Purpose-driven pandering
Am I the only viewer of Rick Warren presidential forum to cringe when Barack Obama and John McCain offered their bona fides as believing Christians? Granted, the forum was at a church and Warren, who asked them about their faith, is an evangelist. Granted, also, that neither candidate discussed doctrine in detail. Still, consider these professions of faith: Obama avowed that "Jesus Christ died for my sins and that I am redeemed through him." McCain said that being a Christian meant that "I'm saved and forgiven."
These are arguably boilerplate statements of Christian belief, and both candidates quickly segued into the political applications of their faith. Still, given the audience, the professions of faith bordered on pandering. Of course, I still think John F. Kennedy was right when he told Protestant ministers in 1960 that "I believe in a President whose views on religion are his own private affair, neither imposed upon him by the nation, nor imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office."
That statement sounds quaint now. McCain encountered little flak when he he expressed his belief that the president should be a Christian. Reflecting the conventional wisdom that Democrats must engage "people of faith," Obama has recanted his previous view that "we live in a pluralistic society, and ... I can't impose my religious views on another." I think Obama was right the first time, if by "religious views" one means "Jesus died for my sins" as opposed to a nonsectarian formulation like "all men are created equal [and] are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights."
Also weighing in my reaction is the way religion has been politicized in this presidential campaign. From Mike Huckabee's video Christmas card to McCain's jettisoning of John Hagee to Obama's agonizing over whether to repudiate the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the "naked public square" has been clothed with some pretty garish vestments.
Los Angeles Times photo by Genaro Molina.
I love Huckabee the Macabee It seems the Jews love Huckabee, McCain should pick him as VP or risk losing alot of voters if they dont. Some Huckabee supporters are so disillusioned by the GOP and the McCain camp they actually are asking Huckabee to leave the GOP. http://www.mccanes.com/newparty.html
Learn more about John McCains self proclaimed biggest failure of his life. http://www.mccanes.com
Why is Obama and McCain considering adopting t boon pickens energy plan?
http://www.tboonpickens.com
Romney called McCain dishonest. See video. http://www.intradeedge.com/hotpres.html
Posted by: Peter | August 19, 2008 at 01:18 PM
I think JFK was wrong. As Warren wisely points out faith is worldview. I won't demand that our next president be a Christian, but I will demand that he be capable of articulating his worldview and intelligently explaining how this worldview will impact his leadership of our nation.
I'm sick of shallow campaigns and soundbite debates.
If a person is a secularist whose belief in God has no part in their moral foundation or decision making then let them say so. If they can convince the nation that this sort of grounding is strong enough to lead our nation and best serve our common good then we will cast our vote accordingly.
The Judeo-Christian worldview has served us well in the past and it should not surprise anyone that we might still be looking for such leadership for the future.
Posted by: Brett | August 19, 2008 at 02:11 PM
Well the Bop counts keep rolling up for these two guys but after the forum, Obama seems to be taking a licking at the real-time poll at http://www.bop-o-rama.com. His bop total is about to break 400,000 while McCain enjoys the lower number at around 180,000. While it may have been purpose-driven pandering Michael, there seems to be some serious purpose-driven bopping going on.
Posted by: acarponzo | August 19, 2008 at 04:16 PM
McCain's faith I can not speak on but I can say something about Obama's so called faith. He claims to be a christian but then says that GOD is wrong about certain sins, namely Abortion and Homosexuality. If you are a true Christian then GOD is the only moral standard setter for you and HE states in HIS book (the AV1611 King James Version of )the Bible that both are wrong and Homosexuality is worst of the two. So Obama is not a true Christian( Christ like person) or Follower of Christ as he claims. After hearing the person he learned about Christ from go on a hate filled tiraid I can see why he is not a true Christian. The man who taught him is like two other so-called Reverands nothing but a BIGOT and HATE MONGERER (Jackson and Sharpton).
Posted by: Jesse Tomblin | August 20, 2008 at 06:55 PM
Yeah, I cringed, because -- not just the canned professions of faith -- but EVERYTHING about this so-called forum was fake. A forum is an open discussion & debate between parties, including the public. This whole thing was canned, planned & stage-managed by Warren to make Obama look bad & McCain good (&, no, I'm not a fan of any of them). The questions were canned. The audience was canned. The format was canned. The press was canned. Everything about this event was canned, except for perhaps the protesters, who were forced to wave their little signs & bellow into their little bullhorns from about a quarter mile away from the church. If they had been invited, I'm sure they would have set up peaceful information booths outside the doors of the church & spoke civilly to any passersby who cared to stop, but no. Oh &, if invited, I'm sure they would have asked some of the REAL questions that Warren-the-can-man was quite obviously not willing to ask. Evangelicals care about abortion & gay marriage, because they've been propagandized day & night into believing that those are the most important issues on the table. In the meantime, we have endless war, a devalued dollar, depression looming, borders open, sovereignty lost, domestic spying, creeping martial law & the toughest thing Warren could think of to ask was: When does a baby get human rights? How about if I rephrase it to: When does a human get human rights? Now can you see how inane the question is? Why not ask: When is a human human? When is the sun a sun? When is the sky the sky? The neovangelicals have deliberately developed a set of Balkanizing "issues" to distract their constituents away from the real issues. And it worked. Christians don't know the difference between the Federal Reserve & Federal Express (nor do they know the similarities -- for instance, neither one of them is federal!) So yeah. The "civil forum" was depressing. Every single question represented varying degrees of irrelevancy. Sheesh. This country is in big trouble.
Posted by: Kim McDaniel | August 20, 2008 at 11:11 PM