K.A. Paul Gets Attention After Hastert Meeting

Today’s Top Five

1. Will K.A. Paul face more scrutiny after moment in spotlight? Or will his platform grow? You won’t find much about K.A. Paul on the Christianity Today site. Every reference to the Indian preacher is from a Weblog, mostly from outlets raising questions about his ministry. (One exception: The New Republic was mildly positive, apparently because he talks about poverty more than he does about abortion.) We didn’t report on his expulsion from the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability over oversight and financial transparency concerns. We didn’t report on the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention taking the unprecedented step of issuing a vote of no confidence in his ministry, or of the Assemblies of God leadership similarly criticizing his work. We haven’t followed up on reports that his orphanage ministry spends more on jet fuel for Paul’s plane than on actual orphans, nor that he has taken credit for other people’s work. We have no plans to report his recent claims that the Republican Party is delaying the Second Coming of Christ and that the Iraq war is “genocide.” Quite honestly, we haven’t covered him because there are many self-promotional ministers out there with grossly exaggerated claims, outrageous statements, and problematic finances. Paul has had more success in getting himself into The New Yorker and other publications, but getting such clips seems to be his ministry’s real focus. So why give him more attention?

Well, he’s certainly getting attention this week. Amid the Mark Foley scandal, Paul scored a meeting with House Speaker Dennis Hastert at the speaker’s home. What’s more, Paul claims that Hastert promised him he’d resign. He told Mother Jones, “God convinced him through me in prayer.” Paul claims Hastert said, “God gave me this position that I don’t deserve. For the good of the people, I will do it.” The Mother Jones story is full of other … eccentricities. (Example: Paul says he knew Abu Musab al-Zarqawi “when he was nobody.”)

Hastert’s office told the Chicago Sun-Times that the meeting was a mistake, that Hastert thought the hastily scheduled meeting was with a constituent of his district, and that the Speaker will not resign.

The thing is, this meeting is the buzz of Washington right now and raises his profile. It might raise Paul’s reputation as a publicity hound, the “craziest preacher ever,” and a “nut job,” but that hasn’t stopped the press corps from quoting every crazy thing Pat Robertson says. Is Paul going to be the new media darling for reporters looking for a juicy religious quote? Don’t bet on it: His political views are probably too unpredictable for “fill-in-the-blank” reporting.

2. The New York Times: “American religious organizations benefit from an increasingly accommodating government” Much of The New York Times series can be summarized (no surprise) at the end of its final article:

[T]ax and regulatory exemptions that have become available to religious organizations in America … benefit religion in ways that some critics say go beyond the limits of the Constitution.

Until several years ago, “it was inconceivable for most to think that religion might well be aggressively expanding its power in a way that is harmful to the public good,” said Marci A. Hamilton, a law professor. … But now, Professor Hamilton said, the power of religious entities “is at its apex.”

Defenders of these exemptions deny that they raise any questions of excessive power or constitutional violations.

That or is important. It’s not just about the limits of the Constitution. It’s about people worrying about religious influence (or, if you will, power).

3. The Boston Globe looks at religious involvement in foreign aid While The New York Times is getting attention for its look at religious tax and regulatory exemptions within the U.S., The Boston Globe has more quietly been examining how international Christian groups get funding from the U.S. government’s foreign aid budget. “Many of these groups do excellent work, and the government has been relying on them for decades, especially during emergencies,” the Globe says in a roundup editorial. “But all have an overriding purpose—to convert people to Christianity—and the government needs to distribute the money with a skeptical eye … [T]he U.S. government should not subsidize their work unless it comes without religious content.” The Globe is going a bit further than the usual (and important) keep-the-money-separate argument. The paper instead argues that the only religious groups that should get funding are secular ones.

4. The Denver Post: Watch out for Dennis Leonard At least we at Christianity Today had heard of K.A. Paul. Who is Dennis Leonard? Apparently, he’s a hugely popular prosperity gospel preacher in Colorado. His Heritage Christian Center “is a Pentecostal congregation with weekend attendance of about 7,000 – roughly 40 percent black, 40 percent white and 20 percent Latino and other races,” church officials told The Denver Post. The paper examines Leonard, his theology, and his money in a special report that’s worth reading, even if you’ve never heard of him. (What’s up with this week and special reports on religion?)

