As it was in 2008, the campaign for the Presidency of the United States has turned ugly over the question of religion. Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum has attacked President Obama over his "phony theology," which he later said was in reference to President Obama's "radical environmentalist" agenda. That environmentalism, even if supposedly radical, is being confused with theology is beyond bizarre.
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney accused President Obama's administration to have "fought against religion," a reference to the Obama administration asking all employers, including faith-based (but not churches), to cover contraception in their health insurance drug plan. President Obama's compromise, which allows women to receive contraceptives without religiously affiliated organizations having to directly pay for it, has earned the support of many Catholic employers and women's health providers. But it was not enough to stop Mitt Romney from making ludicrous accusations. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich, not to be outdone, has accused President Obama of "infanticide."
During the contraceptive controversy, a few religious leaders accused President Obama for allowing the state to interfere with religion, certainly a line that should never be crossed. But this principle should be equally applicable to both state and religion. Religious leaders should not interfere in matters related to state.
While many religious leaders act responsibly by refusing to use their pulpit to sway voters, some have waded into the thicket of political fights by acting as surrogates to political candidates and parties. Franklin Graham, a well-known evangelical preacher, recently cast doubt about the president's faith. The candidates for president all remained silent, suggesting a tacit encouragement for using doctrinal purity to determine eligibility for political office. Such silence seems paradoxical given that three of the candidates are religious minorities, two Catholic and the third a Mormon. Moreover, why has religion been narrow-casted so as to revolve around a few hot button political issues of abortion, contraception and gays, to the exclusion of arguably more important topics such as poverty, justice and corruption, issues that all religions discuss at length?
Had Mitt Romeny, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich been consistent in their defense of religious liberty, one may have been slightly forgiving of their hyperbolic rhetoric. But they chose to wave the flag of religious liberty only when it suited them politically, after all Catholics make up nearly one quarter of the electorate. Disconcerting is their silence when other religious minorities are subject of government intrusion of their constitutionally protected rights.
A recent Associated Press investigation has revealed that the New York Police Department monitored Muslims in New York and surrounding states for no other reasons except their faith. According to the AP,
"Police trawled daily through student websites run by Muslim student groups at Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers and 13 other colleges in the Northeast. They talked with local authorities about professors in Buffalo and even sent an undercover agent on a whitewater rafting trip, where he recorded students' names and noted in police intelligence files how many times they prayed."
President Obama's silence is also disconcerting. However, in the past his Justice Department assured Muslim leaders that the Obama administration will remain vigilant against religious profiling. Following an investigative report in the Wired Magazine, which showed material being used for training law enforcement contain many falsehoods about the American Muslim community, FBI Director Robert Muller met Muslim and Arab leaders. He assured them that the Bureau is removing from the curriculum any material that contains factual errors or stereotypical depiction of Muslims and their faith. Recently, President Obama apologized when reports surfaced of Qurans being mistakenly burned at the U.S. military bases in Afghanistan.
Religion is very close to the heart of all who practice their faith. Making religion a wedge issue is a great disservice to our nation, where diversity of religious views is our strength. The great poet Rumi pricked our conscience best when he asked, "Why do you stay in prison, when the door is so wide open?" Why take a narrow view of religious liberty and only express outrage when it is politically expedient? Such opportunism undermines the pluralistic fabric of our nation, which requires all of us to work together to solve our problems, even while holding dear our deepest differences.
Rabbi Daniel Brenner: Every Sperm Is Sacred? Jewish Perspectives on Contraception
A very liberal Christian might even pronounce this formula, as long as he mentally puts an indefinite article before the word “prophet”—a prophet, rather than the prophet.
But such an act of interfaith concession would violate a central Islamic doctrine—that while there were prophets before Muhammad—notably Abraham, Moses and Jesus—he is “the seal of prophecy”, its final culmination.
For Islam, both Judaism and Christianity, as they developed, distorted the message of these earlier prophets. Needless to say, this compliment was returned by those who have interpreted Islam as a distortion of Christianity.
So yes, there are very distinctive differences between the three traditions. But so there are within each. Do Catholics and Protestants share a common faith? Do Sunnis and Shiah? And what about Reform and Orthodox Jews? If one looks more closely at any collective category, its alleged essence can quite easily be deconstructed, and not only when it comes to religion.
Quaryashism is a genetic religion for the preservation of the patriarchal lineage of eponymous ishmael where the tenets cultural traditions and city state laws, as detailed in the qurayn, only apply within hejaz.
Universalism if qurayshism outside of hejaz, upon non lineal descendants of ishmael, is termed fictional ishmaelism.
The term islam means "to submit" and the term muslim means "one who submits". The directive to submit is Orwellian doublespeak, which seeks to implement the pathetic condition of mammon, which surrenders alternative thought and independent decision for capitulation, else decapitulation, with the pretentious supremacy of arab cultural hegemony as dictated through absolution of authoritarian despots.
Perhaps that sentence should be sent to every church and religious leader in the United States of America! If they wish to interfere in matters of the state then they should be directed to pay taxes..for they are no longer servicing the religious needs of their followers...they are directly interfering with the lives of Americans who may, or may not, agree with their position.
