Arkansas Times: "I Want my Faith Back" (I know how they feel)

[madfloridian]

http://www.arktimes.com/Articles/ArticleViewer.aspx?ArticleID=cd3a8b03-56d6-495b-b40b-46330316a2fc
I want my faith back

Getting personal about the political hijacking of religion
SNIP..."So now that I have — now that words like “sinful” spring to mind when I hear about the $40 million budget for George W. Bush’s inaugural soirees, instead of just “disgusting” — I’m starting to take the right wing’s hijacking of my religion very, very personally."

SNIP..."Throughout the entire 2004 election cycle, the debate on “moral values” was hamstrung by the religious right — limited to abortion and gay marriage, with no mention at all of any traditional religious social justice concerns.

“The Bible speaks a huge amount about the poor and poverty and how you treat the least of these in your midst,” said Steve Copley, pastor of North Little Rock First United Methodist Church. “That doesn’t even seem to be on the table at all. … Right now, we talk about life, but if folks don’t have enough to live on … and I’m not even talking about people on welfare, I’m talking about the working poor.”

SNIP.."When Ronald Reagan died earlier this year, someone from Fox News called Gordon, looking for a sound bite for a story on Reagan’s religious faith because Gordon had known Reagan’s pastor.

“I said, ‘He didn’t take care of poor people,’ ” Gordon said. The guy from Fox said, “I don’t want to hear about poor people, I want to hear about Reagan’s Christianity.”

Gordon replied, “That IS Reagan’s Christianity,” and the Fox guy hung up on him....."

And it was. My church has been hijacked, too, and I am very resentful of it.

Here is a link to the Sojourner site mentioned in the story.

http://www.sojo.net/

[wicket]

1. Buzzflash linked to that article earlier

It is SO good :thumbsup:

[More Than A Feeling]

2. Amen to that

idolatry is the word in my mind. nothing says worshipping mammon like having the name of the lord on our money.

[Dem2theMax]

3. Brilliant article. Needs to be published in every newspaper in America.

And sent to every church as well.
Thank you so much for posting it. I wish I could write like she can.
She said everything I'm feeling, but could never put it into words like that.

[billbuckhead]

4. Liberals are the true Christians

The Republicans are pharisees.

[idiosyncratic]

6. Thanks for the idea. I'm going to send it to the church I USED to attend.

I stopped going when I realized my presence made it appear I supported their RW positions.

The pastor was a wonderful Biblical scholar, but the RW talking points started leaking into his sermons.

[gratuitous]

5. And let's not forget the media's role in this

Whenever you see someone styled as a religious leader on the talking chatterhead shows, who do you see? We can reel them off: Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed, Franklin Graham, Donald Wildmon and whoever is fomenting the hate-of-the-week.

When they need a liberal religious voice? Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. I have nothing against Brothers Jackson or Sharpton, but neither of them as far as I know is primarily a pastor of a church, and they are brought on mostly for the "see what this crazy black man is saying" value.

How about John Shelby Spong? Or the writer of the article, Jennifer Reed? Tony Campolo? Cliff Kindy? Or any of thousands of other spokesmen and women who don't toe the millennialist-fundamentalist line of Christianity? I'd dearly love to see some of the more outspoken members of the Womaen's Caucus dismantle Rev. Falwell on national television.

And the commentators, who to a person don't have any religious grounding, just let the Falwells and the Robertsons spew their twisted message of hate and divisiveness because they don't know any better.

[Cha]

8. We can never forget "the media's role"..

in any of the parts its played in the downfall of our Country.

[Dem2theMax]

7. Kicking this because it's really worth the read.

:kick:

[Gloria]

9. The Democratic Party needs to HIRE THIS WOMAN!

She apparently doesn't need lessons on how to talk about values...

[Cuban_Liberal]

10. Let me have a HUGE "Amen!"

:thumbsup:

[madfloridian]

11. Ehrenreich: Avoid mumble-mouthed candidates, don't flirt with faith.

More from the article:

Writing in The Nation a few weeks after the election, author Barbara Ehrenreich had this advice for the losing side:

“In the aftermath of Election ’04, centrist Democrats should not be flirting with faith but re-examining their affinity for candidates too mumble-mouthed and compromised to articulate poverty and war as the urgent moral issues they are. Jesus is on our side here, and secular liberals should not be afraid to invoke him. Policies of pre-emptive war and the upward redistribution of wealth are inversions of the Judeo-Christian ethic, which is for the most part silent, or mysteriously cryptic, on gays and abortion.”

[dbt]

12. Arkie Kick!

A piece of the late, lamented Arkansas Gazette (not to be confused with the Democrat-Gazette) lives every Thursday in The Arkansas Times.

:bounce:
dbt