O-Ala-BAMA: Old-Time Religion and the Skin I'm In

preached too, after he did -- good thing they weren't in the same room, she wouldn't have dared follow him. Seriously, she just wasn't very good at it, or believable enough to scare me. The funny part being, she grew up Methodist like I did! (Maybe women really DON'T make the best preachers?)

garbage -- pander on Sunday, collect the money on Monday? Both of them should be ashamed.

Nance

own behavior and speech that makes me afraid for rational analysis and discourse, because the candidates all have panderer-followers too, some of whom are willing (eager?) to put out supposedly progressive "thinking" like this:

Did you notice that both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were in CHURCHES this weekend, commemorating the civil rights struggle. That's because the civil rights struggle itself was a product of relgious people acting and organizing through their churches.

(Target's Name Here) would sever the Democratic Party from this current and thereby, albeit unintentionally, discredit our presidential candidates and force them into a position on religion from which they could not recover politically.

. . .to use a southern-culture phrase I rightfully own but do not mean literally! . . .because look what she said in another thread today:

My hunch is that political oneupmanship causes more religious strife than it profits from. Eventually, people realize when they are being used.

Bear in mind that Obama was not speaking on the campaign trail, he was speaking in church at a pulpit. What did you think he was going to speak about in church, fishing? The video of Obama's speech is up at youtube, just go there and type "barack obama selma" in the search window.

The more pertinent question in my mind is why wasn't John Edwards in Selma? The Washington Post/ABC poll of african american voters shows Obama 44% Clinton 33% (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/27/AR200702...)

Events like this weekend will only draw those numbers up further, which isn't good for the other candidates when already nearly 80 percent of african american voters are supporting one of two candidates. African american voters make up majorities of the democratic primary voters in some southern states like alabama and south carolina and decisive minorities in others. I'd think it highly unlikely that any democrat can win the party's nomination with what could be substantially less than twenty percent of the black vote if the poll numbers are accurate. This adds up to Edwards should have IMO been in Selma this weekend. The New York Times and papers all over the country have pictures on the front page of Obama and Clinton walking over the Pettus bridge in Selma among all the african american leaders. If Edwards campaign staff was smart, they would have had him there. Hillary knew she had to be there once Obama was going down, and she was, right there on the bridge next to John Lewis. With Bill. It was a smart political move. The national poll numbers quoted among democrats in that post/abc poll I linked to above have:

Clinton 36%
Obama 24%
Gore 14%
Edwards 12%
Undecided 11%

When you are running behind someone who is not even in the race and neck and neck with undecided, you don't need to be missing important photo ops that resonate with important demographics. Btw, as that story reports, when they take Gore out of the mix, the numbers are:

Clinton 43%
Obama 27&
Edwards 14%

So its not like all those Gore supporters are closet Edwards supporters. I really like Edwards' ideas but he is trying to run from the left as the most liberal candidate out there and the liberals don't seem to be going for him. Liberals like enfranchisement and would seem more likely to be the ones most open to making history by nominating a woman or minority. Maybe Edwards made a strategic error, and should have been running to the right of Hillary as opposed to the left? If he can't count on the african american vote, after all, how is he going to win as the most liberal candidate?

There were separate events in the same area. One was in a church where Obama was addressing a bunch of church-goers and spoke of his beliefs. The other was on the Pettus Bridge, the site of the historic Selma voting rights march. There is nothing inconsistent in saying that it was logical for Obama to be preaching while in church, if he is a religous man, and that Edwards ought IMO to have appeared for the march on the bridge. I am all for separation of church and state, but if a candidate who is a christian is invited to preach in a church, what is the big deal?

Don't you understand that a big problem the Democrats have had is the false perception Republicans put across in general elections that one party respects religion in peoples' lives and the other does not. If Democratic candidates are not to get near a church with a ten foot pole and say a word about the bible, or even their own beliefs lest it be a violation of separation of church and state, how do you fight that kind of perception? Also black communities/culture are still more church and religion-driven now than many white communities are anymore, that is just a fact. Historically, african americans haven't had much reason to trust the government, so the institution they hold more belief in is their local church. So when you court the black vote, you go to church and pay your respects. You don't have to believe what they, or any christian believes, but you better show up there and respect their institutions. That is all Obama and Hillary were doing.

