Rick Santorum on Separation of Church and State

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum (not a proud part of my home state history) was in Massachusetts speaking to a group of Catholics and he not only ripped former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney for his health care law but he also ripped former President Kennedy, also from Massachusetts, for saying that he supported separation of church and state:

Santorum decried what he called the growing secularization of American public life.

He traced the problem to Kennedy's 1960 speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, in which Kennedy – then a candidate for president - sought to allay concerns about his Catholicism by declaring, "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute."

Santorum, who is Catholic, said he was "frankly appalled" by Kennedy's remark.

"That was a radical statement," Santorum said, and it did "great damage."

"We're seeing how Catholic politicians, following the first Catholic president, have followed his lead, and have divorced faith not just from the public square, but from their own decision-making process," Santorum said.

Might it be possible that President Kennedy's faith was actually informing his decision-making? Might it possible that not all Catholic politicians share the same faith perspective as Santorum? Might it be possible here that the real radical is Santorum, who also added this little bit of historical commentary about another President:

"Jefferson is spinning in his grave," he added.

When Jefferson became President he discontinued the practice started by his predecessors George Washington and John Adams of proclaiming days of fasting and thanksgiving. He wrote this famous letter to the Danbury Baptists in response to their concerns about religious establishment:

Mr. President

To messers Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.

Gentlemen

The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. [Congress thus inhibited from acts respecting religion, and the Executive authorised only to execute their acts, I have refrained from prescribing even those occasional performances of devotion, practiced indeed by the Executive of another nation as the legal head of its church, but subject here, as religious exercises only to the voluntary regulations and discipline of each respective sect.] Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association assurances of my high respect & esteem.

(signed) Thomas Jefferson
Jan.1.1802.

Wanna guess whose statements about church and state really make Jefferson spin in his grave?

Teachers Need to Sacrifice Like Wall Street Bankers

This Jon Steward segment is priceless:

The Daily Show
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How Should We Fix Our Budget Problems

A new NBC/WSJ poll asks Americans to make choices about how to fill the hole in our budget:

The most popular: placing a surtax on federal income taxes for those who make more than $1 million per year (81 percent said that was acceptable), eliminating spending on earmarks (78 percent), eliminating funding for weapons systems the Defense Department says aren’t necessary (76 percent) and eliminating tax credits for the oil and gas industries (74 percent).

The least popular: cutting funding for Medicaid, the federal government health-care program for the poor (32 percent said that was acceptable); cutting funding for Medicare, the federal government health-care program for seniors (23 percent); cutting funding for K-12 education (22 percent); and cutting funding for Social Security (22 percent).

This just confirms my view (hope?) that the last election was an aberration as angry tea-partiers showed up in an off-year election and skewed the results, throwing the election into the hands of a political party that mistakenly believes it has been given a mandate for taking draconian action to cut government spending on social programs, not to mention taking out public-employee unions to boot. This is just the latest poll that suggests that these leaders are over-reading the results of the election and misreading the mood of the public.

Our War Machine

The Cold War officially ended in 1989. Remember all that talk then about the peace dividend? We never saw it and, according to new book by Tom Englehardt reviewed by Brad Birzer at The American Conservative it doesn't matter who is President or in control of congress, we are now a nation perpetually at war:

The events of 1989 should have offered the West some breathing room, a time to rethink the purpose of our nation and reinvigorate republican ideals. Instead, the past two decades, under Republican and Democratic administrations alike, have revealed America and the West as morally and spiritually bankrupt. Plunder and torture best symbolize the bloated American Empire of the last 20 years, a force that exists merely for the sake of self-perpetuation. Our standing in the world has declined precipitously. At home, many are angry and want to change, organize, and harangue. Despite their best intentions, they stand impotent, comprehending neither the past nor the present, looking at the future—when not navel-gazing—with understandable dread.

When voters elected Barack Obama in 2008, his supporters acclaimed him higher than a prophet; he was messianic. As one fine and intelligent person—an expert in high tech as well as a farmer—wrote to me in immediate post-election euphoria, “Brad, why are you so upset, don’t you realize that we finally have a chance to end war and poverty, permanently?”

What the Obama administration has delivered, of course, is not only the continuation of the policies of the previous three administrations but a profound exaggeration of them. If anything, we suffer more violations of our privacy and civil liberties now than at any time during the Bush administration, all in the name of a national-security state that keeps the populace in its place while perpetuating war abroad.

