Faith and the election
If you aren’t overwhelmed by all the election commentary, campaigning, rumors and more rumors, here are some interesting insights from Steven Waldman, editor-in-chief of Beliefnet.com and author of the book “Founding Faith: The Birth of Religious Freedom in America.
Here are Waldman’s Top Ten Faith Factors to be watching for on Tuesday.
For those of you who may be interested in what else he has to say, he will be blogging the election live at www.Beliefnet.com/stevenwaldman.
Ten Faith Factors for Election Night1.How Many Obamagelicals Are There? – It might seem farfetched that a socialist-terror-lovin’-pro-abortion candidate like Obama could win any evangelical Christians but he’s been courting them fervently since he began his presidential run. The key the 40% of evangelicals who call themselves “moderate” or “liberal.” Point of reference: John Kerry won 21% of white evangelicals, Gore 18%. Bill Clinton in 1996 won 26%.
2. Will Palin Turn Out the “Religious Right”? — By picking Sarah Palin, John McCain gambled that she’d be able to rev up the evangelical “base.” Even as her popularity has fallen generally, evangelicals still love her (some even believing she was sent to battle the anti-Christ.) Assuming most conservative evangelicals vote for McCain, the second question is: how many will show up? Point of reference: white evangelicals accounted for 23% of the electorate in 2004.
3. Do Midwestern Evangelicals Split With Their Brethren? — Recent polls have showed Obama trailing badly among evangelicals in
5. Can Obama Finally Bowl a Strike With Skeptical White Catholics? – During the primaries, Obama did poorly with white Catholics, often working class ethnics or their offspring. Remember his feeble attempt to curry favor through bowling? They tend to be culturally conservative and haven’t voted for a Democrat since 1996. On the other hand, they’re especially concerned about the economy this year, and Joe Biden has been trying to bond with them as a fellow “cultural Catholics.” Point of reference: In 2004, Bush won 56% of white Catholics, Kerry 43%.
6. Will Whitebread Protestants Back the Black Guy? – Recent polls show Democrats gaining with a group that had leaned Republican for most of the past few decades – Mainline Protestants. It appears that while Sarah Palin energized evangelicals, she may have alienated some Mainliners. In 2004, they went for President George W. Bush 54%-46%.
7. Will Latino Protestants Vote Their Values or the Pocketbook? – One positive trend for Obama will likely be the shift of Latinos from the Republican side, where they resided in 2004, to the Democrats. The hidden religious story: most of the shift is driven by Latino Protestants. Many are evangelical and liked Bush’s Christian faith and his conservative positions on social issues (gay marriage, abortion) but have shifted to Obama because of the economy and concerns about immigration.
8. How Will the Kinda-Sorta Religious Vote? – In recent elections, the most religious you were, the more likely you were to vote Republican. This is known as the God Gap, which will still certainly exist. But watch for two things: among weekly churchoers how big is McCain’s margin? Bush won that group 61%-39% Second, Kerry last time beat Bush among more occasional churchgoers 53%-47%. Will Obama increase that margin?
9. Will Jews Schlep to Republican Side? – This only really matters in
Will that go up or down? If it becomes an even more dominant force within the party, how will that shape either the way McCain governs if he wins or, if he loses, how the Republicans re-invent themselves.
Carla Hinton
Religion Editor
Faith and the Jonas Brothers
Joanne Brokaw blogged about the Jonas Brothers’ growing commercial empire and their Christianity on Sept. 5.
Brokaw’s “Five Things I Hate About the Jonas Brothers” posting on Beliefnet.com’s Gospel Soundcheck blog, apparently drew the wrath of their many fans, who she said bombarded her with their angry responses.
In her post on Tuesday, “Five Things I Learned From Jonas Brothers’ Fans,” she shares her thoughts about fans’ displeasure.
Her musings about the Jonas Brothers’ Christianity (If you haven’t heard the latest news about the brothers and the purity rings they wear, check out Monday’s Religion and Values posting) are very interesting.
Here’s a sampling:
“And the last thing I hate is that their heart throb, teen idol status sends mixed messages about their stance on purity. I love that the guys wear purity rings and I believe they believe in what the rings stand for. But when you see them posing seductively on the cover of Rolling Stone (really, who thought that was cute?) and talking about their first kiss in Tiger Beat (or Bop or PopStar or whatever teen magazine you pick up), without an explanation of what purity really means, there’s the danger that what they share with their peers is simply a message that says, “Wear a purity ring but still be consumed with lusting after hot guys.’”
Read both her blogs by clicking on the titles above and see what you think. And look for more on the subject in The Oklahoman’s Religion Section on Saturday.
Carla Hinton
Religion Editor
Baptist pastor blogging again
The Rev. Wade Burleson’s self-imposed break from blogging is over.
Burleson, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid, made the official announcement with Monday’s posting on his blog at wadeburleson.com.
He took a blogging sabbatical in mid-May, surprising me since it was just a month before the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in Indianapolis.
Burleson (pictured above right) is well known among Southern Baptists for his blog, which earned him the ire of some leaders of the SBC’s International Mission Board. Burleson had been a trustee of the board, but he resigned after determining that he and his blog had become a distraction to the board, keeping them from focusing on the issues at hand concerning missionaries across the globe.
Judging from the comments following Burleson’s first postings since ending his break, the outspoken preacher’s posting have been missed by some.
What are his latest postings about?
Tuesday’s posting was on one of his favorite subjects: Baptist Identity, the new IMB doctrinal polices and the SBC.
Carla Hinton
Religion Editor
When a Christian blogs …
Blogging may be a fairly new phenomena in terms of today’s technology, but not so new that there aren’t any rules to govern those bloggers with ethical standards.
Those ethical standards should be especially important for Christians — or other people of faith. One would think that the teachings of faith would help guide bloggers as they traverse their way through the blogosphere.
Several Oklahoma Southern Baptist bloggers I interviewed this week mentioned the personal attacks that sometimes are posted by other fellow Southern Baptists.
Each of the people I talked to said they wanted people to focus solely on the issues at hand, but a personal attack ripping into someone’s character or casting aspersions on an individual can cause undue harm. One blogger, the Rev. Ronnie W. Rogers of Trinity Baptist Church in Norman, said “spiritual harm” can be caused when bloggers air negative comments about internal affairs at their local church.
The Rev. Wes Kenney, a Southern Baptist pastor in Valliant, Okla., and one of the founders of SBCToday.com said he had noticed that some Southern Baptist bloggers had begun attacking some of the denomination’s leaders such as Paige Patterson and the Richard Land. Those kinds of postings can be discouraging, Kenney said.
The Associated Baptist Press recently had an interesting story on the issue of blogging ethics. That story by Ken Camp makes some interesting points.
Then I found Rebecca Blood’s Weblog Handbook on Blog Ethics.
This handbook includes six ethics rules for bloggers to abide by. Methinks they are pretty good, though they are not necessarily religious in nature.
Here they are:
1. Publish as fact only that which you believe to be true.
2. If material exists online, link to it when you reference it.
3. Publicly correct any misinformation.
4. Write each entry as if it could not be changed; add to, but do not rewrite or delete, any entry.
5. Disclose any conflict of interest.
6. Note questionable and biased sources.
With all that said, I guess it’s always a good idea to remind bloggers that their words are out there for all to see.
Rogers, in Norman, said he wondered if some bloggers realized that, say 20 years from now, the things they post will still be out there on the blogosphere — where they could potentially come back and cause them or someone else some trouble …
