July 11, 2008 | 3:25 pm

Barack Obama gaining evangelical voters

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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This is not a scientific poll. But survey results from Christianity Today’s Website this week showed that Barack Obama was more popular with evangelical Christians than his Republican counterpart, John McCain. The poll found about 51 percent of evangelicals supported Obama, while only 41 percent support McCain.

My how the tables have turned. Last month, CT readers gave McCain a 17-point edge. No more.

We know Obama has been doing a lot of outreach to evangelicals. If this poll were representative, and a sampling of 3,200 IP addresses voting at Christianitytoday.com likely is not, it would spell very, very bad news for McCain. A Democratic presidential candidate hasn’t captured the evangelical vote since Jimmy Carter in 1976, and the Republicans know how that turned out.

John Green, the religion and politics guru at Pew, said last month that if McCain received less than 67 percent of white evangelical votes, it could cause a “political earthquake.” And you know what earthquakes can cause: landslides.

July 11, 2008 | 1:02 pm

Borat and the Jewish cowboy

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The realty office would be a better fit in Tombstone, Ariz., than midcity Los Angeles. A wound rope hangs on a wall next to a breast collar, bull horns and antique rifles; on the other walls are cowboy hats and a saddle and horseshoes and spurs and more ropes and more bull horns and a wagon wheel. A life-size cardboard John Wayne peers through the doorway, welcoming visitors.

Smiling behind the desk is Steve Freed, a blue-blooded Jewish product of Beverly Hills High School, a successful industrial real estate developer and owner, and a ... cowboy.

“This isn’t a typical office of a Beverly Hills executive,” Freed, tall, thin and tanned, in jeans and cowboy boots, said dryly.

That, like the fact Freed doesn’t run into many other Jewish cowboys, is a given. Not since the Southwest was pioneer country and Adolphus Sterne smuggled arms to Sam Houston have Jewish cowboys been commonplace.

No, today when we think of cowboys the image that comes to mind, at least for this reporter, is of Sacha Baron Cohen’s character Borat inciting a Tucson bar to join him in signing “Throw the Jew Down the Well.”

“Most of these people have never met a Jewish person that they know of,” Freed said as he recounted his rodeo exploits, “and some will look to see how big my horns are.”

So begins a short feature I wrote this week about the Jewish John Wayne, in which I just had to reference the above video. By far my favorite of Sacha Baron Cohen’s many contributions to society, it’s amazing how easily he spurs the crowd into age-old anti-Semitism, even better, as a social mirror, than when he got a Virginia rodeo manager to preach some rabid Islamophobia. But where, I must ask, does this idea that Jews have horns come from?

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July 11, 2008 | 10:21 am

Gay man sues Bible publishers

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Every few months, some joker decides they’re going to sue God. More power to the plaintiff—they’ll need it—because this case, really any case, is hopeless.

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July 11, 2008 | 9:16 am

Behind the scenes of American fundamentalism

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Man, I have really been getting everything I can out of that interview with religion journalist Jeff Sharlet. As promised Thursday, my Q&A with Sharlet about his new book “The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power” appears in today’s Jewish Journal. Here are a pair of questions from the interview:

JJ: The Family is bipartisan, right?
JS: They are the oldest and, over time, most powerful Christian-right organization in America, and they have achieved that august age by not allying themselves too closely with any one faction. The Family recognizes they are interested not in doctrinal purity but in power. As Doug Coe, the leader, says, ‘We work with power where we can, build new power where we can’t.’

JJ: The Mafia, Mao, Lenin, Hitler—all these guys are role models, not for what they did but how they did it. How does The Family marry faith with fascism?
JS: Back in the 1930s, a lot of people, not just fascists, thought democracy had run its course and couldn’t compete with fascism and communism, and that a third way was necessary. Some conservative Christians decided that Christianity was the third way. And what they admired about fascism was that fascism operates on this veneer of total and absolute unity. I don’t think they [The Family] are fascist, but they love the fascist myth of absolute unity, and they think that the unity is best achieved through strong men.

Scary stuff. An excerpt from the book, which shows how Sharlet, a Jew, was invited into this elitist Christian organization, is after the jump.

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July 10, 2008 | 8:23 pm

Communion wars: People don’t get the holy ‘cracker’ *

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

First there was non-Catholic Sally Quinn, co-editor of On Faith and wife of my hero, displaying incredible religious ignorance or insensitivity when she took communion at the funeral for her friend, Tim Russert. Here was her reaction:

I had only taken communion once in my life, at an evangelical church. It was soon after I had started “On Faith” and I wanted to see what it was like. Oddly I had a slightly nauseated sensation after I took it, knowing that in some way it represented the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Last Wednesday I was determined to take it for Tim, transubstantiation notwithstanding. I’m so glad I did. It made me feel closer to him.

Wow. Really missed the point there, unless Russert died for her sins (not to denigrate the saintly journalist).

Then a University of Central Florida student claimed he was receiving death threats for “smuggling” the communion wafer out of church.

