Adherents: A bigoted website?

Adherents – a bigoted website ?

Talk among some at the Assemblies of God Fine Arts Festival in Orlando last summer centered on the growing influence of what some see as a bigoted online website which seems bent on destroying their denomination.  Selected entries, false information, censored material and a failure to respond to corrections dominated the complaints.   “If there is anyone controversial, with any remote connection to the Assemblies of God, they will post their name,” a denominational leader explained to me, “if there is anyone positive, they will omit it.”

Numerous controversial, independent Pentecostals, some of whom spent less than three years in the Assemblies of God are listed but Sarah Palin, who grew up in the denomination all her life is not.  In fact, rather than be forced to list Palin as a member of the denomination Adherents fails to list her at all.  Palin, who appeared on the cover of TIME magazine, is regularly mentioned as a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.  Meanwhile, the Jonas Brothers, who grew up in an Assemblies of God home and who performed at the very Fine Arts Festival I spoke of, and whose father was an Assemblies of God pastor and now their business manager, are not listed.  I guess the Jonas Brothers aren’t famous enough.

Most serious of all is the charge that Adherents allows persons of one faith to use the website to attack persons of other faiths and with false information.  According to this charge, enemies of the Assemblies of God are turned loose to attack without correction or oversight for their sources.  While the site promises that “we are always striving to increase the accuracy and usefulness of our website. We are happy to hear from you. Please submit questions, suggestions, comments, corrections…” repeated attempts to correct false information have remained unanswered for many months.

While posts for other religious groups include input from their leaders and officials, the post on the Assemblies of God does not.  “They don’t even do a spell check for our entry,” a pastor told me in Orlando.  For example, Adherents posts a link to “Famous Mormons,” a site ran by the Church itself.  The site is careful to respect non Christian faiths.  According to Adherents there are now 5.6 million Jews in the United States and more than 13 million worldwide.  Its site now rates more than 9,000 famous Jews.  Meanwhile, Adherents says there are 2.8 million members of the Assemblies of God in America and 52.5 million worldwide, making it the fourth largest Christian religious body and yet it lists only 31 famous members almost all of them negative.  Adherents lists close to 100 famous members of the Christian Scientist denomination, all positive.  Its list of “Famous Catholics” numbers beyond 20,000.

Included in the lists of other denominations but missing for the Assemblies of God are the founders of the Church and all major ecclesiastical leaders.  Adherents ignores the A-G General Superintendent and Mission’s Director.  C. M Ward is not famous enough for the website.  Ward was a friend of presidents.  His ABC radio show lasted 25 years and rivaled Paul Harvey for audience size.  His books line the shelves of pastors’ studies worldwide.  Thomas F. Zimmerman, who led the denomination for almost 30 years is not mentioned.  Don Argue, friend of the Clintons, who was president of the National Association of Evangelicals and was appointed to the United States Commission on Religious Freedom or Jerry Rose who served as President of the National Religious Broadcasters Convention are likewise considered unworthy by Adherents.

In general, names on Adherents Assemblies of God “Famous List” must have been the subject of negative publicity or conform to a rigid right wing, Republican stereotype. The talented, Joshua Dubois, a member of the United Pentecostal Council of the Assemblies of God, a small, predominantly black denomination, was Barack Obama’s choice to direct the Council for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, a White House position.  He is ignored by Adherents.

My interest was piqued by my own entry.  I had left the Assemblies of God 25 years before. When I organized the Charity Awards, receptions held in the White House, six first ladies and presidents serving as honorary chairperson, spinning off Mercy Corps as a prominent worldwide charity, Adherents ignored me.  As they should have, I had not been a part of the A-G for much of my adult life.  And as a presidential advisor, serving in the White House they continued to ignore me. When I wrote New York Times bestselling books and appeared on dozens and dozens of television shows there was nary a mention.  Appropriately so.  But suddenly, when the Bush taping controversy erupted, presto, I appeared as a “famous member of the Assemblies of God” on Adherents, even though my link to the denomination was 25 years cold.

The site about me was written by a person of another religion who attacked my motives and implied that I made money.  What is interesting is that my accuser was herself embroiled in scandal and forced to withdraw as a nominee to the George W. Bush cabinet.   None of her controversy appears on her own Adherents site, she is in one of their “protected” religions.  As to her information and implications?  They are false.  I took no money from the taping controversy, went off television for six months, took no related speaking fees or book royalties, nor have I since published a book.

All of this raises the question, who is behind Adherents?  Who runs its vitriolic Assemblies of God pages?  Speculation in Orlando centered on enemies of Pastor Karl Strader, who were seeking revenge online.  Others suggested that it was a writer for an independent Charismatic magazine with a denominational vendetta. (Highly unlikely, since the pages are riddled with grammatical errors and misspellings.)

Meanwhile, irritated by its critics, who hound Google and other search engines with complaints about the bigotry, Adherents only rubbed salt in the wounds by appending to their list of famous church members the following disclaimer. “[Note: Although some observers may consider the history of the Assemblies of God to be tainted by such famously scandalized televangelists as Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, Gene Scott, and others, we would urge people to not judge the denomination only by these famous few. Although the denomination has more than its share of unsavory preachers and leaders, the general membership of the Assemblies of God is, for the most part, a bastion of strong values and sincere religious commitment. Statistically speaking, Assemblies of God members exhibit a higher than averge (sic) commitment to Christian living and striving to live ethically.”

According to complaints, the modus operandi at Adherents continues unabated.  Duane Chapman, star of the reality show, Dog and the Bounty Hunter, was ignored by Adherents when his show was a hot feature of A&E.  Chapman had gained notoriety for hunting down Andrew Luster, the Max Factor heir, who had fled to Mexico after being charged with drugging and raping women.  When Mexican officials tried to throw Chapman in prison, for violating Mexican extradition laws, bragging that he would not last a year, 15 members of congress and the Secretary of State rushed to his defense.  All ignored by Adherents.  But when a negative controversy erupted over Chapman’s use of a racial slur Adherents suddenly decided he merited inclusion in their famous members of the Assemblies of God list.  Apparently, Chapman, who by his own admission has not been an active member of the denomination, once attended and Assemblies of God Sunday School as a child.

Hmmm, well okay, if Duane Chapman had to be rushed onto the Famous Assemblies of God list for using a racial slur, what about Bernie Madoff, who pulled of the biggest white collar crime in history?  Does his name appear among the 9,000 plus “famous Jews” of Adherents.  Nope. Not famous enough for Adherents.

Nor does the website, which felt compelled to say that [the Assemblies of God] “has more than its share of unsavory preachers and leaders,” make any mention in its Catholic section on the pedophile crisis that has erupted twice in modern times.  Nor are any of the names of the accused priests mentioned among the 20,000 plus “famous Catholics.” In June, 2002, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops approved a Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.  The so called John Jay Report, which came out of the work of the Conference, found 11,000 allegations against 4,392 priests.  Not a mention in Adherents.

The Adherents website, which has ignored repeated attempts to correct inaccuracies and offer some balance, apparently remains committed to the vilification of the Assemblies of God.  While other sections have been co-opted by leaders of the religious groups named or have substantial input to guarantee accuracy, or at the very least, employ spell check, Adherents has given its anonymous Assemblies of God editor free reign to vent his or her anger.  It is what happens when a website becomes hi-jacked by an agenda.

