You don't expect much out of the Southern Baptist Convention. It was the only denomination to come out in favor of the Iraq War, after all.

But Jesus Haploid Christ, could they at least take reasonable measures to protect their kids from predators?

The clergy sexual abuse scandal that struck the U.S. Roman Catholic Church starting in 2002 has also touched the Southern Baptist Convention, although to a much lesser degree. The past two years have seen a few high-profile allegations against Baptist clergy, and a key victims' advocate in the Catholic crisis, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, began lobbying the Baptists.

In 2006, an executive committee panel began studying how to address the issue. Then, last year, Oklahoma pastor Wade Burleson proposed that the convention develop a database to track clergy and staff who are "credibly accused of, personally confessed to, or legally been convicted of sexual harassment or abuse." The database would then be available to all churches.

The executive committee report, "Responding to the Evil of Sexual Abuse," urges churches to conduct background checks using a U.S. Department of Justice database of sexual offenders.

But it rejected establishing a new Southern Baptist database, arguing it would be impossible to build a comprehensive list. Referring churches to a more exhaustive federal database is better than a limited "Baptist only" system that predators could slip through, it said.

The database idea also is undermined by the fact that the convention cannot require churches to report instances of sexual abuse to local, state or national conventions, the report said.

Local church autonomy rules out creating a centralized investigative body to determine who has been credibly accused of sexual abuse or anything else, it said, and the convention has no authority to bar known perpetrators from ministry or start an office to field abuse claims.

Congregations should use state and federal databases to keep tabs on the people hanging around their kids. They're not perfect, but they are cheap and easy to use, and it's just plain common sense. Most Protestant denominations now require their pastors to clear criminal background checks, a provision forced upon them by insurance companies. It's amazing that Baptists can get liability coverage without it.

The stuff about congregational polity doesn't wash at all. As Burleson points out, congregations can decide for themselves what to do with the information once they have it. It's unbelievably selfish and hard-hearted for one church not to care about the mess they might be sending on to another congregation - or receiving from it. It puts the reputation of pastors and the pocketbooks of congregations over the safety of children. If you have that little concept of mutuality, what exactly is the point of having a denomination, even a loose one, in the first place?

It's true what they say: if Jesus came back to see what was being done in his name, he'd never stop puking.

Welcome to the hardball world of religious politics 2008.

Republican denied communion for supporting Obama
By E.J. DIONNE JR.

Anybody who's ever spent time in the church world knows that, in the immortal words of one of my colleagues, "there are some churches you can't keep going on life support, and there are some you can't beat to death with a stick."

Well, this is disappointing, if not exactly unexpected:

Obama resigns from controversial church
Barack Obama resigned Saturday from his Chicago church — where controversial sermons by his former pastor and other ministers had created repeated political headaches for the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination — his campaign confirmed.

The resignation comes days after the Rev. Michael Pfleger, a visiting Catholic priest, mocked Obama's Democratic rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, for crying in New Hampshire during the runup to the primary there.

I had heard the other day that the Obamas were personally disappointed in Pfleger, who they thought would know better than hand such easy ammunition to Obama's critics, especially while preaching at Trinity. Likewise, they apparently felt let down by Jeremiah Wright's infamous appearance at the National Press Club.

It seems pretty clear that both Wright and Pfleger decided to stick to their guns rather than bow to the demands of the modern presidential campaign. On the one hand, I can't blame them for that. The modern presidential campaign is evil and whack besides. If you're a pastor, you might just as well lay your head down in front of the Bus of Moloch. Really. It's idolatrous and wrong and the symbol of every craven, counterproductive piece of shit to infect our society since it began. It's pandering to the Beast, it's selling your soul for a mess of pottage, it's giving up your brother for slavery, it's throwing dice for the dead man's clothes.

Any preacher who adapts the gospel as she knows it to suit the likes of CNN, FoxNews, MSNBC and the whole pile-ridden, pus-soaked lot of media blowhards ought to have her head examined and her credentials revoked.

Really.

God. Does. Not. Care. What. CNN. Thinks.

Are we clear on that?

But at the same time, there is a pastoral issue here. You never, ever, ever call out a specific member of your congregation from the pulpit. Ever. When you stand to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, that is what you do. You give them good news and the hope of redemption. If you have to condemn them, you do it in private with some of the elders. Because worship is a time to give thanks and praise to God for God's good works, not to reprove specific individuals, not to pronounce judgment on them.

