Can David Gushee Redeem Timothy George, Burleson and Cole

I think it was Aaron Weaver BigDaddyWeave blog where I recently came across a link to David Gushee and his Christianity Today piece on Race and the Baptist Covenant meeting in Atlanta.
While I applaud the testimony and pilgrimage of Gushee out of the flawwed Covenant of the mid 90's at Al Mohler's SBTS, on to Dockery's Union Sem; and now in the heart of Baptist moderate land at Mcafee and as an associate of Buddy Shurden at Mercer; I think Gushee's gifts may be misplaced.
Long time authentic conservative ethicist and apologist in abortion discussions, I think Gushee's credibility and witness could be put to best effect in Atlanta in a presentation of his take on Garry Wills position on abortion and how it has played in the political shenanigan of Karl Rove.
If Gushee were to do such a thing, it would put Richard land and Timothy George on notice; and would do a great service in further exploration of the effect of Francis Schaeffer misbegotten legacy on evangelicals in the public square of the last 30 years.
Charles Marsh in a few pages in Wayward Christian Soldiers went a long way in demonstrating the shallowness of Schaeffer's legacy
Gushee is on Pilgrimage. With Carey Newman by experience he has one of the most damning assessments of the so called "Conservative Resurgence" in his analysis in Barry Hankins Uneasy in Babylon.
Gushee if used to best effect could be the best thing to come out of Atlanta, far greater than anything I can imagine Joel Gregory to come up with, though I am interested to hear Gregory's latest stories as well.
Whoever is out there; please bring this to Gushee's attention. For sure he should be able to shoot down the misbegotten pamphlet of George on abortion, and join Wills in further shining the light on the travesty of the likes of Land and Rove as they have poisoned the well of evangelicalism in the public square the last 30 years.
Gushee could be a beacon for the likes of Ben Cole and Wade Burleson as they hopefully likewise Pilgrim out.

From the Bdiddy blog

David Gushee, Race, and The New Baptist Covenant
David Gushee, a well-known ethics professor at Mercer's McAfee School of Theology, has an article over at Christianity Today about his involvement in planning the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant, racial reconciliation, and his experiences at McAfee.Check it out.UPDATE (Link fixed)
Labels: David Gushee
posted by Big Daddy Weave at 9:18 AM 6 comments

Baptist Church Directories

Here is a testimony from a Babdiss who has seen it with his own eyes.
This fellow is from Alabama and has seen in real life what George Singleton in Half Mammals of Dixie only makes up.


I would also advise any congregation that wishes to start "policing" its own church directory line-ups that they will be opening a huge Pandora's Box. Even in conservative churches, who among us hasn't seen all kinds of "family" conglomerations assembled for church directory photos? I've seen old women photographed with (live-in?) boyfriends, single mothers alongside their out-of-wedlock children, and others who seem to have added a "family member" that who-knows-how got in there. Is that really a dimension of itself that a church wants to monitor?

I think this revenant has a point.
The Bible clearly says, Whosoever Will

If I am able to get back in a Babdiss I guess I would be an "added family member" category cause I sure don't want to pay full price for a single shot photo unless I could get the bicycle in there.

Garry Wills on Karl Rove/Huckabee

This first link below is the one I have been looking for, SBC takeover Architect Paul Pressler's relationship and History with Mike Huckabee and Ronnie Floyd in Arkansas.

http://www.thebigdaddyweave.com/2007/11/judge-speaks-paul-pressler-on-mike.html

http://www.ethicsdaily.com/article_detail.cfm?AID=9757

http://www.scpols.com/ Good link for Hbee's FI SC event.


Back on October 23 I had a long quote from this review of Wills if you want to go there and see how it inflects Casey Mattox and some of his shaping.
But here is the strong case in regard Karl Rove.
I am hoping some of Mike Huckabee's staff I read yesterday, even the Governor Himself will take a strong look at Wills and share and grow with Frank Page and Richard Land.
Go ahead, surprise US
And Rick Lance and Joe Bob Mizzell; nothing says you should be immune from reading and sharing with Dan Ireland's successor Joe Godfrey.


Wills moves chronically through U.S. history, outlining the ebb and flow of enlightenment and evangelism through the decades and centuries, pausing throughout to provide thumbnail sketches of the significant personalities involved.

