Many conservatives ridiculed some Obama supporters for their seemingly religious devotion to a politician. Some conservatives also expressed concern (at least) over the President's speech to school children. The Left has defended themselves against such attacks by maintaining that no one really worshiped Obama and several other presidents gave similar speeches to school children.
While it could not be argued that everyone on the left fits those stereotypes, it has to be acknowledged that they are stereotypes for a reason. The reason? This and this.
It's hard for conservatives not to laugh (or scream) when they see a video of school children singing the praises of a politician, especially when said song alludes to a Sunday School hymn. Then you have a quiz for students to take about Obama's health care speech, which is blatantly partisan.
This was my main concern going into the speech, which I knew would be filled with encouraging, but vague platitudes about the importance of educations and service. The potential for abuse lie in the classroom of teachers who would use the moment for political lessons (be they pro or anti Obama).
Neither the Obama praise song or the health care speech quiz are in and of themselves completely unacceptable. However, the two instances play up and into the stereotypes that liberals claim are completely illegitimate.
Each side has their own negative stereotypes that we wish didn't exist. To combat these, we need to call out those on our side who engage in the acts that encourage the caricatures. If liberals have problems with the stereotypes then they need to turn their attention to those on their own side that are propagating them.
Okay, you’ve presented two instances which may (or may not) have “gone over the line.” In the past, you’ve objected to my bringing up instances where conservative Christians have gone way over the line. Fine, I accept your repudiation of such outrages. I would hope you’d accept mine. It seems to me that much of the hoopla regarding Obama’s speech to school kids was way overblown and motivated by this sinister campaign to get Obama no matter what he does. It’s unfair, unjust, irrational, and malicious. Remember: I voted for Bush in 2004 and held him in high regard until proof surfaced about his administration’s malfeasance (since then, it looks as if much of this emanated from Cheney not his boss).
btw: Welcome back. As much as I much may disagree with you on many issues, it’s a pleasure to communicate with a moderate conservative. Would you care to pick up on our discussion of the minister’s vocation? My last post (you may have missed it):
James, I read your reply with some interest. Although I’m not prepared to give you a graduate level dissertation, I do have a couple observations.
You are treating the text as a literary artifact (applying methods of analysis, addressing audience, placing it in context within the greater whole). These are methods used by critics and literature professors (at least partially so). There’s nothing wrong with this, of course, and it provides an excellent preliminary approach. But, sometimes, certain passages take on a life of their own, independent of their context or (dare I say it) the author’s original intention. This seems to happen particularly with poetry. For example, Shakespeare’s Hamlet and his “To be or not to be” soliloquy. Certainly it has a specific function within the play, but it has also taken on a life of its own independent of its immediate context. I would so argue with the passage under consideration here. 1 Corinthians 13 is justly famous, independently of chapters 12 and 14, and is known even by many non-Christians I would wager. Paul is certainly embedding it within his greater argument. But I contend that something larger happened, independent of his polemical intent. The beauty of the language is one indication, the imagery another: what was prose became transcendent poetry. His heart appears on the page. And I think this occurred precisely because he was expressing the essence of his understanding of God and our response to God. The central idea, love, inspires him, and becomes his inspiration. In this life we see, as in a glass, darkly, but he is inspired by his vision to describe for us what will come later, when we put away childish notions. Next to this, the usual religious paraphernalia – prophecy, tongues, charity, even faith itself – pales into humdrum prose. Can the minister convey this vision? Can he rise above the prosaic to the sublime and inspire his congregation? Mirroring his Lord, he must apply and model love, and Paul shows the way for the minister:
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Here, as elsewhere, scripture rises above literature and becomes sublime. Critical tools and assumptions cease to work very well. Dissecting the passage misses the key point: reading and absorbing this passage, we are touched by the Divine. Certainly, on some level, this was St. Paul’s intent.
Further, you rightly hold Jesus up as the model of the ideal minister. However, I must differ when you use his “tougher” actions as justification for the modern minister using “tough love” on his flock (or even outsiders, as seeker would do). For one thing, He is Jesus, the man without sin. Who among us can claim likewise? I think it’s dangerous to assert we can likewise take it upon ourselves to chastise out of anger (even righteous anger) or from some assumption that we are wise enough and pure enough so to do. Whoever among you is without sin, let him cast the first stone. Judge not, and so on. The point is, that we are all sick and sinful, we can only see in part (as through a distorted or darkened glass), and the only just judge is the perfect one – God. We are not Jesus, and no minister should mistake himself for Him, even (as he may think) in the service of “tough love.”
Aaron illustrates this perfectly with his admission that Christians (not all, of course, but most) have so damaged their credibility with gays that we now dismiss them and ignore their protestations of “love.” These Christians, thinking they are displaying “tough love,” have, instead, shown self-righteousness and ignorance, and have alienated those they seek to save. Maybe a little humility was in order; maybe they didn’t really understand the scripture they employed like a club; maybe we could have been reached. Hubris, I think it’s called. And now they (you) have no credibility with us: we either ignore or dismiss your admonitions. Where was your patience, your kindness? Why so rude and self-seeking, using prejudice against gays for political and fund-raising purposes? As ambassadors of Christ to the gay world you are failures.
