Mayflower writes,
"This is a vision beyond partisanship, beyond policy, beyond Democrat or Republican, Catholic or Protestant, Evangelical or Atheist, rich or poor, black or brown or white. This is what Obama has always meant when, from the beginning of his race for the presidency, he has talked about sacrifice."
That sounds like the best conceivable way forward to me.
But then Mayflower goes on, "To put it flippantly, this is Obama's plan to put us on a diet, ration television, reduce our individual carbon footprint, and nudge us into national service."
That isn't flippant. Its a lie. Opening pathways for those of us who want to help our communities and through them our country is completely, 100% different from invading our personal habits.
Come on people, its McCain or Obama. Give him a break.
Obama, God And Governance
Barack Obama's Zanesville, Ohio, remarks on July 1st, in which he pledged a continuation, if reorganization, of the Bush Administration's Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, are part of a larger Obama religious outreach called the American Values Campaign, a "journey," in which the Obama camp is mulling the role of faith in the public square and reclaiming the "moral values" debate. The campaign's so-called American Values Supporters get a Daily Faith Briefing as well as the opportunity to blog a Values Question of the Week.
Likely this wing of the campaign is a surprise to some of the Senator's progressive supporters. Here is a candidate who has had to navigate stumbling blocks such as the Reverend Wright, Father Phleger and the Muslim urban myth, as well as the words out of his own mouth on working class Pennsylvanians clinging to religion, nevertheless consigning his summer outreach to Director of Religious Affairs Josh DuBois, a young Pentecostal minister who signs off as Joshua, and Alyssa Martin, a Religious Affairs Intern who signs off with Blessings. Is this good strategy?
The Senator's intention to give religious faith an important place in the public square, should he be elected president, is not a revelation. He has long argued for a connection between religion and politics. In his June 28, 2006, Keynote Address at the Call to Renewal's Building a Covenant for a New America conference, Obama talked about the need "to tackle head-on the mutual suspicion that sometimes exists between religious America and secular America." This need is "a prayer worth praying, and a conversation worth having in this country," Obama concluded. Certainly, much of the debate in the presidential primaries, both Democratic and Republican, continued this conversation. It's just that many in the press and many of Obama's liberal/progressive supporters chose to ignore the talk, likely on the assumption that Obama was just politicking. There was no need to take him at his word.
At the June 4, 2007, Sojourners Presidential Forum held on CNN with Anderson Cooper's "Situation Room," Obama assured moderator Soledad O'Brien, "I think we can get past the left and right divide" on the issue of faith. A few minutes earlier, Obama told his friend Jim Wallis, the left-leaning Evangelical founder of Sojourners, "So my starting point as president is to restore that sense that we are in this together. That's the starting point. And faith informs that. My moral commitments to that vision of what Dr. King called a 'beloved community' rose out of my faith." The significance of these remarks -- the sense that we are in this together, the vision of America as a beloved community, and the further significance of who is doing the beloving -- were obscured at the time by the forum's set-up, in which, one-at-a-time, the Democratic candidates answered superficial questions, and by the underlying dishonesty of allowing Jim Wallis, not known among the general public as Obama's friend, to feed Obama questions. Andrew Sullivan, excoriating "the faith-off" for its fatuousness and Bush-like religiosity, set the tone for skeptics.
Over the past twelve months, therefore, it has been easy to ignore the Obama faith forums in Iowa and New Hampshire and their dynamic of the "campaign altar call"; the Forty Days of Faith and Family leading up to the South Carolina primary; that part of Obama's "On My Faith and My Church" blog on The Huffington Post, published during the March 2008 segment of the Reverend Wright saga, in which he proclaims "the gospel of Jesus, a gospel on which I base my life"; the April 14, 2008, Compassion Forum at Messiah College (Obama tells Jon Meacham he has not "come to a firm resolution" on the subject of abortion); and Obama's June 10, 2008, meeting in Chicago with more than thirty religious leaders, including Franklin Graham. The latter was a meeting Obama did not have to convene; surely, he knew in advance that Graham would resist recognizing him as a fellow Christian. Nevertheless, the convocation was part of Obama's call of the faithful to the public square and an example, as if any more were needed, of his boldness and confidence.
