Christian Democrats

Pulpit Politics: Courtesy Your Tax Dollars

2006-09-25T12:53:00.000-05:00

by Wanda Jo (Peltier) Stapleton,

I have just read Why the Christian Right Is Wrong, A Minister's Manifesto for Taking Back Your Faith, Your Flag, Your Future. Regarding this book by minister Robin Meyers, Bill Moyers says, ". . . read it, and you will want to change the world." I did. I do.

For starters, I'll explain how the State Legislature funds "special projects" in such a secretive way. One "special project" in southeastern Oklahoma has recently triggered an FBI investigation and possible indictments.

This funding process is so clever that many of our most honorable representatives have no idea what their votes to fund "economic and community development," for example, end up financing. The twisting paper trail is hard to follow. The funding approval usually travels through the Departments of Commerce or Agriculture. Then it goes to one or more of the state's eleven sub-state planning districts before the money gets to "the special project."

For one example in Oklahoma County: since 2003, state tax dollars totaling $109,000.00 have gone to benefit "special projects" of churches. Even more money has possibly gone to other churches throughout the state.

Never mind that the Oklahoma Constitution says "No public money or property shall ever be appropriated, applied, donated or used, directly or indirectly, for the use, benefit, or support of any sect, church, denomination, or system of religion, or for the use, benefit or support of any priest, preacher, minister, or other religious teacher or dignitary, or sectarian institution as such."

State Representative Rebecca Hamilton got this "special projects" money for three "chosen" churches even though there are 61 churches in or bordering her district. Rep. Hamilton did the choosing and obviously selected churches best positioned to help her get re-elected.

Even though our beloved hymn says "All to Jesus I Surrender," to get that money, Rebecca became, as they say, a "team player." She surrendered her vote to the Speaker of the House and voted with him on bills which would seriously harm her working-class constituents -- two bills to raise gas tax through a vote of the people; bills to raise tons of money through seemingly insignificant amounts like raising fees for copies of medical records, buying used or re-treaded tires, car towing, filing court papers for child custody, child support, guardianship, and much more.

Even in 2005 when Republicans came to power in the State House, Rebecca’s voting record was such that she won the 2005 runner-up award as "A Democrat in Name Only" (DINO) from extremist Republicans of the Oklahoma Conservative Political Action Committee. And her "church money" for special projects continued to flow.

This year when she got a credible, Christian opponent, Rebecca immediately appealed to church pastors with her "good versus evil" scenario. "I try, however poorly, to follow Jesus in all that I do" she declared; but those against me are "pro-abortion activists." Later, she wrote to voters saying that one man opposing her was president of a group which "opposes prayer in school." Finally, she told voters "my opponent . . . has been going up to every house with one of my signs and trashing me to the people in the house."

In other words, she used the language of faith to demonize her opponents with untruths. But as Robin Meyers says in his book, "Unfortunately, the Golden Rule and the commandment against bearing false witness don't apply when you really, really, really want to win."

One pastor heeded Rebecca's plea for political campaign help. He allowed his photo and endorsement to be used in her campaign. Regal in a black robe and with his words of praise made her sound like "Saint" Rebecca. After that, who would believe any documented fact about her record. Practically nobody, that's who!

Rebecca’s race is over. But before this election season ends, we will see more campaigners (than we already have) hijacking Jesus in their public displays of piety. They will again use the language of faith to falsely demonize opponents. And they will win unless rage brings us to our feet and into campaigns for candidates more interested in The Sermon on the Mount than in winning at all cost.

Wanda Jo was a state representative 1986-1996. She is also a Baptist minister’s widow who helped him establish one of the new churches during the Southern Baptist Convention’s “Thirty Thousand Movement” in the 1950s.

Progressive Christians Write Congress about Budget

2005-01-27T13:54:00.000-06:00

The Center for American Progress has posted a letter to congress that was signed by dozens of progressive religious leaders advising congress that we view the budget as a "moral document."

In other words, budgets reflect priorities and priorities reflect our nation's moral values. It is time the leaders of our government stop giving lip service to moral values and start putting our money where their mouth is.
We also give notice that:

When the budget is released, we will assess its provisions concerning health care, education, housing, the environment, foreign policy, national security and other issues. If the budget falls short in these areas, we will work to transform it into a document that reflects America's best moral values and who we are as children of God.

Bush is No FDR !

