St. Howard

The news of Howard Dean's religious outing has been circulating for a couple of weeks now; here is a solid roundup of links, if you are interested. But no time? Want the highlights? Happy to oblige.

The earliest reference I've seen is from the September 14 edition of This Week. A partial transcript is here (courtesy The Corner).

HOWARD DEAN: I'm actually a pretty religious person, believe it or not.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: No, I believe it.

HOWARD DEAN: You know, I think what is missing in this country is a degree of spirituality.

[cough]

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: How does your faith inform your politics?

HOWARD DEAN: I'm not sure that it does. I think my faith and my politics are parallel. You know, I consider myself a Christian in the best sense of the word. I think that Christ was somebody who really reached out to those who couldn't fend for themselves so I think about those things, but I don't think it informs my politics.

[ratchet jaw from floor]

I do not object to Dean's self-identification as a Christian; I'm not the judge of that (although the New Testament does contain admonitions such as “by their fruits you will know them”).

However: If one knows anything about basic Christian doctrine, especially regarding human nature, and possesses even a smidgeon of self-awareness, they might hesitate to claim standing as a Christian in “the best sense of the word.” (Indeed, St. Paul called himself “the chief amongst sinners.”) But then, our Dr. Dean does not suffer from an excess of modesty.

And God forbid that one's faith might inform one's politics. That might be…biblical, or something.

The Stephanopoulos interview may also contain the first reference to the now-infamous bike path caper. Mark Steyn has the goods, from the December 17 Opinion Journal.

There was a revealing moment on MSNBC the other night. Chris Matthews asked Dr. Dean whether Osama bin Laden should be tried in an American court or at The Hague. “I don't think it makes a lot of difference,” said the governor airily. Mr. Matthews pressed once more. “It doesn't make a lot of difference to me,” he said again. Some of us think what's left of Osama is already hard enough to scrape off the cave floor and put in a matchbox, never mind fly to the Netherlands. But, just for the sake of argument, his bloodiest crime was committed on American soil; American courts, unlike the international ones, would have the option of the death penalty. But Gov. Dean couldn't have been less interested. So how about Saddam? The Hague “suits me fine,” he said, the very model of ennui. Saddam? Osama? Whatever, dude.

So what does get the Dean juices going? A few days later, the governor was on CNN and Judy Woodruff asked him about his admission that he'd left the Episcopal Church and become a Congregationalist because “I had a big fight with a local Episcopal church over the bike path.” I hasten to add that, in contrast to current Anglican controversies over gay marriage in British Columbia and gay bishops in New Hampshire, this does not appear to have been a gay bike path: its orientation was not an issue; it would seem to be a rare example of a non-gay controversy in the Anglican Communion. But nevertheless it provoked Howard into “a big fight.” “I was fighting to have public access to the waterfront, and we were fighting very hard in the citizens group,” he told Judy Woodruff. Fighting, fighting, fighting.

Elsewhere Dean is quoted as choosing Congregationalism because “there is almost no centralized authority structure.” It may be true that Americans have an ambivalent view of religious authority—there's a long post about that to be written someday—but I suspect that traditions like Congregationalism, which pretty much allow one to make it up on the fly, are still regarded with some misgiving.

Maybe not. Nonetheless, Dean continues to provide reason to look askance at one particular Congregationalist.

After hearing Dean's observation beginning “If you know much about the Bible — which I do,” a reporter asked about his favorite New Testament book. Dean named Job, adding, “But I don't like the way it ends … in some of the books of the New Testament, the ending of the Book of Job is different … there's one book where there's a more optimistic ending, which we believe was tacked on later.”

The candidate returned an hour later to confess error: Job was in the Old Testament, not the New.

(Emphasis added.) This is just, well, auto-fisking: How many New Testament books have endings for Job, Howard? And who, exactly, is this “we” to which you refer? (Of course, someone who knows as much about the Bible as you can't be expected to provide references; that would be demeaning.)

I lifted the above excerpt from William Safire's NYT op-ed today. Safire—who has penned a book on Job—finishes with this smackdown:

Job, having succeeded in making direct contact with his Creator, reacts to God's awesome rebuke by putting his hand over his mouth and accepting the limits of his knowledge. In the ending that some find incongruous, he is forgiven and rewarded.

Dean, under Democratic fire for shooting from the lip, says, “I'm feeling a little more Job-like recently.” He identifies with the Gentile from the Land of Uz, now called Iraq, because he feels he is being unjustly punished for standing up to authority. How's that for chutzpah?

Indeed.

Great wrap-up of the quotes with commentary on this issue. Dean uses the word "religious" more than any Christians I know, and it doesn't seem to be in a good sense of the term.

The fact that his "spirituality" doesn't spill over into the passions of his life also is a red flag. A relationship with Christ is all-encompasing from my own experience. When you are in a relationship with Christ, it affects other areas of your life -- period.

We're a new creation when we become Christians (at least according to the Bible). That has to change our lives in whole.

I, myself, prefer that other new testament book...psalms.