As an extension of that principle, you do not embarrass members of the congregation. Never. Intentionally or otherwise. The last thing you want to do is provide a stumbling block to somebody else's faith. Your role, as pastor and preacher, is to protect, defend, and build up the flock you have been given, not to drive them off by accident or on purpose.

And the last - the very absolutely goddammit I really mean it last thing you want to do is embarrass somebody's else parishioner. Even if it's somebody you've known for twenty or thirty years. Even if he's a candidate for the highest office in the land. Even if it is his home community, and they need defending. It's not your community, and you've got no business messing in it. You stay the freak out of the way, you do not provide a distraction, you let people get on with their business without causing more trouble - and more personal embarrassment - to that parishioner. You do not drive the gospel in like a damn shank and then wonder why they walk off with a bemused expression. Even if everything Pfleger and Wright said was 100% on the money - and it wasn't - there is still the issue of the personal effect it had on a member of the congregation.

You. Do. Not. Embarrass. People. It is not pastoral.

So while it's easy to say that Wright and Pfleger might be naive when it comes to the cutthroat politics of the national stage - and Lord knows they wouldn't be the first pastors to be politically naive at a crucial moment - it's not so easy to let them off the hook for being fearless in their pursuit of the gospel.

Yes, the gospel is divisive by its nature.

Yes, preachers are required to pursue the gospel in their preaching.

But Christians are to hold love above all things. Number two is the community. And for crying in the night, how difficult is it to figure out that it's not very loving to embarrass a prominent member of the congregation who hasn't done anything wrong? How difficult is it to understand that it's not very helpful to that parishioner - or to his community - to leave him no choice but to hand in his letter of resignation?

Because let me tell you something: FoxNews is not going to stop pointing to Trinity UCC as an example of dangerous black radicalism. Neither are the pinheads around the right blogosphere. They might lay off Obama for having the good sense to leave before anything else blew up in his face. But Trinity UCC just became the stalking horse for every racialist bedwetting night terror out there. Who needs Ward Connerly anymore? Barack Obama just agreed that his congregation is too damn radical, and the irony is that it was a white minister with his heart in the right place who made him do it.

And this is how the division wins. Somewhere, the devil is laughing.

So now the wedge is driven, but good. Obama's left the UCC (this isn't like being a Catholic, you have to be a member of a congregation to belong to the denomination). Now what?

I don't know where he'll land. Methodist? Baptist? Probably not. Maybe Episcopalian, maybe Disciples of Christ, maybe another UCC congregation or a non-denominational church. Obama's Christian experience is so tied to Trinity, and Trinity so unique, that it's difficult to imagine where he'd go next. Perhaps, like Bush, he won't be much of anything, other than friendly with a particular chaplain.

But I think he and many observers would be fooling themselves to think that a good part of the UCC will not go with him. And by that, I don't mean our stubborn commitment to a "social gospel," or our embrace of gays and lesbians, our strong tradition of peace and justice.

No, I mean that commitment to dialog. As stupid and pathetic and dangerously naive as it seems, the basic organizational principle of the United Church of Christ is not and never has been assent to a particular creed or statement of beliefs or theological principles, not even transubstantiation or consubstantiation, but the notion that we are all fellow pilgrims walking the way of Jesus Christ, and what binds us together is the conversation we share as we walk. In that, we are closer to the Unitarian model of spiritual-mutual-aid society than perhaps even the Unitarians know. Even they lose the bead some times, given how much they love to fight.

Obama's entire political thrust to bridge the divides of society, to bring them together in healing, in mutual care, and in work for the common good, is more UCC than anyone suspects. It's been there all along. He may not have originally developed it in the UCC, but meeting a fierce, impressive pastor like Jeremiah Wright certainly didn't hurt it. If we didn't invent it, we sure nurtured it, and now, for better or worse, it's our spiritual gift to the world through Obama.

I do hope he will take it and be blessed. I'd like him to do something good with it politically. But as a pastor of the United Church of Christ, it's my duty to say: go with God. Sorry we let you down. Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.

Can I just say that I am so over ministers being involved in politics? Wright, Hagee, Parsley, Pfleger, all of them.

Everybody, shut up. Go preach on Noah's Ark (it's an option in this weekend' lectionary.) Talk about baseball. Don't we need more sermons on stewardship or evangelism or even what people do with their naughty parts?

Just stay out of partisan politics. It's boring and you're making asses of yourselves. Ugh.

( Via.)

For the Christian political mind to genuinely capture the political implications of the Gospel, I believe we have to internalize (and then teach) a historical-narrative approach to theology.  What follows after the fold is my argument for the greater use of narrative theology in eschatalogical discussions and particularly in the realm of politics.  More...