What can you do?

1.) Register your complaint to Adherents for its bigoted coverage of the Assemblies of God.

webmaster@adherents.com

2.) Encourage professional, websites such as Wikipedia, which make an effort to get their facts right.  Or new religious sites such as Ascension Gateway, which insist on strict factual guidelines, with no theological or socio-cultural agenda.

http://www.ascensiongateway.com/quotes/people/religion/christians/index.htm

3.) Register your complaint to Google for giving special status to a site that is inaccurate and bigoted.  Not to mention rife with grammatical errors.

While Google does not normally interfere, employees tell me that they sometimes remove special search engine enhancements for sites that are deemed “junky,” inaccurate, libelous or intolerant.  Google celebrates diversity, which is what the internet is all about and is sensitive to attacks on gays and other minorities but this includes religious groups, especially if a website is misrepresenting its purpose.   Here is a page about how to get things removed by Google:  http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=13926

Inside the McCain campaign: what we didn’t know

Losing presidential campaigns always prompt criticism and “what if’s” but most savvy observers were surprised that Senator John McCain and his creative team kept it as close as they did.   John McCain didn’t come away looking like a loser.  He played a remarkable game with very bad cards.

 

I mentioned in one of my earlier blogs that Senator McCain had to have had a little conversation with himself.  He probably locked himself in a bathroom and looked in the mirror and said, “Buddy, the economy is in shambles, the president’s approval rating is in the toilet, the GOP is a damaged brand.  You cannot run a traditional campaign.  You have to take big risks.”  And he certainly did and almost all of them paid off, even if the inevitable happened anyway.

 

Now, we are learning little bits and pieces of what went wrong for the GOP.  And especially about how badly they were alienated from their evangelical base and needed Sarah Palin to bring it together.

 

Why Pat Robertson endorsed Rudolph Giuliani?

 

First, the unexplainable Pat Robertson endorsement of the Mayor.  Turns out to be very simple.  Giuliani and one other early candidate were the only ones who showed any interest in Roberson’s pet Regency University.  When the hated New York Times published a story saying that Robertson would never endorse Giuliani, that sealed it.  It turns out that Mike Huckabee, who recently expressed exasperation at the fickle evangelical religious leaders, who should have coalesced behind his candidacy, could have had the endorsement too.  He just had to fly in and pick it up.

 

McCain – EST Connection?

 

What was causing such a drag on the John McCain campaign was more than his caustic remarks of 2000, when he famously lashed out at evangelical leaders as “agents of intolerance.”  It turns out that the Senator’s religious journey may have been more complicated than many first surmised.  And by 2008 rumors were rife that the Senator had once been involved in EST in California, and the concern was that the experience may have influenced his spiritual evolution. 

 

EST or Erhard Seminars Training were popular in the 1970’s and represented an intensive 60 hour, two weekend course that urged participants to experience a personal transformation.  Laced with elements of Zen Buddhism, Werner Erhard led flamboyant, marathon sessions which became famous for restricting food, talking, writing, bathroom breaks or conversations with friends for 15 hour periods.  Participants were sometimes reduced to urinating and vomiting publicly during the sessions all supposedly worth the humiliation if a participant could arrive at an awareness of “self.”  It is not clear to what degree, if any, that the Senator participated.  But rumors were rife.  And they came from credible and prominent Arizona sources.

 

In 1991, Cindy McCain joined the North Phoenix Baptist Church, then pastored by Rev. Richard Jackson, a leader of the moderate wing of the Southern Baptists Convention.  A source close to Jackson told me how the pastor “led Mrs. McCain to Christ” and urged her to have her husband join her in a Baptism ceremony but the Senator firmly declined.  The source says that the Senator, baptized an Episcopalian, joined his wife in visiting religious services at the North Phoenix Baptist Church beginning in 1991.  The church is now pastored by the Rev. Dan Yeary, also a leader in the moderate wing of the SBC. 

 

The McCains have visited other Arizona congregations on special occasions, such as, Fourth of July programs at the First Assemblies of God, pastored by the Rev. Tommy Barnett.

 

McCain – Dobson standoff

 

In May, 2008, James Dobson invited Senator McCain to Colorado Springs to be a guest on his radio show.  It was an olive branch from Dobson who had announced earlier in the primary season he would not, in any circumstances, support McCain if he were the eventual GOP nominee. 

 

But May was not a good month for politicians and preachers.  Senator Barack Obama was still reeling from controversies with his pastor, the Rev. Wright.  So Senator McCain politely turned down Dobson’s invitation.  Later, in June, on a swing through Denver, McCain invited Dobson to meet him there instead.  Dobson demurred.  Neither man budged.

 

During this period a prominent McCain staffer told me that the Senator privately was saying, “I’ll be damned if go down there,” referring to the pilgrimage to Colorado Springs.

 

McCain and Dobson eventually met but the estrangement between the Senator’s presidential campaign and the evangelical base was severe. 

 

In July, 2008, the Associated Press and TIME magazine reported on a private summit of evangelical leaders in Denver.  According to their reports, the evangelical leaders had coalesced behind Republican candidate John McCain.  But in fact, I was at this very private meeting, and there were some very lively exchanges with some of the more savvy leaders warning the evangelicals that they should not give away the store without getting anything in return.

 

Ken Connor, past president of the Family Research Council, urged attendees at the private meeting not to automatically endorse McCain.  And a former congressman, meeting with leaders afterward, warned that those calling for unconditional, unreciprocated support of McCain were extremely naïve.  Another evangelical congressman said the McCain supporters in Denver had reduced the work of three decades to “amateur night.” 

 

So the choice of Governor Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate was a stunning and immediate solution to a fissure much deeper than the public or the media guessed.   She was a woman governor, with an 80% approval rating in her home state, and a maverick politician in the McCain mold.  But she was more.  She had been raised in the evangelical Christian tradition and knew all the buttons to push.  The decision sealed the deal and all concerns from conservative Christians faded immediately.

 

What the McCain campaign had not counted on was the virulent evangelical backlash that attends any public figure from that despised culture.  Momentarily stunned by the Palin choice, the media regrouped, gathered itself and went on the attack.  They may just get another shot at her in 2012.

 

More later, as it keep unraveling.

A Fox within a Fox continued

(To understand this post you may want to read an earlier installment.)

http://dougwead.wordpress.com/2008/09/30/a-fox-within-a-fox/

Okay folks, here is an example of what I am talking about. 

Tuesday all of the news shows were trumpeting a new battleground poll showing Senator Barack Obama pulling ahead of Senator John McCain in the presidential race in the key five swing states.  The one recalcitrant state was Missouri, where Obama’s numbers unaccountably lagged.  A couple of the anchors asked their political directors what was up with Missouri and, of course, they had no answer or in one case bravely asserted that “this sort of thing sometimes happens.”

But only people in the isolated Boston-New York-Washington D.C. corridor were so ignorant.  Most of the nation, including the 42%, who according to Gallup, are born again Christians and another 30% who live with them and know them, knew exactly what was happening.  There was an easy explanation. 

Sarah Palin hails from an Assemblies of God tradition and the headquarters for this denomination is southwest Missouri.  This denomination has almost 15,000 churches in Missouri alone.  And the headquarters for the Baptist Bible Fellowship, of which Jerry Falwell was a famous alumnus, is in Springfield, Missouri, as well.

