WASHINGTON (ABP) – The United States Supreme Court ruled 8-1 on March 2 that anti-gay protests outside of military funerals by a controversial Kansas Baptist church are protected speech under the First Amendment.

The ruling overturned a jury decision that held Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., liable for millions of dollars in damages for picketing near the Maryland funeral of a fallen Marine with signs indicating that God was killing soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan in judgment of America’s toleration of homosexuality.

In its ruling, the high court upheld an appellate court’s overturning of that decision that said the soldier’s father could not receive damages for constitutionally protected speech simply because it was hurtful.

The Supreme Court said the church’s picketing of funerals with signs reading “God Hates Fags” and “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” is “certainly hurtful and its contribution to public discourse may be negligible,” but that freedom of speech does not depend on whether or not the message is popular.

The justices agreed that the church’s speech inflicted pain on grieving family members, but declined to react to that pain by punishing the speaker.

“As a nation we have chosen a different course — to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. “That choice requires that we shield Westboro from tort liability for its picketing in this case.”

Justice Samuel Alito filed a dissenting opinion, saying that while the church’s speech might be protected if directed toward a public figure, plaintiff Albert Snyder of York, Pa., was a private individual who suffered “great injury” due to “outrageous conduct” by a group seeking publicity.

“In order to have a society in which public issues can be openly and vigorously debated, it is not necessary to allow the brutalization of innocent victims like the petitioner,” Alito opined.

Groups from across the political spectrum filed briefs supporting Westboro Baptist Church’s case while acknowledging distaste for the message. The ruling was one of the most anticipated in the current Supreme Court term as a landmark case testing the limits of free speech

Previous stories:

Justices struggle with free-speech limits in arguments over church

Supreme Court to hear Westboro Baptist Church case Oct. 6

Groups across spectrum file briefs supporting Westboro Baptist Church

Baptist church claims funeral protests protected by 1st Amendment

Father of fallen Marine files brief in case against Westboro Baptist Church

Supreme Court accepts case testing limits of free speech

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Americans haven’t heard much about congressional hearings on the radicalization of U.S. Muslims, but more than half think it’s a good idea, and nearly as many believe Muslims here haven’t done enough to fight extremists in their midst, according to a new poll.

At the same time, 62 percent say American Muslims are an important part of the religious community, and a clear majority—72 percent—say Congress should investigate religious extremism anywhere it exists, not just among Muslims, according to a PRRI/RNS religion news poll.

The poll, conducted by Public Religion Research Institute in partnership with Religion News Service, was released as House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King, R-N.Y., prepares to hold hearings on the threat of homegrown Islamic extremism during the week of March 7.

The poll examined attitudes toward both the hearings and American Muslims, analyzing the responses by gender, age, most trusted news source, and religious and political affiliation.

Overall, men, viewers who trust Fox News, white evangelicals and Republicans are more likely to think the hearings are a good idea and to believe Muslims want to establish Shariah law in the United States. The hearings find less support among Democrats (45 percent), people who trust CNN (45 percent) or public television (28 percent), and white mainline Protestants (50 percent).

Nearly half (49 percent) of Americans do not believe Muslims in the U.S. have been unfairly targeted by law enforcement; more than one-third (36 percent) believe Muslims have been targeted unfairly. One in five (22 percent) Americans believes U.S. Muslims want to establish Shariah law here.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Many economists warn the government’s huge national debt is a looming threat to long-term prosperity. And according to a growing number of conservative Christians, it also is immoral.

As Washington debates President Obama’s proposed 2012 budget, the immorality of the deficit has become the hot topic on right-leaning Christian blogs, radio programs and political mailings.

The concern not only is that the estimated $14.13 trillion debt could cripple the economy, some conservative Christian leaders say, but also that borrowing so much money violates important biblical tenets. And some of the moral arguments against excessive borrowing are getting a new hearing among Christians already anxious about the economy.

“America’s growing debt is a not just a financial issue, it’s a spiritual one,” said Jerry Newcombe, host of The Coral Ridge Hour, a television program broadcast by Coral Ridge Ministries in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. “The Bible is very clear about the moral dangers of debt.”

In a recent segment on the debt, the Coral Ridge program featured spokesmen who quoted the Bible to denounce the debt.

“Proverbs 13:22 says a ‘good man leaves an inheritance for his children’s children,’” historian and author William Federer said on the program. “Right now, we’re not leaving a very good inheritance.”

Other budget-conscious Christians have cited passages from Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy, in which God tells Israel that “you will lend to many nations but will borrow from none.”