Religion News Service, via EthicsDaily:

Sixteen Protestant denominations and regional districts have joined a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia in contesting a Reconstruction-era state law that governs church splits.

The post-Civil War splintering of Methodist and Presbyterian churches in 1867 prompted the Virginia law, which allows congregations to keep their property when seceding from a church or "religious society" that's dividing.

This spring, however, the United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church (USA), two of the largest U.S. mainline Protestant denominations, say the law is unconstitutional.

On Friday, a judge in Fairfax County, Va., ruled that the UMC, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and the Worldwide Church of God may participate in oral arguments May 28 to assess the law's constitutionality.

The amicus curiae brief is a sign of how closely Protestants are following the multimillion-dollar battle between the Episcopal Church and 11 conservative congregations that left to join a branch of the Anglical Church of Nigeria.

Keep your eye on this one. What's at stake here is the ability of schismatic congregations (or dioceses) to walk away from their denominations and keep their property, in contravention of canon law. That's no small concern, particularly in high-rent districts like Northern Virginia. If the ruling goes against the denominations, we could see Akinola and his creepy buddies breaking up churches all over the place.

I think the law here should be clear: civil courts don't get involved in ecclesial disputes. And because they don't get involved, the ecclesial rules, well, rule. The schismatics should live with the consequences of their actions.

Starting in the 1950s, American states began to repeal "blue laws" that prohibited retail activity on Sundays.  A new study by Jonathan Gruber of MIT and Daniel M. Hungerman of Notre Dame shows that the repeals of blue laws nationally has created both social and economic problems as a result.

We haven't heard much recently from Zack Exley's  Revolution in Jesusland blog, but this bit from Sarah Posner should serve as a reminder of the appeal of some of the Emerging Churches:

This past weekend, Jay Bakker, son of the televangelist Jim Bakker and the late Tammy Faye Bakker, visited Joel Osteen's Lakewood megachurch in Houston, Texas, in an effort to enlist the church's participation in the civil rights organization Soulforce's effort to foster dialogue between churches and LGBT people. Bakker, who pastors his own Revolution Church in Brooklyn, New York, became an openly "gay-affirming" pastor three years ago. Revolution Church's website proclaims, "As Christians, we're sorry for being self-righteous judgmental bastards."

In Houston, Bakker chatted with Osteen and other church officials after the Sunday service, and although he described Osteen as "very genuine" and "welcoming" of LGBT people into his church it became clear that Osteen wasn't going to take any big stands on LGBT rights. Bakker chalks up much of the resistance to fear of losing influence and financial support. When he took his stand, Bakker added, he lost big donors and speaking engagements.

I seem to remember hearing about Bakker's move to welcoming gays and lesbians and its attendant fallout a couple of years back. In any case, it doesn't surprise me a bit that he's run into some flak for his stance. That's not a slam at Evangelicals, by the way - he could have had the very same problems in any number of mainline denominations.

But yeah, "we're sorry for being self-righteous judgmental bastards" pretty much gets to the heart of Christian problems these days, doesn't it?

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the ADF is double-dog daring churches to step over the line of Separation:

A conservative legal-advocacy group is enlisting ministers to use their pulpits to preach about election candidates this September, defying a tax law that bars churches from engaging in politics.

Alliance Defense Fund, a Scottsdale, Ariz., nonprofit, is hoping at least one sermon will prompt the Internal Revenue Service to investigate, sparking a court battle that could get the tax provision declared unconstitutional. Alliance lawyers represent churches in disputes with the IRS over alleged partisan activity.

The action marks the latest attempt by a conservative organization to help clergy harness their congregations to sway elections. The protest is scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 28, a little more than a month before the general election, in a year when religious concerns and preachers have been a regular part of the political debate.

...

Alliance fund staff hopes 40 or 50 houses of worship will take part in the action, including clerics from liberal-leaning congregations. About 80 ministers have expressed interest, including one Catholic priest, says Erik Stanley, the Alliance's senior legal counsel.

Translation: we're hoping to partisanize conservative congregations, since who knows how many Justice Sundays did squat for us before. The law is quite settled here, and IRS complaints take a long time to settle, much less litigate. So the legal effect for 2006 is basically nil, meaning this is a political maneuver.

Oh yeah, and this is crap:

The section of the tax code barring nonprofits from intervening in political campaigns has long frustrated clergy. Many ministers consider the provision an inappropriate government intrusion, blocking the duty of clergy to advise congregants.

