Paul Raushenbush: September 2008 Archives

In advance of Thursday's debate between Senator Biden and Governor Palin here is a round up of all the posts we have had about Sarah Palin since she came on the scene only a month ago. (Seems like forever doesn't it?) Here are a collection of some of the most remarkable religious voices in America including: Steve Waldman, Diana Butler Bass, Paul Raushenbush, Lisa Sharon Harper, Omid Safi, Randall Balmer, Eric Sapp, Welton Gaddy, Leonard Fein, Brian McLaren, Mara Vanderslice and Renita Weems.   Knowledge is power:

Palin's Religion - What's Scary, What's not - by Steve Waldman

Those on the left, or merely those who aren't evangelical Christians, are struggling to make sense of the religious life of Sarah Palin. To many, she seems a frightening harbinger of a fundamentalist takeover. Saturday's New York Times piece about Palin's deep faith and Bible-focused church will be chewed over for evidence of her extremism. Conservatives, meanwhile, will seize on the scrutiny -- including liberal overreactions -- as evidence that the left and the mainstream media are anti-Christian.  Read more...

The Apocalypse Rears its Head - by Diana Butler Bass

With media attention directed toward the largest economic story in recent American history, other stories are falling by the way.  One of the most interesting--and surely least understood--is the story of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's religious faith.

As a mainline Protestant whose faith values pluralism, I confess that I have been reluctant to blog on Ms. Palin's religion or to make that an issue.  But a small turn of phrase in her Katie Couric interview has given me pause and underscored the importance of Ms. Palin's theology in relationship to her politics. Read more...

 The Jewish Vote - A Backlash Against Christians? - by Paul Raushenbush

Should or shouldn't Jews vote for John McCain?  What effect does his choice of Sarah Palin as running mate (apparently instead of Joe Lieberman) whose religious world view is frightening and repellent to most Jewish voters have on their decision?  This is the subject of on-line discussions that have caught fire recently.  Read more...

Palin: The Religious Right's American Idol - by Lisa Sharon Harper

If the Republican Convention was American Idol and Palin's speech was a rock ballad, Palin would be preparing for next week's big sing-off right about now.

But this is NOT a reality TV show.  This is reality; the future of our country, arguably the future of the world hangs in the balance. Read more...

Palin Hears Voices - by Omid Safi

Religious conviction is a delicate matter.    Many of the greatest reformers this world has ever known, Christ, Moses, and Muhammad, not to mention more recent figures like Martin Luther King and Desmond Tutu, all heard God's voice, pushing them along, affirming them, inspiring them, and lifting them up in moments of doubt and exhaustion.   Religious conviction can be a beautiful thing, illuminating one's path in a dark night of the soul, providing a sense of purpose and mission.

This type of religious conviction can also be a tricky, not to say terrifying, matter.   Many who claim to hear God's voice then move to speaking for God, with no pause to allow for a moment of humility.    My own question about religious reformers who claim to hear the voice of God or speak for God is always fairly simple:  how deep is your love, and whom do you serve?   In other words, is your conviction rooted in love, and is it directed to the uplifting of all of God's children, or does it uplift some at the expense of others?   This is what causes me concern about some of what I heard from Governor Sarah Palin so far.  Read more...

Praying for Pipeline - by Randall Balmer

Some years ago, Melissa Fay Greene wrote a book about the rural South entitled Praying for Sheetrock. If Sarah Palin, John McCain's running mate, ever published an autobiography, she might consider calling it Praying for Pipeline.

It appears that God has a keen interest in the building of a multi-billion dollar natural gas pipeline in the forty-ninth state. "I think God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built," the Alaska governor said. "So pray for that."  Read more...

Lay off Palin - Please!  By Eric Sapp

An election does not go by without someone paraphrasing Will Roger's famous quotation about not being a part of an organized Party because we are Democrats.  Well, as Democrats, we may not be organized, but we sure are predictable...and we have walked--nay, sprinted--right into the trap Republicans laid for us with the Palin nomination. The glee with which liberal bloggers, Democratic pundits, and the media latched on to the fact that Palin's inexperience makes her less qualified to be President than Obama--as if doing so would somehow undermine the GOP attack on Obama as inexperienced--is mind-boggling.  Read more...