Webster Cook says he smuggled a Eucharist, a small bread wafer that to Catholics symbolic of the Body of Christ after a priest blesses it, out of mass, didn’t eat it as he was supposed to do, but instead walked with it.

Catholics worldwide became furious.

“Would you believe this isn’t hyperbole?” asked PZ Myers, whose blog has the motto “evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal.”

Myers thought the reaction of many Catholics was ridiculous (I agree), and let his readers know it in a manner with which I don’t agree: by trashing those who think Christ’s body has taken the form of a “GODDAMNED CRACKER!”

“There are days when it is agony to read the news, because people are so goddamned stupid. Petty and stupid. Hateful and stupid. Just plain stupid,” he wrote. “And nothing makes them stupider than religion.”

Biologist Paul Zachary Myers

After receiving more than 1,000 comments, Myers, who changed the original headline to “FRACKIN’ CRACKER,” opened a new thread two hours ago that already has 250 comments. Certainly, Myers and many of his readers don’t understand the meaning of the Eucharist, or the fact that different denominations treat holy communion differently. Yes, that wafer is not human flesh, but to Christians it represents the body of Christ, and to some Christians it, through the “miracle of transubstantiation,” becomes the body. That is important to mention because to Myers, it really is only a cracker.

The Christian world could leave it at that. But the true humor here is that the Catholic League, never quite sure when to remain quiet, thought it was worth getting involved.

“The Myers blog can be accessed from the university’s website. The university has a policy statement on this issue which says that the ‘Contents of all electronic pages must be consistent with University of Minnesota policies, local, state and federal laws.’ One of the school’s policies, ‘Code of Conduct,’ says that ‘When dealing with others,’ faculty et al. must be ‘respectful, fair and civil.’ Accordingly, we are contacting the President and the Board of Regents to see what they are going to do about this matter. Because the university is a state institution, we are also contacting the Minnesota legislature.

“It is hard to think of anything more vile than to intentionally desecrate the Body of Christ. We look to those who have oversight responsibility to act quickly and decisively.”

Catholic League’s Donahue

Like when the Anti-Defamation League engaged Joe Klein over his claim of Jewish dual-loyalty a few weeks ago, this action has only fed the fire. Myers writes that he has received 39 pieces of hate mail since the Catholic League singled him out, four of which were death threats—“a personal one day record”—and asks fellow travelers to fight back. This counter-campaign against “the Dark Age fanatics at the Catholic League” would include letters of support to Myers’ boss, University of Minnesota President .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Seriously, sometimes I think Bill Donahue, who once gave my favorite observation of Hollywood—“Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular”—has decided he will be a caricature of what a conservative Christian advocate should be. Please, Bill, stop embarrassing us.

*Updated: This is why bloggers, at times, could use editors too. I previously neglected to mention Myers’ promise to publicly desecrate a consecrated communion wafer if someone would just steal it for him. “There’s no way I can personally get them — my local churches have stakes prepared for me, I’m sure — but if any of you would be willing to do what it takes to get me some, or even one, and mail it to me, I’ll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare,” he wrote.

Obviously, I find this disgusting and offensive. In fact, I often find Myers offensive. My point, specifically, was that Myers’ desire to denigrate, disgusting and all, should not be the concern of a religious advocacy organization, even when they are singled out, as the Catholic League was. Myers is not likely to convert the masses with this rant or any other; he is preaching to his choir.

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July 10, 2008 | 6:05 pm

Anglican meeting looks to be a doozy

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Bishop Robinson

Lambeth Conference, the once-a-decade meeting of Anglican leaders, is less than a week away, and it’s going to be ugly. The church already is so torn over internal politics and differing readings of the Bible that one bishop said Jesus is “weeping in the streets.” Last week, the Church of England, the Anglican flagship, split over the issue of female bishops; the week before, and in response to acceptance of homosexuality, a conservative faction of the liberal denomination voted to form their own governing body.

V. Gene Robinson, the openly gay bishop of New Hampshire, who last spring was not invited to Lambeth, will be there and generating plenty of media buzz, nonetheless:

“When I think about being banished to the marketplace, it occurs to me that that’s where Jesus would be. Jesus would be with the marginalized. He was always in conflict with the religious authorities of his day. He was always preaching that people trump rules…

“I’ll be at Lambeth and I’ll be telling my story and I will be witnessing to the God that I know as powerfully as I can muster. Then I’ll let the Holy Spirit do the rest.”

And people think religion reporting is boring? In light of all the drama, Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori sat down for a no-punches-pulled interview with the AP, posted after the jump:

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July 10, 2008 | 5:07 pm

Rove avoids the sacred elephant in the room

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Barack Obama has been working an all around great ground game, which Karl Rove tips his hat to in today’s Wall Street Journal. But Rove neglects to mention Obama’s courting of evangelicals or the pivotal role those voters played in electing and re-electing George W. Bush. Rove, you will remember, was the mastermind who identified and captured this holy grail.

