In 2003, Amy Sullivan said that Democrats needed to start reaching religious people. Her argument makes sense: a huge percentage of the US believes in God, and the Democrats elected to the Presidency in recent years (Carter, Clinton) have been reasonably well versed in matters of faith.

But there are two barriers to overcome: the core of the DNC's leadership is deeply secular, and the values offered by the Democratic party seem, to many observers, to clash with biblical values.

(Here I raise a series of questions that I wish such people would address. It's all well and good to argue that one's political values should align with one's religio-philosophical outlook, but I'd like to see it explained in a bit more depth.)

Given what the political left has telegraphed in advance, it's unsurprising to see that Kos has launched a religio-political blog (a "sister blog") entitled "Street Prophets."

Pastor Dan's Anger

"Street Prophets" is hosted by "pastordan" a UCC clergyman profiled in the New York Times:

The brick church, more than a century old, stands at the junction of two county roads tracing the glacial hills of southeastern Wisconsin. In the field across the way, the summer corn stretches eight feet from root to tassel. This being a Sunday morning, the Rev. Daniel Schultz greets the faithful on the front steps as they arrive for 9 a.m. worship at the Salem United Church of Christ. Pastor Dan, as he prefers to be known, is the only man in the congregation wearing a coat and tie. ....

Mr. Schultz's readers have found comparatively little balm in Gilead. True to the take-no-prisoners style of blogosphere discourse, Street Prophets traffics more in calumny and condemnation, though with an extremely learned theological intelligence behind it.

"If Conservative Christians are looking for salvation," Mr. Schultz wrote in one characteristic post, "they ought to start looking to save themselves from themselves. They have much to repent for, like the rest of us. But unlike the rest of us, they have a unique level of judgmentalism and separation to get out of their system."

Conservatives aren't simply wrong. They have uniquely bad motives and souls. *Yawn.*

Besides decrying the religious right on issues like gay rights, abortion and intelligent design, Mr. Schultz has also disparaged even seeming allies like Jim Wallis, probably the most prominent liberal among the evangelical Christian clergy. Mr. Schultz has reviled Mr. Wallis's "patronizing lectures."

I was wondering if anyone would notice. How refreshing.

But it sounds (unsurprisingly, given his political bent) as if "pastordan" has a serious utopian jones (underline added):

Somehow this balancing act seems to work, meeting the needs of two wildly disparate flocks and reconciling Mr. Schultz to himself. As someone who suffers from, and is medicated for, bipolar disorder, Mr. Schultz has, of necessity, become an expert on reckoning with extremes. "There's a part of me that's been angry since I was a kid," Mr. Schultz, 39, said in an interview. "Part of that is my illness, and part of it is a deep sense that the world isn't the place it was meant to be. I had to find a productive place to put that anger or it would swallow me whole. And part of my spiritual journey has been to claim that anger as spiritual."

Imagine that: a man of the left driven by anger.

He's right of course: this world isn't perfect. There are plenty of things, whatever side of the political spectrum you're on, which should trigger a righteous anger at times.

Yet I wonder what he makes of the lesson in the story of the Garden of Eden: that the world is fallen because we, people, are allowed to make choices, and, in doing so, we sin. But if individual sin is the problem, I don't see how political structures can be the antidote, unless they directly attempt to prevent us from making bad or sinful choices. (And who would staff them? More sinners? There's a reason the word "utopia" means, literally, "no-place".)

And of course, we have different views of the facts too. Explaining, on his blog, more about his anger (and that which permeates the rest of the left) Pastor Dan writes:

But what the mainstream media never seems to understand about where the liberal blogs are coming from: if you're not a little pissed off, you haven't been paying attention. The past seven years have seen a continual erosion of American liberty, an unnecessary war, venal, corrupt governance and legislation as a vehicle for spite. We lost an entire city, for Christ's sake. What's not to be angry about?

I agree we've seen an erosion of American liberty: but we see different sources. He probably sees the "Patriot Act" as the death of liberty as we know it, but from my readings, it looks rather sane, and I haven't seen many (if any) travesties enabled by it in real life. In contrast, I notice that a relatively new infraction called "hate crime" is now threatening to send a man to jail for tossing a Koran in a toilet -- in a society which gives people government money to submerge crucifixes in urine!

