Via the Interfaith Alliance, Pastor Dan - in an apparent attempt to get my blood boiling (mission accomplished!) - provides us with the top 10 (or bottom 10) moments in our national race for Pastor-in-Chief:
10. Mitt Romney is asked if he believes “every word” of the Bible (CNN/You Tube debate (11-28-07).
9. CNN’s Soledad O’Brien asks John Edwards to “name his greatest sin” (CNN/Sojourners town hall 6-26-07).
8. James Dobson tells a reporter he does not think that Fred Thompson is a Christian (3-27-07).
7. Barack Obama distributes a campaign flier describing himself as a “Committed Christian” (1-21-08).
6. Hillary Clinton said we need to “inject faith into policy” (CNN/Sojourners town hall 6-26-07).
Memo to Hillary: What do you think has been happening for the past eight years?
5. Mike Huckabee explains his rise in the polls by invoking the Biblical story of two fish and five loaves feeding a crowd of 5,000 people (11-28-07).
4. Tim Russert asks all the Democratic candidates to “name their favorite Bible verse” (MSNBC 9-26-07).
This one particularly galls me. Do we ask the candidates to name their favorite right from the bill of rights? Their favorite line from the Declaration of Independence? We have literally gotten to the point in our national political life where what you think of the Bible is thought to be more important than what you think of the Constitution. That doesn’t bode well for a Constitutional Republic.
3. John McCain says the Constitution established the United States as a Christian nation and that he would prefer a Christian president (9-27-07).
Really? Well, I’d certainly like you to point me to the specific phrasing in the Constitution which stipulates that the United States of America is a Christian nation. I’ll wait.
But then, I’d be waiting forever - wouldn’t I?
2. Barack Obama asked a congregation to help him “become an instrument of God” and join him in creating “a Kingdom right here on Earth” (10-17-07).
1. Mike Huckabee tells a crowd: “What we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards” (1-14-08).
In one respect all this God talk is probably to be expected; the United States is a nation suffused with religious faith. But I also think that at this particular moment in history - as we stand on the cusp of what appears, to many, to be a decline; as we attempt to address multi-faceted issues to which there seem to be no simple solutions - people retreat into their faith. It’s the mooring in a storm, and these are indeed stormy times.
What I both fear and resent, though, is the insinuation, inherent in many of the above answers, that all we need to do is get right with God, and everything will turn out just fine. That’s always the mantra of a totalitarian state: All we need is purity; all you need is fanaticism. All we must do is believe, fervently believe, in the cause, and then we will overcome our demons. I can’t speak to how that works on a personal level. But anyone who’s studied some history can attest to the frightening instances where that fervent belief wasn’t enough, and where blind faith in the cause, instead, ceded victory to the demons themselves.
