It seems that the Republicans and Huckabee are not the only ones pouring their faith into their campaigns, Huckster is the only one that is getting labeled by it by the national press and is the only one getting the faith questions at debates.

 

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0108/7850.html

 

Obama asks S.C. black voters to have faith

CHARLESTON, S.C. — One of the most striking aspects of Barack Obama's pitch in the Palmetto State, where roughly half the Democratic voters are black, is that it isn’t dominated by the issue of race. It’s about faith.

 

Through the psalms and verses of the Bible, Obama is seeking to connect with South Carolinians at a deeper place than the color of their skin, a place where belief in modern miracles may linger, including the election of the first African-American president.

 

Now, on Jan. 26, comes the first true test of his faith-infused message as the two front-runners square off here in the Democratic primary.

 

Obama’s strategy carries risks. More so than any his adversaries, Obama is plowing turf his party tiptoed or blundered through in 2004, allowing President Bush to capture, by a wide margin, the votes cast by churchgoing voters.

 

That loss to Bush became a wakeup call to all Democrats, and every one of them is talking more openly this cycle about their faith. Clinton, who has said she prays daily, has sought to organize strong support in her church, United Methodist. John Edwards, also a Methodist, has spoken about how faith helped him endure after his son’s death. For the first time, all of the leading Democratic candidates have senior religious outreach advisers.

 

Obama’s campaign is unique among Democrats in that it has adopted faith as an organizing tool, a tactic mastered by the Bush-Cheney campaigns in 2000 and 2004.

 

The effort officially kicked off in the summer after Obama delivered a major address on faith in Connecticut. “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,” he said, linking his support for expanded health care, social justice, immigration and the environment to the foundations of his Christian faith.

From the article I posted above....

 

About a thousand people attended those combined events. Among them was the Rev. Joe Darby, pastor of Charleston’s Morris Brown AME Church, who attended two sessions and was struck by their stimulating nature.

 

When a candidate meets with minister-backers, the focus is on what “we need to do to mobilize voters. It’s more political,” said Darby. In the Obama sessions, “the discussion was more about how your faith guides you on issues. I think that puts faith in the right perspective.”

Further, if Obama happens to win the D nomination, and Huckabee the R nomination, I predict Huckabee makes a big deal out of Obama's Church's mission statement.

 

:thumb::thumb:

 

I think religion should play no part in the process of selecting a president. Have we forgot the separation of church and state?

Well, being Catholic, I don't see the issue you're raising regarding Obama's Church. By their nature, I believe Churches SHOULD influence their members, and attempt to influence the issues of the day. Now, if a member of a certain church accepts elected office, then I would expect that the member to attempt to shape the direction of the country consistent with his/her beliefs. Exactly what is more political about the church that Obama attends, and your congregation, or the Catholic church?

I have never attended a church that advocated a "a non-negotiable COMMITMENT TO EUROPE."

 

I have never attended a church that advocated the "HISTORICAL EDUCATION OF EUROPEAN PEOPLE IN DIASPORA."

 

Am I missing something here? Are these not political rather than religious statements? I am proud of my Irish-English heritage, but I am much more proud to be an American. I would consider a church that published a white European equivalent list of objectives in its vision statement to be a white separatist organization.

 

Please take a few minutes to browse the website to which I linked. Then tell me that Obama's church is not more political than the Roman Catholic or most other Christian Churches.

It would if I understood them.

 

The things I don't understand are underlined.

On the italics, are you saying that are to be more faithful to Africa than America?:confused:

 

I'll try to be plainer because I can be more than a verbose at times. It's the preacher thing. :lol:

 

For more than 200 years the Black community in America was disenfranchised from the American dream and Society. Brought here and stripped of heritage, language and tradition - there grew an under society movement. They developed how they felt about things currently and hoped for a future. The Christian gospel gave some of them hope that God would "right the wrongs." ("Kingdom Coming and the year of Jubilee.")

 

Even after Emancipation, blacks found them selves disenfranchised still. The church was the only place they were not. So it became the center of learning and of political planning to get a piece of "the pie." That's why the political and religious are more entertwined in Black churches than the majority of White Churches.

 

As for being more faithful to Africa than America, do you believe this is the same question we should ask prominent Jews who are Zionists? To many American Jews they see loyalty to Israel more than loyalty to the US and do everything they can to influence the US to the betterment of Israel. Sometimes it's disguised in a Faith notion that modern day Israel is the equivelant of the nation of promise in the Old Testament. Other's hold this view because it is a racial and cultural edict that they feel demands their primary allegiance.

 

I hope that explains some of what I'm saying.

It seems that the Republicans and Huckabee are not the only ones pouring their faith into their campaigns, Huckster is the only one that is getting labeled by it by the national press and is the only one getting the faith questions at debates.

