Hillary's Prayer: Hillary Clinton's Religion and Politics
For 15 years, Hillary Clinton has been part of a secretive religious group that seeks to bring Jesus back to Capitol Hill. Is she triangulating—or living her faith?
It was an elegant example of the Clinton style, a rhetorical maneuver subtle, bold, and banal all at once. During a Democratic candidate forum in June, hosted by the liberal evangelical group Sojourners, Hillary Clinton fielded a softball query about Bill's infidelity: How had her faith gotten her through the Lewinsky scandal?
After a glancing shot at Republican "pharisees," Clinton explained that, of course, her "very serious" grounding in faith had helped her weather the affair. But she had also relied on the "extended faith family" that came to her aid, "people whom I knew who were literally praying for me in prayer chains, who were prayer warriors for me."
Such references to spiritual warfare—prayer as battle against Satan, evil, and sin—might seem like heavy evangelical rhetoric for the senator from New York, but they went over well with the Sojourners audience, as did her call to "inject faith into policy." It was language that recalled Clinton's Jesus moment a year earlier, when she'd summoned the Bible to decry a Republican anti-immigrant initiative that she said would "criminalize the good Samaritan...and even Jesus himself." Liberal Christians crowed ("Hillary Clinton Shows the Way Democrats Can Use the Bible," declared a blogger at TPMCafe) while conservative pundits cried foul, accusing Clinton of scoring points with a faith not really her own.
In fact, Clinton's God talk is more complicated—and more deeply rooted—than either fans or foes would have it, a revelation not just of her determination to out-Jesus the gop, but of the powerful religious strand in her own politics. Over the past year, we've interviewed dozens of Clinton's friends, mentors, and pastors about her faith, her politics, and how each shapes the other. And while media reports tend to characterize Clinton's subtle recalibration of tone and style as part of the Democrats' broader move to recapture the terrain of "moral values," those who know her say there's far more to it than that.
Through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the Fellowship. Her collaborations with right-wingers such as Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) grow in part from that connection. "A lot of evangelicals would see that as just cynical exploitation," says the Reverend Rob Schenck, a former leader of the militant anti-abortion group Operation Rescue who now ministers to decision makers in Washington. "I don't....there is a real good that is infected in people when they are around Jesus talk, and open Bibles, and prayer."
Clinton's faith is grounded in the Methodist beliefs she grew up with in Park Ridge, Illinois, a conservative Chicago suburb where she was active in her church's altar guild, Sunday school, and youth group. It was there, in 1961, that she met the Reverend Don Jones, a 30-year-old youth pastor; Jones, a friend of Clinton's to this day, told us he knows "more about Hillary Clinton's faith than anybody outside her family."
Because Jones introduced Clinton and her teenage peers to the civil rights movement and modern poetry and art, Clinton biographers often cast him as a proto-'60s liberal who sowed seeds of radicalism throughout Park Ridge. Jones, though, describes his theology as neoorthodox, guided by the belief that social change should come about slowly and without radical action. It emerged, he says, as a third way, a reaction against both separatist fundamentalism and the New Deal's labor-based liberalism.
Under Jones' mentorship, Clinton learned about Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich—thinkers whom liberals consider their own, but whom young Hillary Rodham encountered as theological conservatives. The Niebuhr she studied was a cold warrior, dismissive of the progressive politics of his earlier writing. "He'd thought that once we were unionized, the kingdom of God would be ushered in," Jones explains. "But the effect of those two world wars and the violence that they produced shook his faith in liberal theology. He came to believe that the achievement of justice meant a clear understanding of the limitations of the human condition." Tillich, whose sermon on grace Clinton turned to during the Lewinsky scandal, today enjoys a following among conservatives for revising the social gospel—the notion that Christians are to improve humanity's lot here on earth by fighting poverty, inequality, and exploitation—to emphasize individual redemption instead of activism.
Niebuhr and Tillich's combination of aggressiveness in foreign affairs and limited domestic ambition naturally led Clinton toward the gop. She was a Goldwater Girl who, under the tutelage of her high school history teacher Paul Carlson (whom Jones describes as "to the right of the John Birchers"), attended biweekly anticommunist meetings and later served as president of Wellesley's Young Republicans chapter. Out of step with the era's radicalism, Clinton wrote Jones from college, lamenting that her fellow students didn't believe that one could be "a mind conservative and a heart liberal." To Jones, this question indicated that Clinton shared Niebuhr's notion of Christians needing to have "a dark enough view of life that they can be realistic about what's possible."
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This article has shead some new light on who to seriously consider in 11/08 for this Pentecostal-Evangelical. It affirms what a Hillary Clinton appointee shared with me about her faith in Christ and Scripture this summer.
