Results matching “Prayer breakfast”

Barack Obama's remarks at yesterday's Easter Prayer Breakfast at the White House represent an extraordinary expression of religious faith by a sitting president speaking on the record. So far as I know, no recent president--including evangelicals Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush--ever addressed an audience in the White House as "brothers and sisters in Christ," and went on to speak of grace and redemption "by faith in Jesus Christ." Indeed, I'd be interested in learning whether any president in history was ever moved to give such testimony while in office.

In part, Obama only did what African-American church folk do when they talk about their religion in public. Complex as his religious background is, his Christian witness was formed in the black church. But one can't overlook the possibility that the president was impelled by the persistent conviction of a significant number of Americans that he is not really a Christian at all. This issue was addressed by one of the attendees, Houston megachurch pastor and presidential spiritual adviser Kirbyjon Caldwell, speaking to RNS's Daniel Burke:

For those who are wondering or have doubts about whether he is authentically Christian, I think today's message puts all doubts to rest...Never in modern history has a president said: "I am a Christian," and others said, "No, you're not,"

As the birthers have proved, doubts about Obama are not so easy to put to rest. In the meantime, presidential religion marches on.

In retrospect, last week's Prayer Breakfast shout-downs of the Uganda anti-homosexuality bill look like a carefully orchestrated effort to pressure Ugandan strongman Yoweri Museveni to make the bill go away. The play went like this: Coe to Clinton to Obama.

Coe is Doug Coe, the publicity-shy head of The Family, which has mounted the Prayer Breakfast since its inception over half a century ago. The day before last Thursday's breakfast, Coe met with Warren Throckmorton and gave what counts as the official Family thumbs-down to the bill--which Throckmorton posted on his blog Thursday morning.

Throckmorton is a psychology professor at Grove City College, a conservative Christian institution, and he's made a name for himself working with homosexuals whose conservative Christian beliefs make them want to repress their sexuality. But he does not believe he can convert them to heterosexuality, and he's been a vigorous opponent of the Uganda bill, which he's been tracking assiduously on his blog. He's even created a bit of an alliance with Jeff Sharlet, exploring on his own some of the means by which The Family may or may not have had a hand in the bill.

In a word, Throckmorton is one of the media players in the Uganda situation, and the various conversations he had with Family members (in addition to Coe and including Ugandans) before the breakfast should be understood as a journalistic exercise on both sides. Coe himself made it clear that Bob Hunter, who had done the media appearances up till now, really does speak for The Family on this matter. Message: The Family really really does oppose the bill.

With that clear, Hillary Clinton proceeded in her "surprise appearance" at the breakfast not just to condemn the bill but to call out Museveni on it, in a sentence heavy with linkages: "And I recently called President Museveni, whom I have known through the prayer breakfast, and expressed the strongest concerns about a law being considered in the parliament of Uganda." Whereupon Barack Obama, referring specifically to Clinton's remark in his own prepared remarks, also condemned the bill. ("We may disagree about gay marriage, but surely we can agree that it is unconscionable to target gays and lesbians for who they are -- whether it's here in the United States or, as Hillary mentioned, more extremely in odious laws that are being proposed most recently in Uganda.")

Some on the left have found both Clinton's and Obama's comments lacking, and Jim Burroway over at Box Turtle Bulletin questions  whether Coe & Co. are really prepared to put their money where their mouths are. The proof, of course, will depend on what happens in Uganda. But it's worth noting the extent to which opposition from the American evangelical establishment (including Rick Warren) has shocked and dismayed the bill's promoters. At this point, all they have left in America is the lunatic fringe. And if the bill passes in anything like its present form, the consequences will be real. A nickel here says Museveni won't let that happen.

So both the secretary of state and the president attacked Uganda's anti-homosexuality bill at the National Prayer Breakfast today. I haven't found Clinton's remarks yet, but Obama had this to say (full text after jump):

We  may disagree about gay marriage, but surely we can agree that it is unconscionable to target gays and lesbians for who they are--whether it's here in the United States or, as Hillary mentioned, more extremely in odious laws that are being proposed most recently in Uganda.

