Pointing out that mainstream media doesn’t know how to cover religion is like noting that the sky is blue or that all bachelors are unmarried men. It has become such a trite and obvious complaint that I hardly expect anything else. In fact, I’d be more shocked if I were to find a reporter who didn’t confuse “charismatic” with “Pentecostal” or “Baptist” with “scary Southern hick.” Nowadays, when I read media articles about religion I normally just roll my eyes and move on. But a recent column by Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift caught my attention and made me realize just how out of touch some journalists really are:
No candidate has won the popular vote without carrying Roman Catholics, and both Bush and Kerry are wooing the Catholic vote. A recent poll shows Catholics evenly divided, with 40 percent committed to each candidate, and 18 percent undecided—a high number in this polarized electorate. Bush appealed to the pope when he visited the Vatican earlier this year to encourage the bishops to get more involved in the U.S. election by pushing their opposition to gay marriage. Bush did Kerry a favor by activating the bishops because now everybody knows Kerry is a practicing Catholic, and that’s a benefit when one out of four voters is Catholic—and they’re congregated in the battleground states.
Why is being a practicing Catholic a benefit when it doesn’t affect either how Kerry thinks or how he would govern? Wouldn’t that be a hindrance to wooing the devout? Apparently, Clift doesn’t think being a Catholic makes any difference in how a person lives there life.
Gore narrowly won the Catholic vote in 2000, and it’s a safe bet Kerry will do better if only because he’s Catholic himself. Bush’s attempt to drive a wedge between Kerry and the Roman Catholic Church is likely to backfire among undecided Catholics who don’t like religious dogma forced on them.
Clift seems to think that being a member of the Catholic Church is like being a part of a Masonic Lodge; a place where people get together and participate in silly traditions but know better than to take any of it seriously. But why would anyone who doesn’t like the “religious dogma” be a Catholic anyway? Here in Texas we have a name for those type of people: Protestants.
The church’s teachings are so ignored by Catholics that they poll like other Americans on issues like gay marriage and abortion. A significant number of Catholics may not even realize the church is opposed to birth control.
Is Clift stupid or does she just assume that the average Catholic is? Seriously, is there any Catholic on earth that doesn’t know the Church is opposed to the use of contraceptives? Have they never even read the Catechism? I’m an evangelical Protestant and I know that.
These “cafeteria Catholics” pick and choose, but so does Bush. He’s with the church hierarchy when it comes to denying birth-control counseling as part of U.S. aid packages overseas, but he’s opposed to the pope when it comes to the war in Iraq.
Wait a minute. Why wouldn’t the “cafeteria Catholics” support Bush? After all, like them, he “picks and chooses” when he will agree with the church hierarchy. Of course, Bush has that option since he isn’t Catholic. (Clift knows that doesn’t she? Doesn’t she?)
The Republican message is don’t vote for Kerry because he supports abortion rights. Kerry thinks abortion is wrong, but he’s not going to impose his religious beliefs on the country. Bush on the other hand has turned his religious beliefs about embryonic stem cells into public policy.
I’ve noticed that Bush also likes to impose his religious beliefs about murder and theft on the rest of the country also. He must be some kind of theocrat.
Voters have the choice between a president who governs by belief and a challenger who puts his faith in rational decisionmaking.
So decisions that are rooted in religion can’t be “rational?” Has Clift been in hibernation since the French Enlightenment?
I should probably be bothered by such a naive and dismissive attitude toward religion. But it’s apparent that Clift is so completely ignorant about the subject that she can't be taken seriously. She appears to honestly think that religious belief is inherently irrational. That's an embarrassingly unsophisticated view for such a cosmopolitan liberal
Clift, however, is not the only one at Newsweek that is behind the times. In “Red and Blue Churches”, columnist Melinda Henneberger makes the surprising discovery that there are “liberal” and “conservative” churches. As Kedron Bardwell points out, “it is written as if no one acts has ever realized before that there is a divide within churches (mainline vs. evangelical, progressive vs. conservative) that affects the way people act politically.” Indeed, the story would have been relevant if this was 1904 rather than 2004.
While Clift is stuck praising Modernism, Henneberger has found the split between liberal mainstream churches and the conservative fundamentalist/evangelical camps. Unfortunately, that story is only about a hundred years old. Obviously, there isn’t much hope for religious reporting when the mainstream media is just now discovering the issues of the turn of the 20th century.