2005-01-07T17:37:00.000-06:00

USA Today is running an article about Republican opposition to the Bush administration's Social Security reforms. There's a revealing quote from Michael Tanner at the end of the article. Here it is:

Bush "is wagering a lot," says Michael Tanner of the libertarian Cato Institute. "But success would make him the Republican equivalent of FDR: He's done war and remade the nation's domestic agenda."

There is little doubt in my mind that such overweening hubris permeates this White House.

FDR didn't inherit a booming economy and budget supluses. FDR never stoked a spirit of fear. FDR never started a "pre-emptive" war. FDR didn't nominate an heir of Torquemada to be Attorney General. The current occupant of the white house is the anti-thesis of FDR.

I didn't know FDR, but I know his record. President Bush, you're no FDR!

Progressive Christian Blogger Network

2005-01-07T13:20:00.000-06:00

Vaughn has a good start toward getting a Progressive Christian Blogger Network started.

Christian Democrats might want to check in there from time to time to see how it is progressing.

Christian Democrat Values and Alberto Gonzales

2005-01-04T12:05:00.000-06:00

Church Folks for a Better America has posted an Open Letter to Alberto Gonzales. The letter is a masterful exposition of the values that Christian Democrats share.

I wish I had an opportunity to add my signature to the document. It deserves more than a simple Amen.

On Keeping Democratic Faith

2005-01-03T12:34:00.000-06:00

Kudos to Public Theology for their article "Keeping the Democratic Faith" with links about suggestions for democrats to better address faith and politics.

This article is essential reading for Christian Democrats.

Valuing Equal Rights

2004-12-27T08:57:00.000-06:00

I just posted a blog about Concerned Women for America on my Mainstream Baptist weblog.

CWA first organized to oppose the Equal Rights Amendment.

The most fundamental value that distinguishes Christian Democrats from right-wing Christians is that we value equal rights for both men and women.

Mainstream Christians never secured ratification in enough states to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. We need to go back and finish the job.

When business and government began slowly but voluntarily to comply with ERA, we thought we could skip this step. That was the beginning of our downfall.

On the Progressive Christian Network

2004-12-23T22:33:00.000-06:00

It looks like a progressive Christian network of bloggers is forming.

Click here for a link.

Perhaps this will create a little synergy.

On Religious Values

2004-12-13T13:00:00.000-06:00

Scrolling through old blogs at my Mainstream Baptist weblog, I found this blog from August 24th that fits the objectives of this weblog. Here it is:

Thanks to Carlos Stouffer of the Jesus Politics blog for his thoughtful comment on yesterday’s post. These thoughts led me to reflect on the values that are being reflected by the religious rhetoric of both parties:

Many Christians appear to be persuaded that the Republican party represents better their Christian values. . . . Should Democrats imitate Republicans and shape a religious language that would serve their purposes?

Many Christians seem to look at politics in religious terms. So when the Republicans use religious language they will get their support. What is needed is political and religious education for Christians. This way Christians could challenge the easy assumptions of the Christian Right which are more interested in worldly political power than in following the message of Jesus.

In my personal experience, I don’t find the left reluctant to talk about religious values. I hear the left speaking about “universal” values and I hear the right speaking about “exclusive” values. Universal values are values that can be shared without being diminished. For example, mutual respect and concern for others does not diminish as it is shared, it grows. Exclusive values are values that diminish when shared. For example, if I have ten dollars and the government takes one from me and redistributes it to feed, educate and house those who have nothing, I am suppose to believe that 10% of my wealth has been stolen from me. If the same government takes a dollar from me and redistributes it to wealthy industrialists to wage perpetual wars, my wealth (an exclusive value) has still been reduced by 10%, but I am supposed to believe that is a necessary expense for the “defense of property rights” (another exclusive value).

For most people, Democrats and Republicans alike, the value of mutual respect and concern for others is most certainly motivated by religion. These values however, are not exclusively Christian and in our society only “Christian values” get credit for being religious. The “exclusive” “Christian Right,” searching for a corner in the market for virtue, has chosen to deride most universal values as “bleeding heart liberalism” while championing tax-cuts for the wealthy and “the defense of property rights” as “Christian values.”

The niche the “Christian Right” has created for itself is, at its best, based on the most elemental values, and, at its worst, blesses the vice of greed and the sin of miserliness.

Legislating Religious Values

2004-12-13T12:30:00.000-06:00

Here's another post from the Mainstream Baptist weblog that fits this weblog:

Baptist Press quotes Richard Land, head of a Southern Baptist political action committee, as saying that Christians "have a right and an obligation to bring our religious convictions to bear on public policy issues." He added, "That's not called a violation of church and state. That's called religious freedom. It's called freedom of speech."

