Posted on 11/09/2012 6:45:16 AM PST by marshmallow
An interview with Kenneth J. Collins, author of "Power, Politics, and the Fragmentation of Evangelicalism"
Kenneth J. Collins, PhD is professor of historical theology and Wesley Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. He is the author of several books, including The Theology of John Wesley (Abingdon) and The Evangelical Moment (Baker). His most recent book, Power, Politics, and the Fragmentation of Evangelicalism (InterVarsity Press, 2012), is a history of American Evangelicalism from the late 19th century to the present day, focusing on the cultural influence and political fortunes of Evangelical Protestants; it also addresses many facets of Catholic-Evangelical relations. Dr. Collins spoke recently with Carl E. Olson, the editor of Catholic World Report, about the history of Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism, Catholic and Evangelical relations, and the common challenges facing Christians in the United States today.
CWR: Many Catholics aren’t very familiar with ecumenical relations between Catholics and Evangelicals, or why such relations are important. How would you, as an Evangelical, address the significance of those relations?
Collins: I think there are a lot of ways that Catholics and Evangelicals can work together. I want to strengthen those connections. What we are facing in the days ahead is very important. Catholics are like canaries in a coal mine. We, as Christians, weren’t supposed to bump against a modern liberal democracy; it was supposed to be everyone choosing their own good. But the Catholic Church is bumping up against it, in terms of the contraceptive issue, but also in terms of what Catholic Charities faced in Massachusetts, where the collision between the state government and the Church forced the closure of Catholic Charities, which has had a wonderful history of service to the poor.
CWR: Let’s go back to the beginning, historically. There is a lot of confusion, isn’t there.....
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicworldreport.com ...
Evangelicals have very little respect for a church that has prominent abortion-supporters such as Pelosi and Biden as members.
This kind of stuff makes me want to pull my hair out. The catholic bishops are totally corrupted by the hundreds of millions of dollars their various charities get in the form of Federal grants— and that is not even counting the hospitals!
Had it not been for their lust to get billions more through the federalization of healthcare Obamacare would never have passed. It is poetic justice that they will now have to pay for Slut Fluke’s birth control.
Until they abandon “catholic social teaching” (just a cover for more big government) and stop living off taxpayer dollars, it is foolhardy to think of them as anything but the faintest of allies.
I understand that dinosaurs figure prominently in traditional Catholic iconography. [/sarcasm]
Well said!
I believe it is a mistake to ever consider RC's allies of any degree. The more accurate view is they are co-belligerents on some social issues. They could not produce a simple majority for Romney and in the swing states where they are a higher % of the vote this is a disaster.
One result of this election is it puts to bed that there really is a "Catholic vote". The leadership of this church made it pretty clear they did not support obama and his policies, but the members of this church voted otherwise. As far as the "social teaching" goes that won't change. They are liberal at the core.
Evangelicals will be better served to try and convert RC's. The USA will not recover from this socialist wave until traditional values are no longer considered passe. The RC's have made it clear that they say one thing and do another when it counts.
Seems to me there is more fragmentation amongst Roman Cathlics then most other Christian groups.
Blaze Analysis: The Catholic Vote Went to Obama Over Romney Despite Contraception & Religious Freedom Debates
Posted on November 8, 2012 at 9:12am by Billy Hallowell
The Catholic Church, infuriated over the notion that the government would force associated organizations to violate conscience by providing employees with birth control free-of-charge, launched into a nation-side campaign against the provision. Despite a concerted effort on the part of Catholics and evangelicals, alike, to expose the issue as government intrusion on personal and institutional religious liberty, on Tuesday, President Barack Obama still won the majority of the U.S. Catholic vote.
