Less religion, more politics please
Yet another New York Times writer took a public pratfall recently, but for once it was easy to sympathize. The embarrassed scribe was Timothy Egan, the Seattle-based reporter who’s simply one of the best. No matter the topic, from strip-mining in West Virginia to prairie restoration in Oklahoma, if Egan’s writing, I’m reading.
Egan made an error of generosity: He praised a TV preacher for acting like a Christian. Alas, he was mistaken. The holy man was the Rev. Rick Warren, author of “The Purpose Driven Life.” In the newspaper’s online edition, Egan wrote that by opening his Southern California “megachurch” to a group of gay fathers, Warren was “not just living up to the highest standards of Christian fellowship, he’s turning the page on a particularly embarrassing part of our politics.”
But, uh-oh, the event never happened. Editors added a postscript: Despite the gay fathers’ announced intention to worship at Saddleback Church, Warren issued a statement. “We did not invite this group, and I will not be meeting with them.” The pastor would be elsewhere that Sunday. A previous commitment, you see. Funny how that happens. Somehow, I don’t believe his Lord and Savior would have handled it that way.
Too bad, because Egan had a great idea: Given the embarrassments visited upon both presidential candidates by their respective spiritual advisers in 2008, how about “a clean break? Let’s go godless for the rest of the campaign.”
Can I get an amen? Face it: You can’t believe anything politicians say about religion, anyway. But no, it’s not going to happen. Egan points out that, in 1960, John F. Kennedy, the nation’s only Catholic president, announced his belief “in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.” (Translation: The Pope wouldn’t be selecting his Cabinet.) Kennedy said a president’s “views on religion are his own private affair.”
Thanks in part to Nixon’s “Southern Strategy,” candidates today feel compelled to declare their piety. The results are often embarrassing and sometimes hilarious.
To quote that great Imaginary-American Huckleberry Finn, “it would make a cow laugh” to see a cocky, wisecracking flyboy like Sen. John McCain pretending to heed the spiritual teachings of the Rev. John Hagee, whose endorsement the GOP candidate avidly sought, accepted, then abruptly declined as his more preposterous views began to get attention.
Like most of his ilk, Hagee goes oddly silent when tornadoes tear up Baptist churches and Boy Scout encampments. If there weren’t so many gullible fools out in TV-land, Hagee would end up sitting in a mobile home on the seedy edge of town wearing a turban and peering into a crystal ball.
Then there’s Sen. Barack Obama and the marginally less ridiculous Rev. Jeremiah Wright. To my knowledge, Wright refrains from soothsaying. But AIDS as a white-invented plague to kill African-Americans? People, it doesn’t get much crazier than that. And Obama never knew? Give. Me. A. Break.
Also, the Rev. Michael Pfleger, the Catholic priest who evidently fancies himself a standup comic. Um, Father, I’d advise you to get right with the Cardinal and keep your day job. Your impression of Hillary Clinton weeping about losing to a black man? Not getting it.
So, are we talking about a political movement or a cult?
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist Gene Lyons can be reached at [email protected].