When will Land wake up? People of no faith and people of all faiths -- not just Christians -- have an equal right and and obligation to bring their convictions to bear on public policy issues. Religious freedom and freedom of speech are rights that all citizens of our society share equally. These rights exist because the First Amendment created some "sacred ground" where, by force of law, we do not permit others to force their religious convictions on us and where we are not allowed to force our religious convictions on others. That is what separation of church and state means.

Our first responsibility as citizens of a pluralistic democracy is to assure that the laws governing our society are just, equitable and that they preserve religious liberty for all. Then, by persuasion -- not by force of law -- in an ongoing, open public forum, the people all religions and of no religion are free to promote their competing visions of the common good.

Mainstream Baptists still believe that salvation comes by persuasion, i.e. the "foolishness of preaching." We think we can be salt and light by sharing the gospel in the open forum and respectful dialogue created by the common ground of religious liberty for all.

Southern Baptists are giving up on persuasion and are now trying to save society by legislation. They think they can be salt and light by voting for politicians who will force their values on a nation with increasingly diverse values.

No "Fellowship" for Democrats in FCA

2004-12-10T00:05:00.000-06:00

Ethics Daily is reporting that a student at Carson-Newman College, a Baptist college in Tennessee, was removed from FCA's leadership after he told the chapter president that he would vote for Kerry. FCA leaders say the matter had nothing to do with politics.

Seems like I've heard reports like this before. Since the Fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention, denominational politics has had nothing to do with the removal of moderate denominational executives, professors and missionaries from positions of leadership either.

Did the Nazi's Separate Church and State?

2004-12-06T12:30:00.000-06:00

Thanks to Bob Allen for calling my attention to Thom Hartmann's essay about Supreme Court Justice Scalia's speech at an Orthodox Jewish Synagogue in New York. Scalia blames church/state separation for the holocaust.

Scalia, like most theocrats, persists in revising history to fit his ideology. Hartmann does a masterful job of giving the highlights of the Nazi takeover of the German state church and Hitler's use of it for his political purposes. The link he provides to photos of the Nazi's with various religious leaders tells the story in images stronger than words can provide.

The truth is, one of the biggest reasons why Europe is so much more secular than America today is because the church failed so dismally in facing the Nazi menace. It's not hard to project the same result for this nation once people perceive the tragic effects of the unholy alliance between the evangelical theocrats and the neo-conservative empire builders who are forming our current foreign policy.

Uncle Sam Doling Out to Churches

2004-12-03T21:17:00.000-06:00

Now that evangelical voter's values are in ascendancy, we are discovering that free market principles are fine for families of workers whose jobs have been outsourced overseas but not for religious institutions. As it cuts funding to assist elderly and disabled people and reduces temporary assistance for needy families, congress is finding heaps of new money for elderly, decaying and needy churches.

For the past 215 years Americans have thought that church and state should be separate because genuine faith could sustain itself in the free marketplace of ideas. That, however, was when faith was strong and vibrant. Today it is weak and puny and needs the help of government to renovate and restore its decaying edifices.

Thankfully, organizations like Americans United for Separation of Church and State still believe that faith needs to have the vitality to sustain itself. They are filing a lawsuit challenging those who would let lazy religious institutions depend on handouts from the government.

Sanitizing Civil Rights

2004-12-01T17:33:00.000-06:00

Now that the Religious Right have taken over the government they are working to force every institution and agency of the government to promote their "worldview."

One battlefront in the culture wars is the National Park Service. The Religious Right wants the history of struggles for civil rights "sanitized." Lou Sheldon and the Traditional Values Coalition are especially unhappy with a tourist video that shows Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech, and marches for women's rights, homosexual rights, and reproductive freedom. They want a "more balanced" presentation that highlights the role of white men.

If we turn the clock back to 1950 I think they will be satisfied.

Values voters and the religious left

2004-11-24T07:29:00.000-06:00

I started to write a response to the rant about "Values voters and the Left" that Gary Bauer wrote for yesterday's Washington Times. But then I read Tony Hendra's top-secret memo to DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe. Hendra's memo about "That New-Time Religion" was leaked to the American Prospect and they put in online. So much for secrecy. Democrats have never been good at keeping secrets.

