Hugh Hewitt has a lot to learn

The tanker "Acadian" out of Saint John heads out of the Chelsea Creek as the sun sets this afternoon. Note Bunker Hill Monument in the distance, stage left and traffic-stopper McCardle Bridge opening up, stage right.

"I would be very careful . . . in infusing religion and the Bible into partisan politics," the perennially amiable if wrongheaded Bob Beckel told Hugh Hewitt in a rare moment of clarity re "values voters" at a Heritage Foundation seminar blogged by Mary Katharine Ham at Hugh's blog this afternoon. Fred Barnes was there, critiquing Hugh's message for the GOP -- "Win the war. Confirm the judges. Cut the taxes. Control the spending" -- as not giving the Grand Old Party enough credit. All good stuff, but what caught our eye were Beckel's words:

He pointed out that the reason the Dem majority fell apart was because they were viewed as government interventionists. Any problem you got, we got a government program to come into your life and fix it. He predicts that the Republican majority will fall apart because Republicans are viewed as moral interventionists. He used the Schiavo case as an example.

Beckel may be on to something. The Shiavo case was one of a handful of issues  -- the ongoing "debate" pitting "Intelligent Design" against Darwin's theory of evolution being another, as was the hysteria that saw an Islamic crescent with star in the Flight 93 "Crescent of Embrace" memorial design -- where we've found ourselves "An opinion storm of one" vis à vis some of the leading lights of the right-of-center blogosphere where we normally ply our trade. Beckel was responding to this bit from Hugh's new book, Painting the Map Red, which stuck in our craw:

"Values voters" was shorthand for regular church attenders, but in late May 2005, my colleague on the radio, Dennis Prager, finally figured out how to define not only the "values voter," but also the "religious right" as understood by Democrats, their candidates, and their consultants.

The American people are not divided between those who believe in God and those who don't, Dennis argued. Almost all Americans believe in God, he pointed out.

But Americans are deeply divided over the issue of whether the Bible is of divine or human origin. Those who believe the Bible's text is divine in origin, and is thus not subject to revision, are very, very different from those who believe the Bible was cobbled together by fallible men, importing their own assumptions and pre-modern superstitions into their accounts of God's design.

In the larger context, the Mystic River Bridge spans upper right as the "Arcadian" heads out to sea.

We'll have to agree to disagree with Hugh on this one, big time. It recalls the last time we disagreed with the great man -- over two years ago -- when he asked for a theocratic litmus test for his political adversaries. As we wrote then:

Are we the only one whose antennae prickled at Hugh Hewitt's inquisitorial list of questions for MSM types?

What questions would I like answered? Very simple ones: For whom did the reporter vote for president in the past five elections?  Do they attend church regularly and if so, in which denomination?  Do they believe that the late-term abortion procedure known as partial birth abortion should be legal? Do they believe same sex marriage ought to be legal?  Did they support the invasion of Iraq?  Do they support drilling in ANWR?

I beg your pardon?  Is this Fifteenth-Century Spain?  Are bloggers now demanding a litmus test for the Fourth Estate? A RELIGIOUS Inquisition?  The Deist Founding Fathers must be spinning in their graves.

As usual, we agree with ourselves. Religious litmus tests fly in the face of the American Dream, as the recent unpleasantness re the Muslim turned Christian in Afghanistan reminds us.

Comments

[Scott]

"But Americans are deeply divided over the issue of whether the Bible is of divine or human origin. Those who believe the Bible's text is divine in origin, and is thus not subject to revision, are very, very different from those who believe the Bible was cobbled together by fallible men, importing their own assumptions and pre-modern superstitions into their accounts of God's design."

I think that may be a bit simplistic. When the writer says that the Bible's text is "divine in origin", he is being a bit loose with his terms - the Bible's original text was written by human beings. Human beings that may have had a (more direct) connection to God, but human beings nonetheless. Even Jesus is widely regarded as having his own share of human frailties *by people who also believe him to be the son of God*.

So if we accept that every one of the Bible's original authors was human, and subject to human frailty, then it follows that their writings are indeed subject to debate and revision. They were after all recounting experiences in their own vernacular - not acting as God's stenographers. And then of course the texts went through several rewrites over the ages, which leads many to ask how close is the present day text to the original.

So citing the Bible's text as divine in origin does not in itself preclude one from also entertaining the possibility of revision.

It's a different story with the Koran of course - not because its author was fundementally different than Jesus and the apostles (all were humans with a special connection to God), but because believers feel the hand of their god to be much more present in the minutest minutae of day to day life, especially including the documentation, transcription and citation of their own particular holy text, i.e. to them anything said by an imam is assumed to be directly sponsored by Allah... unless another imam contradicts him, at which point the muslim brain kind of explodes and shuts down rather than continue on down that seemingly blasphemous path.