So, You Want a Theocracy Now?
Wright's expressed reason for speaking out (and possibly wrecking Obama's presidential bid) is that he feels he must defend the Black church from criticism. Right here is the trouble with churches -- they don't like to be criticized, and they don't think they should be criticized. If you criticize them, they tell you you are being disrespectful and sacreligious. It is not that the Pastor disagrees with you, it is that God disagrees with you and therefore you must be punished. Somehow, people are always more offended when they are told that God Himself is not on their side.
Isn't it interesting that there are so many churches in America who all more or less disagree with one another? Hagee hates and fears Catholics. Falwell hoped to see the end of public schools. Robertson declared that "Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians." Wright may be more correct about the history of Americans and black people in America than any of these pastors, but he is more like them than he is unlike them in that he sees attacks on him as attacks on the Black church, and he feels obliged to defend it. If Obama is required to repudiate Wright, then why isn't McCain required to repudiate Hagee? Well, only for this reason -- Hagee controls more votes. The fact of the matter is, all of the candidates have to pander to constituents who will not admit that in the last 70 years -- to say the least -- US policy has done a great deal of harm around the world and that that harm has aroused hatred and vengefulness toward the US. A candidate who won't admit or doesn't know that is the one who can get elected, but a president who can't admit or doesn't know that will continue to course of American destruction that Bush and Cheney have sent us down. Bush didn't know "why they hate us". Cheney did know, but didn't care.
The crossroads we find ourselves at was an inevitable one. I always knew some preacher would get some president or some presidential aspirant into big trouble. I naively hoped that it would be a rightwinger and his hate-spewing Robertson/Falwell power mongering hypocrite. I should have known it would someone who actually knows something about American history. But Obama wouldn't have this problem if Americans didn't have the idea that their president has to be a man of faith. If Americans thought that the president just had to be an intelligent and knowledgeable person, a competent policy wonk and an inspiring public speaker, Obama would be home free. But as an atheist, or an agnostic, or even someone who kept his beliefs to himself, Obama would have never had a chance. He could be ten times as smart and well-prepared as George W. Bush, but he would never get the votes. So, what Obama has been honest about his religious journey in a way that NO OTHER CANDIDATE HAS, and now even Bob Herbert wants him to abase himself for it. I'm sure Clinton's and McCain's pastors are going to come under similar scrutiny (Ha!). They should, because maybe if they did, the American people (and the press) would wake up from this madness of making politics about religion.
Update: As a result of Obama's smartly-phrased repudiation of Rev. Wright, I call upon John McCain to repudiate, in similar terms and at similar length, his relationship with Rev. Hagee, and for Hillary Clinton to openly discuss and repudiate her relationship to her Capitol Hill prayer fellowship led by Doug Coe. Among other things, According to Mother Jones, "The Fellowship believes that the elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes. Its mission is to help the powerful understand their role in God's plan." God's plan, according to them, seems to be "'spiritual war' on behalf of Christ". I, as a patriotic American, am at least as offended and frightened by anything Doug Coe and Sam Brownback are planning as I am by anything Rev. Wright is planning. Obama has repudiated Wright as forthrightly and gracefully as possible. Now I want the same from the others. The press must hold Clinton and McCain to the same standard as Obama. Hagee and Coe must go.
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A disappointment. I don't want any candidate to have to repudiate or even discuss their church or pastor. I have no problem with Rev. Wright period. He's the only one since Gravel was disappeared who thinks our double standard on WMDs and our heedless, even patriotic comfort with killing others is something we need to face and get past. I think the right wing warmonging fearmongering profiteers are so sensitive to that that like McCarthy they have to pull it out of obscurity, shine a ridiculing fearing light on it, and blacklist it. Nervous laugh? Too close to home? Nobody there but you chickens.
Beautifully considered and expressed, as always from Jane Smiley
Like it or not the USA is a theocracy. I'm sick to death of so-called religious leaders being given, by an influential media, the power to have ANY say in government policy. I'm sick of the medias insistence that the rhetoric and mind-numbing bullshit espoused by these charlatains, crooks and showmen is of any value to political discourse.
An individuals right to worship is his or her business and should be kept within the confines of their church, synagogue or mosque, for when those beliefs spill over to the political arena theocracies are empowered to rain terror and oppression on the subjects they govern. The idea that a POTUS must be a man of religious faith is the greatest injustice this country can inflict on itself, for it eliminates a pool of superb individuals qualified to lead in a manner beneficial to the majority of Americans.
For years I've watched this country descend into an abyss of controversies, some of which had little to do with policy or the judgement to propose policy and a media hell bent on shoving tabloid journalism disguised as real news down the throats of it's customers. Maybe one day we'll learn our lesson. If not lunatics on both sides of the aisle will keep us divided and we'll need not worry about any outside groups desire to attack us or our way of life. We'll do it for them and destroy it ourselves.
""""". If not lunatics on both sides of the aisle will keep us divided and we'll need not worry about any outside groups desire to attack us or our way of life. We'll do it for them and destroy it ourselves."""""
Your last statement is ALREADY IN PROGRESS.
Would you include Rev. Martin Luther King in the religious leaders you would want to not be able to have an effect on government policy?