In his soul-searching, illuminating, and often depressing look at the unholy ménage of Demos, Leviathan, and Mars, Tom Englehardt probes deeply into the war culture of Washington, D.C. He notes that only two positions have any real voice in contemporary public-policy debate: those who want more of this and those who want more of that. The key word is “more.” As Englehardt writes, when it comes to conflict overseas “however contentious the disputes in Washington, however dismally the public viewed the war, however much the president’s war coalition might threaten to crack open, the only choices were between more and more.” More drones, more troops, more nation-building.

So much for campaign promises and the new messiah who would end war and poverty permanently. The first military budget Obama submitted, Engelhardt notes, was larger than the last one tendered by the Bush administration. “Because the United States does not look like a militarized country, it’s hard for Americans to grasp that Washington is a war capital, that the United States is a war state, that it garrisons much of the planet, and that the norm for us is to be at war somewhere (usually, in fact, many places) at any moment.”

While I remain an Obama supporter and in many ways this about-to-end congressional session is going to go down in history as a historic one for progressives, Obama has deeply disappointed on the war front.

Said Without Irony

Time's Swampland gives us this statement from Senator Jim DeMint:

"You can't jam a major arms control treaty right before Christmas," DeMint tells Politico. "What's going on here is just wrong. This is the most sacred holiday for Christians.

We certainly wouldn't want any kind of arms reduction treaty that promotes world peace signed on the eve of Christmas. Not when we have worked so hard to pass far more pressing and appropriate-to-the-holiday legislation like extending tax cuts for the rich. It is priorities like these that tell you all you need to know about what the Senator knows about Jesus and why he thinks that Christmas is the most sacred holiday for Christians.

Wings and Claws

It was a foregone conclusion after the recent election that the rich were going to get to keep their tax cuts. Under the circumstances I think Obama got the best bargain he could get, although I welcome the righteous anger coming from the left. I just wish they - congressional dems - had more spine when it really mattered last summer, but they never brought up the tax cut bill then.

In any case the most organized and influential group in Washington these days are the rich, which include a majority of our legislators. So it is no surprise that they got their tax cuts. But I came across this passage from Walter Rauschenbush's The Theology for the Social Gospel this morning and it seemed apropos:

Ordinary sin is an act of weakness and side-stepping, followed by shame the next day. But when it is a source of prolific income, it is no longer a shame-faced vagabond slinking through the dark, but an army with banners, entrenched and defiant. The bigger the dividends, the stiffer the resistance against anything that would cut them down. When fed with money, sin grows wings and claws. (p.66)

I'm Not a Witch, I'm You

Elvira is much more believable than Christine O'Donnell:

Don't Ask, Don't Tell Undone by Judge

Judge Virginia Phillips, a federal district court judge sitting in California's central district in Riverside, ruled Tuesday that she will not reverse a decision she ordered last week barring the U.S. military from enforcing the 1993 law signed by President Clinton known as Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

The Pentagon has told recruiters that for now they must comply. The Obama Administration says it will appeal. (Hopefully not with much gusto.) But once again an "activist" judge has moved the civil rights agenda forward. Thank God for activist judges who think that racial and sexual discrimination violate constitutional protections.

Mark Thompson at Time.com's political blog notes that Phillips was appointed by Clinton:

And that's just one of the strange twists about the coming collapse of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." While the ban was a compromise Clinton didn't want to make, it was a judge he appointed who apparently finally has undone it. And she did it in response to a lawsuit filed by a group calling itself the Log Cabin Republicans. Not only did Republicans file the suit that's likely to end in the law's demise, the organization itself was created following a successful 1978 effort by gay California conservatives to defeat a ban on gay teachers in the state's public schools. Their most important ally in that fight? A former governor named Ronald Reagan.

The Absurdity of Our Current Political Discussion

Tax cuts for the rich: why is this what we are talking about?

The economic challenges we face are myriad and daunting. The unemployment rate is hovering near 10 percent. Our energy policy is stuck in the 20th century. We’ve got crumbling infrastructure all over the place. The budget is projected to remain badly out of balance. And perhaps most troubling, the middle class is barely keeping its head above water. Tax cuts for rich people address precisely none of these pressing issues. They would actually make matters worse in some cases.