Coral Ridge Ministries has been sounding the alarm to its estimated 500,000 devotees through its broadcasts, print publications and website. Likewise, the Washington-based Family Research Council has delivered “action alerts” about the debt to its network of 40,000 pastors and myriad state-based advocacy groups. The Christian Coalition, Concerned Women for America, and the Faith and Freedom Coalition, a new group led by GOP strategist Ralph Reed, also are warning members with increasing intensity that the deficit is reaching immoral proportions.

John C. Green, an expert on religion and politics from the University of Akron in Ohio, said several factors have fueled interest in the deficit.

First, the national debt is a good mobilizing issue for the Republican coalition, able to unite social conservatives and fiscal hawks, whose alliance has sometimes been strained. Second, it allows religious leaders to ride the Tea Party wave of anger against government spending. And finally, it broadens the conservative Christian agenda beyond such culture war battles as abortion and gay marriage.

But while many evangelicals agree the debt is a huge problem, some see partisan politics behind the recent surge in interest among conservatives.

“I wish the Family Research Council and Coral Ridge Ministries would have recognized the debt as a moral issue before they supported two unnecessary and immoral wars and endless corporate subsidies for years,” said Jim Wallis, head of the Washington-based group Sojourners.

David Gushee, a Christian ethics professor at Mercer University, agreed, saying many conservative Christians held their tongues when the debt nearly doubled under President George W. Bush because of tax breaks for wealthy Americans and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“It’s legitimate to be concerned about leaving our children and grandchildren a mountain of debt,” he said. “But it seems that in American politics, every seemingly pure moral claim is mixed with hypocrisy.”

NEW YORK (ABP) — Pentecostals, Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses gained ground, mainline churches continued to decline and growth in the largest two denominations — Roman Catholics and Southern Baptists — remained stagnant, according to new statistics compiled by the National Council of Churches.

The 2011 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches contains few surprises, with growing churches continuing to grow and churches that have been declining continuing to lose members, said Eileen Linder, editor of the annual report card ranking growth in the largest 25 religious bodies.

"The direction of membership remains very stable," Linder wrote. "That is, churches which have been increasing in membership in recent years continue to grow and likewise, those churches which have been declining in recent years continue to decline."

The 79th annual edition of the Yearbook noted that rates of both growth and decline have slowed in recent years.

The Catholic Church, the nation's largest denomination with 68 million members, grew by about one half of 1 percent, while the Southern Baptist Convention, the second-largest, declined by .4 percent, to 16.1 million members.

This is the third straight year the Yearbook has noted a loss in membership for Southern Baptists, which until recently reported decades of uninterrupted growth.

Membership figures reported in the 2011 Yearbook were collected by churches in 2009 and reported to the NCC in 2010. The SBC's membership totals are compiled by LifeWay Christian Resources. Churches report vital statistics through Baptist state conventions that are compiled by the denomination's publishing house. Reports for 2010 are being compiled. Typically they come out in April.

Not all faith groups are as intentional about numbers. Historically African-American groups like the 5 million-member National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc.; 3.5 million-member National Baptist Convention of America, Inc.; and 2.5 million-member National Missionary Baptist Convention of America, estimate membership instead of doing actual head counts. Each of those groups reported no change this year.

The Progressive National Baptist Convention, by contrast, declined from 2.5 million to just over 1 million members, due to a new methodology in counting membership. Last year the PNBC was tied for the 1lth largest denomination. In the new ranking it is No. 25.

American Baptist Churches USA, one of a number of mainline churches that has been losing members for a number of years, declined 1.5 percent to 1.3 million members.

Southern Baptists count only professed and baptized believers as members, compared to groups like Catholics who number communicants from infancy. About one-third of Southern Baptists included in the count of total membership are "non-resident" members, who joined a local Baptist church but moved away and never transferred their membership. Southern Baptists don't count inactive members, people who belong to a church but never attend, but about a third of the total membership is in church on a given Sunday.

Not all charismatic/Pentecostal groups are equally faithful in reporting new data, but from those that do it appears that such groups continue to advance. The Assemblies of God, for example, increased a half-percent to more than 2.9 million members.

The Yearbook does not count non-denominational churches, which reportedly are the second-largest group of Protestant churches in America and the fastest growing.

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

WASHINGTON (ABP) — Barack Obama's first dozen appointees to the next President's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships were heavy on mainline Protestants but light on Baptists.

Three of the names announced Feb. 4 are leaders of member communions belonging to the National Council of Churches.

They include Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first female head of the Episcopal Church, who voted to approve the consecration of the church's first openly gay bishop in 2003, prompting division in the worldwide Anglican communion.