Eventually he comes to the Bush administration: "The right wing in American likes to think that the United States government was, at its inception, highly religious, specifically highly Christian, and -- and more to the point -- highly biblical." This was not true of that or any later government -- until 2000.

Wills is particularly shrewd in delineating Karl Rove's part in bringing this about: While crediting the former White House advisor's mastery of electoral technologies, Wills argues that "his real skill lay in finding how to use religion as a political tool . . . . He shaped the hard core of the Republican Party around resentments religious people felt over abortion, homosexuality, Darwinism, women's liberation, pornography and school prayer . . . . Rove made the executive branch of the United States more openly and avowedly religious than it had ever been, though he had no discernible religious belief himself.

His own indifference allowed him to be ecumenical in his appeal to Protestants, Catholics and Jews."The Protestant wing of this coalition, Wills writes, was predisposed toward Bush, but Catholics were the big electoral prize. Pollsters have noted that Catholics who regularly assist at Mass are more socially conservative and open to GOP candidates. Moreover, Father Richard John Neuhaus, editor of the influential journal First Things and a convert from Lutheranism's evangelical wing, was a fixture in the Bush White House.

New 11/29, improved; Huckabee encounter and Links

From today's Nov 29 Newsweek
Huckabee may be a preacher, but he is no choir boy. He is a mix of humility and high-strung ambition. He is out to prove to the world that he is not a man to be underestimated just because he worked his way through an obscure Bible college in Arkansas.
He seemed mildly irritated when a reporter in the post-debate spin room asked him if he would be a good vice-presidential running mate. "I'm leading in Iowa now," he said. "You ought to be asking me if I'd pick any of these other guys to be my running mate." He added, "I think most all of them are fine people." Key word: most.
placeAd2(commercialNode,'bigbox',false,'')

Chatting after the debate, Huckabee was nonchalant—and did not seem surprised—when told that a flash poll of viewers had judged him the overwhelming winner Wednesday night. Gena Norris (wife of Chuck) congratulated him on the wonderful "aura" that he exuded onstage. He didn't seem surprised by that either.
© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.

And this great exhaustive story with links from ed.com

http://www.ethicsdaily.com/article_detail.cfm?AID=9768

http://campaignsandelections.com/sc/articles/index.cfm?id=983

Nice fellow, disarming and affable.
Heard him preach in a Baptist church and got in the welcoming line after the Invitation.
SAng several of Aunt Virginia's favorite songs including Victory in Jesus and not What Wondrous Love is This but one of the other ones.
I asked him what he could do for the Collinsville Lyberry and he said he could getrdone. Bad joke

Was good to sing with a congregation again, even more than likely I was the only citizen in there likely to vote for Obama on the day the curtain is pulled behind me.

His text was about Jesus and the tax collector and He who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted.
Whole thing was kinda surreal as I was watching him with Kenneth Copeland on TV about 30 minutes before being in Sunday services with him; and before Copeland hearing his chances and some quotes tossed around with Tim Russert on Meet the Press.
Had couple of strong conversations with some good folks, but true believers on the social issues. Tried to get them interested in the final chapters of Garry Wills American Christianities, which I said frames the debate for them if they would just take a good tip from Alabama. They thought Alabama was good ways to come just to join them in service, but said they were glad to have me. Good people; I admire them for their convictions.

When I got to the ARkansas Governor, passed on some names of some folks who may help him in Alabama was upfront and said I played mostly in the other playground.
Asked him about the DReam Act. It didn't ring a bell with him but as I explained it, he said he had favored similar legislation in ARk, but it failed. His wife chimed in for the concept saying children should not be penalized just because their parents had committed a "crime."
He had a good anecdote about his first meeting with SBC evangelist Jerry Vines of Rome, Georgia; story about Huckabee as a young man picking Vines up at the Dallas Airport for a James
Robison event for whom Huckabee was working in late 70's.

Glad I went. We'll see where it all goes.

From there I went to 2nd viewing in four days of No Country for Old Men; Very strong Film I highly recommend.

McCarthy and the Coen's Great No Country for Old Men

You are lacking and something of a fake if you take yourself seriously and don't go see this grand story on the big screen.
If you don't go see the Coen Brothers and McCarthy's NoCountry for Old Men.
I saw it this afternoon, and it is strong,like the Old Testament.

"Even with a steer, you can't be certain".

I'm gonna find the line in the novel.