"We all have to be concerned about terrorism, but you will never end terrorism by terrorizing others." ~Martin Luther King
Tell you what, I WANT this guy affecting govt policy, bottom up, top down, whatever. Tell it on the mountain, tell it in the valley, tell it in the city, tell it to the country, tell it to the world.
ps. And McCain's Hagee endorsement is okay because McCain got a lot of money from it?!?!!!?!!?
Amazing!. I watched Rev. Wright on the Bill Moyers show on PBS last Sunday and was impressed with his arguments, soft-spokenness, righteous explainations, professional and calm demeanor. Given what I knew about him (all negative), from the media, I was more than pleasantly surprised. I feel all the hypersensitivity from the media and the self possessed bloggers, is really what is driving this fake indignation about a man speaking the truth has he has experienced it, knows it and deals with it on a daily basis. I think the real problem is the non-black community, and I am a white women, and their determination to "say it ain't so". Senator Obama may have helped himself in the short run, but I'm not so sure.
Doesn't the fact that religion dictates politics in America mean that you're already living in a theocracy? A person can only become President in America if they pass the "Religious Test". Religion dictates politics. Theocracy.
Yet another reason to support the complete divorcement of Church and State. Thanks, Jane!
The human species is a superstitious lot, particularly in countries such as the US where public education is fractured and, the population is subject to the whims of the prevailing political fear quotient. Quite naturally, where there is little sense of community protection, such as our social Darwinist system, people are easily frightened. In more socially advanced countries with more sophisticated populations - many of whom have no established law regarding the separation of church and state - religious beliefs are more private and rarely become a public issue. Unfortunately for us, our frightened less enlightened people will accept almost any religious authority figure (pseudo high priests) if claims are made of his divine knowledge or association compatible with the notion of eternal salvation.
Two quotes, which succinctly expresses the deep and prescient apprehensions of theological doctrine. The inclusion of any and all theological convention, within the Constitutional construct, was wisely proscribed by the "framers". The protracted and incessant echoes of the "chattering crass" suggests a certain insidious intent. One, I suspicion, conveniently flows from the axiom, 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend".
By dent of the aggressive consolidation of media outlets, the once venerable "Fourth Estate" is now relegated, by the oligarchy, to no more than a shanty town squarely focused on the profit imperative, entertainment value and the advancement of distraction and divisive
ideology.
"It is not God that is worshipped but the group or authority that claims to speak in His name. Sin becomes disobedience to authority not violation of integrity."
Sir Radhakrishnan
"Man is made to adore and to obey: but if you will not command him, if you give him nothing to worship, he will fashion his own divinities, and find a chieftain in his own passions."
Benjamin Disraeli
Well Jane, don't hold your breath waiting for the MSM to hold Clinton and McCain to the same standard because this is not about religion and we all know it. This is about looking for ANY REASON to not support the BLACK MAN. Despite his intelligence, despite his message, despite his running a decent and positive campaign, there are still too many low-achieving WHITE PEOPLE who need somebody to s**t on and gosh darn it, you are not going to take that away from them. If a BLACK MAN becomes president, won't that mean that these low-achieving WHITE People are where they are because of their own failings?
Written by a 65+ year old white woman who is sick to death of this campaign which is destroying the only chance we have of turning our country around.
Clinton and McCain are not the future.
I watched the Bill Moyers interview and didn't see what all the fuss was about. This whole episode is nothing but a coordinated hit. Obviously.
I defended Wright's positions based on his infamous 9/11 sermon and you're right, there was nothing offensive about the Bill Moyers interview, and if that was the extent of it I don't think Obama would have felt compelled to respond. The speeches before the National Press Club and the NAACP are a different story though and seemed aimed at causing maximum damage to Obama.
Thank you, well said.
Wish I had something more original then great post, but it is what it is.
My thoughts are just that when batshit crazy people worship batshit crazy invisable people and then hold the the leaders of batshit crazy central to standards received by either telepathy or the reading of magic books written by batshit crazy invisable people, well, this nation has just gone.....batshit crazy
The USA turn more and more into the USB. The United States of Bigotry...
Ms Smiley, I must respectfully disagree with your excellent post. I think religion is being used by the media to exploit racial tensions. And the goal is to hurt the Obama campaign.
As you have stated, there is fire and brimstone—and offensive silliness—in a lot of religious rhetoric. There is bigotry and bombast and accusation and self righteousness. The wrinkle is that Wright is black. When Wright does the same thing that other religious figures have done, it can be promoted as so scary and so offensive to white audiences that Barack Obama—who did not make these comments and doesn't agree with them—can be called on the carpet to control his pastor. And when his pastor turns out to be a human being and not subject to control, Obama can be made to apologize for his failure to rein him in.
It''s a media hit job. It has nothing to do with religion. Religion was just the handiest weapon available.
I remember the good old days, when Christians were "so heavenly minded they were no Earthly good." I heard that a lot when I was a teenager and believed my imaginary friend was the one true god.
You got it exactly right, Jane, as usual.
No she didn't. This is not about religion at all. This is about politics, and Wright's egomanaical behavior. The wingnuts on the right (and Shrillary) would have taken him to task about it anyway. Yes, there are some who demand to know about how a candidate's religion affects their political policies. But this whole episode is not really about religious belief, it's about politics.
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