with Mel Gibson and Jews with radical ideas who die very bloody deaths?

Frank Luntz on the Jewish vote

E.J. Kessler at the Forward has posted Frank Luntz's post-election analysis of the Jewish vote.

Luntz argues that Jews did shift to Bush but that Israel wasn't the reason. However, if Luntz is correct in his assessment of religious Jewish voters (more than twice as likely to vote for Bush) and younger Jewish voters (looking more like the population at large than older Jews), then this may herald the eventual end of the "Jewish" vote per se, as Jewish Democrats and Jewish Republicans increasingly resemble Democrats and Republicans and therefore respond to "generic" appeals to the party faithful.

Post-election analysis focuses on "religion gap"

Much of the (sensible) post-mortem in the center-left blogosphere is focusing on the exit poll data showing that many voters were concerned about moral values.

Religion bloggers, of course, have picked up on this as well. That said, I worry about Terry Mattingly's assessment that the "anti-evangelical" coalition "is growing and its role in the modern Democratic Party is pivotal."

Let me be clear: I do not believe that the Democratic party will win back voters with an anti-evangelical message. This is for three reasons, in order of importance:
1. Framing. Though no one would never admit it, the personalism/individualism of the liberal/progressive mindset is very close to that of the evangelical mindset. Yes, there are significant disagreements on basic positions of sociocultural policy, but the way evangelicals and progressives come to their positions is very similar.

2. Church & State. The re-election of President Bush is likely to exacerbate the concerns of those evangelicals for whom "Constantinianism"--the fusion of church and state and, more importantly, the identification of the church with the sociopolitical establishment rather than cultural-economic outsiders--is a significant issue. Liberal/progressives concerned with freedom of conscience issues should start talking with and listening to evangelicals. Our defense of the separation of church and state must not include an attack on religion.

3. Social & Economic Justice. There are evangelicals who share liberal/progressive concerns about America's current political and economic orientations. As the Washington Monthly has been pointing out for well over a decade, evangelicals and progressives hold remarkably similar positions on crucial questions of social and economic justice. Even on such a live-wire issue like abortion, there are "third-way" alternatives: consider "Beyond Pro-life and Pro-choice" and "Why aren't pro-lifers and pro-choicers pro-contraception?".

Democrats need to listen to the voters who told pollsters that moral values drove their voting preferences. They should consider "What the religious right can teach the New Democrats: extremists aside, America's evangelicals have a message we all need to hear" and "Why we need a religious left." These are all Washington Monthly articles, and I haven't mentioned Amy Sullivan's excellent articles that have appeared there and elsewhere. I'm no WM shill--I don't even subscribe anymore--but that's where the ideas are.

On the evangelical side, there are two items that center-left activists should read and think about:
1. This pre-election exchange in the New Pantagruel. If you don't understand the "insider language," take the time to learn it.
2. "For the Health of the Nations: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility." There is much here that reflects a progressive outlook on America and the world.

[UPDATE: Here's another site for the progressive's post-election reading list: the Sojourners' "God is Not a Republican. Or a Democrat" campaign.]

To paraphrase the brutally honest James Carville, "It's values, stupid." Secularist populists ignore that at their peril.

The Forward on deteriorating Jewish-Christian relations in Jerusalem

The Forwardon Jewish attacks on Christians in Jerusalem: "'I know Christians who lock themselves indoors during the entire Purim holiday' for fear of being attacked by Jews, said [former Religous Affairs Ministry adviser Daniel] Rossing, now the director of a Jerusalem center for Christian-Jewish dialogue."

Sound familiar? Swap the words "Christians" & "Jews" and replace the word "Purim" with "Easter." But turnabout isn't fair play, and two wrongs don't make a right.

Union for Reform Judaism condemns Presbyterian-Hezbollah meeting

Unbelievable but true: "an official delegation of the Presbyterian Church (USA) met with leaders of the terrorist group Hezbollah."

Talking about antisemitism in Los Angeles

I just attended this Fuller Theological Seminary dialogue on antisemitism. It took place at the same time as this major University of Judaism conference on antisemitism, the first session of which I attended last night. It's too bad the events conflicted with one another.

The UJ conference, which concludes tomorrow morning, will have comprised fourteen hours of high-level intellectual exploration of the current situation by a stimulating international coterie of renowned experts (Richard Rubenstein, Nicolas Weill, David Cesarani, John Kelsay, Mehnaz Afridi, David Myers, Jerome Chanes, Gary Tobin, Gabriel Schoenfeld, Michael Berenbaum, etc.).

The Fuller dialogue lasted two hours and involved two theological giants (Richard J. Mouw and Elliot Dorff). The two speakers were introduced by Sari Ateek, a Palestinian Christian student--in fact the son of the Rev. Canon Naim Ateek, founder-director of Sabeel, the Palestinian Liberation Theology Center. In his introduction of the two speakers, Sari Ateek condemned antisemitism, acknowledged the suffering of Jews in the Holocaust, and condemned Holocaust denial.

Last night's audience at the UJ consisted mostly of Jews in their 60s and 70s; at 32, I was almost certainly the youngest, or perhaps one of the two or three youngest people in the room. Tonight's audience at Fuller consisted mostly of Christians--of all races and nationalities--in their early 20s.

You do the math.