HuffPo blogger: "Obama is setting a pietistic tone for the presidency to which he aspires."

highplainsdem

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Tue Jul-08-08 09:47 AM
Original message

HuffPo blogger: "Obama is setting a pietistic tone for the presidency to which he aspires."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mayhill-fowler/obamas-faith-based-govern_b_111393.html

Mayhill Fowler

Obama, God And Governance
Posted July 8, 2008 | 09:03 AM (EST)

The Senator's intention to give religious faith an important place in the public square, should he be elected president, is not a revelation. He has long argued for a connection between religion and politics. In his June 28, 2006, Keynote Address at the Call to Renewal's Building a Covenant for a New America conference, Obama talked about the need "to tackle head-on the mutual suspicion that sometimes exists between religious America and secular America." This need is "a prayer worth praying, and a conversation worth having in this country," Obama concluded. Certainly, much of the debate in the presidential primaries, both Democratic and Republican, continued this conversation. It's just that many in the press and many of Obama's liberal/progressive supporters chose to ignore the talk, likely on the assumption that Obama was just politicking. There was no need to take him at his word.

-snip-

First of all, faith would play a major and not a minor role. Building on the Bush Administration's faith-based initiatives, Obama plans to establish a new and improved and more powerful Council that will be "a critical part" of his administration, either at cabinet-level or directly under his own supervision. Whether he grasps the thorny intricacies of marrying federal guidelines with church practices is unclear, but Obama had the confidence to tell Zanesville that his Council will "help set our national agenda." So any Obama faith-based programs will be empowered and seriously funded. They also will be -- and here's the catch for the money recipients -- engaged "to train the thousands of groups that don't" know how to get federal grants. Catholic Charities, therefore, will be required to help smaller groups -- a Pentecostal store-front church, say, or an immigrant Somali mosque -- to "build and run effective programs."

Everyone is called to the public square to help one another. "We need all hands on deck," Obama said in Zanesville. And who might be our Captain? The old familiarity of this maritime metaphor shouldn't obscure its significance -- one that Obama himself may not have realized is so revealing, for it shows that he is thinking in terms of absolute authority. Those churches that accept federal monies for social programs -- they will help other religious groups. Obama has not only the confidence that comes with the will to power but also the iron control of a commander.

-snip-

From "the commitments that bind us to our nation, and to each other" (Independence speech) to "all hands on deck" (Zanesville) to "we must also serve a common purpose" (Colorado Springs) to "the ideals that stir so many of us as Americans -- pride, duty, and sacrifice" (Fargo) to "carrying out His works" (St. Louis), Barack Obama is setting a pietistic tone for the presidency to which he aspires. Obama is calling all of us to a great commingling, where he as our Leader, gentle in tone but forceful in command, will require of us that we summon our common values and our faith, if we are religious, to work together toward an "American renewal." This is a vision beyond partisanship, beyond policy, beyond Democrat or Republican, Catholic or Protestant, Evangelical or Atheist, rich or poor, black or brown or white. This is what Obama has always meant when, from the beginning of his race for the presidency, he has talked about sacrifice. To put it flippantly, this is Obama's plan to put us on a diet, ration television, reduce our individual carbon footprint, and nudge us into national service. (In his Service speech, Obama called for "a new generation of Americans to join our military.")