Oh yeah, maybe a good spiritual mentor like the Archbishop who would deny Guiliani communion based on his beliefs about abortion but doing the same to those support the death penalty or pre-emptive war would be "too complicated" What is complicated about "Thou Shall Not Kill"? Catholics like this guy have hijacked Christ's table to control and damn to hell those who do not agree with their hypocritical political agendas. Whose table is it? Christ's or the Church's? Yeah, Presidents need a spiritual mentor. Maybe Karl Rove will be available again for our next President.

Helaman:
As a Mormon, I can offer that Romney doesn't need to have a mentor. We are a lay church, where we actively support each other, are expected to know our doctrine, and worthy fathers can perform life-cycle ceremonies for their family members. Also, as a lay church, we each take turns......

PERFORMING MARRIAGES OF 14 YEAR YOUNG WOMEN TO OLD PERVERTS.

I REALLY DON'T WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT FATHERS PERFORMING FOR THEIR FAMILY MEMBERS.

I WOULDN'T VOTE FOR ROMNEY OR ANY OTHER MORMAN FOR DOGCATCHER.

I CAN SEE THE CAMPAIGN PROMISES NOW: " A CHICKEN IN EVERY POT AND A CHICKEN BRIDE FOR EVERY OCTAGENARIAN"

Another good use for a spiritual mentor is if you're horny and the wife isn't around, you won't have to cruise the public bathrooms for a little fun.

Oh for the day when a candidate prattling about his spirituality would be heckled out of the room!
Religion is a fraud and we deserve officials who have evolved from childish belief.

YA YA Khefera!

how about we please take the witch doctors out of politics. it's bad enough as it is.

The Voice & breath of All ancient Pre-Apocalyptic Man Made religion's Stink!

VOTE: ((( Peace-Love-Rock-n-Roll-n-Rap, Mitt-ROMNEY, For Prez, 2008 YA! )))

Vote: Secular Government, Vote: Seperation of Church & State! Vote: Mitt Romney!

Such is the American surplus of mentors that you have exported at least one to us, in that Jim Wallace is regarded as a significant influence on Gordon Brown. Everyone has to be open to influences and I'm sure that there are many worse ones than Jim Wallace, who, if I understand him, seems to have the idea that every human being is a potential vehicle of God's grace, so would not seek to be a mentor in any exclusive sense. This idea might be the way to bridge the gap between the universal and the particular mentioned by LT. On the other hand if a politician consciously used Mr.Mentor to overcome suspicions of his own hypocrisy I would feel those suspicions increase, not diminish. I rather think that Obama (and indeed Brown) will not produce a Mr.Mentor for this disturbing purpose, and that is rather to his credit.

As a Mormon, I can offer that Romney doesn't need to have a mentor. We are a lay church, where we actively support each other, are expected to know our doctrine, and worthy fathers can perform life-cycle ceremonies for their family members. Also, as a lay church, we each take turns holding different positions (from organist to Sunday School teacher to ecclesiastical leader). Romney was a missionary and served in various church positions, including Stake President (similar to a Catholic Bishop in that he would be responsible for a number of congregations in a geographic area). Really, no mentor is required.

As a Mormon, I can offer that Romney doesn't need to have a mentor. We are a lay church, where we actively support each other, are expected to know our doctrine, and worthy fathers can perform life-cycle ceremonies for their family members. Also, as a lay church, we each take turns holding different postions (from organist to Sunday School teacher to ecclesiastical leader). Romney was a missionary and served in various church positions, including Stake President (similar to a Catholic Bishop in that he would be responsible for a number of congregations in a geographic area). Really, no mentor is required.

So now one needs to be "truly religious", and have credentialed spirit-types to attest.

Great.

I have inside information that Fred Thompson worships Ba'al. We will reveal his spiritual adviser later.

MULOPWEPAUL: Dude, we need a benevolent dictator. Do you know any? Me neither.

I do agree with you on this, and I am not suggesting I want people of no faith in public office. I am simply suggesting that, generally, I find politicians professing their faith in God as both self-serving and insincere. I am sure there are some decent* people in the political game, but I am not convinced they are in the majority.

(*That might be a poor choice of words, I am not trying to equate decency with religious belief.)

My dilemma is that I also believe that the continuation of our experiment in self-governance requires at minimum a widespread acceptance of what we might call Biblical morality. But when I hear politicians talking about how religious they are, well, it just does not seem to move me.