Found "Cradle toCradle" yesterday in Paris Trout, a little different nuance in the novel than the movie.

Google up Cormac MCcarthy; and the CoenBrothers, Your life will have much more meaning if you do.

I like the way the movie ended with the sheriff's telling of the Dream about his Dad goin on upahead with the Fire (light) to the campground.

And find a way to see Jesse jAMES AND RObert Ford on a big screen.

And except for the five folks who know who they are,the rest of you have a Happy and Glorious Thanksgiving.

as a thanksgiving gift to yall i fount these two great passages from the script. You should read the book, but better,like John Morgan the son and I read McCarthy's Suttree. Would be great if somebody filmed that into an epic, from his East Tennessee period.
Google him up and go see the movie. End of Fox; now to Cormac and the Coens


...and then truss 'em up and slit their throats? Well here Charlie has one trussed up and all set to drain him and the beef comes to. It starts thrashing around, six hundred pounds of very pissed-off livestock if you'll pardon me...Charlie grabs his gun there to shoot the damn thing in the head but what with the swingin and twistin it's a glance-shot and ricochets around and comes back hits Charlie in the shoulder. You go see Charlie, he still can't reach up with his right hand for his hat... Point bein, even in the contest between man and steer the issue is not certain.
He takes a sip of coffee, leaving room for Carla Jean to argue if in-clined. She does not. Sheriff Bell hands a card across. ...When Llewelyn calls, just tell him I can make him safe. She takes the card. Sheriff Bell sips. ...Course, they slaughter beeves dif- ferent now. Use a air gun. Shoots out a nut, about this far into the brain ...
Animal never knows what hit him.Another beat. Carla Jean stares at him. Carla Jean Why you telling me that, Sheriff? Bell I don't know. My mind wanders


And from 20 pages later in the script



How'd you sleep? Bell I don't know. Had dreams.
Loretta Well you got time for 'em now. Any- thing interesting?
Bell Well they always is to the party concerned. Loretta Ed Tom, I'll be polite.
Bell Okay. Two of 'em. Both had my father. It's peculiar. I'm older now'n he ever was by twenty years. So in a sen- se he's the younger man. Anyway, first one I don't remember so well but it was about money and I think I lost it. The second one, it was like we was both back in older times and I was on horseback goin through the mountains of a night. We cut to night, and snow. Continuing in voice-over: ...Goin through this pass in the moun- tains. It was cold and snowin, hard ridin. Hard country. He rode past me and kept on goin. Never said nothin goin by. He just rode on past and he had his blanket wrapped around him and his head down...The rider passes as described, horses' hooves drumming and scattering divots of earth 122and snow. ...and when he rode past I seen he was carryin fire in a horn the way people used to do and I could see the horn from the light inside of it. About the color of the moon. And in the dream I knew that he was goin on ahead and that he was fixin to make a fire somewhere out there in allthat dark and all that cold, and I knew that whenever I got there he would be there. Out there up ahead.

The rider recedes and the image fades, the horn bearing fire going last.

And finally, if you want to have a clue about the God of Cormac McCarthy's world, this link may help.
http://www.mrrena.com/misc/cormac.shtml

Tolstoy's War and Peace and Safe Harbors

Thoughts for Thanksgiving and family from James Wood on Tolstoy in current New Yorker.
I met Wood at Sewanee back in the summer and blogged about him then. He is aware of Frady.
But today it is Tolstoy

These are the triumphant “insignificant trifles” of family life. Prince Andrei, the professional soldier, the brilliant adjutant to General Kutuzov, falls in battle; Napoleon, the genius of world history, fails in battle; but the amateur, unheroic blunderers, Nikolai and Pierre, survive into peace, surrounded by women, who do not understand warfare, and by children, who must not. To live, the poet Yehuda Amichai writes, is to build a ship and a harbor at the same time: “And to finish the harbor / long after the ship has gone down.” ♦

Crossblogging Noll and Marsh with Pierce and Killian

Been surfing the Baptist state convention wrapup blogs. Below I share with you my latest comment on John Killian's blog at http://www.johnkillian.blogspot.com/ .
Having fun bringing him and Baps Today editor John Pierce, a graduate of Berry College, together.
Pierce http://www.bteditor.blogspot.com/
I would give you Wade Buleson's link but you will have to google it up.
I fear I may misspell kerosucharris.
But here is my lastest comment exchange with Killian and Bama SBC convention president Roger Wilmore on Killian's blog.

