Apologies for the lack of a post yesterday - blame AT&T who, in an effort to “upgrade” my Internet connection, simply took it away. Four hours, some of the very wee small ones, out of 24 without such service were devoted to being on the telephone with “tech support.” The last hour of this marathon of a support call(s), was a conference call with 4 individuals inside different AT&T departments - removing forever the impression that the United States federal government is the most convoluted bureaucracy in existence. But in the end connectivity was restored and here we are.

Obama, McCain and The Faith Vote . . .

OnTuesday Obama gave his own faith-based pitch. Tom Bevan has about the best reaction summary in a general political sense. There are some reactions worthy of special note.

Pat Buchanan, really responding to the Dobson/Obama dust-up of last week, comes dangerously close to saying “Obama is not Christian.” More on Buchanan in a minute. But Cal Thomas does not mince words:

Obama can call himself anything he likes, but there is a clear requirement for one to qualify as a Christian and Obama doesn’t meet that requirement.

This is turning into familiar territory, is it not? Clearly Obama’s view of the Christian faith is quite different than mine, or Thomas’, but that is simply something inappropriate to utter about anyone in a presidential campaign - it simply is not material, and it is (Lowell? You’re the lawyer, tell me if I use this word wrong) “prejudicial.” I would not vote for Obama under threat of physical harm, but I am not going to publicly declare the validity of his claimed faith - I think God can figure that out just fine without me.

But one of the more interesting response showed up on Time’s Swampland blog:

At a meeting Tuesday in Denver, about 100 conservative Christian leaders from around the country agreed to unite behind the candidacy of John McCain, a politician they have long distrusted, marking the latest in a string of movement that bodes well for McCain’s general election prospects among the Republican base.

[…]

A second person who attended the event, but asked not to be named, said that the group was motivated principally by a desire to defeat Barack Obama. “None of these people want to meet their maker knowing that they didn’t do everything they could to keep Barack Obama from being president,” the participant said. “You’ve got these two people running for president. One of them is going to become president. That’s the perspective. That that’s the whole discussion.”

That is, in my opinion the right perspective. I am no McCain lover, but he makes a lot of sense compared to the alternative, and I do not even need to comment on the alternative’s salvation status to come to that conclusion. But, the left has no governor when it comes to religion bashing.

Speaking of Buchanan…

He concludes the same piece linked above this way:

The unbridgeable divide between the two portends a troubled future. Can Americans ever come together if we are divided in our deepest beliefs about morality and truth, where one side believes gay marriage is moral progress, the other holds it a moral outrage; where one side views abortion to be a mighty advance for women’s freedom, the other sees it as legalization of mass slaughter of unborn babies?

There can be no peaceful coexistence in a cultural war because it is at root a religious war. Far into the future, Americans seem fated to face each other again and again “at some disputed barricade.” [Emphasis added.]

Fascinating analysis, also a bit nerve-wracking - religious wars tear nations apart. But I think Buchanan is right in this case. When noted and typically wise pundits like Thomas are declaring the validity of a candidate’s faith we have descended into a war of religious rhetoric and those almost always end ugly. Religion, while usually reasonable, is in the end beyond reason, and there is no rhetoric that can resolve a conflict between such things.

Thus, once again, we see there is no place for religious discussion in a presidential race. You can be motivated by your faith, but your rhetoric needs to be based somewhere else.

And Speaking of Left-Wing Religious Bigotry . . .

We have a new one for the pantheon - joining Jacob Weisberg, Ken Woodward, et. al. as purely bigoted hate screed against Mormons. This one by Chris Kelly at HuffPo discussing Romney as a Veep prospect:

Another comforting thing for McCain? There hasn’t been a really serious Mormon assassination plot since Porter Rockwell shot Governor Lilburn Boggs, and that was ages ago.

That is a small example of a piece that is completely, utterly scandalous. This thing is so odious as to be beyond refute. He actually uses the example of a story from the Book of Mormon where a killing was committed and uses it as an argument that Romney would do the same.

So has George W. Bush done something like that? I mean there was that whole King David/Bathsheba’s husband thing.

I should stop, there is an old phrase that applies here, “When arguing with a fool, make sure he is not similarly occupied.”

Quick addition from Lowell: I don’t know who Chris Kelly is, or whether he has ever engaged in responsible journalism, blogging, or thinking; but he did none of those in his malicious little post. He writes like a hack. (At least Jacob Weisberg and Ken Woodward can write bigoted content well.) For example, Orrin Porter Rockwell was arrested, tried, and acquitted of the crime involving the infamous and odious Governor Boggs. Some “assassination plot.”

As for Cal Thomas, his comments remind me of the tendency left-wingers have to call conservatives with whom they disagree “fascists.” When we apply words like that to people who do not deserve them, we gut the word of meaning: When a real fascist comes along, we don’t have credibility in using the word. Thomas is doing something similar here. He claims that Obama - a man whom millions of Americans have no trouble considering a Christian - is not a real Christian. Doesn’t that weaken the meaning of the word? Obama’s version of Christianity is not mine, but I do not want to declare him outside of Christianity — perhaps because so many have tried to do that same thing to my fellow Mormons and me. Besides, as John notes, it’s irrelevant.
Sphere: Related Content

Posted in Reading List | 1 Comment » |  Print this post |  Email This Post

Recently:

• Legality, Religiousity, Post-Prop 8 Ugliness and the Case Against Huckabee
• Prop 8 and religion: A moral or political issue, or both?
• RED MEAT! Hewitt, Huckabee and Anti-Mormonism
• Say What?!
• In The Wake Of Prop 8
• A Catholic Defense of Mormon Support (and other religions’ support) for Prop 8
• Being The Target
• Encouraging?
• Proposition 8: Multi-Faith Press Conference Speaks Out Against Attacks
• And Now…Terrorism!?