Why, then, are we even discussing the possibility of cutting taxes for rich people? Is it because they’ve been hit particularly hard by the recession? Hardly. When the National Bureau of Economic Research announced recently that the Great Recession came to an end in June of last year that news must have come as quite a shock to the millions of Americans who are still out of work, working fewer hours for less pay, and struggling to make ends meet. But it probably didn’t surprise people at the top of the income ladder. They’ve been recovering quite nicely...

It should come as no surprise, then, that income inequality is fast approaching record levels. The richest 5 percent of Americans claimed almost 22 percent of all income in 2009, and the top fifth took home fully half of the nation’s income. The poorest fifth, meanwhile, earned just 3.4 percent of all the income, and the share of national income going to the vast middle dipped as well. Income inequality in 2009 was higher than at any point since at least 1967, according to one measure.

All those facts and figures reinforce what most people already know: The middle class took this recession right on the chin while the rich suffered no more than a glancing blow. And yet somehow in Washington the talk is all about tax cuts for rich people.

As I said in a recent post one of the big reasons we are talking about tax cuts for the rich is that almost all of our legislators in Washington are rich. The rich are their friends. The rich have easy access to Washington legislators, much easier than the middle class or poor. And so when they whine about their "high" taxes they get listened to.

Our Classless Rich

Mark Dayton is running for Governor. He was a so-so Senator and for this he is being pilloried in attack ads (particularly for being the only Senator so send his staff home after 9/11). Mark Dayton is also very rich, his family being founders of department stores Dayton and Target among others. A key campaign plank of Dayton's is that he is going to raise taxes on himself and his fellow wealthy Minnesotans and shift the tax rate back to what it once was when the wealthy in the state paid a slightly higher percentage of their income in state taxes than the way it is now when they pay less, in percentage terms, than their middle class fellow citizens. It seems like a fair and sensible plan. But of course he is being pilloried for this as well. His plan is a "job killer." It is funny how we have lowered the tax rates on the wealthy during the last decade and don't have more jobs to show for it. But that is another story.

Whatever Mark Dayton's faults as a Senator and as a person, he has class. He represents what is mostly a bygone notion among the rich today - wealth however come by is a privilege and there is a concomitant duty to give back to the community a proportionally larger share of money and service than would be expected of those who are working long hours to put bread on the table for their families.

His name came to mind when I read this post by Michael O'Hare on the classless rich of our era:

Real class is what the economic aristocracy of our country has almost entirely lost. The American rich are wallowing in a moral slough, grasping for more and more money they have no clue what to do with, and venting their frustration that climbing over each other to new heights of wretched excess brings no satisfaction by lashing out at every social institution, and at a government whose largesse is never enough for them. Andrew Carnegie may have had his miners shot at Homestead, but he came to regret it and he also said it was sinful to die rich. He walked the talk; there are Carnegie libraries, a university, concert halls, and more all across America, still creating value. (All the Vanderbilts, not so much.) But Larry Ellison has his name on nothing and for all his billions, has absolutely no class and no idea that he lacks it, and a whole class of cowboy millionaires and billionaires have the fatal idea that he is a target to emulate. No, money isn’t a way of keeping score; great schools and passing laws that make us all better off and building a subway system for New York and a high-speed rail line in California is a way of keeping score. Anyone who thinks he’s self-made, and single-handedly created all the value he’s come to possess, has no class, no more class than a Gulf sheik who thinks the accident of living on top of an oil pool makes him admirable and distinguished. Keeping track of (and taking care of) all the people without whose labor and pioneering you couldn’t have done anything, that’s how to keep score.

What is really disappointing to me is to see how well this describes so many Democrats in Congress these days.It is bad enough that you practically have to be a multi-millionaire to be a Senator. It is worse that there are very few Nelson Rockefeller-like rich Republican Senatorsany more (i.e. ones with class) But is just pathetic to watch Democratic Senators talk about the need to make sacrifices like raising the Social Security age in order to do something about the deficit, and then turn around and support extending the Bush tax cuts for their classless rich cronies. Talk about having no class.

Speaking of Moral Examples

I have intentionally been out of the 24 hour news and blogosphere cycle for awhile. As I dip my toes back in one of the first stories I read concerns Shirley Sherrod, the USDA official who was forced out of office after a Washington Times columnist and Fox News regular passed on a snippet of an old speech she gave that had her talking about not wanting to help a white farmer because of his race. Sherrod is black.

