How Poorly We’ve Done (Inadvertently Rebuked By Obama)
I was listening to NPR Friday morning when they interviewed Illinois senator Barak Obama. I had just pulled into the gas station and I ended up sitting in my car to listen to the interview. The topic was a recent speech given by Obama in which he admitted that the Democtratic Party has done a poor job in reaching out to “people of faith,” particularly evangelical Christians.
Obama’s speech was to Call to Renewal, “a group of churches and faith-based organizations working to end poverty.” In that speech, Obama said: “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. I think it’s time that we joined a serious debate about how to reconcile faith with our modern pluralistic society.” Obama responds to the question “Why have you chosen this moment to weigh in to this issue:”
“I think there’s an interesting opportunity right now. Partly because you’re starting to see changes in leadership within the evangelical community. The traditional ‘fire and brimstone leaders,’ the Jerry Fallwel’s and the Pat Robertson’s are starting to give way to leaders like Rick Warren or T.D. Jakes who still have conservative views when it comes to certain social issues but are also opening up to issues like environmentalism or Darfur, the AIDS crisis in Africa and part of what I have wanted to make sure of is that those of us who consider ourselves ‘progressive,’ that we are not somehow abandoning the opportunity to work with people of all faiths to bring about American renewal.”
Obama remarks that he wants to “figure out how we can stop using religion as a divisive force in the body politic.” In other words, he wants the evangelical Christian vote. Countering this idea that his words are simply calculated, Obama argues that:
“One of the wonderful things about coming to Washington is realizing that everything you do is perceived as calculation. So I can’t really spend a lot of time worrying about how my words are interpreted, all I can do is make those words as true as possible.”
Cutting to the core of his argument, Obama argues that, regarding issues of faith,
“Democrats need to show up. I think it’s important that we don’t just abandon the field. If we are present in those forums and we’re engaged in a debate about our commitments when it comes to the poor, or our belief that we’re all sinners and we might want to look at the speck in our own eye before before we look at the speck in someone else’s eye, look at the log in our own. Then, potentially at least, people start broadening their conceptions of faith.”
I’ll be honest here, and I’m sure for regular readers this will come as no surprise, Obama’s interview greatly troubles me for several reasons. As the interview goes on, if there were any doubts, it becomes apparent that Obama is pro-abortion and pro-homosexual union and that his views on these issues will not change. The fact that he doesn’t understand that those issues alone ought to prevent evangelical Christians from voting for him is a rebuke to us that we have not been able to clearly communicate.
Notice something else. Obama never mentions or articulates any position of personal faith. the closest he comes is to say that he must make his “words as true as possible.” What does this mean? Where is the admonition that his words (faith) are lived out and consistent? Obama doesn’t understand the “evangelical” position and he doesn’t want to, but more deeply, the fact that he is able to communicate the idea that simply using a few words and “reaching out” is enough demonstrates how poorly Christians in America actually live out our faith.
In a statement that I’m sure would make Rod Dreher bristle, Obama hints that issues like “environmentalism or Darfur, the AIDS crisis in Africa” are somehow liberal issues. Again, this is a rebuke to American Christians. Obama doesn’t understand the holistic nature of faith in Christ because most professing American Christians don’t understand it. In a nation in which 83% claim to be Christian, churches must take the blame for not calling people to live their faith out, for giving false assurance to non-Christians, for watering down our message, and to put it bluntly, for living like the world.
Obama makes it clear that he doesn’t understand the way someone’s faith in Christ should affect their every decision, driving them to help the poor, to protect the environment, to protect the unborn and preserve marriage. But Obama’s lack of understanding is not entirely his fault. What other conclusions could someone come to when observing the way most professing Christians in America live out their lives, as though their faith is an accessory item they bring out on the weekends and when it’s fashionable, but don’t expect me to wear it all the time, it’s just an accessory.
I can’t blame Obama for wanting votes. I can’t blame Obama for not understanding the radical nature of Christian salvation. But I can thank him for unintentionally rebuking many professing Christians by openly saying that he feels that if he just reaches out he can get their vote. What worries me is that he might just be right.
- Listen to NPR’s interview with Barak Obama.
