Quotes and Excerpts

Obama and the "Covenant for a New America"

  Partnerships:  Church + Politics + Business = Communitarianism  

Skip down to "the foundations of his faith"


Barack Obama says he's a 'person of faith' and challenges the Church and business community to join with the government in the battle against AIDS: "At a press conference on December 1... the possible Presidential contender said, '...the network that Saddleback has helped to create has as much reach as any institutional force in our culture and has probably a wider reach around the world than just about anything that's going on right now.... I hope one of the things that comes out of this conference that Pastor Rick has emphasized again and again, is no single branch of our society is going do this alone. If government thinks they can do it by themselves they're wrong. Churches have to recognize that they've got to be partners with the government. Business has an enormous role....

      "...you know the separation of church and state as a concept of the first amendment the biggest practitioners and the people who advocated most fiercely for it were actually evangelicals.'... [Yes, but later liberal humanists turned the meaning upside down. See Foundations for Faith and Freedom] See Warren's P.E.A.C.E. Plan and UN Goals


Obama Asks Evangelicals To Assimilate  (7-5-06 -BP) "Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, considered a possible Democratic nominee for president in 2008, told left-leaning religious leaders at the Call to Renewal’s 'Building a Covenant for a New America' conference June 28 that in order to sort through some of the 'bitter arguments' about religion in America today, evangelicals need to water down their views to fit in better with the rest of society.

     "'Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values,' Obama said at the event in Washington. 'It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all. 'Now this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do,' he added. 'But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice.'...

      [Not true! We do have a choice! But those who refuse to trade Biblical truth for universal values may face pressures and punishments that would have been unthinkable in our "free" nation some years ago.]

     "R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., said Obama demands the impossible. “Sen. Obama seems to believe in the myth of a universal reason and rationality that will be compelling to all persons of all faiths, including those of no faith at all.... This is secularism with a smile -- offered in the form of an invitation for believers to show up, but then only to be allowed to make arguments that are not based in their deepest beliefs.'”


Obama Wants Your Evangelical Vote: "His solid backing of the advancement of all 'hate crimes' legislation... may be used to silence clergy who believe, according to their own convictions, that homosexual behavior is wrong and preach the same from biblical texts.

        "...when a brave nurse named Jill Stanek brought about national awareness to a practice... that allowed the starvation and neglect of newly born children who had survived abortion procedures, Obama—'the Christian'—opposed her. He opposed the rights of those children to be given the chance to live, and he advocated against a ban on such procedures—then known as 'born alive abortions.'... The only way Obama and his followers can keep Christ and their liberal credo is to blow off huge chunks of the Bible and replace the scripture with the make-believe notions of postmodernism's new malleable 'Christ.'” See Warren's P.E.A.C.E. Plan and UN Goals


 

Obama will visit evangelical megachurch on World AIDS Day: "Like many fellow Democratic politicians, Sen. Barack Obama is no stranger to the pulpit. But in December, Obama will go where few progressive Democrats usually venture....Aides to Obama say he will appear at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., on Dec. 1, World AIDS Day, drawing attention to the kind of issue the senator from Illinois says should unite all people of faith, regardless of their particular religion. .... 'Sen. Obama has a deep respect for Mr. Warren's commitment to fighting AIDS and poverty,' said Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor. "They met in January of 2006 while Mr. Warren was in Washington and have become friends, speaking on the phone with some regularity.'"

       See Warren's P.E.A.C.E. Plan and UN Goals - Part 3 Whom do we serve? and the next 2 links:


Dr. Rick and Kay Warren bring HIV/AIDS leaders to chruch: "An impressive roster of speakers and special guests are scheduled to attend the two-day Summit including U.S. Senators Barack Obama and Sam Brownback and U.S. Ambassador Mark Dybul, the Global AIDS Coordinator and highest-ranking AIDS official in the nation. Additionally, the leaders of the four largest non-government organizations (NGOs) will be presenting: Franklin Graham of Samaritan’s Purse; Wess Stafford of Compassion International; Rich Stearns of World Vision; and Sammy Mah of World Relief....

     "Unique from every other conference on AIDS, attendees of the Global Summit on AIDS & the Church will explore six ways any church, regardless of size, can minister to people living with HIV/AIDS using the acrostic C.H.U.R.C.H.: Care for and support the sick; Handle testing and counseling; Unleash volunteers; Remove the stigma; Champion healthy behavior; and Help with nutrition and medications. ...

     "In addition to the C.H.U.R.C.H. strategy, the Summit will also feature details regarding the progression of the P.E.A.C.E. plan, a worldwide effort to mobilize one billion church members to address the five biggest global problems.... The P.E.A.C.E. plan is currently being tested in more than 80 countries through planting churches, equipping servant leaders, assisting the poor, caring for the sick and educating the next generation."

 


 

Barack Obama takes on issue of Religion & Politics at Call To Renewal Conference: "Senator Barack Obama, a member of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, spoke today at the Call to Renewal Conference and outlined his views on religion and politics. The speech delivered by the senator from Illinois is perhaps the most well thought out speech on the topic since John F. Kennedy addressed the subject during the 1960 presidential campaign. Kennedy, of course, argued in his speech for a firm wall of separation of church and state. Obama affirms this important Constitutional principle but also argues that progressives should not be afraid of religion or religious people (Kennedy certainly wasn’t)....

     "Sadly, people like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell have defined for many what it means to be Christian. Secularists, said Obama, 'are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryant, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King - indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history - were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. To say that men and women should not inject their 'personal morality'into public policy debates is a practical absurdity; our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.'" (Rev. Chuck Currie, 6028-06)

 


UCC member Sen. Barack Obama's keynote address: (6-29-06)  "I appreciate the opportunity to speak here at the Call to Renewal’s Building a Covenant for a New America conference.... I’d like to talk about the connection between religion and politics and perhaps offer some thoughts about how we can sort through some of the often bitter arguments that we’ve been seeing over the last several years. ...

