I havent read the full speech yet but a few things strike me right off the bat about Obama's big faith-based partnership initiative he's announcing today. Because his campaign ads have tended to emphasize his efforts for layed off workers, it obscures this basic fact: most of his work was with and through churches. Barack Obama's job for several years was creating faith-based partnerships. His understanding of the interplay between churches and social services is likely more nuanced than any candidate in history.
I'm looking forward to seeing the whole speech so we can see whether his plan reflects any special subtlety.
Politically, this operates on several levels. As has been much noted of late, he's making a major play for evangelicals. This will help. But the political richness of this goes beyond that direct play for evangelicals.
First, many forget that the main political targets of Bush's "compassionate conservatism" (the centerpiece of which was his faith-based program) was not evangelicals but centrist Catholics. This appeals to both Obamagelicals and Catholics.
Second, if he's lucky, Obama will be criticized from some on the secular left for his approach, providing him a low-cost way of showing himself not to be a standard-issue liberal (whatever that means these days).
Third, faith is his way of countering the charges of elitism. His faithyness helps him establish a connection to middle America that he sure wont achieve through his bowling prowess or taste for arugula. He cant bowl, but he sure can pray. And since the stereotype is that Harvard elitists are irreligious, if Obama is faithy, he wont seem as elitist.
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"Is the historical, "who authored" questions, "who's reading it" questions, "state" questions and "overall" questions part of the Word, or is the Word complete, as written? Did God forget to include what you say we should include? Or is everything we need for this spiritual journey there already?"
- By your own logic, the above statement is meaningless. To answer your question: nah, wouldn't wanna learn anything about Paul or the church at Corinth. Wouldn't wanna learn anything about the 1st Century Jewish culture into which our Lord was born. Nah, that's all meaningless... unless, of course, it can inform some justificaction I can make for good ole' Georgey-boy. After all, he must be the 2nd coming according to your logic.
I can go quite a bit further with regard to your hypocrisy but it's a waste of time. You won't address important points. You'll only address points where you can make some witty, self-righteous comeback. I'm interested in engaging in meaningful conversations. This is not one of them.
==You are intellectually dishonest.
"...imposing secular values..."
- This is a dishonest fear tactic that has nothing to do with reality.==
Translation: "You don't agree with me, and, so, you are intellectually dishonest."
==you conceded elsewhere that you would simply refuse the money from such programs==
No, I didn't. I said that I would reject the money IF I had to be attached at the government hip. If I didn't have to be so attached, I'd take the money.
At least try not to misrepresent what I write.
=="Is the historical, "who authored" questions, "who's reading it" questions, "state" questions and "overall" questions part of the Word, or is the Word complete, as written? Did God forget to include what you say we should include? Or is everything we need for this spiritual journey there already?"
- By your own logic, the above statement is meaningless. ==
To YOU, it is, no doubt about that.
==To answer your question: nah...==
Translation: "I don't have any answers to your questions, and, so, I have-ta try to make it look as though YOU're the ignorant one so as to distract from MY ignorance."
==I can go quite a bit further with regard to your hypocrisy but it's a waste of time.==
Oh, gee.
==You won't address important points.==
Translation: "You don't agree with me, and that means that you avoid important points cuz, if you addressed what I think are important points, you'd agree with me which is what I'm tryin'to do, but you're stubborn."
== You'll only address points where you can make some witty, self-righteous comeback.==
Except that, if I were self-righteous, I wouldn't be referring to Jesus Christ.
== I'm interested in engaging in meaningful conversations.==
Translation: "I want somebody to validate me and my ideas."
Anyways, I have brought meaningful things to this thread. It's just that you don't like what I have to say. That's tough. Real tough.
== This is not one of them.==
You're correct that I am not here to validate you/your ideas.
=="...I took NOTHING outta context where I wrote:..."
- You're too stubborn or both to acknowledge the point I was making.==
I acknolwedged the point. I pointed out that I don't agree with it. You don't like that. Tough.
== You proved you're dishonest when you agreed with the same point, with the difference being that I was using Hillary as the illustration.==
You SAW it as dishonest when it was not. That's cuz-a your political bent. Very unfortunate.
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