The vision of the beloved community knit together by "the sense that we are in this together" has always been Obama's particular Christian epiphany and subsequently the compass that directed him through the wilderness of the long and bruising Democratic primary battle. The significance of his Zanesville remarks last week on federally funded faith-based initiatives is that it should now be clear that Obama means what he has always said. Furthermore, he has given us a glimpse from Zanesville how the presence of faith in the public square of an Obama Administration would work.
First of all, faith would play a major and not a minor role. Building on the Bush Administration's faith-based initiatives, Obama plans to establish a new and improved and more powerful Council that will be "a critical part" of his administration, either at cabinet-level or directly under his own supervision. Whether he grasps the thorny intricacies of marrying federal guidelines with church practices is unclear, but Obama had the confidence to tell Zanesville that his Council will "help set our national agenda." So any Obama faith-based programs will be empowered and seriously funded. They also will be -- and here's the catch for the money recipients -- engaged "to train the thousands of groups that don't" know how to get federal grants. Catholic Charities, therefore, will be required to help smaller groups -- a Pentecostal store-front church, say, or an immigrant Somali mosque -- to "build and run effective programs."
Everyone is called to the public square to help one another. "We need all hands on deck," Obama said in Zanesville. And who might be our Captain? The old familiarity of this maritime metaphor shouldn't obscure its significance -- one that Obama himself may not have realized is so revealing, for it shows that he is thinking in terms of absolute authority. Those churches that accept federal monies for social programs -- they will help other religious groups. Obama has not only the confidence that comes with the will to power but also the iron control of a commander.
The Zanesville speech on faith-based programs was part of the Obama Campaign's orchestration of the Fourth of July holiday week, through the patriotism speech in Independence, Missouri on June 30, the Zanesville speech on July 1, the "New Era of Service" speech in Colorado Springs on July 2, the "Remarks on Veterans" in Fargo, North Dakota, on July 3, and the Address on Faith to the African Methodist Episcopal Church convention in St. Louis on July 5. It is worth noting, first, that the McCain Campaign has yet to show any aptitude for this level of sweeping strategy. But more importantly, through his Christian faith and its emphasis on brothers' and sisters' keepers, Obama is redefining the American Dream. To the Veterans in North Dakota, he expounds "the idea that America could be governed not by men, but by laws; that we could be equal in the eyes of those laws; that we could be free to say what we want and write what we want and worship as we please; that we could have the right to pursue our individual dreams, but the obligation to help our fellow citizens pursue theirs [italics mine]." This obligation not only is new but also exists, if it does, in tension with individual freedom.
From "the commitments that bind us to our nation, and to each other" (Independence speech) to "all hands on deck" (Zanesville) to "we must also serve a common purpose" (Colorado Springs) to "the ideals that stir so many of us as Americans -- pride, duty, and sacrifice" (Fargo) to "carrying out His works" (St. Louis), Barack Obama is setting a pietistic tone for the presidency to which he aspires. Obama is calling all of us to a great commingling, where he as our Leader, gentle in tone but forceful in command, will require of us that we summon our common values and our faith, if we are religious, to work together toward an "American renewal." This is a vision beyond partisanship, beyond policy, beyond Democrat or Republican, Catholic or Protestant, Evangelical or Atheist, rich or poor, black or brown or white. This is what Obama has always meant when, from the beginning of his race for the presidency, he has talked about sacrifice. To put it flippantly, this is Obama's plan to put us on a diet, ration television, reduce our individual carbon footprint, and nudge us into national service. (In his Service speech, Obama called for "a new generation of Americans to join our military.")
