God and Government, LLP

August 25, 2009 By

trust_in_god_not_the_government_tshirt-p235906669931053117q6zu_400So last week, President Obama pitched his health care reform plan to religious leaders. Elizabeth looked at some of the coverage last Thursday of the “false witness” remarks. One angle that received surprisingly little mainstream coverage was Obama’s statement that “We are God’s partners in matters of life and death.”

When I first heard about it last week (on Twitter, of course), I was hoping for some stories that explored what he meant. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been much coverage. Some readers have pointed out the disparity in reaction to and coverage of Obama’s religious statements and former President George W. Bush’s. That’s certainly noteworthy and I’m sure we’ll have ample opportunity to look at those differences in the future.

Other readers wondered whether President Obama’s plea to Jewish leaders that they “address the health care controversy in their upcoming High Holiday sermons” was legal. It’s a question we get frequently here — folks wondering why the mainstream media isn’t covering a blatant violation of law. That’s because it isn’t. Generally speaking, religious groups may not advocate for candidates but can advocate on issues. That was the case under Bush and it’s also the case under Obama. To be sure, some folks on the call did find the request troubling, but it’s not illegal.

But I’m surprised the “God’s partners” line didn’t merit more coverage. One exception is Ben Smith at Politico. He was the first reporter, I believe, to break the news of what Obama said. And he followed up on the story yesterday with a look at what rabbis think about the line. Great idea! Here’s a sample:

Rabbi Irwin Kula, also on the call, noted that Obama had earlier quoted from a prayer with the line “who shall live and who shall die.”

“When you say ‘who shall live and who shall die, who by thirst and who by fire,’ it can also be who by getting medical care and who by not getting medical care,” he said. “If we actually find a way to ensure that there’s universal access to medical care, then we will be God’s partners in matters of life and death. It was a kind of inspirational moment speaking to religious people using religious language,” Kula said, adding that he found the line “innocuous.”

Josh Yuter, a rabbi who was more critical of elements of the call, described the words as “pablum.”

“My guess is he didn’t really mean it in the way it came out. You’re talking to rabbis and trying to explain yourself in ways they’ll understand,” he said. “I really just think he was being patronizing.”

I still think there’s much more that could be looked at — Smith links to some of the commentary here and here — but it’s a great start.

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Filed Under: Godbeat, Journalism, Judaism, Politics, Religion, Social Issues
  • http://travismamone.blogspot.com Travis Mamone

    Where can I get that shirt?

  • Dave

    Some readers have pointed out the disparity in reaction to and coverage of Obama’s religious statements and former President George W. Bush’s.

    That may be because no one expects the United Church of Christ to collude in establishment of a theocracy. (On a second reading that sounds like a Monty Python line…)

  • Jerry

    That may be because no one expects the United Church of Christ to collude in establishment of a theocracy.

    That comment underlies something I think is not mentioned at all in the media. This is a time when fear and anger are riding tall in the saddle, as we used to say. During President Bush’s term, the left was talking about what to do when martial law was declared, the elections canceled and Americans were hauled off en mass to concentration camps and tortured. Now it’s the right’s turn to freak out about President Obama’s plans.

    I saw a story yesterday about how this is playing out with health care but which I think has the same root cause as Dave’s theocracy comment and Mollie’s reflect on President Bush’s comments on religion: http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_13189526

    With the civic dialogue aflame with such phrases as “death panels” and “the blood of tyrants,” …Many say the tempest over health care has its origin in the new administration’s breathtaking pace of change and in the long-term social and demographic trends that helped put the nation’s first African-American president in the White House.

    However, there is also a powerful social catalyst: The recession has savaged whites and middle-aged men to a degree unseen in most people’s lifetimes. That has helped make many in those groups desperately, angrily anxious about change.

    …one common note she had heard in people’s voices was fear.

    So I now expect people to over-react to almost everything.

  • Dale

    That may be because no one expects the United Church of Christ to collude in establishment of a theocracy.