Yet you blast Obama for going there. What, you think he should have stood outside the church, a good fifty feet away, and handed out leaflets? Obama is not saying he wants a theocracy. He is saying we do not get anywhere by disrespecting, as opposed to embracing the beliefs people have. If he doesn't go to a black church in Selma, its like you'd feel if he didn't come to your state. You'd say "What's he saying, we're a backwater full of hicks?" You'd feel disrespected. Those people in that church feel the same way about their church as you do about being southern. It is a part of who they are, and they want it respected. Just as you don't want your heritage or area of the country put down by northerners.

Obama was saying he respects them, and that their beliefs can be part of his larger message, just as your beliefs can be part of that message too. A good campaign should be like making a quilt, getting patches of fabric from the different parts of the community and making it into one thing that represents us all. Obama is a universalist (read his first book), he believes we are all part of a great whole, like this giant quilt. He wants you to be a part of that quilt. He wants that church and the church goers in Selma to be part of that quilt. When that quilt is put together, we all share equally in it. I wanted Obama to go to that church, and I want him to appear at an ACLU event and a NOW event and at rallies of atheists and agnostics. I don't want him to give more weight to those church-goers in Selma than me, but I don't want him to give them less either. You should want him to go to them and give them respect, just as you want to be shown that same respect yourself. And you should not fear it when he shows respect to others. You should embrace it.

We're supposed to believe that anyone cares whether the preaching took place on a bridge or in a pulpit? Who makes that distinction? Someone looking for a difference that isn't there.

And I don't buy the line that Reps did better than Dems, for a while, by being more Jesus-y. Jesus is as Jesus does and "compassionate conservatism" hasn't helped a whole lot of these people being preached at.

Nance

Respect does not need a photo op or a pulpit or a bridge. Respect lies in telling the truth. Not in trying to sway me by showing up on Sunday.

Nance

Hillary and Obama are now both scheduled to scheduled to speak Monday at the meeting of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (reported by daily news) Consensus seems to have it that Obama won the round in Selma. Can Hillary take it to him in front of jewish voters and even the score? After all surely its as important to be the jewish voters candidate in 2008 as the black voters candidate. Particularly if Obama actually intends to contest New York, which it seems like he does.

I bless your heart too. Someone wondered where John Edwards was during the Bridge to Selma Sunday. If I have my dates correct, he was at a Berkley student rally of 1000. Kate Michelman was with him. His blog has a rundown on it.
Confession: I follow JRE but not so closely that I know where he is at all times. He's into colleges right now.
Question: Is it possible that if college students are given a chance, they may make a sizable impact as a voting block? In my view, the big issue before us is how to convince humanity that it must stop wasting resources and people themselves for foolish reasons. Excesses come so easily. Some one steps on your toe, sue him. They go across the sovereign line, banish them. In sports, fight it out in the TV booth about whether the coach called the right play. Even downhome Nascar drivers have stopped playing bumpy and started getting into penalty standoffs. To say the question again: Could people of some book learning think up ways to recognize cooperation instead of glorifying competition?

First, an aside on the state of cyber technology. When the day came that words were no longer premier on the computer, we have new participants, new subjects to talk about. Cruelly put, dumbing down has arrived.
Actually, there is a metaphor in the Iraq war for "our" forum of Cooperation vs Competition. And cooperation is coming in a dismal last place. Secure the area and then we can talk, they say. When will diplomacy arrive? Darfur is even a better example. What seems like decades ago, the media got around to spelling "genocide" and then it reached the era of tin ears. Senator Danforth didn't have a way around the issues in Africa and certainly not in Washington. Only tonight Jim Lehrer's program had the latest UN facilitator. He looked tired, dedicated but tired.
I just wrote on the other thread about blogdom that twice as much communication comes from non-verbal signals as from verbal ones. And yet I like words and I like to see people using them.
Would we have a forum or should it be a confab or a summit or even a "happening?" I dwell on the 60s and Tom Hayden, et al with the SDS. Recently I took the trouble to read their declaration. Not exactly a concise, deliberate document, I concluded. Really, Students for Democatic S(? senior moment) worked best in images. Closing the campus at Columbia. The freeforall in Chicago during the 68 Democratic convention. The clothes from Mother Hubbard dresses and granny glasses to jeans with holes in them. I wouldn't have thought of going to work without my peace symbol necklace bought in the gift shop of the Cathedral of St. John Divine.
What aggravates me now is that I can't mix it up with younger people. It remains to be seen whether the likes of Cindy Sheehan made a contribution in the peace marches they've had. To get peace we need cooperation, dialogue, clear thinking. And sometimes you can use phrases and not a policy piece.
But there is a place for reasoning. What do you want, JJ? Shall we write the perfect invitation to reason and put it on Common Dreams? Or shall we recognize that words alone will not attract attention? John Edwards is sending a six-minute DVD to every Democrat he knows in Iowa.
Because I feel strongly that the country is in deep trouble unless we support the coming generations, meaning in this case everyone 18 or older who believe that the country doesn't understand them, we are all going to be the poorer for it. It's the Common Good thing.

