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Christian groups protest Roberts, Congress

Colorado Springs, Colorado—Christian leaders today assailed President Bush’s Supreme Court nominee, John G. Roberts, for his lack of a “clear and compelling record” of service to the poor.

James Dobson, founder and chairman of Focus on the Family, said today in a press conference that Christians should “look with suspicion” on any judicial nominee who does not have a “demonstrated commitment” to the “poor and downtrodden.”

“Judge Roberts may come from the finest schools,” said Dobson, “but we find nothing in his record to suggest that he has a proper Christian understanding of humility and service, let alone love and charity.  And Judge Roberts may be well-connected, but Christians should set no store by those who lay up treasures for themselves on earth.  The Christian community deserves a justice who will fight against the profound obscenity of people living in crushing poverty amidst a land of plenty, and John Roberts is not that justice.”

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a White House official expressed exasperation with Dobson and other Christian leaders for their intransigence with regard to Roberts’ nomination.  “Ever since we took office, they’ve been Johnny One Note,” said the official.  “Poverty, poverty, poverty—it’s all these people seem to care about.  The truth is that these are religious extremists, and they have a very strict litmus test for the judiciary.  But we see no reason why the President of the United States should be beholden to them.”

In related news, Christian and Catholic leaders are reportedly planning an interfaith protest march in Washington, D.C. to demand Congressional authorization of stem-cell research.  Dubbed the “Heal the Sick” rally, it is tentatively scheduled for October 18, St. Luke’s Day.

Posted by on 08/01 at 12:53 PM

  1. Ah, Michael, you’re in your happy place right now, aren’t you? In a similar vein I was dreaming of a rally of Christians for Peace, protesting the war as contrary to the message of Christ. The one thing the Christian Right does not take literally is the instruction to be peacemakers.

    Posted by  on  08/01  at  02:31 PM

  2. This would be a fine Bizarro-world to live in. Alas--

    Posted by Jeremy Osner  on  08/01  at  02:31 PM

  3. To be fair, Roberts has done some pro-bono work of interesting nature.  Not sure how it compares with others at that career stage, or what it says about his judicial philosophy.

    Posted by Steinn Sigurdsson  on  08/01  at  02:37 PM

  4. I’m so embarrassed.  I got to the fourth paragraph before I knew what was up.  Now if the poor would just buckle down and eat their babies we wouldn’t need any poverty programs.

    Posted by  on  08/01  at  02:46 PM

  5. Glad to see that your irony unit is still functioning properly, Michael.  Like previous commentators, I am ashamed to admit that I was about 3/4 of the way through it, and was feeling all warm inside thinking “hey, this is a real refreshing point of view coming from these guys, maybe there’s hope yet...” before my internal irony-detector restarted.  I think it was the faux White House statement—that was too much.  My brief moment of hopefulness run down by the reality bus.  Guess I’ll have to go back to reading Sojourner, and praying for a real miracle.

    Posted by  on  08/01  at  03:10 PM

  6. I’m just waiting for the paper-mache camel-going-through-the-eye-of-a-needle float that will be a centerpiece of their demonstration parade.

    Posted by norbizness  on  08/01  at  03:12 PM

  7. Sarcastically ironic or ironically sarcastic? I get confused even on my best days.

    Either way, good clean fun; thanks for the laugh.

    Posted by  on  08/01  at  03:18 PM

  8. "Christian and Catholic leaders”?  Aha, Michael has revealed himself as an antipapist! 

    But yes, it would be nice if self-labeled Christians would follow the ministry of Jesus Christ.  Otherwise they should start calling themselves Paulians or Levitikites.

    Posted by Scott Spiegelberg  on  08/01  at  03:25 PM

  9. You joke, Michael, but there are some efforts underway to organize the Christian left.  Sure Dobson’s not part of it, and they’re not as focused on the judiciary, but there’s a nascent movement.

    See, e.g., <a href="http://www.crossleft.org>Cross Left</a>.

    Posted by  on  08/01  at  03:41 PM

  10. Sorry about the html screw up.  That should be Cross Left.

    Posted by  on  08/01  at  03:43 PM

  11. My brief moment of hopefulness run down by the reality bus.

    That would be the Night Bus, actually.  The Reality-Based Bus is in the shop.

    Posted by Michael  on  08/01  at  04:11 PM

  12. “Christian and Catholic leaders”?  Aha, Michael has revealed himself as an antipapist!

    I just print ‘em as they come in over the wire from Counter-counterreformation Central.

    Posted by Michael  on  08/01  at  04:13 PM

  13. Yeah, you did it again...like others, I was about 3/4 into it before I got the point.  This is not the first time, Michael....!

    But seriously, I don’t think Dobson or any of others of his ilk ever got past the Old Testament.  Not sure when, if ever, he was exposed to the teachings of Jesus.

