Posted on 04/10/2003 8:23:57 AM PDT by Incorrigible
BY MARK O'KEEFE
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| The Rev. Robert Edgar holds a photo of an Iraqi Christian while arguing that children are the most innocent victims of the war against Iraq. (Photo courtesy of the National Council of Churches) |
It has been called organized religion's most unified anti-war stance since the latter days of the Vietnam conflict.
But public opinion polls show the spiritual movement opposing war in Iraq has had little impact on churchgoers, much less on the American public, both of which overwhelmingly support both the U.S.-led invasion and President Bush.
When former President Jimmy Carter, a born-again Baptist, wrote in early March that religious leaders had "an almost universal conviction" that an invasion would be unjust, the statement seemed self-evident. Leaders of mainline Protestant denominations, including the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ and the United Methodist Church, opposed war, and the Roman Catholic Pope John Paul II worked passionately against it.
Largely overlooked in all this was the reality that the flocks didn't agree with the shepherds. According to a February Gallup Poll, two of every three Americans who attend church at least once a week supported war.
Religious conservatives see this split as evidence that a sometimes quiet majority of regular churchgoers -- even in moderate to liberal denominations -- tilt right on many major political issues.
"The mainline churches have suffered a blow to their relevancy in America that will take them more than a generation to recover from," said Rabbi Daniel Lapin, a conservative radio talk-show host from Mercer Island, Wash., who speaks frequently at Christian Coalition conferences.
But the Rev. Robert Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, could hardly disagree more. In his view, the council, representing 36 denominations, is playing a prophetic role -- much as it did in the 1960s when it took a stand for civil rights.
"None of the Old Testament prophets had a majority," said Edgar, a former Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania. "My position is that prophetic voices are always way out ahead of the congregation. Those willing to speak out should not expect automatic enthusiasm. They should understand pretty clearly that the rank and file take a little longer to focus and to follow."
Bradley Watson, an associate professor of political science at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa., likened the anti-war position of denomination leadership to the tip of an iceberg -- readily apparent because it's above water, but ultimately misleading.
"The great iceberg of popular opinion is in support of the war, even among churchgoers," Watson said.
A nationwide survey March 13-16 by the Pew Research Center and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life showed that 62 percent of Catholics and the same percentage of mainline Protestants support the war.
Luis Lugo, religion program director at the Pew Charitable Trusts in Philadelphia, called that "a significant gap" between church leaders and followers.
For years, other polls have shown mainline Protestant leaders to be significantly to the left of their members on the death penalty, affirmative action, defense spending and other issues. "Protestant church leaders ought to be concerned," Lugo said. "That's not a healthy long-term trend."
But for the most part, church leaders seem more philosophical than worried.
A former head of the National Council of Churches, the Rev. M. William Howard Jr. of Newark, N.J., explained that church leaders have "an informed" and "critical assessment" of the war and the Bush administration's justifications that church laity, relying on popular media, lacks.
While the religious right communicates to its audience through thousands of conservative radio stations, "mainline churches are completely out of that ballgame," said Howard, pastor of Bethany Baptist Church, a largely African-American congregation.
Howard said African-Americans distrust Bush, and their opposition to the war reflects that. Nationally, only 36 percent of African-Americans support the invasion of Iraq, according to the Pew poll.
On the other hand, the Pew sample showed 77 percent of evangelical Christians supporting the war.
Those describing themselves as evangelical or born-again make up more than 40 percent of the American population, according to Gallup polls. Many of their churches are independent and nondenominational, meaning they have few leaders speaking for vast networks of congregations. Some Southern Baptist Convention leaders have spoken out in favor of the war, but most evangelical organizations have been relatively quiet on the issue.
Their war support could stem from an affinity for a president who speaks their language of redemption and rejects the anti-war rhetoric of his own Methodist denomination.
It may also reflect differences in interpretation of Bible passages. Mainline Protestant leaders cite Christ's pleas for peace -- "If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also" and "Blessed are the peacemakers" -- in opposing the war. Evangelicals argue that those commands were intended for individuals, not the state, and that Christ spoke passionately about the responsibility to oppose evil.