Apparently without even checking the facts of the story the Obama Administration dropped her like a hot potato. But if you actually watch the extended clip of her speech you see that she was telling the story of how she had to overcome her learned prejudices and learn to treat all people equally. She is telling a great story about her growth as a moral person.

Shirley Sherrod is exactly the kind of person we need working in government. It is embarrassing anyone in the Administration took seriously something from Fox News and disgraceful that she was let go. Hopefully Obama will quickly make amends.

Two Words for Harry Reid

Everything I read this morning seems to suggest that Nevada Senator Harry Reid was the big winner in last night's Republican party primary as the looniest candidate, Sharron Angle, won. I have two words of warning for Reid: Michelle Bachmann.

An Inadequate Response to Trouble and Disaster

I am with Bob Herbert on the joblessness crisis and the lack of adequate response from Obama and Congress:

Policy makers have acted as if they are unaware of the magnitude of this crisis. They have behaved as though somehow, through some economic magic perhaps, or the power of prayer, this ocean of joblessness will just disappear. That’s a pipe dream.

Even if we somehow experienced a sudden, extraordinary surge in job growth (which no one is expecting), it would take a very long time just to get back to the level of employment that we had when the recession started in late-2007.

...For all the money that has been spent so far, the Obama administration and Congress have not made the kinds of investments that would put large numbers of Americans back to work and lead to robust economic growth. What is needed are the same things that have been needed all along: a vast program of infrastructure repair and renewal; an enormous national investment in clean energy aimed at transforming the way we develop and use energy in this country; and a transformation of the public schools to guarantee every child a first-rate education in a first-rate facility.

This would be a staggeringly expensive and difficult undertaking and would entail a great deal of shared sacrifice. (It would also require an end to our insane waste of resources on mindless and endless warfare.) The benefits over the long term would be enormous.

Bold and effective leadership would have put us on this road to a sustainable future. Instead, we’re approaching a dead end.

The problem is that even though there is lots of anger on the street that anger is mostly misdirected, i.e. the Tea Party, or misinformed like those who are blaming Obama for not being angry enough about the gulf oil spill. But for all the throw the bums out anger on the street the politicians in Washington don't feel that anger every day; what they feel every day is touch of money that streams into their campaign coffers from the big players in finance and business who have everyday access to Washington politicians. These people are not personally hurting. What is a little unemployment to them? What they worry about and pay for access to talk about is regulations and tax breaks and the threat of inflation that is out there somewhere if we don't tame the deficit. So we get a tepid response to the real and festering unemployment crisis. And despite an epic disaster in the gulf it is still drill-baby-drill, put off only briefly until the cameras go away from the gulf.

There is only one person who has the bully pulpit and who could make the case for a real jobs bill and a real energy policy. I am still hopeful but also increasingly worried that another crisis (or two) is going to be wasted.

Who to Support for MN Governor

For those living in MN Dave Mindeman has a great post today on the merits and problems with the DFL candidates. Dave is doing some of the best political blogging in the state.

The Church and Social Justice

The Washington Post On Faith section is currently featuring a discussion about Glenn Beck's recent statement that Christians should flee churches where social justice is featured. Southern Baptist leader Al Mohler comes to Beck's defense:

My concern is very different. As an evangelical Christian, my concern is the primacy of the Gospel of Christ -- the Gospel that reveals the power of God in the salvation of sinners through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. The church's main message must be that Gospel. The New Testament is stunningly silent on any plan for governmental or social action. The apostles launched no social reform movement. Instead, they preached the Gospel of Christ and planted Gospel churches. Our task is to follow Christ's command and the example of the apostles.

The New Testament is stunningly silent on any plan for government or social action. Interesting response. Yes it is true that the New Testament writers don't have much to say about a government plan for social justice. Their government was the pagan Roman Empire and and in the eyes of the empire Christians were a new and suspicious religious movement. Government leaders did not recognize Christianity as legitimate; there was occasional government sanctioned persecution of Christians. The message of the NT writers was either lay low and don't make trouble or pray for the day when Jesus will return and punish the great whore Babylon. It is entirely unsurprising to find the NT silent on any plan for government social action.

What about the Old Testament, though. What about the prophets who railed against religious and political leaders for their injustice? They certainly had a vision for government social action on behalf of the poor and widows. Why isn't that pertinent to the discussion of whether Christians who now find themselves with a political voice and access to political power shouldn't use their voice and power to establish justice through government action? I am always confused about how some evangelical Christians pick and choose their moments to look to the Hebrew Bible for support.