15 years is nothing if your goal is to be president. Hillary Clinton has always been aware that a small margin of swing voters can make all the difference come election time. I'm tired of people using religion as a political tool. If it were really about Hillary Clinton's PERSONAL faith there would be no need reference to religion in her speeches. As it is with her "veiled" references and "quiet" prayer Hillary Clinton is playing from the same handbook as DUBYA. Autocratic Theocracy? Maybe it is more a matter of of a person who has learned that faith in man is often ill placed, and demonstration of faith in a higher power plays well with the voters.
As far as I'm concerned the Clinton's, Bush's, and the other politicians in Washington are all part of the same ruling class and deep religious convictions/values/or whatever are all part of their program to get elected and hang on to their office after election. Anyone ever known an agnostic, atheist or any religion besides a Judeo-Christian hybrid of sorts to win a prominent political office?
If it's true that "a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit," given what's happened in the last few years in this country I think we've given the religious panderers enough time in charge.
Oh my god --- pardon the pun --- this article makes me wonder if Hillary is just W with her own brain.
She's part of The Fellowship?! That's a Dominionist group, people. As in racist, sexist, anti-gay, anti-pretty-much-everything we value. Go Google the term "Dominionism" -- or just click here: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Dominionism
Haven't the past six and half years provided enough of an object lesson in the perils of faith-based governance?
well.
that's just depressing.
worse yet, this KausticKhristianity has been crrreeeeeping into Canada for some time now...
& Harper seems to encourage it...
Spread Love...
... but wear the Glove!
BlueBerry Pick'n
can be found @
ThisCanadian
~~~
We, two, form a Multitude ~ Ovid.
~~~
"Silent Freedom is Freedom Silenced"
It is often asked, How did Buddy Hinton of Sturmgewehr.com become the New Left's foremost political guru? How did this immigrant cobbler's son become the hottest consultant/shaman/whipcrack to top world leaders and the haute art/fashion crowd on this or any planet?
Why do the famous and not so famous movers and shakers, world leaders, trend-setters, dictators and democrats, Hollywood glamourites and hep young Xgen streetpeople beat a path to his ornate carved mahogany doors? Why are these A-list celebs and notorious oppressors and everyone else from J!mmie Carter to Papa Soros to Vlad Putin to Bobby Trendy to Hillary and the Pope lined up to get into Buddy Hinton's Euro-fab digs in the incredible old Sutro mansion outside of Frisco?
It could be the incredible fried pies and the world class wine cellar, but it's not. It could be the treasures of sculpture and avante-gard furnishings, but it's really not that, either. The whole-house Bose system? No, not even that. So... what is it about this itinerate cobbler's son become raconteur and fashion policeman to the world's glitterati that makes him the center of today's Powerpeoples' world?
It never ceases to amaze that the "girliest" of men among us, those who send others to fight illegal wars but who did everything in their rich daddy's power to avoid fighting in one themselves and, those who make their living sitting on their fat asses endorsing the former chicken-[deleted]s and otherwise mouthing off, are the first ones to point a finger at someone else for not being as "manly" as they imagine themselves to be. If these idiots are so manly, why aren't they out loading trucks, raking concrete and installing iron on high-rises?
Sexual ignorance and repression has, over millenia created mindsets and monsters that tend towards various perverse expressions.Take the Catholic church and it's penchant for pedophilic priests.The exterminition of females primarily, as "witches" during the Middle Ages? Recently, Amish girls were murdered, the little boys spared. The Christian community lauded the Amish for showing the world, "dignity", by "forgiving" the murderer for killing little girls. Little was said about the gender-defined targets, or why he targeted them. What about Hitler, our favorite Christian? One shining example of "righteousness", and "manliness", and "power". One of most reliable monster- mindsets is the American-style, bland accessment of females as (secondary), sex-objectified, or politically or financially "profitable" to males, and thus also expendable, entities. We are told, that it is the "proper role" of females to support males. For carrying on the "bloodline" for "breeding". Males over the world are considered more "valuable", and, this is the sad lie. The "provocative, deceitful female " has been identified as causal; origin of everything that can be victimized without consequence. Bought and sold. Enslaved. Chattle. But mostly brainwashed. Pity that. Maybe Emily jilted or ignored Cho Seung-Ho? He wasn"t getting any, no doubt. Neither was Hitler. The language of beauty; of peace; of equality as "persons"and the culture that supports these concepts...will perhaps flourish again. We do not yet know when or where.
