Today, Hillary Clinton read out a fairly involved comment on how she wouldn't have had Rev. Jeremiah Wright as her pastor as he was blaming the government for the AIDS epidemic or damning America.
Here Hillary was being a politician and not in the worst sense either. She was trying to convince undecided Democrats to support her candidacy by raising "doubts" about Obama's judgment i sticking with Wright.
I would not have had Rev. Wright as my pastor either. Then again, I'm an atheist. I'm not going to have anyone as my pastor.
But if I were a nice Methodist girl like Hillary Clinton, I would have responded to Obama's speech by defending his relationship to Rev. Jeremiah Wright to the hilt. I would have said something to the effect that the primary issue in going to a church is highly personal. What Hillary should have said was that people have to ask themselves whether a church brings you closer to God, helps you understand Jesus, and leads you to follow the Golden Rule. And Hillary should have been emphatic. If Jeremiah Wright's church did these things for Barack Obama, Obama should have remained a member of that church whatever Wright said about the secular matters that paled into insignificance.
By the way, it was dumb of Obama to stick with Wright's church once he set his sights on the U. S. Senate.
But Hillary would have increased her stature with Democrats if she had transcended her battle with Obama and defended the integrity of his Christianity. Being that "big" and "daring" would have shown the depth of her own commitment to Christianity, the depth of her belief in the multi-cultural ethic of the Democratic Party, and gotten her away from accusations of being "calculating" all the time. Supporting Obama at this point would helped Hillary with lots of undecided voters and weak Obama supporters by making her look better rather than making Obama look worse. It might even have caused strong Obama supporters to rethink their negative opinions about her.
In other words, it would have been a great political calculation.
To the contrary, what Hillary ended up with was the same old "tit for tat" daily political manuevering. And maybe Hillary gained something at the margins with that.
But Hillary lost a real opportunity here.
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What Hillary should have said was that people have to ask themselves whether a church brings you closer to God, helps you understand Jesus, and leads you to follow the Golden Rule.
Except of course when that church is based on a marxist ideology that demands God conform to your desires, modifies Jesus to fit a sociological need, and replaces the golden rule with "take everything from those suckers that they took, time 11ty billion."
Otherwise, yes, transcend away.
Is that worse than any other church? The last time I visited a Methodist Church, the minister went on about raising $800,000 for a new fellowship hall or something.
Is that worse than any other church?
Attempts at super stretching moral equivalence aside; Yes, it is.
And if we must find an equivalence, there are plenty of hateful quasi-christian churches way to the right that you could identify. Most obviously are the boneheads that claim Jesus was white as a direct comparison to the BLT assertion that he was really black. Both are transparent political attempts to co-opt a religious figure to provide a false sense of righteousness to one particular group of people or the other based on racial identification. In both cases it is part of an effort to convince those people to self-segregate. It is anti-diversity. It's hateful, and it deserves outright derision not equivocating.
Dr. Caric, may I ask, how many presidential campaigns have you worked for on a full-time basis? How many times have you fun for office?
You are clearly a brilliant individual with many good ideas and observations. This blog could be so much better though if you'd stop bashing the candidate you claim to support, lay off the elections and the usual subjects, and discuss real substantive issues.
Where are the posts on torture. What about the war? Government versus the private sector? Unions: good, bad, or irrelevant? Health care: analyze some of the proposals and give us a chance to respond. Or try a discussion of say Rousseau, Marx, and Engles, Vs Nietche and Kierkedard.
I've no clue if your classes are consumed with the same tired examination of this election contest or if you discuss more.
Is this your best work Dr. Caric? I'd liked to think not but who knows aside from you and your students.
Actually, this is only the second presidential campaign that I've even written about. But I don't know why you think I'm bashing Hillary. My "StudMuffin" and "Mommy" posts about John McCain--now that's bashing that also employs some of my academic skills in the analysis of masculinity.
I have to confess that I'd like to do more posts on policy, culture, and religion. But right now, I don't have the time needed to do the needed research or write on those topics.
I talk about my blogging stuff a little in classes but more as ancillary chatter on "current topics" than anything else.
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