Barack Obama Hangs the Right’s Rhetoric on a Prayer
Today, the man President Bush calls “the pope� delivered an incisive speech articulating a principled way forward in the American debate over faith and public life. I sat four rows away, and it was good.
Speaking at the First National City Church, to a packed audience of mainline, evangelical, and Catholic progressive activists, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) began with a story familiar to many—having his religious bona fides questioned because he wasn’t conservative enough. Pushing past both the Right’s patently parochial rhetoric and the secular stammer of the left, the senator swung back with a vision for American values rooted in his hopeful prayer that “reconciles the beliefs of each with the good of all.�
The only African-American in the U. S. Senate, and only the third since reconstruction, Obama pointed out that the “single biggest 'gap' in party affiliation among white Americans today is not between men and women, or those who reside in so-called Red States and those who reside in Blue, but between those who attend church regularly and those who don't.� And thus it follows that “we make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge the power of faith in the lives of the American people.�
While this might seem like easy words for the crowd, already the DailyKos community contains some prickly posts worried over the senator's recognition that “under God� is not the most difficult or stultifying aspect of a child’s school life. Read their posts here as well as some Obama defenders who urge people to read the whole speech, not just the AP MSM angle.
But Obama is no religious ideologue, sharing in the speech about his own secularist upbringing, and even after joining the Trinity United Church of Christ he recognizes the value that doubt plays in the search for meaning. He points out that one American's doubt shouldn't force another's awkward silence. In fact, the Left's religious sotto voce leaves it unable to call the country to high ideals.
Not long ago Hendrik Hertzberg at the New Yorker noted the junior Democratic senator joking at the Gridiron dinner.
“You hear this constant refrain from our critics that Democrats don’t stand for anything,� Obama said. “That’s really unfair. We do stand for anything.�
Listening to today's speech it's clear that Barack offers progressives (and the Democratic party) a new religious principle on which to stand.
He opposed CAFTA, has called for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, and even in a skeptical The Nation article entitled "Mr. Obama Goes to Washington," David Sirota notes the junior senator's "rare flash of defiance when he unsuccessfully pushed legislation this year to create an Office of Public Integrity." Obama has even blogged on DailyKos, addressing the sphere's two dominant topics: troops out of Iraq and into Darfur.
“They are exactly right to be fired up about Darfur, he writes. "It is in our national interest to stop states from failing, and to stop genocide. But they also have to recognize that if we are willing to engage militarily in those circumstances, then there certainly are situations that call for direct military engagement in defense of our national interests.� He adds, "we are less equipped to deal with Iran because of the Iraq war.�
But Obama's short record and today's speech reveals more than progressive ideals and sharp political timing. He also envisions a way forward that eschews the Right's solipsistic rhetorical grip on American values. He sees that the solutions to gun violence, poverty, war and failed immigration policy lie in our ability to turn personal ideals into broad movements for the common good:
“Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.�
By saying to the faithful and the secular of all varieties that the American conversation should always be privately honest and publicly plural, today, Obama leads a party hung by others’ prayer to a new vision for faith in public life.
Comments
I am afraid that the snarky comments from secular leftists represented by those from DailyKos will win the day. I have grown tired of the whole attempt to try to reconcile secular and Christian progressives; the secularists feel it encumbent upon themselves to continue to fight the Enlightenment battle against "obscurantism" and would rather make sure no one of faith has a say lest someone who has no faith take offense at it than work to build bridges. I am tired of having to explain my beliefs to those who are incredulous that a Christian can also be (gasp!) liberal, even radical, and still maintain faith. My faith is more important to me than my politics, anyway - this present ag and its concerns will pass, but the truth of God will never pass away. I will fight in my own way, on my own terms, against the rising tide of despotism gripping this country. I feel no need to be dictated to by the fatuous folks at DailyKos, or anywhere else that would exclude me for my faith rather than join with me to defeat tyranny.
Posted by: Geoffrey Kruse-Safford | June 28, 2006 05:59 PM
Geoffrey,
I understand your frustration, but I am hopeful that the more that progressive folks of faith express their personal ideals, the less the secular left will associate spiritual language with the religious Right. Perhaps I'm naive, but I think that the secular left is not bothered by spirituality itself, but how it has been used to abuse them.
Posted by: Alex | June 29, 2006 12:02 PM
Alex - Go to HuffingtonPost.com, and make a comment on a story or blog of interest to you, and make sure you make plain your faith commitment, then sit back and watch the fun. I went from enthusiastic supporter to exhausted and disillusioned naysayer in a matter of weeks because I felt, as you do, that secular progressives today were a little more (no pun intended) enlightened, or at least less defensive when it comes to issues of faith and religion. Sadly, it simply isn't true. It is easier for them to make fun of religion than to consider a topic or position from a different position - after all, they are rational, and we are superstitious boobs who blindly follow the word of some bearded guy in the sky. I was tired of having to explain myself to people both too ignorant and too bigoted to listen, so I am doing what I did before. forging my own path, one of faith, because I do not need to appeal to those who would hate in the name of tolerance.
Posted by: Geoffrey Kruse-Safford | June 29, 2006 10:07 PM
The senator provided progressives with a great outline for how to debate the issues - in a way the lifts the nation up instead of dividing it.
Posted by: Chuck Currie | June 30, 2006 12:59 AM
All it takes is reading some mainstream progressive blogs like Kos and others to see that Geoffrey has a point. There's clearly work to be done by both religious and secular Dems get this balance between values and progressive politics right.
One of the things I most liked about the senator's speech is that he acknowledged that this would be hard work, and like you say Chuck, laid out a path for how to get started on it. It wasn't an accident that he spent a good portion of the climax of his speech talking about the need for fairminded words. Regardless of whether one is secular or religious, there's no doubt that some of the comments that Geoffrey alluded to were far from fair minded. That's the prerogative of the writer (especially in the blogosphere), but it's not the tone of debate that is going to help the Democratic party or, I think, ultimately carry the day.
Posted by: David Buckley | June 30, 2006 09:21 AM
I have thought long and hard about what I wrote yesterday, and while I stand behind it (to an extent) I have moved farther behind it than I was originally. I found the tone whiny and childish. I found the overall undertone to be cowardly. I still refuse to engage on the Internet on anything other than my own terms; I will not budge an inch to accomodate some other person's conception of what I should be doing as a progressive and a Christian.
While we are called to love others, and to continue to do what God calls us regardless of whether or not the rest of the world accepts us or even likes us, I for one was not called to endure the nonsense I have put up with at HP. It isn't the Christian-bashing; again, it's the ignorance, the bigotry, the triumphalism of the Enlightened that I find distasteful. I think both David and Chuck are fooling themselves if they actually think progressives of faith will be welcomed into the body of the Democratic Party, or the left wing generally. The roots of too much of the left are deep in Marxist and other secular suspicions of religion. I firmly believe we need to work, not in tandem with, but parallel to, secular leftists and progressives. We can and should seek accomodation when and were possible; we should not compromise our faith for contingent political gains. We must never sell our birthright for a mess of pottage.
Sen. Obama is my senator. I am not very impressed with him other than rhetorically. The play to people of faith is in fact part of, not some progressive playbook, but the right-leaning DLC playbook. That is why I am suspicious of him and his motives. I do not doubt his appeal. I simply doubt his willingness or ability to follow through substantively.
Posted by: Geoffrey Kruse-Safford | June 30, 2006 09:54 AM