All Hillary or any other Democrat would have to do to neutralize the Religious Right would be to thoroughly exposure the wacko 177-year-old history of the RR's favorite and greatest money-making belief: the "any-moment, pre-tribulation rapture." In 1980 religion expert Dr. Martin Marty wrote in Christian Century that Time or Newsweek should expose the same history, but nobody listened. Then not long ago Bill Moyers, in a speech at Harvard, referred briefly to two "itinerant preachers" of the 19th century who promoted it but said nothing more about the same fantasy's history. But the complete facts are now on the web, and historian Dave MacPherson is the only one who has spent 30 plus years focusing on them and the only one who has found more long forgotten and covered up 19th century "rapture" documents while researching in British libraries than anyone else. Needless to say, Falwell, LaHaye etc. have tried to suppress his findings. His Google piece "Pretrib Rapture Diehards" is a sample of his work, and his bestselling 300-page book "The Rapture Plot," which drowns us with rapture history facts, is carried online by bookstores such as Amazon and Armageddon Books. MacPherson has stated that the same rapture dogma is the RR's most cherished belief, and that if some national political leader would expose it as the Johnny-come-lately scam that it really is, the RR would fragment and become totally ineffective, politically speaking.
John
Separation of church and state is already dead what with Secular Humanism being the state religion. There is a move afoot to create a Humanist "Christian" organization. Why would they do this?
If Hillary gets in power, it will be for despotism. She was a Maoist in college. She will declare that all Christians must join the official organization -- the Humanist "Christian" organization. Unofficial or unorthodox organizations can then be persecuted into submission.
This was done by Emperor Constantine in 326 A.D., by the Third Reich, by the Stalinists and by the Maoists. George Barna, a pollster, has noticed there is movement among Christians to form small groups not associated with larger, more vulnerable churches....
Someone who is living for Christ and is intent on ushering in the Kingdom does not secretly worship. The bible teaches that we are not to be ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We aren't supposed to be Christian when it suits our political or personal gain, and deny Christ when that would be the popular stance. God despises this type of behavior. So perhaps this devoutly Christian woman, so concerned about her spirit and soul, should think about how God feels about her pandering to homosexuals and selling her deep beliefs for votes.
A few things come to mind...
1.God life is an open book.
2.God teaches us that secrets are lies, why would one fear discussing the bible or church activities?
3.First (1) Commandment, we are not to put other Gods before him. By not discussing Bible Study who are they idolizing?
4.God truly intends for all of his children to embrace with others his way of teaching, Peace, Love and Joy; not to embrace the teaching of the world.
5.We are to openly discuss the scriptures so we can learn from one another and have a greater understanding on a multitude of levels. To understand why Jesus died on the cross, the 2nd coming, and why it’s important for each of us to live and follow the 10 Commandments?
In closing, my Bible Study group last studied Daniel 8.
God Bless You.
Left & Right mean nothing ... in regard to religion & faith ... however politics
is extremely real ... on this side of DEATH. Questions/hopes/intuitions/dreams
are purely private matters ... celebrated amoung close friends ...protected constitutionally ...about LIFE After Death. Little doubt they inflence ... my alarn clock's wakening to find myself... still this side of DEATH. Armaggedon still wakens me less ... than a good cup of coffee ... a simple ciggarette!
There is nothing wrong with one identifying with their inner belief system - my only problem is the religious Right in America explains the current state of the nation where compassion is preached for as long as possible - as long as it is translated into actionable policy that influences the lives of the struggling majority of people in this world. It is the same religious Right that has condemned the world to poverty through a uni-centric view of what constitutes good governance. In the process it has dominated all levers of power to influence even the amount of money that can go towards fighting child poverty in Africa. How can these people claim to stand for common good when what they do is force people to see life through their lenses or risk not receiving aid or even having existing financial support withdrawn. The current crisis in Zimbabwe has been largely fuelled by the belief on the part of the religious Right that conformance to their 'own ways' is the sine qua non for human development. They even fund strife all over the world with a view to creating conditions that are favourable to their view of mankind. Unless the dynastic tendency of American policy is stopped in its track this world can be assured of a serious confrontation.
Hillary, by her own admition, is whatever she needs to be, to whomever she is speaking too!
Buddhamonkeydevil, the last one was probably Thomas Jefferson...
Today, thanks to the electoral debacle in Florida and why ever in the name of all that's biblical we're occupying the mid-east (in the wrong country), being a centrist means paying lipservice to religious interests. I'm sure the media will be telling us all about it, in full, in the future.
"why ever in the name of all that's biblical we're occupying the mid-east (in the wrong country), being a centrist means paying lipservice to religious interests"
Clinton has indicated that she's felt the presence of the the Holy Spirit. For sure, after a thing like that, I don't want her or any other American President claiming the presence of the Holy Spirit in American government.
No way, no how. And, I really don't see that. That's not what I see at all.
Why do liberals present ANY religious conviction as somehow suspect? "SECRETIVE"? If you and I know about it, it ain't a secret.