Read full article here:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/blaze-analysis-catholic-voters-chose-obama-over-romney-despite-contraception-religious-freedom-debate/
CATHOLICS FOR OBAMA (CFO)
“A project of Catholic Democrats, Catholics For Obama (CFO) was formed to promote the presidential candidacy of Senator Barack Obama in 2008. Noting that “Americans are weary of being pitted against one another over issues of race, disparity of wealth, and religion,” CFO stated that “Senator Obama has made bringing Americans together to solve common problems the central theme of his campaign.” One CFO board member called Obama “a presidential candidate of historic accomplishments,” and lauded his background as a 1980s-era community organizer whose efforts “to [economically] empower the lives of thousands of people” had received vital “funding from the U.S. Bishops.” Obama’s employer in the eighties had been the Chicago-based Developing Communities Project, an initiative of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.”
Though Obama has been an unwavering backer of abortion rights throughout his years in politics—he opposed even the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act as a state senator—CFO says that by the standards of “Catholic Social Teaching,” Obama is technically “pro-life” because he “has spent his entire career striving for the common good.” Specifically, CFO praises the President for supporting “health care programs that will cover all Americans, a living wage for working families, and solutions that allow distressed families to stay in their homes.” Moreover, CFO reasons that Obama’s presidency will ultimately reduce the number of abortions “by promoting health care for pregnant women and better infant care, day care and job training.”
Maintaining that “the state has a positive moral function to promote the common good,” CFO views the expansion of governmental power as a preferred means of solving society’s most pressing problems.
The president and board chairman of CFO is Patrick Whelan, who also serves as president of Catholic Democrats. A member of the pediatrics faculty at Harvard Medical School and a co-director of Pax Christi Massachusetts, Whelan was formerly a national co-director of Catholics for Kerry; he served for three years on the Democratic National Committee’s Faith Advisory Council under Howard Dean; and he volunteered with the Catholic Worker communities in Los Angeles and Houston.
Other CFO board members include:
- Victoria Reggie Kennedy: The widow of the late Senator Edward Kennedy, Victoria is an attorney and an activist who has been an official with numerous groups focused on reducing gun violence and restricting access to firearms.
- Kathleen Kennedy Townsend: The eldest of Robert F. Kennedy’s eleven children, Townsend served two years as deputy assistant attorney general during the Bill Clinton administration, and later as Maryland’s lieutenant governor (1995-2003).
- Thomas P. O’Neill III: O’Neill was lieutenant governor of Massachusetts from 1975-1983. Today he is CEO of O’Neill & Associates, a government and public-relations firm in Boston. (”Tip’s” son - haffast)
- James Roosevelt, Jr.: Formerly the chief legal counsel for the Massachusetts Democratic Party, Roosevelt currently co-chairs the Rules and By-laws Committee of the Democratic National Committee. He is also president and CEO of the Tufts Health Plan. (FDR’s grandson - haffast)
- William D’Antonio: This retired professor of sociology was once the CEO of the American Sociological Association.
- Lisa Schare: This Cincinnati-based high-school art teacher serves as state chair of the Catholic Democrats of Ohio. A longtime Democratic Party activist, she did volunteer work for the Clinton/Gore, Gore/Lieberman, and Kerry/Edwards presidential campaigns.
Read full article here:
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7727
And also in Chicago:
WARNING - FOLLOWING WEBPAGE CONTAINS OBSCENITY ON PAGE AND IN VIDEOS ON THAT PAGE
Obama Supporters Celebrate Election Victory: ‘No More Israel… **** That S***, Kill Those Mother ****ers’
Posted on November 7, 2012 at 11:09pm by Jason Howerton
“Seems to me there is more fragmentation amongst Roman Cathlics then most other Christian groups.”
Well its the biggest Christian “group” by far, inevitably you’ll get differing opinions. Moreover, it’s more of a split than a fragmentation; the church hierarchy (e.g. bishops, archbishops on up) are out of touch with the laity, even out of touch with the faithful, active laity. The vast majority of Roman Catholics have used birth control at some point in their lives. All the end-of-mass bishops’ letters in the world won’t change their minds. Humane Vitae may have been one of the Church’s biggest mistakes in modern times; right up there with the failure to pursue pedophiles in its ranks (and I say this as an active Catholic). As for abortion, most active Catholics find it repugnant to an extent, and are happy to see the grisly partial-birth procedure banned. But they’re largely willing to tolerate 1st trimester abortions as a last-ditch procedure, especially in case of severe fetal deformity (e.g. Down’s, trisomy 13, spina bifida etc.) or rape/incest. But the church doesn’t recruit its bishops from the parish level (as a rule), rather, it picks people who it believes will make good administraitve apparatchiks right out of the seminary. Too often, these people, good and even holy they may be, are isolated from the daily lives of their flock.