Obama's remarks to Zanesville, which is part of Appalachian Ohio, show how he is dealing with and will continue to approach blue collar and rural voters. He is holding such voters to the same high standards as he does everyone else. "So I am asking you -- on this 4th of July -- to reject that divide [between the problems of private life and the public square], to step into the strong currents of history, and to shape your country's future," he tells Colorado Springs. This is a parallel with the call-out to Appalachian Ohio on the social gospel. The underlying supposition, which is a radical departure for recent Democratic presidential candidates, is a high regard for these particular folk. This is also a bold strategy, one whose underlying faith message fits uneasily with the anodyne and sometimes ridiculous faith outreach elsewhere in the many-tentacled Obama Campaign. Today, for example, the Obama Daily Faith Briefing begins with a paean to the recent decision to move Obama's August 28th acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention from the hall itself to an outdoors venue before a Rocky Mountain crowd of 75,000 (echoes of the Sermon on the Mount?) and ends with praise for Obama's support of merit pay for teachers. If the currents of our history teach us anything, it is that we Americans, despite our cyclical bursts of religious enthusiasm, in the end resist bringing too much under the rubric of faith.
This week: Following Up with Zanesville; Following McCain in Appalachian Ohio
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helping our communities will require changing personal habits, did you think there would be zero sacrifice?
Why is it that those who are totally gnostic or an athiest truly hate to hear anything about God? No one makes anybody listen or respond to their post so if you don't like anything you're read, why not just skip over it and go to the next one? Instead all the Godless people would rather be obnoxious or rude to those who do believe. That's not nice!
I prefer not to have another religious fruitcake in the white house. I'd settle for a secular man of true conviction who won't cave in to pressure and to stand by his promises and uphold the constitution and one who will reign in the military complex and kick out all lobbyists out of congress and have the courage to stand up to corporations and AIPAC and Isreal. Until a find such a man I'll cast my vote for him/her. Up to now no such critter exists.
It's not about being religious as it is more about being a decent human being willing to work with others to make life better for all involved.
You can't have that kind of courage without faith in God and a spiritual connection to God within yourself. That 'critter' exist within us all. Obama has released his fear of exposing the truth and stepped up to the plate to bring the power of spirit to this country. We could have a little bright spot in our country's sordid history; just before the lights inevitably go out.
I find this very near offensive. As an atheist, I find that my personal convictions and beliefs are fairly steadfast, much more so than any person of faith that I've ever met. Moreover, my personal convictions and beliefs are based on REALITY, and not a book scribbled down 1400 years ago, which contradicts its self readily, is based on hearsay and rumor, and is reinterpreted for the convenience of men in power at the time it is reinterpreted. "Spirit," as you refer to it, to me stands for ignorance and the loss of creativity and imagination. True power comes from belief in ones self and ones ability to make decisions to benefit themselves and mankind. The genuine nature of our being can not be found in some sort of hypothetical supreme being that acts upon and judges us, but cannot be truly known. The genuine nature of our being is ours to create, and should be our responsibility.
Obama pious? I don't think so. Ambitious? Oh my YES!!!! As he himself has affirmed quite often recently. His policies change as the political winds change. And yet the"Golden Tongued One" has gathered around him thousands and thousands of suckers. I suppose "change" by any definition is fine for them as long as they can ride that bandwagon. When it crashes folks, brace yourself for a hard landing.
You're the one being sucked in littLdy2.
The notion that Obama is an ambitious flip-flopper works to the great advantage of McCain. Republicans are happily fanning it every which way. The media is playing the tune, emails are zinging through the wires, and you can bet a lot of anti-Obama comments on Huffington post come from people on the Republican payroll.
What's missing is evidence. Obama's positions are far more consistent than McCains. Unambitious people don't run for president, so that has no place on the table.
Sorry, suckers. McCain will be president. Global capital wins again. How do you fight it?
You guys are being drawn in the wrong direction here. Don't listen to what Ms Fowler is saying. Listen to what Obama is saying. He's only asking us to work together in our communities to help one another, regardless of religious persuasion.
"So, so you think you can tell heaven from hell; blue skies from pain, can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail; a smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell?
"Did they get you to trade, your heroes for ghosts; hot ashes for trees; hot air for a cool breeze?
"Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead roll in a cage?"
You missed the opportunity to be constructive. We need more ideas than anti sentiments fuel by personal agenda.
Any politicians now a days need a greater level of ambitions to face the waves of skepticism and anti sentiments like yours. But must importantly they need to be reminded why they have rational believers behind them. Instead of "little minded kind" who wish them hard landing crash. This is the perfect example of why, the subject, in case you totally missed it , talk about Obama, god and governance. We cannot allowed little minded and bitter walking ghost to use religion or any influential tools to divide, oppress and exclude American people. We need more solutions than critical judgment, which doesn't gives us alternative or raise our challenges of tomorrow.