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July 10, 2008 | 3:34 pm

‘Epic bugged-out Jewsploitation film’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

That headline, in case you were wondering, does not refer to “The Hebrew Hammer,” which I found funny for about 30 minutes, hilarious for five (“Shabbat Shalom mother f—-er!) and unbearable for the rest. “Epic bugged-out Jewsploitation” is the honor /Film gave Quentin Tarantino’s latest project after reviews of the script for “The Inglorious Bastards” were posted online.

So, what’s it about? You mean, besides the graphic scalping of countless Nazis circa WWII? The lead character that Brad Pitt has reportedly been offered is named Lieutenant Aldo Raine (which reminds me of of the Alpa Chino character in Tropic Thunder, but let’s move on). Raine leads a blood thirsty squadron of soldiers (neither review specified about the rumored “war criminals” aspect) called the “Bastards” for a final mission that involves ruining Nazi party plans to premiere a propaganda film in Paris. The chapters are said to form a storyline double helix of sorts, switching from the Bastards to the other main character, which Vulture describes as “a French Jewish teenager named Shosanna who survives the massacre of her family.” She is curating the premiere and has something up her sleeve for the Third Reich as well.

QT seems to have crafted an epic bugged-out Jewsploitation film, one that takes history for a loose and wild ride to hell and back. Latino Review describes one the Bastards, nicknamed The Bear Jew, as a suspected golem who skull-crushes Germans using a trusty baseball bat. Right now I am picturing Larry David and Adam Goldberg kicking Hitler’s decapitated head around as they puff Red Apple cigarettes (but it’s just my imagination). The head villain goes by “The Jew Hunter.” He’s a Nazi colonel named Hans and not to be messed with; of course, the Bastards don’t listen.

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July 10, 2008 | 3:08 pm

The Straight-Talk Express returns

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Cheering for the wrong team in the 2006 Rose Bowl

John McCain’s off-handed snipe at his wife’s alma mater, the University of Spoiled Children, has won some of my favor. An LA Times op-ed with the details after the jump.

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July 10, 2008 | 1:20 pm

Iran flexes its military muscles ... I mean, missiles

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Missile test released by Iranian news, via The Lede

Oh boy. I clearly spoke too soon. Way too soon.

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July 10, 2008 | 11:34 am

‘Power in the Blood’: Praying for the electric chair

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

My (long-hyped?) interview with Jeff Sharlet will run in tomorrow’s Jewish Journal. Our discussion hinged heavily upon his new book, “The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power.” He originally dubbed the book “Power in the Blood,” but later dropped the working title—an obscure but strong reference to a classic hymn—at his editor’s suggestion.

The title had a deeper meaning for Sharlet. When writing “Killing the Buddha,” his first book, with Peter Manseau, the two visited a Florida pentecostal church that has lost one of its own to a murderer named Lucious Boyd. Boyd had just been convicted of the Dawnia DaCosta’s rape and murder, and the church wanted his blood.

“Let him suffer,” they prayed, a chorus of hate so deep it didn’t so much stain their faith as transform it. Even before they knew his name, the day they found Dawnia’s body, naked, raped, stabbed, run over, and oddly, tenderly, wrapped in a shroud of bed sheets, they prayed for him. The day the police caught him, they prayed for him, every day of his trial they sat in the back of the courtroom and prayed for him, the day the jury said guilty they prayed for him, and now, the Sunday after the verdict, a new holiday they called “Victory Day,” they prayed for him. Let him suffer, thank you Jesus; give him the chair, thank you Jesus; make him bleed, thank you Jesus. They were a prayer in a red dress, a red suit, red suspenders. “It’s the color of Jesus’ blood,” said the reverend of Faith Tabernacle, as if that explained why he and his church had chosen it as the special color of their celebration. “Today we’re celebrating Jesus,” a congregant said. “Today we’re wearing red for justice.”

I got chills reading this portion of “Killing the Buddha.” This is not the Christianity I know. This is not grace and forgiveness and redemption. This is vengeance. And, in fact, a woman in the back row confirmed that when she belted out:

“St. Paul tells us in Romans chapter twelve, verse nineteen, ‘It is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, sayeth the Lord!’”

The congregation roared. “Jesus!”

I understand being angry with God for what happened to Dawnia after her car broke down, on the way home from choir practice of all places. I get that. And I understand wanting Boyd to get his comeuppance. But that is not for us Christians to decide. That is not the message of the Gospels.

“It was one of the most thrilling and at the same time ugliest services I’ve ever attended,” Sharlet told me. “And the crescendo was an, ahem, electrifying version of “Power in the Blood”—a prayer for the chair for the killer.”

So they sang, with fire and fury: “There’s power! power! wonder-working power! in the blood! of the lamb!

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July 10, 2008 | 2:00 am

Rev. Jackson wants to cut Obama’s nuts off

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Of course the inestimable (gulp) Rev. Jesse Jackson apologized today for the remarks about Barack Obama that can be seen in the video above. It’s called backtracking. But it doesn’t change the fact that he said Obama has been “talking down to black people on this faith based” and that Jackson wants “to cut his nuts off.”

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