Letters to the Editor
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The Wright of Way
Just one of Barack Obama's problems is this: How can he now criticize the Pastor (Wright) for what he is currently saying when the Senator has sat in the Reverend's pews for 20 years? His message hasn't changed.
The campaign knew that Wright was a liability when they dis-invited him to the campaign kick-off event. One has to wonder about the competence of the candidate when he didn't make his peace with this "member of [hus] family" at a time before this bitter man could use the loop of this vicious news cycle to destroy his former friend.
We're in the Fox News era now - this issue wll be with us until November. And Obama, who hasn't won a major primary since late February, is back on his heels before the contest with McCain even begins. The audacity of hope? Naw. The audacity of hubris is more like it. Barack Obama never had the experience or the judgement needed to get us out of the mess this administration has put us in. Shame on all of the voters that pretended he did.
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the other half
How about the Dems recognize the other half of the electorate, who think religion is a private business?
Let McCain have the Falwell acolytes, and the voters who think you have to believe as they do to get their vote. 51% of the electorate, I think, don't think it's more important than healthcare and the economy, or actually don't want the president meddling in their religious choices.
That's who is potentially a Dem voter. Surrender the rest to McCain. Be true to the Constitution, which refused a religious test for office. That will serve us forever, not just the next election cycle.
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I wish
someone who thought like this would run for president:
To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise ... without plunging into the fathomless abyss of dreams and phantasms. I am satisfied, and sufficiently occupied with the things which are, without tormenting or troubling myself about those which may indeed be, but of which I have no evidence.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, August 15, 1820
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Electro Robot obviously not living in the US
As a previous letter writer noted, by every objective measure of religious devotion, the US is becoming more and more non-religious by decade.
(Incidentally, I would prefer to separate the word 'secular' from 'non-religious'. A bus driver can be as devout as Muhammad, but his job is still secular. And the US government is supposed to be secular, i.e. not in the business of spreading religion.)
For the past 30 years, we have been told that the US is undergoing a "new great awakening". And yet church attendance is down, atheism is up (check the numbers) and more and more people are demanding that the religious dominionists not hold sway in government.
As a measure of the relative religiousness of the US, consider that it was basically uncontroversial in the 1950s when the phrase "under God" was added to the Pledge of Allegiance. The pushback against this inappropriate insertion of religiosity has been growing and growing in the past 15 years. People in the Bible Belt know that there is a "culture war" going on (for lack of a better phrase), and they also know they've been losing it for decades.
Unfortunately, devout extremists carry a disproportionate voice in government, since they are far more willing to spend huge portions of their incomes on delusions of grandeur. See, for example, the crowning ceremony of Rev. Moon - in the Senate Office Building!
Whether the government is more or less religious than it used to be is debatable. I think a good case can be made that it is more so. But society at large does not want to play along with any of the particular (heretical) cominglings of church and state that the dominionists seek.
The idea that Democrats can somehow make a dent into the evangelical Christian vote by putting on evangelical clothing is pathetic. Voters can tell the difference between pandering and true believers, and Democratic candidates should know that they are going to lose a lot of votes from non-believers and believers of minority religions if they do more than give lip service to the religious extremists. And if they are only giving lip service, everybody will know it.
In other words, most Democratic "consultants" should be fired and sent to work in menial labor. Most of these losers have horrible track records giving bad advice to Democratic candidates. And the worst advice is "pretend to be Republican". Either fight for the ideals of the Democratic party or get out of the way.
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I'm sorry, did I miss it?
No mention of Reverend Coe and "The Family"? Is there blackout on that subject or should an article about the Democrats and religion leave out the bizarre cult-like prayer group of reactionary politicians with whom Hillary has been kneeling for fifteen years? Not even a simple interview with the guy who wrote a book on them?
The absence of this is shocking and depressing. Salon is not just all Jeremiah Wright all the time. It also apparently censors anything that can be construed to be harmful to Clinton.
This place is pathetic. You folks must be embarrassed with yourselves.
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You called Hillary's remarks "saccharine"
but they are a valid explication of her United Methodist faith. More than any other candidate this year, Hillary Clinton has been formed and influenced by one major Christian tradition, that of John Wesley, and her comments are completely in line with Wesleyan thought and understanding. I don't think Wesley would like it that you called this "saccharine."
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Oh God!
Must we hear about Rev. Wright every day from the press? Much of what he says I agree with. Most of the people who are shoving Rev. Wright down our throats had no intentions of voting for Obama in the first place. Win or not win, Rev. Wright stresses how far Black people and white people haven't gotten so close as we originally thought. I believed Jimmie Carter is and was a devout Christian. He lives by the good book, every day. Others not so much. Everyone thought Jimmie Carter was a joke. Now someone's religion is news. This country is hypocritical, and the chickens will come home to roost!