That's pretty good. One might have wished for a little more, perhaps along these lines: "...but surely we can agree that it is unconscionable to target gays and lesbians for who they are, and morally irresponsible not to take a stand against those who do--whether it's here..." That would have given his hosts a bit of a smack. Even so, there's no question that the Uganda situation and the ambiguous role of The Family in it have registered at the highest levels of the Administration, and been seen to register.

Update: Clinton's remarks here. The Uganda graph goes as follows:

But we are also standing up for girls and women, who too often in the name of religion, are denied their basic human rights. And we are standing up for gays and lesbians who deserve to be treated as full human beings. (Applause.) And we are also making it clear to countries and leaders that these are priorities of the United States. Every time I travel, I raise the plight of girls and women, and make it clear that we expect to see changes. And I recently called President Museveni, whom I have known through the prayer breakfast, and expressed the strongest concerns about a law being considered in the parliament of Uganda.

That's good, particularly in the context of the sentence that follows: "We are committed, not only to reaching out and speaking up about the perversion of religion, and in particular the use of it to promote and justify terrorism, but also seeking to find common ground." The clear implication is that the Uganda bill represents a "perversion of religion." The word "perversion" hangs there, pregnantly.

Belated: Interviewed the day before the breakfast by Warren Throckmorton, Doug Coe said he opposes the provisions and spirit of the bill.

In a comment on the previous post, Jeff Sharlet, who wrote the book on The Family, asks that we continue to explore the significance of this organization "of tremendous reach and influence, very little institutional structure, and less transparency." While I admire Jeff's sleuthing and story-telling more than his broader interpretive moves, there's no doubt that The Family presents a real interpretive challenge. It is a very odd animal--sui generis, one might say.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama repeated his pledge to get rid of Don't Ask Don't Tell. On Tuesday, the Pentagon will present Congress with recommendations on how to enable gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military. On Thursday, according to the White House, the president will deliver remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast.

Obama's appearance at the breakfast became a bit controversial earlier this month after it was reported that David Bahati, author of Uganda's notorious anti-homosexuality bill, was going to be on hand at the invitation of The Family, the Jesus fellowship that sponsors the thing. Subsequently, Family spokesman Bob Hunter has been at pains to make clear that Bahati will not be on hand, and gone so far as to inform Box Turtle Bulletin, which has been bird-dogging the situation, that a whole bunch of other Ugandan supporters of the bill won't be either. The Family has become very, very eager to make the issue go away, but is still on the hook.

Obama shouldn't let them off it. Uganda is moving towards criminalizing homosexuality up to and still possibly including the death penalty, while the Obama administration is proposing full inclusion of gays and lesbians in the U.S. military. How about using the podium to ask which approach Jesus would have preferred, Mr. President?

The National Prayer Breakfast February 4, that is, and it's David Bahati, the mover of the notorious Anti-Homosexuality Bill in the Ugandan parliament. Bahati is connected to the Family, the secretive Jesus organization that sponsors the breakfast, and has himself helped organized a Uganda version of it. As Box Turtle Bulletin's Jim Burroway sums up the latest, Bahati has not only accepted the Family's invitation to attend, but may actually speak.

Now, all U.S. presidents since Dwight Eisenhower have turned out for the annual event, including Barack Obama last year. But thanks to Jeff Sharlet's 2008 exposé--and the unwanted attention its C Street House received last summer in the Mark Sanford affair--the Family is now perhaps the most controversial religious organization in Washington. Nevertheless, so much of an institution has the Prayer Breakfast become that few would have objected if Obama showed up again. Now, as Burroway makes clear, Bahati's presence puts the president's attendance in question.

But a no less important question is: What Will Hillary Do? The Secretary of State has herself been associated with the Family as a regular participant in its prayer groups. In 1993, she had this to say about its current leader:

Doug Coe, the longtime National Prayer Breakfast organizer, is a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship to God.

