In its daily political coverage on December 20, MSNBC asks, "Mitt’s (religion) speech worked; does Obama now need to give one?"
" Romney had never popped in the national polls -- until now. His 20% is a nine-point increase since November."... does Obama need to give a similar speech, especially if he becomes the Dem nominee? On (an) open-ended question, just 17% correctly identified Obama as being a Protestant (Church of Christ), 2% said he's Catholic, 8% said he's a Muslim, and a whopping 70% said they weren't sure or refused to answer.
To respond directly to this crass question, I would need to:
- Ignore the obvious goal of exploitation of personal religious beliefs for political gain;
- Ignore that there is no religious test for a person to be President of the United States;
- Ignore that the American people are fed-up with the faith-based ideological agenda of the current president, and may not want another in-your-face religious ideologue in the White House in 2008; and
- Ignore that Democrats have historically not regarded strong religious beliefs as a top priority in their political leaders.
That said, I want to remind the MSNBC political gurus that Sen. Barack Obama already delivered a scorched-earth speech on faith and politics, and it got him in hot water with Democratic party faithfuls.
On June 28, 2006, Sen, Obama delivered a controversial keynote speech on religion and politics to the Call to Renewal conference sponsored by Sojourners, a respected Christian progressive organization.
His lengthy, nuanced remarks set off a firestorm among liberals as he stated that they must put aside their religious biases, and reach out to others, including evangelical Christians, as an reconciling essential in a democracy.
As both a Christian and a progressive, I found Sen. Obama's thoughts on religion, politics and national leadership to be enormously insightful, spiritually mature and politically compelling... so compelling, in fact, that it then caused me to begin to regard him as presidential timber. Obama was absolutely correct when he orated:
" I think we make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge the power of faith in people's lives -- in the lives of the American people -- and I think it's time that we join a serious debate about how to reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic democracy."... if we truly hope to speak to people where they're at - to communicate our hopes and values in a way that's relevant to their own - then as progressives, we cannot abandon the field of religious discourse."
Take the time to read my quick-reading excerpts from Sen. Barack Obama's Controversial Speech on Religion & Politics, which includes a link to the full text of the speech.
But beware, MSNBC pundits: Obama's speech neither pandered nor exploited, but sought to illuminate, explain and reach out, as well as briefly share his faith experience. You apparently might be disappointed.
(First photo taken on June 4, 2007 at the "Faith Guiding our Votes" conference organized by Sojourners: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images. Second photo taken on March 4, 2007 at the Brown Chapel AME church in Selma, Alabama: Scott Olson/Getty Images.)
Related Reading
Profile of Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois
Sen. Barack Obama's Speech on Faith, AIDS & Politics at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church
Faith Snapshots of the 2008 Presidential Candidates by Mary Fairchild, About.com Guide to Christianity
Washington Post column by E. J Dionne, June 30, 2006: Obama's Eloquent Faith
Comments
uh oh, here i go again
i get what he was going for in his speech, but i think it’s important to remember that the world’s religions (and furthermore america’s religions) are hardly limited to christianity, islam and judaism. what about the hindus, buddhist, taoists, wiccans and people of other faiths, philosophies and ideologies? also, what about the agnostics and atheists? because 90% of americans are religious, doesn’t necessarily mean they all believe in the god of abraham. there are plenty of other belief systems at work in this country, and that’s my problem with bringing them into the political arena. the president needs to represent all of us, not 38% or even 90% of us, but 100%.
also, he talks about how liberals don’t want to bring religion into things, which excludes us from discussing things in moral terms. that’s sticky, because religion does not always equate with morality, and vice versa.
i could think of more than a few examples of religious politicians who have made a point of bringing their faith into their politics, and who have not always gone with the most moral decisions.
doesn’t mean you should check your faith at the door, but know that there are a great many of us who would prefer to see your convictions in action rather than judge your character and ability to handle the presidency based simply on the fact that you claim to have a good relationship with a judeo-christian god.
US
Your willingness to reconcile with the filthy liars on on religious right show not only why your candidates fatal flaws, but also why real progressives may hold in the balance the presidency in 2008. Osama’s carting around a pathological, self-hating creature like Donny McClukin is equal to George Wallace and David Duke claiming to represent their party’s positions. I suppose you’d think it was OK to suck up to the racist in the Christian Identity movement to gain votes.
Hillary is in the process of dismantling Obama’s phony claim to the presidency. Jive is what jive does. Obama’s record of being AWOL on critical votes exposes him to be all talk and no walk.