Now that I've read Hendra's memo, I'm at a complete loss for words. Frankly, no one could write a better response to Bauer than Hendra's already written. So, I'll just cite his conclusion:

In conclusion: Without the South and the Sun Belt, we’re dead meat. My successor should remember: When the South was a reeking hospital corner of brutal racism and cretinous, Bible-thumping prejudice, it was overwhelmingly Democratic. Now it’s overwhelmingly Republican. What’s wrong with this picture? Has the South changed? Not really. The South stuck to its guns and now it’s running the show. We changed and we’re not. We need to take a long, hard look at our former glory in the 13 states of the old Confederacy, reopen the files on great Democrats like Bull O’Connor and Sheriff Haney, revisit that simpler, more innocent time when Democrats controlled the market in racism, bigotry, book burning, and sanctimonious humbuggery. Of course, we can’t embrace these things as wholeheartedly as we once did (and the other side now does). But there’s always a centrist, progressive version of them if you just look hard enough.

We can do all the above -- and win in 2008 -- if we never lose sight of our fundamentalist American values.

On Christian Mass Market Culture and Identity Politics

2004-11-23T12:58:00.000-06:00

Thanks to Carlos Stouffer at the Jesus Politics blog for calling my attention to the article on "Mass Market *Culture* and Identity Politics" at the Daily Kos blog. Shock makes a lot of interesting and insightful comments. Here's the core of his argument:

Christians are behaving just like good consumers should. They are unconsciously slipping into the "mold" that the marketers have laid out for them. It's done so well that it has become part of the Christian culture.

Importantly, this directed marketing has given Christians a sense of separate identity. They are no longer Americans who happen to be Christians and happen to be Republican or Democratic. They are Christian Americans -- separate from (and some believe, superior to) the rest. (Note this is just like typical "identity politics", except, at the heart, it was not originally about politics, but rather money... although Republican politicians are now engaging in it as well, of course.)

I think Shock has put his finger on one of the factors that has led to our current Republican-Christian hegemony. I think a greater factor has been the very effective efforts of people influenced by Christian Dominionism to organize and takeover the mechanisms of government.

Promoting the Interfaith Alliance

2004-11-23T12:38:00.000-06:00

Byron Williams makes some insightful comments about "Promoting a Religious Left" on the Public Theology website. Here's one of his best remarks:

But progressive Christians must be leery of duplicating the evangelical right by becoming aligned with one political party. Instead of a theological response to the right, a la talk radio's Air America, the country needs a prophetic voice that is neither Democrat nor Republican -- nor exclusively Christian.

What Williams is looking for already exists. It is the Interfaith Alliance, an organization that I recommend highly.

What is lacking in Williams' observation is any recognition of the need for Christians on the left to get organized politically. Without organizing, the Christian left may find its voice, but we won't have the hands and feet that are necessary to produce political action.

Keeping a Democratic Faith

2004-11-23T12:04:00.000-06:00

Thanks to Robert Cunningham for alerting me about recent additions at the Public Theology website. A very good list of articles that are pertinent to the thinking of Christian Democrats is in the article "Keeping the Democratic Faith."

Jimmy Carter Democrats vs. Karl Rove Republicans

2004-11-22T08:00:00.000-06:00

Kudos to M.C. Blakemore for his essay "Church split: Will Jimmy Carter Democrats take on Karl Rove Republicans" in today's Athens News (Ohio). Blakemore writes,

Anyone who thinks that all Christians -- especially conservative Christians -- can be lumped together in a monolithic bloc has never gone through a church split. That's when all the good Christians in a congregation viciously turn against all the other good Christians over some point of doctrine or decorum until the fighting gets so bad the whole church splinters. Incidentally, such infighting went on long before any of the recent scuffles over gays in the pulpit. The history of the church is replete with schisms, not the least of which turns on the seemingly innocuous question of whether sinners should be baptized with a sprinkle of water on the forehead or fully dunked in a tub.

While Karl Rove may have gotten a phalanx of Christian voters to act as one on Election Day, he could find himself herding cats instead of docile sheep when he tries to ram through the next phase of the right-wing agenda. Not to mention the fact that all the pontificating about the impact of Christian conservative voters has riled up the Jimmy Carter Democrats. They're the voters who remember that as president, Carter was a bona fide "born again" Christian back when George Bush was still hitting the bottle. They truly believe in Jesus, but don't believe what the current president tells them about the war in Iraq.

Blakeman's essay hits several nails straight on the head.

