VIDEO: John McCain on What the President’s Religion Should Be (BeliefNet)
Ah, the warm glow of the political circle continues to encompass us until November. And this year it seems like in addition to electing a Commander-in-Chief, we are also electing a Pastor-in-Chief, a religious leader, if you will – - at least if you listen to some of the pundits.
A few months ago BeliefNet interviewed John McCain and asked him what religion he thought the President should be. The Republican presidential candidate told Beliefnet he’s uncomfortable with a Muslim president but felt Mitt Romney’s Mormonism is a non-issue. Any religion is okay, according to McCain, so long as this candidate “will carry on the Judeo-Christian tradition that has made this country great.”
Very interesting . . .
VEEPSTAKES WINNER: It worked – Dobson says he would “pull lever” for McCain-Palin
In the last couple of days, I have wondered what it would take for John McCain to get the evangelical vote, particularly when Dr. James Dobson had previously said that he could not vote for him. Well, apparently the selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin worked some magic for the good doctor and he said “But I can tell you that if I had to go into the studio, I mean the voting booth today, I would pull that lever.”
With the blessing of America’s self-appointed Christian leader, millions of evangelicals can now go and cast their vote for McCain-Palin without having to go to the protestant version of confession afterwards.
Here is an excerpt of the interview. The interesting thing is that both Dobson and host Dennis Prager know that what Dobson says is the equivalent of a Papal Bull (but without the Papal part).
Dobson: Well, you know I did a radio program about a month ago with Dr. Albert Mohler, and we talked about what was at stake in this election and our concerns about the policies that Barack Obama would implement. The more I hear the more I learn, the more concerned I am, and so on that program Dr. Mohler and I talked about the fact that John McCain is not the perfect candidate. He’s certainly would not be my choice and, for over a year, I did not feel that I could vote for him. But I said in that radio program that “I can’t say it now”—which was then, because I didn’t know who his vice presidential choice would be, and he if would come up with Lieberman or Tom Ridge or somebody like that, we’d be back in a hole again. But I said for the first time “I might, I might.” And some people call that a flip-flop. If they do, so be it. Campaigns are long. You get information. You find out what the choices are. So I’ve been moving in John McCain’s direction. I don’t know if anybody cares, but for me…
Prager: Plenty, plenty of people care and that’s why I am having you on. I care, many people care and you have a lot of followers. You have earned the right to that respect.
Read more at
VEEPSTAKES: Will Alaska Governor Sarah Palin bring in Conservative Votes for McCain?
With Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty apparently out of the running for McCain’s VP pick, speculation this morning turns to Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska. Scratch that . . . News Just In – Sarah Palin IS McCain’s running mate.
Richard Land was interviewed by CBS News and the following exchange took place:
CBSNews.com: Who’s on the list of people mentioned for VP that you think would most excite Southern Baptists and other members of the conservative faith community?
Richard Land: Probably Governor Palin of Alaska, because she’s a person of strong faith. She just had her fifth child, a Downs Syndrome child. And there’s a wonderful quote that she gave about her baby, and the fact that she would never, ever consider having an abortion just because her child had Downs Syndrome.
She’s strongly pro-life. She’s a virtual lifetime member of the National Rifle Association. She would ring so many bells. And I just think it would help with independents because she’s a woman. She’s a reform Governor. I think that, from what I hear, that would be the choice that would probably ring the most bells, along with Mike Huckabee, of course, who’s a Southern Baptist, along with Mike Huckabee, of course, who’s a Southern Baptist.
From: http://palinforvp.blogspot.com/2008/08/leading-evangelical-says-palin-rings.html
As she is relatively new to the political world, only recently elected Governor of Alaska, there is not a lot of information about her policies aside from her own personal beliefs. Here is what Wikipedia users say about her background.
Family and personal background
Palin was born as Sarah Louise Heath in Sandpoint, Idaho, the daughter of Charles and Sally (Sheeran) Heath.[3] Her family moved to Alaska when she was an infant.[4] Charles Heath was a popular science teacher and coached track.[4] The Heaths were avid outdoors enthusiasts; Sarah and her father would sometimes wake at 3 a.m. to hunt moose before school, and the family would regularly run 5k and 10k races.[4]
Palin was the point guard and captain for the Wasilla High School Warriors, in Wasilla, Alaska, when they won the Alaska small-school basketball championship in 1982; she earned the nickname “Sarah Barracuda” because of her intense play.[4] She played the championship game despite a stress fracture in her ankle, hitting a critical free throw in the last seconds.[4] Palin, who was also the head of the school Fellowship of Christian Athletes, would lead the team in prayer before games.[4]
In 1984, Palin was second-place in the Miss Alaska beauty pageant after winning the Miss Wasilla contest earlier that year, winning a scholarship to help pay her way through college.[4][5] In the Wasilla pageant, she played the flute and also won Miss Congeniality.