Matthew 25 Releases Statement on Palin Speech

The Matthew 25 Network released the following statement today in response to Governor Palin's acceptance speech at the RNC Convention.  In the coming days we will be seeking thousands of signatures onto this statement from Christians leaders and individuals around the country. Read more...

Democracy, Not Theocracy, by Welton Gaddy

In her speech last night, Governor Palin missed a golden opportunity to explain how her religious beliefs would influence her policy priorities in the White House. This is a conversation that all of our political candidates should have with the American people, but it is particularly important one for Governor Palin given her alarming theocratic rhetoric that has been revealed this week.  Read more... 

An Ironic Night at the RNC, by Brian McLaren

There were four highly ironic moments for me last night, watching the RNC on television.

First, Rudy Giuliani seemed to side with down-to-earth, rural, moral, family-friendly middle America against the urban, educated, gay-friendly, divorcing East Coast elite - and neither he nor the crowd seemed to notice the irony. At least Sarah Palin - with her pit-bull-in-lipstick line - didn't pretend to be something she wasn't.   Read more...

The Jewish Perspective, by Leonard Fine

"A grand slam home run," the commentators agreed.  More like a foul -- a very foul -- ball to me.

The subject is, of course, Sarah Palin, whose not-yet week-old candidacy for Vice President of the United States has sucked up so much oxygen these last days.  The reflections that follow were composed on day two of that candidacy -- before we learned of the truncated vetting process, before we learned of the daughter's non-abstinence, before we learned, as we did in her maiden speech last night, just how sloganeeringly mean-spirited she can be, this pit bull with lipstick.  Read more...

Plenty of Punches, but no Policies, by Renita Weems

http://blog.beliefnet.com/progressiverevival/2008/09/plenty-of-punches-but-no-polic.html

Congratulations to Governor Sarah Palin for proving last night that she came honestly by her high school nickname "Barracuda.". She certainly carried forward the McCain strategy of mockery, ridicule, sarcasm and disrespect. Sarah Palin showed that there is at least one aspect of the Vice President role on the campaign trail she can do well, and that is play the role of attack dog.  McCain's campaign spokesperson Rick Davis said yesterday that this campaign isn't going to be about issues. They intend this to be about personality, not the issues. And that's what she did. Aimed primary at Barack Obama. Palin delivered the red meat for the audience at the RNC convention last night.

No policy however. Plenty of punches, however.  Read more...

Disappointed in Palin's Speech, by Mara Vanderslice

http://blog.beliefnet.com/progressiverevival/2008/09/disappointed-in-palins-speech.html

As a woman and as a Christian- I came away deeply disappointed by the speech Sarah Palin gave tonight in front of the RNC Convention.

At a time in our country's history when we have a chance to address the most important moral issues of our time, reviving our economy, fighting global poverty and disease, ending the war in Iraq and addressing climate change, Sarah Palin delivered one of the most cynical and sarcastic speeches we have heard yet from a national political figure this year.  Read more...

And because you have to laugh:

Religion & Ethics Newsweekly Anchor Bob Abernethy interviewed Rev. Jim Wallis from Sojourners and Father Jim Martin from America Magazine about the current crisis and the religion response. 

Read an excerpt below:

BOB ABERNETHY: Now, the financial crisis and proposals to solve it. What do religious voices have to say?

What are the religious principles that all of us should bear in mind as we try to evaluate the different proposals for getting out of this crisis?

Father JIM MARTIN (Editor, America Magazine): Well, I'd like to go from the general to the specific. You can start with the Jewish and Christian principles of caring for the poor, which is very important in both the Old and the New Testaments. Jesus speaks about that very forcefully. More specifically, the Catholic tradition in their social teaching documents talk about solidarity with one another and the common good. It's not just every man in it for himself, or every woman. You know, we Jesuits talk about not making decisions in a time when you're freaking out. So there's a sort of discernment that's needed. And then, finally, I think that the role of conscience needs to play in this. There's a reason why people feel uncomfortable with so many people making money and with the bailout possibly helping only the wealthy, and I think the reason people feel that sort of uncomfortable feeling is conscience. I mean, it's telling us that something's wrong when only the wealthy benefits, so I think those are some of the principles.

ABERNETHY: But, Jim Wallis, whatever we do has to be something that, first of all, is practical, perhaps. Does it work? Does it work for the whole economy, and does it also work for the very poor?