This is just a typical, rather unimportant, daily example of how the “evangelical free” media knows less than their own audience about anything related to religion.  It is how they missed Huckabee’s surge in Iowa, how they still don’t know what happened to him in South Carolina and why they totally misunderstood the tactical and strategic logic behind the pick of Sarah Palin.  As far as that goes, it is how they have miscast the complicated and paradoxical relationship between evangelicals and George W. Bush for the last eight years.

Ahhh. Ignorance is bliss.

“He who says that religion and politics don’t mix, understands neither one.”

                - Mahatma Gandhi

A Fox within a Fox

“Talent hits a target that no one else can hit.  Genius hits a target that no one else can see.”

- Arthur Schopenhauer

Here it is folks, the last big, untouched, television market.

Everyone knows the success story of how FOX NEWS was launched and made an effort to include conservative opinion and thinking in its news stories and how that translated into a commercial success.   Well, now, there are numbers that show a very clear “second opportunity,” another FOX, or maybe it could be better described as “A FOX WITHIN A FOX.”

Before I lay out these remarkable numbers, all referenced, consider what FOX accomplished.  For years, all the other networks reflected thinking inside the Boston-NY-Washington corridor.  The thinking of the rest of America was not only ignored it was marginalized.  In hindsight, the economics of the FOX idea appears as a no brainer.  As we approached a new millennium Americans increasingly considered themselves “conservative,” so much so that pollsters no longer asked them to identify themselves as either liberal or conservative; instead they use a series of questions to try to quantify them.  And yet for years no one at the networks acted on these huge numbers, presumably because their integrity would not allow them to compromise “the truth” as they saw it.

 Oh sure, there were occasional rebellions among journalists from the stifling uniformity of thought and there were even a few, timid, commercial attempts to benefit from the numbers.  Conservative Republican Billionaire, Rich DeVos, bought the Mutual Broadcasting System with that very idea in mind.  It didn’t work.  So the success of FOX was not just a good idea.  It was the recruiting skills and talent hunting abilities of Roger Ailes that made the difference.  It succeeded because of execution.

When MSNBC and other networks tried to copy FOX they failed because they could not execute.  They did not have the Ailes’ touch because they didn’t have an Ailes or anyone in management who actually understood how conservatives thought.  They are actually now attracting more conservative viewers as “the enemy” than they ever did when they tried to do a little “fair and balanced” programming on their own. 

So what is the new FOX within a FOX opportunity?

It is a more sophisticated approach to the evangelical Christian viewers and particularly the Pentecostal-Charismatic viewers.  This is the demographic logic behind the John McCain selection of Sarah Palin and it could be the logic behind a new television ratings bonanza.

Hear me out and follow closely the numbers.  Don’t let anecdotal experience influence you.  That is what blinded the media elites for years and allowed Robert Murdoch and FOX an opening.

Consider the following numbers. (All references and definition of terms are at the end.)

42% of the American public are born again Christians.

51% of all born again Christians are Pentecostal or Charismatics.

Now here is where it gets tricky.  You have to have a Harvard or Yale degree in theology to understand this but if you have been through that you won’t want to believe it anyway.  While half of all born again Christians are Pentecostal or Charismatics, a much greater number of all Americans are Pentecostal or Charismatic.  That is because of the Charismatic Renewal in the Catholic Church which is huge.  Thus a Catholic may say no to the born again question.  But yes to the question that identifies he or she as a Pentecostal or Charismatic.

Now how can this be?  Aren’t Catholics born again? Didn’t Jesus say, “You must be born again to enter the kingdom of heaven?”  Yes but, a Catholic does not see themselves as born again in the way that the terms are used today.  They would say that they fulfilled this “Jesus requirement” when they experienced baptism into the Church as an infant and not as some later adult experience.  In recent years, Catholics who have had what seems like the equivalent of the Protestant born again experience, maybe at a Cursillo or some other religious event, complete with adrenalin rush and the release of endorphins, call it “an adult awareness of baptism.”  They do not refer to it as being born again.

So, if you have followed that arcane process we are ready for the killer.  According to BARNA in his appropriately named survey “Is America becoming Charismatic” 36% of all Americans believe that the New Testament gifts of the Holy Spirit such as healing and speaking in tongues are valid today.  It is approximately 80 million people.  When the media gleefully attacks Palin, especially on her faith, this is the mass of Americans who wince.

Now take a look….

23% of all Americans are Catholic.  That includes the guy who was baptized as an infant and hasn’t attended mass in years.  In some cases he is only a “cultural Catholic” but he counts in the number.

13% of all Americans are Black.

But 36% are Pentecostal or Charismatic.  To qualify they must say yes to a complicated theological question which means that this number is pretty hot.

Now you know why John McCain picked Sarah Palin, who has an Assemblies of God background, and why Barack Obama and Joe Biden were a bit stunned.  All through the Clinton years the Democrats had been reaching out to Pentecostals, hoping to peel them away from the other evangelicals.  Don Argue, the former president of the National Association of Evangelicals and a Pentecostal, himself, had set up meetings for Hillary Clinton in 2007.  Obama, who had hired an Assemblies of God young man to lead his evangelical outreach, was hoping to take advantage of John McCain’s missteps with Pentecostals-Charismatics.  McCain had fumbled baldy, his on and off again relationships with John Hagee and Rod Parsley, are examples.   Almost all GOP Black and Hispanic leaders are Pentecostals or Charismatics.

All of that brings us to the window.

It so happens that the Roger Ailes’ talent hunt for FOX picked up primarily Catholic “movement conservatives.”  They were the only good ones in the pool.  And of course, they spoke and understood conservative ideas.  But they did not understand the evangelical world.  And the two accidental “born again” Christians in the FOX stable, Cal Thomas and Fred Barnes were not in touch with the movement.  Barnes shared the experience but none of the culture, contacts or knowledge, (at last word he attends an Episcopal church in Virginia) and Thomas hailed from the Jerry Falwell, fundamentalist wing that opposed Pentecostal-Charismatic doctrines and once taught that they were “demon possessed!”

Thus when an evangelical, Harriet Miers, was proposed for the Supreme Court, FOX went ballistic.  Ann Coulter opposed her on Sean Hannity, Bill Bennett opposed her on Bill O’Reilly.  Sam Brownback, ranking Republican on the Judicial Committee came on FOX and knocked her.  “Who is she,” they asked, “We don’t know her.”  Coulter, Hannity, Bennett, O’Reilly, Brownback are all Catholic.  Result?  The evangelicals lost the nomination to another “movement conservative,” FOX approved, Catholic, Samuel Alito who took her place.  Alito was a familiar face, “one of us.”  And so he joined Catholics Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, and John Roberts  on the Supreme Court.

Some very savvy, evangelical leaders were stunned.  “We have always supported your candidates.  We are 42%, why can’t we have one? One?  One?” Some forever swore off FOX.  Most didn’t notice and soon they all got over it.  After all, FOX usually gets some of it right.  Nobody else comes close.

Then came the sudden, surprising appearance of Governor Mike Huckabee, a Southern Baptist, who upset the pundits, with some marvelous footwork by Texas operator, David Lane, and others and won the Iowa Caucus.  The coverage from FOX was ridiculous.  They didn’t understand the culture, the numbers, how it happened, what it meant, had never heard of Lane and they surely didn’t understand Huckabee.  They had spent a year talking about Giuliani and Romney.  They weren’t prepared for this outside evangelical insurgency, even though 42% of the American people are born again and its likelihood was obvious. FOX, who once saw the numbers that no one else could see, was blind to these. They had no evangelical Christian writers or pundits to explain any of it.