"The problem, however, is there are precious few politicians who trust citizens with all of the freedoms the Constitution protects."

But who interprets the Constitution? On what basis will these hypothetical Solons determine whether the alleged privacy right imputed by politically appointed justices and extended by the incorporation doctrine (again, not in the text) to all the states trumps the right of the states to legislate family law--reserved to them under article 10?

There's no such thing as value-free law or ethics, and those values always, upon examination, prove to be prerational. So pleading for a "rational" basis for politics is pleading for something that never was and can never be.

Oh. My. ****ing God.

Faith is such an interior thing, sequestered under the carapace of a politician’s guile. Who knows if a candidate’s external professions of faith are genuine? That’s where spiritual mentors come in. They are witnesses to the authenticity of their charge’s beliefs. They vouch for the sincerity of a politician’s stated religious convictions. And best of all, they are willing to do so in the presence of journalists.

What this clown is really doing is creating a market for consultants -- presumbly like him -- to testify to the sincerity of a politician's convictions, because the politician can't be trusted to do so.

So, instead of chanting "Holier than thou" personally, the consultant can do it for me.

Just unbelievable. Or, given Conservative movement's faith-based [cough] agenda, all too believable.

[Reach me that bucket, wouldja hon? Thanks... There. That's better.]

I believe in God, according to the Christian faith. And I am also politically conservative. But there is something I find, well, icky about politicians trumpeting their faith in God. I guess part of that is that, un-American as it may sound, I find all (well, most) politicians guilty until proven innocent.

Kudos on the idea of a Constitutional mentor. The problem, however, is there are precious few politicians who trust citizens with all of the freedoms the Constitution protects. Think about it, the Constitution limits government's power. Therefore, it limits the politician's power. No wonder so few of them *really* believe in defending and upholding it.

God spare us from all "spiritual" mentors and advisers to political candidates and officeholders.

Remember the antisemitic Billy Graham egging on Richard Nixon?

Or Jerry Bow-Wow (sorry, Falwell} encouraging all the right-wing crazies.

Any candidate worth his salt should be able to be his/her own spiritual mentor and adviser. S/He has to decide whether to push the button, not some Bible-thumping creep with bad values.

Good Grief! Having a Christian value system almost guarantees one is a hypocrite, an "evil" person, and utterly disqualified to hold a public office where the welfare of a nation and its peoples are at stake! Having a religious minder to ensure dogmatic adherence to the twisted non-logic of the Biblical Christians is an abomination! Combining Christianity with Political greed gives us the man more identified as the Anti-Christ, not the humble techer know as Jesus!

This is a brilliantly ironic piece of political sarcasm. Thanks much Jacques-- you have made my day.

Spiritual mentors? What an absolute waste of time. The country is 90% Xian, and all of these candidates fall into that category. If they need a spiritual mentor at their age they shouldn't be running.

I agree with Athena - how about a Constitutional Mentor instead? You could add a couple of education, science and health mentors as well, perhaps rounding out the team with a few mentors of foreign extraction who know something about the world outside of our borders.

In the company of such needed mentors, a spiritual mentor seems like the poor cousin...and that's on a good day. On most days they'd qualify as the village idiot.

How about a "Constitutional Mentor" instead? Someone who will advise candidates to remember the First Amendment - especially that "no establishment of state religion" bit! I have said this many times already - we are electing a President, not a Pope! I don't want a candidate to have a "spiritual mentor" of any faith whispering in their ears. Because that will only lead to discrimination against people of other faiths.

We're already heading towards a Fundamentalist Christian theocracy in this country. We don't need our next President to continue down this path.

"Spiritual Mentors a Must for 2008"

Excellent advice. One planning to get the Devil vote needs Devil's representatives help. The power, the kingdom and the glory is the greatest reward that goes to those leading the multitudes to hell.

Kinda like Moses did, http://www.hoax-buster.org/sellyoursoul for it is necessary to sell one's soul to gain the power, the kingdom and the glory offered by Lucifer to those willing to lead the multitudes to Him. That would be hell you know.

Recently, Devil got loose on Wall Street. He broke out during the night and is headed for Main Street while staying on Wall Street. Is that a miracle or what? Turns out there are many Devils while there is but one God. We can only wonder who's side God is really on.

Not many leaders in America have good spiritual leaders. I hope that the next President will have several.

