I get mail often from a few right-wing friends and family members. This morning while waiting for confirmation that Biden was Obama's VP choice, I received another. This one exhorts Christians to watch a short video of Barack Obama "mocking the Bible." The email breathlessly exclaims that Christians need to "stand up," and suggests that the video must be watched soon and the email forwarded quickly in expectation that the video will be taken down. So I watched the video and found it to be pretty much what I'd expected. I did not expect to be as outraged and offended by the video as I was, however. More than outrage, I have to say I am ashamed that anyone would let themselves and their religion be used so blatantly as a tool to advance a political smear campaign against against a fellow believer, against his faith. I would have a difficult time accepting that people really find hooey like this convincing, were it not for the evidence to the contrary piling up in my inbox in the form of many other emails containing similar warnings to Americans about Obama, and which are also based on easily-debunked lies and mischaracterizations about Obama.
The short video clip contains a few excerpts from a speech Obama made at the Call to Renewal Conference in 2006. A voiceover suggests that Obama's speech was about the difficulties of using the Bible to influence public policy. The scene shifts to Obama asking which passages of the Bible we should use for our policies, suggesting a passage from Leviticus that suggests slavery is OK and another from Deuteronomy regarding stoning one's children should they stray from the faith. After a poorly edited splice, Obama suggests Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, which contains "a message so radical our Defense Department probably wouldn't survive it's application." Another poor splice and Obama says, "Folks haven't been reading their Bible." From here the narrator takes over for the rest of the video, castigating Obama for "arrogantly" and "painfully" out of context.
As disgusting as this smear is, there is a wonderful bit of irony here, which may well be far beyond the grasp of those spreading these emails, as pearls are before swine. The mechanics of the smear is this: it attacks Obama for taking passages of the Bible out of context and insinuates his faith is insincere, by taking Obama's words out of context, as I discovered, when, after a quick search I turned up the original speech. The theme of Obama's speech was that religion does have a legitimate role in the public sphere, and he highlights religious language in Lincoln's speeches among others. He discusses how Democrats and progressives have long avoided discussing their faith out of a sense that it wasn't appropriate to mix their religion and their politics, and he encourages progressives to be willing to discuss their faith in the public sphere. Then he offers advice to conservatives, which provides the context for his excerpted words:
While I've already laid out some of the work that progressive leaders need to do, I want to talk a little bit about what conservative leaders need to do -- some truths they need to acknowledge.
For one, they need to understand the critical role that the separation of church and state has played in preserving not only our democracy, but the robustness of our religious practice. Folks tend to forget that during our founding, it wasn't the atheists or the civil libertarians who were the most effective champions of the First Amendment. It was the persecuted minorities, it was Baptists like John Leland who didn't want the established churches to impose their views on folks who were getting happy out in the fields and teaching the scripture to slaves. It was the forbearers of the evangelicals who were the most adamant about not mingling government with religious, because they did not want state-sponsored religion hindering their ability to practice their faith as they understood it.
Moreover, given the increasing diversity of America's population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.
And even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson's, or Al Sharpton's? Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount - a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let's read our bibles. Folks haven't been reading their bibles.
This brings me to my second point. Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.
Now this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do. But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality. It involves the compromise, the art of what's possible. At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It's the art of the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God's edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one's life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing.
Even a small bit of context and it's abundantly clear Obama isn't mocking anyone or anything here, let alone the Bible. Obama is simply demonstrating why in a democracy it is illegitimate to base public policies on a literalist interpretation of the Bible or any other sacred book, for that matter. This is not a controversial idea. Never in our history have our laws and policies been based on a literal reading of the Bible. And It is the very antithesis of Christian charity and goodwill to twist Obama's words out of their context, and doing so does violence to Christianity itself.
But then the people who put this video together expose themselves as being something other than Christians themselves. The narrator responds to Obama's suggestion that the Department of Defense would likely not survive the application of the Sermon on the Mount were we to base our public policy on it, by saying, "I can assure you Senator, Christ would never advocate turning his cheek to terrorists and America's enemies." What an asinine thing to say on so many levels. Terror was part and parcel of conflict in the ancient world, where defeated cities were razed, the earth salted, men slaughtered, the women, children, and livestock taken as chattel. Crucifixion was an instrument of torture and terror. Yet Jesus DID advocate turning the other cheek. What are we to make of the assertion that he wouldn't advocate the same attitude toward our own enemies? Are we to understand that the Bible espouses situational ethics, is Jesus a moral relativist?
What I make of this is that the religious views of the people putting this video together represent a fusing of Christian and nationalist identities. I believe in some circles this belief-system is referred to as dominionism. Dominionists advocate remaking the US as a Christian nation, seizing the levers of government and basing policy on a literal interpretation of the Bible. So I guess it does make some sense that they feel threatened by Obama's assertion that this is illegitimate and pointing out that it is contrary to our nation's history. And it makes sense that they would view Obama's religious views, therefore, as heretical. But they are Dominionists. Their Jesus only expects us to turn our cheeks to the enemies of other people in other times, not our own enemies. Their version of religious freedom only applies to followers of their brand of religion. Their views are a perversion of Christianity; their agenda a danger to our freedoms.
The people who made this video know that most Christians don't accept their own twisted dogma. They know a majority of Americans are disgusted with the failures of the past 8 years. But if they're going to salvage their agenda, they have no choice but to resort to lies and sleazy attacks, to play off the fears that so many have in these uncertain times. They are counting on people to be afraid enough, incurious enough, lazy enough or just plain too stupid to see that it is the Dominionist's belief system rather than Barack Obama's that threaten their own.
For all of our sakes, I hope they're not right. This diary will also serve as my response to the email.
Below are the links to the video (which has been up for nearly two months, so no hurry!) and to Obama's entire keynote address at the Call to Renewal conference:
http://www.youtube.com/...
Text: http://obama.senate.gov/...
As requested, here are links to video of Obama's complete keynote address: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.