Okay good doctor:I promise to back off for the weekend but just came across this.First a little Baptist, even Alabama Baptist Geneaology tree for you and Dr. Willmore.

Kate Campbell is Jim Henry's Daughter and a disciple of Jesus Christ and Wayne Flynt.Her husband Ira was formed at FBC Gardendale where Ira's folks are still strong members.Kate is good friend and pretty close ideologically to Charles Marsh, the progressive theologian at UVA.

Marsh is the nephew of Caroline Humphreys, Fisher's Wife.

SBC IMB prodigal Wade Burleson is now quoting Marsh on his Blog.The following is from his Nov 14 blog.Would love to see Gary Fenton, Jay Wolfe, Rick Lance, and Bob Terry do something with this; follow up as it were, even read Marsh's sterling book which among other things critiques Land and Mohler's guiding light, Francis Schaefer.

One more thing I want all of you to know before the quote; Marsh formative years were at FBC Laurel, Mississippi; early 70's a congregation he shared with Charles Pickering.

All for the WMU and the BWA and miscegenation and cross pollenization
Stand up and Holler;
Kinda just kiddin but I was gettin to shoutin time.

Here is Marsh as quoted by Wade Burleson Nov 14 at his Grace and Truth blog:Wednesday,
November 14, 2007Quote of the Day

"I am struck by the absence of resistance, dissent, and critical judgment in the moral repertoire of contemporary evangelicals. These disciplines - and let us call them disciplines - are rarely intoned in our sermons, publications, and seminaries, and when they are, they are most commonly regarded as manifestations of pride. Evangelicals are quick to admonish unity when there is a whiff of disagreement in the air. Dissent must be quashed for the sake of harmonious ideals, which we consider spiritual virtues. But perhaps the situation only masks our swift retreat from the costs of discipleship, fueled by an inferiority complex, which plagues us ... We are failing to raise up a generation of Christian critics at a time when dissent should be a vital part of confessing Jesus Christ as Lord."

Charles Marsh, Wayward Christian Soldiers, Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007, 191-92. (Thanks to Matt for pointing this quote out).posted by Wade Burleson Wednesday, November 14, 2007 24
comments links to this post

PS; fox here
Dr. Killian and his friend at Snyder in North Carolina, as well as folks in Collinsville, Alabama who may be curious as to exactly what were John III, and Matthew and Casey Mattox exposed to at UVA may want to explore this link of Marsh and his lived theology initiative.
http://www.livedtheology.org/about_staff.htm

Obama's conversion to Jesus Christ

Some members of my extended family and other acquaintances have been guilty of email traffic belittling the integrity of Barack O'Bama's conversion experience.

A good many of you know what Karl Rove and the Bush campaign with the silence of SBC's Richard Land.

Frank Page, the president of the SBC, will be in a forum about compassion in Greenville SC Nov 26. Maybe somebody will get word to Frank to read the current Atlantic Mag article on Obama. It is remarkable.

If the SBC does its part to keep politics clean in the South Carolina primary, then just maybe South Carolina can redeem it's sinful Primary of 2000. Contact Bill Rauch the Mayor of Beaufort.



But here is great excerpt from http://www.theatlantic.com/ piece.


Goodbye to All That
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The best speech Obama has ever given was not his famous 2004 convention address, but a June 2007 speech in Connecticut. In it, he described his religious conversion:


One Sunday, I put on one of the few clean jackets I had, and went over to Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street on the South Side of Chicago. And I heard Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright deliver a sermon called “The Audacity of Hope.” And during the course of that sermon, he introduced me to someone named Jesus Christ. I learned that my sins could be redeemed. I learned that those things I was too weak to accomplish myself, he would accomplish with me if I placed my trust in him. And in time, I came to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death, but rather as an active, palpable agent in the world and in my own life. It was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity one day and affirm my Christian faith. It came about as a choice and not an epiphany. I didn’t fall out in church, as folks sometimes do. The questions I had didn’t magically disappear. The skeptical bent of my mind didn’t suddenly vanish. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side, I felt I heard God’s spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to his will, and dedicated myself to discovering his truth and carrying out his works.
To be able to express this kind of religious conviction without disturbing or alienating the growing phalanx of secular voters, especially on the left, is quite an achievement. As he said in 2006, “Faith doesn’t mean that you don’t have doubts.” To deploy the rhetoric of Evangelicalism while eschewing its occasional anti-intellectualism and hubristic certainty is as rare as it is exhilarating. It is both an intellectual achievement, because Obama has clearly attempted to wrestle a modern Christianity from the encumbrances and anachronisms of its past, and an American achievement, because it was forged in the only American institution where conservative theology and the Democratic Party still communicate: the black church.

