by Sandy » Wed Aug 17, 2011 8:06 pm
If we were talking about ecumenical church relationships here instead of conservative politics, most conservative evangelicals, especially conservative Southern Baptists, wouldn't give Perry the time of day. He's a member of a United Methodist congregation, though I've heard he does not attend church in Austin very often. The United Methodists do a lot of things that, according to conservative evangelicals, demonstrate their lack of belief in the Bible as the written word of God, such as calling women as pastors, being welcoming and affirming of gays and lesbians, vesting clerical authority in a connectional church, and there's a large percentage of Methodist leadership that is ready to move forward with the ordination of gays and lesbians. Most Methodist clergy wouldn't agree with or preach the exclusivity of Christ with regard to salvation. His income tax record of charitable contributions exposes him not only as a non-tither, but not really generous with any charity. And I don't think Perry's record as a supporter or active member of his church is even up there with W's, which wasn't exactly stellar, by conservative evangelical standards.
I think there will be a lot of things that will come out related to Perry's record as governor of Texas, which isn't much to speak of. The governor of Texas has little authority or power to begin with, mainly to veto legislation and call the legislature into session. He's bragging about job creation in Texas, and the numbers do look good, except when you note that their unemployment is also higher than 26 other states, including every one of their neighbors. Actually, most of the jobs that are new in Texas aren't newly created, they're just relocated from somewhere else, and over the past four years, most of those came from neighboring Louisiana as a result of Katrina, which explains why there is still a net loss. And the big question is what did Perry do legislatively or politically to cause them to migrate to Texas? Look at the record. Neither he nor the legislature had anything to do with them. In fact, finding anything that Perry has done legislatively is going to be difficult, even though he's been the governor longer than any other individual. He's a hot air balloon that's about to run into a cold front.