 

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0108/7850.html

 

Obama asks S.C. black voters to have faith

CHARLESTON, S.C. — One of the most striking aspects of Barack Obama's pitch in the Palmetto State, where roughly half the Democratic voters are black, is that it isn’t dominated by the issue of race. It’s about faith.

 

Through the psalms and verses of the Bible, Obama is seeking to connect with South Carolinians at a deeper place than the color of their skin, a place where belief in modern miracles may linger, including the election of the first African-American president.

 

Now, on Jan. 26, comes the first true test of his faith-infused message as the two front-runners square off here in the Democratic primary.

 

Obama’s strategy carries risks. More so than any his adversaries, Obama is plowing turf his party tiptoed or blundered through in 2004, allowing President Bush to capture, by a wide margin, the votes cast by churchgoing voters.

 

That loss to Bush became a wakeup call to all Democrats, and every one of them is talking more openly this cycle about their faith. Clinton, who has said she prays daily, has sought to organize strong support in her church, United Methodist. John Edwards, also a Methodist, has spoken about how faith helped him endure after his son’s death. For the first time, all of the leading Democratic candidates have senior religious outreach advisers.

 

Obama’s campaign is unique among Democrats in that it has adopted faith as an organizing tool, a tactic mastered by the Bush-Cheney campaigns in 2000 and 2004.

 

The effort officially kicked off in the summer after Obama delivered a major address on faith in Connecticut. “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,” he said, linking his support for expanded health care, social justice, immigration and the environment to the foundations of his Christian faith.

Great post, LBBC! Democratic candidates have traditionally used liberal churches in campaigns, particularly Christian churches with predominantly African-American members. There is a double standard at work and it has been at work for years.

I have never attended a church that advocated a "a non-negotiable COMMITMENT TO EUROPE."

 

I have never attended a church that advocated the "HISTORICAL EDUCATION OF EUROPEAN PEOPLE IN DIASPORA."

 

Am I missing something here? Are these not political rather than religious statements? I am proud of my Irish-English heritage, but I am much more proud to be an American. I would consider a church that published a white European equivalent list of objectives in its vision statement to be a white separatist organization.

 

Please take a few minutes to browse the website to which I linked. Then tell me that Obama's church is not more political than the Roman Catholic or most other Christian Churches.

 

 

As I mentioned above, you have. It's called support for Israel first. (Zionism by it's detractors). It's pretty much the same thought.

 

There are many groups that support this among evangelical Christians that long ago concluded we must do everything we can to return Jews to Palestine. (Their motivations in some cases was to force the hand of God to a speedy 2nd Coming.)

 

Here's a website of one Christian group that seems to support what I was trying to describe.

 

http://www.zionismontheweb.org/christian_zionism/

I'll try to be plainer because I can be more than a verbose at times. It's the preacher thing. :lol:

 

For more than 200 years the Black community in America was disenfranchised from the American dream and Society. Brought here and stripped of heritage, language and tradition - there grew an under society movement. They developed how they felt about things currently and hoped for a future. The Christian gospel gave some of them hope that God would "right the wrongs." ("Kingdom Coming and the year of Jubilee.")

 

Even after Emancipation, blacks found them selves disenfranchised still. The church was the only place they were not. So it became the center of learning and of political planning to get a piece of "the pie." That's why the political and religious are more entertwined in Black churches than the majority of White Churches.

 

As for being more faithful to Africa than America, do you believe this is the same question we should ask prominent Jews who are Zionists? To many American Jews they see loyalty to Israel more than loyalty to the US and do everything they can to influence the US to the betterment of Israel. Sometimes it's disguised in a Faith notion that modern day Israel is the equivelant of the nation of promise in the Old Testament. Other's hold this view because it is a racial and cultural edict that they feel demands their primary allegiance.

 

I hope that explains some of what I'm saying.

 

I got that. :thumb:

 

 

And if a prominent Jew is running for President and is a member of a church that holds positions that Obama's seem to do with Israel in place of Africa, I think it is a fair question.

As I mentioned above, you have. It's called support for Israel first. (Zionism by it's detractors). It's pretty much the same thought.

 

There are many groups that support this among evangelical Christians that long ago concluded we must do everything we can to return Jews to Palestine. (Their motivations in some cases was to force the hand of God to a speedy 2nd Coming.)

 

Here's a website of one Christian group that seems to support what I was trying to describe.

 

http://www.zionismontheweb.org/christian_zionism/

Support for the nation of Israel, right or wrong, stems from Biblical interpretation not from an ethnocentric political philosophy. Apples to oranges, IMO.

I got that. :thumb:

 

 

And if a prominent Jew is running for President and is a member of a church that holds positions that Obama's seem to do with Israel in place of Africa, I think it is a fair question.

 

I too think it's a fair question. The key is not painting it as if it were the only group and faith that pronounced such officially or unofficiall. To be honest if you look at a Pat Robertson's record you will find him supporting stuff for Israel when it might very well be against the US.