Others include Mark Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America who presided over a controversial vote in 2008 where the denomination lifted its ban on openly gay and lesbian clergy in committed relationships, and H.E. Archbishop Demetrios of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.

Another well-known appointee is Lynn Hybels, co-founder and advocate for global engagement at the Willow Creek Community Church, a Chicago-area mega-church led by her husband, Senior Pastor Bill Hybels.

Appointee Leith Anderson, the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, is senior pastor of Wooddale Church in Edenton, Minn., an interdenominational evangelical church with ties to the Baptist General Conference. Anderson's parishioners include former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who is expected to run for president in 2012.

The last advisory council, which completed its work a year ago, included three high-profile Baptist leaders. Frank Page, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention who now leads the SBC Executive Committee, served on that panel. So did Otis Moss Jr., pastor emeritus of Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in Cleveland, and William Shaw, past president of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.

The past council's chair, Melissa Rogers, is an attorney who formerly worked at the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and now teaches at Wake Forest University Divinity School.

Obama is expected to announce 13 more appointments later, bringing the panel's eventual membership to a total of 25.

"Last year we were able to make significant progress, especially in our recommendations on reforming the office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, most of which the president incorporated into his recent executive order," said Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee. "I trust this advisory council will build on that good work and carry the projects forward."

Previous stories:

Q and A: Melissa Rogers on Obama faith-based council report

Faith-based panel narrowly recommends separate 501(c)(3) entities for churches

WASHINGTON (RNS)—President Obama spoke at length Feb. 3 about the daily contours of his Christian faith, brushing off the skeptics who question the authenticity of his beliefs.

“My Christian faith … has been a sustaining force for me over these last few years, all the more so when Michelle and I hear our faith questioned from time to time,” Obama told thousands of political leaders, diplomats and religious officials at the National Prayer
Breakfast.
“We are reminded that ultimately what matters is not what other people say about us but whether we are being true to our conscience and true to our God.”

The president’s remarks come in the wake of polls that showed Americans harbor persistent questions about Obama’s faith, with one in four thinking he is a Muslim, and 43 percent unable to say which faith he follows.

Thursday’s speech reflects a renewed emphasis on faith in the president’s public remarks, as when he spoke at Christmas of the birth of Christ being “a story that’s dear to Michelle and me as Christians,” and said the Christmas story “guides my Christian faith.”

As the son of parents who largely shunned organized religion, Obama said, he was influenced by clergy of the civil rights movement, including the late Martin Luther King Jr. and leaders of the Jewish, Muslim and Hindu faiths.

As a community organizer working with churches on Chicago’s South Side, Obama said, “I came to know Jesus Christ for myself and embrace him as my Lord and Savior.”
Obama said he is supported by the prayers of well-known religious leaders and countless unknown grass-roots supporters. He has prayed in the Oval Office with “pastor friends” like megachurch leaders Joel Hunter of Florida and Bishop T.D. Jakes of Dallas, and enjoys “consistent respite and fellowship” in the chapel at the Camp David presidential retreat.

He said his children’s godmother has organized prayer circles across the nation to pray for him.

“Once I started running for president and she heard what they were saying about me on cable, she felt the need to pray harder,” he said.

“By the time I was elected president, she says, `I just couldn’t keep up on my own. I was having to pray eight, nine times a day just for you.’ So she enlisted help from around the country.”

Obama said he prays in the morning for “strength to do right” and at bedtime, “I wait on the Lord and I ask him to forgive me my sins.”

He also joked that his prayers have shaped his life as a father and husband.

“Lord, give me patience as I watch Malia go to her first dance, where there will be boys,” he said of his older daughter. “Lord, have that skirt get longer as she travels to that dance.”

Obama was greeted outside the Washington Hilton by a small group of protesters who claim that some members of the evangelical organization that sponsors the annual breakfast support harsh anti-gay laws in Uganda.

Obama did not mention the controversy, as he did at last year’s breakfast when he condemned as “odious” proposed legislation in Uganda to impose the death penalty on HIV-positive gays and lesbians.

The bill, which has not been voted on, was drafted by a Ugandan lawmaker with ties to The Family, the evangelical organization that sponsors the breakfast. On Jan. 26, prominent gay-rights activist David Kato was murdered in his Kampala home after he and other “known homos” were displayed on the front pages of a Ugandan newspaper.

“It is an absolute affront to my faith to say they stand for Christianity and then to stand for hate and bigotry as well,” said one of the protesters, Joey Heath, a second-year student at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington.

