Confessions of a Recovering Pharisee

[USA Today]

Voters who attend religious services one to two times a month are supporting the Democratic nominee by 60%, up from 49% who supported Sen. John Kerry in 2004, based on a survey released Oct. 8 by the nonpartisan group Faith in Public Life.

“The fact that he’s getting 60% of those voters shows that there has been a movement overall in the last four years in terms of Democratic outreach with religious Americans,” said Amy Sullivan, whose book The Party Faithful examines Democrats’ outreach to religious voters.

“That might be related more to economic issues than anything else this year, but it does show that religious voters are willing to vote for Democrats.”

The survey also found evidence of a generational divide between younger and older evangelicals, including support by younger evangelicals for a more active government and less conservative views on same-sex marriage.

“They (evangelicals) are more concerned about peace and prosperity than they are about abortion or same-sex marriage,” said Michael Lindsay, associate professor of sociology at Rice University. “This is why things are different in 2008 than they were in 2004.”

Read more here.

[From me]

This is all the more reason that politics will never save our nation — or world for that matter. There are good things in both parties and very bad things for sure in both parties.  I just wish there was a candidate that could take the values that all believers cared about and ran.  But I guess Jesus has better things to do.

What do you think?

[LA Times]

In a white-steepled church along a stretch in picturesque canyon country, the preacher laid out the basic blueprint of a godly marriage: Husbands lead, wives submit. Speaking recently before hundreds of worshipers at Placerita Baptist Church in Newhall, guest preacher Chris Mueller affirmed the view that loving male headship and gracious wifely submission are God’s plan for spouses. 

Placerita, like many conservative Christian churches, teaches that a wife’s role is to be her husband’s helpmate (Genesis), “workers at home” (Titus) and submissive to her husband in everything (Ephesians). So how do these congregants square such teachings with their support for Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the conservative evangelical Christian who is aiming to become vice president while her teenage daughter is pregnant, her infant son has Down syndrome and her husband took a leave from work to serve as “Mr. Mom,” as People magazine put it?

“It’s probably presumptuous of us to figure out how she is going to balance all of this,” said Pat Ennis, a Placerita congregant who heads the home economics department at The Master’s College, a Christian institution in Santa Clarita. “The most important thing is that she can do it in God’s strength.”

“The Palin selection is the single most dangerous event in the conscience of the Christian community in the last 10 years at least,” said Doug Phillips, president of Vision Forum, a Texas-based ministry. “The unabashed, unquestioning support of Sarah Palin and all she represents marks a fundamental departure from our historic position of family priorities — of moms being at home with young children, of moms being helpers to their husbands, the priority of being keepers of the home.”

Voddie Baucham, a Texas pastor who has criticized the Palin selection as anti-family in a series of blogs, said that the overwhelming evangelical support demonstrates a willingness to sacrifice biblical principles for politics. “Evangelicalism has lost its biblical perspective and its prophetic voice,” Baucham wrote. “Men who should be standing guard as the conscience of the country are instead falling in line with the feminist agenda and calling a family tragedy . . . a shining example of family values.”

Some of the debate centers on whether the Bible allows women to serve as civil leaders. Vision Forum leaders argue that it does not. They cite passages in Genesis, Isaiah, Ephesians and elsewhere that they say establishes male headship over women and are critical of female leadership.

Others counter that restrictions on female leadership apply only to church and home. They include Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kentucky; and Randy Stinson, whose Kentucky-based Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood was established to combat growing feminism in evangelical churches.

Read more here.

[From me]

Wow!  I tend to agree with Dr. Mohler on this subject. I don’t know anything about the Palins but it is pretty sad when a successful Christian woman is being attacked by her own.  But what’s new?  As far as we know Mr. Palin is the leader in their home.  It is always interesting to me how many of the ultra legalistic groups want to limit what women can do and talk about the evils of working but their own Christian schools have mostly women teachers.  Isn’t there some hypocrisy there? This election is getting stranger and stranger every week.  

What do you think?

Here are two stories from a “Journalism Major” California State University in Sacremento, CA named Briana Monasky. It is scary to think people have such little use of the English language and think it is OK to use profanity and ugly language to get their point across. 

Here is her first Article. [The State Hornet]

The 2008 presidential campaign has been a major interest and concern for me, as it should be for any college student with the ability to exercise their right to vote their conscience.

The Republican pick for vice president, Gov. Sarah Palin, is appalling and offensive to any woman - no, any human being - with a brain and an ounce of self-respect. Palin is no feminist. Her policies on abortion and sex education make me hope I never have a daughter that could be affected by them.

This is a woman who cut sex education funding in Alaska and ended up with a 17-year-old knocked up by a hockey player. Beyond that, Palin and other Republicans preach abstinence-only sex education campaigns that don’t work. Remember that string of pregnant girls in Massachusetts? Those girls complained on national television that they couldn’t get birth control. What a nation we live in.