    That assumes that any expectation of collusion to establish a theocracy is reasonable or credible–it wasn’t and isn’t. So why did the press pander to those unreasonable fears then, and not now?

  • dalea

    That assumes that any expectation of collusion to establish a theocracy is reasonable or credible—it wasn’t and isn’t. So why did the press pander to those unreasonable fears then, and not now?

    The Gay press has been successful in framing Prop8 as a theocratic measure which the MSM have somewhat picked up. Religious groups actively impossing their notions of marriage by law seems indicative of theocracy to many reasonable people. Don’t see any other way to report it.

  • Jerry

    Religious groups actively impossing their notions of marriage by law seems indicative of theocracy to many reasonable people.

    Gay groups actively imposing their notions of marriage by law seems indicative of secular humanism to many reasonable people.

    The fight is about values and labeling is part of that process. We all support or oppose something based on our values. theocracy is not the correct word to refer to the religiously-based opposition to gay marriage or abortion based on a normal definition of the word since there is no one arguing that the will of the people should not apply in some form or other: http://www.answers.com/theocracy

    the more important distinction is between regimes that have religiously revealed laws or policies unchallengeable even by a popular majority or by an inherited monarch, and regimes that do not.

  • Dave

    That assumes that any expectation of collusion to establish a theocracy is reasonable or credible

    Dale, the religious right has been at work for decades to put its values into law, sometimes by populism and sometimes by stealth. When a President of the Unites States talks to them in their idiolect, there’s reason for concern.

  • http://www.getreligion.org Mollie

    It’s funny what the MSM finds reasonable or credible but suffice it to say that some of us see some scary mingling of church and state happening on both sides. The “Jesus wants you to pass single payer health care people” share an approach with the “Jesus wants prayer in schools” people.

    There’s definitely a disparity in coverage. For some reason we’re supposed to find the second side scarier than the other. I suspect that betrays more about newsroom bias than anything else.

  • Dave

    Mollie, the second is scarier than the first because its implementation infringes on the First Amendment and the implemetation of the first doesn’t.

  • http://www.getreligion.org Mollie

    I find them both scary for different reasons. I could have come up with a better example. Maybe, “Jesus wants card check” and “Jesus wants stricter FCC guidelines.” Or something like that.

  • Dave

    Mollie, some of us think strict FCC guidelines also have First Amendment implications, from different language in that document. Card-check has a big enough secular backing based on non-religious grounds that the endorsement of Jesus doesn’t raise the same hackles.

  • Dale

    Dale, the religious right has been at work for decades to put its values into law, sometimes by populism and sometimes by stealth. When a President of the Unites States talks to them in their idiolect, there’s reason for concern.

    Dave, the UCC and other mainline denominations have been at work for decades to put their values into law, and have largely succeeded. If you look at the proportionate spending among denominational organizations, you will find that the mainline denominations have funded lobbyists and political activity far more aggressively and for a much longer period of time than evangelicals and other culturally conservative Christians. The press takes little notice of that.

    However, when more theologically conservative Protestant groups begin to organize and participate in the political process in order to have their values expressed instead, it’s a threat of “theocracy”. That’s disparate treatment, based on a subjective preference of one type of religion over another.

  • Dave

    Dale, most churches offer secular “cover” for the religious values they want to encode in law. Two of the three examples that Mollie provided in our exchange in this thread, demonstrate why that’s less convincing for the religious right than for what Terry calls the religious left.

    There are conservative watchdog organizations that look out for the religious liberties of conservative Christians. Most of the time, afaik, they’re complaining about some mindless secular bureacracy rather than the UCC.

    It’s perfectly reasonable for press coverage to reflect all this, in that it’s part of the culture.

  • http://www.getreligion.org Mollie

    Dave,

    I might recommend D.G. Hart’s Lost Soul of American Protestantism. While it’s not the thesis of the book, it shows the similar foundations and methods of the activism of the politically conservative and liberal Protestants.

  • Dave

    Mollie, I’m not contesting the basic thesis. Both traditions have identical roots in the same religious “backbone” of our culture.

