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"Another Chapter Should Be Added to the Bible"

Wednesday June 4, 2008

Jesse Jackson on Barack Obama: “I cried all night. I’m going to be crying for the next four years,” he said. “What Barack Obama has accomplished is the single most extraordinary event that has occurred in the 232 years of...
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Comments
Charles Cosimano
June 5, 2008 10:44 AM

What are they going to say if he loses?

eric90230
June 5, 2008 9:21 PM

That is Jesse Jackson Jr., not the Jesse Jackson who was with Martin Luther King when King was assassinated. It's his son.

Jackson Jr.'s quote is so outlandish (and stupid) that words fail me.

I'm fully confident that Obama will not win in November. Thank G-d.

Bob
June 6, 2008 9:19 AM

These Protestant preachers, for all their emphasis on a "biblical church", have a very frightening and very strange view of what is actually biblical, and of the faith as a whole.

Not that Father Pfleger is any better....

I miss the Pope.

Larry Welsh
June 6, 2008 7:52 PM

Thank you, Bruce! I moved to Georgia from New England in the 60's as a white sixth grader completely unaware of the realities of rural Southern existence. I was fortunate to live on the border between the White and Black ("colored", back then) parts of town and many of my new friends were Black. The School system wasn't integrated until I was in the 8th Grade, which was in 1968 - a year burned into the memories of those who lived it....

I learned by observing my young friends', their parents', and their grandparents' quiet suffering how second-class personhood affects a spirit.

Your telling of this story brings the faces of all those old friends rushing back, and I am smiling as I think of the jubilation they must be feeling.

Thank-you once again. You made my day.

forhisgloryalone
June 7, 2008 7:32 PM

Can one man actually live up to his promises and fulfill the hopes
he has inspired in others. Obama is sure to disappoint. He is
trying to change a political system that is corrupt from within.
Can't be done!!

Rick Simpson
June 9, 2008 2:57 PM

F.Y.I., Bob; not all Protestant Ministers have a lack of understanding of what the Bible teaeches about holiness, justice, and the rights of the opresswed. Not all Protestant Ministers, Black or White, support Obama. I'm not sure either party offers an alternative for those of us with faith, to be honest. Neither McCain or Obama speak for the majority as far as I'm concerned. Oh, by the way, even though I am a Protestant believer, I miss Pope John Paul II as well. He was truly a man of the Spirit and of holiness-he focused on what brought Christian believers together, not what seperates as Pope Benedict XVI seems to.

tawny
June 9, 2008 6:32 PM

I think it is a beautiful thing to see and I agree. I never thought I would see the day but, it is time for us to put the past in the past and move forward. I am glad that, finally, after all this time we are to grow up and look at things in a different light. I am a "white" Christian woman and I applaud Obama. I can only hope that he is able to do all the great things that he want to do to help this country.

Paul
June 10, 2008 12:52 PM

What is amazing is the fact that Obama was the strongest in the "Deep South" and not in the Liberal New England States.

He won over the hearts of the very people whose grandparents might have strung him up fifty years ago. As one whose family helped runaway slaves in the 1840-50's, this is also a proud day but I would go as far as to say that it is a new book for the bible. Rather it is exactly what Jesus wanted of His followers and what Paul preached about as equality.

Reaganite in NYC
June 17, 2008 10:33 AM

It's nice to see that John Lewis, Jesse Jackson and Jim Clyburn -- all Democrats -- are happy about Barack Obama's achievement.

Would they have been as happy had the Republicans nominated General Colin Powell back in 1996? Or, what if circumstances had been different and, as Dick Morris promoted it three years ago in his book, the Republicans had nominated Dr. Condi Rice this year? Were Lewis, Jackson and Clyburn so joyful when Clarence Thomas was nominated to the Supreme Court? Or when the Republicans nominated Michael Steele as their US Senate candidate in 2006 in Maryland; or nominated Lynn Sweet as their gubernatorial candidate in Pennsylvania?

What makes Barack Obama unique in American politics is not his race. Rather, what makes him special is that not since the Democrats nominated George McGovern in 1972 has that party lurched so far to the left with their choice of a standard bearer.

I suppose for older Americans Obama's achievement appears to be pathbreaking, and, again, I can appreciate the joy for graybeards like Jackson, Lewis and Clyburn. Especially for Lewis who suffered a great deal as a civil rights activist 40+ years ago. For those of us younger, however, who take somewhat for granted the political and social gains that were achieved in the 60s, we were certain that the nomination of an African American was only a matter of time.

Let's focus now on the two remaining major candidates (McCain and Obama) and determine which one has proven to have the greater capacity to fight for our country's best interests.

Anonymous
June 18, 2008 7:25 PM

never bash possibilities,only believe that all things ARE possible

polly
June 18, 2008 7:31 PM

never bash possibilities or intentions whether or not they seem possible.just believe they can be possible even when the seem unlikely.how many dreams originally shot down became world renown when it was said of manym "NO WAY"? nothing is ever gauranteed to happen as originally planned- but nothing is gauranteed to happen if there is no plan!

polly
June 18, 2008 7:35 PM

what's your plan?

