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Before we begin, I have a question for any lawyers out there: If Michael Medved is a paid lobbyist for the Almighty, is he required to register with the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)? One can argue that as America is God’s favorite country, He’s obviously based in the U.S., but then a lot of ostensibly American corporations are actually headquartered in a post office box on Grand Cayman. Additionally — and this is a problem you run into with many multi-nationals — God is omnipresent, so even if the bulk of His grace is shed domestically, for tax purposes He may be chartered in Macao or Ur. Anyway, Michael’s mustache is practically leaping off his face with pious rage:

On Easter Sunday, President Obama successfully concluded his long search for a new White House dog but made no progress in his simultaneous quest for a new church for his family.

Could the contrasting status regarding the First Family’s two most publicized private decisions indicate that the President actually cares more about canine companionship than religious commitment?

Doesn’t he know that a god is a man’s best friend?

While the Obama girls welcomed Bo, the pure-bred and specially trained six-month-old Portuguese Water Dog, the Obamas attended Easter services at St. John’s Episcopal Church – the 200-year-old “Church of Presidents” across the street from the White House. Presidential staffers, however, indicated that the First Family hadn’t even come close to a final decision on a new spiritual home, after their mid-campaign repudiation of the long-time Chicago church where they worshipped with the bombastic, America-loathing pastor, Jeremiah Wright.

As a partisan chew toy, Jeremiah Wright has lost his savor, so you can understand why Medved is standing in the foyer, quivering and peeing with excitement like a miniature poodle, waiting for the Obamas to reach into that Petco bag and pull out a new Rawhide Reverend.

Amazingly, their Easter visit to St. John’s represented their first participation in Christian services since the inauguration – a period of nearly twelve weeks.

Let’s see, inaugurated in January, goes to church at Easter. Next visit should be Christmas…Yep, seems like he’s on the same schedule as most Americans.

The White House press office noted that the President had spent several weekends at Camp David, and that the Presidential retreat contained a private chapel, so that he might have worshipped there privately with unannounced clerical visitors. In actuality, anyone who has noticed Mr. Obama’s eagerness to tout his own Christian credentials would doubt that any such service would have been conducted without publicity.

I don’t mean to inject Zen into an already roiling bouillabaisse of religion, but here’s a koan that’s always puzzled me: If you go into a chapel (or closet) to pray, and Michael Medved doesn’t see it, does God hear you?

Actually, I think Michael is being just a trifle unfair. It’s true that President Obama has veered sharply from a number of his predecessor’s policies, but he deserves credit for following Bush’s example in at least one area: [from Beliefnet]

I think it’s perfectly relevant and fair to ask why a man [George W. Bush] with such firm convictions about the power of religious congregations doesn’t belong to a congregation himself, though he may drop in on services at places like St. John’s Episcopal Church (near the White House) from time to time.

Why doesn’t he? Among the reasons I’ve been given is that the security precautions would be too onerous. This, it should be noted, is the exact same excuse Ronald Reagan proffered for not attending church at all during his time in Washington. And I’d almost buy it, if not for the fact that for several years in the late 1990s, I attended Foundry Methodist Church when the Clintons were members there and found that it took all of an extra five seconds to pass through the metal detectors and enter the church. Parishioners were not outnumbered by tourists (and, in any case, we were happy that they were in church, no matter what the reason) and the Clintons played an active role in the life of the church, with Chelsea particularly involved in the choir and youth group while she was still in town.

I’m sure that over the past eight years, Michael wrote many hectoring columns taking Bush to task for his desultory church attendance, but I don’t seem to be able to locate them at this exact moment. Tell ya what, I’ll try to find ya some, and I’ll bring ‘em to ya.

The President even made a point of grabbing press attention for his attendance at an impromptu “White House Seder” in which he celebrated Passover with some Jewish members of his staff. The absence of rabbis or religious scholars demonstrates the relative unimportance attached to this “ecumenical” event by the Obama team; if the President had desired a more substantive learning and sharing experience for Passover, he might have included any number of luminaries, Jewish and Christian, rather than limiting the experience to White House insiders like Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod.

You’ve never had seder till you’ve had it at James Dobson’s house. He serves a mayonnaise chremslach that’ll make you plotz. By the way, if Michael booked Rick Warren, but the pastor backed out at the last moment due to exhaustion, would Michael cancel his own seder? (“We’ve got the matzoh, the maror, and the zeroah, but where’s the celebrity Christian?! I mean, what’s the point…“)

So let’s see if I’m following the ~~crazy~~ logic train: Obama hasn’t joined a church after 12 weeks in office, which is worse than Bush failing to join one in eight years because unlike Obama, Bush never talked about his faith or pretended to be religious. And it’s unlikely that Obama ever worshipped in private at Camp David because he never walked out of the chapel and issued a press release, but when he sat down for the first Presidential seder in the White House, reporters considered that somehow newsworthy enough to mention.

In any event, the President has every right to continue to take his time in finding a new church…

“And I have every right to continue chewing on his pantleg like a rabid Bichon Frise.”

…but his delay seems to contradict his self-description as a “devout Christian” in his books, speeches, and interviews (including the adoring Newsweek cover story, “The Faith of Barack Obama”). Spending the first three months of a presidency without attending church is hardly an indication of bad character, but it is a reflection (at the very least) of a lack of conventional piety. [...]

Many religious believers have begun to turn away from politics in disgust, in part because of the suspicion that candidates of all ideological orientations manipulate religious symbols and organizations for their own benefit. In this regard, Ronald Reagan represents the rarest sort of high office-holder – a President whose private, personal faith commitment and Biblical engagement was actually far more intense and significant than the public assumed during his presidency.

So let’s review: claiming to be a Christian yet not going to church makes you a hypocrite, unless you’re Ronald Reagan, in which case it makes you an unsung saint. In fact, I bet John Paul II canonized the Gipper in a clandestine ceremony in one of those ornate, secret rooms in the Vatican where they keep Jesus and Mary Magdalene’s wedding frescoes.

Wingnuts | 33 Comments »

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