This helps explain why the Bible describes Christ "rebuking hateful mobs, casting demons into the abyss and chasing religious charlatans out of a temple with a whip," said Joseph Loconte, a fellow on religion and free society at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
Following that example, Christians should support a war against the evil of Saddam Hussein, Loconte and other evangelicals argue.
Among Catholics, disagreeing with the Vatican and American bishops is nothing new, said the Rev. Arthur Kennedy, executive director of the Washington-based United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
"Look at the abortion issue," Kennedy said. "American Catholics are basically the same as everyone else, even though the church is constantly making the case against abortion."
But Jeffrey Marlett, assistant professor of religious studies at the College of Saint Rose, in Albany, N.Y., said the falling credibility of Catholic leadership is a factor in shaping opinions on the war.
"The church's sex crisis is percolating in the background on this," said Marlett, whose specialty is American Catholic history. "When the Vatican or the American bishops make statements on justice and peace, those words ring a little hollow now."
In Albany, Marlett said, Catholic parishioners are walking out on sermons declaring the war unjust.
"If folks don't like the message they're hearing, they'll move someplace else where they like it," he said. "The interesting thing here, for whatever reason, is that peace isn't selling well. It's certainly not selling like it did in the 1960s.
"Religious folks have favorite brands, and the favorite brand at this point is in support of the war."
(Mark O'Keefe can be contacted at mark.okeefe@newhouse.com)
Not for commercial use. For educational and discussion purposes only.
Most of them had no love for Clinton.
As a Southern Baptist, I can tell you that amonst SBs that I know, Clinton was definitely condemned. We were ashamed that he considered himself a SB.
On the contrary, Clinton was blasted from pulpits all across the Southern Baptist Convention. He was rebuked by a resolution at the annual SBC meeting. And approximately 70% of Southern Baptists voted for Bush, Sr., Dole and "W." Every SBC minister I know or encountered during the 8 years of Clinton was vehemently opposed to his reprobate Presidency. But Southern Baptists are not a heirarchical denomination. Each church is autonomous. The only church that could discipline him was him home church in Little Rock. No denominational board, agency, or leader controls any local church. When the Clintons were in the White House, they regularly attended the Foundry United Methodist Church. My church in the Daytona Beach area provided at least 700 votes for Bush and about a dozen for Clinton. I need not remind you how helpful those 700 votes were for our country. Our pastor prayed at Bush's campaign stop, and my daughter sang in the church's children's choir which performed at the event.
By Robert Stacy McCain THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Antiwar rhetoric rings from many U.S. pulpits, but the people in the pews support President Bush's policy in Iraq. U.S. Christians back war with Iraq by about a 2-to-1 margin, according to the latest survey, even as many clergy have emerged as leading voices opposing Operation Iraqi Freedom. The Pew Research Center found 61 percent of churchgoers support the war versus 28 percent who oppose it. That gap between clergy and laity is not surprising to Bishop C. Joseph Sprague of the Northern Illinois Conference of the United Methodist Church, who has been outspoken in his opposition to war.
"You see these same kind of figures when you look at other issues, when you look at gender inclusivity," he said. "I remember when you saw the same gap on issues such as race." A conservative Methodist layman agreed the gap is not new. "This chasm between church bureaucrats in the mainline denominations versus the people in the pews is a chasm that has existed for years," said James Heidinger, chairman of the Association for Church Renewal, which advocates a return to traditional theology in Protestant churches. "Our dilemma [in the United Methodist Church] is that about 70 percent of our membership describe themselves as 'conservative' on moral and theological issues -- and, I would add, probably on social issues as well," Mr. Heidinger said. "But it is our leadership and those who have moved to posts in our boards and agencies, and the National Council of Churches, who are very liberal in their social views and politics."
Martin E. Marty, a leading church historian, noted that unlike the war in Vietnam, when clerical antiwar activism grew slowly as the conflict turned into a quagmire, American clergy opposed war with Iraq long before the first bombs fell. The clergy have not been so visibly opposed to the outbreak of hostilities since before Pearl Harbor in 1941, he told the Associated Press.