In Palin’s release regarding the pregnant teen, she said that she and her husband were “proud of Bristol’s decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents.” I suppose that must be true considering her policy on abortion. Palin is vehemently pro-life. In fact, she is committed, along with McCain, to overturning Roe v. Wade. She doesn’t approve of abortion even in cases of rape and incest.

That may be my main issue with Palin, the first female candidate for this position. This should be monumental. I should be incredibly proud to finally see a woman on the stage. Instead, I am ashamed that my country is letting her run. When I hear that women are pro-life I simply don’t understand. Beyond that, as a victim of sexual assault I consider it devastating to think that a woman may have to carry a child to term conceived from an act of hate. I hope her dad rapes her and she has to carry that child to term. I bet you she wouldn’t. I bet she’d grab a coat hanger herself and take care of it.

Read more here.

Then she tries to justify herself here:

Words are powerful. Believe me, I get it. I am a journalism major with a capital ‘J.’ However, to think that in any way, shape or form I could actually literally mean harm upon Sarah Palin is ridiculous. Were you joking with all of these comments and letters? You had to be. No one could really think I would mean that, right? Apparently not. Apparently I need to clarify what I meant.

As the sister of a stand-up comedian, I think vulgarity can be useful to demonstrate a point, whether it be humorous or shocking. In this case, I was simply saying that Palin, under a tragic circumstance such as rape, and worse, the incestuous variety, would not choose to carry the child to term. Did it come across well in the piece? Absolutely not. Do I regret it? Absolutely not.

Perhaps I should enlighten all of the people who were kind enough to make comments (17 so far) on the website or wrote letters to the editor. I do not mince my words. There is no brunoise involved.

I understand quite well the complexity of the abortion issue. It seems that half the people want the option, and the other half consider it a done deal once that egg is fertilized. That has nothing to do with my column. To be honest, the fact that I centered the piece around the issue was a bad idea in the first place. No matter what my statements were, someone was bound to end up angry. I focused on the sex education and abortion because of the buzz around Bristol’s pregnancy. These reasons are not the only ones that urge me to not agree with Palin.

All anger aside, I stand behind the statements I made about her. One line lacked eloquence, but it was supposed to. To take what I said and somehow attribute it to who I am as a person is equally offensive. To question whether I am, in fact, a victim of sexual assault is inexcusable. Anyone who went through what I did would feel the same. Furthermore, to infer that I am in any way an emotionally unstable person is reaching. I am up front about my experiences. I may have joked about the subject matter, but believe me: I take sexual assault seriously.

My only regret comes from the disappointment in realizing that you all got so hung up on one sentence that you missed the whole point; so hung up that you accused me of fabricating a personal experience that will haunt me forever. I am not trying to work out my issues on paper, simply trying to open your eyes to people’s policies by comparing them with parts of who I am.

Read more here.

[From me]

Ms. Monasky is that what they are teaching you in journalism school?  Your own candidate said that families were off limits.  You are just an angry misguided young woman.  You are obviously too young to know that every word you say has meaning. What you said was offensive and instead of apologizing you try to justify yourself. People with integrity learn from their mistakes, apologize, change and move on.  Those with an axe to grind will make excuses for their behavior and try to make others feel bad. I hold no ill will towards you.  In the past I probably would have said some ugly things about you but I just feel sorry for you.  I will pray that God will change your angry spirit.

What do you think?

It is interesting to me to see how people want to spin McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin for his VP.  Check out this article.

[Crescent News]

No one should be more loudly up in arms against Sarah Palin’s ascendancy to The Presidency than educated and moderate Christian, Jewish and Protestant Americans. Yet, no good people have ever done less while dark men rise.

The problem middle America should have with Palin is how she was elevated and why. She was selected over the objection of McCain himself and outside the democratic primary process. She was elevated by party pollsters, terrified of loosing the mega-church evangelical vote. McCain was, literally, blackmailed by religious extremists. The electoral math was clear to them and Palin’s polling has proven it since:

The only way McCain could win the election was to sell the Presidency itself.

The Palin ascendancy is a magician’s trick. It is an end-run around democratic process and the votes of tens of millions of Christian, Protestant and Jewish Republicans. She is entirely defined by her religious extremism and her rise is therefore also an end-run around the constitutional separation between church and government.

If Palin was a Catholic or a Jewish or a Mormon American (like the three leading VP candidates Republicans actually voted for in the primaries) she would not be in the contest. Your party passed over proven public leaders, including Joeseph Lieberman, Tom Ridge, Mit Romney and others. Leaders whose most important “qualification” was tens of millions of your very own votes. Religion has become more important than education, experience, ability or even the number of votes received, for every job in Government.

Including the White House.

Read more here.

[From me]

How does this reporter know that McCain didn’t want Palin?  What do you think?  Did McCain pick someone whom he really didn’t want just to get elected.  Or is this just sour grapes by people who don’t like his choice?

What do you think?