    However:

    In the 1980s the religious right was discovered to be fielding stealth candidates for local office who would not reveal their religious orientation. The idea was for them to rise in the electoral food chain until they could become stealth religious-right candidates for Congress, where they could start to make a difference.

    When discovered and confronted, some religious-right voices tried to defend this ploy by claiming that its critics were trying to set up a relgious test for holding office, ie, that the stealth candidates’ orientation was none of the public’s business.

    This episode raised hackles that are rightfully still elevated, and become more so when a President talks to the same people in their own hymnal language — rightfully because religious folk don’t go away. They remain motivated despite reversals, as both the civil rights and anti-abortion movements attest.

    Now, no conspiracy of Unitarians and Congregationalists ever got together to field religous-left candidates. The two ends of the spectrum are not equivalent in this regard.

    And the MSM understands this, at some level, and acts on it.

  • http://www.getreligion.org Mollie

    Dave,

    Considering what an advantage it is for politicians to be Christian, I’m having a hard time understanding how this conspiracy theory works.

    Also, you don’t happen to have an unbiased link to support this conspiracy theory do you?

    I love a good conspiracy theory but I have to say this one doesn’t quite make sense to me. Also, I sure hope the MSM isn’t buying this.

    More importantly, there need be no conspiracy for there to be problems between collusion of church and state. Also, speaking like a preacher is sort of the mark of America’s favorite commanders in chief. It doesn’t mean there’s a conspiracy, necessarily. I don’t like the watered-down-Scripture talk, but, then again, I’m totally opposed to civil religion.

  • http://www.getreligion.org Mollie

    By the way, I just noticed from one of the last links above that the hold music on the conference call was “Deutschland Über Alles.” Aye yi yi.

  • Dave

    Mollie, I don’t have a link to newspaper stories printed in the 1980s. We didn’t have the Internet then.

    What I do have is some memory of recent history such as this, which should be illuminating as it applies to the roots of questions such as why the MSM is differential in its coverage. This is a small way in which the MSM does get religion and shouldn’t be scorned on this board.

  • Deacon John M. Bresnahan

    There is something very scary about Big Leviathan Government and Obama claiming to be “God’s partner in matters of life and death.” One need only read the fanatic anti-life background of some of these scores (a massive record number) of Obama czars–unconfirmed and unvetted by the U.S. Senate. The media does everything possible to downplay the issue of this administration’s seeming infatuation with using death as a financial palliative.
    I heard this morning on one news show–and have seen little since– about a VA pamphlet( apparently written and promoted by this administration) that virtually encourages older or disabled vets to get it over with. It lists conditions for you to consider that maybe it isn’t worth living with–like having to use a wheelchair. It was uncovered by a college president who stumbled across it.
    The scarier this administration gets–the more the media (except talk radio and Fox) makes excuses, tries to cover up, sugar coats it, or ignores some awful truths.

  • Dave

    Deacon:

    I’m very interested in that VA brochure. I have had friends who were vets, or who served them in the VA, and my mother-in-law is in a powered wheelchair and very lively, thank you.

    Can you provide a link to that brochure?

    Thanks.

  • Jerry

    Deacon Bresnahan, you’ve made an extraordinary claim which is entirely opposite from everything I’ve read personally or seen reported in reputable media. I did not find anything to support your claim when I was searching. http://www1.va.gov/geriatricsshg/docs/VATransformsEndol.pdf is one document that speaks to how hospice and palliative care can help the dying end their days pain free and in dignity.

    Citing talk radio entertainers as as source of information is about as far from proof as one can get. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. So when you provide proof that there is in fact such a brochure advocating suicide as you claimed, I’ll admit that my belief is false.

  • danr

    Actually, there are those on both sides uncomfortable with Obama’s religious rhetoric. Some on the left squirm out of a rigid interpretation of church/state separation (including civil religious rhetoric), and they voiced such concerns to Obama during his campaign. Some on the right, meanwhile, obviously have legitimate qualms about a perceived double-standard.