Unfortunately, the religious leaders of the world and more specifically the U.S. want to have it their way...and not consider there are other options.
As a gay physician one thing is certain about religious convictions..they are choices.
Whichever of these runs against him, President Obama will be the only Protestant on the ticket.
He has been a member of the Congregational United Church of Christ for more than 20 years. (Yes, conspiratorists, he joined that long ago to set everyone up for the day he would become President of the United States, and finally declare his Muslim faith and join hands with the Muslim world in bringing down our Christian nation.)
Okay, sarcasm button OFF.
Here are just two of the UCC doctrines, which Obama lives and tries to govern by:
"We believe that the UCC is called to be a prophetic church. As in the tradition of the prophets and apostles, God calls the church to speak truth to power, liberate the oppressed, care for the poor and comfort the afflicted."
"We believe the UCC is called to be a united and uniting church. "That they may all be one." (John 17:21) "In essentials–unity, in non-essentials–diversity, in all things–charity," These UCC mottos survive because they touch core values deep within us. The UCC has no rigid formulation of doctrine or attachment to creeds or structures. Its overarching creed is love. Even so, love and unity in the midst of our diversity are our greatest assets."
Republicans are compelling us to consider religion in politics. I want my president to have the religious temperance practiced by the UCC.
What you fail to remember is that every single religiously based hospital collects medicaid and medicare funding...how about we just remove the religious hospitals from the list of approved hospitals.
Also, you need to review how the costs of insurance are calculated. There is an agreement between the Blues, Medicare/Medicaid and the hospitals to make sure the hospital gets covered at an increased rate if it does indigent care...let's stop that as well. I am tired of paying for people who opt out of insurance coverage.
You cannot have it both ways...perhaps the person who sees through the "compromise" is President Obama.
Contraception, religion, same sex marriage, these are all the equivalent of jingling shiny keys at us so we don't notice flame coming out of our water faucets, etc.
47:4 So when you meet those who disbelieve [in battle], strike [their] necks until, when you have inflicted slaughter upon them, then secure their bonds, and either [confer] favor afterwards or ransom [them] until the war lays down its burdens. That [is the command]. And if Allah had willed, He could have taken vengeance upon them [Himself], but [He ordered armed struggle] to test some of you by means of others. And those who are killed in the cause of Allah – never will He waste their deeds..
47:20 Those who believe say, "Why has a surah not been sent down? But when a precise surah is revealed and fighting is mentioned therein, you see those in whose hearts is hypocrisy looking at you with a look of one overcome by death. And more appropriate for them [would have been].
47:35 So do not weaken and call for peace while you are superior; and Allah is with you and will never deprive you of [the reward of] your deeds.
"Parvez Ahmed Practicing Deceit"
48:13 And whoever has not believed in Allah and His Messenger – then indeed, We have prepared for the disbelievers a Blaze..
48:28 It is He who sent His Messenger with guidance and the religion of truth to manifest it over all religion. And sufficient is Allah as Witness.
48:29 Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah; and those with him are forceful against the disbelievers, merciful among themselves.
Say (O Muhammad): "We believe in Allah, and in what has been revealed to us and what was revealed to Abraham, Ismail, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and in (the Books) given to Moses, Jesus, and the Prophets, from their Lord: We make no distinction between one and another among them, and to Allah do we bow our will (in Islam)." -- 3:84
For each we have appointed a divine law and traced out the way.
Had Allah willed He could have made you one community. But that He may try you by that which He hath given you He made you as ye are.
So vie one with another in good works. Unto Allah ye will all return, and will then inform you of that wherein ye differ. -- 5:48
Do not dispute with the people of the Book [Jews, Christians, Sabeans], unless it be in a way that is better, save with such of them as do wrong; and say: We believe in that which has been revealed unto us, and revealed unto you; our God and your God is One, and unto Him we surrender. -- 29:46
O mankind! We created you from a single soul, male and female, and made you into nations and tribes, so that you may come to know one another. Truly, the most honored of you in God's sight is the greatest of you in piety. God is All-Knowing, All-Aware. --
The christian antinomianism is far removed from the legalism of qurayshism and israelism.
Muhammad preached legalism and jesus was crucified for apostacy of legalism.
Universalism if qurayshism outside of hejaz, upon non lineal descendants of ishmael, is termed fictional ishmaelism.
The term islam means "to submit" and the term muslim means "one who submits". The directive to submit is Orwellian doublespeak, which seeks to implement the pathetic condition of mammon, which surrenders alternative thought and independent decision for capitulation, else decapitulation, with the pretentious supremacy of arab cultural hegemony as dictated through absolution of authoritarian despots.
Lastly, for 1400+ years fictional ishmaelism has spread by the sword and it is founded upon directives within a text of its foundation, wherefore qurayshism deserves nothing beyond hejaz including respect or acceptance beyond anything that it has granted to others, which is aggression, intolerance, iconoclasm and denigration.