He is right. The environment, AIDS, poverty, and genocide are all issues that the political left has championed. The GOP continues to hold the evangelical community on the issues of abortion and homosexuality. Theologians like Yoder who argue for Christian charity are viewed as liberal. The Christian challenge is to allign with a party that seeks to alleviate all suffering, injustice, poverty, etc. Only problem is, no one can agree on what Christian charity looks like. The DNC says it looks like free healthcare and the GNP says it looks like tax-cuts. The Gospels seem to support the former, but there is no political home for the church.
I heard about as much of the Obama thing as you quoted. And his language disturbed me too–the way he uses ‘progressive’ to distingusish between smart liberal folks and the more backwards religious types, for example, made me uncomfortable.
I like Obama–he seems charismatic and pleasantly liberal. And I’m tired of being told I have to vote Republican b/c I’m a Christian (abortion and homosexuality aren’t make or break issues for me; I’m more concerned, for example, with the fact that men in Iraq are dying and the guy who made the decision to send them there based on faulty intelligence hasn’t been kicked out of office yet).
But if he’s going to be reaching out to Christians, he might start, like you suggested, by understand our underlying philosophies.
Right now, I feel like he’s doing what the Religious Right does: forcing me to choose between two ideologies. As a progressive Christian, I’m not interested in party-line politics. Rather than calling me to join his political party (which is all he seems to be doing right now), why doesn’t he acknowledge our common ground (like he does about the Darfur bill).
What would get Christians more on the Democrat’s side? How about allowing them to realize that they DO have something in common with the Democratic party? How about publicizing what we have in common, rather than spewing propaganda, trying toget us to blindly join you?
Rant over.
“Free healthcare”? That’s a novelty that I’m not familiar with. If there’s no such thing as a free lunch how could anyone believe there’s such a thing as free open-heart surgery?
The GOP must recognize that they cannot continue to court evangelicals by simply forcing votes on a gay marriage amendment that is not going to pass. They need to see that family values extends beyond a position on abortion (though abortion is a central part of it), and they need to value our natural resources more than they value the financial contributions made by big-oil to their re-election campaigns.
Universal healthcare, as opposed to a private provider system.
The problem is that by definition a two party system isnt going to adaquately represent Christian concerns. We are always going to have two parties splitting the issues and vying for the vote, forcing Christians to choose which issues are most central, and offering as little as it takes to capture and keep the vote of the Christian demographic. More parties means further splintering of evangelical concerns. Less parties would mean working less to get/keep the evangelical vote. The answer is a-partisan activism, like the one campagin. It models the need to transend the confines of party politics and bring issues to the table. This way resources are used to address issues rather than the obtaining/maintaining of power, which is what most evangelical activism is consumed with. The obvious retort is that you cannot make changes without obtaining/maintaining power. However, I think this is wrongheaded, since fundamentally Christians are committed to a heavenly kingdom and a heavenly King. As Jesus says in John 18:33-36, “My kingship is not of this world…if it were, my servants would fight”. I take this to mean that Christians are not to be involved in human power struggles but the promotion of virtue.
Curious that Obama’s remarks come aobut four years after the AME Church essentially banned Bill Hemmans from their pulpits in SC for challenging, not from the pulpit, but from the perpective of a statewide talk radio show, the incosistency of the DNC platform and their tenets of faith.
No wonder in my mind that secularism is still ideal State religion of the left.
Part of the probelm is the new-found ability of modern people to hold two mutually exclusive views at the same time as true.
As is true throughout the “Christian World” many people place their faith into the same type of box they place their jobs, or familys. They view them all as seperate not affecting the others.
It’s interesting how many Christians want to look to Christ and the bibilical call to charity, but want someone else i.e. the government to perform the charity. As I read it, Christ never called a government to perform the Christian charity, but rather the church and us as individual Christians.
And as for as GOP and genocide, it appears to me they are the ones who are calling for something to be done in Danfur, Sundan to stop the genocide that the ever so “chairtiable UN” and other liberals refuse to even admit that is happening there, or in Somolia (as we pulled out of there in 93 and refused to even use the word of Genocide) and today when the US goes to stop the genocide in Iraq, the liberals decry, whale, moan and beg to pull out, and leave them to more sure Genocide. Christian, love, moral values, principles???