    The media reports little on either of those sides, because it appears that the predominant media establishment clause is “separation of conservative church and state”. In their eyes, no harm, no foul.

  • Deacon John M. Bresnahan

    More info on the VA pamphlet I have since heard in a few other places: : The VA pamphlet was actually prepared by some bureaucrat while Bush was president. When he (or someone in his White House) heard of it, it was immediately ordered removed. Then when the Obama Administration came in, it was reissued. The man who brought this re-issue to light is the president of a Catholic college–St. Vincent’s and was interviewed on Laura Ingram on her show and Chris Wallace on Fox. The woman–by the name of Duckworth–apparently refused to answer questions on the topic or even appear on the same TV screen as the college president.
    Laura Ingram read long verbatim quotes from the pamphlet-as did Sean Hannity the same evening. And they were chilling.
    Over the past few years (in retirement) I have finally had plenty of time to listen to talk shows, mainstream news media and cable news. And it is the mainstream media (and its cable equivalents) that more often omits relevant information (as in the extremist radical backgrounds of the mushrooming number of Obama “czars unconfirmed by the Senate), ignores stories that might embarrass favored politicians (as in every independent researchers conclusion that Obama got a “free ride” during the election from the MSM)–so I don’t give an elitist sneer when I hear news on talk radio or Fox, but listen to hear if they provide enough info to prove their case.

  • Deacon John M. Bresnahan

    Note–it was apparently Duckworth who was responsible for the re-issue–or allowing the re-issue– of the pamphlet. Her refual to discuss the situation doesn’t strike me as being much of the promised transparency.

  • http://www.getreligion.org Mollie

    Deacon — do you have links to any of this? I’m pretty sure the pamphlet is actually from 1997 — here’s one link about it

    http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/08/25/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5265155.shtml

  • Stoo

    I’f be interested to see this “encourages older vets to get it over with” bit. I mean is this about discussing options for elderly veterans with terrible debilitating conditions, or “top yourself when you hit 70?”.

  • Deacon John M. Bresnahan

    Mollie–Google “Your Life Your Choices” and the pamphlet is there, along with a good number of articles pointing out the Obama reinstatement of the pamphlet, the way it is being used, and its possible effect on already traumatized people and their families.

  • Dave

    Deacon, thanks for the Google guidance. I did that and skimmed the pamphlet. It doesn’t seem to be authored by the VA, though it might be used by them. I found it to be a balanced, sensitive review of end-of-life choices, though I did not read all 52 pages line by line.

    Jim Towey, according to some of the accompanying press coverage, has a competing end-of-life-issues book he wants to see used, so his “principled” protest may be profit-motivated.

    I’m sure selected quotes could be taken out of context, read to an audience groomed to be skeptical, and sound chilling. I wouldn’t put that past any of the conservative media types to whom you refer.

    Thanks for the pointer.

  • Deacon John M. Bresnahan

    Dave–I found the booklet chilling-especially since it used over-simplified checklists that very much seemed geared to drawing out a “Yeh, in my case life isn’t worth living!” answers.
    And Mollie–that CBS story you linked proves one point I find dismaying about the MSM–their leaving out pertinent information. In going through the Google listed articles I discovered–and many observors considered VERY relevant– that the booklet was co-authored by a doctor who is a promoter and evangelist for physician assisted suicide, has provided testimony to the Supreme Court advocating the same, and is pushing for government rationing of health care.
    I found it interesting to read comments from veterans on the Chris Wallace site (where you could also go to the pamphlet). A very few thought it could be helpful. But most felt that nothing could be more discouraging to a vet facing a difficult recovery than to be asked, for example (as Hannity brought up) whether–Really now, is life worth living from a wheel chair??

  • Dave

    Deacon:

    Health care is already rationed by the market and by factors of location and good or bad fortune. “Advocates” of government rationing are simply looking at the facts and making different choices about how it should be rationed. I think they shoot themselves in the foot when they use the term “rationing” however.

    Advocacy of assisted suicide is not a bar to writing a booklet on end-of-life issues. The author should be judged by the book, not the book by the author.