Still, the embarrassment only lasted a short while.  Evangelicals are used to abuse.  And no one else gets it right either.  And at least Fox considers their stand on many of the issues, because those stands mirror the Catholic “movement conservatives.”

But now?

Now, you have a Vice Presidential nominee who hails from a Pentecostal-Charismatic background.  And remember, Pentecostal-Charismatics are 36% of the nation, a big commercial market, totally unrepresented on national television.  Fox has one more chance to get it right but don’t count on it.

Voila!

There is a window of thirty days.  80 million Pentecostal-Charismatics will be watching television as their views and culture and ideas and language will be debated and discussed by outsiders who will get it all wrong.  Imagine a network that is all white, talking for thirty days about a Black candidate?  But if one network, for one minute can get some of it right? They will have a measure of respect from that subculture and that respect will have a long, long shelf life.  And it could be anybody.  CNN, MSNBC, anybody.

Understand, we are not talking about being pro Palin, we are talking about being accurate in the descriptions, language and ideas of this group of people. 

So a huge block of viewers are up for grabs.  CNN floated Glenn Beck and won a new audience and in the process forever won the love of Mormons everywhere.  1.9% of the American population are Mormon.

Someday, somebody will see these numbers.  The Harriet Miers’ eruption seemed like a onetime phenomenon.  It passed.  But it all came back with Governor Huckabee’s win in Iowa.  And then it too passed.  But now we have Sarah Palin.  This too will pass.  But the numbers are not going to go away.  42% of the nation claims to be “born again Christians.”  And 36% claim to be Pentecostal or Charismatic.  No one on television is getting it right.  No one seems to know how they think and why?  There is a vacuum.  FOX made its name in filling a vacuum.  Someday, somebody will fill this one too.

Appendix:

Definition of terms:

Pentecostals: These are Protestant Christians, most of whom came from Methodist tradition, who believe in the born again experience and who were forced out of their churches at the turn of the 20th Century because of their beliefs that the New Testament gifts such as healing and speaking in tongues were valid today.  They formed their own denominations.  Sarah Palin’s Assemblies of God is one of those.  The head of Barack Obama’s religious outreach is also Assemblies of God.

Charismatics: These are Protestant and Catholic Christians, who trace their origins to the “Charismatic Renewal” which began in 1960 in the Episcopal Church.  These Christians also claimed that they had begun to experience New Testament gifts (the Greek word in scripture is charismata) but this time,  more tolerant denominations let them remain as “Charismatics” within their respective churches.  The Charismatic Renewal spread to Lutheran, Baptist, Presbyterian and almost every other Protestant group.  By 1967 there were Catholic Charismatics.  Maria Von Trapp of Sound of Music fame, was a Catholic Charismatic, as are some of the Cardinals of the Church.

Evangelicals: People who believe in the born again experience and that the Bible is “the inspired Word of God.”  But most people who are “evangelical” do not acknowledge the term, that is, they consider themselves Baptist, or Lutheran or Nazarene or some other denomination or they only know that they go to the church down the street.  Thus polling on numbers of Evangelicals and how they vote is practically worthless.  The born again vote is more accurate for measuring numbers.  It is why FOX and other media outlets could not predict, track or follow the Huckabee surge.  It is also explains how the media missed the loss of “born again” votes for George W. Bush in 2000, in spite of his declaration that Jesus was his favorite “political philosopher or thinker.” (sic.)  Al Gore and Democrats had successfully raided  the vote.

Gallup’s question: When we say that 42% of the American public claim to be born again, they are asked this question by the Gallup Organization.  “Are you a born again Christian, that is, have you had a turning point in your life in which you committed yourself to Jesus Christ?”  In 1992, they added the line, “And, or, are you an evangelical?”

Sources on numbers of Pentecostals-Charismatics:

http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=BarnaUpdateNarrowPreview&BarnaUpdateID=287

The History of the evangelical vote in presidential elections

What is the history of the crucial Evangelical Christian vote and where is it likely to go in the upcoming showdown between John McCain and Barack Obama? 

 

The chart below, prepared by a team I put together for NEWSMAX and appearing in their current issue, offers the most comprehensive and accurate account of the white born again vote in modern presidential elections.  It is a first of a kind and much needed to understand how this vote has evolved.

 

Interpreting the numbers from public polls and numbers recently released from the two political campaigns can be an exasperating business.  Almost unanimously, the polling companies, television news services and journalists are getting it wrong.

 

The White Born-Again Vote, 1976 – 2004

 

	1976	1980	1984	1988	1992*	1996	2000	2004
Republican	50%	61%	78%	81%	59%	49%	57%	62%
Democratic	50%	34%	22%	18%	21%	43%	42%	38%

 

*In 1992, Ross Perot’s independent candidacy drew 19 percent of the born-again white vote.

 

 

Some of the confusion is due to an evolving understanding of the evangelical movement.  For example, early CBS exit polls confused the terms “born again” with “fundamentalist” obtaining a skewed figure as a result. 

 

Likewise, in 1996, a CNN-Time magazine exit poll asked voters if they were members of “the religious right.”  An astounding 65% of this group voted for Robert Dole, even greater than Ronald Reagan’s 1980 born again vote.  But only the most ardent of conservative evangelicals would identify with the words “religious right” which the others would see as pejorative terms.  Of more use for our purposes were Robert Dole’s take of the white born again numbers in 1996 which come in at only 49%.

 

False numbers in the George W. Bush era.

 

But the biggest cause of polling error in recent years and during the 2008 campaign has been the change from “born again” to “evangelical” voter. 

 

Since 2000, many media polling organizations have begun asking voters if they are “evangelical.”  They might as well have asked if they were choleric or phlegmatic. Not everyone knows the terms and others wouldn’t know how to define themselves.  In this case the pollsters were too ignorant of religion to know what to ask.  The result for this polling question is only useful for analyzing the more active and politically savvy of the movement but it does not work well in comparing the outcome to previous election cycles when the question was, “are you a white born again Christian.” 

 

The fact is that many evangelicals do not see themselves as evangelicals, even though outsiders would define them as such.  They consider themselves as Southern Baptists, or Nazarene, or Assemblies of God or Charismatic or some other denomination or grouping.  Some only know that they attend that church down the street.  To pollsters, they will identify themselves as born again Christians but not always as an evangelical.  Thus a Pew Research survey of 2000 and 2004 will show George W. Bush as carrying an impressive 68% and 78% of the “evangelical” vote, missing the dramatic changes in the movement that the Barna poll showed clearly when it found that white born again Christians voted for Bush at a more modest rate of 57% and 62% respectively.

 

Gallup is best

 

The Gallup organization is by far the most reliable in these kinds of surveys because it has been polling religion for decades and only as a sociological interest.  Their polls are not funded or commissioned by a particular group or sponsor.  Gallup’s question has evolved into: “Are you a born again Christian, that is, have you had a turning point in your life in which you have committed to Jesus Christ, and, or, are you and evangelical?”  Thus Gallup defines what “evangelical” means for the person who is being polled.

