COMMENTS:
* Since our Constitution specifically and clearly forbids a religious test for public office, asking question regarding God are irrlevant.
* I can see why Americans under 50 are walking away from religion in ever increasing numbers year after year. They are tired of politicians and podunk hokey-evangelist zealots trying to pontifcate at us while they live contrary to what they claim to believe, invade our bedrooms and women's wombs, try to force religion down thre throats of public school students, enact public policies that negatively affect the poor, the downtrodden, women, children, racial minorities and laborers, despise immigrants (legal or otherwise), and bar legitimate science teaching in classrooms. Keep it up, and real Christianity may become an endangered species thanks to these power hungry crackpots. They give real faith a bad name.
* If Christianity has a future in America, it needs to get out of politics and tell political, economic, and cultural conservatives to stop hijacking the faith for thier own power mad ends. Or else.
* The many disparate gods and religions tell me that almost certainly they are not real. But what makes me know for a fact that they're all made up is the way believers act.
* I was a Christian in the seventies but I left it behind because over the past thirty years Christianity has evolved into a hate group that has more in common with the local branch of the KKK than the teachings of Christ. Jesus must be rolling in his grave at the behavior of modern Christians.
* The American people would respect a candidate-- any candidate --who had the backbone to say PUBLICLY AND LOUDLY-- "My religion is none of your business. Your religion is none of my business. As long as we follow the tenets of the US Constitution then this great nation will conti\nue to be the beacon of liberty and justice and honor we all desire. Next question"
* This Country was NOT founded on religtous belief no matter how many times you say it. The founding fathers specifically wanted separation of church and state. It wasn't until about 1954 that conservatives have interjected religion into politics by placing the word "God" in the Pledge of Allegiance and "In God we trust" on currency. I take it you were born well after that date by your continued ignorance.
...................................................................................................................................................................
GOP Presidential Candidates, God Wants a Word with You
By Carolyn Davis, August 7, 2015
One of the most cowardly ways for a presidential candidate to answer a public debate question like "Do you have a word from God?" is by saying yes. Why? Because the most courageous thing a candidate can do, for once, is remind Americans that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." It's right there in those little pocket Constitutions so many of the candidates are fond of pulling out and waving around, particularly when trying to make points about why we need more guns or less government.
If, say, such a candidate were feeling especially bold, they could go on to point out that America is home to hundreds of religious groups and traditions, not to mention the 22.8 percent of Americans that identify as religiously unaffiliated (the "nones"). After all, if elected, this candidate would be tasked with representing the best interests of our marvelous, diverse, and pluralistic society.
But the 2016 Republican presidential hopefuls are not likely to take such a stand, since 69 percent of Republican voters--and 46 percent of Democrats--continue to believe that being Christian is an important part of being "truly" American.
So, writing specifically from the Christian tradition--which the current slate of potential nominees claim to share--I would like to take a moment to offer just two words from God that these candidates might like to bear in mind.
First, God could not care less about a candidate's personal Christian "witness" while people go hungry, war hawks favor drones over diplomacy, unarmed black people are gunned down in the streets, and reckless politicians brag over who is the best at denying desperately needed healthcare to vulnerable women, men, and their families. My bible says that I'm required to "do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly" with God (Micah 6:8). It also tells me that God is coming for those "who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and push aside the needy in the gate" (Amos 5:12). Piety means very little without social and economic justice. Says God, anyway.
Second, despite repeated referrals in the GOP debate to God as a "guy," "he," and "him," the Christian and Jewish scriptural traditions have long pushed the gender boundaries of language for God. Why does this matter? In our culture, talking about gender rapidly draws many of us to conversations about God. And talking about God means talking about power. These candidates are seeking an office that many regard as the most powerful seat of governance in the world.
Too often, God has been wielded by many of these candidates as a weapon in ways that carry very real consequences for sexual minorities, for women, for the poor, and for the environment. Opening up how we talk about God--both by expanding our gendered language and going beyond it--offers a far richer understanding of what it might mean to have a "word from God."
The Hebrew scriptures (also contained within what Christians call the Old Testament) offer imagery of God as a comforting mother, a mother bear, a mother eagle, a nursing mother, a mother in labor, and a woman speaking to her employer. The Christian New Testament gives images of God as a woman looking for her lost coin and a mother hen seeking to gather up her chicks. And God can also be the father who receives a wayward son with tenderness and kindness, as in the narrative of the prodigal son. The whole slate of potential nominees might also find it useful to recall Genesis 1:27, in which both men and women are created in the image of God.
