Nevertheless, wall-to-wall coverage persisted on the cables. We did not realize until today however, how bad it got.
According to a search of the Lexis-Nexis news database, Dr. Dobson was mentioned a total of 189 times on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News yesterday.
There was another religion story hot off the presses yesterday, too. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released a groundbreaking survey of 35,000 Americans documenting the diversity and tolerance of people of faith and the growing consensus around issues like poverty and the environment.
How many mentions did the landmark Pew survey get on the cables? Just eight.
We decided to do something about this over at Faithful America because we don't believe James Dobson's opinion is worth more attention than the beliefs of the entire American population.
So we are sending a petition to the cables to let them know that there's a lot more to faith than James Dobson. It's really time they got the message.
Today on the radio, James Dobson accused Senator Obama of “distorting the Bible” in a two year old speech. As a result, as of this moment, there are 599 related stories on Google news and cable news stations have been running clips of Dobson's attacks multiple times per hour.
But isn't news supposed to be new? As in, previously unknown information?
James Dobson not being a fan of Obama is not news. As the Christian Broadcasting Network notes with an appropriate dash of sarcasm, "Now here's a news flash - James Dobson is not a Barack Obama supporter. He is not a Democrat. "
The media's repeated hyping of this story further implies that James Dobson somehow represents the views of the American evangelical population and that his attacks on Obama will have major consequences. While Dobson was repeatedly identified as a leader of the evangelical movement in news stories today, there was no mention of the fact that many evangelicals do not share his political views or feel that he represents them.
As the recent Evangelical Manifesto recognizes: “Evangelicals have no supreme leader or official spokesperson, so no one speaks for all Evangelicals, least of all those who claim to.” Moreover, the 2006 American Values Survey found that 44% of the Americans expressed that leaders such as Dobson did not represent their political views well or not at all.
Thankfully, the media has also lately noticed the emergence of a new generation of evangelicals interested in new leaders, discussing political issues from a different mindset and a broader agenda than that of old guard leaders like James Dobson.
But we didn't hear anything about this trend today. Today it was all old news.
While many aspects of the 2008 presidential race have been historic and inspiring, the media fixation on the superficial has not.
Edwards critiqued the "strobe light journalism, in which outlines are accurate enough but we cannot really see the whole picture," which has come to dominate much of the 2008 coverage, particularly in recent weeks. She (and, I suspect, most Americans) would like to learn a bit more about candidates' health care proposals and less about their bowling scores.
As Rev. Jeremiah Wright once again returns to the national scene, we're treated to yet another reminder of the murkiness surrounding the values debate in America. As with healthcare, substantive discussion of religion and religious values often falls by the wayside in the current gaffe-centric environment.
Dwelling on controversy and strategy brings us no closer to understanding how a candidate's values might affect his or her policies, nor does it give the American people a better insight into their character.
It does, however, seem to keep pundits employed and drive up view counts on YouTube.
Which brings us to Edwards' last point. If we want a "vibrant, vigorous press...we'll have to demand it."
Evangelical leaders to media: Stop pigeonholing us
After we blogged about the flawed exit polls that Republicans but not Democrats if they were evangelical or born-again, a wave of interest and outrage spread throughout the blogosphere, the media and the evangelical community.
One day later, a diverse group of evangelical leaders has submitted a letter to the polling and political directors of ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, NBC and the AP, calling on them to ask the evangelical ID question to Democratic as well as Republican primary voters.
The signatories are an impressive roster of prominent evangelicals: Joel Hunter, David Neff, Jim Wallis, Brian McLaren, Randy Brinson, David Gushee, Randall Balmer, Glen Stassen and Paul Corts.
The public conversation about faith and politics shifted and broadened unmistakably in 2007, and the bounty of great news articles proves it. It was an eventful year that brought increased religious activism on a broad range of issues, bridge-building across ideological and religious divides, and the beginning of a campaign season in which religion played a prominent role. Faith In Public Life was in the thick of it all, helping religious coalitions' efforts to broaden the faith and values agenda get the news coverage they deserved.
I'm continually fascinated by the variety of angles on religion and politics stories. Based on coverage of the Catholic church's "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship" voter guide, one could hardly be blamed for thinking the bishops released two or three documents simultaneously. (Note: Terry Mattingly at getreligion.org posted a great analysis of the AP story and some manipulation of it, so I'll leave that alone.)
Depending on what you read, the bishops just issued a) a broader Catholic voters' agenda, or b) a reinforcement of the ascendancy of abortion, stem cells and euthanasia, or c) political wiggle room on abortion, or d) a warning that voting pro-choice is evil, or e) clear directions to hell. Most stories I read provided a thorough account if you read all the way through, but emphases varied greatly, and emphases matter a great deal. I don't have the exact figure on hand, but I recall from journalism school that far fewer than half of readers get all the way through stories.