And I'm no liberal, I'm a radical, and a Christian. Democrats and liberals are too WEAK for my liking, defending the exploitive rich and persecuting the poor. I'm glad to hear that they are studying the Bible, which tells us about rich men and a camel going through the eye of a needle. Now, if they would just ACT on it.
When the Dems get back to their roots, I'll be back.
those in the US would do well to study the development of liberation theology which has even longer and deeper roots in Latin America in practice not to mention some interesting gramscian notions for an academic point of view(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_theology) in either case, I'm not going to vote for her :)
Just what we need! If she picks Obama as running mate then 1st and 14th amendments are in even more trouble. Unlike Edwards who finally came out and said (to Obama's humiliation -- has anyone even noticed?!) that he promised he would never deny civil rights for reasons of religion, Obama has always promised he would do so. Hey folks! Wake Up! This is nothing more than a promise to violate his oath of office by violating the 1st amendment for the purpose of denying 'fundamental' rights protected under the 14th amendment. See "Untangling Barack Obama's audacious mumbo jumbo," by John P. Mortimer, at http://ebar.com/common/inc/article_print.php?sec=guest_op&article=73 .
Go do some homework folks for you can't rely on even publications like Mother Jones to tell the truth about this one. Like all the press they are partisan lap dogs for the public relations firms that tell Americans what to think. No mater what the Constitution says it is quite clear that there is a "religions test" for holding high office in America.
Is this surprising? An agnostic or atheist cannot get elected president in the U.S.
This is politics, pure and simple. Hilary's private faith is quite likely different from her public faith. That's what wins elections in the U.S. Until that changes, let's debate the issues that matter, not who has prayer and pancakes with Hilary.
Bubba
I generally do not question the veracity of MJ's articles but this is a bit difficult to buy. It is hard to believe that she wouldn't have been "outed" years ago.
Honestly, why is this a big deal? There are plenty of reasons to criticize Hillary, but this kind of article seems really pointless... like picking a fight over nothing. It may be articulated well but all this accomplishes is that it upsets religious people - further alienating them from the sort of causes MoJo should be promoting, and it makes angry liberals nod their heads as if to say "grrr religion bad! bad!" which is completely silly. Bah.
It is difficult to express how much this article depresses me about the upcoming election. Well, I guess whether she wins or loses, Hillary'll be happy, because it's just god's will. How nice for her. I hope before we go out and cast votes in the primary, she lets us in on what Jesus (and Coe, his back-room cigar guy)is telling her to do about Social Security, taxation of the poor, taxation of the wealthy, immigration, education, health care, the draft, privacy, our Constitutionally guaranteed rights and liberties, and oh yes, pre-emptive war... John Edwards is looking better and better...
Hillary's a cardboard cutout member of the non-thinking, deeply conservative ruling class and always will be. I don't doubt that she actually is religious... I think she's just that stupid and conventional. She's not alone though... all politicians talk relexively about "faith" this and "people of faith" that. If they were not robotic members of the dominant culture, it's unlikely we would ever hear about them. If a highly rational, intelligent, compassionate person with a deep understanding of science, history and a full understanding of homo sapiens' place in nature were to achieve any sort of public prominence, now that would be shocking.
Dennis Kuchnich (sp) looks better every day! This is downright scary. Is Hillary also going to find a special place for the Tooth Fairy in her policies if she is elected? Is it so hard to figure out that Jesus, revolutionary that he was would never had stood for any of this idiocy that is preached and practiced in his name?
Oh no! just what we need another bible thumper in the White House
Thanks for a great article that revealed many truths. 1)All these people are in bed together...Democrat and Republican. 2) They believe God has given the the Divine job of ruling you. 3) You don't have a lot to say about this situation since they make the laws and they have the power. Question. Didn't a lot of our ancestors leave Europe to escape this sort of thing?
This is but another HIT job on Hillary, and for MJ to publish such nonsense is quite below any standard I have seen over the years reading MJ. Anyone can do research on any subject and find differing opinions, but when religion/faith is involved, it is the one topic that gets the most wide rangeing opinions. Those of us that practice our faith in private, do not pay much attention to articles like this one, simply because they are based on opinion, not FACT.
The author needs a bit more theological perception. What is proposed as the ideal position of a candidate's disposition as far as religion is concerned? Ah yes, the religion of no religion. We've had enough of that in Communist Russia and China. What wonderful results occur when there is a religion of no religion.
As long as Hillary Clinton( in the event of election to the Presidency) recalls that she is meant to be America's "Commander In Chief" and not "Chaplain In Chief"(unlike Dubya), she'll do just fine! (Full Disclosure: my favourite film star Drew Barrymore has been quoted as saying( in Marie Claire, US edition, Nov 2000) that "I pray every night for a safe world"
U nutbar americans and your sky god bs has helped bring us to a dark and nasty place . The sky god is a tool of the elites to control and manipulate. Only simple minded americans and the 3rd world still buy the rhetoric.
