General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsObama riles right with accurate remarks at Prayer Breakfast
Posted with permission.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/obama-riles-right-accurate-remarks-prayer-breakfast?cid=sm_fb_maddow
Obama riles right with accurate remarks at Prayer Breakfast
02/06/15 04:49 PM
By Steve Benen
By now, youve probably seen the headlines and the emails from your wacky uncle who watches Fox News all day. President Obama, as hes done every year, spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast yesterday, enraging his conservative critics for reasons that dont make a lot of sense.
The president made the case that while we see faith communities around the world inspiring people to lift up one another, we also see faith being twisted and distorted, used as a wedge or, worse, sometimes used as a weapon. After noting horrific acts of terror, sectarian violence, and religious division sectarian war in Syria, the murder of Muslims and Christians in Nigeria, religious war in the Central African Republic, a rising tide of anti-Semitism and hate crimes in Europe the president added:
Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history. And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ . So this is not unique to one group or one religion. There is a tendency in us, a sinful tendency that can pervert and distort our faith.
All of this happens to be 100% true. No faith tradition has a monopoly on virtue or peace; none of the worlds major religions can look back in history and not find chapters they now regret.
So why in the world is the right claiming to be outraged?
Republicans are apparently a little hysterical, with one Fox News host claiming that essentially the president argued Christians were just as bad as ISIS. Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore (R), desperately trying to get attention as a presidential candidate, called Obamas remarks the most offensive Ive ever heard a president make in my lifetime.
Im going to assume that the presidents critics arent really outraged, but instead are playing a cynical little game in the name of partisan theater. It must be the latest in an endless series of manufactured outrages, because the alternative that the right is genuinely disgusted is literally hard to believe.
The portion of Obamas remarks that has drawn so much scrutiny isnt ambiguous while people have used religion to advance righteousness and justice, horrible acts have been made in Gods name, no one group should be too quick to condemn another while wrestling with their own misdeeds. Is this accurate? Of course it is. Is it offensive? Only to theists who believe their faith tradition has always been without flaw (or perhaps those whove convinced themselves the Crusades and the Inquisition were noble causes, worthy of defense.)
It prompted Ta-Nehisi Coates to note the foolish and historically illiterate responses from the right to the presidents remarks.
Its worth pausing to appreciate that conservative whining about Obama and the National Prayer Breakfast is annoyingly common. In 2013, the president said that as a Christian, his approach to government coincides with Jesuss teaching that for unto whom much is given, much shall be required. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) condemned the speech on the Senate floor and then-Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) stormed out of the breakfast in protest.
One assumes that the right will once again be reaching for the fainting couch this time next year, whatever it is Obama happens to say at the time. Theres no reason for the rest of us, however, to take such hollow complaints seriously.