Evaluating Three McCarthys

As far as I can remember, I have never personally known anyone with the name of McCarthy. But I have known about three “men” with that name, and I am posting a brief evaluation of those three here.

Charlie McCarthy was the name of a ventriloquist’s dummy. Beginning back in the 1930s, Edgar Bergen (who was an actor, comedian, and ventriloquist), made Charlie McCarthy a popular and beloved figure in American entertainment from 1937 on for decades. 

I probably heard Bergen and McCarthy on the radio in the late 1940s. During those years my birth family would often sit around the dining table in the evenings listening to radio programs. Surprisingly, Charlie was well known as ventriloquist Bergen’s dummy even though he couldn’t be seen.

Bergen (1903~78) was the father of the well-known actress Candice Bergen (b. 1946). In her early girlhood years, she was irritated whenever she was referred to as Charlie McCarthy’s little sister.*¹

A few years after I first heard of Charlie McCarthy, as a high school student I began to hear some about a Senator named McCarthy.

Joseph McCarthy (1908~57) was a U.S. Senator (R-Wis.), first elected to the Senate in 1946. He was relatively unknown until early in 1950 when he began charging that there was massive Communist infiltration in the U.S. government.

Margaret Chase Smith, Maine’s Republican Senator from 1949 to 1973, was a leader in the opposition to Sen. McCarthy’s spurious charges. Heather Cox Richardson wrote about that on June 1, 2022, noting that “once upon a time, Republican politicians were the champions of reason and compromise.”

In 1954 the Senate finally voted to censure McCarthy, and according to a Senate webpage, “Censured by his Senate colleagues, ostracized by his party, and ignored by the press, McCarthy died three years later, 48 years old and a broken man.”

But McCarthyism—and it is interesting that his name is one of the few names that became an “ism”—has continued to live on, most recently in Trumpism, another instance of a name becoming an ism.

Roy Cohn (1927~86) was Sen. McCarthy’s chief counsel in the 1954 hearings, and then he was Donald Trump’s lawyer and mentor for 13 years in the 1970s and ’80s. A Yale history professor’s opinion piece about the connection of McCarthyism to Trumpism was published on Dec. 4, 2020.

Kevin McCarthy is a current U.S. Representative (R-Calif.) and the top Republican in the House. First elected to Congress in 2006, McCarthy (b. 1965) was elected as GOP majority leader in 2014, the fastest-ever ascent to that pivotal leadership post.

McCarthy is a Southern Baptist, and his pastor in Riverside, Calif., flew to Washington to offer the opening invocation of the House on the day before McCarthy was installed as the majority leader. The next day, McCarthy told a D.C. group of religious conservatives that he was “proud to be a Christian.”*²

During the impeachment investigation in 2019, Cleveland Plain Dealer cartoonist Jeff Darcy referred to Rep. McCarthy as “President Trump’s ventriloquist dummy puppet.” He then added, “Out of respect to legendary ventriloquism puppet Charlie McCarthy, the two are not related.”*³

Soon after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, McCarthy was highly critical of Pres. Trump, rightfully calling it an "unprecedented attack on our nation." He said that Trump's words and actions "helped to encourage the actions of the rioters" and that the President's "betrayal of his office and supporters" was a "dishonor to the country."

However, before the end of that month, McCarthy backtracked his criticism and even went to Mar-a-Lago to visit with Trump. He seems to once again to be “my Kevin,” as Trump has referred to him through the years.

Now Rep. McCarthy is vying to become Speaker of the House when the 118^th Congress convenes on Jan. 3, 2023. Implying McCarthy’s lack of integrity, columnist Dana Millbank wrote on Dec. 2 that McCarthy “sells his soul to extremists in hopes of eking out enough votes to become speaker.”

Clearly, Charlie seems to be the best of the three McCarthys.

_____

*¹ I first remember Candice Bergen as the leading actress in Sand Pebbles (1966), one of my favorite movies.