Reverend JIM WALLIS (Editor-in-Chief and CEO, Sojourners Magazine): Well, I'm an evangelical convert to Catholic social teachings, so I'm going to agree with Jim about all this. You know, this crisis is structural and spiritual both, and this has come about because private gain, greed, has prevailed over the common good. We've lost sight of what the common good is, and it's true, there's a conversation going on about rewarding the people who are indeed most responsible for the crisis.

ABERNETHY: And lots of people are very angry about that.

Rev. WALLIS: And they should be. I think God's angry at that. Someone suggested the other day, I thought it was a good idea, the CEOs should be paraded down Wall Street in sack cloth and ashes. I think that's true. So rewarding them while you leave people in my hometown of Detroit -- my brother has a $130,000 mortgage; his house is worth $60,000 now, so this is wrong. So the principle is common good and justice. But also I would say this is a moment, a teachable moment to talk about habits, practices, assumptions about greed that we've lost conversation about for a long time.

Read the rest of this article here:

Missing from the vocabulary of tonight's presidential debate on foreign relations and the economy were such small terms as God, religion, and faith - there wasn't even a God Bless America.

I co-direct the Program on Religion, Diplomacy, and International Relations at the Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination at Princeton University.  Religion is playing a major role in many of the conflicts throughout the world.  The closest either candidate came to identifying this truth was when Barack Obama correctly intimated that the most powerful person in Iran is not Ahmadinejad, but rather the religious leaders of that county. It is equally important to acknowledge that religion and religious institutions provide much of the inspiration and networks for peace making and post conflict reconcilation such as the Truth and Reconcilliation efforts in South Africa headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Of course there is only so much time in a debate.  However, it is imperative that the next president show at least a working understanding of how religion influences global politics and an ability and willingness to engage the leaders and practitioners of the world's faith traditions in finding solutions for the challenges that face us.  It wouldn't have hurt either of the candidates to have acknowledged the powerful role of religion perhaps score points by a quick mention of the important relief work done by the Christian based group World Vision or the American Jewish World Service.

There was a particular religious phrase that I was surprised not to hear during tonight's debate - Radical Islam.  While Senator Obama does not usually use this term, the Republican Party and John McCain have heartily adopted it as a substitute word for Al Qaeda.  I was sure that McCain would bring it out tonight as a base pleaser for his party - he did not.  The absence of the term Radical Islam was surprising and welcome.  It is right to oppose religious fundamentalism and its political complement in all its forms.  Yet I think the term radical Islam tends to focus too much attention on the religion of Islam and, unfortunately colors peaceful and moderate practitioners of that faith with a brush intended for people with a violent political ideology hiding behind religion.

The religious term that was used, and that I question, was Holocaust when describing the nuclear threat to Israel.   I do not doubt McCain's commitment to Israel, and I believe that Iran poses a threat that is extremely dangerous.  However, the use of this term is so emotional and evocative that it seemed calculated and political.  We can talk about the real threats to Israel, including Iran, without utilizing the memory that this very specific term evokes. There are times when it is best to leave religious terms out of political debates. 

Apparently we have a deal to bail out Wall Street using 700 Billion dollars of tax payer's money to ensure that we same tax payers don't suffer an even more severe downturn.  The frustrating thing for most of us following the financial news over the past week is that we don't really understand the economic principles at work that made and make the situation so dangerous. As CNN's Campbell Brown indicates in her recent commentary we basically have to trust that the very people who watched while things got broke will be wiser when they put things back together.

Listening to President Bush, Paulson and Bernanke explain all of this is akin to hearing someone talking about a natural disaster.  This happened, it is horrible, and if we don't fix it the world will spiral downward and out of control.   So, please, send us your money or more people will suffer. 

Well, I don't know a lot about economics, but I do know that this wasn't a natural disaster; this wasn't an act of God that created the financial crisis that we are apparently in - it was acts against God.  It was the sin of greed and excess and worshiping at Mammon's feet by some careless, guilty and very rich souls that got us here.   While I can't say exactly what I want to have happen on the economic front, I can say on the spiritual side that I WANT TO SEE SOME REPENTENCE AND ATONEMENT! 

I have not heard one person or financial group stand up and say that they are sorry that they broke the public's trust and personally acknowledge that their short sightedness and greed caused this collapse.   It is a spiritual tenet of my faith that until you have repentance and atonement, that you cannot have forgiveness and reconciliation.   Wall Street - the American people are waiting.