But, as a sign of peace, I will offer you a prayer of peace from another saint, Francis, I came across in today’s meeting, another set of instructions for the would-be minister:
Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen
Dare we dissect this?
btw: Here's an interesting view on gay youth and the opportunities they have today which I didn't have.
I would hope you'd accept mine.
I do and that's what I would hope for. It is a sad day when we cannot condemn excess on our "own side." People on both sides make mistakes and go over the line. It is the responsibility of those who share their convictions to reign them in, verbally, as much as possible.
To your admonishment about ministers, 1 Cor 13, etc. – I would say that there is much in what you say. Christians, along with everyone else, often display a lack of love and often attempt to mask that by hiding under a cloak of "truth." However, that does not mean that Christians should always be "loving" in the sense of being agreeable and accommodating. We should always be loving in the way we carry ourselves, but we must also always stand for the Truth of Scripture.
It is a poor, weak analogy at best, but just as an example of being loving even when it does not seem so – the role of a parent. Children often do not recognize disciple as loving. They do not recognize limits as love. But those can be some of the most loving things a parent can do.
I can and I have lovingly told my friends that I disagree with some of their behavioral choices. Because we have a relationship, they know that I'm disagreeing with them because I love them. They may not agree with me, but they recognize that my heart is in the right place. They may choose the wrong action, that's up to them, but from my perspective I would not be loving if I allowed them to do so without expressing my disapproval.
We do, as Paul wrote and you reminded us of, see through a glass darkly, but see we do. It would be unloving to refuse to speech to the Truth that we have seen simply because we do not have all of it or grasps all the individual facets in the fullest manner.
I detect a dissonance in your last paragraph: you admit that we can only see a part of Truth, that we see it distorted by our own warped minds and souls (if I may put it this way). Yet, you say, we still see it and thus have the right to instruct others in its ways, correct them or point out when they have gone astray. The problem remains: how do we know it to really be the Truth? It seems to me that we should keep in mind that, as we cannot know the entire truth about any situation, and are beset by sin and egotism, and are, in fact, mortals and not God, that we should refrain from lecturing others on "Truth" and their sins. In fact, we should be more concerned with combating our own sins and failures and leave others' to them and God (unless, of course, they ask our advice). Humility should be the watchword, not pride. To declare that it would be "unloving to refuse to speak the Truth" to others seems to me to be rather self-deceptive and self-righteous, forgetting that it's not our place to presume to know enough of the Truth to impose our judgments on others (Matthew 7:1-5).
"Yet, you say, we still see it and thus have the right to instruct others in its ways, correct them or point out when they have gone astray."
Poetry or prose? :)
Hi Louis: I completely agree with you, but in defense of Aaron and such I would offer this observation. If a person, humbly recognizing he could be wrong still feels that it is important for him to speak what he BELIEVES to be true, he should do it, but he should state it with the caveat "in my opinion". Anyway, that's MY opinion on the matter.
your friend
Keith
Prose, I think.
I'm still skeptical, Keith. If a person is truly humble, why would he still believe it's important for him to speak his two cents? "In my opinion, you need to believe my religion and not yours." or "In my opinion, you need to lose twenty pounds." Unless invited to opine, it still seems like a bit much. Aaron's analogy only goes so far: certainly a father has the right to intervene in a child's life. But a friend's, or a total stranger's? And this is what conservative Christians think they are entitled to do when they approach gay people: I love you, but you're going to hell because it says so in the Bible. If this isn't self-deceptive arrogance, I don't know what is! From our perspective, they look like a bunch of self-righteous, hypocritical jerks.
I dunno Louis, it seems to me that everyone who participates in a public forum has no problem speaking our two cents. There does seem to me to eb some difference between telling a person "you need to believe my religion to be saved" and saying "I believe that people need to believe my religion to be saved" even though they both entail the same thing. It's a matter of style, it seems to me, and the latter seems less spiritually imperialistic.
About being hypocrites–certainly I am one. I believe I can thank God that his forgiveness covers my hypocrisy
your friend
Keith
Well, I'm happy for you. It's apparent that you haven't been the target of persecution by the sincere believer, so it's easy to be magnanimous.
Hi Louis:
You wrote: Well, I'm happy for you. It's apparent that you haven't been the target of persecution by the sincere believer, so it's easy to be magnanimous.
I certainly haven't been as much a target of oppressive discrimination as you as a gay man have. I don't think any of us straights have a right to expect magnaminity from the victims of anti-gay bigotry. But when my wife and I made a formal complaint against teaching creationism in our local public school science classes, were were called some really nasty things by some of my brothers and sisters in Christ, and we were lied about by one of the teachers involved. I cannot possibly equate the nastiness we experienced with the much worse treatment inflicted on gays; I agree it is much easier for me to be magnanimous given my personal experiences.
your friend
Keith
Just to be clear: your actions freely chosen, laudable though they are, brought down the wrath of the christianists while my very being puts me in danger – and not just from xian pinheads. See here for just one example (unless one defines merely walking down the street as a provocation).
I no longer believe that straights have anything to say to me regarding my sexuality.
I cannot agree with you more, friend Louis.
your friend
Keith
More results from "sincere belief": here, here, and here.