1)When the bishops remain silent: "Look at those cowardly bishops.....too frightened to speak. They either have no spine or are in love with Obama."
2)When the bishops speak against government policies but are ignored by large numbers of self-identifying Catholics: "Their leaders speak and they ignore them! They're liberal to the core. They say one thing and do another. Hopeless."
3)When the bishops speak and everybody follows their directives: "Look at those brainwashed Catholics. They're like robots. They do whatever their bishops tell them without even thinking. Pitiful."
Thanks for the thoughtful reply.
I was watching to see if this great "Catholic vote" was going to stand up for religious liberty. We all know how that turned out.
One thing you can bank on with Evangelical Christians is a majority of us will vote our faith.
Someone who lives like a pagan can be expected to vote like a pagan, whether or not they call themselves a "Catholic". That's not the bishops' fault, nor is it the fault of real Catholics.
You're right that the concept of a "[self-identified] Catholic vote" is meaningless.
Ditto. Hence my previous post. When the issue is theology, we're a monolithic bunch of brain dead zombies who uncritically accept everything the Church says. When it's politics, we're a fractured, undisciplined rabble.
I'm thankful for the support of other Christian groups on the HHS mandate, for instance, but I'm also aware that for them, this is purely a "freedom of religion" issue, rather than a deep, non-negotiable point of theology as contraception is for the Catholic Church. They share our aversion to the secular uber state telling us how to practice our faith but aren't quite sure why the underlying Catholic teaching is so important. So keep "watching"; I expect to see Catholics walking the walk in a coming confrontation even as many Catholics shrug their shoulders and say "so what?" just as they did during the election.
The travesty of course, is that those doing the heavy lifting and bearing the pain inflicted by the state will be those who actually voted against the current incumbent. They'll cop it from all sides and already have. Freepers will scream "you deserve it.......you voted for him!!". The secularists and socialists will scream "hateful, right wing religious nuts".
So be it.
I think Olson's right that we face numerous common challenges. The question for me is will both sides ever stop throwing stones long enough to unite as brothers and sisters in the Lord? We don't have to agree on theology to unite for the common good of our nation, do we?
I was surprised when I read this: "Evangelicals today have enormous respect for Roman Catholics." Outside of nonCatholic family members, I don't see that too much. Online I rarely see it.
Makes no sense to me that folks who claim to love God feel a need to insult each other. I don't appreciate it when either side does it. This thread will probably descend into a stone throwing contest so I'll just shut up now and close with this link. What Does the Bible Say About Insults?
What IS the Bishops' fault is their support of state-funded healthcare. The only reason they don't now support Obamacare is the abortion provisions.
When the Bishops speak out in favor of Gov't intervention it follows that the catholic rank and file will vote for it.
“They could not produce a simple majority for Romney and in the swing states where they are a higher % of the vote this is a disaster.”
Where is the list of the Catholic vote in the swing states? Is the national number made up of all the states exit polling? Is there a breakdown by state anywhere? The only one I have seen was Ohio, which said Catholics went Romney by 9 points.
Freegards
I would suggest that one’s love of God might sometimes be obscured by love of government dollars. See www.networklobby.org/news-media/federal-funding-catholic-organizations
And way too many so called evangelicals just want to join them at the trough.
We can play this game with Evangelical votes and we will get up into the high 80's.
You're right that the concept of a "[self-identified] Catholic vote" is meaningless.
When looking at this group we should be talking about married status, gender, ethnicity, income.
I don't know what your church will do about all the schools and hospitals that are now mandated to provide contraception and abortificents. If your church leaders follow through and begin closing these institutions it will create all kinds of problems for a lot of people. If they don't how much credibility will they have left.
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