NEWS STORY: `Justice Sunday’ Raises the Ire of Both the Left and Right

c. 2005 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ The Rev. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, president of Chicago Theological Seminary, tuned in to the much-publicized “Justice Sunday” national broadcast on Sunday (April 24) night and found herself “shocked” by the efforts of evangelical leaders to rally support for President Bush’s judicial nominees. “I think this is a major […]

c. 2005 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ The Rev. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, president of Chicago Theological Seminary, tuned in to the much-publicized “Justice Sunday” national broadcast on Sunday (April 24) night and found herself “shocked” by the efforts of evangelical leaders to rally support for President Bush’s judicial nominees.

“I think this is a major shift,” said Thistlethwaite, a United Church of Christ minister. “I think it really does signal that there’s absolutely no limit to which the radical religious right will … go to wrap their political agenda in the Bible.”


The conservative campaign to fight Democratic filibusters of judicial nominees has brought the debate over religion in the public square to a new juncture. The event, broadcast by satellite from a Louisville, Ky., church, not only drew the attention of evangelical audiences, but also drew the ire of more progressive Christian leaders who called the campaign’s focus on a “filibuster against people of faith” sacrilegious and an inappropriate mixing of church and state.

In the simulcast sponsored by the Washington-based Family Research Council, the most closely watched speaker wasn’t James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, or R. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Rather, it was Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., who appeared via video rather than behind the pulpit at Highview Baptist Church. In the days and weeks leading up to the event, Frist received letters from conservative Christians urging him to act on the filibuster feud and from more liberal religious leaders who said they were appalled that he would set foot _ or face _ in the national broadcast.

Sidestepping the subject of faith, Frist addressed the emotions that have churned around the selection of judicial nominees and Democrats’ attempts to block them.

“The judicial nominations debate has created quite a bit of controversy,” he said. “Emotions are running high on both sides, and it reveals once again our country’s desperate need for more civility in political life.”

Democrats have vowed to use filibusters _ a time-honored technique that allows the minority to talk an issue or nominee to death _ on Bush’s most conservative nominees.

Frist said he is willing to lead the Republican majority in eliminating use of the filibuster against judicial nominations _ what opponents call the “nuclear option.” Democrats have promised to bring the Senate to a virtual halt if Frist makes good on his threat.


While Frist spoke, screens displayed senators’ phone numbers for activists to call to urge an end to judicial nomination filibusters.

Using a different form of technology _ the conference call _ liberal religious leaders told reporters that the simulcast forced them to respond, in part to show that all people of faith do not share the views of those gathered in Louisville.

“Make no mistake that in the debate now under way in this nation, nothing less is at stake than the vitality of our democracy and the integrity of our religions,” said the Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, who gathered Thistlethwaite and others for the call.

Progressive religious leaders were particularly outraged that publicity for the event seemed to imply that those who supported the filibuster opposed faith. But officials involved in the simulcast event said they were mistaken.

“At no time have we said that liberals or Democrats cannot be people of faith, and at no time have we said that people of faith cannot be liberals or Democrats,” Peter Sprigg, senior director of policy studies for the Family Research Council, said in an interview.

“The reason we used the slogan of `stop the filibuster against people of faith’ is because we believe the reason why the Senate Democrats have filibustered some of President Bush’s judicial nominees is because the judicial nominees are people of faith.”


In an e-mail message sent to supporters on Monday, Tony Perkins, the president of the council, hailed what appeared to be an immediate sign of success, and promised continued support of conservative nominees.

“It is impossible to get through to some senators, so successful is our phone campaign to stop Senate filibusters,” wrote Tony Perkins. “People of traditional religious faith and those of a conservative judicial philosophy have as much right as anyone else to have their qualifications evaluated, in an open, majority vote by the Senate.”

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Corwin Smidt, professor of political science at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., said the gathering was, in some ways, no different than other grass-roots lobbying. The focus on judicial nominees, however, was new.

“This is probably the first, highly visible time in which … religious groups have been used to be mobilized in this regard,” said Smidt, who is executive director of the college’s Paul B. Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics. “Religion has become a much more important variable politically.”

But Michael Cromartie, vice president of the Washington-based Ethics and Public Policy Center, said the only thing that has changed is who is using the religious setting for political purposes.

“What would be new is that religious conservatives have begun to borrow from the playbook of religious progressives by rallying the troops in churches not unlike anti-war activists and civil rights activists did in the 1960s,” said Cromartie, who directs the center’s Evangelicals in Civic Life Program. “Anti-war activists met in churches constantly.”


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