5. Did the Amish forgive too quickly? While several newspapers are doing in-depth special reports on religion, the religion story getting the widest attention this week is still the Amish. But this week, it’s less about the school shooting per se and more about the Amish reaction to it. Op-ed writers and columnists around the country are astounded at speed and extent to which the Amish community—including some immediate family members of the victims—forgave shooter Charles Roberts. It was “religion in its best light,” said Bruce Kluger of USA Today. “I don’t know about you, but that kind of faith is beyond comprehension,” Rod Dreher wrote in a widely reprinted Dallas Morning News column. “I’m the kind of guy who will curse under my breath at the jerk who cuts me off in traffic on the way home from church. And look at those humble farmers, putting Christians like me to shame.” (Former “Professional Catholic” Dreher, by the way, “came out” as a communicant of the Orthodox Church today, though The Washington Post mentioned as much a few months ago and he earlier said he was “considering Orthodoxy.”)

Other op-ed writers are wondering about the lessons to be drawn. “Hatred is not always wrong, and forgiveness is not always deserved,” Jeff Jacoby wrote in The Boston Globe. “I admire the Amish villagers’ resolve to live up to their Christian ideals even amid heartbreak, but how many of us would really want to live in a society in which no one gets angry when children are slaughtered? In which even the most horrific acts of cruelty were always and instantly forgiven? There is a time to love and a time to hate, Ecclesiastes teaches. If anything deserves to be hated, surely it is the pitiless murder of innocents.”

Quote of the day “National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as ‘ridiculous,’ ‘out of control,’ and just plain ‘goofy.'”

—David Kuo, former deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and author of the forthcoming book Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction. According to early reports, Kuo’s book alleges that the faith-based initiatives office was “used almost exclusively to win political points with both evangelical Christians and traditionally Democratic minorities.”

New York Times series on religious organizations | Boston Globe series on faith-based organizations abroad | Denver Post on Dennis Leonard | Amish school shooting | Amish and forgiveness | Philippine killings | Indonesia | War and violence | Australia stabbing over conversion | Crime (non-U.S.) | Crime (U.S.) | Abuse | Foley scandal | K.A. Paul and Denny Hastert | Sexual ethics | Ex-gay ministries | Family | Politics | Mitt Romney | Environment | Abortion | Church and state (U.S.) | Requiring immunizations | Church and state (non-U.S.) | Education | Evolution | Higher education | Church buildings | Church life | Catholicism | Pope and Islam | Europe’s culture clash | China | People | Billy Graham’s grandson holds crusade | Other Grahams | Media | New York Hell House | Music | Film | Youth | Missions and ministry | Money, business, and giving | Israel | History | Atheism | Other stories of interest

New York Times series on religious organizations:

Series: In God’s name | How American religious organizations benefit from an increasingly accommodating government (The New York Times)
As exemptions grow, religion outweighs regulation | Religious organizations enjoy an abundance of exemptions from regulations and taxes. And the number is multiplying rapidly (The New York Times)
Where faith abides, employees have few rights | For years, U.S. judges have used the separation of church and state to shield religious employers of all faiths from labor laws and most employee lawsuits (The New York Times)
As religious programs expand, disputes rise over tax breaks | As religious organizations extend their scope beyond traditional worship, government at all levels is increasingly extending their tax exemptions (The New York Times)
Religion-based tax breaks: Housing to paychecks to books | Churches and ordained clergy of all faiths get a series of tax exemptions that secular organizations and workers do not (The New York Times)
In the Congressional hopper: A long wish list of special benefits and exemptions | For all their gains, some advocates for religious freedom say government must do more to protect religious institutions from the hostile environment of modern America (The New York Times)
New York Times takes on First Amendment (Mollie Hemingway, GetReligion)

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