Details of Palin’s personal life have contributed to her political image. She hunts, eats moose burgers, ice fishes, rides snowmobiles, and owns a float plane.[6][7] Palin holds a lifetime membership with the National Rifle Association. She admits that she used marijuana when it was legal in Alaska, but says that she did not like it.[8]
Palin holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Idaho where she also minored in politics. She briefly worked as a sports reporter for local Anchorage television stations while also working as a commercial fisherman with her husband, Todd, her high school sweetheart.[4] One summer when she was working on Todd’s fishing boat, the boat collided with a tender while she was holding onto the railing; Palin broke several fingers.[4] Outside the fishing season, Todd works for BP at an oil field on the North Slope[9] and is a champion snowmobiler, winning the 2000-mile “Iron Dog” race four times.[4] The two eloped shortly after Palin graduated college; when they learned they needed witnesses for the civil ceremony, they recruited two residents from the old-age home down the street.[4] Todd is a Native Yup’ik Eskimo.[4] The Palin family lives in Wasilla, about 40 miles (64 km) north of Anchorage.[10]
On September 11, 2007, the Palins’ son Track joined the Army. Eighteen years old at the time, he is the eldest of Palin’s five children.[10] Track now serves in an infantry brigade and will be deployed to Iraq in September. She also has three daughters: Bristol, 17, Willow, 13, and Piper, 7.[11] On April 18, 2008, Palin gave birth to her second son, Trig Paxson Van Palin, who has Down syndrome.[12] She returned to the office three days after giving birth.[13] Palin refused to let the results of prenatal genetic testing change her decision to have the baby. “I’m looking at him right now, and I see perfection,” Palin said. “Yeah, he has an extra chromosome. I keep thinking, in our world, what is normal and what is perfect?”[13]
High approval ratings
In July 2007, Palin had an approval rating often in the 90s.[6] A poll published by Hays Research on July 28, 2008 showed Palin’s approval rating at 80%. [54]
VEEPSTAKES: Could Tim Pawlenty Bring 30 Million Evangelicals Back to the GOP?
Back in June,The Minnesota Independent explored the question of what type of Vice Presidential candidate Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty would make, and in particular whether Pawlenty could bring evangelical voters out to vote for John McCain.
Although McCain has won the GOP nomination, some evangelical leaders such as James Dobson have expressed that they will not vote for him because he is too “liberal.” Can Pawlenty bridge this gap?
Here are some excerpts from the story:
Pawlenty became an evangelical Christian in the mid-1980s when he married Mary Anderson, a member of Wooddale Church, an evangelical megachurch in Eden Prairie. The couple were married by the Rev. Leith Anderson, a senior pastor at Wooddale since 1977. Anderson happens to be the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, an organization representing more than 30 million American evangelicals. In fact, Anderson had been the president of NAE from 1999 to 2003, and became the current president after the Rev. Ted Haggard’s troubles involving methamphetamines and gay sex forced him out in 2006.
. . .
In 2003, Pawlenty and Wooddale hosted about 1,600 evangelical leaders from around the country for a two-day convention of the National Association of Evangelicals. Pawlenty praised the work of President Bush and his faith-based initiatives, a program that funnels federal funds to religious charities. “If you’re going to change destructive behavior, you’ve got to change hearts,” said Pawlenty, according to the Star Tribune. “Governors can’t do that. We hope you can do that in a God-honoring manner that meets the challenges of our day.”
. . .
In 2005, Pawlenty created the Governor’s Council on Faith and Community Service Initiatives, a Minnesota version of Bush’s White House Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives. Also in 2005, Pawlenty began National Day of Prayer services at the State Capitol, a move that garnered significant praise from evangelicals and social conservatives. In fact, annual Minnesota’s Day of Prayer activities, at which Pawlenty is a regular speaker, are exclusively evangelical, due to a takeover of such events by Shirley Dobson, wife of Focus on the Family’s James Dobson.
. . .
Pawlenty toed the line for the Family Council and Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life in the 2008 session when he vetoed legislation to fund stem cell research and legislation to allow cities to implement domestic partner benefits. He even vetoed a bill authored by a fellow Republican, Rep. Kathy Tinglestad. Her bill would formalize the processes involved in surrogate motherhood, but because anti-choice groups said it didn’t ban abortion, Pawlenty vetoed the bill.
. . .
