Why does Obama hate religion?
By Creature
Some interesting news coming from AMERICAblogs' Jacki Schechner. She says Senator Obama has resigned from his Chicago church. I guess it was just one too many outspoken pastors to deal with politically. I'm not sure how much this helps (though, I do think it helps a little) seeing as how Obama's detractors will still scream about him sitting in pews for 20 years without protesting the crazy. For some that narrative will never die.
Update -- Lynn Sweet confirms: Obama no longer believes in god.
(Cross-posted at State of the Day.)
Some interesting news coming from AMERICAblogs' Jacki Schechner. She says Senator Obama has resigned from his Chicago church. I guess it was just one too many outspoken pastors to deal with politically. I'm not sure how much this helps (though, I do think it helps a little) seeing as how Obama's detractors will still scream about him sitting in pews for 20 years without protesting the crazy. For some that narrative will never die.
Update -- Lynn Sweet confirms: Obama no longer believes in god.
(Cross-posted at State of the Day.)
Labels: 2008 elections, Barack Obama
posted by creature at
6:12 PM
3 Comments:
The Pfleger things was the last straw. The man was basically doing stand up comdey at Clinton's expense.
Mind you, Pfleger's central claim -- entitlement syndrome based on white skin privilege -- was fundamentally fair. You're not supposed to say that though because it's seen as 'divisive' -- in this case, it divides your voting constituency and gives the other side a cheap shot at you on something that makes diddly squate difference to the lives of Americans but gets people distracted.
So Obama did the right thing in dumping the connection. Really, in political terms, it was an exposed and unprotectable flank. What would happen if the local cops had found someone involved in criminal activity? Someone going national saying that blacks needed to rise up and strike down whitey?
He really had no choice
By
Anonymous, at 7:01 PM
Suppose it had been David Duke or Louis Farrakhan who decided to run for the nomination, Creature, and disavowed their previously-held affiliations?
Would you buy it?
No, of course not.
Twenty years, in a church that he chose as an adult says a lot about his lack of judgement. You saw the choir behind Wright and Pfleger. Those folks did not exactly look like they were sitting in stunned silence!
If the flock had laughed the way Columbia students laughed at Ahmadinejad, perhaps your point would be valid, but they didn't which means these views of hatred of America and whites who "don't get it" were pervasive and insidious.
So it's safe to assume that a man who attended (according to those who know) pretty regularly and was good friends with the congregation members must have not only been exposed to some of that, but learned some of it and incoporated it.
Church is, after all, a form of brainwashing. Whether we like it or not, the things we've learned in church have followed us all our days and inform our behavior.
This, I think, is what the rabble Obombers don't seem to want to acknowledge. I'd argue that many of them don't attend church regularly and so may have forgotten how powerful religion really is to those who believe.
Now, if you're going to make the counterargument that this was all a sham, that Obama joined the single largest South Side church for some motive other than religion, say, to use as a base for getting elected, then the question becomes a far easier political calculation:
In THAT case, what the fuck was he thinking, running for President?
By
Carl, at 9:13 AM
Carl, you assume those 20 years were filled with the same kind of sermons we heard from Wright and that guest pastor. I do not. Overall, I have not walked in the shoes of those who attend Trinity. I will not judge their reactions or their community. And, maybe most important, I am not threatened by them.
By
creature, at 12:26 PM
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