Via bilerico.com:
Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and started being used to drive us apart. It got hijacked.
Part of it’s because of the so-called leaders of the Christian right, who’ve been all too eager to exploit what divides us. I don’t know what Bible they’re reading, but it doesn’t jibe with my version.
Barack Obama in a speech at the United Church of Christ national meeting.
Barack, I love you, but with all due respect, faith has been used as a wedge since the invention of wedges.
Yes Doug it has always been a wedge. I’d like for Barack to also acknowledge the hi-jacking of religion by the Christian left as well.
Do the Bibles of Sharpton & Jackson jibe with his version??
Near as I can figure, religion got hijacked from time to time by do-gooders promoting peace, love, and understanding. But, it seems to be the exception, not the rule. Maybe I’m just reading too much “history” though.
Doug,
The do-gooders that promote peace, love, and understanding do not create, infulence, and write history. You usually have to kill a lot of people and claim a lot of land to “earn” mention in the history books.
The people that follow Christ’s example of being a neighbor try to make sure that the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. The idea is to not even let yourself be aware of the good you are doing, let alone others.
Many people can be doing that without it ever being noticed by you. My hope is that at least once in your life someone showed you this kindness. That person is one of many.
I’m being a bit glib. Plenty of people have shown me a great deal of kindness. Some have been religious, some have not.
What religion seems to do is to strengthen an in-group; often, but not at all exclusively by setting the in-group against the out-group; The Other.
I’m wondering what Sharpton and Jackson have specifically used the bible to do that was so bad. Also, those on the left that you mention are on the fringes of our party. The bible-beating freakshow of the Right (think Ted Haggard, people like James Inhoffe who think global warming doesn’t matter because a wave of sweet Jesus’ magic hand will make it all ok) is in the mainstream of the Republican party. They practically ARE the Republican party. We’ll gladly throw our wackjobs in a lake if you’ll do the same.
Jackson & Sharpton invoke the race card at every turn. They preach INtolerance and breed disdain by making their followers perpetual victims. Add to that they flat out lie, dodge taxes, misappropriate millions of dollars, have affairs & kids without their spouses, accuse innocent people of horrendous things, in short they are “immoral” or even “amoral” race baiting hucksters operating under the guise of Christianity.
Pretty hard to deny that isn’t it?
The Democratic strategy,and not just Barack Obama’s, appears to be to drive a wedge into a wedge to neutralize the republican religion advantage.Isn’t this what ‘Triangulation’ is?
.
I’ll say it once more, slowly… How do they use the bible to do those things, and on the larger scale, who cares? Have either of them every been nominated–let alone elected–by Democrats for *any* office? Have either of them even been able to use whatever clout they supposedly have to get anyone elected?
I get upset because rightwing “religious leaders” and “people of faith” have been screwing up this country for the last six years. You get upset because some leftwing “religious leaders” have lead poor personal lives and made some ineffectual noise that has annoyed you but otherwise had no impact on 99.99% of peoples’ lives.
Even harder to deny.
Tim Zank, since Bakker, Swaggert, Haggard, and other leading figures of the Religious Reich have been caught red-handed in much the same behaviors you criticize Sharpton and Jackson for, it would seem that the problem is not one of left vs right, but rather one of the intrinsic intellectual, factual, and moral flaws of Christianity itself.
I’d probably qualify that to flaws inherent in mixing religion with politics.
I’d say it’s simply a fact, a certain percentage of all people from all walks of life are snake oil salesmen.
Obama said the bible the right is using is a different version than the one he follows, which I took as an inference to interpretation. All I pointed was that Al & Jesse obviously have a much different interpretation than Obama does too.
I didn’t disagree with Obama, I just illustrated the left does it also.