Pawlenty courts the religious right in Minnesota albeit on the down-low. He’s made appearances at anti-abortion rallies, and was a featured speaker at the Minnesota Family Council’s Legislative Insights Luncheon in early 2007. A member of that group asked him, “Do you think you would have won without the faith-based vote?” Pawlenty quickly responded “No,” and was greeted with laughter and applause.
Will McCain pick him as the VP Candidate? We’ll know in a few hours.
Read the full newspaper story at The Minnesota Independent
Thanks to Pastordan for posting a link to this on his blog “Street Prophets.”
VIDEO: R. Gustav Niebuhr: “The False Promises of Tolerance” (Chataqua Institution)
Chautauqua Institution, Chautauqua, NY
Recorded – Aug 6th, 2008
Author and professor R. Gustav Niebuhr argues that tolerating people of different faiths is not enough; that in order to live in a safe and cohesive society, we must go out and interact with them.
Bio:
Gustav Niebuhr is an associate professor of Religion and the Media, director of the Religion and Society Program, director of the Carnegie Religion and Media Minor, and co-director of the Luce Project in Religion, Media, and International Relations at Syracuse University.Over a twenty-year career in journalism, most recently at the New York Times and, prior to that, at the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the Atlanta Journal/Constitution, Gustav Niebuhr has established a reputation as a leading writer about American religion. He is a frequent guest blogger on the Washington Post’s “On Faith” column, and he also does occasional commentaries on religion for the National Public Radio program “All Things Considered.
His most recent book, Beyond Tolerance: Searching for Interfaith Understanding in America, will be published in August.
“Faithiness” Artifacts from the 2008 Democratic Convention
I was going to address each story separately, but given that I have limited time and there are simply so many stories, I’m posting some links to interesting stories that are floating around the Web that have to do with this Convention. Maybe, as one writer below suggests, this happens every election year and we just happen to “discover” it every time, or maybe this emphasis is new.
The Republicans will have the choice next week to either play to the right and out-faith the Democrats, or pander to the middle and emphasize their secular side. Expect another “Artifacts” story from this site next week.
Democratic convention focuses on faith
Jerusalem Post, Israel - Aug 26, 2008
By HILARY LEILA KRIEGER, JPOST CORRESPONDENT IN DENVER As the Orthodox Union¹s Rabbi Tzvi Weinreb addressed the interfaith gathering that kicked off the …
Why Democrats Are Focused On Faith
NPR - Aug 25, 2008
by Alex Cohen Day to Day, August 25, 2008 · For the first time ever, the Democratic National Convention held an interfaith gathering prior to the convention …
From Prayer to ‘Faith Caucuses,’ Party to Show Religious Side
Wall Street Journal - Aug 24, 2008
By SUZANNE SATALINE Their convention opened Sunday with an interfaith prayer, which is set to be followed this week by an opening invocation and closing …
Democrats try to bridge ‘God gap’
The National, United Arab Emirates - 7 hours ago
Democratic party delegates stand for the opening prayer of their party’s convention. Stan Honda / AFP DENVER // With the bowing of heads and three uttered …
Too Much Jesus
Boise Weekly, USA - 18 hours ago
BY NATHANIEL HOFFMAN Another indication that Obama’s change thing is being co-opted is the amount of Jesus talk in Denver. Perhaps Obama is bringing more …
Dems Get Religion in Denver: All the Better to Eat
Dakota Voice, SD - Aug 25, 2008
The Democrat Party never ceases to amaze me with its shameless pandering in an attempt to deceive another vote or two out of people. …
Democratic Convention Interfaith Sunday
Huffington Post, NY - Aug 25, 2008
DENVER — It’s 4 PM in the Convention Center, and I’ve been churched, well churched, sitting through the first official event of the 2008 Democratic …
Religion Takes Center Stage At Convention And Obama’s Camp
National Journal, DC - Aug 23, 2008
by Brian Friel By different paths, Barack Obama and the Rev. Leah Daughtry arrived at the same conclusion: Their party needs to talk more often about faith. …
Interfaith and no faith
GetReligion, DC - Aug 21, 2008
One of the things that annoys me about journalists’ lack of institutional memory is the way religious activism in politics is constantly being rediscovered. …
Sunday Shopping to be Banned in Croatia – Efforts Underway in Britain
In a concession to the Catholic Church, the Croatian parliament has passed a law requiring all shops to be closed on Sundays beginning January 1, 2009. This is the result of years of campaigning by the Church, which makes up 90% of the population.
It will allow Sunday shopping at Christmas time and in the summers, and gas stations and public transportation will remain open. Bakeries, newsstands, and flowershops will also remain open under the new law.
