"Jesus Is Not a Republican"

Indeed, he is not.  That said, Randall Balmer's piece -- to which Michael linked recently -- strikes me as smug, self-indulgent, and superficial.  It's standard partisan hackery, top to bottom, but -- convenient for the Chronicle of Higher Education -- his Daily Kos talking points have been laundered through the strikingly uncharitable screed of an evangelical Christian.  What's most interesting -- to me, anyway -- is that the screed follows a "woe is me, I have suffered for my progressive views from intolerant conservatives" complaint.  Pot, meet kettle.

We're told that "on judicial matters, the religious right demands appointees who would diminish individual rights to privacy with respect to abortion."  Whatever.  It is held -- how many times will we hear this silly charge? -- against the "religious right" that the Republicans have not "tried to outlaw abortion."  Just how ignorant about legal and political realities, one wonders, is Mr. Balmer?  (What's more, it is clear that Mr. Balmer would fault the Republicans if they *did* try to outlaw abortion).  Balmer says that the militaristic language of some evangelicals is a "reproach to the [G]ospel I honor [?] and to the Jesus I love."  Perhaps.  But so is Mr. Balmer's statement that "on judicial matters, the religious right demands appointees who would diminish individual rights to privacy with respect to abortion."

To be clear:  Yes, Jesus is not a Republican.  Yes, Balmer has identified a number of issues on which the current administration could be criticized in good faith by thoughtful, reasonable Christians.  Yes, it would be bad if Christianity -- or even the (shudder) "religious right" -- were to confuse the message of Christ with the platform of the Republican party.  But Balmer has added nothing to our conversation.

I have been absent from the blog for a week or so, and I regret it that this first post in a while is so obviously shaped by irritation.  But there it is.  Here at Mirror of Justice, we disagree, from time to time, about the political implications of what I am determined to believe is our shared commitment to the enterprise of seeking, with the help of the Church's social teaching, the truth about the world and about how our lives together ought to be ordered.  I continue to believe that, in the vast blogosphere, ours is one of the few sites where a large group of engaged and intelligent people, who have come to very different conclusions about politics, are still able to talk with and learn from one another, all the while growing in friendship.  But again, Balmer's piece, and rants like it, are not -- in my view -- consonant with our aims and shared commitments.  It is fact that some of us -- who are every bit as engaged, educated, informed, and committed to the Catholic social tradition as any others of us (and certainly as Mr. Balmer) -- believe that, contrary to Eduardo's suggestion, there are quite a few more reasons than "stem cells, abortion, and homosexuality" to prefer, all things considered, the present Administration's policies and personnel to the alternatives that were offered, and that reasonable, faithful, and not-in-the-clutches-of-the-religious-right Catholics can disagree about, say, the implications of the tradition for the estate tax.