Fear-Mongering Faith in Public Life

When conservatives talk about a “religion penalty in America,” developments like this are what they mean.  It’s a new blog covering what proprietor Jacque Berlinerblau derisively calls the “faith industry” — a “complex,” he says, that is dedicated to “making sense of the role that religion will play in the run for the White House.” 

According to Berlinerblau — whose blog operates under the roof of the Washington Post’s On Faith Web forum — this “vast and decentralized” industry is supposedly so pervasive that  it has “its wares displayed on every boulevard, sidewalk and back alley of the mass media.”  Wow.  Learn something new every day.

So who’s in this shadowy underworld of faith and politics?  Well: “entire non-profit organizations, university departments, think tanks, polling operations, and web divisions at prestigious East coast newspapers” with “a variety of ‘applied’ or ‘hands-on’ subsidiaries” such as lobbyists, demographers, and political consultants.  The consultants, Berlinerblau claims, are partaking in a particularly “lucrative” business opportunity that — shockingly — is “completely deregulated” with “no standards for entrance.”

Gee, I must be in the wrong business.  Oh wait…

What we have here is a case of fear-mongering about religion in the public square.  Near as I can tell, there’s nothing particularly threatening about the “industry” that Berlinerblau seeks to expose.  And yet he paints it as the chattering classes’ answer to the Corleone crime family.  We, the pundits, are the seamy underbelly of American religion — an underbelly that Berlinerblau, the intrepid crusader, has the guts to take on.  Perhaps Tim Burton can make a movie about him.  I can already hear Danny Elfman’s score in the background.

In scrutinizing religious-political pros but leaving every other political pro alone, Berlinerblau is embracing an all-too-familiar double standard.  There’s nothing untoward about health experts, for instance — or educators, or climatologists, or foreign policy wonks — analyzing politics and advising candidates.  But when the source of the analysis is faith, a bellyacher like Berlinerblau is there to give sideways glances and snide asides.

Why is our work deregulated, he wonders?  Because it’s speech.  I can’t quite remember, but I think there’s something in the Bill of Rights about it. 

So take a look at Berlinerblau’s blog if you like; maybe I’m being too sensitive.  But I do think it’s an example of why so many conservatives fret that they’ll get criticized whenever they bring their faith into the public debate.  Too bad this blog didn’t come out until liberals started getting in the game.