    Posted by  on  08/01  at  04:31 PM

  14. Got to admit, it wasn’t until I nearly finished the post that I realized you were funnin’ us again. I thought Dobson was mearly going after Roberts for being RC. A lot of Catholics on the right apparently have forgotten that antipapism is alive and well on the Evangelical Right. Who said, “He who sups with the Devil should use a long spoon”? Or something like that.

    Posted by  on  08/01  at  04:52 PM

  15. Good one, fellow Michael.

    A lot of us on the Christian Left pray on a daily basis for an outbreak of, you know, Christianity among our brethren on the “Christian” right.

    Posted by Michael J. "Orange Mike" Lowrey  on  08/01  at  04:56 PM

  16. A lot of us on the non-Christian Left pray on a daily basis for the same damn thing.

    -A disgruntled deist.

    Posted by  on  08/01  at  06:17 PM

  17. Come on, people—you can’t recognize the satire by paragraph 2? Just putting Dobson together with the word “downtrodden” (when it doesn’t refer to, say, embryos) is such a tip-off!

    I wish we could have these fake press releases and news items every week. The Borowitz Report has palled and now I want my comedy straight from Michael Bérubé.

    Posted by Orange  on  08/01  at  07:12 PM

  18. "A lot of us on the Christian Left pray on a daily basis for an outbreak of, you know, Christianity among our brethren on the “Christian” right.” Ha! Good one!

    But chin up, everyone! The news is not all bad. Today, John Bolton officially accepts his honorable post at the U.N.  Now we can have a proper, REAL American in there to shake things up. He’ll clean-up that rat-infested den of corruption and start crackin’ some Commie heads! Hooray!

    Posted by  on  08/01  at  07:20 PM

  19. Interestingly enough, there is one difference I have seen between the religious extremists’ definition of “charity” and the definition of charity that I learned from the Jesuits. The first one is feeding a hungry man with a fish and then feeling good and self-righteous afterwards about it. The second one is giving the hungry man the tools and knowledge to fish.

    But the reason why the first one is more popular is because you remain in a place of power as the benefactor, whereas the other remains in his place as the dependant. Furthermore, you can draw publicity from it and thus blind the world with your shining beacon of purity and goodness, favorably augmented by the shining beacon of camera lights and your holyness enhanced by background music.
    Read that last phrase with an appropriately sarcastic tone.

    Posted by  on  08/01  at  07:48 PM

  20. I laughed so hard I cried.

    Posted by bitchphd  on  08/01  at  08:00 PM

  21. I’m not so sure what it says about my level of cynicism that I was already looking for the punch by the second line…

    As for Bolton, well, there’s a winner! He’ll soon sort the rest of the UN out on his own! Or not, the incompetent buffoon. Baboon? Whatever.

    Posted by  on  08/01  at  11:53 PM

  22. Is it April Fool’s Day already?

    Posted by  on  08/02  at  10:12 AM

  23. "But seriously, I don’t think Dobson or any of others of his ilk ever got past the Old Testament.  Not sure when, if ever, he was exposed to the teachings of Jesus. “

    They seem to have a pretty good handle on Revelations.  Maybe they got bored, and skipped to the back to see how it ends.

    Posted by  on  08/02  at  10:13 AM

  24. Quote:
    But seriously, I don’t think Dobson or any of others of his ilk ever got past the Old Testament. Not sure when, if ever, he was exposed to the teachings of Jesus.

    The Old Testament is full of admonitions to care for the poor and downtrodden - have you checked out the prophets? Jesus was squarely within the Jewish prophetic tradition.

    Posted by  on  08/02  at  11:20 AM

  25. Warning: a too-serious reaction ahead.

    Neither laughing nor crying (but definitely smiling), I am of two minds about the post and the reactions.  On the one hand, I like and agree with the straightforward idea that most Christians simply misinterpret both Christ and the Bible.  Bill McKibben is only the latest to say as much, non-parodically, in the August issue of Harper’s.

    On the other hand, however, it seems harder to say that the majority of Christians are misinterpreting or misusing Christianity.  I have the same reaction when I hear that every bad use of a religion is merely a perversion of that religion – or of religion per se.  It sounds a bit too much like a similar argument about guns, people, and killing.

    Would it make any more sense to say, for example, that the Republican Party is really still committed to the principles of Lincoln and the Reconstruction Amendments – it’s just that the majority of Republicans have perverted that still-central aim?  Isn’t is better to say that the GOP is now just something different –- and worse –- than it once was?

    Perhaps we could say, instead, that Christianity is now that set of beliefs, believers, and institutions fervently committed to getting Christ wrong.

    Posted by  on  08/02  at  11:23 AM

  26. Why isn’t every self-respecting lefty’s boxers and/or panties in a knot about a Supreme Court with:

    8 men and 1 woman

    4 catholics and 5 non-catholics

    http://debfrisch.com/archives/000282.html

    Posted by deb  on  08/02  at  07:26 PM

  27. A belated Amen!

    Posted by  on  08/05  at  03:00 AM

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