 

For understanding the current 2008 campaign and the evolution of the evangelical movement, my chart uses the same criteria for each of the election cycles. Finally, historians and journalists trying to understand this election in the context of the past generation have data that compares oranges with oranges.  It is the first chart of its kind and it accurately tracks the white born again Christian vote since 1976.

 

My sources

 

Almost all the data is on the public record.  It is taken from network exit polls, private surveys, campaign documents on file in presidential libraries, and numerous research organizations.  Sources include, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Time magazine, The New York Times, The Times Mirror Organization, the Pew Research Organization and Barna.  But it is also buttressed by privately commissioned, non public Gallup polls, public Gallup polls and numerous internal campaign memorandum from presidential campaigns.  When there was conflicting numbers, I sided with at least three different sources.

 

During this process my team and I personally interviewed individual participants in the various network exit polls of the past years, the computer programmers who wrote the software and some of the journalists who helped develop the questions.  As evangelical viewers are well aware by the reporting during this election cycle, media ignorance of religion in general and evangelicals in particular is almost breathtaking, and this is certainly reflected in their sincere but inept attempt to understand the emerging numbers.  My team also interviewed the religious liaisons of six of the recent presidential campaigns.

 

 

Has Sarah Palin spoken in tongues?

Has Sarah Palin Spoken in Tongues?

 

Last night a CNN reporter asked that question of Palin’s former pastor.  Because of my work as religious liaison in past presidential campaigns, I have been inundated with calls from the media asking about Sarah Palin’s church, the Assemblies of God, their doctrine and what this will mean.  A national magazine has asked me to send them an 800 word assessment of how Pentecostal-Charismatic doctrine is “distinct.” 

 

 

The media is on the hunt and they smell a kill.  Didn’t Obama’s pastor seriously damage his cause?  Won’t Palin’s Pentecostalism hurt her?  So why does Barack Obama still seem to be in a stupor over John McCain’s pick for Vice President?  And what is the source of John McCain’s cocky smile?

 

Because Obama and McCain are politicians and not just your average politicians, they are among the best. The American people are getting their money’s worth in this contest.  And as politicians, they know the numbers, the numbers that the media in their supreme arrogance toward anything religious, always seem to disbelieve.

 

And here are the numbers.  Beware.  You may be a bit surprised by what I am about to tell you but the references are all at the end of the blog, so hang tight and follow the numbers and the logic.  John McCain did just that and it is why he is still in a race that the Democrats should have already won.  And it is why Obama is looking stunned.

 

Here they are.  According to Barna, 36% of the American public are charismatic or Pentecostal Christians.  We are talking about huge numbers, probably 80 million adults. 

 

Consider that 24% of the American public are Catholic. 13% are African American.

 

To give you an idea of the numbers, just remember that anyone who is baptized as an infant as a Catholic, is counted as a Catholic.  But to be counted in this 36% you had to say that you had been “filled with the Holy Spirit” and that you believe that “the charismatic gifts, gifts such as tongues and healing, are still valid and active today.”  So the 36% Penteocstal-Charismatics are hot.  They are adult and active.

 

Now, here’s where it gets even more ironic.  It turns out that 33% of all Catholics are charismatic, that is, they believe in these same gifts of healing and speaking in tongues.  Again, the same logic applies.  Cultural Catholics are less likely to have been involved in the “charismatic renewal” within their own Church.  Most of the 33% are adults, and active.

 

So here is what is happening.  Some in the media are falling all over themselves to show that Palin is out of step with the nation, that she is a fanatic or, at least, her church is fanatical.   They are rushing to do Obama’s work for him, attacking Palin’s faith.  And they justify it all by saying that they were just as aggressive in looking at Obama’s faith too.  The problem, which Obama and McCain understand well, is this.  What percentage of Americans would agree with “God Damn America” as opposed to “the charismatic gifts, gifts such as tongues and healing, are still valid and active today”?

 

It is even more ironic, better or worse, depending on your preference.  Obama was specifically attempting to peel off the Pentecostal-Charismatics from the rest of the evangelical herd.  Democrats had several meetings set up with Pentecostal leaders.  McCain had misstepped with endorsements from John Hagee and Rod Parsley, both Pentecostals.  Republican, Chuck Grassley, a Baptist, had awakened the Baptist – Pentecostal doctrinal rift by specifically targeting Pentecostal ministries in an “investigation” but exempting any Baptists.

 

If the Baptist-Pentecostal fracture had endured, it would have rent the last remaining base of the beleaguered presidency of George W. Bush and the melting iceberg from which the McCain team had to launch their campaign.

 

Now, with one decision, a VP pick, John McCain has turned it all on a dime.

 

The media rushes greedily on, thinking they have something of interest that will break McCain.  But Obama and McCain know the truth.  The more the media confidently ridicules and attacks the Pentecostal-Charismatics, the more they unite what had been a fractured Republican base and drive this massive constituency into the Republican fold.  In their ignorance, or innocence, the media will use a shotgun approach, (now here’s where their failure to do any homework on religion really hurts them) and they will end up hitting all evangelicals, not just Pentecostals.  When they attack the idea of healing for example, they make Mormons, Christian Scientists and even many New Agers nervous.  Oh, yeah, there is that 33% of Catholics who will wince when media pundits laugh at Palin’s doctrines.  And when they ridicule the born again experience they blow out Baptists and fundamentalist Lutherans.

 

Thus the media will do the work that a clumsy, liberal Democrat nominee usually did in the past.  In forty years, only two Democratic nominees have won, Carter and Clinton, and both hailed from the South and understood and appealed to evangelicals.   (42% of all Americans claim to be born again Christians, which includes the Pentecostals and Charismatics.)  Barack Obama had this all figured out.  He needed the Pentecostals to balance his liberal voting record in the Senate, to make him something more than a Dukakis or Kerry.  Indeed, the head of his religious outreach is a young Assemblies of God political operator.  (Maybe the media will ask him if he has ever spoken in tongues?)

 

So Obama will helplessly watch this unfold these next two days, as the media tide washes ashore and does its job, confidant that they are providing Obama some redress for his own pastor problems.  And unfairly, Obama will be tarred with the same brush.  He will suffer for the media’s attacks on Palin’s faith, as if he himself had orchestrated it. 

 

And what is the point?  That Sarah Palin is not qualified to be vice president because she was raised in such a church and exposed to such doctrines?  Maybe Pentecostals and Charismatics should not able allowed to operate heavy machinery or be doctors or lawyers.  Maybe 36% of the American public should be exempted from public life.

 

Obama can only pine as he watches all of his brilliant, nuanced work slip away.  It will take the most informed in the media a few days to figure this out and add a measure of balance to their reporting, to at least offer Pentecostals as much respect as they do Muslims fundamentalists but some won’t ever know what they have done.

 

Mahatma Gandhi, once said, “He who says that religion and politics don’t mix, understands neither one.”

 

This race is not over.  With a damaged Republican brand and a faltering economy it is still Barack Obama’s to lose.  Only now, he and McCain can see how that just might happen.

 

Here is that reference: 

Is America Turning Charismatic?

http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=BarnaUpdateNarrow&BarnaUpdateID=287

What is Sarah Palin’s religion and why does it matter?

What is Sarah Palin’s Religion?

She is Assemblies of God.