    Really now, is life worth living from a wheel chair??

    Is that a quote from the booklet? Or from Hannity?

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  • Deacon John M. Bresnahan

    Dave– Go to page 22 in the pamphlet and you can see where my paraphrase to strongly make the point about what is clearly afoot (that is why I did not use quotation marks)–and Hannity’s–came from. Much of the pamphlet is loaded questions deemingly designed to elicit a “Death Wish” answer. Read page 21. The questions there clearly are designed to play on any guilt feelings the sick or disabled person might feel concerning how his situation could negatively harm his family. If Doctor Assisted suicide didn’t write this section I would be much surprised.

  • Dave

    Deacon:

    I don’t see loaded questions in the part of the booklet to which you pointed me. I see candid questions about quality of life in a variety of circumstances that are plausible toward the end of life, and a reasonable spectrum of choices. One could just as (il)logically conclude that the question about prayer and acupuncture is coercive. It takes guts to raise these questions and grit to answer them; the exercise is pointless without them

    I note points at which religious beliefs are solicited. Did the conservative commentators note that?

    I would criticize Page 22 as a retired editor, in that usually a conclusion that could shorten life implies a “No” answer and but once (blood products) it implies a “Yes” answer. I would have made that more consistent to make it less confusing.

    I conclude more strongly than ever that the conservative media are distorting this booklet.

  • Jerry

    Deacon Bresnahan, I looked at that pamphlet and totally disagree with your interpretation of it. Hannity’s totally off base from my perspective. It’s simply a pamphlet designed to allow people to make choices ahead of time such as who will represent their wishes if they’re unable to make decisions (page 22). I have an advanced directive with my wife fulfilling that role and she has me.

    Look at page 24 where there are questions about heroic means to preserve life. There’s a question about consulting one’s priest etc when a decision has to be made. There’s nothing “death wish” about it at all.

    I find the mis-representation of such materials in the media to be one of the serious problems afflicting our society right now. Such actions attack the very foundation of honest reporting.

  • http://www.getreligion.org Mollie

    I don’t watch Hannity — can’t bear to — but haven’t seen any misrepresentation of the pamphlet in the mainstream media. I’d love to take the issue up for GetReligion, though, so if anyone has any suggestions of particularly good or bad mainstream stories, please let me know.

    I might take it up for the weekend. Meant to do it last weekend . . .

  • Dave

    Mollie, the booklet brings up religion in at least two places: asking if the reader wants to consult a priest, rabbi, etc when end-of-life issues become immanent; and prompting a response on whether the reader wants transfusions or other blood products. MSM coverage that omits these points and makes the booklet sound like a purely secular product — as Hannity seems to have done — doesn’t get religion.

  • Deacon John M. Bresnahan

    I just read large segments of the pamphlet again and it still strikes me as set up to get people to favor pushing the “Exit” button. And I don’t think it was an accident that the MSM stories–as in the CBS story– about the pamphlet went out of their way to, in effect, question the integrity of an objector to the pamphlet, but somehow never mention the pamplet was co-authored by Dr. Assisted Suicide. This is typical of media misrepresentation–leave out pertinent information that might help people evaluate the situation. It is interesting how the word “choice” (because of market research years ago) has been used to promote legalization of abortion just happened to now wind up in the title of a pamphlet (which could have had an infinite variety of titles) by a promoter of legalizing physicians being able to take life at the other end of life. (Just one of those little coincidences of life????? Or can I sell someone a bridge in Brooklyn.)

  • Dave

    Deacon, I guess we must agree to disagree in our takes on the booklet. Maybe just the difference between a Deacon and a Pagan. ;-)

    Q: Can I specify that I want assisted
    suicide in my directive?
    A: No. Assisted suicide is currently illegal. However, even if it becomes legal, the person making the request would have to be competent and able to change their mind at the time of the suicide. Advance directives only go into effect when you are no longer competent to make decisions.

    This is what the booklet says about assisted suicide on page 51. Not exactly a ringing endorsement. Doesn’t even mention that it is legal in one state.