Further Reading on Kirkpatrick

A smattering of local links on Kirkpatrick's article while I sort through way too many notes of my own ...

Houtopia
Brains & Eggs
Kuff's World

I'm sure a slew of others will pop up today, so I'll add any that I find worthwhile reading.

UPDATE: David Kuo is already two parts ahead of me on analyzing this story in greater depth. Part two picks up with the analysis, though. Sullivan offers up a double dose of analysis and also links to a critical view from Jeff Sharlet. I think that much of what's wrong with Sharlet's take, however, is his inability to see through the myth of some MSM conglomerate that agrees on everything - presumably with a liberal bias.

Terry Mattingly of GetReligion.org has another take. There's a mix of criticism and hallelujahs in this as well as a clip worth highlighting:

I also think Kirkpatrick comes very close -- but just misses -- a key element of this story in the following summary passage that follows up on his statement about the passing of the all-powerful era of the evangelical alpha males:

Meanwhile, a younger generation of evangelical pastors -- including the widely emulated preachers Rick Warren and Bill Hybels -- are pushing the movement and its theology in new directions. There are many related ways to characterize the split: a push to better this world as well as save eternal souls; a focus on the spiritual growth that follows conversion rather than the yes-or-no moment of salvation; a renewed attention to Jesus’ teachings about social justice as well as about personal or sexual morality. However conceived, though, the result is a new interest in public policies that address problems of peace, health and poverty -- problems, unlike abortion and same-sex marriage, where left and right compete to present the best answers.

So close. So close. For example, who is Kirkpatrick describing when he writes that some believers are focusing on a "push to better this world as well as save eternal souls"? Is that the religious right or the new evanglical left? In the 1980s, who acted as if defeating Bill Clinton could bring in the New Jerusalem and make the world a better place? Who has been tempted to think that they could produce a culture of life at the ballot box, while often overlooking its role in their own homes, schools, pews and shopping malls? Meanwhile, traditional Christian faith has always been a both-and equation, both body and soul, both social justice and salvation. Name the political party in which that kind of believer can find comfort, today.

But Kirkpatrick is close to the mark when he starts talking about the essential divisions between, let's say, Warren and Hybels, between old evangelicalism and the "emerging church." Talk about two different cultures! Want to find the fault line today? Dig deeper right there. And it is crucial to pursue this as a matter of doctrine, rather than politics. That's where you will find the deep cracks in the foundations, the differences that affect politics, but ultimately are much more important than politics.

Terry also links to a Washington Times story on Mike Huckabee as an example of the fissure, as it stands today. Of that, I'm not as sold. I think it underscores the dilemma that cultural conservative advocates are having with the Presidential field this cycle, but not much more than that.

ADD-ON 2.0: A couple of slightly differing thoughts over lunch from the reading above.

Kuo:

Evangelicals have been part of the Great Sellout for the last eight years - worshipping at the altar of George W. Bush. They have seen what happens when Jesus is sold out for politics. I don't see them rushing back anytime soon.

Sully:

Democrats need to grapple with this: if you worry about the Christianist right, Clinton is a big problem. She will do more to revive and unite the religious right than any Republican candidates can. Obama will be much more likely deflate and divide them.

I think it's speculation for now on both sides. Kuo may well be right, but how many folks accurately called the nascent Religious Right's ability to coalesce around what had previously been a "catholic issue" as a facade to mask their real boiling point issue: taxation of religious schools? I think any future issue that comes up will likely be just as difficult to call beforehand.

On Sullivan's point, I think he might be half-right. But that's meant in a way that suggests that any 'revival' of the Religious Right would be more indicative of their hatreds, moreso than anything else. To a large degree, I think that's what some part of the current rebellion is about. How big a part? I don't pretend to know or have an educated guess on. But reading Kirkpatrick's article, I think you get a sense of how very real and substantial that part is. In the end, I think Clinton is just as likely to impress a certain share of Americans just as she won over upstate New Yorkers. It likely won't be something you see in this cycle, but by 2012? For now, even odds on it.

Sullivan has an obvious hatred of all things Clintonian that goes back to his days at TNR. It's ironic that, in this case, it's his hatred that's showing. Whether cultural conservatives resort to the same approach, we'll see. For now, I think there's a hint of what we might end up with in the interaction between Hillary and Rev. Joel Hunter at the Sojourners presidential forum. If something comes of Hillary's answer that addresses the issue in a way that people like Hunter (and myself) call progress, then I think Sullivan will be proven wrong. But if Falwell's kids dust off their tapes of The Clinton Chronicles and rev up another political machine out of it, I'll be the first to say "My bad!"