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Patriarchy has been a fact in the religious life of the world for at least 10,000 years. If God is conceptualized, as God has been, after the analogy of a male king or tribal leader, then only males are thought of as being in the image of God. Women are thus consciously and unconsciously defined as sub-human.
It is inevitable that if politicians think it will win votes, they will talk about their religious views. It is certainly now in vogue to do so.
If we believe that God is the source of all that is, then we must honor the entirety of God’s creation. To foul our nest with pollutants that destroy the various forms of life cannot be a faithful response to the wonder of creation.
Fair is not the right word. The reputable media struggles to be fair. Generally, however, the media distortion comes from the fact that media people are not scholars in the field and consciously and unconsciously make assumptions that are quite obviously uninformed.
America has not yet escaped all of its prejudices against Mormonism expressed so openly in the 19th century. Most of that prejudice grew out of the controversy over polygamy.
When George Romney, the three times Republican Governor of Michigan, ran for the Republican nomination for President in 1968, he had to seek to blunt prejudice about his religion. It came primarily in the form of questions about the official Mormon policy about black people. He distanced himself from the offending words in the Book of Mormon, but he ultimately lost the nomination to Richard Nixon. His Mormon religion seemed to play little role in that defeat. His comment about having been “brainwashed” over the issue of Viet Nam was thought to be far more the issue than his religion. Perhaps the money and organization possessed by Richard Nixon was the real reason for his defeat.
It is difficult for anyone to say with certainty what Jesus was. The portrait painted of him in the gospels was written forty to seventy years after his earthly life had come to an end. By that time Jesus had been wrapped inside both the Jewish Scriptures and the liturgy of the synagogue which meant they interpreted him in terms of Jewish images and Jewish expectations.
The clear impression conveyed by the gospel writers, however, is that Jesus, following in the prophetic tradition in which his life was rooted, took his stand alongside the poor, the marginalized and the dispossessed. He is portrayed as touching the leper, protecting the woman taken in adultery, talking to a woman by the well publicly, welcoming children, extolling the virtues of the Samaritans and as saying “Go into all the world,” thus sending his disciples beyond their tribal limits into a place inhabited by those who spoke differently, worshipped differently and were defined as unclean Gentiles. Jesus was remembered by the gospel writers as a barrier breaker.
I doubt if it will change it much. All it demonstrates is that religion is important to a significant part of the American population and no serious candidate for the presidency will ignore that block of voters. Hot button issues like abortion and homosexuality have been used primarily by the Republicans to bind working class Roman Catholics and Evangelical Protestants to their banner.
God, however, is not in the service of any party and the excessive religious claims of Republicans, particularly on such issues as Terri Schiavo, the war, and limiting the availability of approved birth control medications and attempts to amend the Constitution to discriminate against homosexual people has already convinced most Americans that they do not want either party pretending that their policies and God’s policies are identical.
What Islam Really Says About Violence, Rights and Other Religions
Gomaa, Fadlallah, Mubarak, Khan, Siddiqi, Ellison, others | On Faith
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