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Civil religion on steroids
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In this election cycle, religion is showing up in novel and surprising ways. We have seen religion playing a prominent role since Evangelicals broke their isolation in the late 1970s. Since then, we have seen the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, Preacher Pat for President and, on the Democratic side, Reverends Jackson and Sharpton. In the campaign for 2008, we have a Baptist minister advertising his “Christian leadership” as he surges ahead in Iowa, and even Hillary Clinton (amazing grace!) has found religion.
Barak Obama is employing religion in an especially interesting way. Rather than invoking the Savior or pointing to Him, the junior Senator from Illinois is claiming to be the Savior…or at least supporters who are intimately close to him are doing so.
It seems that Obama may be transforming from a man of faith into an object of faith. In his column, “Obama the Messianic,” (The New York Post is more aptly titled “Oprah the Apostle”), Rich Lowry observes Oprah’s anointing of Sen. Obama as what she called “the one” who was to come. You can view the video here, or at BarakObama.com.
In a her long introduction to the candidate before a packed South Carolina stadium, Oprah Winfrey said, “We need politicians who know how to tell the truth. But more important, we need politicians who know how to be the truth.” (The emphasis was hers.) Barak Obama, a professing Christian (though his Evangelical orthodoxy is at least open to question, such that even David Brooks can see it), is surely familiar with Jesus’ messianic claim to divinity, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
Michelle Obama seems to be following this Messianic theme (I have not been able to locate the source): “We need a leader who is going to touch our souls, who’s going to make us feel differently about one another.” Of course, Jesus does that. It’s called spiritual regeneration — being born again. To Michelle, Obama is the Life. To Oprah, he is the Truth.
What does the prophet Barak say? In a South Carolina church a few weeks ago, he said that, through the new politics that he will bring, we will “create a kingdom right here on earth.” Did the congregation gasp as they should have? I doubt it.
The American Revolution was, as Martin Diamond put it, one of “sober expectations.” It recognized the sinful depravity of man and designed a constitution that could bring out the best in us and manage the worst in us. It was the French Revolution that promised “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité,” a Republic of Virtue. Obama’s rhetoric, and that which he is condoning, places him in the radical French tradition which led of course to the Terror and to Napoleon’s tyranny. Excessive expectations for what is possible to achieve through politics always do. Hillary Clinton is more practically political, less inspiring, and even more selfish, and in those respects — believe it or not — she is a safer candidate. (A previous reflection on the longings of the soul and immoderate politics, “Community and the Longing Soul,” is relevant here.)
Oprah then suggests that Obama is perhaps not a god or a person within the Godhead, but rather a more highly evolved form of our species. “We are here to evolve to a higher plane. And the reason I love Barak Obama is because he is an evolved leader who can bring evolved leadership to this country.”
In the immediately preceding statement, Oprah claimed that Obama would not only love our country, but also love our enemies: “All human hearts are the same. Every mother losing her son in every country feels the same.” This simply repeats the peacenik arguments from the 1980s that, because “the Russians love their children too,” there is actually no threat of war coming from the Soviet Union. They skipped over the fact that even that argument depended upon maintaining credible nuclear and conventional threats. Oprah’s own argument does not, of course, account for the women who have supported their children in their suicide bombings. Nor does it account for the little influence that tender hearted women have in our enemy nations. But not to dwell too long on an entertainer’s silly remark.
She then adds that, “We need a president who cares about our friends and also cares about our enemies.” Does Senator Obama stand behind this statement? Does he propose that, when he is President, he will be above politics, above the America-world distinction, the friends-enemies distinction? Would he see himself as representing not just American interests, but in some way the worldwide common good? Does he understand that there are irreconcilable conflicts between national interests or between various local aspirations? He is so unseasoned, and he presents himself as being so idealistic, that I would take nothing for granted.
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Good questions. We just don’t know much about this guy. If he gets the nomination, I presume we’ll learn quite a bit more before November, but I hope it’s enough. He already has a platitudinous reputation, and now he’s adding hyperbolic, egocentric rhetoric. Are there concrete policy ideas lurking behind any of this?
And thank you, WMB editors, for honoring my oft-made request for an accompanying photo that isn’t a non sequitor! Imagine, a Barak-and-Oprah piece accompanied by a photo of Barak and Oprah! Thank you, thank you!
Better yet: it’s an oddly funny photo, worthy of a caption contest. What do the rest of you think?
Caption: “You go, boy!”
Oops, that isn’t intended as a racist comment. . .
Maybe he could be saying something about how he represents the light, while she helpfully reminds the audience that this is a light-bulb moment.
Let’s not overestimate the Calvinism of the American Revolution. The key Founders believed man’s nature was at worst, partially depraved and was more Arminian than Calvinist.
When did Barack become Barak?
I wouldn’t worry too much about Bara(c)k Hussein Obama being elected president. That’s not going to happen. A black man named Barack Hussein Obama has absolutely no chance of winning the election. Not in 2008. 2020, yes, possibly. But not 2008.
Oprah is already catching flak from her fans (80% of whom are white) for her fawning over Obama, and some of them are complaining about it on her website, and calling her racist.