The Pew survey found the biggest gap of opinion on the war between shepherds and their flocks appears among Catholics and among "mainline" Protestants -- such denominations as Methodists, Episcopalians and Lutherans.
Such surveys shouldn't influence the clergy, said the Rev. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches. "The prophets of the Old Testament never had a majority, never took a poll, never took a vote to see what God's will is," said Mr. Edgar, an opponent of the war. One reason Protestant laity and clergy differ on the war, Bishop Sprague said, is that some mainline pastors are reluctant to address controversial issues. "On the part of many of our clergy, there has been a hesitancy to do the hard teaching that needs to be done on matters of peace and justice," said Bishop Sprague. Mr. Edgar compared clergy who are afraid to criticize the war to the Sadducees and Pharisees. "I think it's the same problem Jesus had. The Sadducees and Pharisees who were the religious leaders of that day didn't want to listen to his prophetic voice," Mr. Edgar said. "They, too, were on automatic pilot and not engaged in their society. They didn't understand Jesus when he said, 'Love thine enemy.' They hated their enemies. And when he said, 'Care for the least of these, thy brothers and sisters,' they didn't get it." Bishop Sprague said "social witness in the world" has traditionally been important to Methodists. He noted that both President Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney are Methodists, but said Christianity in America is "largely fascinated with individual piety, not so much with the corporate social mission." Bishop Sprague said much argument about the war involves "just war" theory, a Christian doctrine first articulated by 5th-century theologian Augustine. "But I would posit that very few people in the pews know what the theory is," the bishop said.
Antiwar pronouncements from church leaders don't always influence the faithful because churchgoers of every denomination "tend to discriminate between what their clergy can speak to with real competence," said the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, a Catholic priest and editor of the conservative journal First Things. "When churchmen talk like political leaders, making prudential judgments in areas where they have no particular competence, the laity very understandably tends to discount what they say," he said. He also said that Catholic teaching says "war is sometimes justified, and even a moral duty."
An exception to the clergy-laity divide is the 16 million-member Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), where pastors and their congregations mostly see eye-to-eye on issues of war and peace. "Southern Baptist clergy are very supportive of the war, by and large, and so are the laity," said Richard Land, chairman of the SBC's Ethics and Religious Life Committee. That agreement "shouldn't be surprising, because each Southern Baptist congregation votes to call its own pastor," Mr. Land said. "The rank and file elect their leaders, so it would be understandable that there would be far less disconnect between Southern Baptist ministers and their church members." Mr. Land contrasted that congregation-based selection method with other denominations, in which clergy are appointed by the church hierarchy. "No bishop tells a Southern Baptist congregation who to call as pastor. They call their own pastor," he said.
"I'd say at least 75 percent of Southern Baptists support the president's policy on Iraq, and there would be virtually no difference between the ministers and the laity," Mr. Land said. "But that shouldn't be surprising since about three out of four Southern Baptists voted for President Bush [a Methodist], against a Southern Baptist, Al Gore."
Whereas conservatives fought a long struggle to gain control of Southern Baptist seminaries, Mr. Heidinger said liberal seminaries have an important influence in mainline denominations. Asked why mainline Protestant clergy tend to be liberal, Mr. Heidinger answered: "Unfortunately, they went to seminary. I think most of the mainline denominations have seminaries that are very liberal in their theological understandings, and they produce clergy that are liberal, both theologically as well as politically. "When theology is no longer central in the life of the church, something inevitably steps in to fill the gap," he said, "and among mainline Protestant liberals, that something is political ideology." <\b>
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Saw this on the front page of the Washington Times. I'm a Southern Baptist, so I found this interesting. One drawback with a non-heirarchical denomination is the inability to tell an individual church to kick a reprobate member out [i.e. Bill Clinton]. But the heirarchical denominations usually don't exercise that perogative anyway, and the heirarchical denominations tend to become liberal more quickly than decentralized denominations.
Anti-Clinton Southern Baptist BUMP!
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