Ted Boatsman, the former Alaskan District Superintendent for the Assemblies of God, was her junior high pastor at Wasilla Assemblies of God Church. Later she attended Juneau Christian Center whose pastor is pastor is Mike Rose.  Now, some say she is attending a more acceptable “Bible Church.”

In high school she was the local leader of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

McCain does more than balance the ticket with a woman. He solves his complicated religious problem with Pentecostals and Charismatics, who according to a recent Barna survey make up almost half of all born again Christians. And the number of born againers is 42% of the general public. McCain’s on again off again relationships with Pentecostals, John Hagee and Rod Parsley, as well as the ill timed Charles Grassley attack on six Pentecostal television ministries – which had provoked a fissure in the shrinking GOP base of Baptists and Pentecostals - are now moot points.

But wait until liberal media finds out. Expect all hell to break loose. She will be portrayed as a pro creationist – Neanderthal. Just wait.  And, as well intentioned as they will be, thinking that they are doing Obama a good deed, it will drive the massive Evangelical bloc into the McCain camp.  All of Senator Obama’s kind overtures to people of faith will be for naught.

Especially effected will be tight border states Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky; some otherwise close southern states, Florida and North Carolina; and critical big electoral states Pennsyvlania and Ohio.

Note: Will Sarah Palin run for president next time?

http://dougwead.wordpress.com/2008/11/02/will-sarah-palin-run-for-president/

Note: Has Sarah Palin spoken in tongues?  Consider: According to Barna, 36% of the American public are charismatic or Pentecostal Christians. We are talking about huge numbers, probably 80 million adults. Compare that to 24% of the American public who are Catholic or the 13% who are African American.  Politicians have to know these numbers first.  The business world follows and the media is usually the last to know.  See the sourcing and analysis at….

http://dougwead.wordpress.com/2008/09/09/has-sarah-palin-spoken-in-tongues/

Glenn Hauman and lies on the internet

Why many Jews fear Obama

My speaking trips around the world have left me with many friends in both the Islamic and Jewish cultures.  It is no secret that Muslims are almost unanimously rooting for Barack Obama in the upcoming U.S. elections, and that a majority of American Jews, led by the intrepid George Soros and Steven Spielberg, are too.  But the more savvy among my American Jewish friends and most of my Israeli Jewish contacts, are deeply concerned about the possibility of an Obama presidency and what it will mean for them and the danger for Israel. 

 It may be yet another small piece of the puzzle of why this presidential race, with an incumbent Republican administration on the edge of an economic recession, is still as close as it is.  For, if they are small in numbers, the Jews in America are influential and beloved by many others beyond their own.  Among America’s many self appointed moral tasks, is our decision to protect the Jews from another holocaust.

So where does the anti-Obama hostility emanate?  And what is its basis?  And how will it impact the coming election?  Will Joe Biden on the ticket help?

  For the most part the media has treated this as a “politically incorrect” story.  Meaning, they have ignored it, as if it doesn’t exist, or the public cannot be trusted to understand it.  They finally waded in when the word of mouth discussion reached a crescendo.   In January, 2008, the Jewish community was alive with E-mails passing back and forth with false accusations.  Barack Obama was secretly Muslim, they said.  Or he had studied in an Indonesian madrassa.  He had refused to honor the pledge allegiance.

  At the urging of friends within the Jewish community, Obama held a telephone conference call on January 28, to correct the false rumors and reassure the Jewish leaders. Obama declared his support for Israel “as a Jewish state,” spoke out against the continued rocket attacks from Gaza and opposed negotiations with Hamas as long as they deny Israel’s right to exist.  He also corrected earlier comments, making it clear that the Palestinian slogan of its “right of return” should not be accepted literally.

 The media reported the false e-mails and Obama’s corrections without mentioning the Jews.  But many in that community remained nervous.  They were alarmed by the link between the Islamic, anti-Semitic, Louis Farrakhan and the church that Obama attended for twenty years.  What did that mean?  The story would flare out into the open months later.  And there were other internet stories that the Obama campaign and a sympathetic media were not answering.

  One of the more telling moments for Barack Obama, and one of the reasons some prominent Jews have dug in their heels in opposing his election, was his rejection of Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, editor of a weekly newspaper in Bangladesh.  Choudhury, a Muslim, became an outspoken advocate of Muslims and Jews living together in peace.  When he was invited to speak in Israel he was arrested on charges of blasphemy and hauled before an Islamist judge.  According to A Moslem Hero, a story written by journalist Rael Jean Issac, Choudhury was “imprisoned and tortured for ten days as the authorities vainly tried to make him confess he was an Israeli spy. He spent the next 17 months in solitary confinement, his cell the size of a table, the diet miserably inadequate, denied medical treatment.” 

 

When Chicago Jews, led by Dr. Richard Benkin, repeatedly asked for help from Illinois Senator Barack Obama’s office they were brushed aside.  Susan Rosenbluth, editor of The Jewish Voice and Opinion, took up the cause and within months the U. S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed House Resolution 2006 calling on the Bangladeshi government to drop all charges against Choudhury.  It passed in March 2007. Choudhury is still imprisoned.  Obama’s campaign and the national media are silent.

  Barack Obama’s new rhetoric is decidedly favorable to Israel.  But it is held suspect by many.  You will never hear this on MSNBC or CNN but before he was a presidential candidate, Obama was on record calling for an “even handed approach” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  And this after the Palestinians had began their Second Intifada.  There is Obama’s famous comments in 2004 to Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada.  Obama was in the middle of his run for the U.S. Senate.  “Hey, I’m sorry I haven’t said more about Palestine right now, but we are in a tough primary race. I’m hoping when things calm down I can be more up front.” (For an excellent account of this read Eric Trager, Obama and the American Jews, 1/29/08.)

  What is known about the Senator’s own staff is even more troubling to Jews and heartening to Muslims.  If “people are policy” as the old Washington saying goes, then the American Jews are in for a tumultuous period ahead for Obama’s staff give clear evidence of a shift away from Israel. 

  Onboard the Obama foreign policy team is Jimmy Carter’s brilliant national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who once famously declared that “Israel is an apartheid state” and whose views greatly worry the Jewish community. 

  There is Robert Malley who according to the Jerusalem Post, is “an unabashed advocate for the Palestinians, co-authoring a spate of anti-Israel propaganda with former Arafat advisor, Hussein Agha.”   (Jerusalem Post, Feb. 21, 2008.) 

  There is Susan Rice, who as an advisor to John Kerry once suggested sending  Jimmy Carter and James Baker, to the Middle East to find a solution.

  There is General Merrill McPeak, Obama’s chief military adviser and national-campaign co-chairman.  McPeak has criticized Israel for not returning to its 1967 borders and handing the Golan Heights back to Syria.  He has accused Jewish and evangelical voters of placing their interest in Israel above the nation, telling the Oregonian that world peace was held back by “New York City. Miami. We have a large vote …. here in favor of Israel.  And no politician wants to run against it.”

  And while most of the Obama team is smart enough to keep their heads down, there are others who cannot resist leaking their views.  Obama advisor, Samantha Power, warns obliquely that the Senator’s M iddle East policy could result in “alienating a domestic constituency.” (Ibid. Trager.)

 

 Obama has disavowed some of the statements of his team but all are still onboard.  None have been fired.  Some see his announcement of Senator Joe Biden, a friend of Israel, as an attempt to counter this appearance.

