Jesus Politics

Link: Matthew 25 Network.

Many of us – sadly, I include myself here – stood on the sidelines and complained about the wrong being done by “the Religious Right.” In private, we might say that the major media figures didn’t speak for us, but we responded to faith-based misuse of the political process with faith-based disuse. We didn’t realize, as we now do, that disuse tends to favor those in power and support the status quo. As I’ve watched with sadness what has happened in recent years, I’ve promised myself again and again that I wouldn’t just stand on the sidelines complaining this election season. That’s why I’m so thrilled about positive, constructive initiatives like the Matthew 25 Network. Drawing from Jesus’ powerful parable about his solidarity with “the least of these,” this network invites us as people of faith to step beyond individual self-interest, and even beyond the interest-group politics of “what’s best for us” – whether “us” is our denomination, religion, party, or nation. It invites us to consider how to use our vote on behalf of the neediest, the most vulnerable and poverty-stricken … so that their concerns are our own when we vote. For us, this is inherent in what it means to be followers of Jesus. Based on these values, the Matthew 25 Network has chosen to support Barack Obama.

Link: McCain: “I certainly consider myself a Christian” - The Brody File: David Brody Blog - CBN News.

Q: Do you consider yourself an evangelical Christian? Mr. McCain: I consider myself a Christian. I attend church, my faith has sustained me in very difficult times. But I think it depends on what you call a quote evangelical Christian. Because there are some people who may not share my views on – I mean, that covers a lot of ground. But I certainly consider myself a Christian.

McCain Worse Than George Bush Among White Evangelicals

The path to discernment on homosexuality

Link: Baptist Press - Calif. court lets marriage amendment stay on ballot - News with a Christian Perspective.

Churches should not view marriage amendments as political issues, Clark noted. "It's about truth. It's about our culture. It's about how we do church," he said.

Link: God's Politics - Jim Wallis blog, faith blog, religion, christian, christianity, politics, values.

We will not be endorsing any candidates. Rather, we will invite them to endorse the political manifesto of our Commander-in-Chief and to join the peculiar upside-down Kingdom that blesses the poor and the peacemakers...

Link: God's Politics - Jim Wallis blog, faith blog, religion, christian, christianity, politics, values.

Some folks I've talked to are not going to vote in the 2008 elections. Some are disillusioned. Some don't like either candidate enough to vote. For some, not voting is an act of protest against the whole system, which they believe is hopelessly corrupt. Some believe that their citizenship in God's kingdom means they shouldn't become involved in "earthly" citizenship. While I respect my friends who aren't going to vote - especially those who have prayerfully thought the decision through from multiple vantage points - I will vote in this election for several reasons.

Link: The FundamentaList | The American Prospect.

After McCain clinched the nomination, the religious-right leadership slowly realized they had to play the game -- but they ended up getting played by McCain. Religious-right leaders acted publicly as if they were withholding judgment until McCain gave them something -- and oh, that something was not much: perfunctory support for the California gay marriage ban and a pledge to clone John Roberts and Samuel Alito for any Supreme Court appointments. That's it. No prayer sessions, no random citations of Bible verses, no evangelical code words embedded in speeches, and not a single rhetorical bone about Christian nationhood. Even his recently retooled campaign slogan, "Reform, Prosperity, Peace," abandoned religious-right buzzwords like "values," "family," and "faith." The religious-right leadership has no choice in the general election but McCain, and McCain has known that all along. Religious-right leaders' ambition to take over Washington has now been scaled back to stopping Obama, and it's not even clear they can do that.

Link: CT Readers Moving Towards Obama | Liveblog | Christianity Today.

I am a life-long Democrat who will be voting for McCain this year. I am totally shocked that Christians seem to be okaying Obama for President! Do ya'll realize that we can't even blog against him, on most public blogging forums, because he has an army of internet vipers who work day and night to get us banned? I have no doubt they have infiltrated polls, too. I saw this same thing with Sojourners and was shocked by them, too, as they seem to be promoting Obama. It scares me for the future of Christianity in America. Posted by: Kathy at July 12, 2008

Frank Schaeffer: Provincial Progressives: The New Yorker Magazine and Why Obama May Lose.