Thaddeus M. Baklinski at LifeSiteNews.com reported, “The parliament of the predominantly Catholic country of Croatia is urging its citizens to reclaim Sunday as a day for celebrating the Eucharist, for family and for rest.”
Baklinski adds the following analysis: “Most post-communist countries, including Croatia, have experienced problems transitioning from the oppression of Marxist ideology, which proclaimed there is no God and therefore no need for any day for religious observance or rest, to a free market economy with a fascination with and craving for all things Western.
“Croatia, however, is now in a more stable political and economic situation where its people can reaffirm their centuries-old traditions of family and faith and experience a Renaissance of their culture. The banning of Sunday shopping is a significant step in that direction.
“The benefits of not making Sunday just an extension of Saturday have been well documented.”
Croatia is not the only nation considering bans on Sunday shopping. In Britain, a group called “Keep Sunday Special,” has been campaigning to ban shopping on Sunday. According to the KSS website,
“Keep Sunday Special (KSS) has been fighting to preserve Sunday as a day for rest, family activities and worship since 1985. It has had the support of a wide variety of organisations including churches, unions, trade associations and retailers. In recent months the campaign has refocused to emphasise the need for everyone to have a regular, shared day off.”
In 2005, Catholic Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix, Arizona, observed that “the world has suffered with the loss of the religious observance of Sunday as a day of rest,” and reflected that the day which used to be reserved for religious and family togetherness, has turned into “an extension of Saturday,” filled with errands invariably including shopping.”
KSS claims that there are five primary reasons to pass laws involving Sunday rest:
Protecting relationships
Preserving community
Saving local business
Respecting faith
Getting rest
Although a unified day of rest may make sense from a secular perspective, those who keep another day as sacred or believe differently are sure to feel increasingly out of the mainstream if these efforts succeed.
For more information visit: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=5378375
For more information about Keep Sunday Special visit: http://www.keepsundayspecial.org.uk/
BLOG: Democrats Begin Faith-filled Convention
For all practical purposes, it resembled an interfaith worship service. In a move designed to appeal to religious voters, the Democrats opened their convention in Denver last night with prayer, a gospel song, and a Torah recitation by a rabbi. A Catholic nun, Helen Prejean, author of Dead Men Walking discussed the death penalty, and Muslim women in headscarves also made appearances. (You may recall that Obama received some criticism when his staff asked two Muslim women wearing headscarves not to stand behind him at an appearance.)
Overall, it appears that the Democrats are reaching toward a religious audience, with the idea of inclusion rather than exclusion. However, they appear to be targeting the coveted evangelical constituency who is likely to vote for them.
There will also be four different “faith caucuses” held during the convention.
It is hard to think that solidly Republican evangelical voters will come out in favor of Obama, but this open embrace of faith may attract voters who are religious but concerned about the emergence of theocratic rhetoric on the right. It will also open doors for religious voters who lean toward the left on issues such as the death penalty, health care, and social welfare programs.
It will also be interesting to see how the Republicans plan to upstage this demonstration of faith next week in Minneapolis. One thing that is certain is that religion will continue to play a central role through the election in November.
VIDEO: Madeleine Albright Discusses “The Mighty and The Almighty: United States Foreign Policy and God”
From Fora.TV – Recorded May 7th, 2006 – Madeleine Albright talks about [amazonify]B001CJP2IS::text::::The Mighty and The Almighty: United States Foreign Policy and God[/amazonify]. The former secretary of state offers a provocative and very personal look at the role of religion in America’s foreign policy. She argues that understanding the place and power of religion, and knowing how best to respond to it, is essential if America is to lead successfully around the world.
Click on “Open Tools” for a transcript and index.
Olympics: China Bans Foreign Chaplains – only “official” chaplains allowed (Houston Chronicle)
Because China is a major trade partner with the United States, it can be easy to forget that religious freedom in China is marginal even when China is trying to put its best foot forward.
This is from the The Houston Chronicle via Bill Cork’s website, Oak Leaves.
“Previous Olympic hosts welcomed foreign chaplains, but China has banned them from living with the athletes. It has instead pledged that it will provide equivalent services from its pool of state-employed pastors, imams and other clerics.”
. . .
“China’s ruling Communist Party is suspicious of any cause that could compete with its authority, including organized religion. Officially, the party allows worship only at registered churches belonging to a state-controlled organization; nonregistered places of worship are closely monitored. The party also bans foreign chaplains’ holding services without government permission or proselytizing on Chinese soil.”
. . .
“As Americans, we believe in having our free will to do as we please and express our views,” McAdams said. “It has been a little awkward, but we are in a communist country, and that is the way things are done.”
Read the full article at The Houston Chronicle.
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