Can Barack Hussein Obama win the Democrat nomination? Yes. I’m not saying he will, but he certainly could. The age/race demographics of registered Democrats are far different from those of the country as a whole. Obama holds great appeal to the typical Dem voter, almost all of whom regard his brownness as a plus, and many of whom also see his name as a plus for its very foreignness, and because it frightens old white folks. But those old white folks have a lot more pull (for now) in the general election, and they don’t want a president named Hussein Obama, especially a brown one, no matter what they tell pollsters.
There are about twenty candidates worth considering for Vice President, but none as far as I can see who can be taken seriously as a Presidential candidate.
So I will refine my prediction that no one will be elected President in the next election. I hold with that, but we will have a score of Vice Presidents.
It will be a hoot when they all preside over the Senate at the same time.
3 - Michelle, almost no one nowadays considers “boy” racist. They did in the 60’s and 70’s, but the word is used so much by everyone to everyone that no one associates the word with a white man disparagingly calling a black guy/kid boy. I don’t think even mamas in combat boots would be offended at “you go, Boy.” Times, they are a changin’.
Barack? Oh, yes. So it is. I can’t keep all these people straight. Barack and Barak. Hilary and Hillary and Billary. John and Jonathan Edwards. I’m 45 and my head is swirling in the midst of 55 final exam answers on liberty and the American political experiment. And at the best of times I can’t tell the difference between Megan and Meaghan, Kristin, Krystin, Kristyn, Christine, Karen, Kayren, Katelynn, Caytlin, Caitlin. Stop the world and let me off.
9 - Amen.
David, I’m not sure how you can negatively characterize a man who seeks to carry out the Biblical command to love one’s enemies while simultaneously demeaning his orthodoxy. But I suppose that, since you specifically — and quite rightly — limited it to evangelical orthodoxy, he would certainly be evangelically unorthodox if he carried that command into the sphere of politics. I fail, however, to see where a nation is exempted from loving their enemies and doing good to those that hurt them.
Stephen, a fair question. The Sermon on the Mount is moral counsel directed toward private individuals. It cannot be simply translated into public policy, whether foreign or domestic. For example, the command to turn the other cheek would certainly not invalidate the civil magistrate punishing muggers. The command to give to those who steal from you does not invalidate the civil magistrate punishing theft. So too, in foreign policy.
Romans 13 describes the civil magistrate as being a terror to evil doers. He bears the sword. He is given this ultimate power because it is the necessary means to protect the liberty of the people under his sovereign care in a violent and rapacious world.
What if one were to apply the “love your international neighbor” standard to the princes of the earth? Given that God raises up authorities for the care primarily of the people under their authority, they are not permitted to jeopardize the safety of their own people in the name of caring for other peoples. Secondly, the best way to love foreign enemies is to threaten them sufficiently that they do not harm your people–thus keeping peace in the international neighborhood–and to retaliate forcefully and effectively when they do in fact harm your people so that they will (a) stop what they are doing, (b) never think of doing it again, and (c) serve as an example to anyone contemplating similar evil.
Briefly, the alternative can be summarized in two words: “Jimmy” and “Carter,” or with the phrase, “Do good so that evil may result.”
There is much more to say on the subject. That would be POL451 Christianity and Politics.
Oh, let me add that I have taken the passage in question, your question and my response and posted them all on my blog, principalitiesandpowers.blogspot.com.
Obama is not unique as a politician calling for a ‘kingdom here on earth’. Kim Jong Il, of North Korea calls his dictatorship ‘paradise on earth’. Juche, the socialist religion his father started calls him divine too.
Of course, his ‘paradise’ is so wonderful that he has to keep armed soldiers on the borders to kill those who try to escape. The emaciated, hollow-eyed school children don’t seem too happy in their ‘kingdom on earth’ either.
Amen, JoanneB!
David, thanks for taking the time to respond and sharing your blog. I agree that the sermon on the mount cannot simply be transposed to political action, but I also question whether Romans 13’s description can so easily be made universally normative.
It’s important not to read “[for the purpose of protecting liberty]” into the passage. Indeed, Romans 13 makes absolutely no pragmatic political argument whatsoever for the submission to ruling authorities — the only justification given for the command is that those in authority were placed there by God. Further, the passage is quite specific, in that it references only those authorities to which one is already subject but issues no positive commands to acquire some in the absence of such (i.e. a “state of nature”).
You are entirely correct that the command to give to those who steal from you does not invalidate the civil magistrate punishing theft — but it does seem to invalidate my support of the civil magistrate, as my representative, punishing theft. Otherwise, we would arrive at the very odd situation in which I’d be commanded to turn the other cheek and show love to my enemies, but simultaneously permitted to elect a representative as my agent who, despite acting as my proxy, is nonetheless unconstrained by my moral obligations.
The problem with Obama and many other politicians on both sides is their car salesman attitude toward the voters. “Just invoke the magic words and I will gain their vote.” And just like snake oil, they will slip and slide away once in office. Obama is specifically vague and avoids defining the “magic words” he is using. My advice, RUN!! (Run faster.)