Leaving aside the surreal and throughly un-Biblical mixing of Jesus and politics at the Values Voter Summit – replete with worship leader Ron Freeman jazzing up the worship hymn with “We’ve got the right Senate and the Congress!” Some thoughts on Rudy Giuliani’s speech this morning.
He made one huge, but not fatal, mistake. At the beginning of the speech he inexplicably launched into a theological discussion of Christianity… in front of a lot of Christians who are quite confident in their theology.
He said, “Christians and Christianity are all about inclusiveness,” and that it was built around a “persecuted few people in roman empire” and their message of love, hope, faith and profound optimism. He neglected to mention Jesus.
Giluiani sounded exactly like the kind of liberal that Christian conservative political types hate – preaching wishy-washy inclusiveness. And did I mention that he failed to even mention the name of Jesus in his mini-sermon on the history of Christianity. It was so shockingly dunderheaded as to make one question not only his theological but his political acumen.
Beyond that, however, the speech was very good – looking at it from the audience’s perspective. He was straight forward. He said that there were areas where they weren’t going to agree but many areas where they might. He was confident, occasionally self-deprecating, and kept hammering the twin themes of trust and leadership. He was someone they could trust (unlike, say, Romney) because he didn’t pander. He was someone who knew how to lead because he was like Reagan.
It will be interesting to see how many people vote for him in the straw poll.
posted October 20, 2007 at 1:09 pm
Why is not getting theology 100% correct a sin for either Rudy or Barack?
They’re running for president of a country with separation (too much so, you would say, and you might be right — but separation nonetheless) of church and state.
Not Pope or chief theologian.
posted October 20, 2007 at 8:26 pm
You know, there is no reason in the world it matters what this group thinks except that so many people they’re important. They represent neith America or Jesus or most of the Church.
I agree, though, it’s always a big mistake to talk theology if you don’t study it. Everyone who tries ends up making declarative statements about what’s in the scripture, for some reason and implying what isn’t and they’re usually wrong on both.
posted October 21, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Rudy Giuliani’s speechwriter made the understandable mistake of thinking this crowd was actually concerned with real, historical, Christianity.