I still hear her damning diatribes against the "evil right wing Christians." So this is just so much political B.S. (ie a political tool) to position her to pander/dupe conservatives with poor memories.
May all who do such burn in their own deception.
Look, Dominionism is NOT mere Christianity. Dominionism and other extremism makes the Christian faith LOOK BAD, like Islamic Extremism makes all Muslims look bad. And the reverse, when BOTH go on the defensive.
The whole point of the Enlightenment Age was to inject REASON and ETHICS into government and public philosophy. Religion -- ironically -- can justify sidelining reason, ethics, and even basic morality. And it can do this in the name of morality, narrow definitions, dishonest emphasis.
Google "Council for National Policy". Christians, Nazis, KKK, Reverend Moon, CIA, Ollie North, etc. And now it looks like Hillary too.
This is NOT FUNNY and NOT to be taken lightly. (also, the voting process is privately owned and SECRET, citizens are not allowed to inspect it, so ... duh!)
I don't know how anyone else feels about this, but it scares the crap out of me. I'm all for people being directed by a "higher power" call it what you will, but this country was NOT created a Christian country; it was created to be a safe haven for any religion or lack thereof.
The most disturbing thing about the "religious right," which is neither, like the bumper sticker says, is that they are all convinced that religiosity & faith means being evangelical Christian. They all believe that their beliefs are the only "true" ones. They aren't interested in allowing other religions to thrive. Their main purpose is to 'bring everybody to Jesus."
And they are willing to use whatever means necessary, including lying, political mainpulation, brainwashing children, supporting dictators (including GW Bush) who torture and murder. Their real God is POWER. And so is Hilary's; she has been addcited to it for many years.
Forget Jesus's teachings to love, forgive, take care of those who are needy or sick. Hilary & the rest of these people, who claim to be so pious and Christian are all just using him and his name.
Pay attention to what these people DO, not what they natter on about endlessly.
They're all basically hypocrites. Unfortunately, they have been in power for a long long time, and without an organized revolution, or horrific population destroying plague, they will continue to be in power.
And that's the scariest of all.
I'm not buying any of this religious conviction from Hillary or ANY of these scumbags, no more than I believe that pro-Nuke-Iran and should-have-been-convicted criminal Tom Delay is a follower of Jesus.
The point is that ANYTHING that can be used to ENHANCE the drift towards TOTALITARIANISM and public acceptance of that --- black and white thinking, terrorism vs. security, a religion which centerposes terror (Satan) vs. security (Heaven), economic fears, many other fear-based issues -- will be used. Religion -- hard line Calvinist extremism included -- can provide just one more working element in the formula. The formula is to REVERSE the ENLIGHTENMENT and destroy the work of Thomas Paine, Locke, and others who imagined a human race living in greater freedom.
Susan Baker was a co-founder (with Tipper Gore) of the PMRC, the Beltway outfit that promotes censorship of music. Mrs. Baker also was a director of Focus On The Family, the Christian fundamentalist political outfit founded and run by James Dobson.
Using those connections Hillary has built direct ties to the hard right and the Christian right. It helps explain why she supports the Bush Doctrine of war abroad and a police state at home.
I really believe that is article is a real stretch & totally misleading. I would like to know the author's own personal agenda.
Christianity has its roots in the tower of Babel,Mesopotamia,of the old testament, current day Iraq. Babylon means Gods Gate. And so God, as the story goes, destroyed the tower of Babel and confused mans language and strew him across the globe. From Babel comes the word confusion.
So why are the Christians aching for war in the land of their roots?
I dont think Hillary really believes all that much about faith. This is about power, political power.
Besides that God, apparently, does not want to be found.
We can speculate all day as to what kind of Christian Hillary is, but only God knows for sure. By the way, in the cartoon, Judas was the 3rd person to the right of Jesus.
Excuse me while I vomit! Anything the Clintons do is carefully crafted self-aggrandizement and politcal, power-hungry expediecy.
Religion and politics is like firearms and alcohol. Hillary who is not an honest person embraces religion for her purpose.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/hillarys-prayer.html
Hmmm...The Family...sounds too Mansonesque to me.
I find this article very depressing. At bottom, I have respected Hillary, and believed she might well make a good president. But, if even half of what is stated in this article is true, a President Hillary Clinton would be even more scary than Dbaya - a smart "called by God" in the White House. God, if you're really there, help us!
NMiller
Oh lord, please save us from all the people who envoke your name.