Watch a video of Obama's remarks here.

Richard Yeakley contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Six feet above the vaulted entranceway to Washington National Cathedral, the rough contours of Rosa Parks’ face are taking shape.

Using a motorized hammer and chiseling tools that date back centuries, stone carver Sean Callahan is working patiently on a new bust of the civil rights heroine.

“I have to be aware of the significance of it,” he said. “It puts pressure on me to get it right. I have to pay respect to her in that sense.”

Across the Human Rights “porch” in the cathedral’s narthex, Parks soon will be joined by another famous woman, Mother Teresa.

Callahan, a 45-year-old Catholic, was not alive when Parks made history by staying seated on a segregated bus and helping spark the civil rights movement; but he remembers hearing about Teresa, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning nun, when he was growing up.

Starting with Parks, Callahan is using a pointing machine, whose brass arms adjust as he measures a plaster model that acts as an exact guide for the carving, chiseled from a block of stone in the narthex.

“It’s kind of like a three-dimensional connecting the dots,” Callahan said.

He carefully places the machine within 1/16th of an inch of the model before shifting the device to his stone canvas nearby.

“If you mismeasure this, then everything’s off,” he explained.

The delicate details of Parks’ face will surface from what at first looks like a mass of dots and parallel chiseled lines. The dots indicate how far down he must chisel each part of the stone to develop the contours of the finished bust.

Eventually, he will have to leave the machine behind and do the final work by eye, which, he says, is the toughest part.

“Portraits are particularly difficult because everyone recognizes them,” he said. “If you’re doing something like a hand or a gargoyle, it’s not as critical. But it’s an indefinable thing to make the face come alive. It’s hard to explain, but that’s just something that takes patience and practice to get the hang of.”

Callahan, who worked as an apprentice under stone carvers at the cathedral in the 1980s, has done restoration work on the White House exterior and gargoyles in private gardens. The cathedral hired him six years ago.

As he stands amid temporary scaffolding, a carving of first lady Eleanor Roosevelt peeks over his shoulder.

Others already enshrined in the “human rights” portal include slain Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero and Bishop John Walker, the first black Episcopal bishop of Washington.

“The people selected to appear in the iconography of the Human Rights Porch were chosen because of their extraordinary actions and contributions to the cause of human rights, social justice and the welfare of their fellow human beings,” said Samuel T. Lloyd III, dean of the cathedral.

Callahan’s work began a week before the country marked the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., with whom Parks worked closely. The sculptures of Parks and Mother Teresa, based on clay models by North Carolina sculptor Chas Fagan, are due to be completed by Easter.

“That quiet strength is, I think, the common denominator,” Fagan said of the two women he sculpted. “Rosa Parks definitely showed it with her actions and through her own life, and the same with Mother Teresa.”

Fagan, 45, who crafted the sculpture of President Ronald Reagan that stands in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, worked with cathedral craftsmen to complete the model so the faces of the women fit artistically within the cathedral’s architecture. While he could “fix my mistakes” as he sculpted, he said, there’s “no wiggle room” when Callahan gets to the carving stage.

With these figures, the landmark cathedral that was officially finished in 1990 is educating worshippers just like the cathedrals of old, Fagan said.

“Now that the structural stuff is complete, there’s a chance to do what all the other cathedrals did in their own time,” he said. “Just fill all the niches and teach through the art.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa has concluded a three-year probe into alleged lavish spending at six major broadcast ministries and asked a prominent evangelical group to study ways to spur self-reform among religious groups.

Since 2007, Grassley, the outgoing top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, has pursued allegations of high salaries and the use of private jets and Rolls Royces by some of the nation’s most prominent TV ministers.

On Jan. 6, he released a final 61-page review that said evangelists Benny Hinn of Texas and Joyce Meyer of Missouri had made “significant reforms” to their operations, but four others provided incomplete or no responses.

Grassley asked the Evangelical Council on Financial Accountability to conduct a formal study of issues raised by his staff, including whether churches, like other nonprofits, should be required to file detailed financial disclosure forms to the Internal Revenue Service.

“The staff review sets the stage for a comprehensive discussion among churches and religious organizations,” Grassley said in a statement. “I look forward to helping facilitate this dialogue and fostering an environment for self-reform within the community.”

Both Grassley and ECFA officials said they hope to resolve issues in ways that do not involve new legislation.

“Less government is better, and I think both ECFA and the senator espouse that philosophy,” said Michael Batts, an ECFA board member and certified public accountant who will chair the ECFA’s new Commission on Accountability and Policy for Religious Organizations.

