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Politicians’ favorite Scriptures
Benedicta Cippolla makes the observation that Democrats’ favorite Scripture seems to be from the book of James: “Faith without works is dead.”
In Kentucky, Obama mailed out a flier that featured him behind a pulpit with the words, “My faith teaches me that I can sit in church and pray all I want. But I won’t be fulfilling God’s will unless I go out and do the Lord’s work.” According to Politico, Clinton’s “standard church speech” used the line “Faith without works is dead, and works without faith is just too hard.” When she spoke at Saddleback Church, she called it her favorite Scripture.
John Kerry and Al Gore quoted it when they ran against Bush. Even Daily Kos borrows this “faith without works” language with the headline, “Midwestern Flooding Responses: McCain Prays; Obama Grabs a Shovel!
It’s not the only Scripture politicians favor. Before the second anniversary of the Katrina disaster, Obama invoked the Sermon on the Mount, saying the disaster’s aftermath was so devastating because America’s foundation wasn’t built on the rock of brotherhood. When a Democratic debate monitor asked candidates to tell their favorite Scriptures, Obama said the Sermon on the Mount, and Clinton named the Golden Rule. Obama also said the Golden Rule when he took a similar question at a townhall meeting.
No one seems to have asked John McCain the same question, and Jonathan Martin finds it hard to see him answering it (although Daily Intel hazards a guess). If anyone did ask, he’d probably come up with a similar verse — an inoffensive one, reduced to a lowest-common-denominator interpretation palatable to both Christians and atheists.
As Cippolla notes, the book of James, with its focus on ethical living, is the perfect book for a politician: “Its scriptural authority speaks to Christians, but its emphasis on ethical action speaks to everyone.” Ironically, though, these inoffensive Scriptures are the most radically impossible to put into action, apart from the “faith” that politicians necessarily dilute when they borrow it to “speak to everyone. “
back to top6 Comments to “Politicians’ favorite Scriptures”
Oh yes, the Book of James, the easiest one in the Bible for cherry picking by a political panderer. Good works with government money buys a lot of votes. Obama’s personal tithes and contributions, as revealed by his tax records, are pathetic.
But government money, spent with religious zeal and rhetoric, allows a politician like Obama to wear a cloak of righteousness, while he appeals to the people with class warfare rhetoric, and attempts to purchase the White House at no cost to himself.
Pretty slick.
It’s a classic con-man fraud. Then Obama adds an extra touch of icing to his Marxist cake. Leftist white elites and their brainwashed college lemmings can also “prove” that they are not racists by voting for him.
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Using scripture to advance one’s own agenda is nothing more than breaking the commandments to have no other Gods before the Lord and to not take God’s name in vain. God will not be used in this way regardless of how much people want to make Him fit their agendas.
It is a measure of our lack of humility before God that we are so quick to tolerate God being presumed upon. We might not be surprised by the press perpetuating this sort of perspective since we have come to trivialize God so easily in our own lives. Rather than using God’s word casually the leaders we need should help us to appreciate attitudes and values that revere God as God and recognize our fallibility.
Instead of looking for perfect leaders we should look for leaders who speak and act out of brokenness before their Maker. I’d be willing to bet it would even sell more papers.
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Faith without works is dead, but liberals have their own definitions for these terms.
When Obama speaks of faith, he means faith in Washington. When he speaks of hope, he means hope that government will solve your problems. When he speaks of works he means spending other people’s money.
That isn’t what James had in mind.
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At the top of Barak’s web site he explains what he means by FAITH:
“I am asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington … I am asking you to believe in yours.”
In other words, you must have faith in Barak, faith in Washington and faith in yourself.
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I agree with your analysis, Xion. I’d add that I wonder if faith is reduced when any politician borrows “faith language” for political ends, especially in a day when politicians (including GOP ones) are speaking to a heavily secular audience. If they’re going to reach that audience too, it seems that they have to strip the language of its true context and meaning to avoid being offensive. Then they’re just manipulating emptied words to conjure up vague feelings of warmth and brotherly love. In other words, I wonder (I’m not entirely sure) if this is just inherent in the practice itself rather than dependent on the politician.
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True Alisa. Using ‘faith language’ for political expediency can be found on both sides. But what is unique in this election cycle is a new approach by the left that is fascinating to watch.
I’ve always associated dominionism with misguided religious conservatives who see government as a way to impose heaven on earth, meaning supposed Christian ideals on America.
Now Obama is preaching dominionism too, but in a subtler way. He clearly states here that he wants to use government to do God’s work. Once he becomes the most powerful man on earth, he will lead the ‘Joshua Generation’ into the Promised Land.
What is funny is that he speaks in a continuous stream of vapid religious terms that most people do not notice, ’stripped of its true context’ as you say. ONLY BELIEVE!
So now liberals are feasting on a continuous diet of diluted religious epithets and loving it! Obama proposes to marry a liberal brand of religion and government like never before in an attempt to create a Utopian society where all is peace and love.
Obama explains that separation of church and state only applies to intolerant religious conservatives. By redefining religious language in universal terms, he can have free reign to impose his social religion on America to the cheers of millions.
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