Burn of the Day
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
In fairness, that has become a common narrative of late. Last year, after the Roe decision, my old colleague and former classmate Russ Moore took to the press to remind people that conservative evangelicals never really cared about abortion. They simply jumped on the bandwagon in the 70s to get back at Jimmy Carter when Carter began taking on racism.
It fits in upside down clown world. I bet the KKK could get supported by the BLM.
my old colleague and former classmate Russ Moore took to the press to remind people that conservative evangelicals never really cared about abortion. They simply jumped on the bandwagon in the 70s to get back at Jimmy Carter when Carter began taking on racism.
Moore was at one time a contributing editor to Touchstone. He hasn’t placed a piece there since 2012.
Moore landed a position in charge of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission in 2013, then set about defaming evangelicals from that particular perch, and not in any way which indicated a degree of individuality in his perspective.
Rule Number 677, Never allow the evil enemies of God and man malign your motives.
Such scoundrels earn their sordid livings beating the racism drum. They need volume, and it’s over 99% lies.
Art, I can’t help but think Russ has seen the way the wind is blowing and has noticed a loophole in the Left’s usual intolerance for dissension. That is, if you’re a ‘former conservative’ who is willing to say conservatives and traditional Christians are all the Nazi the Left says they are, the Left will give you some leeway. You can agree to disagree (as long as you stay out of the way). I’ve noticed quite a few ‘former conservatives’ now coming out and describing an evangelical world I never saw, but the Left always insisted was there. .
Art, I can’t help but think Russ has seen the way the wind is blowing and has noticed a loophole in the Left’s usual intolerance for dissension.
You knew the guy, I didn’t, so I don’t know. He has now left the Southern Baptist Convention in a state of butt-hurt. He now belongs to an unaffiliated Baptist congregation in Nashville. And, of course, he landed the Editors’ job at Christianity Today.
My rough impression of his performance at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission was that he was getting into disputes with members of the denomination’s governing institutions by calling out people he fancied were malefactors in the denomination rather than doing his job. If you’ve correctly described his assessment of evangelical political activity, the man is either a liar or dumber than whale sh!t. The notion that Joe and Jane Evangelical volunteer at a crisis pregnancy center in 2012 in order to stick it to Jimmy Carter is madcap.
Carter began taking on racism.
No clue what that’s supposed to mean. You can locate an old issue of The Public Interest from around 1982 with an article in it with the title, “Desegregating or Debilitating Higher Education” for an account of the activity of Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights during the Carter Administration. Is this what Moore was referring to when he says ‘take on racism’? (Moore would do well to have a gander at Jody Powell’s memoir of the Carter Administration. Carter had fairly sour interpersonal relations with the Congressional Black Caucus and Powell relates that meetings between Carter and the Caucus were ever sources of dismay when they were over).
As far as I can tell, World magazine, which has until recently been edited by an old school Presbyterian and does cover the evangelical world, has never published a word about Russell Moore. Hmmm…
This is from an article Russ back in May: “the motivating factor was, in fact, religious conservatives’ backlash against Carter administration initiatives to remove tax exemptions from racist all-white “segregation academies” run by church groups. Balmer is hardly the only one to make this case.”
“the motivating factor was, in fact, religious conservatives’ backlash against Carter administration initiatives to remove tax exemptions from racist all-white “segregation academies” run by church groups. Balmer is hardly the only one to make this case.”
See Alan Jacobs on Ballmer. His assessment is that Ballmer has said things which are so fantastically false that he cannot know they are not false and one grasps for an explanation as to why he says them. A lot of sketchy characters in the evangelical academy.
There were people cheesed about the issue he mentioned, but it’s just stupid to speak as if it was an exclusive motivator for any one person or that it motivated anyone but an odd constituency. Years ago, I found some data on private primary and secondary education in the Southern United States. It enrolled about 9% of the student population therein and did so for decades. There was no sustained proportionate expansion. People attend private schools for all kinds of reasons. Those for whom that was the decisive reason were a small constituency and the issue in question hasn’t been live for decades.
And, of course, it never occurred to Moore that having the federal government financially penalizing unfashionable viewpoints was an illegitimate exercise of its functions and likely to be turned on people he found less alienating. What a shallow poseur.
More Black preborn children are murdered before birth in New York City than are born alive. There’s an issue for you to address Congressional Black Caucus. I won’t hold my breath. I would consider the formation of a Congressional White Caucus to be a racist act. I afford the CBC the same deference.
“it’s just stupid to speak as if it was an exclusive motivator for any one person or that it motivated anyone but an odd constituency.”
I’ve concluded that preemptive accusation is the cornerstone of progressive discourse. Not that others don’t do this, but it seems essential for those on the left. After all, attributing malice to the motives of those who question a liberal position seems the best way to immediately seize the high ground in any debate while avoiding the actual debate. And it’s worked like a charm over the years. Hence why so many conservatives will begin an argument with “now I don’t hate thus and such, and I know there are bad conservatives and things”. Note those on the left never seem obliged to offer such apologies when they begin an argument.