In Which Politics Trumps Everything

Mark Tooley writes in the Weekly Standard:

LATE LAST YEAR, dozens of faculty members at Southern Methodist University publicly opposed plans by President Bush to locate his presidential library on SMU's campus in Dallas.

Now, ten bishops of the United Methodist Church, which owns the school, and of which President Bush is a member, are urging SMU to reject the library and are circulating a petition for others to sign.

A chief organizer in stopping the Bush library is a former professor at SMU's Perkins School of Theology, who told the Dallas Morning News that he doesn't want his school to "hitch its future star" to the war and other aspects of President Bush's legacy.

"What moral justification supports SMU's providing a haven for a legacy of environmental predation and denial of global warming, shameful exploitation of gay rights and the most critical erosion of habeas corpus in memory?" asked the Rev. William McElvaney, in an op-ed for an SMU campus publication last Fall.

It gets worse. Just read on.

And it calls to mind Harold Ford Jr.’s tirade earlier in the week, as covered by Mike Allen at The Politico. Ford is the new chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council. He ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate last year in his native Tennessee. At an on-the-record gathering this week, Ford teed off on, I think, religious conservatives:

But business gets done: Everything is on the record. And Ford did not disappoint the sleepy-headed journalists, offering a passionate response when asked about the role of faith in politics. During the question-and-answer period, Ford said candidates should not hesitate to discuss the role religion plays in shaping their positions. But he added that faith "is often used by some to beat up on or whip up on others, and the Bible that I read doesn't suggest that you do that."

"God works in mysterious ways," Ford said. "Some of the nomenclature and jargon that's used by those who invoke faith regularly - compared with some of their actions and behavior and conduct - I think has raised concerns on the part of many that maybe those who preach it the most aren't practicing the most. I pray for all of them, and would hope that they'd be able to find some healing and wholeness in their lives, but that they would also see that maybe they should reflect a little before they go lashing out and attacking others. I think voters get it, too. The hypocrisy on the part of some was so interesting in this last election."

I say I think Ford is teeing off against religious conservatives here because he doesn’t actually say so. Instead he points an accusatory finger at “some” and “those who invoke faith regularly.” Of course, Ford could just as easily be talking about those who agitate for income redistribution but hoard their own personal wealth, I suppose.

But read Ford’s remarks again. What an unserious argument! He provides not a single example of “hypocrisy.” He just launches into a blanket attack on (again, I can only guess) religious conservatives.

Look, I have an abiding love and respect for our Christian brothers and sisters on the political left. But these two examples are fairly clear examples of the left allowing its politics to trump a serious dialogue about faith in public life.

Comments

[motherbelt]

That's a typical tactic of the Left...the "some say" or "critics say"...it's a good way to get one's argument into circulation without having to take responsibility for it.