I agree Katrina was a tragedy, but I see a city which has been below sea level for a century, several thousand unused school buses, and a corrupt and lax mayor who refused to order an evacuation (and a governor who didn't override that) as having a lot more to do with what went wrong than some faraway bureaucrat in Washington DC.

We can't both be right, of course.

Theological and Political Content

On "Street Prophets" there's quite a bit of "shallow" content: links to other articles; a regular column called "Wanker of the Day" in which Pastor Dan berates somebody for offering a view with which he disagrees; a "Prayer Closet" column (hosted by someone else) which gets relatively few comments (7) for an allegedly 4.3-million-pageview blog. ("I welcome all people to join in as the power of prayer/good energy is undeniable." [1] Ya can't disagree with that "good energy"!)

There's also the occasional proclamation that an individual is praying for someone (who clearly isn't a reader) combined with a snub (a real two-for-one):

My prayers are with Justice Roberts... who has suffered an (epileptic?) seizure... At the same time, my prayers are also that he use this experience as an opportunity to examine his conscience and to realize that it's important for a Chief Justice, or any justice, to make decisions because they are right, not because they are right wing. [2]

(Because, you know, Justice Roberts knows full well that he's making harmful decisions in order to be loyal to his party.)

But every once in a while a serious attempt is made to engage some social/political issue in biblical terms, such as this article which attacks a non-partisan Christianity Today article for teaching our youth the "false & mis-leading doctrine" that the bible portrays homosexual relations as sin, and less than God's ideal.

Yet the arguments offered remind me of many atheistic arguments -- they only work if you don't know some fairly obvious point of doctrine that the people you're arguing against usually do.

Citing a different article than the one being refuted, the author tells his audience that the "Religious Right" believes "in distinct and specific roles for men and women... are 'complementarians' because the male and female roles are said to 'complement' each other":

"Complementarians base their belief on an inflexibly literal reading of Genesis. According to Complementarians, the only relationship God mentions in the second chapter of Genesis is a heterosexual relationship between one man and one woman... This is interpreted to mean that God proscribes every other marriage relationship. [...]"

Brentlinger says that the "traditional view is illogical" as it attempts to create doctrine from something that isn't there: "Reading into the text something the text does not say and then teaching as doctrine what the text does not say, is called eisogesis... Thoughtful Christians understand that conjecture about God's will, based on God's silence, can never be the foundation of sound doctrine. [bold in original]

Viewing Adam and Eve as the prototypical marriage model, from which no deviations are allowed, violates our common sense and our knowledge of God's dealings with His people throughout history.

Like one of the commenters, I've near heard the linkage made between "complementarianism" and homosexuality. But either way, for Christians, it's not at all an "argument from silence" to say that Genesis presents God's ideal for sexual union -- because Jesus had something to say about it.

In direct response to a question about our constant desire for sexual variety, Jesus quoted this very text as presenting God's intended sexual ideal -- male/female sexual union in an enduring relationship:

Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one. (Matt 19:4-6)

Nor do they explain, if the biblical God thought male/male unions were fine, why he then called such behavior "detestable" in Leviticus. To that, there are various counter-arguments one might offer, but assuring the reader that the bible is simply "silent" on that topic is simply, well, false.

But of course the real failing of the Christianity Today article, despite its direct instruction to love homosexuals and treat them kindly at all times, is -- as usual -- that the author has bad motives.

Burns' "nice" and "polite" answer to the youth may sound that way, but his words are nothing more than fancy gift and bubble-wrap around a doctrine and theology based and founded only upon hate, exclusion and Scriptural misinterpretation.

And this is what is being taught to young people around the country. In over 200 private, Christian schools youth are being taught false methods of Scriptural interpretation. They are being taught to imprint their own prejudices into a text written two thousand years ago.