 

LBBC, here is the problem I have when castigating a candidate for what his church is saying.

 

In 1993, Ronnie Floyd stood on the floor of the SBC meeting and asked the Southern Baptist Covention to disfellowship Immanuel Baptist Church in Little Rock, AK.

 

Why?

 

Because that was the church that Bill Clinton belonged to. He had a lot of support (not enough to pass the motion) and for what. Because a president that Floyd and others disagreed with and detested was a member of that church.

 

For me, the church is a great place to ask the questions you have. It is not the only place to look for the answers or to try and assume that since:

 

A: This church espouses these things on paper And,

 

B: This candidate is a member of said church THen,

 

C: This candidate must be in lockstep belief with those tenants.

 

I mean Washington refused communion from the church during his presidency and beyond. Does that mean he was rejecting God?

 

Nixon was a Quaker (a people who believe utmost in peace) and I don't think he was particularly a Quaker in the White House.

Support for the nation of Israel, right or wrong, stems from Biblical interpretation not from an ethnocentric political philosophy. Apples to oranges, IMO.

 

Only cause you choose to see it so.

 

These people see themselves as the lost tribes of Israel (Diaspora) so they too see it as Biblical interpretation.

 

If you think ethnics is not a part of the Jewish equasion you are welcomed to that belief but I believe evidence shows you are wrong.

I have never attended a church that advocated a "a non-negotiable COMMITMENT TO EUROPE."

 

I have never attended a church that advocated the "HISTORICAL EDUCATION OF EUROPEAN PEOPLE IN DIASPORA."

 

Am I missing something here? Are these not political rather than religious statements? I am proud of my Irish-English heritage, but I am much more proud to be an American. I would consider a church that published a white European equivalent list of objectives in its vision statement to be a white separatist organization.

 

Please take a few minutes to browse the website to which I linked. Then tell me that Obama's church is not more political than the Roman Catholic or most other Christian Churches.

 

Maybe you haven't attended a church with those committments. What, though, is the mission statement of your church?

 

Again, as a Catholic, I absolutely feel that I cannot cast aspersions upon another denomination's political agenda, when The Vatican is considered a diplomatic state, with all the rights and privilages afforded to nations. The Pope is constantly making statements about political issues, and in America that includes abortion, the war in Iraq, etc. The priests of each parish are responsible for the communication of such messages by the Pope. That is influencing the politics of the nation, by influencing the congregation.

Obama is very close to the controversial pastor of the Trinity United Church of Christ and has described him as his spiritual mentor.

 

Obama says that rather than advising him on strategy, Wright helps keep his priorities straight and his moral compass calibrated.

 

"What I value most about Pastor Wright is not his day-to-day political advice," Obama said. "He's much more of a sounding board for me to make sure that I am speaking as truthfully about what I believe as possible and that I'm not losing myself in some of the hype and hoopla and stress that's involved in national politics."

 

REV. JEREMIAH WRIGHT: Pastor inspires Obama's 'audacity'

Maybe you haven't attended a church with those committments. What, though, is the mission statement of your church?

 

Again, as a Catholic, I absolutely feel that I cannot cast aspersions upon another denomination's political agenda, when The Vatican is considered a diplomatic state, with all the rights and privilages afforded to nations. The Pope is constantly making statements about political issues, and in America that includes abortion, the war in Iraq, etc. The priests of each parish are responsible for the communication of such messages by the Pope. That is influencing the politics of the nation, by influencing the congregation.

I have no problem with churches being politically active. In fact, I think that it is very appropriate for them to be engaged in the political process. I also believe strongly in the principle of separation of church and state, although I do not believe that we have a Constitutional right of freedom from religion.

 

What I do have a problem with is certain candidates being slammed because of their religion by the mainstream media while they ignore the very non-mainstream religion of one candidate because of racial sensitivities. The Trinity United Baptist Church weaves politics and religion much more tightly than most churches. Yet most potential voters are totally unaware of the nature of the political activism of Obama's church and its controversial pastor.

The Black Value System from the Trinity United Church of Christ website. Click on the link to view the details - I only excerpted the title of each item.

 

1. Commitment to God.

 

2. Commitment to the

Black

Community.

 

3. Commitment to the Black Family.

 

4. Dedication to the Pursuit of Education.

 

5. Dedication to the Pursuit of Excellence.

 

6. Adherence to the

Black

Work Ethic.

 

7. Commitment to Self-Discipline and Self-Respect.

 

8. Disavowal of the Pursuit of “Middleclassness.”

 

9. Pledge to Make the Fruits of All Developing and Acquired Skills Available to the

Black

Community.

 

10. Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources for Strengthening and Supporting

Black

Institutions.

 

11. Pledge Allegiance to All

Black

Leadership Who Espouse and Embrace the Black Value System.

 

12. Personal Commitment to Embracement of the

Black

Value System.

 

(emphasis added)