Clarence Jordan on the Draft

2004-11-19T08:00:00.000-06:00

Clarence Jordan has some very entertaining and insightful comments to make about the military draft in an article on the Bruderhof website. Here's a hint of what he says:

How about starting the draft at sixty-five? Looky here, at that age they’re getting ready to retire and they could go at their own expense. We wouldn’t have to pay ‘em—they’re on Social Security, and old-age security, and all like that. They’re on their pensions….

And then another thing, and I noticed this, that the older a man gets, the more belligerent he gets. You listen to these guys talk in Congress. There isn’t anybody who’s more anxious to give the Communists hell than a man who’s too old to deliver it. Now anybody that’s as anxious to deliver some loads to the nether regions as our senior citizens ought not to be denied the privilege of delivering them in person. They wouldn’t even have to be drafted to do it. If given the opportunity, they’d volunteer in droves.

You'll have to read between the lines to discover the values of Christian Democrats.

The Christian Right's Secret

2004-11-18T13:55:00.000-06:00

Fred Clarkson, author of Eternal Hostility, has some good advice for Christian Democrats on his weblog. He reminds us that thinking, talking and reframing issues is not enough. We need to all be busy and involved in hands-on, face-to-face, grassroots efforts to organize and get out the Christian Democratic vote.

Here's a quote from Clarkson's blog:

Progressives and Democrats need to learn from the success of the Christian Right, and make some changes. This can be done in part, by individuals and small groups digging into their own communities -- and figuring out how to be able to deliver more votes in more places next time.
Click here to link to Clarkson's blog.

Doubletake

2004-11-18T07:00:00.000-06:00

I need to begin where I left off on my last blog. Yesterday I ended with the words, "Until I read Lakoff's books last week, I did not realize that the patriarchal family was so foundational for conservative politics."

Actually, that's overstating the case a bit. I did have some level of awareness that the patriarchal family was "foundational" to conservative thought and by logical extension to conservative politics. What Lakoff really made clear to me was how the metaphors they use to frame issues resonate down to this foundation. Now that this resonance is in the forefront of my mind, some observations I've made over the years are coming to focus from a new perspective.

Over the past twenty-five years Fundamentalists have taken over and radically redirected every institution and agency of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). From the beginning their goal was to focus the substantial resources of the SBC toward influencing the secular political life of our country. They were using the language (metaphoricity) of "revivalism" in a different context to create a new frame of reference. Here's a link to an article I wrote that talks about these changes:

Identifying the Mainstream of Baptist Life

As the results of the 2004 elections have shown, that objective has been accomplished. My problem, and now -- by extension -- the nation's problem, is that the average Baptist sitting on a pew in his Southern Baptist church is still operating under an old frame of reference. They think a "revival" is a "spiritual" movement when the metaphor and the reality has been reframed to refer to a "political" movement.

Lakoff makes it clear that reporting the facts is insufficient to change most minds. "Frames trump facts," he says. I can vouch for that. I've been reporting the facts to Baptists for more than six years with little effect among Baptists -- though the factual information I share has been well received by Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians and others who are facing well organized and amply funded challenges from Fundamentalists within their own denominations.

Now that Lakoff is helping me see to these issues from a new perspective, it is time to start thinking about how we can reframe the issues.

Democratic Family Values

2004-11-17T08:38:00.000-06:00

George Lakoff, in his books Moral Politics and Don't Think of an Elephant , demonstrates that the worldviews of conservatives and progressives are distinguished by a network of "radial" metaphors related to the family that form their respective "frames of reference." Lakoff says conservatives frame thought according to a strict father model of parenting. Progressives frame thought according to a nurturing parent model of parenting.

If that is true, and I think Lakoff's thesis is compelling, does this distinction hold among people who share the same faith? Is there a single "Christian" way to view the family that will determine where Christians fit in the spectrum of political thought.

Though Lakoff discovered the frames of references by linguistic research into 'radial' metaphors, conservative linguists familiar with James Dobson's Dare to Discipline quickly pointed Lakoff to Dobson's work. Dobson's thought is based on a patriarchical model of the family that views family life hierarchically as a chain-of-command. This model can easily be supported with texts from scripture and has often been viewed as the only biblical model for the family by many evangelical Christians.