*² Even though I was a Southern Baptist for 65 years, I have far more respect for Rep. Jamie Raskin (see my Dec. 10 post) who is a Jew, than for Rep. McCarthy. That is largely because of the latter’s hypocrisy or opportunism—and for his besmirching the good name of Christians.

*³ Here is the link to Darcy’s cartoon and article about Kevin and Charlie.

Note: The fourth paragraph about Rep. McCarthy was generated by ChatGPT, the new AI online program. I just slightly modified what it wrote from my prompt asking for McCarthy's criticism of Pres. Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Criticizing Criticism of Critical Race Theory

Critical race theory (CRT) is one of the hottest topics of the day, so it seems fitting to critique the profuse criticism of it.

Basically, critical race theory is an academic concept that explains racism as a social construct. That is, racism is understood not merely as the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies. Why, though, should that be a target of constant criticism? 

(From a 1/22/2017 post by Kyia Young)

Political Criticism of CRT

The political criticism of CRT has been strongest since September of last year. On Sept. 4, then President Trump had the Executive Office of the President issue a memorandum for the heads of executive departments and agencies.

That memo ended with these words: “The divisive, false, and demeaning propaganda of the critical race theory movement is contrary to all we stand for as Americans and should have no place in the Federal government.”

Since then, several states (Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas) have banned/restricted the teaching of CRT.

Perhaps most egregious is Oklahoma’s ban, for earlier this year it was reported that over 80% of the citizens of that state had never heard of the Tulsa race massacre at the end of May 1921.

Nevertheless, on May 7 Oklahoma Gov. Stitt signed a bill that seeks to prevent teachers from saying things so that “any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex.”

But how could Tulsa 1921 possibly be taught without Black students feeling some anguish at the way Blacks were so seriously mistreated then, without White students feeling some guilt at what their ancestors had done, and without all feeling considerable discomfort?

However, all across the country Republican-led states are criticizing CRT, and more states will likely ban/prohibit the teaching of CRT in public schools.

SBC Criticism of CRT

In recent years, perhaps a higher percentage of Southern Baptists have voted for Republican politicians than voters belonging to any other major Christian denomination. Accordingly, CRT has been widely discussed, and criticized, by Baptist pastors and Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) leaders.

There was a major push by the new organization known as Conservative Baptist Network (CBN) to get Pastor Mike Stone of Georgia elected as the next president of the SBC.

In the run-off election on June 15, he lost by a narrow 52%-48% vote at the SBC annual meeting in Nashville. (Lee Brand, Jr., a member of CBN’s steering council, was elected 1st vice president.)

In CBN’s May 20 statement endorsing Stone, the third reason they gave for their support was his opposition to CRT. They boasted that Stone “holds that the Bible is the only analytical tool he needs, leading him to reject unbiblical ideologies such as Critical Race Theory.”

Criticizing the Criticism of CRT

In twentieth-century American Christianity, an important emphasis emerged on what came to be widely labeled as “sinful social structures.” Early on, that emphasis was found in the writings of Walter Rauschenbusch and other Social Gospel proponents.

In A Theology for the Social Gospel (1917), Rauschenbusch wrote that “we are continuing to sin because our fathers created the conditions of sin by the African slave trade and by the unearned wealth they gathered from slave labor for generations” (p. 79). Sin was embedded in the system of slavery.

Fifteen years later, Reinhold Niebuhr published his highly influential book with the sometimes misunderstood title Moral Man and Immoral Society. That means, for example, some slaveowners might treat their slaves kindly (morally) while simultaneously the system of slavery was grossly immoral.

True, some teachers might use CRT in harmful ways. But the greatest harm to society will come from those who refuse to recognize the reality of sinful social structures.

The longer that reality is denied and attempts to understand/dismantle it are rejected (such as by most criticism of CRT), the stronger the roots of racism will become and the longer the detrimental effects of racism will be experienced by so many People of Color.