  Jewish strategic analyst, Joel Watterman, worries that “Obama’s personal record offers us only paper thin legs in which to engage him.”  Still some of his statements, votes or curious absences from the Senate, offer nuanced clues.

 Obama has declared that “Nobody has suffered more than the Palestinian people.”

  He insists that we should reach out to Iran even though its leaders have recently referred to Israel as a “filthy bacteria” and have repeatedly called for the annihilation of the Jewish State, including recent hints that this will be accomplished by a nuclear attack. (Ibid, Jerusalem Post.)

 He has said that the “creation of a wall dividing the two nations is yet another example of the neglect of this Administration in brokering peace.” (Ibid.)

 He has praised Al Sharpton and the National Action Network as “a voice for the dispossessed.”  This organization led protests against the Jewish owner of Freddy’s Fashion Mart in New York in which picketers, sometimes joined by Sharpton himself, repeatedly screamed epithets about “bloodsucking Jews” and “Jew bastards.” (Ibid.)

 Mark Hemingway points out that Obama announced he would vote against an amendment in the Senate declaring Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — which has long supported Hezbollah terrorists and otherwise abetted the murder of Israelis — a terrorist group. The resolution passed anyway, 76–22, with the support of Hillary Clinton. Obama missed the vote while campaigning in New Hampshire, but he attacked Clinton on the issue, saying “the non-binding amendment might exacerbate tensions with Iran.”

 In the past, most American politicians who spoke boldly to international audiences about returning the West Bank to the Palestinians changed their minds when they actually visited Israel and saw how the land in question could be used by terrorists to launch attacks to the whole country.  Israel’s vulnerability is hard to miss when you experience it yourself, riding in a car caravan along those highways.  So many were surprised that Osama’s visit to Israel in July brought no such epiphany. 

 After the visit, the Middle-Eastern scholar and author, Professor Paul Eidelberg, who heads a Jerusalem think tank, offered the strongest statement to date.  “Never in my lifetime has there been a Presidential candidate so utterly clueless about the importance of the State of Israel and the need for the U.S. to stand with her.” (Ibid.)

 Ted Belman, Jewish pundit, wonders how a person can vote for Obama and be pro-Israel at the same time?  Pointing out that Obama is the first presidential candidate to receive the endorsement of Hamas.  And Belman offers the numbers to show that it is happening. While Hillary Clinton beat Obama with the Jewish vote, 62% – 38%, in one of her last polls, Obama is beating McCain 62%-32%.  To offer some context, in 1980, Reagan won 39% of the Jewish vote agains t Jimmy Carter.

 Still, as one involved in several presidential campaigns I can tell you that this represents a critical shift away from the Democrat Party. The addition of Joe Biden as the Vice Presidential running mate helps immensely, with  Jews, Catholics and Evangelicals.   But McCain, who keeps Jewish Senator, Joe Leiberman, as his shadow knows that the shift is happening.  One comment on the internet suggests that most American Jews are liberal Democrats first and only Jews second.  Another suggests that they would vote for anybody with a D next to the name.  So McCain’s 32%, against the headwind of a failing economy, is significant.

 Gentiles have a hard time understanding this.  Any casual reader of the Holocaust sees the danger of policy drift, and threatening public words, and bureaucracy empowered.  Israel should represent the canary in the coal mine.  If it is thr eatened then is not the whole world Jewish community threatened as well?  Are we as Gentiles, seeing something that they are missing?  Doesn’t survival trump any other policy?

 But Obama’s appeal to Jewish voters, as his appeal to Evangelical Christian voters, still works because regardless of his comments or his record, or his team, he passionately courts both voter blocs.  Jews, Evangelicals, indeed, all Americans like the idea of a Black president, putting a very big nail in the coffin of racism in America.  Ron Kampeas of JTA, points out that Obama has always sought out Jewish political support, from his first Senate campaign to his presidential run.  Thomas Friedman offers just as many pro Palestinian quotes from George W. Bush, arguing that whoever becomes president, the policies in the Middle East will have to involve all sides.

 So the issue of Barack Obama and the Jews wil l not likely be resolved before November.  The Illinois Senator, who is a superb politician, will be much too canny for any more revelations.  And if what is already known about Obama is not sufficiently significant, then it is not likely that anything more – outside the nomination of Joe Lieberman as McCain’s running mate – will make a difference.

 Says the Canadian gadfly and former Member of Parliament, Simma Holt, “We Jews, who look on from outside America, are a little nervous.  We like McCain but fear Obama may win.  We can only hope that Obama really means what he is now saying.  If America falls into the hands of an ascendant Islamic influence, with its growing oil money, what’s left?  Israel is alone.”

How will the Evangelicals vote in 2008?

 

A history of the born again vote and where it will go in 2008.

 

An upcoming issue of Newsmax Magazine will offer a comprehensive account of the crucial Evangelical Christian vote and where it is likely to go in the upcoming showdown between John McCain and Barack Obama. 

 

A chart, prepared by a team I put together will offer the most comprehensive and accurate account of the white born again vote in modern presidential elections.  It is a first of a kind and much needed to understand how this vote has evolved.

 

Interpreting the numbers from public polls and numbers recently released from the two political campaigns can be an exasperating business.  Almost unanimously, the polling companies, television news services and journalists are getting it wrong.

 

Some of this is due an evolving understanding of the evangelical movement.  For example, early CBS exit polls confused the terms “born again” with “fundamentalist” obtaining a skewed figure as a result. 

 

Likewise, in 1996, a CNN-Time magazine exit poll asked voters if they were members of “the religious right.”  An astounding 65% of this group voted for Robert Dole, even greater than Ronald Reagan’s 1980 born again vote.  But only the most ardent of conservative evangelicals would identify with the words “religious right” which the others would see as pejorative terms.  Of more use for our purposes were Robert Dole’s take of the white born again numbers in 1996 which come in at only 49%.

 

But the biggest cause of error in recent years and during the 2008 campaign has been the change from “born again” to “evangelical” voter. 

 

Since 2000, many media polling organizations have begun asking voters if they are “evangelical.”  This result is useful for analyzing the more active and politically savvy of the movement but it does not work well in comparing the outcome to previous election cycles when the question was, “are you a white born again Christian.”  The fact is that many evangelicals do not see themselves as evangelicals, even though outsiders would define them as such.  They consider themselves as Southern Baptists, or Nazarene, or Assemblies of God or Charismatic or some other denomination or grouping.  Some only know that they attend that church down the street.  To pollsters, they will identify themselves as born again Christians but not always as an evangelical.  Thus a Pew Research survey of 2000 and 2004 will show George W. Bush as carrying an impressive 68% and 78% of the “evangelical” vote, missing the dramatic changes in the movement that the Barna poll showed clearly when it found that white born again Christians voted for Bush at a more modest rate of 57% and 62% respectively.

 

For understanding the current 2008 campaign and the evolution of the evangelical movement, my chart uses the same criteria for each of the election cycles. Finally, historians and journalists trying to understand this election in the context of the past generation have data that compares oranges with oranges.  It is the first chart of its kind and it accurately tracks the white born again Christian vote since 1976.

