Faith. Hope. Change.
For years we have all heard the bleating from the left. The religious right is gonna git you. Falwell this, Baker that. The Christianist theocrats are scheming to take away women’s rights, and to kill the gays. They’re gonna reprogram your children. They’re going to launch crusades, nuke the whales, put an end to rock and roll, and maybe even take away your internet porn and your cable tv. And now it has come to this.
Let’s to pause to appreciate this. Notice the slogan: Faith. Hope. Change. That slogan has a very fine pedigree. Here is one of the most famous verses in scripture, First Corinthians 13:13 (American Standard Version). If you’ve been to a few weddings, you’ve heard it.
If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor , and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing.
Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil; rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall be done away; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child: now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as also I was fully known. But now abideth faith, hope, love change, these three; and the greatest of these is love change.
What chutzpah. Qué cojones. What freaking balls. And what a tin ear.
I never seen such shameless pandering in my life. It’s funny. Just a few weeks ago Obama was jumping all over Hillary for her sudden conversion to NRA lifetime member. Remember this?
She’s running around talking about how this is an insult to sportsmen, how she values the Second Amendment, she’s talking like she’s Annie Oakley! Hillary Clinton’s out there like she’s on the duck blind every Sunday, she’s packin’ a six shooter! C’mon! She knows better. That’s some politics being played by Hillary Clinton. I want to see that picture of her out there in the duck blinds.
Obama, of course, is above that kind of thing. He’s a new kind of politician.
But let’s keep going. “My faith teaches me that I can sit in church and pray all I want, but I won’t be fulfilling God’s will unless I go out and do the Lord’s work.” So much for monasteries, convents, and the contemplative life.
I imagine Obama isn’t spending a lot of time in church these days, so he must be out fulfilling God’s will. And what is God’s will? We have here a political advertisement that all but says that God wills Obama to be President. Did I misinterpret something? I don’t think so.
No Christian has any business claiming that God wills his rise to political power. Nor that God wills any sort of political regime. Luke 4: 5-8 (KJV) spells it out.
And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.
And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.
If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.
And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
Earthly power was a temptation which Christ specifically rejected. If that’s not explicit enough for you, try John 18:36, “My kingdom is not of this world”.
This kind of religious pandering was repulsive when John Edwards did it, but at least he had the excuse of being devoid of wit or talent. Obama ought to know better.
Posted on May 13th, 2008 by pwyll
Filed under: politics, religion
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My two cents: on the first Tuesday after the first Monday this November, it will be our civic duty to cast a vote for president of the United States. Only two persons — Barack Obama and John McCain — have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning that election.
You clearly have issues with Sen. Obama.
Regarding Sen. McCain: on the night before the South Carolina primary in the 2000 Republican primary, our current president’s attack machine put out the word that McCain had an illegitimate black child — a blatant, egregious distortion of the actual facts about the McCain’s adopted child of color.
Because there was no time for McCain to get the truth out, It is not unfair to state that this disgusting trick cost McCain the S.C. primarily, possibly even the Republican nomination. But Sen. McCain seems to want the presidency so badly that he will swallow any indignity, change any position he has held, and suck up to whomever might get him elected — including kissing our current president’s hind quarters.
Pick your poison, dude, pick your poison!
If we continue to “pick one of the two poisons”, that will continue to be the choice we are given.