Yes, criticism of Critical Race Theory must be forthrightly criticized.

Growing in the Faith

Is your religious faith, or lack thereof, the same now as it was, say, when you were twenty years old, or (for you mature adults) when you were forty years old? If not, how would you explain the difference? Is the difference due to growth or stagnation?

CONSIDERING A QUESTION

One of my church friends, who fairly recently became a Thinking Friend, is a young woman who had strong ties to Southern Baptists while growing up. Her family still has close ties with the Southern Baptist Convention: her sister, for example, is currently a student at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary here in Kansas City.

My friend, who is an activist and quite “liberal” in her social views, knows that I was a Southern Baptist for most of my life but that I now largely agree with her and share most of her “liberal” social views.

A few weeks ago my friend asked, “What caused you to change?”

My answer: “I would like to think it has been the result of growing in the faith.”

Indeed, I do think that—but I realize that there are others who knew me “back then” who would have a different assessment. They would likely explain my change as being due to abandoning the faith—at least the faith as was known and practiced by most Southern Baptists in the 1950s and by many SBs still.

CONSIDERING AREAS OF CHANGE/GROWTH

Two of the main areas in which I believe I have experienced change/growth in faith are (1) change from an exclusivistic view of God and God’s relationship to the people of the world to much more inclusivistic view, and (2) change from a predominantly other-worldly view of life to an equally dominant, if even not more prominent, this-worldly emphasis .

Perhaps reading J.B. Phillips’s Your God Is Too Small (1953), during my first year of college started me growing toward a view of God that was broader, more inclusive than what I had grown up thinking/believing.

Back in 2015, I ended my Oct. 15 blog article with these words:

Without question, Christianity has often held to an exclusivism that has been divisive and restrictive. But a deeper understanding moves one from exclusion to inclusion and from restriction to expansion. – Maturing in faith impels a person to move from the us/them mentality of childhood to including “others” as a part of an inclusive circle of “we.”

Then, consistent with the evangelicalism/revivalism that I was nurtured in and embraced well into my 30s, the overwhelmingly important mission of the Christian faith, I thought, was “saving souls” for life after death, for Heaven. That is an “other-worldly” emphasis that many of you readily recognize.

But gradually I came to understand that human life and well-being in this world is of great importance--and, in fact, the Kingdom of God is as much about, or even more about, God’s desired reign now rather than after the “end of the world.” 

CONSIDERING EXAMPLES

Some of the contemporary Christians I admire the most, and by whom I have been influenced, have a story similar to mine. They also moved from a narrow, fundamentalistic type of Christianity toward a broader, socially “liberal” position on many issues.

Three good examples are Jim Wallis, Philip Yancey, and Brian McLaren—three “mature adults” in their 60s. I must write more about these three: to this point in my blog articles, I have “labeled” Wallis twice, Yancey once (here on 10/5/16), and McLaren not even once.

First, though, I plan to write about the ten Christian speakers/writers whom I admire most—and who have helped nurture my growth in the faith.

Observing TDoR

So, are you observing TDoR today?

Oh, maybe you don’t know what TDoR is. Well, neither did I until quite recently. But it seems to be something worth knowing about and thinking about.

TDoR stands for Transgender Day of Remembrance. It has been an annual observance on November 20 for several years now.

TDoR was begun in November 1999 as a vigil to honor the memory of Rita Hester, a 34-year-old trans woman who was mysteriously found murdered inside her first-floor apartment outside of Boston on Nov. 28, 1998.

The vigil commemorated all the transgender people lost to violence that year—and that has been the same for each year since. So far this year, there have been at least 21 transgender people murdered in the U.S. (Check out this article from the Human Rights Campaign.)

There will be TDoR events today all over the U.S.—and in a few other countries as well. I plan to attend the one being held this evening on the campus of the University of Arizona.

In addition to the numerous murders, there is also an extremely high rate of suicide, or attempted suicide, of trans people.