On December 14, speaking on "the U.S. Human Rights Agenda for the 21st Century" at Georgetown University, Clinton was asked how the U.S. can help protect the rights of LGBT people around the world, and she brought up the Uganda bill:

And then the example that I used of a piece of legislation in Uganda which would not only criminalize homosexuality but attach the death penalty to it. We have expressed our concerns directly, indirectly, and we will continue to do so. The bill has not gone through the Ugandan legislature, but it has a lot of public support by various groups, including religious leaders in Uganda. And we view it as a very serious potential violation of human rights.

The Family seems to be doubling down on hate-mongering in Uganda. Will Clinton vote with her feet and send a message--to her erstwhile Family friends, on behalf of human rights and potential victims of anti-gay persecution? WWJD?

Update: Looks like maybe Bahati won't be coming after all. Was he disinvited? Will he try to crash? Whatever, the Family, er, the National Prayer Breakfast "has never advocated the sentiments expressed in Mr. Bahati's legislation." And the point is? 

On Sunday, the gimlet-eyed Baptist planeteers over on Religious Connections discerned the spin given to Sarah Palin's recent audience with Billy Graham by Billy's son and heir, Franklin. The statement issued from the mountain top was pretty much standard Billy boilerplate:

It was an honor having Governor Palin and her family in our home this evening. I, like many people, have been impressed with her strong commitment to her faith, to family and love of country. I appreciated hearing her speak of her own spiritual journey and her life in Alaska. I shared with her my own memories of preaching in the Sullivan Arena in Anchorage in 1984. We had an opportunity to pray together. Life in the spotlight is not easy and I pray that whatever lies ahead for this family that their faith in God and His Son, Jesus Christ, would remain strong and that God would put a hedge of protection around her and all those she holds dear. Sarah and her family will always be welcome in the Graham home.

But Franklin has been putting it about that there was more to it than that; as in: "Daddy feels God was using her to wake America up."

Franklin Graham, whose engagement in GOP politics harks back to his 91-year-old daddy's younger days, has been active in the Palin neighborhood for some years. He's got a second home in Port Alsworth, a community where fundamentalists regularly gather for retreats. He keynoted the Alaska governor's (i.e. Palin's) prayer breakfast in 2007 and 2008. There is speculation that he was not the least among those pushing John McCain to put Palin on his ticket. And Palin joined him as his Samaritan's Purse organization collected food in Wasilla to distribute to needy villages last February. So it's hardly a surprise that he should try to conjure Billy's measured words into an endorsement.

The re-emergence of the Ensign sex saga last week put the C Street Gang (aka The Fellowship, The Family, The National Prayer Breakfast, etc.) back in the crosshairs of the liberal media. We knew that they had tried with indifferent success to get Mark Sanford and wife back together. Now it turns out that they twisted John Ensign's arm to write a "Dear Cindy" letter to his inamorata, which he immediately told her to ignore. Call them the gang that couldn't pray straight.

That letter, filled as it was with references to what God did and didn't want, inspired Vanity Fair to produce a sharp response from the Almighty, while NYT's Gail Collins offered her own opera buffa take on the doings of the "Prayer House." For those whose taste runs to the dark side, there was Rachel Maddow's two-barreled interview on Thursday and Friday of Jeff Sharlet, who wrote the book on The Family (The Family), and who laid on his ominous portrait of a powerful cabal of totalitarian "Jesus plus nothing" Christians able to pull numerous strings with Washington's movers and shakers. (No mention, though, of Hillary Clinton's involvement in the group.)

My sense is that The Family's heyday was some decades ago, when anti-Communism was still a force in the world, and establishmentarian Christian conservativism had a distinct role to play. The use of Christianity for tough partisan warfare, which came into its own in the 1980s and was honed to a fine edge by Tom DeLay, Karl Rove & Co., was an entirely different game--antipathetic to The Family's bi-partisan approach to life. Still, it's possible that there are still important revelations to come of what The Family guys have been up to recently.

That said, it's worth bearing in mind that evangelical Protestant religion in America has always been possessed of the imperative to bring male misbehavior under control--be it drinking, fighting, gambling, or screwing around. In that regard, the C Street collective that tried to get Sanford and Ensign back on the straight and narrow was simply doing what came naturally. In itself no particular biggie, in other words. 