Margaret, I agree with you that humanity needs to learn to not waste resources. But I don't think Edwards is helping matters when he sends 70,000 dvd's of a six and a half minute video to his whole Iowa mailing list this early the year before the caucuses. These are non-biodegradable dvds that the vast majority of those who receive them won't likely watch. Can't he just email these folks, or in case of those who don't have computers, just snail mail them some lit? Does Edwards have to be like AOL and litter the world with unusable dvds? I still get dvd-rom's in the mail from AOL and I haven't used AOL in nearly ten years. Those go right in the garbage and end up as non-biodegradable waste for all time. This is not the right message Edwards or the other candidates should be sending.

As for young voters, I agree with you. There were large numbers of them who did not vote in 2004 who could make the difference this time if they get motivated. However, I think the candidate who is clearly inspiring and motivating college age kids, in large numbers now, is not Edwards but Obama. Edwards drew a thousand at Cal-Berkeley, but how many did Obama draw the previous week at the University of Texas in Austin? I think reports said at least 15,000 to 20,000, it was a huge crowd, you can see clips at Obama's website (barackobama.com) Obama is the one candidate who is charismatic enough, young enough and non-establishment enough to have great appeal to young voters, and Obama speaks often about how it is time for the post-baby boomer generations to step up, how he-- like them-- grew up in the seventies, eighties, not the sixties. I think they relate to him in a big way. Not saying they can't relate to Edwards, but his appeal seems more limited, he is just not nearly as big a star.

Let's cut to the chase on attracting youthful voters. Between Obama and Edwards there is no doubt that Obama thinks more about a world vision than Edwards does. Edwards, like other folks reared in the mountains, has to have imagination to think of the world. They have different views of what comes first. The World or the US. And both have a political hazard. They're younger than their competitors. Edwards, at Dartmouth I think it was, answered a question about same sex marriage. He said he wasn't ready to go there yet. That daughter Cate thought civil unions were yesterday's news. I don't know what Obama thinks, but I share a Christian denomination with him. I assume he goes along with the United Church of Christ on same sex marriages.
When the posterity we are all thinking about, dig through the waste dumps we are creating I wonder what they'll think about all those curious little devices which make Apple and Microsoft so rich today. I'm of the opinion youth will not give up their toys to make the world a safer place to live.
Just where conspicuous consumption will end is hard to say. Since I live downwind from Oak Ridge, I tend to think of bigger devices which have harmed workers there as well as thousands of Japanese in the past. Sometimes I wonder whether we aren't all caught up in a doomsday mind cramp. I hope the young will have enthusiasm for positive things, including the right to register their choices.

Far-left political ideologue and public school zealot Michael Apple is at it again, which sent me back into my archives where I realized with another shiver why Barack Obama's Generation Joshua preaching makes my skin crawl -- "It's the morality, stupid?"

Are we so sure that the Rob Reich/Michael Apple world view isn't just as dependent on moral imperative as Patrick Henry College or the HSLDA?

RELIGION AFFECTS HOMESCHOOL FRAMES AND POLITICS AS IT DOES ALL OF AMERICA-
FSU professor reviews new book as "a good read for the intelligent layperson who is serious about citizenship. . . the politics of sin oscillate between a focus on the sinners and one on the sinful system . . nothing stirs the people or grows their government like a pulpit-thumping moral crusade against malevolent dastards."

"...Today the new Victorians or Jeremiahs are not limited to the leadership of the Southern Baptist Conference or to Jerry Falwell. Many Americans are focusing on the sinners who, as individuals, are responsible for their sins . . "

JJ says: wouldn't we be wise to incorporate this view as we consider past, present, and future homeschooling frames? It brought to my mind the demands for "rigor" and high-stakes accountability, also CPS/child neglect and "if it can save just one child" arguments, also the "virtue" arguments against charters and criticism of individuals who choose them (greed, dishonesty, corruption, disloyalty to one's fellow homeschoolers.)

Hellfire Nation: The Politics of Sin in American History (Yale, 2003) by James Morone, professor of political science at Brown University. It is 497 pages with 60 more pages of endnotes, to chronicle how "the politics of sin continues to shape American political development, more so than any nation on earth."