Although the association has worked primarily on certifying the financial integrity of evangelical groups, the commission’s work will include a range of religious organizations and other nonprofits, he said.

“These issues are the types of issues that transcend theology and doctrine and actually relate to the freedoms and the practices of all religious organizations,” he said.

There is no timetable set for how long the new commission will work before sending Grassley a report, but ECFA President Dan Busby said it would be “a robust process” of more than a few months.

Among the issues it will consider are:

• Whether there should be limits on clergy housing allowances
• Whether tax rules about “love offerings” received by clergy should be clarified
• Whether current laws that prohibit partisan politicking in churches should be changed
• Whether the IRS should create an advisory committee of churches and other religious organizations.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State criticized the report’s recommendation of repealing the prohibition of church electioneering.

“If these multimillion-dollar ministries are already misusing their donations for personal gain, imagine how much more dangerous they would be operating in the world of partisan politics,” said Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United.

Grassley staffers determined they did not have “time or resources” to issue subpoenas to the four ministries that did not completely respond to their inquiries. They instead issued reports based on public records, third parties and insiders.

Among their findings:

• Insiders in Kenneth Copeland Ministries in Fort Worth said they were intimidated from speaking with committee staff, with one former employee saying they were told “God will blight our finances” if they talked.
• Georgia pastor Creflo Dollar’s ministry was called the “least cooperative,” with staffers unable to determine the names of board members.
• The majority of questions asked by Grassley staffers of Bishop Eddie Long’s megachurch in Lithonia, Ga., remained unanswered, including the amount of his salary.
• Several former staffers at Paula White’s megachurch in Tampa, Fla., wanted to speak with staffers but “were afraid of being sued by the church,” and at least one was reminded by a church lawyer of a previously signed confidentiality agreement.

WASHINGTON (ABP) — Melissa Rogers is a veteran religious-liberty attorney and nationally recognized expert in church-state law. She currently is director of the Center for Religion and Public Affairs at the Wake Forest University School of Divinity. She also serves as a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, and recently completed a term as the first chair of President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. She has served as general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. In an e-mail interview, she reflects on some major developments in her field over the last decade and where things might go in the decade that just began:

Melissa Rogers

Q: What have been the most important developments for religious liberty – legally, politically and culturally – in the last decade?

A:

• More types of government funding flowing to more kinds of religious institutions. (This is courtesy of a continuing trend at the Supreme Court toward interpreting the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause in ways that place fewer restrictions on government funding and religious institutions and activities.)
• A trend toward limiting taxpayer standing to challenge certain potential Establishment Clause violations. (The Supreme Court kicked off this trend by placing more restrictions on the types of challenges that may be brought regarding potential Establishment Clause violations.)
• Continued ability of states and localities to maintain policies that are more restrictive regarding government funding [of] religious institutions and activities than what the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause requires, as long as those policies do not violate the federal Constitution (e.g., Locke v. Davey).
• The debate over the free-exercise rights of American Muslims intensifies.
• The increasing prominence of a group of evangelicals that has a different set of priorities than the so-called “Religious Right.” The “Religious Right” movement still exists, and many evangelicals continue to be at least somewhat sympathetic with a number of its positions on church-state issues. But a significant number of evangelicals — many of them young — are prioritizing issues such as care for God’s creation, concern for the poor and vulnerable, and nuclear disarmament.
• The growth in the number or prominence of secular organizations playing roles in this field, such as the Secular Coalition for America and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and the aggressive campaigns of “new atheists” like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins.
• Public schools take more steps to encourage academic teaching about religion.

Q: What issues, trends or potential battles do you see on the horizon in 2011?

A:

• A continuing debate over plans for an Islamic center in Lower Manhattan and plans for mosques in some American cities. The court battle will continue over the Oklahoma measure that bars state courts from considering Sharia, while other states are likely to consider similar measures. [New York Republican and House Homeland Security Committee Chair] Rep. Peter King’s hearings on “Islamic radicalization” will likely reignite a bitter national debate over the place of Islam in America, terrorism, and free exercise rights.
• Battles over policies requiring nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and the extent of exemptions for religious organizations from such policies.
• Continued debate over conscience clause issues in the health-care arena. The Department of Health and Human Services may complete a rule-making process on these issues in early 2011.
• The interagency working group established by President Obama’s November 2010 executive order [in response to the recommendations of the faith-based advisory council] will submit a report regarding implementation of the terms of the executive order and related matters in mid-March 2011. Advisory Council members and others who care about these issues will watch this process carefully.
• There will be mounting pressure on the Obama administration to implement a campaign promise to prohibit all organizations, including religious ones, from discriminating on the basis of religion in government-funded jobs. At the same time, a different coalition will fight hard to maintain the status quo.
• A Supreme Court decision by summer in the Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn case.
• Lawsuits will continue over sectarian references in official prayers before legislative meetings.