I have yet to meet a pastor who feels this way. Responsible ministers understand that the First Amendment does as much or more to protect their congregations than it does to muffle their voice. More important, they understand that the mission of the church is to be the church, not an adjunct to a political movement.

C. Welton Gaddy of the Interfaith Alliance had a statement on the ADF's move that seems on-the-money:

Houses of worship belong to divine authority – they are not the property of either political party.  The Alliance Defense Fund’s call for pastors to break the law represents the height of irresponsibility.  They are putting churches across the country unnecessarily at risk to costly and time-consuming investigations that could result in harsh financial penalties.  Putting churches in legal and financial jeopardy seems a bizarre way of defending religious freedom, which the ADF claims to defend.

But there is an even greater issue at stake in this campaign than violating the law.  When religious leaders endorse candidates from the pulpit, they weaken both the sanctity of religion and the integrity of democracy.  The IRS allows – and the Interfaith Alliance encourages – religious leaders to speak out on the important political issues of the day, but when clergy endorse specific candidates or parties in their official capacity, they abuse their pastoral authority.

Damn skippy.

Martin Marty's Sightings e-mail points me to this Associated Press article:

The number of people baptized in Southern Baptist churches fell last year for the third straight year to the lowest level since 1987. Total membership dropped by nearly 40,000.

Baptisms in 2007 dropped more than 5 percent to 345,941, compared with 364,826 in 2006, according to an annual report released Wednesday by LifeWay Christian Resources, the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Total membership was 16,266,920 last year, down from the 16,306,246 the year earlier.

This is considerably less than the declines seen by other denominations, such as Methodists, Presbyterians or Episcopalians. The interesting number here isn't the drop in total members, but in baptisms, which as you might figure are the lifeblood of Baptist churches.

This part of the article is simply wrong:

Southern Baptists make up the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. The drop in numbers reflects trends in other declining mainline Protestant churches, which are losing members as nondenominational and unaffiliated churches are growing.

American Baptist churches are considered part of the "mainline denominations". Southern Baptists are generally considered evangelicals. And mainliners aren't losing members to nondenominational churches, but to the ever-swelling ranks of the Not Much Of Anything In Particular.

Marty has a better explanation of what's going on:

Being conservative and mega-minded does not serve as a figurative wall against exiting members.  Parents having fewer children each year, long a factor in "mainline" Protestant decline, also accounts for Baptist losses.

...

Most important is to observe cultural shifts:  "Seekers" stay isolated in "spirituality;" the impulse to make commitments wanes, and sacrifices for life in community appeal less than in earlier cultural turns; denominations lose some of their attractive hold, while suggesed replacements for them—networks of independent and often competitive congregations-on-their-own, mega or mini—do not play quite the role that parishes in denominations did.  The future of loyalty and participation is uncertain.

Baptists, like all American Christians, are caught in a larger social change. Social affiliation is becoming more fluid, less a part of institutional membership. That's why you see so many people referring to Street Prophets as "my church." Used to be a statement like that would be considered unusual, if not downright goofy. And yep, people are having less kids, which means less need for institutions to help them pass on their values to the next generation.

As Marty points out, we may yet see a sudden secularization of our culture, as happened in Quebec or Ireland (or Spain). I don't think it'll be that dramatic, and it's not necessarily a bad thing. But it will definitely be a change.

At the second of the two birthday parties we attended this weekend, the guests were passing around the People magazine with an article on Thomas Beatie. It's only natural. You hear about a pregnant man and the immediate reaction is: "How?"

(That was also the secondary and tertiary response from one not-quite-sober attendee, but I suppose that's another story.)

I was as intrigued as anyone when I heard about Beatie last week. It truly is an amazing story: bearded tranman gives up at least one aspect of his hard-won gender identity because his wife can't get pregnant.

What a weird and wonderful time we live in.

As I thought about the story, a question came to mind. What would I do if this happy couple showed up at my church door, wanting me to baptize their baby?

The obvious answer is: baptize the kid. He or she didn't do anything wrong, after all, and the grace of God is no respecter of assigned identities. And just to be crystal clear, the baby's parents didn't do anything wrong, either. They just took full advantage of biology and medical technology, no different than millions of other couples who have used in-vitro fertilization to conceive.

My question was more along the lines of: how do you welcome such a family? Perhaps just as important if not more so, how do you explain to the very traditional people in the pews that love makes a family, and never mind Daddy's beard and baby bump? Help me imagine how this conversation would go.