Morone writes that moral concerns play a crucial role in American politics . . .historically our nation "develops not from religious to secular, but from revival to revival."

He uses the phrase "Social Gospel" to include political frames such as abolition, FDR's New Deal and Martin Luther King Jr.'s civil rights nonviolence, all based on this moralistic consciousness.

It was in that larger sense rather than "Christian" that this book made me think of homeschooling, because we're whipsawed between clashing frames from Rob Reich's and Michael Apple's communitarian imperatives to libertarian hysteria, all justified on various "moral" terms, with or without Christianity or any other religion per se.

The review I read closed with this creepy note:
"Shrinking government involvement in our lives can always be put on hold, and public expenditures justified, whenever personal morality needs supervising."

I think I see some very big government coming for us.

Bush didn't start the theme of "I'll save you from yourself" but he sure gave it volume. For years, I wondered what would happen after TV ads warned (harangued) us about such hidden dangers as plaque, be it on the teeth or in the arteries. That's so much more personal than denouncing a person for use of inferior deodorant or hair spray. Finally, came the really personal, clinched with a presidential candidate's description of penis enlargement.
After Madison Avenue had us thoroughly hygienic, came the time to set our minds straight. No more bullying in schools, dysfunctional families, deviant sexual relations. Not to worry, your partner will be happy with a mattress built to his/her firmness.
So. By now we are convinced how imperfect we are and how hard we must try, so do be careful about going to school which sports the wrong curriculum. Eventually, it becomes easy to find one where they stopped teaching and just give tests. Listen to the teacher and have reasonable memory skill and you're in like Flynn.
Now that we have lived in the year of our Ford for so long, we will be quite satisfied to have any used car salesman tell us how to vote/shop/learn/love. Choose one or fill in the blank.
An MBA gets a degree to become a CEO. What he says goes until he doesn't produce, then he pulls the ring on a golden parachute, and recycles to a better paying job as CEO. That's business. Business administration and public administration are not the same animal. Any dummy who went to school should understand that.
And another thing. You can't buy loyalty. You earn it. Old CEO's don't lose their bottom lines, they just sit on their bottoms.
Oh, about big government--meaning expensive. Ours is maxing out right now. Soon the cost of borrowing money on the debt will make us all paupers. And the little man/woman saving a little money will see it get littler because the cost of living (aka inflation) will eat it up. But don't worry! Some other sweet talker will tell you that God loves you and God blesses the United States. END of RANT.

New from the Revealer religious journalism site --

Faith-Based Democrats?
19 March 2007

The Winter 2007 issue of the Harvard Divinity Bulletin is an especially good issue of a magazine that ranges between liberally pious, bland, and brilliant. This edition contains much that's in the third category, but only one short piece out of the three I'd planned to link to is online,"Vox Populi, Vox Dei," a consideration of evangelical politics in the wake of the 2006 election by Mark I. Pinsky, an excellent religion writer who has a front row seat as a longtime reporter for The Orlando Sentinel, from which vantage point he recently published A Jew Among the Evangelicals: A Guide for the Perplexed.

. . .Author Todd Shy, a book critic for the Raleigh News & Observer, does more than review (liberal evangelical Jim) Wallis. His essay, "The Democratic Dilemma," is a full essay on how--or if--liberal Christianity can influence American politics. The fact that this is buried in the print-only edition of the Harvard Divinity Bulletin is a shame -- Shy's insight far outshines any of the bromides served up by Democratic "faith consultants" on op-ed pages:

The great strength of the liberal ideal has been its capacity to encompass modern ambiguities by, to borrow Isaiah Berlin's phrase, shifting foot to foot.... Acknowledging distance between God and humanity is not a denial of values or a cowardice about faith. Hesitation to say, "This is the truth, we have received it from AMos," is not a failure of nerve; it is hard-won wisdom. This shifting from foot to foot has been the virtue of liberalism, and the left should be wary of abandoning it for conservative-style conviction.

almost everything dealing with my life, but let my religion be my own. In Viet Nam days, I acquired middle age spread sitting in church fellowship halls, sorting out what was wrong with a war and the inhumane methods--like anti-personnel devices. Jim Wallis was doing the same and never gave up. In recent years I have Baptist friends who saw the light after Bush's messianic deliveries; they write letters to the editor to explain that Christians must follow the New Testament with kinder, gentler ways. No argument from me.
However, I'm looking at political issues which ostensibly pit Jews and Christians (or call it AIPAC and Congress) in a great struggle. From my perspective, I am following a group I privately call political Christians. I've heard them referred to as Zionist Christians, and one author has written about Fascist Christians. They are mostly referring to the tactics of Jerry Falwell and others who believe that to say anything against Israel is to deny Christ. It's a stretch. The beliefs come out of the Second Coming, exemplified by the "Left Behind" craze.
I refer you to the article listed below in salon.com.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2007/03/20/aipac/print.html

Can American Jews unplug the Israel lobby?
As Bush's unbalanced Mideast policies careen from disaster to disaster, people who don't toe the AIPAC line are beginning to speak out.