WaPo's Manuel Roig-Franzia's has a story today on that mysterious "C Street" house where Mark Sanford went for some Bible study and help with his sparking problem. It's a Capitol Hill residence associated with "TheFellowship" or "The Family," the secretive religious organization best known for sponsoring the National Prayer Breakfast. The guy with the skinny is Jeff Sharlet, whose book The Family traces the history, current activities, and spiritual ideology of the group. For his initial take (and a peek inside the C Street domicile), look at his 2003 Harper's article, "Jesus plus nothing: Undercover among America's secret theocrats."

While I think Jeff is too alarmist, there certainly is something creepy about The Family. Sure, if this were a century ago, it would be simply one more muscular Christian, Student Volunteer Movement-type exercise in mainstream American evangelicalism--making the world safe for Christian democracy, a la Woodrow Wilson. Its anti-"religion," Jesus-only credo has its roots in America's restorationist tradition. It is establishmentarian, welcoming Democrats as well as Republicans, specializing in networks.

But this is not 1909. A secret society of a global elite getting together to get themselves and the world right with Jesus cannot but seem ominous, even if it doesn't manage to succeed in keeping its members' pants on. (Sen. Ensign--remember  him?--lives in the C Street house.) Call it a Protestant Opus Dei. The Family would have done better if Hillary Clinton been managed to become president, since her own involvement with The Family is not insignificant. Perhaps Sanford has inadvertently given Jeff a gift. 

In his keynote speech at the National Catholic Day of Prayer breakfast, Archbishop Burke declared:

But, there is no element of the common good, no morally good practice, which a candidate may promote and to which a voter may be dedicated, which could justify voting for a candidate who also endorses and supports the deliberate killing of the unborn, euthanasia or the recognition of a same-sex relationship as a legal marriage. The respect for the inviolable dignity of innocent human life and for the integrity of marriage and the family are so fundamental to the common good that they cannot be subordinated to any other cause, no matter how good it may be.

In their 2007 statement, "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship," the U.S. Catholic bishops said:

34. ...A Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who takes a position in favor of an intrinsic evil, such as abortion or racism, if the voter's intent is to support that position. In such cases a Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in grave evil. At the same time, a voter should not use a candidate's opposition to an intrinsic evil to justify indifference or inattentiveness to other important moral issues involving human life and dignity.

35. There may be times when a Catholic who rejects a candidate's unacceptable position may decide to vote for that candidate for other morally grave reasons. Voting in this way would be permissible only for truly grave moral reasons, not to advance narrow interests or partisan preferences or to ignore a fundamental moral evil.

This clearly envisages the possibility that a Catholic could conscientiously vote for a candidate who supports abortion rights. Will any active bishop, contra Burke, say so? 

Archbishop Raymond Burke gave the expected screed at this morning's National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, including on Notre Dame. His words on the subject to the National Catholic Register last night were:

"What it should do is have Notre Dame come clean. Is it Catholic or isn't it? A Catholic institution, a Catholic university, cannot give honors to someone who is a promoter of things that are opposed to the most fundamental beliefs of Catholics, and so that's what needs to happen."

This view is not shared by all Catholic hierarchs, at least according to the recently retired Bishop of Monterey, Sylvester Ryan. In a letter to the editor of America, Ryan insisted:

I, for one, strongly support the president of Notre Dame, and although retired, know many active bishops who hold to the same position, precisely because we understand that holding a strong conviction about abortion (which I do) even as a fundamental moral imperative does not abrogate the need for cooperation with and recognition of our current U.S. president, especially considering the multiplicity of issues in our complex world.

To honor President Obama for what he represents simply as the president, and especially as the first African-American president, is a genuine and deserved action from and by the University of Notre Dame.

One is entitled to ask why no none of those active bishops have themselves spoken up. Lack of guts or omertà? Whatever the explanation, it is impossible to doubt that even as Notre Dame's president, John Jenkins, C.S.C., appears to be twisting in the wind, he is hearing words of support not only from Catholic progressives (including at America), but also from within the USCCB.  