     "Mr. Keyes announced towards the end of the campaign that, '...Christ would not vote for Barack Obama because Barack Obama has behaved in a way that it is inconceivable for Christ to have behaved.' ...I had to take Mr. Keyes seriously, for he claimed to speak for my religion, and my God. He claimed knowledge of certain truths. ... Mr. Obama says he’s a Christian, but supports the destruction of innocent and sacred life.....

     "At worst, there are some liberals who dismiss religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant, insisting on a caricature of religious Americans that paints them as fanatical, or thinking that the very word 'Christian' describes one’s political opponents, not people of faith.....

     "Americans are a religious people. 90 percent of us believe in God, 70 percent affiliate themselves with an organized religion, 38 percent call themselves committed Christians, and substantially more people in America believe in angels than they do in evolution....

     "I was not raised in a particularly religious household, as undoubtedly many in the audience were. My father, who returned to Kenya when I was just two, was born Muslim but as an adult became an atheist. My mother, whose parents were non-practicing Baptists and Methodists... grew up with a healthy skepticism of organized religion herself. As a consequence, so did I. It wasn’t until after college, when I went to Chicago to work as a community organizer for a group of Christian churches, that I confronted my own spiritual dilemma. ...

     "Faith doesn’t mean that you don’t have doubts. You need to come to church in the first place precisely because you are first of this world, not apart from it. You need to embrace Christ precisely because you have sins to wash away – because you are human and need an ally in this difficult journey. It was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street in the Southside of Chicago one day and affirm my Christian faith.... The questions I had didn’t magically disappear. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side, I felt that I heard God’s spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth. That’s a path that has been shared by millions upon millions of Americans – evangelicals, Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims alike; some since birth, others at certain turning points in their lives....

      "...as progressives, we cannot abandon the field of religious discourse. Because when we ignore the debate about what it means to be a good Christian or Muslim or Jew; when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations towards one another; when we shy away from religious venues and religious broadcasts because we assume that we will be unwelcome – others will fill the vacuum, those with the most insular views of faith.... In other words, if we don’t reach out to evangelical Christians and other religious Americans and tell them what we stand for, then the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons and Alan Keyeses will continue to hold sway. ...

      "Some of the problem here is rhetorical – if we scrub language of all religious content, we forfeit the imagery and terminology through which millions of Americans understand both their personal morality and social justice. ... Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryant, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King – indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history – were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. So to say that men and women should not inject their 'personal morality' into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

     "...And we might realize that we have the ability to reach out to the evangelical community and engage millions of religious Americans in the larger project of American renewal.... Some of this is already beginning to happen.

     "Pastors, friends of mine like Rick Warren and T.D. Jakes are wielding their enormous influences to confront AIDS, Third World debt relief, and the genocide in Darfur. Religious thinkers and activists like our good friend Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo are lifting up the Biblical injunction to help the poor as a means of mobilizing Christians against budget cuts to social programs and growing inequality. ...

     "Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will.

     "Now this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do. But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality. It involves the compromise, the art of what’s possible.

     "At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It’s the art of the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God’s edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one’s life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing....

     "...reconciliation between faith and democratic pluralism requires some sense of proportion. This goes for both sides. Even those who claim the Bible’s inerrancy make distinctions between Scriptural edicts, sensing that some passages – the Ten Commandments, say, or a belief in Christ’s divinity – are central to Christian faith, while others are more culturally specific and may be modified to accommodate modern life. ... But a sense of proportion should also guide those who police the boundaries between church and state. Not every mention of God in public is a breach to the wall of separation – context matters."...

 

Comments on the above speech:

 

UCC member Sen. Barack Obama discusses faith and politics: (6-29-06)  “'I think it is unfortunate any time the media does not accurately portray the true beliefs of the American people,' Obama told United Church News. 'There are millions of religious Americans who are offended when their faith is used as a tool to attack and divide, and who see a positive role for the church in solving both social and moral problems....'

     "Interviewed on the heels of a major address on the connection between religion and politics at the 'Pentecost 2006: Building a Covenant for a New America' gathering in Washington, D.C., Obama cited... the teachings of the UCC as foundation stones for his political work. 'Just as my pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright from Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, welcomed me as a young man years ago, UCC churches across the country open their doors to millions of Americans each Sunday, and they accept, love and counsel all who enter," Obama said. "This spirit of inclusiveness has served as a model for me in my time in the Senate, and the love for one's fellow man that the UCC stands for is the foundation of my work.'...
     "
Using the speech as a call for continued dialogue and bridge-building between religious conservatives and progressives -- reminding his audience that each had work to do to achieve meaningful discourse -- Obama used his own faith story, and likened his path to becoming a member of Trinity UCC to that trod by “millions upon millions of Americans -- evangelicals, Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims alike; some since birth, others at certain turning points in their lives.'...

     "'I think it’s time that we join a serious debate about how to reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic democracy,' said Obama....

     "Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children’s Defense Fund and a speaker at the conference, called the address 'very, very, very thoughtful.' ....Later -- during his interview with United Church News -- Obama continued his thoughts about religion and politics; specifically, the role of religious principles in reaching a balance between national security and social justice concerns. 'I believe that democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal values,' Obama said. 'Social justice and national security are both universal values, values that may originate for some in their religious beliefs, but are shared by us all.'” (by Barb Powell, UCC.org)

 


See also Re-inventing the World and Justifying Mind Control

Facilitating permanent social change and

Using Dissatisfaction (a crisis) for social transformation


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