No. No hate-inducing rhetoric there! :-)

Ecumenism Amok

Despite the above, "Street Prophets" is usually fairly moderate in tone compared to the rest of the Kos community. But I don't see how it's going to put anything but the vaguest of "religious" dressings on "progressive" political stances, since the religious arguments seem focused on those outside religion, and the political arguments are mostly repetitions of progressive dogmas rather than attempts to persuade.

Certainly there are attempts to show things don't come from the bible (see above), but there don't seem to be many attempts to explain how biblical passages lead inexorably us to "progressive" policies.

Perhaps Pastor Dan's inability to make such linkages is stems from his attempt to make everyone -- Muslim, Atheists, New Agers, Baptists -- feel completely at home at all times. Such as in this (unintentionally amusing) ecumenical display:

Mr. O'Reilly, We Will Pray* For You ... As a long-time participant in the Daily Kos community, I must take exception to your recent campaign against the site. You have labeled the community as a "hate site," and compared it to the Nazis and the KKK... " let him who is without sin cast the first stone". ...

Mr. O'Reilly, I take the Bible seriously. I am a Christian disciple committed to growth in love of the Lord and my neighbor. I am even committed, God help me, to learning to love my enemy. I don't represent everyone at Daily Kos, let alone the entire liberal blogosphere: that little asterisk after "pray" signifies that not all of us believe in God, but we can all meditate or hold someone in our thoughts. In that sense, if you were to take the time to get to know us, you'd find that I'm a lot closer to representative than not.

We are not haters. We are not rabid. We are not extremists. We are people who want to help their neighbors and do what is right for their nation as best we are able.

With that in mind, I wanted to let you know that we will pray* for you... [3]

On the facts: I beg to differ. When prominent Kos bloggers write a series on how the US Military should be referred to a "Killitary", when you embrace the view that Bush was behind 9/11, and when you rejoice at the death of contractors in Iraq, it's fair to allege you're both "rabid" and "extremists".

(And of course, another aspect of praying for your enemies is that you do it in secret, "in the inner room", not in a public display apparently meant to demonstrate your superior morality! ;-))

But, on the asterisks: I enjoy diversity in my neighborhood or workplace -- or a blog on, say, computers. But it seems to me that the attempt to link religion and politics fails if you're not allowed to offer explanations which rest upon specific religious assumptions. And having to put an asterisk next to "pray", or write, alternately "good energy" each time comes off as silly and absurdly ecumenical.

If you aim at everything, you're likely to hit nothing.

And, if so, what's the purpose of this blog?

Markos Speaks

Though Pastor Dan vehemently insists otherwise above, Markos (Kos) admits, in understated tones, that DailyKos blogs have indeed had a bit of an ongoing issue with religion:

Some of the least satisfying discussions we've had here at DKos have involved religion... It's important that we call out people whose politics are cloaked in religion but really advance xenophobia, exclusion, bigotry, views and policies that are anti-science and anti-progress, and rank moral hypocrisy. But the misuse of religion in politics doesn't mean that it behooves progressives who seek to create majority coalitions to mock, ridicule and excoriate people of faith. If for no other reason, it's really stupid politics, because you have to reach people where they are and not where one might wish they were, for most Americans adhere to some kind of religious faith. Progressive politics need not embrace religion, but it must accept that religion is an important part of the lives of a large number of Americans, and treat with respect matters of religion and faith.

Pastor Dan's motives aside, it seems clear Kos's purpose here is to be able to say: "Hey look! We have a religious blog! We're not anti-faith at all!" -- and come up with, as he says "a new and affirming vision of a religious left that... and inspires [people] to translate their faith in to progressive politics."

Not that we're going to change anything to match that religion, mind you. Just to offer a "new vision" where it seems to line up. At least he's being honest, in this moment, by admitting it is his group who is trying to work out a new vision. If a "hijacking" is occurring, it's certainly not from conservatives like myself.

So in the end, "Street Prophets" seems to be, in Kos's own view, mere set dressing for the "progressive" agenda. Values from mainstream religion don't drive that agenda, nor modify it, instead, we simply strive to create to "a vision" in which that platform might somehow palatable to most people of faith.