Over on God In Government, WaPo's Jaqui Salmon reported  yesterday that D.C. Archbishop Wuerl and Arlington, Va., Bishop Loverde will not be gracing tomorrow's National Catholic Prayer Breakfast nor the accompanying evening Mass. The keynote address will be delivered by Raymond Burke, sometime archbishop of St. Louis and now Vatican canon law consigliere, who was prepared to lend his support to Randall Terry's campaign to get Wuerl and Loverde ousted for being soft on life. No love lost there. Justice Scalia is also speaking. You get the idea.

Indeed,  the NCPB is pretty much the Catholic equivalent of the National Day of Prayer Task Force--and just as President Bush was in the habit of putting out the East Wing punchbowl for the latter, so he was, in office, happy to be guest of honor at the former. For Catholics United's perspective (as of last year), see here. The founder and former president, Joseph Cella, served on John McCain's Catholic Outreach Committee. The current president, Leonard Leo, was national co-chair of Catholic Outreach for the RNC.

It tells you something that the NCPB is not interested in gaining the approbation of its local ordinaries. Terry-like, it would rather poke sticks in their eyes. As on the left, deference to episcopal authority on the right ain't what it used to be.

Last June, when Pope Benedict yanked Archbishop Raymond Burke out of St. Louis and put him in charge of  the Vatican's canon law office, there was some speculation that it was to make him a noncombatant in the wafer wars of the impending general election campaign. As the most consequential of the "no-communion-for-pro-choice-politicians" prelates, Burke had the capacity to create far more commotion than, some supposed, Rome wanted. In the event, some bishops--Scranton, Kansas City--made a Burkean show of it, but for the most part the communion issue was kept where most bishops seem to want it, quietly within the Catholic fold.

Now we have a little more insight into what Burke's episcopal brethren, if not the pope, had reason to be concerned about. In a sequence of events that has the Catholic blogosphere a-twitter,  Burke granted a videotaped interview to pro-life provocateur Randall Terry in which he, among other things, egged on the Catholic faithful to agitate against bishops who fail to stop pro-choice politicians from taking Communion.

And so I would encourage the faithful when they are scandalized by the giving of Holy Communion to persons are publicly and obstinately in sin, that they go to their pastors, whether it's their parish priest or to their bishop, to insist that this scandal stop. Because, it is weakening the faith of everyone. It's giving the impression that it must be morally correct to support procured abortion, in at least in some circumstances, if not also generally. So they need to insist that their parish priest and the bishops, and for the rest...to my brother bishops and brother priests...simply to say: the service of the Church in the world today has to begin first and foremost with the protection of the life of those who are the most defenseless and the most innocent, namely the unborn...

Terry promptly proceeded to release the video at a press conference at the National Press Club, as part of his campaign to get Washington D.C. Archbishop Donald Wuerl and Arlington Bishop Paul Loverde removed from office because of their refusal to take the anti-Communion hard line. Whereupon, Burke issued a pseudo-apology, as in: "I am deeply sorry for the confusion and hurt which the wrong use of the videotape has caused to anyone, particularly, to my brother bishops."

And what, pray tell, does Burke think the right use of the videotape would have been? For Terry just to have shown it to his own folks, quietly using the archbishop's authority to put pressure on those of Burke's brother priests and bishops who are not with the program? If I were Wuerl or Loverde, I'd certainly think so--and recognize that Burke was in no way apologizing for that. In May, Burke will be in Washington for the annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast. It will be interesting to see if Wuerl turns up, or makes time to see him.  

Last July 1, when he announced that he would continue President Bush's faith-based office in the White House on bigger and better terms, Barack Obama said:

But what we saw instead was that the Office never fulfilled its promise. Support for social services to the poor and the needy have been consistently underfunded. Rather than promoting the cause of all faith-based organizations, former officials in the Office have described how it was used to promote partisan interests. As a result, the smaller congregations and community groups that were supposed to be empowered ended up getting short-changed.