Dig these headlines and leads for a sense of the range of descriptions readers across America found in their morning papers, and ask yourself if the whole country got the same declaration:
The LA Times - Bishops issue guidelines for Catholic voters
Catholic voters who back candidates because of their support for abortion or other "assaults on human life" would be "guilty of formal cooperation in grave evil," according to a statement adopted Wednesday by U.S. Catholic bishops.
The St. Louis Post Dispatch - Bishops take stand on voting, conscience
Six weeks before the first presidential primaries, the nation's Catholic bishops voted almost unanimously Wednesday to adopt a 40-page statement on voting and conscience. The document states more clearly than ever before that Catholics should weigh abortion, embryonic stem cell research and euthanasia more heavily than other issues such as war and poverty when they enter the voting booth.
The Chicago Tribune - Catholic bishops say voters' souls at stake
Proclaiming a sense of new energy and empowerment, the nation's Roman Catholic bishops on Wednesday issued instructions to Catholic voters that their eternal salvation could be at stake when they cast ballots.
The Baltimore Sun - Catholic bishops amend, approve 2008 voters guide
Roman Catholic bishops gathered in Baltimore approved a voters guide yesterday for the coming elections - repeating their long-standing opposition to abortion but this year adding torture and genocide to the matters that should be considered.
The Religious Right's (imminent? proceeding? mythical? overblown?) demise has now driven religion-and-politics news for consecutive weeks, and as stumping, endorsements, gaffes and polling continue, we can rest assured that somehow or another the narrative will continue to dominate until something huge and faithy happens to a Democrat.
The best article I've seen on the Evangelical Crackup, as it was dubbed in David Kirkpatrick's agenda-setting New York Times Magazine piece, was a Dallas Morning News editorial comparing it to the transformation of labor's role in politics. The editors could have made a more persuasive case, but the comparison itself was observant, and hopefully prescient:
A generation ago, one of the most dependable voting blocs in American politics – the labor movement – began to fracture. Union leaders bitterly opposed the presidential candidacy of Ronald Reagan, but a funny thing happened on the way to the voting booth: Many in the union rank-and-file voted for the Republican...We may be seeing the same thing happening today with the religious right, which, like organized labor used to be for the Democrats, has for nearly 30 years been a solid base for the GOP.
If you haven't, read the whole thing. It's rather insightful.
This week's episode of The EC brings a new angle: competing endorsements. Does Paul Weyrich endorsing Mitt Romney, Patrick Lunatic Robertson getting behind Rudy Giuliani, Sam Brownback backing John McCain, and today Donald Wildmon lining up with Huckabee
mean the Religious Right is crumbling? Even if James Dobson comes out for Fred Thompson next week, (which he probably won't) I'd say this is a pretty mild symptom.
Judging from the broadening evangelical agenda, the generational shift in leadership, the ascendancy of megachurches over parachurch organizations, and the distance between the power brokers and the people in the pews, I'm inclined to believe the Religious Right as we know it really is dying, but that doesn't mean there will no longer be millions of religious people on the right. For now though, I'm going to sit and watch how the primaries shake out before I call the undertaker.
Yesterday's New York Times magazine article about the fissures and shifts in evangelical Christians' political and theological orientation set off a blizzard of blogging. I saw great posts all over the blogscape, and after reading around ten lengthy posts, I fear I'd meld them together if I tried to comment on all the commentary. (Besides, blog roundups are Alex's specialty.)
So I'll just stick with an out-of-the-way response in traditional media: the editorial in today's Wichita Eagle, whose namesake city David Kirkpatrick used as the anecdotal frame for his NYT story. (You might've seen the Eagle editorial in FPL's daily newsreel today.)
Called "No 'evangelical crackup' in Wichita," it didn't take as much issue with Kirkpatrick's story as the title suggests:
To assess the state of the religious right, the New York Times Magazine came to the right state -- Kansas, and specifically Wichita. The resulting cover story Sunday oversold the idea of an "evangelical crackup," but there is no question that in Wichita and far beyond, Christians are rethinking how and how much to bring their Bible-based values to bear in the public square.
However, they do (vaguely) point out local trends that don't quite jibe with Kirkpatrick's central argument:
Some evangelicals in Wichita and elsewhere in Kansas have not extinguished their agendas, only refocused them locally. Look at the proliferating petition drives to call grand juries to investigate sexually oriented businesses and abortion provider George Tiller.
And the mission work going on among local churches across the ideological and denominational spectrum remains strong and inspiring, meeting needs and lifting up the downtrodden in Wichita and far beyond.
The Eagle also regurgitates some of Kirkpatrick's point about evangelicals' political dissatisfaction and shifting priorities. All told, it's not a very striking response content-wise, but it's always useful to look at local responses to national media attention they receive. Wichita's hometown newspaper's reaction seemed to be that Kirkpatrick got it mostly right, but with a couple of notable (yet small) exceptions.