Chris Raffi Stannatis
July 6, 2008 10:36 AM

The principles upon which Obama has risen to prominence, I suggest, are ones of the American voter's willingness to both change from the recognition of a continued and painful to watch incompetence, or the inability to master the elements with consistency of what Americans consider important. Whether Republican or Democratic or more critically, a party who actually demonstrates other than a competitve adversarial postion based on the idea being one from the "other team." What about Team America for the rest of us?

The elements that attracted many voters (to the extent that there were many at all)to the polls in 1972 was not the recgonition of a value difference as much as it was a rejection of what Nixon had historically stood for. Obviously, it was not an election that drew virutally any meaningful percentage of voters to the booths. In fact, it was among the lowest turnouts in in history. Be careful that that isn't a danger here.

What is attractive to voters is the quesiton and degree of acceptance that Obama has many of the elements of intelligence, sensitivity to important issues and the ability to link them to procedural action. I said the ability. The telling will be in the belief that he can and will deliver a preogerssive program in its best purpose and ascnet of electoral and congressional focused workmanship. Being elected doesn't, by itself, bestow ability.

The experience of being President can and historically, with the huge exception of this present administration, has shown the ability to learn, grow and develop a better intellect and perspective of the nation and the world in which we strive for liberty shared. That development of an improved citizen has been an absent and noticeable and substantial canyon (or void) with this present "drug store cowboy" bantam-rooster prancing President. He has the same unstable, narrow mind set and study in determined ignorance that he had when he entered the scene through a distortion of the electoral system's constitutional intent eight years ago.

If he becomes the improperly designed agenda driven idalogue shta some hold him out to be then it will benother faux pas of the election process. Generally Americans make the right choices when provided useful and correct information.

That single issue address the impropriety and malfeasance that "five second' sound bites" and editorial positions in which the news reporters become shapers and makers of the news, thereby distorting the process and information with which we make decisions. That was the single most atrocious sin of the Nixon and Bush White Houses. Their ongoing attempt (I understand the seeming attempt to "spin.") It does not answer the bell for the ethical and constitutional duty to speak, not shape, the truth and let the chips fall where they may, legally and informationally.

The concern, which is normal at this point in the election process, is not that we are at a crossroad in history. That is always the case in an election of four to years to effect mores and world staging. It is the desire to make a personally correct and beneficial decision.

As Geoge Bush I said, "It's time to give people more choice in government bu reviving the ideal of the citizen politician who comes not to stay but serve."

Obama offers the fear and expectations of the unknown. McCain offers the fear and expectations of the known. No one has experienced the challenges and skills of managing an effective presidency, at least in this election. There aren't many experiiced candidates around, ever. The voter's choices are always built on hope and trust and comfort with what they know.

We are not looking for a "guy we can drink beer with" but a person who can deliver a spirit of openness to looking at issues without limiting answers to the blinded views of singular philosophies of ignorance of world cultures. The necessity is to come to a cognition of economic realities and the passionate protection, not stretching, of the contstitutional priorities binding our national union of laws and human welfare into a naitoni and world servant of needs and governemental integrity. That is not going to happen in the one fell swoop of a single election or commercial enterprise.

But, we can all strive and demand that that comes to be. Change is possible. The question is where is the cause intitiaed and how?

We're going to survive wahtever the outcome. THe distinction is how much longer are we willing to forestall the ineveitable recognition ofour place in the welfare of Amercan privileges and our place as a participant in the world economy and respect for internal intitiaive and strength we have as Americans, regardless of what happens inside the beltway of D.C. The White House should reflect those values not the betrayal of them.

ferris wanli
August 29, 2008 8:48 PM

I am not sure about that and why do we need to do that

lisa
February 28, 2009 11:08 PM

Has anyone told Jesse Jackson that Obama is pro abortion?

Just wondering how far from the bible Mr Jackson is... wandering.

Gracie
April 5, 2009 5:59 AM

That is just plain ridiculous and blasphemous! We are clearly instructed in the Bible to not add or take away anything to the Bible:

Rev 22:16 "I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star."
Rev 22:17 The Spirit and the bride say, "Come." And let the one who hears say, "Come." And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost.
Rev 22:18 I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book;
Rev 22:19 and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book.
Rev 22:20 He who testifies to these things says, "Yes, I am coming quickly." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
Rev 22:21 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen.

Wesley
August 15, 2009 11:10 PM

We are so lost in our country! Pray that God steps in to help us as we approach the last days.... Jesse Jackson's remark is blashemy! Obama is clearly assisting in ushering in the New World Order.....

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Bruce Feiler is the New York Times best-selling author of seven books, including Abraham, Where God Was Born, and Walking the Bible, the story of his perilous 10,000-mile journey retracing the Five Books of Moses through the desert. He is also an award-winning journalist and the writer-presenter of the PBS miniseries Walking the Bible. For more information, please visit www.brucefeiler.com.

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