According to an August article in USA Today, “Suicide attempts are alarmingly common among transgender individuals . . . 41% try to kill themselves at some point in their lives, compared with 4.6% of the general public.”

So TDoR should be a time of remembrance not only for those who were murdered but also for those who committed suicide because of being bullied, teased, ridiculed, and/or rejected—and many are rejected even by their own parents.

According to National Center for Transgender Equality (see this link), “one in five transgender individuals have experienced homelessness at some point in their lives.”

In this article, a trans man, talking about the suicide of a high school trans person last December, acknowledges “his own childhood experiences of rejection by parents, church community, and religious leaders.”

So I come back to the book I mentioned in my previous blog article, “Al Mohler’s We Cannot Be Silent: Speaking Truth to a Culture Redefining Sex, Marriage, and the Very Meaning of Right and Wrong.

Mohler is not only against same-sex marriage but very negative toward acceptance of transgender people also. His fifth chapter is titled “The Transgender Revolution,” which he opposes, of course.

In that chapter, Mohler cites Denny Burk, a professor of Biblical Studies at Boyce College (the undergraduate arm of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary), who co-authored the resolution “On Transgender Identity” that the Southern Baptist Convention passed in June of last year.

That resolution, which passed with little discussion, expresses opposition to any form of physical gender transition, as well as any governmental or cultural validations of transgender identities.

It seems to me that what Mohler and Southern Baptists as well as many other conservative evangelicals write and say about transgender people just exacerbates the mistreatment of such people.

But the U.S. House of Representatives is speaking up. On Tuesday of this week they launched a task force dedicated to issues of transgender equality. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) will chair the new group. That afternoon they also held the first-ever forum on transgender issues.

According to this article, “The violence against the transgender community is a national crisis,” Honda said. “Far too often, they face harassment, discrimination or violence for simply being who they are. ... After 21 deaths of transgender individuals because of violence this year alone, Congress must take notice and act.”

Today, TDoR, is a good time to affirm and support trans people.

Happy Birthday, Senator Graham!

In Japan a person’s 60^th birthday is a time of special celebration. I was in Japan in 1998, and numerous people acknowledged my 60^th birthday that year in various ways.

Turning 60 means that one has gone around the 12-year zodiac cycle five times. Even though there are many today who go around that cycle two or even three more times, in the olden days five times was considered a noteworthy accomplishment.

Maybe it was because of living in Japan so long, but I took special note when I saw that yesterday was Senator Lindsey Graham’s 60^th birthday.

Actually, I don’t know a lot about Senator Graham other than he has been a U.S. Senator from South Carolina since 2003. Even though I once met his immediate predecessor, Sen. Strom Thurmond—who was a S.C. Senator from 1954 until 2003!—I have never met Sen. Graham.

I also know that he is one of the many Republicans running for President—and one of three Southern Baptists who are doing so. He now lives in the small town of Seneca in the very northwest corner of S.C. and is a member of the Corinth Southern Baptist Church there.

Last month I heard Sen. Graham interviewed on one of the Sunday morning news programs (which I recorded to watch that afternoon), and I became more favorably impressed with him by hearing what he had to say on that program.

And recently, even though it was not his initial position, not long after the tragic Charlestown shootings last month Graham commendably stood in agreement with South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley when she said it was time to move the Confederate flag from the Capitol grounds.

Graham is campaigning on a hawkish foreign policy, however, insisting that he would maintain “security through strength”—that is to say, through a further projection of U.S. military power throughout the world.

According to a May 18 Washington Post article, Graham has declared, “If I’m president of the United States and you’re thinking about joining al-Qaeda or ISIL, I’m not gonna call a judge,” Graham said. “I’m gonna call a drone and we will kill you.”

It goes without saying that such extrajudicial assassination would be illegal and unconstitutional. Such “hawkishness” is a major reason why I could not support Sen. Graham.