Link: Ben Smith's Blog: 'Your wife in a kind of military outfit, Osama bin Laden's picture burning' - Politico.com.

One last point I want to -- I do want to make about these e-mails, though. And I think this has an impact on this "New Yorker" cover. You know, this is actually an insult against Muslim-Americans, something that we don't spend a lot of time talking about. And sometimes I've been derelict in pointing that out. You know, there are wonderful Muslim-Americans all across the country who are doing wonderful things. And for this to be used as sort of an insult, or to raise suspicions about me, I think is unfortunate. And it's not what America's all about.

Street Prophets: American Values

Finding His Faith |m.

Link: Welcome to Ethics Daily.com!.

Interestingly, Sen. Barack Obama has promised that if elected president he will not only keep the office of Faith Based Initiatives, but expand its reach. Of course he has made it clear that funds will not be limited to Christian groups as they have for the most part under President Bush. He has also made it clear that religious groups will not be able to use federal dollars for sectarian purposes. After all, the government should not be in the business of funding religious activity. Which is fine as far as it goes. However, so long as the practice of using tax dollars to fund religious entities exists at all, we will continue to see the line between church and state constantly in dispute. It will be easier for the state to shirk its legitimate responsibilities to citizens, and easier for the church to drift away from its authentic calling. Sadly, this as much as anything, will be part of the Bush legacy.

Link: Welcome to Ethics Daily.com!.

Interestingly, Sen. Barack Obama has promised that if elected president he will not only keep the office of Faith Based Initiatives, but expand its reach. Of course he has made it clear that funds will not be limited to Christian groups as they have for the most part under President Bush. He has also made it clear that religious groups will not be able to use federal dollars for sectarian purposes. After all, the government should not be in the business of funding religious activity. Which is fine as far as it goes. However, so long as the practice of using tax dollars to fund religious entities exists at all, we will continue to see the line between church and state constantly in dispute. It will be easier for the state to shirk its legitimate responsibilities to citizens, and easier for the church to drift away from its authentic calling. Sadly, this as much as anything, will be part of the Bush legacy.

Host an American Values House Party!

Catholics 4 Obama.

Organizing With Obama: Faith in Action - g.

Poll | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction.

A Message of Hope and Change? | iVoteValues.

Obama's Faith-Based Pragmatism

Link: The Way We Live Now - Redemption Politics - When Democrats Court Evangelicals - NYTimes.com.

At first blush, Barack Obama may strike evangelicals as an unreconstructed liberal or, in other words, beyond salvation. But he is wise to reach out to them at a moment when the geological sands are shifting beneath our feet. Now and then he speaks in the ancient accents, promising to create “a kingdom right here on earth” or arguing that “our individual salvation depends on our collective salvation.” Those phrases slip by, generally unnoticed by his partisans (who are evangelical in their own way). They are worth noting in the months ahead. Not only do they connect us to the richness of a deep American past; they might even point to the better future we’ve been waiting for since, well, forever.

Link: The Way We Live Now - Redemption Politics - When Democrats Court Evangelicals - NYTimes.com.

Today there is much talk of a new evangelical politics — less stridently conservative, more responsive to the problems of global warming or public health or Darfur. This may in fact be a return to an older pattern. For most of American history, evangelicals were Democrats or their equivalents, profoundly uncomfortable near the temple of the moneychangers. Jefferson attracted huge numbers of voters simply because his running mate, Aaron Burr, was the grandson of the great evangelist Jonathan Edwards. In the 1920s, William Jennings Bryan was lampooned by H. L. Mencken as an ignoramus catching flies in a sweaty courthouse during the Scopes trial, but that snide dismissal overlooked Bryan’s long career as an advocate for progressive causes. F.D.R. consistently enjoyed the support of both traditional evangelicals and neo-Calvinists like Reinhold Niebuhr (enjoying new life as the writer intellectuals most like to quote without reading, after Tocqueville).