And then there is Mohler's next sentence: The apostles launched no social reform movement. Read this passage from Acts:

Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.

This sounds a lot like a social reform movement to me. It sounds a lot like a socialist reform movement to me. It sounds like the kind of reform movement you would launch when there is no government sponsored social safety net and you are on your own. It also sounds like a template you might then transfer to the government when, lo and behold, you one day find yourself running it.

I think it is fair to say that early Christians felt a divine imperative to implement social justice reforms within their movement. I think if Rodney Stark is correct they not only did a good job of taking care of their own but they extended that care and hospitality to pagans and this helped win converts to the movement.

But I do not think it is fair to say that because the NT is silent on government-run social welfare programs that Christians should oppose them. There is a Christian social justice imperative rooted in the Hebrew scriptures and reinforced in the NT. There is an explicit reference to ends but not means. We ought to be open, then, to whatever is the most effective method of carrying out that imperative. The unparalleled success of Social Security of lifting the burden of poverty from seniors is but one example of social justice done well by the government, and done in a much more comprehensive way than any patchwork of church charities could ever do. Thanks to liberals, including liberal Christians. Thanks to liberals, including liberal Christians the same will soon be true of health care.

Al Mohler is wrong. Walter Rauschenbusch was right.

Tea Party Demographics

The New York Times surveys Tea Party members and finds, surprise surprise, that they are mostly white, wealthy, and well-educated. They describe themselves as angry at Obama and Washington. What are they angry about? Over half of those surveyed thinks that Obama's policies favor the poor over the wealthy and the middle class. Of course they are also angry about all those bank bailouts. Those poor bankers.

They want smaller government but they also don't want anyone touching their Social Security and Medicare. 9 out of 10 think that Obama is doing a bad job and some of them think he is a socialist and a Muslim:

“I just feel he’s getting away from what America is,” said Kathy Mayhugh, 67, a retired medical transcriber in Jacksonville. “He’s a socialist. And to tell you the truth, I think he’s a Muslim and trying to head us in that direction, I don’t care what he says. He’s been in office over a year and can’t find a church to go to. That doesn’t say much for him.”

One bright note from the survey: many of them don't think Sarah Palin is qualified to be President.

The Star Came to Rest over Minneapolis

Two intellectual heavy-weights of the Republican Party shared the stage this afternoon in the twin cities. FOX News' Sean Hannity was here covering the event live, lending more gravitas to the celestial event.

If We Approached Slavery Like We Aproached Health Care

Minnesota state Senator John Marty, a candidate for governor, (and son of church historian Martin Marty) isn't thrilled with the new federal health care bill:

If the country had approached slavery like we have approached health care," he says, "we'd still have slavery, but Democrats would be bragging that the slaves only work 40 hours a week now. We haven't fixed the problem. There will still be people dying from lack of health care, and going broke.

Feeding on Fear

I just received a fundraising appeal from a liberal organization that begins its pitch this way:

We knew that power concedes nothing. So did President Obama. So did the members of Congress who courageously voted for reform, knowing that the special interests and the extreme right wing would retaliate swiftly.

The attacks are fierce. Deceptive ads are hitting the airwaves in swing districts. GOP lawmakers are pushing to repeal reform -- and preventing the Senate from performing basic functions. A few Republican attorneys general have launched a baseless attack to overturn the legislation. But that's not even the worst of it.

A conservative blogger posted the home address of Congressman Tom Perriello, urging tea partiers to "drop by." Other members have had death threats. Democratic offices have been vandalized...

This is one of several similar emails I have received in the last few days from liberal groups. I don't like it one bit. I get that this is a proven method for raising money. I get that the right wing does it too. And I am not disputing the veracity of the charges leveled here. The Republicans are pretty much unhinged from reality right now; some of them are treading in dangerous and possibly illegal waters.

But do we have to stoop to the same level? Do we have to ratchet up the rhetoric to a fever pitch so we can meet them mano a mano in the gutter? If we want cooler heads to prevail on the other side shouldn't we model it on ours?

I don't give money to any organization - political or religious - that uses fear as a motivating tool.

Change We Can Believe In!

Finally we have health care for all. What a great night for our country.