Rise up compressed little lady 2 obvious, and 2 involve in the negative zone, to be part of the solution...Stand up little one, stand up from your confined mental cage and rise with ideas. Like, be part of the solution not the constipation.
America is begging for substances after the 7 years of dry dry seasons
After recovering my senses, lol, I will say that we might need both. A secular government and a religious one.
Some man, groups cannot exist without a sense of purposes, a meaning to their actions through life himself. I believe that it can easily be the same for any individual like a state man or president.
We need the secular to govern, protect, educate and the religious to guide, serve, also educate and unite the country. I could see it happening as a compromise to the dilemma offer by the "power of faith" in the hand of the executive power.
We are all people of a certain degree of believe, of faith. Even though we might come from different religions we are just walking different path to finally stop at the same destination, the afterlife...
The Obamas did probably have a challenging start in life. Faith must have played a certain role in their life, even if it is hard to quantify, I believe that he is politically influenced by the general concern of the American faith base. He should be there for them as well as for all Americans. So I guess we cannot be to hard on him for trying to give to the religious corp of America some significant attentions.
And I also believe that his level of authenticity is way more comforting for me then some up there, religious and state man, majority of white crusaders, rotten with the same cancerous agenda. Not God's agenda.
There must be a "separation of church and state" if this union is to last. There must be no official governance perpetrated by any religious group whatsoever. Religion is the most divisive force in the world. Don't let it break our great nation!
Science and religion are two sides of the same coin. One is faith based, one is fact based, but both are seeking the same answers. The reason for fear from the secular portion of our population stems from the long string of past abuses perpetrated by greedy, power mad charlatans. Obama is not one of these.
Science is fact based, interpreted my humans, and often funded by corporations.
I have believe that true science and true faith are in exact harmony. Example: who says that the Great Spirit's day is 24 hours, our time. I think the omnipotent creator of a universe might have a longer day. Perhaps 5 billion years.
Ok, don't get your undergarments in a bunch. Just being snarky.
Science and religion are not two sides of the same coin. Science works on logic and evidence, and is open to review and criticism. Religion is quite the opposite, works on faith and lack of evidence/review, and is very very against criticism.
By the way people God told me to tell you that you should keep your faith inside your inner garden and let him talk to one another. Only Him knows when is the appropriate time for you and I to be told about his words. That is his work not man's work. That is his power, not man's power. That is his purpose, him as the true "heart-mind reader".
Even if you can make god tells you things that you should tell others, I believe that we should tell ourselves, who do we think we are for Christ's sake? We are almost, by behavior, god's equal. And the worst of all is that we are self-invested with god's power as well as the devil's ignorance.
It is almost comical to witness frightened mortals gesticulate with god's immortal power, once they truly realize that life is a journey to the death.
We are immortals wannabe. Caressing dreams of infinite reincarnations and perfectly convenient afterlife outcomes. Now I'm frightened.....
Please re-read the article. Don't go there. It's not necessary.
Al Gore also embraces faith based programs:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/144530
Hillary also embraces faith based initiatives
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/01/20/sen_clinton_urges_use_of_faith_based_initiatives/
John Edwards embraces faith progams
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/148/story_14869_1.html
I don't think this is a panic issue. Having volunteered for years for a faith based shelter, these programs are absolutely necessary because there is no red tape and pre-requisites for people to get immediate help. The only rule is no drugs or alcohol on the premises and availability. We can debate the separation of Church and State until we're blue in the face, however if you're homeless, hungry and have no where to go, constitutional civil liberties are not that big of a concern.
SouthPrairie thank you for the dialogue, you got some very interesting analysis.
Anyway my previous comment is directed at all religions, and I wasn't taking a shot at Obama whom is still my favored, even though lately I would have love a one on one talk with him. In my dreams I guess...
Never the less, society needs to reflect on transcended faith in the population, as Obama needs to find a way to do so, and ignite a dialogue about the true nature of faith in politic, which for my part should remain a personal spiritual journey.