Link: America, save your soul.

B Hussein promised sodomites that it was his "Christian ethos" to endorse their "blessed estate" of homosexual "marriages" from coast to coast. B. Hussein stated: "I'm not a theologian. I'm a Christian and I'm a member of a church. My personal philosophy is that as a Christian, I see no contradiction with embracing same-sex couples as part of our community. That's my Christian ethos" per David Brody's "Obama on Gay Marriage." His Christian ethos? That is the talk of the "spirit of antichrist."

Link: Obama's Jesus Talk - The Brody File: David Brody Blog - CBN News.

There is only ONE presidential candidate talking about faith. There is only one candidate talking about Jesus. There is only one candidate talking about having his sins redeemed. In case you've been in a cave the last year, that candidate is Barack Obama, not John McCain. And you know what? It's driving some conservative Evangelicals batty.

Link: Christian Group Launches “Abortion President” Campaign against Barack Obama - The Brody File: David Brody Blog - CBN News.

This is Obama’s challenge with Evangelicals. He can talk about the social justice issues all he wants and yes, it resonates to a certain extent but unless he moves on abortion (not likely) he’ll have a problem. If he shows some support for parental notification laws or the annual fetal pain bill that moves through Congress then that will help insulate him to a degree on the extremist abortion tag.

Link: Beliefs - Obama Sets Off a Debate on Ties Between Religion and Government - NYTimes.com.

Mr. Obama’s six little words on hiring by religious groups are not apt to be his last comment on the subject. “As someone who used to teach constitutional law,” he is surely aware that the law on religious hiring is much more complicated than a condensed reference to discrimination might suggest. And his personal combination of liberal politics and religious experience probably makes him better placed than most American politicians to realize fully what, beyond electoral gambits, is at stake.

Obama and Faith-Based Initiatives

Link: Steven Waldman -.

Conservatives are acting as if it's discriminatory for the government to say, "there are some thing the government shouldn't spend money on." Didn't that used to be the conservative position? I remember that liberals used to argue that if abortion is legal then the federal government had an obligation to fund it through Medicaid. But that never made sense to me. Just because it's allowed doesn't mean it always makes sense to compel taxpayers to fund it. Here's an example for conservative Christians to ponder: what if a Muslim group had an effective prison ministry program emphasizing prayer and Qur'an study. In fact, they could double the number of prisoners they taught the Qur'an if only they had more money. How do you feel about your tax dollars going to help spread the Muhammad's teachings?

Blog from the Capital: Faith-Based Hiring Thoughts.

Link: The FundamentaList | The American Prospect.

Among Democrats, the reaction to Barack Obama's expanding outreach to evangelicals has ranged from glee (as in "take that, James Dobson!") to a chorus of hallelujahs (as in "finally, a Democrat ‘gets it!'") to shrugs of acquiescence (as in "whatever it takes to win"). But the religious right isn't just wrong because it's wrong on the issues. The religious right is also wrong because it has imposed religious tests on candidates. It's one thing for religious groups to engage in public advocacy on issues they care about (I'm all for that), but it's another thing entirely for presidential candidates to bluster about their faith to get elected.

Link: The FundamentaList | The American Prospect.

Obama himself is essentially proselytizing about Christianity, while paying lip service to our precious religious pluralism. If that pluralism really existed, Obama wouldn't feel compelled to prove his relationship with Jesus so vigorously or to make evangelicals and Catholics the centerpiece of his religious outreach.

God, country and the 4th of July

Link: Baptist Press - Christian conservative leaders unify behind McCain, adopt statement with common goals - News with a Christian Perspective.

"I felt that it was absolutely critical in order to preserve our shared core Christian and moral values that we have unity among the leadership and that we look at the landscape and focus not on candidates, not on personalities and not on parties but on our values, and then assess who can best advance those values," Staver told BP. "Once we did that, it was pretty obvious that that would be Sen. John McCain, because Sen. Barack Obama would decimate them.