Although Warren Harding was the first Baptist to be elected President, Harry Truman was the first Southern Baptist to occupy the White House. (Years ago I preached in Truman’s home church in Grandview, Mo., near the Truman Corners shopping center; Truman’s Bible was on display in a glass case in the foyer of the church.)

Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were also Southern Baptists. As a fellow Southern Baptist at the time of their election, I was happy that they were elected—partly because they were SBs.

Sadly, I was not so happy with the Carter administration—he has been a far better ex-President than he was President—or with Clinton’s personal conduct when in office.

There is almost no possibility of Sen. Graham being the 2016 Republican nominee for President or being elected to the high office. And that probably can be said for Sen. Ted Cruz and former governor Mike Huckabee, the two other Southern Baptists running for that nomination.

And that’s the good news.

While Sen. Graham especially may be a good and honorable man, his political ideas are not what the country—or the world—needs. So while sincere in wishing Sen. Graham a Happy Birthday, I cannot and will not be supporting his bid for the White House.

What Ever Happened to Southern Baptists?

"What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” is a highly acclaimed 1962 black-and-white movie. June and I enjoyed watching that psychological thriller for the first time last Friday evening.

Baby Jane was an adorable vaudeville performer in 1917 as the movie begins, and after a few scenes in 1935 most of the movie takes place in the present (1961) when the former Baby Jane Hudson has become an ugly villain, impressively portrayed by Bette Davis.

Please don’t misunderstand: I am not comparing the evil Jane Hudson, or the movie, to Southern Baptists in most ways. But there are, unfortunately, some similarities.

During much of my lifetime, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) was a vibrant, generally attractive, growing denomination. Figured as the percentage of the total U.S. population, SBC membership grew by more than 30% from 1950 to 1980.

But things began to change, and the percentage of SBs decreased by nearly 15% from 1990 to 2010. There were multiple reasons, but during that time the SBC, like Baby Jane, had turned rather ugly under the leadership of fundamentalist-leaning leaders.

Consequently, from 1950 to 2010 I personally changed from being a proud (in the good sense of that word) Southern Baptist, to a wary SB, then to an embarrassed SB (as I wrote about in my book “Fed Up with Fundamentalism”), and finally to being a former SB.

The Southern Baptist Convention has long been the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. According to the 2012 "Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches," the SBC has 16.2 million members, more than twice the number of the second place United Methodist Church with 7.8 million.

And yet a recent article in the Wall Street Journal points out that Baptists are departing from the religious traditions of their childhood faster than any other Protestant group.”

LifeWay Research, a polling firm tied to the SBC, even projects that the church’s membership will fall by half, to 8.5 million by 2050, returning to the level of the mid-1950s.

Decline in membership, of course, is not only a Southern Baptist phenomenon. Diana Butler Bass’s book Christianity after Religion (2012) documents the notable decline of membership in most U.S. Protestant denominations. But the decline in the SBC is among the most pronounced.

There are several possible reasons for the downward trend. Let me suggest just a few:

·   An inability, or lack of desire, to keep up with the changing mindset of the times. Like the aging Jane Hudson, many SBC churches and institutions seem to want to live in the heyday of the past (the 1950s) rather than seeking to cope with the new realities of a new generation.

·   A retroactive stance toward women. Recently Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite posted a provocative article, “Five Christian theologies scarier than Halloween.” One of the five: “women should 'submit’”—such as was called for in the Baptist Faith and Message as amended in 1998.

·   A marked alignment with conservative Republicans. In contrast to Jimmy Carter, the most famous SB politician of the 1970s, we now have Sen. Ted Cruz at the leading SB in Washington. In addition to Sen. Cruz, all five of the Southern Baptist U.S. Representatives who took office in January are conservative Republicans who last month voted against the bill to re-open the government and raise the debt ceiling. No wonder many people look askance at SBs!

Baby Jane couldn’t restore her previous attractiveness. But such would be possible for Southern Baptists, and I hope that it will happen—and pray it will happen long before the end of the projected 50-year decline.