Salon.com > Amy Sullivan

Miers: Not the first evangelical justice

Fri, 07 Oct 2005 00:30:00 +0000

When George W. Bush announced that Harriet Miers was his next nominee for the Supreme Court, her selection was met with near-universal grumbling by conservatives, who complained that she either wasn't qualified or wasn't conservative enough for the position. The one, perhaps surprising, exception was the evangelical community. Within hours, the word went out that Miers was an evangelical pick, chosen partly to ease the concern among some evangelicals that they are unrepresented on a court dominated by Catholic and Jewish justices.

Citing Miers' conversion and involvement with a nondenominational church in Texas, evangelical heavyweights like Marvin Olasky and Chuck Colson gave her their early thumbs-up. Focus on the Family's James Dobson went on Fox News to enthuse, "There has not been an appointee to the Supreme Court who is an evangelical Christian to my knowledge in decades. It is refreshing that one could even be considered." Conservative evangelical legal activist Jay Sekulow crowed, "This is a big opportunity for those of us ... that share an evangelical faith in Christianity, to see someone with our positions put on the court." And half the newspapers in the country repeated the New York Times' assertion that, if confirmed, Miers "would be the first evangelical Protestant on the court since the 1930s."

Blame God, not me

Sat, 17 Sep 2005 19:44:00 +0000

There must be such a thing as divine mercy because the God who sends plagues of locusts and zaps people into pillars of salt would have surely struck down George W. Bush at the pulpit Friday morning. The administration's multipronged strategy to repair the damage wrought to cherished areas of the president's reputation was on full display at the National Prayer Service, which Bush called to remember victims of the hurricane. Bused-in evacuees from New Orleans? Check. Promotion of faith-based organizations? Check. Shifting blame to others? Check. This time, however, after weeks of laying blame at the doorsteps of Louisiana state officials and the mayor of New Orleans and even some of the victims themselves, Bush chose a bigger target: He blamed God.

As in much of what we've heard from Bush over the past few weeks, there was a whiff of the surreal. He bemoaned the "arbitrary harm" caused by the hurricane, the unanswerable question of why God allows bad things to happen, and noted that "the greatest hardship fell upon citizens already facing lives of struggle" -- as if that were merely a coincidence. The service was filled with references to the fury of natural disaster and the shock of unexpected devastation.

Compassionate conservative

Sun, 03 Apr 2005 00:10:00 +0000

The pope is dead. Long live the pope. Although Pope John Paul II -- who began life in Krakow, Poland, as Karol Wojtyla -- died Saturday night at the Vatican, another man will soon be elected as his successor. Everyone knows that this is how it works, that the papacy is an office (albeit one invested with more spiritual authority and emotional resonance than the next), that it does end with the death of the man who fills the role. And yet such is the influence and impact of John Paul II that man and title have become nearly fused in one. We can no sooner imagine a new man filling his shoes than a new Elvis appointed as a replacement within weeks after Elvis Presley's death. It is unthinkable.

For millions of Catholics, John Paul II is simply the only pope they have ever known; his unusually long rule is the fourth-longest tenure among 265 popes over nearly 2,000 years. Throughout his 26 years as head of the Roman Catholic Church, John Paul II traveled to more countries than all previous popes combined. "He has changed the style of being pope," Father Thomas Reese, the editor of America magazine, told CNN. "It used to be that the pope stayed home in Europe."

What would Falwell do?

Thu, 10 Mar 2005 20:07:00 +0000

The Bush administration is going to hell. That, at least, could be the take-away message from a Tuesday press conference religious leaders from five major Protestant denominations held at the National Press Club. Clad in clerical collars, and invoking the Gospel story of Lazarus, a poor man ignored at the gate of a rich man's estate who went to heaven while the rich man was sent to hell, the leaders called on Congress to oppose what they called an "immoral budget" and staked a claim for moral values that don't have anything to do with abortion or gay marriage. "The 2006 budget that President Bush has sent to Capitol Hill is unjust," they charged. "It has much for the rich man and little for Lazarus." But while the press conference focused on calling attention to the need for truly compassionate policies that protect the most vulnerable in society, it had another mission as well: to assert the relevance of the religious left.

What's that, you say? The religious what?