Recent Religion + Politics Commentary: "Pro-Life" Movement, Christian Nationalism, Southern Baptists and United Methodists, Leonard Leo and New USCCB President

Here are some valuable articles I've read in the past week or two about religion and politics and their intersection:

Commentary on Breaking Stories re: U.S. Supreme Court: "The current, carefully engineered conservative majority on the court is made up of deeply corrupted individuals"

James Earle Fraser's "Contemplation of Justice" statue, Supreme Court Plaza, photo uploaded by David to Wikimedia Commons

In her latest Letter from an American, Heather Cox Richardson comments on the story I discussed in a posting yesterday noting the report of Jodi Kantor and Jo Becker that Rev. Rob Schenck, formerly leader of an evangelical "pro-life" non-profit engaged in extensive lobbying in D.C., alleges that Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito leaked to friends the ruling in the Hobby Lobby case before that ruling was handed down in 2014. As my posting yesterday noted, Kantor and Becker indicate that Schenck maintains that, through Alito's friends, he himself obtained inside information about the ruling before it came down, and "used that information to prepare a public relations push, records show, and he said that at the last minute he tipped off the president of Hobby Lobby, the craft store chain owned by Christian evangelicals that was the winning party in the case."

Poolboys, Ménages à Trois Involving White Evangelical Leaders, Alleged Supreme Court Corruption, White Christian Nationalism: In the News

The second installment of Jemar Tisby's video series on the topic "White Nation Under God," about which I've posted previously, is now online. In this episode, entitled "How White Christian Nationalism Threatens Democracy," sociologists Philip Gorski and Samuel Perry, authors of The Flag and the Cross, explain how white Christian nationalism threatens democracy by its willingness to "diminish democracy in favor of political rule by a small group of people who use authoritarianism instead of 'the will of the people' to govern."

In News: GOP Lackluster Performance and Effects of Covid; Limits of Abortion Extremism; Gerrymandering; Jericho March in Arizona; International Ramifications of U.S. Elections; Clarence Thomas

Photo of stack of newspapers by Daniel R. Blume, Wikimedia Commons

Jonathan V. Last offers an intriguing reason Republicans are now underperforming politically, one I haven't seen elsewhere: quite simply, their approach to the pandemic killed off a lot of their voters. One reason the Republicans underperformed this election cycle: they killed off a lot of their own voters during Covid. As he says, "Republicans accounted for about 80 percent more of the excess deaths than Democrats."

In News: Democrats Retain Senate Control, Twitter's Apocalypse, Supremes' Savage Credibility Problem, Trump's Racist Attack on Youngkin

Photo of stack of newspapers by Daniel R. Blume, Wikimedia Commons

Kristin Kobes du Mez's tribute to Twitter as the band keeps playing while the ship begins sinking is moving and also sad: such good destroyed by an ill-intentioned egomaniac with way, way too much power solely because he has money. She writes, 

Yesterday's Vote and What It Tells Us About Americans and Abortion: Whither U.S. Catholic Leaders Now?

PRRI, 2022 American Values  Survey

As Oriana Gonzalez reports, not only did voters in Michigan, California, and Vermont just vote  for constitutional protections for abortion rights in their states, but voters in the conservative state of Kentucky voted against a proposed amendment stating that a constitutional right to abortion does not exist in Kentucky. The Supreme Court and the Republican party are clearly out of step with where most Americans are when it comes to the issue of abortion rights, but, as Gonzalez also notes, Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America (and a Catholic), has stated that if Republicans gain control of either house of Congress, her group's "number one issue" will be to see a national abortion ban enacted.

In News: "Till" Film Released; True History and Actual True History; Rising Antisemitism; Twitter Takeover Consequences

Photo of stack of newspapers by Daniel R. Blume, Wikimedia Commons

This weekend, Chinonye Chukwu’s film "Till" has been released nationally after limited-viewing showings on 14 October. Join the Movement Toward Racial Justice summarizes why this film telling the story of the 1955 murder of 14-year-old African-American Emmett Till Jr. remains critically important for Americans to hear today:

On McCloskey's & Opus Dei's "Outsize Impact on Policy & Politics," & Attempt of Right-Wing Religionists & Journalists to Veil That Influence

In the statement by Terry Mattingly to which I linked yesterday, a statement which argues that the media have been much more focused on the story of Opus Dei priest John McCloskey's fall from grace than they have been on the fall from grace of Cardinal McCarrick, Mattingly states,