Well, I still believe it's a good idea to have a partnership between the White House and grassroots groups, both faith-based and secular. But it has to be a real partnership - not a photo-op. That's what it will be when I'm President. I'll establish a new Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. The new name will reflect a new commitment. This Council will not just be another name on the White House organization chart - it will be a critical part of my administration.

So, at a time when the poor and needy are more at risk than they've been in decades, why does Obama's new Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships (OFANP) seem to be missing in action? Three reasons suggest themselves:

1. Laws governing faith-based social service provision--including on employment--have turned out to be more complicated than the Obama apparat realized.

2. After eight years of George W. Bush, it has gotten harder to bring together those of diverse religious views on a common faith-based agenda.

3. Since the summer, the economic woes of the poor and needy have far outstripped the capacity of even a beefed-up White House faith-based office to deal with.

So President Obama rushed the promised office into place in time for the National Prayer Breakfast; watered down its mission by internationalizing it; installed his religious outreach guy at the top; created three-fifths of an advisory board; and waved the tough questions in the direction of the lawyers. And then got down to the real business of rescuing the economy.

As we await the president's executive order establishing the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships (new acronym = OFANP), Gorski's back with more from his "religious leader with knowledge of the plans." The man with the plans now says that the order will direct White House lawyers and officials to work with DOJ in developing a hiring policy for what we might call Faith-Based 2.0. Neither side, according to the man, will get everything they want. There's a lot of complexity here, including the fact that the new SCHIP signed by the president yesterday appears to establish a hiring waiver for faith-based service providers using government funds.

In his talk at the prayer breakfast this morning, the president put his approach this way:

The goal of this office will not be to favor one religious group over another – or even religious groups over secular groups. It will simply be to work on behalf of those organizations that want to work on behalf of our communities, and to do so without blurring the line that our founders wisely drew between church and state.

That's a nice thought, but as a constitutional lawyer Obama knows full well that the line the founders drew was blurry from the start, and has gotten a lot blurrier in the past couple of decades. What's good about kicking this sucker over to the lawyers is that it gives everybody a chance to think clearly about what has become a mare's nest of conflicting statutes and constitutional principles. I trust my old roommate Dan Meltzer, now deputy WH counsel, to sort through the mess.

It matters, and not just to us religion nerds. In today's story, Gorski has Jim Wallis "downplaying" the significance of the hiring issue: "He said it came up only once in transition meetings, and that poverty, human trafficking and the Middle East were discussed in much more detail." That's Wallis saying, "Listen, sonny, we've been dealing with the big issues facing humankind, not that picayune shit you nitpicking media types keep picking at." But the hiring issue is what doomed Bush's effort to get Faith-Based 1.0 through Congress, and it could easily turn into a monster for Obama as well. From Wright through Warren, he's shown a persistent tendency to underestimate the toxic potential of religion in politics.

In his prayer breakfast remarks, he said:

We will also reach out to leaders and scholars around the world to foster a more productive and peaceful dialogue on faith. I don't expect divisions to disappear overnight, nor do I believe that long-held views and conflicts will suddenly vanish. But I do believe that if we can talk to one another openly and honestly, then perhaps old rifts will start to mend and new partnerships will begin to emerge. In a world that grows smaller by the day, perhaps we can begin to crowd out the destructive forces of zealotry and make room for the healing power of understanding.

A good place to begin would be to make sure his own house is in order, by getting OFANP right from the start.

Update: WSJ version, with on-the-record stuff from DuBois.

Brody is puffing this little public religion stunt by a couple of B-list Beltway evangelicals. He sees it as an admirable expression of conservative evangelical readiness to pray for the new Democratic president. I don't quite see it that way.