Recently, however, the biblical credentials for the patriarchal chain-of-command model of the family began to be questioned when some conservative, evangelical scholars trained in textual criticism discovered that the oldest, therefore most authentic, texts of Paul's letter to the Ephesians demonstrated that the Apostle was undermining the family hierarchy and breaking the chain-of-command by advocating a more egalitarian, mutually-submissive relation between husbands and wives. Those findings proved so unsettling that Southern Baptists made it an article of faith to believe that wives must be "graciously submissive" to their husbands and then terminated all tenured professors, career missionaries, denominational executives, etc. who publicly disagreed.

I've been trying to educate and inform Southern Baptists about these matters for years. Here are some links to articles about biblical family relations that I have written over the years:

The Christian Family: Mutual Submission or Chain of Command?

Dead "Head" Leads SBC Family

Until I read Lakoff's books last week, I did not realize that the patriarchal family was so foundational for conservative politics.

Would God Choose Bush?

2004-11-15T16:23:00.000-06:00

Beliefnet has posted a story asking "Did God Choose Bush?" and quoting evangelicals who believe that God intervened to secure Bush's election. Among those quoted is Richard Land who heads the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission which is best described as a Republican Political Action Committee. Here's what Land is quoted as saying:

Richard Land, a leading Southern Baptist who participates in a weekly strategy call between the White House and evangelical leaders put it this way: “Whoever won, it would have been God’s will.” But because Bush won, Land told Beliefnet, God has clearly shown America his blessings. If Kerry had won, it would have proved God was cursing the United States. “The Bible says godly leadership is a sign of God’s blessings and a lack of godly leadership is a sign of God’s judgment. I don’t see Kerry as a godly leader.”

A Kerry win would have been proof of God's curse? What greater curse can befall a people than to have a leader whose relatives and followers rig elections for them, who distorts the truth to lead his nation into war, who shifts the burden of government from the wealthy to the poor, and who lacks the humility to admit that he can make a mistake?

On Getting Religion

2004-11-14T20:29:00.000-06:00

Since the presidential election there have been a number of articles telling Democrats that they need to "get religion." Two of the most widely circulated are Nicholas Kristof's Op-Ed "Time to Get Religion" published in the New York Times on Nov. 6th and Mort Kondrake's commentary "Democrats Need to 'Get Religion.' It's not Scary" published at the Real Clear Politics website on Nov. 10th.

Having been both a religious person and a Democrat for more than 35 years, I find such advice puzzling. It presumes there is validity to the caricature that right-wing Republicans have drawn of Democrats.

Correctives to this caricature have long been available for anyone interested in giving a fair appraisal of the depth of faith among Democrats. My favorite source for Democratic political religiosity is Carlos Stouffer's Jesus Politics blog.

Still, that religion has suddenly become a hot topic in Democratic circles cannot be denied. One of the more interesting new discussions is being led by Scott Jones at the Coalition for a New America blog.

I am adding my voice to the mix because I am alarmed at the fatuity of some of the advice being given. A good example of the bad advice that I am talking about is in the essay by Nicholas Kristof that was published in the New York Times. Kristof gives Democrats four suggestions. Here's his first suggestion:

Don't be afraid of religion. Offer government support for faith-based programs to aid the homeless, prisoners and AIDS victims. And argue theology with Republicans; there's much more biblical ammunition to support liberals than conservatives.

Democrats like myself are not afraid of religion and we aren't afraid to argue theology with the religious right. In fact, we've been doing it for years. What we fear is the fusion of religion with politics and the union of church and state. This is precisely what Kristof is advocating when he suggests that Democrats up the ante Republicans are offering in faith-based bribes to get the support of religious voters.

Kristof needs to read the blog that I wrote for Mainstream Baptists on "Faith-Based Initiatives: Easy Money and Loose Accountability" (8-4-04 -- you'll have to scroll down a ways) and my speech for Americans United about "Politicizing Churches is Bad for Both Church and State."

Christians Whose Faith Values Fairness

2004-11-12T17:30:00.000-06:00

Christian Democrats is a new blog devoted to promoting the values and identifying the themes that will restore the conviction among Americans that it is wrong to equate "Christian values" with a single party.

Christian Democrats do not believe that either Democrats or Republicans have cornered the market on faith and values. We believe that the values of the Democratic Party best reflect the universal value of the Golden Rule -- "Do unto others and you would have them do unto you."

In conjunction with this blog, I will be setting up a website for Christian Democrats at: www.christiandems.us

NOTE: This blog and the Christian Democrats website will be maintained at my own private expense and on my own personal time. They have no relation, official or unofficial, with the work I do for other non-profit organizations.