Q: Expanding that into the following decade, where do you see trends taking the United States and the rest of the world in 2011-2020 in terms of religious freedom?

A: I’m limiting myself here to the United States, and I’m mostly raising questions instead of trying to forecast trends:

• What stamp will the Roberts Court put on establishment and free-exercise issues? Will it continue to limit standing to challenge alleged Establishment Clause violations? Will it revisit the endorsement test formulated by former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor? Will at least certain members of the court call for it to revisit its 1990 Employment Division v. Smith decision?
• What role will Justice Elena Kagan play on religious-liberty issues?
• Will the numbers of the “nones” (those who claim no religious affiliation) continue to grow at a rapid pace, and, if so, how will this affect law, public policy, and politics? What will be the trajectory of evangelicals who distinguish themselves from the “Religious Right” movement?
• If Mitt Romney runs for president in 2012, we will once again debate whether his Mormon faith is relevant to his candidacy, and, if so, how.
• How will the Tea Party movement incorporate those who have been pushing for a much weaker interpretation of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause? How much attention will be given to themes like these in upcoming elections and in law and policy at other times?
• As more religious institutions receive more types of government funding, how will it affect their ability to be true to their missions and to raise private money?
• How will limits on lawsuits brought to enforce the Establishment Clause affect the degree to which Establishment Clause values are honored by government?
• To what extent will religion be viewed and treated as distinctive in law and policy? Will current trends toward treating religion and religious institutions more like secular ideas, institutions, and pursuits expand? And, if so, how will that change religious liberty, religion, and religious institutions?

 — Robert Marus is managing editor and Washington bureau chief for Associated Baptist Press.

NEW YORK (ABP) — Observers of religion in public life have been scratching their heads about inclusion of a Baptist scholar known for advocating the separation of church and state in a recent Newsweek magazine article titled "Faces of the Christian Right."

The photo slideshow named Melissa Rogers, director of the Center for Religion and Public Affairs at Wake Forest University School of Divinity, as one of 11 individuals who speak for a new Religious Right described as "more strategically, denominationally and ideologically diverse" than before.

Melissa Rogers

Her name appeared alongside well-known social conservatives including Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and Jim Daly of Focus on the Family as possible successors to leaders like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and James Dobson now retiring from the political stage.

Newsweek chose Rogers, a former staff member at the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, for her recently finished term as chair of President Obama's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. The group made recommendations about how to provide taxpayer funding for social services by religious institutions without violating the First Amendment's restriction on government sponsorship of religion.

"It's not as sexy as praying with the president, but it's the sort of stuff that fundamentally shapes the relationship between the government and the church for years to come," Newsweek reported.

Pundits that follow religion and politics reacted swiftly.

"Legal scholar Melissa Rogers is most decidedly not a member of the Christian right," Sarah Posner, associate editor of Religion Dispatches, weighed in.

Posner described Rogers, who also is a senior fellow with the Washington think tank the Brookings Institution, as "one of the country's best authorities on church-state separation law and an advocate for enforcement of the Establishment Clause."

Posner continued: "Not only would Rogers herself be surprised to be on the list, I'd imagine, but so would the Christian right itself: one of its core aims is the reversal of Supreme Court jurisprudence on the separation of church and state."

Looking over the Newsweek listing, Steve Thorngate at Christian Century found little they all have in common "other than being Christians, broadly right to center-left theologically, who have some degree of political influence in one area or another."

Sarah Pulliam Bailey at the Get Religion blog recalled an article she wrote last year in Christianity Today questioning whether the term "Christian/religious right" is even helpful anymore.

Rogers said she talked to reporters at Newsweek and hoped the headline would be changed. After it appeared that was not going to happen, she registered her objection in a comment on Newsweek's website.

"I'm a Christian, but I'm not part of the 'Christian Right,'" she wrote "That's partially because the terms 'Christian Right' or 'Religious Right' suggest that a person holds a set of positions, a number of which I have actively opposed."

While no one familiar with her work "would describe me as a member of the Christian Right," Rogers said, "At the same time, I don't claim to be part of the 'Christian Left.'"

"Part of my concern with both of these titles is that they often describe situations in which political views define religious views," she commented.