RELEVANT MAGAZINE :: Covering God, Life and Progressive Culture.

The Battle for Catholic Voters -E.

The Christianism Of The Left

Link: Street Prophets: Matthew 25 Goes Full-On Obama's Jesus Juice.

I like Barack Obama. I like his faith.** Up until recently, we shared that faith pretty much exactly. Time and again, I have defended his right to talk about his faith. Hell, for all I care, candidates can talk about their love of pooties if it helps voters get to know them. And yes, Obama has to overplay this hand in a sense to defeat the Bad-Christian-Muslim-Secularist-Infidel rumors that swirl around him. But all that being said, do we really need a presidential campaign based on out-Jesusing the other side? At what point do we stop speaking in the language of conservative Evangelicals and actually become them?

Link: Steven Waldman -.

What will the liberals who criticized President Bush's "theocracy" make of Sen. Barack Obama's speech yesterday -- which argued that the problem with Bush's faith-based approach is that it didn't go far enough?

Link: Obama will persecute evangelicals.

Add to this that he has Islamic trappings all over his history and mindset. In his book, "Audacity of Hope," B. Hussein states: "I will stand with the Muslims. . ." Yes, that is written in the context of Muslims coming under various injustices in society. Therefore, the reality is that if elected to the Oval Office, Muslims within B. Hussein's first week will claim injustices of some sort. With whom then will the new President align himself? He's already told us. It is with the Muslims.

Link: The seduction of young evangelicals.

Why are so many Young Evangelicals being lured by people who are generally pro-abortion, anti-traditional morality, and radical?

Inside Obama's Christian Crusade

Link: Eric Sapp: Barack Obama is right to support the faith-based initiative | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

No doubt, some on the left will be upset by Obama's remarks (and some on the right who will nit-pick them or reject them completely). After all, there will always be those who fear the end of war (even a culture war), either because they fear the unknown that peace may bring or because they know that their power and influence will fade when the enemy is gone. But even with the dissent, this is a wise political move for Obama, and one that I expect most Americans will applaud, because Obama moved this debate on the OFBI from one about right and left to one about right and wrong. Because of that, we can hope that at the end of the day, the real winners won't be Democrats or Republicans but the "least of these" among us who will finally get some of the help they so desperately need.

Obama's Plot to Destroy the Religious Right

On Bush’s faith-based programs, Obama says save best, ditch rest.

Reading the Bible with Obama | n.

Link: The Dude Abides.

GG: So you got yourself born again? OBAMA: Yeah, although I don’t, I retain from my childhood and my experiences growing up a suspicion of dogma. And I’m not somebody who is always comfortable with language that implies I’ve got a monopoly on the truth, or that my faith is automatically transferable to others. I’m a big believer in tolerance. I think that religion at it’s best comes with a big dose of doubt. I’m suspicious of too much certainty in the pursuit of understanding just because I think people are limited in their understanding. I think that, particularly as somebody who’s now in the public realm and is a student of what brings people together and what drives them apart, there’s an enormous amount of damage done around the world in the name of religion and certainty.

Link: God-o-Meter - A scientific measure of God-talk in the elections.

That's why Obama's announcement today about wanting to expand President Bush's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives into what he's calling a President's Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, is so significant. Not only is Obama showing how faith would shape policy in his administration, he's being so bold as to criticize Bush's faith-based program for not going far enough in opening the federal social services spigot to churches and other faith-based groups. In effect, he's out-Bushing George W. Bush in one of the President's specialty areas--connecting faith and public policy.

Early Returns Are Mixed | n.

Link: Barry W. Lynn: Do We Really Need A 'Faith-Based' Initiative? - Politics on The Huffington Post.

If we have to have a faith-based initiative, one that does not allow proselytism on the taxpayer's dime and that is free of religious discrimination, it's better than one that does these things. Still, I wish a presidential candidate would have the gumption to ask what has become a forbidden question: Do we need a faith-based initiative at all?