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Post by joew on Nov 11, 2008 14:59:12 GMT -5
A.) However interesting this may be, it has nothing to do with the sort of behavior I was talking about, where a candidate who is not a member of a congregation is given the pulpit during the church's Sunday worship service. B.) The article gives sufficient factual information to make clear that there is no parallel between McCain-Hagee/Parsley and Obama-Wright. |
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Post by joew on Nov 11, 2008 15:26:30 GMT -5
There is a point here. And it gets us back to the original issue. I took the position that church leaders should be able to make moral pronouncements which, if followed by their flocks, have the effect of dissuading them from voting for certain candidates. I think you were saying that such conduct should not be permitted. So I asked, in effect how you feel about the even more explicit action in various urban (generally black) churches, where it is not a matter of simply giving reasons not to vote for one candidate, but of a clear, if implicit, endorsement of another. Your response was a reference to a couple of endorsements of John McCain and this reference to an implicit dissuasion against Kerry. My point is that if you condone what the (generally black) urban churches do to promote certain Democratic candidates, you should have no problem with teaching in other churches which, followed to its clear implications, opposes certain candidates. OTOH, if you have a problem with the latter, you should find the former intolerable. So how about it? Is it okay for these urban churches to support certain Democratic candidates but wrong for other churches to implicitly oppose them? Is it okay for both to do what they have been doing? Or is it wrong for both to do what they have been doing? |
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Post by booklady on Nov 11, 2008 18:55:35 GMT -5
I think the church not only has the right but the responsibility to teach the church's position on issues that are a part of life, part of things we need to make personal decisions about or advocate for social policy. Unless the church does that, how are its followers to know what the church thinks is right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable? I mean, that's just basic.
What bothers me is when only one or two issues are emphasized, or even mentioned, sometimes. In the case that originally troubled me, there were only two aspects of modern
American society that were brought up for us to understand the church's position. To me, there are more than two important aspects to modern social living on which I base my voting decision. It irks me that so many other critical behaviors were ignored.
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unclewiggly
 Bashful Member
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life
Posts: 34
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Post by unclewiggly on Nov 11, 2008 23:53:50 GMT -5
With God On Our Side
Oh my name it is nothin'
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I's taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And that land that I live in
Has God on its side.
Oh the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side.
Oh the Spanish-American
War had its day
And the Civil War too
Was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes
I's made to memorize
With guns in their hands
And God on their side.
Oh the First World War, boys
It closed out its fate
The reason for fighting
I never got straight
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don't count the dead
When God's on your side.
When the Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now too
Have God on their side.
I've learned to hate Russians
All through my whole life
If another war starts
It's them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side.
But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we're forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God's on your side.
In a many dark hour
I've been thinkin' about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can't think for you
You'll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.
So now as I'm leavin'
I'm weary as Hell
The confusion I'm feelin'
Ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God's on our side
He'll stop the next war
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Post by gailkate on Nov 12, 2008 1:19:33 GMT -5