Latest Columbia Journalism Review on Marshall Frady

Frady Prevails

http://www.cjr.org/second_read/the_unvanquished.php

Judgment Day for Intelligent Design/Horseshoes

What it means for the Southern Baptist Convention and how Marney woulda handled it in this week's North Carolina state Baptist convention, I don't know. I do know that NC Baps will go on without WMU.
More going on here than I am equipped to say grace over; but explore these items before you pontificate anymore on the matter.
I did hear Nobel Prize physicist and Furman grad on the matter Spring of 06. His view modifies the PBS program a little as does the Christian Century article.
But best I can figger this is where the discussion stands to date, not counting Uncle Dave Macon's definitive ditty of the Scopes trial or shortly thereafter.
You can google that up if you like.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/id/
PBS:

And the Century:

www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?ID=3777

As things have evolved recently in Collinsville, got past the First Round in the Horeshoe Tournament at the Turkey Trot on Saturday, but hit a stopper in the second round.
The wringers left me.
No Country for Old Men opens Nationwide
Day before Thanksgiving; and in meantime see Jesse James and Robert Ford.

Killian's fascinating blog on Wallace and Bremer

My friend John Killian has a fascinating personal story to tell in his blog today.
I have a reply there, but want to bring it to the attention of everyone who surfs my musings here.

Post: Remembering Governor Wallace Link: http://johnkillian.blogspot.com/2007/11/remembering-governor-wallace.html

On another front, go see the movie the Assassination of jesse JAmes by the Coward Robert Ford, a great movie.
And if you live in South Carolina, see what you can do to get Frank Page to hold Richard Land's feet to the fire on the www.tnr.com piece Low Country, and Land's silence on Prez Primary 2000.
I have been thinking it comes down to Richard Jackson vs Pressler and Patterson.
Cindy McCain and the daughters are active in Jackson's North Phoenix church. Had Jackson taken Vines in 88, we would not be in Iraq today.
Richard Land and his unfitness as a political rep for Christ fronting SBC Coop Program dollars is a strong reason for our presence in Iraq today.
At same time Parham and his fellows have a strong notion today as well from their recent panel in Tennessee with the Rabbi:

"Part of that is because there is not a moral reflection component to their agenda," he said. "They promote fear. If you vote against a Republican you vote against God. To me that is pandering fear … not moral reflection."

Mark Schiftan, senior rabbi at the Nashville's Temple Congregation Ohabai Sholom, noted the Religious Left doesn't have the same kind of attention-grabbing voices like conservatives Ann Coulter and Pat Robertson.

"We on the Religious Left have somehow ceded moral high ground to the Religious Right," Schiftan said.

"People who are more toward the left religiously believe there is a value in the struggle to define their position, that there is a sacred obligation to consider a diversity of opinions and to continually ask ourselves what it is that our faith asks us to do," he said. "It is very different from those on the Religious Right that are rock-certain that their views are unwavering on every social and political issue. It is talking a very different language."

The last time a Democrat tried something like that, Schiftan said, was when John Kerry said he was motivated by teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. "And of course his church reprimanded him for his beliefs," Schiftan said.

Tim Alexander, minister of Smith Springs Church of Christ in Antioch, Tenn., said the discussion reminded him of a passage from the Old Testament book of Jeremiah, where God says the prophets lie, the priests rule by their own authority and God's people "love it that way."

"Understand silence is always a harbinger of bad things in this area," Alexander said. "When water boarding is tolerated, people are quiet. When we have a booming economy, when we have literally the entire population of the southern U.S. without health care--in terms of the number--the only people to blame are not the politicians, the pastors who parade them around. It's the people in the pews and people in the cars who love it this way. We are comfortable with it. Until we get uncomfortable with it, it won't change."

Bob Allen is managing editor of EthicsDaily.com.