It seems that Rob Schenck of Faith and Action and Patrick J. Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition took it upon themselves last week to bless the Capitol passageway through which Barack Obama will make his way to be inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States. Turned back by Capitol police, they happened upon Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.), who shepherded them to the place. There, as you can see, amidst the praying for the president-to-be and his family, Schenck anoints the door posts with holy oil from the Holy Land, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

What's up with this? In the video, Schenck declares that he is consecrating the passageway "as they did the furnishings of the Tabernacle and the Temple to the use of God and to His will and to His Word." That would be a reference to what God tells Moses to do in Exodus 30; to wit:

22 Then the LORD said to Moses, 23 "Take the following fine spices: 500 shekels [k] of liquid myrrh, half as much (that is, 250 shekels) of fragrant cinnamon, 250 shekels of fragrant cane, 24 500 shekels of cassia—all according to the sanctuary shekel—and a hin [l] of olive oil. 25 Make these into a sacred anointing oil, a fragrant blend, the work of a perfumer. It will be the sacred anointing oil. 26 Then use it to anoint the Tent of Meeting, the ark of the Testimony, 27 the table and all its articles, the lampstand and its accessories, the altar of incense, 28 the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils, and the basin with its stand. 29 You shall consecrate them so they will be most holy, and whatever touches them will be holy.

Evidently Schenck takes the passageway (which he repeatedly refers to as "symbolic") as symbolizing the entry of the president-elect into the nation's most holy office. Never, to my knowledge, has the presidency been so literally sacralized. Some would call it idolatry.

Schenck belongs to what might be called the establishmentarian wing of American evangelicalism. That is to say, he belongs to the world of the National Prayer Breakfast and other exercises in sacred-nation-building, as detailed in Jeff Sharlet's recent book, The Family. He himself brings a somewhat Judaizing tendency to the enterprise--not perhaps surprising in someone who started life as a Jew. Faith and Action, for example, proposes that Hanukkah (n.b. the feast of the re-dedication of the Temple) be adopted as a Christian holiday. For his part, Mahoney comes out of the anti-abortion activist wing of evangelicalism, but he's also an establishmentarian sort, having put his shoulder to the wheel for Roy Moore's crusade to enshrine the Ten Commandments in the Alabama Supreme Court. Last summer, he turned up at Obama's office building with a sign showing the then presumptive Democratic nominee dressed as Uncle Sam over a legend that read, ""I WANT YOU TO PAY FOR ABORTIONS!"

Their hope, presumably, is that the president-to-be will be led into the path of pro-life righteousness by passing through the anointed portal. Michael Newdow take note.

This morning in Slate, John Dickerson writes about how cool, calm, and collected the Obama campaign is, but from what I hear all is not so happy in the campaign's religious outreach department (notwithstanding its upcoming "faith tour"). The showdown at Saddleback, which was supposed to contrast "I'm comfortable talking about my faith" Obama favorably with the "I'm not comfortable" McCain, backfired. Rick Warren, despite his talk about civil discourse and wider agendas, turned out to have the familiar evangelical agenda, to say nothing of the familiar megachurch pastor's ego; the supposed co-sponsorship of the liberal outfit Faith in Public Life was nowhere to be seen, nor were issues like AIDS and poverty. To be sure, at the Democratic Convention, reporters could hardly avoid faith-based prayer breakfasts, programs, and other initiatives designed to show off the party's new religious sensibility. But whatever difference that might have made with faith-based voters was quickly eclipsed by the Palin nomination.

The larger point, however, is that while parties can change the mood music, it is not so easy to turn their large coalitions into something new. Just as McCain ultimately had to put his honor in a blind trust and abase himself before a religious right that had openly disrespected him, so Obama finds himself at the head of a party establishment that prefers to treat religion in public life as the province of African Americans. There was Leah Daughtry, the Pentecostal minister who ran the Convention; and Josh Dubois, in charge of the Obama campaign's religious outreach but not a member of its inner circle; and of course Obama himself, whose religiosity disturbs the secular wing of the party not at all because it can be bracketed off as a black thing.

Yes, an awesome God is worshiped by many people in the blue states, and many of them vote Democratic. Likewise, the GOP continues to pick up its share of those of little or no faith. But the God Gap between the parties has become structural, and effacing it will take a lot more effort than either side has so far shown it's interested in--or capable of--putting forth.