Personal faith should be held above the political fray, according to the Constitution. So i have no "problem" with hillary being what she is. But we have seen this before, and we will see it again. Those of personal faith with power tend to apply their faith publicly; furthermore, nothing good comes from it.
By definition, religion is a system of beliefs that informs behavior in this world. It also, and often, becomes an unassailable reasoning for action. When the President believes that God wants him/her to act in a certain way, there is no logic left. W. cannot be convinced that invading Iraq was wrong because he already convinced himself that God wanted him to do it. It appears that Hillary will be no better in this regard.
Our HS history books taught us that the Pilgrims came for religious freedom, and that the founding fathers enshrined that freedom. However, reading English history books tells us something different. The Puritans had power in England during Cromwell's reign. They made dancing and Christmas and a host of other normal activities illegal. After the English restored sanity to their government, the Puritans were angry. They did not leave because of persecution by the authorities (granted, they felt persecuted). They left because they no longer had the power to persecute. The founding fathers wrote the seperation of church and state to keep groups like the Puritans from doing to America what they had done to England.
Another example comes from Rome, traditionally a very tolerant culture. For example, there was a temple in Rome dedicated to the unknown gods...gods that Romans hadn't met yet. Romans were free to follow any god so long as they made token "prayers" to the main Roman gods. The persecution of the Christians that the Bible makes so much of stemmed from Christians refusing to be upstanding members of the state, and those persecutions were not nearly as horrid as Christian history has made them out to be. After Constantine and the Empire becoming Christian, the persecutions began in earnest...terrible and bloody. Constantine had his vision of the cross in 333 on the way to founding Constantinople. He converted on his death bed, and the Empire did not convert until after his death. After standing as one of the greatest empires in history for a very long time, it only took around one hundred years after becoming Christian to fall.
Look at us, the more Christian we become, the closer to losing our empire (republic) we get. The more Christian we become the more we resemble the Crusaders who killed, raped, and pillaged across SE Europe and the near east.
And one final note, Paul founded the church after his epileptic fit on the road to Damascus. Paul was a Roman, who probably never knew Jesus. He was a friend of Pilate. We do know that Jesus' brother did not like the message that Paul put on his brother's lips. In short, Paul took the name and founded the rotten church we see today...he fashioned it to sell to Romans. The church has not a whit to do with Jesus or his message of Messianic Judiasim.
And since the end times and the second coming haven't happened yet, folks like Hillary are going to do their best to make it happen...if only to prove their belief right. I call bull[deleted].
I took my degree in religion and learned to respect it. I found beauty in it. But it has since led me to the simple motto i employ when someone knocks on the door to give me the good news. "I love jesus, but i hate f---ing Christians."
PS: Isn't a "cell" what we call a group of terrorists?
This article adds to Jeff Sharlet's collection of hit pieces on evangelical Christianity. It's filled with misleading statements about theology, that After a glancing shot at Republican "pharisees," Clinton explained that, of course, her "very serious" grounding in faith had helped her weather the affair.
The fact that Ms. Clinton feels comfortable talking about "pharisees" while simultaneously pointing out the sins of her political opponents shows that she missed the essence of Jesus' story about throwing stones. Then again, she is a politician.
In an interview with the United Methodist Reporter, she expressed regret that her church had focused too much on social gospel concerns in the '60s, '70s, and '80s, "to the exclusion of personal faith and growth." The spirit, believe theological conservatives, matters more than the flesh.
No, sir. What you're describing is a modified form of gnostic anti-materialism--albeit that Karen Armstrong, Elaine Pagels and Bart Ehrmann deemphasize that aspect of the gnostic tradition in their current theological marketing efforts. Christian orthodox traditions (i.e. Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and most Protestant traditions) would criticize such a simplistic statement regarding the body as dismissive of the incarnation. Closer to an orthodox statement is to say that the body matters because the spirit matters, and they're inseparable. Thus the whole concept of physical resurrection--the human spirit, whatever it is, needs a body in order to exist.
Anyhow, Ms. Clinton's particular tradition of Methodism (in particular, theologically conservative Methodism) emphasizes the importance of taking care of the body as a form of taking care of the soul. Thus, Methodists were social reformers in 18th century England--they thought it inconsistent to preach salvation without concern for the body; for example, reforming labor laws. The Methodists were also temperance activists in America--again, because the body was important.
So--you're way off, especially if you're trying to inform people about what a "theological conservative" Methodist might believe, if, in fact, that term accurately describes Hillary Clinton.
Through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the Fellowship.
Ah, what's a conspiracy without a shadowy group controlling the government? Is this journalism, or a Dan Brown novel?