Another name on the Newsweek list was Jim Wallis, a progressive evangelical whose advocacy against social ills like poverty and inequality earlier this year prompted Fox News personality Glenn Beck to advise his conservative listeners to leave churches that teach "social justice."

Aaron Weaver, a doctoral student in religion, politics and society who writes a weekly news review for Baptists Today labeled the Newsweek article "religion journalism at its worst."

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

WASHINGTON (ABP) — Early on in his House tenure, someone lit a religious-liberty fire under Rep. Chet Edwards — and, despite Edwards’ position in the most Republican House district in the country to be represented by a Democrat, that fire never burned him.

Although the self-described “husband of a Baptist preacher’s daughter” has represented a very conservative and rural part of Central Texas for nearly 20 years while simultaneously and outspokenly advocating for strict church-state separation in Congress, he never suffered any significant political damage from his stances on religion. What finally did the 59-year-old in last month is the same anti-incumbent, anti-government wave that upended virtually all moderate and conservative Democrats representing “red” districts this year.

Outoing Rep. Chet Edwards (D-Texas) has earned a reputation as a staunch, if unlikely, defender of church-state separation in Congress. (Photo courtesy Edwards\' office)

“I never lost an election over this issue,” Edwards said in a Dec. 2 interview from his House Appropriations subcommittee office. “My defeat in 2010 was more about national politics and the nation’s unemployment rate than it was about church-state.”

But even if he had finally lost his seat (which he held onto even after Lone Star State Republicans re-drew district lines in 2005 specifically to oust him) over his defense of church-state separation, Edwards said, it would have been worth it.

“If you’re not willing to lose an election over important principles, then you don’t deserve to ever win an election,” he said. “And church-state separation has always been an issue that I was more than willing to lose over, because I know there are a lot of people throughout the world who have sacrificed more than elections in their defense of religious freedom.”

Inspired by Reynolds and Truett

Although Edwards still officially lists himself as a Methodist in congressional biographies, he has long attended Baptist churches — Calvary Baptist Church when he is at home in Waco, Texas; and McLean Baptist Church in Washington’s Northern Virginia suburbs. He credits a Baptist university president and a famous Baptist preacher’s sermon with inspiring in him a deep passion for religious liberty and church-state separation.

“About 15 years ago, Herb Reynolds and I were having lunch together … and we started talking about church-state issues and he sent me a copy of George Truett’s speech on the steps of the Capitol in 1920 on religious liberty,” he said. “And after I read that speech, I was hooked.”

At the time Reynolds, who died in 2007, was president of Baylor University. Truett, legendary pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas from 1897 to 1944, delivered his famous Capitol-steps speech to Southern Baptist Convention messengers, meeting in Washington in 1920, extolling religious liberty.

“That utterance of Jesus, ‘Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's,’ is one of the most revolutionary and history-making utterances that ever fell from those lips divine,” Truett said in one of the most-quoted portions of his speech. “That utterance, once for all, marked the divorcement of church and state. It marked a new era for the creeds and deeds of men. It was the sunrise gun of a new day, the echoes of which are to go on and on and on until in every land, whether great or small, the doctrine shall have absolute supremacy everywhere of a free church in a free state.”

Reynolds’ advice and Truett’s words helped convince Edwards of church-state separation’s paramount importance in safeguarding religious freedom.

“What was so clear to me in Truett’s speech was the idea that religious freedom was a divine gift, and it is sacrilegious to infringe … on that freedom,” he said.

But Edwards didn’t see many of his fellow moderate-to-conservative Democrats in Congress talking much about church-state issues.

“I started asking around in the House and found very few members who had focused on this issue. And I decided somebody has to speak up — and that we need voices that come not just from the ACLU and other liberal organizations,” he said. “We need moderate and conservative voices speaking out in defense of church-state separation — because, after all, it is a very conservative principle, the idea that religion should be put on a pedestal high enough to be beyond the reach of politicians or politics.”

Fight over school prayer

His first chance came quickly. In mid-1995, a House committee began having hearings on a proposed constitutional amendment, championed by then-Rep. Ernest Istook (R-Okla.), to make room for “student-sponsored” prayer in public schools as well as “acknowledgements of the of the religious heritage, belief or traditions of the people.” Edwards became one of its most outspoken opponents, and it eventually the amendment was derailed.

For his role in stopping Istook's efforts, Edwards earned the scorn of the Christian Coalition. They distributed a brochure to voters in his district accusing the young congressman of being un-American — and, even worse, un-Texan — for his opposition to the amendment.