By Gary Kamiya

It's more complicated than just this group, but I believe it is time to nip their political mischief in the bud. Therefore, I won't try to quote chapter and verse to such political groups, nor will I be interested in hearing, ad nausium, what they have to say.

I have to assume that when you posted your link on the BBHS that you were inviting me over...

After reading your blog I think I have a better understanding of your position.. you seem to fear parents that CHOOSE to teach their children a Biblical World View..

To which I say.. get over it... Christians do not wish to IMPOSE their "Biblical World View" on anyone, however it seems that the opposing "Secular World View" is a "MUST" in our public school system.. if the public shcools removed the SECULAR HUMANISM <-- RELIGION from its curriculum I am sure our public school children would be less "confused". One of MANY reasons parents choose to Homeschool.. Also you seem to fear private schools, that teach a Biblical World View rather than a Secular World View as well.... well private is private so I think you just need to "get over it"..

Respectfully

David C. Osborne
www.DavidOsborne.net
Autobiography: http://www.Bio.DavidOsborne.net

To: JJ Ross (My Friend and fellow Homeschooler)

I have to assume that when you posted a link to this article and your blog on BBHS that it was an invitiation to me.

After reading some of you postings I think I have a better understanding of where you stand. I appreciate you openness and wilingness to share some much of your personal/relgious beliefs..

My analysis concludes that YOUR religion is Secular Humanism/Atheism/Agnosticism aka (Secular World View) which is as much a "religion" as my oposing (Biblical World View).. the difference is that you believe that YOUR religion is better than mine.. and you also believe that my "religion" IS religion and yours IS NOT... which I find humorous

Anyway, thanks for the invitiation.. and hopefully we can work together to advance the Separation of School and State as we discussed in another forum.. We obviously have differences of opinion on things, but I think we do have some common ground..

It also appears to me that you advocate and do not wish to have children taught religion in public schools - I AGREE !! the problem IS THIS.. public school chidlren ARE being taught religion in public schools, which may contradict what they are taught at home or at their church... Can we agree to REMOVE the teaching of RELIGION in public school and work together on this? We can start with removing the "Big Bang" RELIGION, and the "earth is MILLIONS/BILLIONS of years old" RELIGION......

This would be a small step in the right direction..

Respectfully,

David C. Osborne
www.DavidOsbrne.net
BIO: http://www.Bio.DavidOsborne.net

I may not do anything but sideline it. However, I wish to mention my observation of changes in political discourse since this time three years ago.
For starters, George W. Bush is not promoting his culture of life (meaning hard core obstinacy against abortion, family planning, and rights of homosexuals.) Because he lost the steady hand of the oldest denomination of political importance (the Episcopalian Church) for something he called Methodism, he seems now to be floundering. Usually Presidents, in times of crisis, mention their abiding faith. It makes one wonder whether a presidential candidate should not be queried on his values more than he is. Vetting for VP and lesser positions in the government look at the lifelong activity of the person. Only a president can get by with what he is advertised to be. In Mr. Bush's case, we had some signs before he was elected that he was a bit of a zealot. It may have been a good talking point to bring up Bill Clinton's transgressions, but the way he made them a major part of his stump speech should have warned us. Now his pronouncements appear simply a case of believing in himself alone, which makes me wonder whether he isn't having a hard time.
As far as education is concerned, of course religion as a specific subject should not be used in classes. What I find difficult to understand is how the history of religions can be ignored. I feel it is, at least in my community. When the recent Pope, at his death, was being discussed widely in the news, I heard high school students wonder whether a Pope is a Christian. It has not been too many years ago when Catholic parishes were refused government funds for science studies. Now government funds in many school districts are spent after a careful reading of the science textbooks. And we have neither good science or adequate history because of them.

Just got this notice and will post it at Snook too --

New on The Revealer, published by NYU's Center for Religion and Media --

"We Don't Need No Education!" -- Jon Stewart talks to Boston University Religious Studies Chair Steve Prothero about religious literacy. Prothero
apparently thinks it'd be a good idea for American students, and even American politicians.