What does this have to Do with Const Reform in alabama

I'm not sure but wanted to bring it to your attention to see if you can connect some dots.
www.ethicsdaily.com/article_detail.cfm?AID=9680

South Carolina's Low Country Politics

Here is how they do it in South Carolina; the state that made George W. Bush president in 2000
Many of you will want to read the whole article at www.tnr.com

The current president of Richard Land's SBC, Frank Page, lives in South Carolina. In no way would he approve of these kind of tactics, but are he and Land doing anything to eradicate. Will they speak often against this type of politics and raise the bar for civil discussion; or will they be as silent as Land was in 2000

The link and a lengthy teaser:
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=6b76c3e3-a3f8-432a-9710-56a5e85e3c85

Excerpt:The dirty work of South Carolina politics is conducted by a small crew of operatives who studied at Atwater's elbow. "All of us in this state directly or indirectly trained under him," says Rod Shealy, a veteran GOP consultant not aligned with any campaign. Atwater instilled in his followers a sense of politics as a game with no rules--one in which treachery was a virtue and not a vice. "People here wear dirty tricks like a badge of honor," says Ragley. They are an irascible lot, often rumpled and wearing garb like Hawaiian shirts and safari hats. "They're really unkempt and eccentric--not like Charleston white boys in boat shoes and bow ties," says one local Democrat.
South Carolina operatives tend to congregate in joints with names like the Lizard's Thicket and the Back Porch (co-owned by the son of McCain's consultant Richard Quinn, in fact). Many also have sketchy histories. Shealy himself was once convicted of violating campaign laws after he convinced a black man facing felony charges to join a statewide campaign; the plan was to drive up white voter turnout in favor of Shealy's sister, who was a candidate. Quinn has his association with Southern Partisan. And, to some, the recent anonymous e-mails about Romney recalled a 2002 incident involving Quinn's employee, Trey Walker, John McCain's state campaign manager, who was caught sending an unflattering article about a local candidate from an e-mail address meant to seem like it belonged to Shealy. So goes the internecine world of South Carolina politics.

But, even among this motley crew, Warren Tompkins stands out: "The God of Hell" is how one fellow operative describes him. Tompkins grew up with Atwater, and he is said to most closely emulate his late friend's political style. "Warren is Lee Atwater in a business suit," says University of South Carolina professor Blease Graham, contrasting Atwater's slovenliness with the smooth business demeanor of Tompkins, who has enriched himself in recent years as a corporate lobbyist. Everyone in South Carolina assumes it was Tompkins who stage-managed the savaging of John McCain in 2000, even if he was taking cues from Karl Rove. "I think the mastermind resided someplace else, but I think [Tompkins] was the instrument of it," says former McCain adviser John Weaver. Hence, few people were surprised to learn that the PhoneyFred website was traced back to Tompkins's firm. (Tompkins said a subordinate acted on his own.)

Even with Tompkins as his secret weapon, however, Romney is hardly in the clear. The day after he was endorsed by Bob Jones III, The Greenville News printed an e-mail comment from a "self-described rank-and-file conservative" named Wayne Owens, who declared, "As Christians we should not endorse a cult member as our president." When I read this quote to a Republican with presidential campaign experience in the state, he cackled and declared, "That was probably sent by Rudy Giuliani's county chairman!"

He was joking. But, by South Carolina standards, a bogus e-mail to a reporter would hardly be shocking. Indeed, it may be the new business as usual. As Shealy notes, "The anonymity of the Internet is going to take the whole game to a new and much lower level than thought possible." Last April, one anonymous blog--"McCain SC," the "Unofficial Home for Palmetto State McCainiacs"--hawked a New York tabloid story alleging that Giuliani's wife Judith was "involved in a program that killed innocent puppies" to test medical products. It sounds like the McCain team may have learned its lesson back in 2000, and now knows the secret to victory: When in South Carolina, do as the South Carolinians do.
Michael Crowley is a senior editor at The New Republic.