One of FPL's intrepid interns who helps put together the daily newsreel asked me an interesting question on Tuesday:
after doing the newsreel for several weeks now, all of the "romney is a mormon" and "the religious right hates guiliani" stories are getting old/boring...should i still be clipping them?
Says a lot about faith and politics news, doesn't it? Part of my response to the incisive intern:
I include [Romney] Mormon stories if a) it's a fresh perspective, b) it ties into current news, or c) is by a prominent writer...Also, sometimes the duration of a storyline is a story in itself. As much as I want to give subscribers good stories to read, I want to give them a sense of what the dominant narratives are in religion-and-politics news. But that's a good observation; thanks for bringing it up
I think both of us are right. To people who scan dozens of outlets every day, the news about certain candidates gets repetitive and saturated. The pack-animal nature of the press, coupled with the campaigns' sophisticated PR operations, ensures that stories linger longer than most readers would care to read. My interest never tires, though, and I want to make sure that the newsreel reflects what's going on, even if the same stories stick around for weeks.
Yet sometimes these Big Stories peter out just when they should be coming to fruition. For instance, there has been a months-long debate among pundits about whether Romney should give The Mormon Kennedy Speech (a speech analogous to JFK's 1960 speech assuring Protestant Texans that his Roman Catholic faith wouldn't influence his governance). Columnist and editorial boards have said he must do it, he can't do it, he should do it now, he should do it later, he owes it to us, how dare we expect it of him, etc., etc., etc.
Well, Bob Schiefer kind of coaxed The Mormon Kennedy Speech out of him on Sunday, and it hasn't received that much attention:
I'm only halfway interested in what Romney's saying here because the content isn't all that surprising. What's more noteworthy is that he is talking at length about his religion on national television. People have been opining about this for months, and now he talks about it, and no one cares. Granted there were bigger things in the news cycle, but still, the silence is conspicuous.
In unrelated news, my favorite story of the week was William McKenzie's Dallas Morning News column about the theology of empire. After hearing about American exceptionalism from candidate after candidate at last weekend's Values Voters Summit, I needed an antidote to the militarism underlying that worldview.
One of my great pleasures here at Faith In Public Life is putting together the daily newsreel. It is a fun process, and it forces me to take a pretty wide view of what's going in faith and politics news. On Fridays I like to take a look back at the way things unfolded over the course of the week. The week-in-review will become a regular Friday feature here, but next week I'll instead be live-blogging the Family Research Council's "Washington Briefing." (That's the artist formerly known as the Values Voters Summit.)
The past two weeks have been chock full of stories that pointed to seismic activity on the right. Ever since Salon.com's Michael Scherer broke the story on September 30 that religious right leaders were threatening to back a third party candidate if Giuliani got the GOP nomination, stories about the Religious Right's political future (or lack thereof) have surfaced every day, largely by design of Dobson, Perkins, et al. If I were so inclined (and allowed), I could spend an entire day clipping video of Religious Right leaders on cable news and Sunday morning shows.
But by the end of this week, The Great Right Rift started to feel more like a shift in the wind. Stories of the cataclysm that will inevitably follow Giuliani's inevitable nomination shared space with news that the religious right was beginning to take a shine to Romney, and Giuliani agreed to show at the Family Research Council's straw poll next weekend. Turmoil abounds, and a schism is definitely possible, but the situation's beginning to look less like armageddon and more like politics.
As readers of this blog are well aware, there was this paper about "common ground" released this week by some groups called "Third Way" and "Faith In Public Life," but a different story about common ground was my favorite news item of the week. As first reported in Time and Newsweek, 138 preeminent Muslim leaders and scholars sent a letter to Christian leaders appealing to interfaith harmony and peace. (Full text of the letter here.)
Why care? Because getting such a broad and prominent group to sign onto a single statement of peace shows that all that talk about Islam being a religion of peace isn't just a bunch of politically correct nonsense. Says Time:
It points out that both religions are founded on goodwill, not violence, and that many of the fundamental truths that were revealed to Muhammad — such as the necessity for the total devotion to God, the rejection of false gods, and the love of fellow human beings — are the same ones that came to other Christian and Jewish prophets.
Because of this, the letter says, Muslims are duty-bound by the Koran to treat believers of other faiths with respect and friendship — and that Muslims expect the same in return. "As Muslims, we say to Christians that we are not against them and that Islam is not against them — as long as they do not wage war against Muslims on account of their religion, oppress them and drive them out of their homes."
With Christians making up about 33% of the world's population and Muslims making up around 22%, the letter says that finding common ground, "is not simply a matter for polite ecumenical dialogue between selected religious leaders." It is, instead, essential for the survival of humanity.
The New York Times noted that no Wahhabist signed the letter, but that doesn't invalidate this gesture of solidarity and peace. We can all hope that this bears greater fruit, but the statement is a blessing in and of itself.