As I have already stated, Compassion, honesty, common sense, love, are not exclusive to religions.
Final point, the reflection should focus on the danger of having religions as a tool in the politics hands, which everybody knows can at any given time be sooo corrupted. We cannot let corruptible men interpreted religions for manipulative purposes. It has happened and it will happen again and again and again. This is the human nature at his best.
Hope you are still feeling me people....
"As I have already stated, Compassion, honesty, common sense, love, are not exclusive to religions"
I couldn't agree more that these things are not exclusive to religions, but the bottom line is these things aren't practiced consistently even in a democratic society, Governments are not going to construct buildings and invest more money than necessary into these problems because it's so closely aligned with Social Security and Public Assistance. Expanding public assistance is not the answer because the unique thing about faith based programs is the human interaction and counseling (not preaching) does more good than just getting a check in the mail.
So true...like the last 7 years. Peace out!
I don't know which is worse. Is Obama pandering to the religious community or is he a true believer?
You seem to be saying he is a true believer. Here is the downside to that: Another opportunity to be governed by reason will be passing. As the world, through technology, becomes more and more dangerous this flight from the rational must be contested, as a matter of survival. I am not saying no support for the poor should pass through religious agencies, but the motivation for doing so must not be based on the faith of the president. Obama would be more to my liking should he move to instill some noble but secular ideas into the current service deliverers such as those dispensing medicaid benefits, veteran benefits and the like. I am always nervous about a leader who is deluded enough to depend on a fictitious entity.
Need I remind you that God is only fictitious to you. I respect your opinion and your belief that God is fictitious. But to me God is real. That does not mean I don't believe in evolution - I do. That does not mean I do not believe in the Big Bang - I do. That does not mean that as a student of history I have not observed that organized religion in the name of a god has perpetrated horrible acts - I have observed that. But as I have wrestled with God, both personally and as a concept, through various stages of my life, as I have felt the Nausea in my stomach that Satre described - and I truly felt it because I had come to the brink of existence, forsaking God, believing that life is nothing, that the only true mode of human living is to accept nihilism - I found faith. And I found it in an odd place - Plato. At the end of Plato's Meno Socrates discusses the difference between true opinion and knowledge. Knowledge is beholding Truth. Yet Truth is unchanging. This universe we live in, though, is never static but fluid. Therefore human reason has a capacity. It can only glimpse Truth incompletely at different times and from different vantage points. Thus I decided from then on I would let faith have its domain and the same with reason. I still struggle with the interplay. But nevertheless I opine that there
How sad that rational political & social debate often gives way to religious rhetoric and blind faith.
How is it that people that undergo a religious ceremony, marriage, get a tax advantage... clearly a gross violation of seperation of church and state.
Still waiting for a religious person to describe their philosophy on life without religious references & terms... christians have abnegated critical thinking for blind faith... in persons and institutions that deserve more, not less, scrutiny & oversite.
How crazy are they to insist that there is nothing more natural than their supernatural superhero!
Tax dollars to religion? Just another great reason to stop paying taxes!
The sooner we end the social narcotics known as god & gov't the sooner we can have the egilitarian society we deserve.
Billy B. Blunt
P.S. To defy the laws of tradition
I don't know if this meets your standard on describing my faith without religious terms but I posted this above but after scrolling down felt it was appropriate to you:
I have wrestled with God, both personally and as a concept, through various stages of my life, as I have felt the Nausea in my stomach that Satre described - and I truly felt it because I had come to the brink of existence, forsaking God, believing that life is nothing, that the only true mode of human living is to accept nihilism - I found faith. And I found it in an odd place - Plato. At the end of Plato's Meno Socrates discusses the difference between true opinion and knowledge. Knowledge is beholding Truth. Yet Truth is unchanging. This universe we live in, though, is never static but fluid. Therefore human reason has a capacity. It can only glimpse Truth incompletely at different times and from different vantage points. Thus I decided from then on I would let faith have its domain and the same with reason. I still struggle with the interplay. But nevertheless I opine that there is a God.
PS - If you're courageous read Soren Kierkegaard. He may actually live up to your standard.
Posted July 8, 2008 | 09:03 AM (EST)