“And I thought how odd it is that I can be accused of being un-American because I was defending the Bill of Rights,” he said.

Edwards went on to weigh in repeatedly in favor of strict church-state separation in fights over things like public display of the Ten Commandments and government funding for religious charities.

He’s been given religious-liberty awards by several Baptist organizations, including the board of directors of Associated Baptist Press.

On social issues other than religious liberty, though, Edwards has often been criticized from the left. Gay-rights groups give him poor marks while the National Rifle Association rates him highly. He opposed the health-care-reform bill that President Obama signed earlier this year.

Islam and the future

In September, Edwards took some hits from friends in the religious-liberty community for issuing a statement opposing a controversial Islamic community center planned for a site a few blocks away from the former World Trade Center location in Lower Manhattan.

But Edwards said his opposition was a matter of prudence rather than the law.

“I tried to be very clear in my statement that I believe that Muslims have the right to build mosques or community centers where any other faith has the right to build such a house of worship or center,” he said. "I felt that, given some of the far-right talk-show discussions and the environment in the country, that this would actually push us backwards in terms of rights for Muslims,” he said.

Edwards believes the ongoing controversy over the site has proven his fears right. “That whole debate created a backlash against Muslims in this country and we need less of that, not more of that,” he said.

The rights of Muslims may be the next big test of religious liberty in the United States, he contended — and that fits in with a pattern in American history of threatening the rights of unpopular religious minorities.

“The pathway to losing religious liberty begins not by inhibiting the rights of the majority but the rights of the minority,” he said. “Once that foundation — that foundation of religious liberty for every citizen — is undermined, then the foundation upon which we all stand is put at risk.”

While polls show that fiscal rather than social issues were important to the voters who put Republicans in charge of the House this time around, Edwards believes the culture wars will inevitably return to the fore in the 112th Congress.

“My guess would be that, if not in 2011, in the 2012 election year there will be a rash of bills introduced to not just chip away but tear down the wall of separation between church and state,” he warned.

Baptist advocates for church-state separation who have worked with Edwards over the years are lamenting his impending departure from Congress.

“Chet has been a dedicated public servant and a great friend of religious liberty,” said Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. “His long-standing commitment to the principle of religious liberty and willingness to speak out on its behalf served as a witness to other members of Congress, who counted on his voice on the issue.”
 

Related ABP stories:

Hundreds gather in Waco to honor late Baylor president Reynolds (5/31/2007)

In reauthorizing Head Start, House rejects religious discrimination (5/4/2007)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (ABP) — A state appellate court in California has dismissed a lawsuit filed by plaintiffs including a former Southern Baptist Convention officer claiming that Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States and therefore is not eligible to occupy the White House.

California's Third District Court of Appeals threw the lawsuit out Oct. 25, ruling that election officials are not required to erase doubts about Obama's eligibility among individuals who have come to be known as "birthers."

Wiley Drake

Retired Presiding Justice Arthur Scotland, sitting by assignment, said determining the eligibility of a presidential candidate is the responsibility of party officials and Congress and not California's Secretary of State.

The court said plaintiffs Alan Keyes, Wiley Drake and Markham Robinson failed to prove that a lower court erred in finding that Secretary of State Debra Bowen had a duty to administer a legal election but not to investigate whether nominees of political parties are eligible.

"Any investigation of eligibility is best left to each party, which presumably will conduct the appropriate background check or risk that its nominee's election will be derailed by an objection in Congress, which is authorized to entertain and resolve the validity of objections following the submission of the electoral votes," Scotland wrote in the court's opinion.

Drake, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, Calif., served as second vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention in 2006-2007. He was Keyes' vice presidential running mate on the California ballot in the 2008 presidential election. Both were nominated by the state's American Independent Party. Markham was the party chairman.

The trio had asked the appeals court to order the Secretary of State to verify the "constitutionally required qualifications of Obama, and any and all future candidates" for president. To do otherwise, they argued, "not only allows, but promotes, an overwhelming degree of disrespect for our Constitution and for our electoral process, and creates such a lack of confidence of voters in the primary and electoral process itself, that it would confirm a common belief that no politician has to obey the laws of this Country, respect our election process, or follow the United States Constitution."

Drake's attorney, Gary Kreep of the conservative advocacy group United States Justice Foundation, reportedly planned to meet with his clients to discuss whether to appeal the dismissal.

Kreep recently filed a court paper in a similar case under appeal in federal court arguing that allowing a lower court's ruling against his clients to stand would strip minorities in the U.S. of "all political power" and allow laws to be based "upon the whims of the majority" instead of the Constitution.

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

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