Thanks, UnkW. I've never heard that - where did it come from? Joe and BL, I feel as if I've written so much and been so inadequate that it's almost not worth trying to answer. I've looked through this whole thread and it seems clear that I've already shown how difficult I think this subject is. But I started an answer earlier and so I'll put down some of what's going through my head. Joe said: //Or is it wrong for both to do what they have been doing?// Yes, I think so. I would, however, like some documentation about Democratic candidates giving sermons in black churches. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I don't think of it as commonplace, as you and Oz seem to do. Who and how often? Were both candidates invited? Mr. Bush didn't address the NAACP till his 5th year in office and admitted his party sort of "wrote off" African Americans. ( www.nytimes.com/2006/07/21/washington/21bush.html ) I know that's not a church, but he did address the group, placating and offering political messages at a time when congressional seats were going to be decided (the 2006 election when the Repubs lost fairly dramatically). Anyway, I just cited a couple of references quickly last night, only to show how religion is entwined with politics. The reason for the Hagee/Parsley comparison was simply that candidates shouldn't be besmirched by the extreme positions of religious who endorse them. McCain repudiated Hagee, and Obama repudiated Wright. But you emphasize "no parallel," which I think means you still believe Obama is guilty of Wright's excesses. You seem to think the pastor's having married the Obamas and baptized their children proves that they agreed with extreme utterances in the pulpit. I see that differently than you do. First, the continuously repeated clip of Wright saying "God damn America" is always repeated without context. You can read the sermon online to get the complete sentence and the context. The language was shocking, but his subject was moral. (You yourself have said things here about Obama that truly shocked me.) Apparently there is evidence that Obama wasn't even there when Wright preached that particularly ferocious sermon. Further, the high drama of many black churches (and some white televangelists I've seen) makes his performance seem especially hateful, when that sort of delivery is pretty standard even when preaching about angels. If you had watched his interview with Bill Moyers, you'd have seen a remarkably intelligent man, who wove scripture so effortlessly through his conversation he'd have impressed your socks off. So I can understand Obama having revered that man, perhaps made excuses for his vehemence because of his good works. We don't know how much he saw of Wright's egotistical and hostile side -which we saw in his press club address the next day and after which Obama withdrew from his church. By all accounts, that church is the greatest power for good in a violent, sinful community. Obama came to Chicago to devote himself to raising people from their hopelessness. Wright's church was at the center of that work. We have no idea what the general tenor of his sermons was, how often he was inflammatory and how much of that Obama heard. We do know he called Wright his mentor because he brought Obama to Christianity and to the power of Christ in the lives of people living in a climate of crime and drugs and defeat. I agree, BL, that churches must take moral positions. As I said earlier, it seems to be a matter of emphasis and timing. But there is no doubt the Bush administration fostered certain religious views to a degree we have never seen before. His policies have imposed his (and the religious right's) views on everyone else - the limitation of stem cell research, for example. The Terry Schiavo case was an abomination. That's why I feel so strongly about implicit or explicit political proselytizing. The last 8 years have encouraged extremists, and I'm certain that Obama will set a more balanced course. This is from an address by Mario Cuomo, former governor of NY. I protect my right to be a Catholic by preserving your right to believe as a Jew, a Protestant, or non-believer, or as anything else you choose. We know that the price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that they might some day force theirs on us. |
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Post by booklady on Nov 12, 2008 7:21:29 GMT -5
Gail, UW has quoted the world's best songwriter in that song.  Signed, One of the Passion Sisters  |
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Post by gailkate on Nov 12, 2008 9:50:14 GMT -5
OMG. How could I not know that?
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Post by joew on Nov 12, 2008 14:56:48 GMT -5
gk — I wasn't all that clear in my mind as to what the significance of the distinction was. Just wanted to say that Obama's association with Wright was of a different nature from that of McCain with Hagee and Parsley. I get the impression that the "God damn America" sermon was consistent with what he was saying all along. No doubt there was a lot of good that the church did as well. For me, though, hearing people demonize white folks is as distressing as hearing some Evangelicals call the Catholic Church the Whore of Babylon. Not only do I consider the characterization false, but I think they impede the sort of cooperation that could lead to some real good. One silver lining, in my eyes, of Obama's election is that it should cut the ground out from under the people who say America is racist and white people are oppressing blacks.
I'm sorry I don't have documentation of what I've said. It's something I've been reading about in election years going back at least to the time of Bill Clinton. I thought it was common knowledge.
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Post by gailkate on Nov 12, 2008 15:59:44 GMT -5
Oh my, we're off on another tangent. I don't think any blacks think this proves we're past racism. That's a whole'nother subject.