Update: Has Ambinder (via Brody) been spun? Or am I living in the past? Without a doubt, it's not conservative evangelicals but serious religious moderates that represent Obama's best target of opportunity. The real question is how effective his campaign's religious ground game has really been. Not as effective as it could be, is what I'm hearing. And a word to the wise: Just because Brody calls a story exclusive doesn't mean it's so. Sarah Pulliam at Christianity Today had the Obama faith tour story yesterday.

Pew is out with a content analysis of news (and opinion) coverage of religion in the primary portion of the presidential campaign. It's worth a perusal, even though most of the findings will surprise no one who has been paying even a modest amount of attention to, well, the campaign. For example, big chunks of said coverage were devoted to Mitt Romney's religion speech last December and to the Jeremiah Wright affair. One of the problems with this kind of analysis, in fact, is that the aggregate results tend to be skewed by the big events. The Romney speech is a perfect example of this. Coverage of it constituted 35 percent of all religion coverage of the former Massachusetts governor, and fully two-thirds of all religion coverage of him as a candidate took place in that month.

How much religion coverage is enough? And what's the right kind? Pew always likes to assume a just-the-facts-ma'am stance, shunning explicit positions on evaluative questions like these; but the language of the report makes clear that Pew's answers are: There can't really be too much, and it should focus on the faith of the candidates. For example:

A close look at the coverage, though, suggests that the press was still shy about tackling questions of faith and putting them in the front of the campaign coverage.

Although Obama received the majority of the religion-related coverage in the first part of 2008, the bulk of his overall press coverage was not about religion. When the study broke down the data and looked at each candidate individually, it found that religion made up only about 2% of Obama’s stories in early 2008, while the bulk of his coverage was focused on strategy and the horse race, as well as policy issues and other personal topics. This was more than any other candidate still in the race but just a sliver of what the media covered overall.

Just a sliver? One of the problems with formal content analysis is that, by its nature, it privileges quantitative over qualitative answers, regarding each "story" as equal. A long article exploring Obama's faith, say, gets no more weight than a tiny one on a visit to a church. The candidate's faith may be important but it is not news as such. How many stories can or should a single news outlet devote to a candidate's faith?

A number of readers (nice to hear from you) have written in to say they think Hillary Clinton's current church is the Fellowship (or "the Family"), the rather secretive organization that for decades has run the National Prayer Breakfast and which sponsors various prayer groups for government officials and their spouses. Clinton joined up when she arrived in Washington as the First Lady in 1993 and apparently has since ascended to the most elite of its "cells." It's a basically evangelical operation (though non-evangelicals participate) and it forswears partisan politics even as it pushes towards the right. I once co-authored a book on the American Establishment (called The American Establishment), and what the Family mostly seems to me to be is one of those organizations that do do what establishmentarian organizations always do: provide the contacts and networks, the modes of understanding and accommodation, and the rites of entry and inclusion that enable elites to function and perpetuate themselves. The Family appears to be a right-wing example of the breed--rather more inclusive, by the evidence available, than, for example, most right-wing Washington think tanks. It does have a shadowy leader, which makes it seem more ominous than it otherwise might. His name is Doug Coe, who Clinton describes in Living History as "a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God."

The key source on the organization at the moment is this article by Kathryn Joyce and Jeff Sharlet from last September's Mother Jones, but come May, Sharlet's book, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power will be out. Sharlet, who edits the sharp and snarky religion news website, The Revealer, generally gives good weight, so what he has to say will be worth reading. Whether the Family should be considered Hillary's current church depends, I suppose, on what you mean by church. Prayer and Bible study groups have in recent years become primary religious reference points for non-Catholic American Christians--President Bush included. Hillary Clinton, however, has in the past been pretty churchy in the traditional sense. However deeply she felt the connection to the Family in her years as First Lady, for example, she was an active participant in Foundry United Methodist. There's no indication I've yet found that she's been equally engaged anywhere else during her years in the Senate.

Update: So far as we can tell, Clinton attended Easter services this year at the United Methodist Church of Mt. Pleasant, NY. To hear the politically uncontroversial sermon she heard that day, look here.