Last night was all about Paul Ryan at the GOP convention in Tampa, but Mike Huckabee stole the show with a barn-burner of a speech that included a line about Mitt Romney's Mormon faith:
"I care far less as to where Mitt Romney takes his family to church than I do about where he takes this country.’’
and a dig at Vice President Joe Biden:
"For years he gave less than two-tenths of 1 percent of his money to charity. He just wants you to give the government more so he and the Democrats can feel better about themselves. Mitt Romney has given over 16% of his income to his church and charity, and I'd feel better about having a leader who gives more of his own money instead of mine."
He also called President Obama the only "self-professed evangelical" on either ticket -- that's news to us; in covering POTUS for the past six years, we've never heard him label himself an evangelical.
Meanwhile, in other news ...
WaPo's Michelle Boorstein profiles New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who will bless the GOP convention tonight, and the DNC next week in Charlotte. Says NCR's John Allen: “Left to his own devices, he would talk to anyone anywhere about anything.”
Is it a sin for Muslims to dance? Depends on which imam you ask.
Prominent Catholic priest Benedict Groeschel says first-time offending priest abusers "should not go to jail because their intention was not committing a crime."
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, he of the so-called "Ground Zero" mosque (although not really, anymore) talks about the fight between Muslims and the West, and Muslims against Muslims.
Out in Washington state, churches are being warned not to collect money for the upcoming ballot battle over gay marriage.
Strange case out of Mother Russia: Two women were found murdered in an apartment, with the message "Free Pussy Riot" scrawled on the wall, "presumably" in blood. Pussy Riot, you'll recall, is the female punk band that got convicted of religious "hooliganism" for staging an anti-Putin protest in Moscow's central Orthodox cathedral.
-- Kevin Eckstrom
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Eubulus | Aug 30, 2012 | 10:36am
The evidence continues to mount each day that we are living in a Moronocracy.
www.themoronocracy.com
John Novotney | Aug 30, 2012 | 2:50pm
Re Huckabee’s “self-professed evangelical” comment, have you seen the following article from the June 21, 2012 issue of Christianity Today online?
John Novotney
(RNS Washington correspondent, 1969-1980)
Barack Obama: Evangelical-in-Chief?
How Christians might think about the President’s faith.
Judd Birdsall
[ posted 6/21/2012 10:53AM ]
Barack Obama: Evangelical-in-Chief?
Courtesy of the White House
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Editor’s Note:
This piece is a response to “Why We Should Reexamine the Faith of Barack Obama.”
The 2012 campaign has placed evangelicals in a paradox. A recent PRRI/RNS poll reveals that white evangelicals support a Mormon presidential candidate over Obama by an overwhelming 49% margin, but are simultaneously the religious group most likely to say it is important for a presidential candidate to share their religious beliefs (67%).
While there are plenty of legitimate policy reasons that evangelicals might support Governor Romney, their willingness to overlook their desire for a coreligionist candidate may also have at least something to do with the fact that 24% of them—higher than any other religious group—believe Obama is a Muslim, and even more are unaware (or unconvinced?) he’s a Protestant. What if more evangelicals knew Obama largely shares their religious beliefs?
That the true religious identity of the world’s most famous, most powerful man could remain a mystery to so many is itself a mystery. Before and especially during his presidency, Obama has been extraordinarily open on matters of faith, providing ample evidence for his repeated claim to be a devout Christian. The evidence may even suggest Obama is our evangelical-in-chief.
In his excellent religious biography of the President, The Faith of Barack Obama, author Stephen Mansfield spends several pages exploring whether Obama has been “born again.” Mansfield’s interviews with the President’s spiritual advisors suggest so.
“I know he’s born again,” said Joshua DuBois, head of the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, in an interview with Mansfield. A pastor’s kid who served briefly in a Pentecostal pastorate himself, DuBois has queried the President about his faith and found that he “believes what the majority of Christians believe.”
Joel Hunter, pastor of Florida’s 15,000-member Northland Church and Obama’s closest spiritual mentor, is even more emphatic. “There is simply no question about it: Barack Obama is a born again man who has trusted in Jesus Christ with his whole heart.”
These assertions of Obama’s “born again” status are instructive but only tell us so much. The Christian experience of spiritual rebirth is internal, subjective, and thus difficult to disprove. Moreover, it constitutes only one dimension of what it means to be an evangelical.
Admittedly, the meaning of evangelicalism is contested, and in the United States the term has become loaded with political baggage. Evangelicalism is an exceedingly diverse and diffuse global movement, lacking a unifying political agenda, institutional structure, or doctrinal basis (that’s why the e in “evangelical” is usually not capitalized). Yet we can identify core features shared by evangelicals across all continents.
The most widely accepted definition of evangelicalism comes from British historian David Bebbington. According to Bebbington, an evangelical is a Christian marked by four distinct emphases: “conversionism, the belief that lives need to be changed; activism, the expression of the gospel in effort; biblicism, a particular regard for the Bible; and what may be termed crucicentrism, a stress on the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.”
If Obama is an evangelical, we should expect to find him in alignment with at least this minimalist “Bebbington Quadrilateral.” Let’s look at how he squares with each of the four elements.
Conversionism: Barack Obama has a conversion story, if not an entirely traditional one. In his bestseller, The Audacity of Hope, Obama recounts how he warmed to Christianity, and the black church tradition in particular, while attending Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. One Sunday, Obama writes, “I felt God’s spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth.” Obama’s eventual decision to be baptized “came about as a choice and not an epiphany; the questions I had did not magically disappear.”
Kevin Eckstrom | Aug 30, 2012 | 4:24pm
John,
That’s a good point, and a useful article. But, I’m not sure that Obama here, or anywhere, could ever be described as a “self-professed” evangelical. Some might believe he is, or say he fits certain criteria, but I’ve yet to hear him use the e-word to describe himself.
If I’m mistaken, someone please let me know.
Kevin Eckstrom