 

Almost all the data is on the public record.  It is taken from network exit polls, private surveys, campaign documents on file in presidential libraries, and numerous research organizations.  Sources include, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Time magazine, The New York Times, The Times Mirror Organization, the Pew Research Organization and Barna.  But it is also buttressed by privately commissioned, non public Gallup polls, public Gallup polls and numerous internal campaign memorandum from presidential campaigns.  When there was conflicting numbers, I sided with at least three different sources.

 

During this process my team and I personally interviewed individual participants in the various network exit polls of the past years, the computer programmers who wrote the software and some of the journalists who helped develop the questions.  As evangelical viewers are well aware by the reporting during this election cycle, media ignorance of religion in general and evangelicals in particular is almost breathtaking, and this is certainly reflected in their sincere but inept attempt to understand the emerging numbers.  My team also interviewed the religious liaisons of six of the recent presidential campaigns.

 

Watch for the analysis of this revealing chart and see where the Evangelicals, and thus the election, is headed in 2008 in the upcoming issues of NEWSMAX magazine.

 

HERE ARE THOSE NUMBERS…

 

http://dougwead.wordpress.com/2008/09/11/the-history-of-the-evangelical-vote-in-presidential-elections/ 

Copeland’s Crime? He Trusts His Family

 

According to an article recently filed by the Associated Press, the latest attacks on the Kenneth Copeland Ministries have now shifted to charges of nepotism.  This comes as a bit of a shock to those of us in the Judeo Christian tradition, as it puts Reverend Copeland in the ranks of such religious scoundrels as Moses (who passed the baton to his father-in-law), Nehemiah (who appointed his brother to run Jerusalem in his absence), and Jesus (whose brother James emerged as the leader of the Church after Jesus’ ascension).

 

It would be comical, if the stakes weren’t so high. The fact is that the AP story is just another chapter in a familiar and ongoing tale of religious persecution.  It is prompted by Ole Anthony, the local religious “watchdog” who has doctrinal disagreements with Pentecostals and Charismatics and keeps casting around for a willing media vehicle and a new angle that will get him and his organization on the evening news.  Anthony has long ago abandoned the idea of confronting these ministries on doctrinal grounds.  That clearly doesn’t work in a country that treasures religious freedom.  So he leaps from accusation to accusation, taking up a new charge when the old one loses traction.  This is merely Anthony’s latest bid for media attention. 

 

The Early Attacks

 

Several years ago, Anthony tried to convince journalists that the crime of these Pentecostal-Charismatic evangelists was their belief in divine healing.  This resulted in a series of television attack pieces on evangelist Benny Hinn, with cameras following Hinn around and documenting accounts of people who were not healed.  Pentecostals understand that most seekers are not healed.  That’s why we call such events miracles.  The idea that a network television producer had figured it all out for believers, doing the work that two thousand years and tens of thousands of thinkers and monks and theologians who devoted their lives to the subject could not do, might have made for an interesting 20-minute segment on a news show.  But it was stunning in its intellectual arrogance. 

 

It also put Anthony and the media at odds with most of America.  People of many faiths –including Christian Scientists, Mormons, and New Agers – believe in divine healing, if not in Hinn.  Sixty-seven percent of the country prays daily.  Are they praying for God to help them in their marriages and careers, but not with cancer and diabetes?  The secular media, clueless about the role religion really plays in American life, went too far.  They were seen by many as attacking the very idea of prayer and of belief in God – a belief shared by 90% of their viewing audience.  Not surprisingly, after a few relentless years, Anthony’s efforts fizzled.

 

Attacks on Ministry Finances

 

The attack on the spending and lifestyles of the evangelists has met with greater success, although it too has had missteps.  When a false attack on Fred Price presented information out of context and led to a damaging lawsuit against a network, the “watchdogs” were forced to be more careful.  (You can see the whole embarrassing episode on You Tube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu82W0o4200)

 

Now, Charles Grassley, one of the most outstanding and fearless figures of the United States Senate, has been drawn into the attack on Pentecostal and Charismatic ministries.  Given his high office, Grassley’s attack has been well covered by the media.  At a press conference, he invited public ridicule of the ministries because one of the ministries paid too much for some furniture.  He made jokes.  He even paid lip service to religious freedom. 

 

A few days later, someone questioned why Grassley had omitted other evangelists of other faith traditions who had even larger compensation packages.  Grassley, who claimed to have been mulling this over for two years, said he was completely unaware that the six ministries he happened to target were of the same faith.  But after that fact was made clear, and highlighted by letters signed by religious leaders expressing concern that he “sets a terrible precedent,” Grassley did not change his list of targets.  The campaign, even now, is aimed exclusively at Pentecostal-Charismatic churches.

 

The Associated Press Attack

 

The recent AP article makes no specific charges of illegality against Kenneth Copeland, but the article hints that we should assume the worst, based on the supposedly shocking fact that Copeland has placed family members in important positions in his ministry. 

 

Of course Copeland has relatives who have joined his cause.  This is hardly unique to the Charismatic-Pentecostal tradition (although Joyce Meyer, Benny Hinn, and others on Senator Grassley’s list have certainly entrusted family members with important positions).  In fact, it is true of most religious organizations.  Jerry Falwell was succeeded by his son.   Similar successions are underway in the organizations of Paul Crouch, Pat Robertson, Robert Schuller, and Billy Graham.  Indeed, Graham already has a son and a grandson running his ministry, not to mention daughters and granddaughters.  Will the AP publish a breathless exposé on “nepotism” in Dr. Graham’s ministry?  Don’t hold your breath.

 

Indeed, we’ve seen children following in their parents’ footsteps in the media.  Mike and Chris Wallace come to mind, as well as Jack and Joe Buck.  And there have been more than a few seats in the United States Congress that have been regarded more or less as family property.  These situations don’t set off any alarm bells, as long as the people in question do their jobs and do them well.  Prominent editor Adam Bellow, author of In Praise of Nepotism, has written that “relatives often work harder for less money and are more loyal because they have a personal stake in the organization’s success.”  Kenneth Copeland obviously believes this, which is why he has given trusted family members positions in the ministry he has spent a lifetime building.

 

The nepotism angle is, no doubt, inspired by Anthony.  If the AP reporter had not been spoon-fed the story, he surely would have seen that Copeland’s supposed crime of nepotism is not unique to his ministry or to his faith.  Copeland, like all successful leaders, has simply relied upon people he knows and trusts.  Is that really a crime worthy of investigation?

 

The Bigger Picture

 

The larger issue is why journalists and politicians are loaning out their offices to people of one faith who are trying to attack another.  The AP story contains no mention of the letter signed by leading Catholic and Protestants warning Grassley of the dangers of the exclusive targeting of one doctrinal group.  Indeed, Matthew Staver, Dean of the Liberty University School of Law and a prominent Baptist leader, signed the letter, warning that Grassley’s probe “sets a terrible precedent that . . . should be a concern to all houses of worships across the board – Christian and non-Christian.”  

 

Staver is right.  All Pentecostal-Charismatic congregations want is to be left alone to believe, pray, and worship as they are guided.  Singling them out isn’t merely unfair; it also threatens the bedrock principle of separation of church and state.  And that’s a lot scarier than nepotism.

 

See Kenneth Copeland’s Jet:  http://dougwead.wordpress.com/2008/04/12/kenneth-copelands-jet/

Senator Grassley’s own non profit:  http://dougwead.wordpress.com/2008/02/09/people-in-grassley-houses-shouldnt-throw-stones/