Mr. Berlinbrau, I am enclosing a comment sent to Mr. Stanley Fish who credited you in his recent column "Liberalism and Secularism: One and the Same"
September 3rd,
2007
9:30 pm
It is difficult to dispute any premise a person musters in defense of his or her personal belief. I do not protest personal belief as having individual value, rather my argument is against a purported social value. Clearly belief deals first and foremost, if not exclusively, with individuality. Not respecting the clear distinction between individual belief and collective pursuit is the major contrbutor to social discord. Not one of us asked to be born. How one goes about dealing with his or her physical life and subsequent physical mortality, must be respected, so long as it does not interfere with another human’s pursuit of the same. This is a most basic thought and the premise of any reasonable society. Understanding this clear fact imbues each of us with not only personal freedom but also personal responsibility. Freedom is our right to choose within the social context while responsibility is acceptance of the individual permutations within that context. Death is individual, no matter how else it may be viewed. So too is the approach each individual takes in dealing with this fact. Whatever balm we as individuals administer to ease the discomfort caused by the contemplation of this fact is and should always remain personal. Unless the basic premise for society is twisted away from physical survival, any argument brought about defending religious belief or for that matter any unprovable system, including the apparent antithesis atheism, has no honest place in the public forum.
— Posted by Ian MacFarlane

One would think that after the phoniness of Bush's 'conversion' and his insistence that he was doing "God's Work" by invading Iraq, the public would have had their fill of politician's religious pronouncements and claims of divine anointing!!!

Yep.

That didn't take long, did it, JJ?

:)

Gotta love that moneotheism.. starts out all Universal Light And Happy Photons and, inside a few months, it's shrieking intolerance, homophobia, voting Republican and the end of the world.

Tsk.

It'll be OK, dude. :)

Is there a Samuel out there who will anoint the next President of this nation, is there a prophet who will say, this year in 2008 you will know the Lord's anointed and the Spirit of God is with this person.

For God will union with the anointed and the Spirit will be upon this leader until the Presidency is completed. He will have a spiritual father and they will be in one accord.

Sure--a mentor for faith--wink--could people whore out more religion? We have the christian embassy in the pentagon, regent university in the white house, and 501-4 plastered all over the presidential race inside washington. You know that quota of regent univerity (and all the other pals of the current executive) has done some remarkable work.

Many evangelical questions about Obama's faith testimony will spring from the fact that it seems more that Obama's embrace of the UCC sprang more from its political and professional utility to him, rather than from any real conversion experience on his part.

If in fact Obama moves to make his UCC pastor his "faith mentor"--to date Obama's campaign has gone out of its way to downplay him--it is not clear that the minister will do much to allay this concern.

I wonder whether you are confusing cause and effect with your recommendation. People with genuine testimonites of faith will naturally have good spiritual mentors. Since most presidential candidates have written autobiographies, their self-narratives should be sufficient in indicating what, if anything, their faith means to them. The public presence of a mentor, then, is at best a short-cut for people who haven't read the books or a substitute for candidates haven't shared personally from their lives.

Barack Obama is a good example of one whose testimony is sufficient. In his "Audacity of Hope," he states, "This is not to say that I'm unanchored in my faith. There are some things that I'm absolutely sure about--the Golden Rule, the need to battle cruelty in all its forms, the value of love and charity, humility and grace." An evangelical Christian in Kansas might wonder why hope in the resurrection of Christ is not explicitly listed (although it could be subsumed under "grace"). If I recall correctly, Obama speaks elsewhere in the same chapter of people who consider the "divinity of Christ" extremely important, almost as though it were one of the less important aspects of Christianity.

I hasten to add that (1) I am not claiming that Obama is not a good Christian, and that (2) I am not claiming that evangelicals should only vote for him if they decide he is a good Christian. I am suggesting, though, that, contrary to your praises last week, Obama has not come anywhere close to mastering the use of faith-infused language in politics.

Stating that what our deliberative, pluralistic democracy demands is that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values" doesn't work for evangelicals who believe that true values are not universal but unique to their faith. For many, this statement contradicts with his call not "to discount the role that values and culture play in addressing some of our most urgent social problems." There's a clear tension evident in his personal writing that I'm not convinced he has resolved. While not a "glaring negative," this is a significant challenge Obama will have to overcome and the one I was expecting you to mention today.

Obama may have a better chance of gaining evangelical votes than any other Democratic candidate, but I'm not sure it's that high. To reconnect to today's passage, I contend that conclusions like these can be offered on the basis of life testimonies alone, without the endorsement of spiritual mentors.