Questioning Questions

Over on Christianity Today’s Politics Blog, Sarah Pulliam asks “Can Obama Call Himself a Christian?”

The asking, and particularly the answering, of that question is — to borrow a phrase — way above Pulliam’s pay grade.

Here, I think, is the relevant passage from Matthew’s Gospel:

The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.

The owner’s servants got together and decided that they’d surprise their master by ripping out all the weeds and burning them at the stake. As they smelled the burning flesh and listened to the anguished screams of the dying weeds, they said to one another, “I can’t wait until the master gets back — won’t he be delighted to see what we’ve done?”

Then the master called the servants in. “You wicked servants,” he said, “I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” In anger their master turned them over to the jailers to be tortured, until they should pay back all they owed.

(I seem to have gotten a few pages stuck together there.)

Compared to Newsweek, CT actually seems restrained in confining itself to “offer[ing] readers a place to comment” on whether or not Obama’s affirmation that he is a Christian meets their standards of legitimacy. Newsweek’s Lisa Miller addresses an even sillier question: “Is Obama the Antichrist?”

Miller seems to be leaning toward “probably not,” but she still thinks it’s an important question because: A) a lot of white Protestants think Obama might be the Antichrist and B) if a lot of people believe in something, then it can’t be dismissed as nuts. In support of this logic, Miller cites no less an authority than the dean of a law school founded by Jerry Falwell:

Mat Staver, dean of Liberty University’s law school, says he does not believe Obama is the Antichrist, but he can see how others might. Obama’s own use of religious rhetoric belies his liberal positions on abortion and traditional marriage, Staver says, positions that “religious conservatives believe will threaten their freedom.” The people who believe Obama is the Antichrist are perhaps jumping to conclusions, but they’re not nuts: “They are expressing a concern and a fear that is widely shared,” Staver says.

Atrios responded appropriately:

Does Lisa Miller Have Sex With Goats? It’s a widely held belief. The people who hold it may be jumping to conclusions, but they’re not nuts.

Maybe that’s not the nicest way to make that point (Steve Benen is just as exasperated by Miller’s article, but he expresses this without dragging up those rumors of Miller’s affection for goats) but I’m not inclined to work hard at being nice when Miller also repeats the error of referring to prophecy mania as a form of “conservative” Christianity — as though the right-wing politics of a fringe sect somehow makes their 19th-century inventions the new standard for orthodox theology.

Newsweek and Miller are employing a sleazy trick learned from the supermarket tabloids: Using the question headline to feed — and feed off of — a baseless and bogus rumor. “Is Brad cheating on Angie?” the cover asks. Turn to page 43 and you’ll find a tiny item below a supposedly incriminating photo that explains that, actually, no, this is just a picture from Brad Pitt’s next movie that we cropped out of context and retouched to make you think there might be something to this story even though there isn’t and the Brangelina remains, by all accounts, quite happy.

Miller’s piece is book-ended by conversations with Todd Strandberg, proprietor of RaptureReady.com (not to be confused with GetRaptureReady.com — Daniel Radosh’s site for his book, Rapture Ready, which offers a far clearer perspective on people like Strandberg than anything Miller’s piece approaches). Here’s how the Newsweek piece ends:

Strandberg says Obama probably isn’t the Antichrist, but he’s watching the president-elect carefully. On his Web site, he has something called the Rapture Index, a calculation based on signs and prophecy of the proximity of the end. According to Strandberg, any number over 160 means “fasten your seat belts.” Obama’s win pushed the index to 161.

This is the guy Miller wants to start and end with to prove these people aren’t nuts? The man is nuttier than a vegan diet. But rather than engage that vast and many-layered nuttiness here, let me just quibble around the edges. If you really believe what Strandberg believes, shouldn’t the high-end of the Rapture Index be “un-fasten your seat belts”? Otherwise one gets this strange mental image of Bette Davis as the archangel …

Questioning questions