As I said, you can find Wright's damning sermon, as well as many other, on the Internet. He cites Luke 19:37-44 and moves into a long set of examples of government vs. God, starting with the government that persecuted Jesus and that context. It's very long, building with example after example, and the transcription has a few errors as well as quirks of his humor and involvement of the congregation. It's worth reading all the way through, but here's the conclusion.Preached on Palm sunday, 2003. From Confusing God and GovernmentWhere Governments lie, God does not lie. Where Governments change, God does not change. And I’m through now. But let me leave you with one more thing. Governments fail. The government in this text comprised of Caesar, Cornelius, Pontus Pilot – Pontius Pilate – the Roman government failed. The British government used to rule from east to west. The British government had a Union Jack. She colonised Kenya, Guana, Nigeria, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Hong Kong. Her navies ruled the seven seas all the way down to the tip of Argentina in the Falklands, but the British failed. The Russian government failed. The Japanese government failed. The German government failed. And the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian decent fairly, she failed. She put them on reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese decent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating her citizens of African decent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains. The government put them in slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton fields, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education and locked them into position of hopelessness and helplessness. The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law, and then wants us to sing “God Bless America.” No, no, no. Not “God Bless America”; God Damn America! That’s in the Bible, for killing innocent people. God Damn America for treating her citizen as less than human. God Damn America as long as she keeps trying to act like she is God and she is supreme! The United States government has failed the vast majority of her citizens of African decent. Think about this, think about this. For every 1 Oprah, a billionaire, you got five million Blacks who are out of work. For every 1 Colin Powell, a millionaire, you got ten million Blacks who cannot read. For every 1 “Condeskeeza” Rice, you got one million in prison. For every 1 Tiger Woods, who needs to get beat at the Masters with his cat-blazing hips, playing on a course that discriminates against women; God has this way of bringing you short when you get too big for your cat-blazing britches. For every 1 Tiger Woods, we got ten thousand Black kids who will never see a golf course. The United States government has failed the vast majority of her citizens of African decent. But I’m fitting to help you one last time – turn to your neighbour and say “he’s fitting to help us one last time.” Turn back and say “Forgive him for the ‘God Damn’, that’s in the Bible Lord.” Blessings and cursing is in the Bible, it’s in the Bible. But I’m fitting to help you one last time. Let me tell you something. Where governments fail, God never fails. When God says it, it’s done. God never fails. When God wills it, you better get out the way. ‘Cause God never fails. When God fixes it, oh believe me, it’s fixed. God never fails. Somebody right now, you think you can’t make it, but I want you to know you are more than a conqueror, through Christ you can do all things, through Christ who strengthens you. To the world, it looked like God has failed in God’s plan of salvation when the saviour that was sent by God was put to death on a Friday afternoon. It looked like God failed. But hallelujah, on Sunday morning the angels in Heaven were singing, “God never fails.” You can’t put down what God raises up. God never fails. You can’t keep down what God wants up. God never fails. If God can get a three-day Jesus up out of a grave, what’s going on in your life that in anyway can’t match what God has already done? He’ll abides with you, he’ll reside in you, and he’ll preside over your problems if you take them to Him and leave them with Him. Don’t take them back – turn to your neighbour and say “stop taking your problems back.” Should we always bring our problems to the altar and then do we just them right on back to our seats? Turn and say “Stop taking them back!” God never fails. Turn and tell them “God never fails!” God never fails! God never fails. www.sluggy.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=315691&sid=4b3e97ace4ee8cee02bd6850e52f50b7
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Post by joew on Nov 12, 2008 22:22:37 GMT -5
Perpetually aggrieved. Unwilling to distinguish between then and now.
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Post by gailkate on Nov 13, 2008 10:51:09 GMT -5
I was dumbfounded when I read this. Of course, things are better. But that's some bunker you're holed up in.
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Post by joew on Nov 13, 2008 23:03:36 GMT -5
Well I see it on the whole — and now I've read the whole thing, not just the excerpt you copied — as encouraging racial hatred. And with a heavy dose of politicking, not just laying out moral principles which should guide voters, but naming names. It's one thing for a politician to receive an endorsement from someone he hasn't known for years. It's another for someone who has known a preacher for years to accept his support. Maybe Obama did not attend the service at which this sermon was preached, but it defies belief that this was the only time Rev. Wright delivered himself of such inflammatory expressions. And I can believe that Obama sat through similar rhetoric thinking, "He's gone off the deep end there," or "this is too strongly expressed," but stayed in the church because of the good Rev. Wright had done for him in his personal life as well as for the community. But I still think it was a false parallelism for the writer of that article to put both in the same box.
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