(Hat tip: Flyover Nation)
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Mainstream media => R.I.P.
"Voters have the choice between a president who governs by belief and a challenger who puts his faith in rational decisionmaking."
I could easily read this quote as an attempt by the "liberal" media to characterize Kerry as an amoral "rudderless" indecisive egghead, but I'd rather pretend that I never read the quote at all.
I haven't read an issue of Newsweek or Time for about fifteen years. It seems that they haven't (ahem) evolved much.
posted on 08.17.2004 4:25 PM2
There's an inclination in the media to use "Catholic" and "Christian" interchangeably, as if the two are one and the same. This is just one more example of the very deep religious ignorance -- and disdain -- that pervades not just the media but also much of American culture.
posted on 08.17.2004 4:49 PM3
Joe, I had a seminary classmate, liberal to beat all liberals, who was stringer for Newsweek, and she used to express utter amazement at the things evangelicals believe. Quite simply, she'd never been exposed to these views, yet, here she was, attending a mainline seminary, now holds a Doctor of Ministry degree and serves a suburban church in Atlanta. I still don't think she gets us.
posted on 08.17.2004 5:31 PM4
Joe:
You mean not all baptists are scary southern hicks? I guess you learn something new every day... ;)
Why is being a practicing Catholic a benefit when it doesn’t affect either how Kerry thinks or how he would govern? Wouldn’t that be a hindrance to wooing the devout? Apparently, Clift doesn’t think being a Catholic makes any difference in how a person lives there life.Because many, many American Catholics disagree with the church on the very same issues Kerry seems to. My parents, to name just two. And because to many Catholics, a less-than-devout Catholic is still preferable to a completely devout evangelical.
Seriously, is there any Catholic on earth that doesn’t know the Church is opposed to the use of contraceptives?I think you'd be surprised. A lot of the twice-a-year Catholics are pretty ignorant of church dogma on these matters.
Why wouldn’t the “cafeteria Catholics” support Bush?Some of them will, some won't. It depends on whether the "courses" they chose align with Bush's.
So decisions that are rooted in religion can’t be “rational?”To be fair, she didn't say that at all. But this administration has a history of suppressing or ignoring its scientific advisers when the results would be troublesome to its religious-right base. Over-the-counter EC is just one such example.
In “Red and Blue Churches”, columnist Melinda Henneberger makes the surprising discovery that there are “liberal” and “conservative” churches.Well, that's primarily because the "liberal" churches never get any airplay from the so-called liberal media. I wonder why not? posted on 08.17.2004 6:17 PM
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"Seriously, is there any Catholic on earth that doesn’t know the Church is opposed to the use of contraceptives?"
Technically, since the Church does support the use of abstinence and the "rhythm method" of birth control, it does support contraception.
You would be surprised however to find out how many Catholics are unaware that the Church is against the death penalty.
Even more are unaware that the Church considers masturbation a sin.
Catholicism is different in many ways simply because it's the one true Church as founded by the Apostle Peter. It's been around for a few thousand years instead of just a few hundred. So it has weathered a lot more of these culture wars that protestants and evangelicals are so fond of. That's why Catholics tend to be more pragmatic and sensible about "worldly" matters.
posted on 08.17.2004 8:01 PM6
It takes a special brand of cluelessness to think that Catholic dogma is non-rational. I think is a symptom of the hubris of our age, i.e. thinking that people before the 20th century were unthinking robotic morons and our technological superiority implies equal or greater moral and spiritual superiority.
Clift and all those who argue Christianity in general is non-rational should be sentenced to spending a few weeks reading Aquinas. *That* prescription should clear up that particular misconception. Of course this assumes they are "rational" enough to fathom half of what they read.
posted on 08.17.2004 8:41 PM7
Thanks for the hat tip, Joe. I admit that my gripe with Clift goes way back to the "old" McLaughlin Group days (think Jack Germond minus 25 lbs and in his intellectual prime -- when there was only one conservative on the show).
But seriously, much of my post was dissecting the wit and wisdom of tmatt on Clift.
http://getreligion.typepad.com/getreligion/2004/08/red_churches_bl.html
posted on 08.17.2004 9:02 PM8
Kerry thinks abortion is wrong, but he’s not going to impose his religious beliefs on the country
posted on 08.17.2004 11:34 PM