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No Jargon or Posturing, Please
Funnily enough, I want from Biden and Palin what people say they want from me. I want to know what they really believe about the meaning of life.
When I stand in the pulpit to preach a sermon, I try to stay conscious of the difference between opening the scriptures, stories and traditions of my faith to the listeners and opening myself, and my own personal faith.
Candidates for public office shouldn't be preachers in the sense of defining a theology. That's just inappropriate for a country that makes a constitutional separation of church and state.
I know I have an official role in the pulpit. But more is expected. I've had to work hard to learn how to speak of my personal faith simply, without religious jargon, and--as far as this is possible in my position--separate from that official role.
Personal faith, whatever its formal or doctrinal roots, is the faith that speaks of how you struggle with the gift and pain of being human, how you stay in the game even when betrayed, how you hope in the face of loss, how you love even when hurt. Then and only then can I speak, for myself and not my church, what my vision is for my work and for my community and beyond.
That--and not moralizing, or exclusive doctrine, or sectarian jargon, or posturing--is what I'd like to hear from the candidates.
By
William Tully
|
October 6, 2008; 12:51 PM ET
| Category:
Religion & Politics
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Posted by: Paganplace | October 7, 2008 2:04 PM
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I'd be less worried about 'casting doubts' about what someone's faith is, so much as what their agenda is. People who wanted to say Obama hasn't said and done what he's said and done are all of a sudden saying hands-off when you have a Palin with a record as a Christianist extremist, and in fact, shown a willingness to embrace corruption and lie about it... possibly feeling she didn't actually do anything wrong, cause she believes it's all part of 'God's plan' for pipelines, hockey stadiums, and witch-hunter endorsements.
Meanwhile, does she know a fact? Whichever 'side' of an issue you may be on, how can she have an informed policy on Roe v Wade, even, if she can't name, never mind understand, a *single other Supreme Court ruling ever?*
Even if you want the ruling overturned, what *use* would she be at it?
Never mind the rest.