I hardly think that the "Fellowship" is so secretive, especially when you moved into their house and reviewed their organizational records, after telling them that you write about religion. Of course, you didn't exactly tell them what kind of writing you did about religion--so who was secretive, Mr. Sharlet? For a group that's trying to take over the world, they sure are sloppy.
Washington, and politics in general, is a whorehouse. I'm not the least surprised that the Fellowship wouldn't want to be used as a political football; thus, they ask their members not .
[Doug] Jones [, Clinton's childhood pastor and spiritual mentor], though, describes his theology as neoorthodox, guided by the belief that social change should come about slowly and without radical action. It emerged, he says, as a third way, a reaction against both separatist fundamentalism and the New Deal's labor-based liberalism.
I don't doubt that's what Jones told you, but it's incorrect. "Neo-orthodoxy" isn't an American invention, but a German one; it predates "New Deal" labor-based liberalism by at least 40 years and it does not directly entail any sort of politics. If anybody is the "godfather" of neo-Orthodoxy, it's Karl Barth, who was a noted opponent of Hitler; but there's nothing in Barth's theology that says that social change must be gradual. Frankly, Barth's theology is more concerned with an individual human encounter with God--be it in a socialist or a capitalist socio-economic system. He has more to do with Kierkegaard than Edmund Burke. If you had googled "neo-orthodoxy", that was easily discoverable. But it doesn't sound as sexy as conservative politics writ as theology.
Liberal theologians may describe Neo-orthodoxy as theologically conservative because Barth rejects liberal theology's attempt to reconcile theology with science by modifying Christian doctrine to meet science's criteria of truth. To oversimplify, Barth says that science and theology are incommensurate. It's as wrong-headed to alter theology to please science as it is to alter science to please theology. As a result, Barth can retain the traditional confessions of the church, without rejecting science. So arguably neo-orthodoxy is theologically conservative, but that has little to do with politics.
Under Jones' mentorship, Clinton learned about Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich—thinkers whom liberals consider their own, but whom young Hillary Rodham encountered as theological conservatives. The Niebuhr she studied was a cold warrior, dismissive of the progressive politics of his earlier writing.
Good grief, man, either Mr. Jones is confused, or you didn't understand him. Conservative theology does not entail conservative politics. Dorothy Day was a theologically conservative Catholic, and a socialist. N.T. Wright is a theologically conservative Anglican, and a socialist. J.D. Rockefeller was a great supporter of liberal theology, but he hardly qualifies as a political liberal in today's parlance. None of those examples are necessarily contradictory. Thus, what Reinhold Niebuhr believed about social change didn't make him a theological conservative, although it might have made him a political conservative. I tend to think applying the labels "liberal" or "conservative" to Niebuhrian ethics is misleading.
What's more, Niebuhr's skepticism about human institutions and claims of revolutionaries was there from the beginning. One of his first books was Moral Man and Immoral Society, which presents a fairly Marxist critique of American society, but also warns of the dangers of believing the hype of revolutionary politics. In Moral Man and throughout his writing, he expands the Christian notion of sin to include the egoism of social organizations, which will inevitably justify evil to perpetuate themselves, and to which individual consciences will abdicate moral responsibility in the name of the collective good of the organization. That criticism applies equally to the institutions of the political status quo as to revolutionary groups. How Mr. Jones got from that to an endorsement of conservative politics is anybody's guess.
Niebuhr did support U.S. policy against Soviet expansion, but not because he believed America's self-righteous image. He saw the brutality of Soviet totalitarianism as the worse of two evils, and came to the conclusion that pacifism in that situation was morally irresponsible. At the core of Niebuhrian ethics is a sense of tragedy, that we can't live up to our ideals (specifically, pacifism), and that self-righteous attempts to hold on to unrealistic ideals may actually be an irresponsible surrender to evil. An example of a Niebuhrian ethical dilemma would be the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: although he was convinced Christian pacifist, he involved himself in a conspiracy to assasinate Hitler, because in the scenario of Nazi Germany to do nothing would be morally irresponsbile.
Oops. the formatting on that was way off, making it unreadable. Let's try again.
This article is the latest of Jeff Sharlet's hit pieces on evangelical Christianity. It's filled with errors and biases that make it incoherent, and anyone who thinks it provides insight into Hillary Clinton's theology is seriously mistaken.
Mr. Sharlet says:
"After a glancing shot at Republican "pharisees," Clinton explained that, of course, her "very serious" grounding in faith had helped her weather the affair."
The fact that Ms. Clinton feels comfortable talking about "pharisees" while simultaneously pointing out the sins of her political opponents shows that she missed the essence of Jesus' story about throwing stones. Then again, she is a politician, and what politician can pass up a cheap shot, even while in the process they indict themselves?.