Something strong to consider

This article has all the markings of substance.
You can easily click on all the rest in this series from www.economist.com from this site.
We'll see if the boys at bl.com and other sites are up to the text here.

http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10015163

Good fodder here for the Killian, Pierce and Cartledge Blogs

Here is a teaser:

RELIGION AND PUBLIC LIFE
The lesson from America
Nov 1st 2007From The Economist print edition
The superpower has mastered the politics of religion at home, but not abroad
WRITING of Calvin Coolidge, H.L. Mencken once observed that he might be dull and smell of boiled cabbage but at least “the president of the United States doesn't believe that the earth is square, and that witches should be put to death, and that Jonah swallowed the whale. The Golden Text is not painted weekly on the White House wall, and there is no need to keep ambassadors waiting while Pastor Simpson, of Smithville, prays for rain in the Blue Room.”
APMy place...
There is no firm evidence that George Bush has ever kept an ambassador waiting so that he could talk to his pastor, but given the number of religious figures flowing through the White House it would be surprising if that had never happened. And Mr Bush has done plenty of other Godly things that would have surely made the secular Mencken wince, such as naming Jesus Christ as his favourite philosopher.
Two great questions have run through this special report: where exactly is the line between church and state? And what, if anything, can be done to ameliorate the wars of religion? Both questions lead to America. It is the spiritual home of modern choice-based religion and pluralism. It is also the world's most powerful country. Virtually every conflict to do with religion has ramifications for the White House. And America's experience has been interesting: success in dealing with religion at home, failure abroad.
Squaring the public
The idea that America might offer some form of model will annoy many Europeans: they detest its moralistic side. Yet the main explanation for America's culture wars is that it is a country full of religious people; not that the system set up by the First Amendment is wrong.
The line that the Founding Fathers drew between church and state still causes controversy. The Supreme Court spends a lot of time on issues such as whether a Christmas crib in a public place can be rendered secular by the presence of a plastic reindeer (yes, though preferably with a Santa as well), or where a state court can display the Ten Commandments (the garden is fine; the building not).

Assasination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Great Movie; Go see it

Google it up and read some reviews. Great pacing, and Missouri,the setting becomes a character, a force in the movie. Landscape shapes the story and the camera masters every mood of the elements.
Both Ford and James were 5'8" and had blue eyes. That's in the movie and the trailer. The premonitions of nancy grace in about the 5th act, though some revenants say there should be only three, is very good aspect.
One thing that struck me and hits of oncoming modernism is the domesticity of the most significant violence. It's indoors,not outside.
And hints of the museum ofGod and Museum of Crime all around, especially in the background fiddle hymn I mention elsewhere in this take.
See it twice; and don't wait for the DVD. This one deserves a bi screen viewing.
James Carville is the Governor of Missouri almost to as good affect as Billy Bob as DAvy Crockett playig the fiddle in the shank of the evening in The Alamo; though this flick far outdistances Alamo in every aspect.
I'm gonna say good as Godfather II or better though I may have to eat that assertion later.

Something else was on my mind; BBQ and fall sunlight; Phase three of The Church with reversion to PreConstantine models--I'm only as smart as the last lecture I heard--the world goes on without me; something I was thinking of about noon but I can't remember.


Brad Pitt and Carville did a good job with Ridley and the others, and the words and syntax are near perfect till somebody convinces me otherwise.

Fox In another movie Iliked a lot, a friendpointedout Russell Crowe in 3:10 to Yuma draws three pictures. His drawings are of something of beauty. So this criminal has good in him. Not so much the duh of it as great character aspect developed in the movie.
And the friend says Crowe the criminal mostly kills bad people. His only true friend,outside the boy in the movie,is the FAther whose circumstances for redemption Crowe creates.
The critic in question says Crowe's character doesn't have to go to the STation by the time the story gets to that point,he only goes because it completes the opportunity for the Father's redemption in the eyes of the Son.

Vision America endorses Mike Huckabee

See the piece in the Nov 2 www.ethicsdaily.com . VA, a big supporter of Judge Roy Moore in the recent past, throws a wringer in the analysis of the NY Times Mag article by Kirkpatrick of last Sunday; and it messes with my distinctions between Ronnie Floyd, Land and Pressler on one side; and Huckabee, Ginny Brant, Burleson and Frank Page on another side within the SBC fundy takeover ranks.
Land may end up a man without a candidate.
This whole primary is getting weird. Maybe all the discussions have outrun their senses.
The centerfielder cannot hold.
And then there is the Amy Butler, Crunching Cons chat at faithinpubliclife.

I don't know, I just don't know. Maybe things will be clearing in 2012 if we make it till then.

I may go See The Coward Who Killed Jesse James to see if that helps any