The images I mention above are just the beginning of a rich diversity of imagery for God that include images that transcend the idea of God as a dude (or dudette) altogether. Gender is not one thing or the other, and neither is God.
In the Christian and Hebrew scriptures, God is also a wisdom spirit, a breath of air, and more. And the multiplicity of religious traditions in the United States includes many other traditions with many other ways of approaching the concept of God. Islam--a religion which shuns pictorial depictions of God--offers us 99 names that include The Exceedingly Merciful Compassionate and The Gentle. Hinduism offers literally thousands of manifestations of the divine. Buddhism generally appeals to ideas of divine connection and consciousness over a belief in a personal God. But at the end of the day, the language that helps the religious describe and encounter the divine cannot be equated with precisely who and what the holy is.
And bellicose, mean, and dangerous political words are not drawing many of these candidates any closer to the word of God or the diverse religious reality of the country they so desperately want to lead.
...................................................................................................................................................................
By Carolyn Davis, August 7, 2015
One of the most cowardly ways for a presidential candidate to answer a public debate question like "Do you have a word from God?" is by saying yes. Why? Because the most courageous thing a candidate can do, for once, is remind Americans that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." It's right there in those little pocket Constitutions so many of the candidates are fond of pulling out and waving around, particularly when trying to make points about why we need more guns or less government.
If, say, such a candidate were feeling especially bold, they could go on to point out that America is home to hundreds of religious groups and traditions, not to mention the 22.8 percent of Americans that identify as religiously unaffiliated (the "nones"). After all, if elected, this candidate would be tasked with representing the best interests of our marvelous, diverse, and pluralistic society.
But the 2016 Republican presidential hopefuls are not likely to take such a stand, since 69 percent of Republican voters--and 46 percent of Democrats--continue to believe that being Christian is an important part of being "truly" American.
So, writing specifically from the Christian tradition--which the current slate of potential nominees claim to share--I would like to take a moment to offer just two words from God that these candidates might like to bear in mind.
First, God could not care less about a candidate's personal Christian "witness" while people go hungry, war hawks favor drones over diplomacy, unarmed black people are gunned down in the streets, and reckless politicians brag over who is the best at denying desperately needed healthcare to vulnerable women, men, and their families. My bible says that I'm required to "do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly" with God (Micah 6:8). It also tells me that God is coming for those "who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and push aside the needy in the gate" (Amos 5:12). Piety means very little without social and economic justice. Says God, anyway.
Second, despite repeated referrals in the GOP debate to God as a "guy," "he," and "him," the Christian and Jewish scriptural traditions have long pushed the gender boundaries of language for God. Why does this matter? In our culture, talking about gender rapidly draws many of us to conversations about God. And talking about God means talking about power. These candidates are seeking an office that many regard as the most powerful seat of governance in the world.
Too often, God has been wielded by many of these candidates as a weapon in ways that carry very real consequences for sexual minorities, for women, for the poor, and for the environment. Opening up how we talk about God--both by expanding our gendered language and going beyond it--offers a far richer understanding of what it might mean to have a "word from God."
The Hebrew scriptures (also contained within what Christians call the Old Testament) offer imagery of God as a comforting mother, a mother bear, a mother eagle, a nursing mother, a mother in labor, and a woman speaking to her employer. The Christian New Testament gives images of God as a woman looking for her lost coin and a mother hen seeking to gather up her chicks. And God can also be the father who receives a wayward son with tenderness and kindness, as in the narrative of the prodigal son. The whole slate of potential nominees might also find it useful to recall Genesis 1:27, in which both men and women are created in the image of God.
The images I mention above are just the beginning of a rich diversity of imagery for God that include images that transcend the idea of God as a dude (or dudette) altogether. Gender is not one thing or the other, and neither is God.
In the Christian and Hebrew scriptures, God is also a wisdom spirit, a breath of air, and more. And the multiplicity of religious traditions in the United States includes many other traditions with many other ways of approaching the concept of God. Islam--a religion which shuns pictorial depictions of God--offers us 99 names that include The Exceedingly Merciful Compassionate and The Gentle. Hinduism offers literally thousands of manifestations of the divine. Buddhism generally appeals to ideas of divine connection and consciousness over a belief in a personal God. But at the end of the day, the language that helps the religious describe and encounter the divine cannot be equated with precisely who and what the holy is.
And bellicose, mean, and dangerous political words are not drawing many of these candidates any closer to the word of God or the diverse religious reality of the country they so desperately want to lead.
...................................................................................................................................................................
No comments:
Post a Comment