Mr. Sharlet says: "In an interview with the United Methodist Reporter, she expressed regret that her church had focused too much on social gospel concerns in the '60s, '70s, and '80s, "to the exclusion of personal faith and growth." The spirit, believe theological conservatives, matters more than the flesh.
No, sir. What you're describing is a modified form of gnostic anti-materialism--albeit that Karen Armstrong, Elaine Pagels and Bart Ehrmann deemphasize that aspect of the gnostic tradition in their current marketing efforts. Christian orthodox traditions (i.e. Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and most Protestant traditions) would criticize such a simplistic statement regarding the body as dismissive of the incarnation. Closer to an orthodox statement is to say that the body matters because the spirit matters, and they're inseparable. Thus the whole concept of physical resurrection--the human spirit, whatever it is, needs a body in order to exist.
Anyhow, Ms. Clinton's particular tradition of Methodism (in particular, theologically conservative Methodism) emphasizes the importance of taking care of the body as a form of taking care of the soul. Thus, Methodists were social reformers in 18th century England--they thought it inconsistent to preach salvation without concern for the body; for example, reforming labor laws. The Methodists were also temperance activists in America--again, because the body was important.
So--Mr. Sharlet is way off, especially if he's trying to inform people about conservative Methodist theology, if that is in fact an accurate description of Mrs. Clinton's beliefs.
Mr. Sharlet says:
"Through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the Fellowship."
Ah, what's a conspiracy without a shadowy group controlling the government? Is this journalism, or a Dan Brown novel?
I hardly think that the "Fellowship" is so secretive, especially when Mr. Sharlet moved into its house and reviewed its organizational records, after telling its representatives that he wrote about religion. Of course, he didn't exactly tell them what kind of writing you did about religion--so who was secretive, Mr. Sharlet? For a group that's trying to take over the world, they sure are sloppy.
Washington, and politics in general, is a whorehouse. I'm not the least surprised that the Fellowship wouldn't want to be used as a political football.
Mr. Sharlet said:
"[Doug] Jones [, Clinton's childhood pastor and spiritual mentor], though, describes his theology as neoorthodox, guided by the belief that social change should come about slowly and without radical action. It emerged, he says, as a third way, a reaction against both separatist fundamentalism and the New Deal's labor-based liberalism."
I don't doubt that's what Jones told Mr. Sharlet, but it's incorrect. "Neo-orthodoxy" isn't an American invention, but a German one, and it does not directly entail any sort of politics. If anybody is the "godfather" of neo-Orthodoxy, it's Karl Barth, who was a noted opponent of Hitler; but there's nothing in Barth's theology that says that social change must be gradual. Frankly, Barth's theology is more concerned with an individual human encounter with God--be it in a socialist or a capitalist socio-economic system. He has more to do with Kierkegaard than Edmund Burke. If Mr. Sharlet had googled "neo-orthodoxy", that was easily discoverable. But "theological existentialism" doesn't sound nearly as threatening to an uninformed readership as conservative politics writ as theology.
Liberal theologians may describe Neo-orthodoxy as theologically conservative because Barth rejects liberal theology's attempt to reconcile theology with science by modifying theology to meet science's criteria of truth. To oversimplify, Barth says that science and theology are incommensurate. It's as wrong-headed to alter theology to please science as it is to alter science to please theology. As a result, Barth can retain the traditional confessions of the church, without rejecting science. So arguably neo-orthodoxy is theologically conservative, but that has little to do with politics.
Mr. Sharlet said:
"Under Jones' mentorship, Clinton learned about Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich—thinkers whom liberals consider their own, but whom young Hillary Rodham encountered as theological conservatives. The Niebuhr she studied was a cold warrior, dismissive of the progressive politics of his earlier writing."
Good grief. Either Mr. Jones is confused, or Mr. Sharlet didn't understand him. Conservative theology does not entail conservative politics. Dorothy Day was a theologically conservative Catholic, and a socialist. N.T. Wright is a theologically conservative Anglican, and a socialist. J.D. Rockefeller was a theologically liberal Baptist, but hardly qualifies as a political liberal in today's parlance. None of those examples demonstrate a contradiction. What Reinhold Niebuhr believed about social change doesn't make him a theological conservative, although it might make him a political conservative.
What's more, Niebuhr's skepticism about human institutions and claims of revolutionaries was there from the beginning. One of his first books was Moral Man and Immoral Society, which presents a fairly Marxist critique of American society, but also warns of the dangers of believing the hype of revolutionary politics. In Moral Man and throughout his writing, he expands the Christian notion of sin to include the egoism of social organizations, which will inevitably justify evil to perpetuate themselves, and individual consciences will abdicate moral responsibility in the name of the collective good of the organization. How Mr. Jones got from that to an endorsement of conservative politics is anybody's guess.
