OBAMIANITY

Obamislam

From Obama and the Bigots - New York Times:

To his credit, Mr. Obama has spoken respectfully of Islam (he told me last year, on the record, that the Muslim call to prayer is “one of the prettiest sounds on earth at sunset”). If he were to go further — “and so what if I were Muslim?” — many Americans would see that as confirmation that he is a Sunni terrorist agent of Al Qaeda who is part of a 9/11 backup plan: If you can’t reach the White House with a hijacked plane, then storm the Oval Office through the ballot box.

Let's hope Obama can find the courage to actually say "and so what if I were Muslim." The hope and promise of Obama's candidacy is partly about imagining a world where religions can co-exist peacefully. Obamians and Obamuslims holding hands for a better world.

Rolling Stone's New Hope

From  A New Hope : Rolling Stone:

We need to recover the spiritual and moral direction that should describe our country and ourselves. We see this in Obama, and we see the promise he represents to bring factions together, to achieve again the unity that drives great change and faces difficult, and inconvenient, truths and peril. We need to send a message to ourselves and to the world that we truly do stand for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And in electing an African-American, we also profoundly renounce an ugliness and violence in our national character that have been further stoked by our president in these last eight years. Like Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama challenges America to rise up, to do what so many of us long to do: to summon "the better angels of our nature."

Rolling Stone magazine seems to have caught the Obamian fever. Good to see them use words like "spiritual", "moral", "promise", "character". Rolling Stone is looking for some "values voters". Let's hope they choose Obama.

Atheists and Evangelicals Prefer Obama

From Street Prophets: Barack And Hillary (And The Beat Goes On):

How crazy is it that Obama, with all his foregrounded faith, can't take the Protestant or Catholic demographics from Hillary? I'm assuming that the "Other Christian" includes non-denominational evangelicals, and there Obama takes a convincing lead. Taken together with his strong lead among the 3% of self-described Republicans who have crossed over this cycle, I'd say that means that pretty much every conservative evangelical that has gone Democratic has voted for Obama. More craziness: after all the crap Obama took from the netroots about his faith speeches seeming to leave out the non-religious, he has a strong, though not overwhelming lead among that very group.

Obamians seem to be more inclined to newer approaches to religion and non-religion. Hillaryland seems to be the place for people with strong connections to old time protestant and catholic traditions. What is fascinating is that Obama attracts both more conservative evangelical Christians and non-Christians. What does this mean? Is it just that Obamians are younger?

Does this mean that Obama is in a better position to help bridge some of our religious divides? Can passionate evangelical Christians find some common ground with equally passionate atheists?

Gay Marriage and the Sermon on the Mount

From Crosswalk.com:

"I will tell you that I don't believe in gay marriage, but I do think that people who are gay and lesbian should be treated with dignity and respect and that the state should not discriminate against them," said Obama on Sunday. "So, I believe in civil unions that allow a same-sex couple to visit each other in a hospital or transfer property to each other. I don't think it should be called marriage, but I think that it is a legal right that they should have that is recognized by the state. If people find that controversial then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans.

Interesting use here of the Sermon on the Mount. It would be better for Obama to just say that he is against state sponsored marriage period. Otherwise, it sounds like gay marriage is second class and not worthy of state approval while non-gay marriage is ok. It looks to me that Obama's belief about gay marriage is simply a tactic to bridge the cultural gap between people who are more open to homosexuality and people who have problems with it. By being against gay marriage, Obama is softening his pro-gayness with the anti-gay crowd in the hopes that the anti crowd will see his point about the Sermon on the Mount and treating people fairly.

Passionate about Justice

From The Dallas Morning News:

On Friday, Mr. Obama stopped in the Rio Grande Valley, meeting with about 150 Hispanic evangelicals at the University of Texas at Brownsville. "I know that sometimes people are hesitant to mix church and state," he said. "But it's also important to remember that Jesus was an advocate. He wasn't afraid to go into the temple and throw that table down, drive the money lenders out. He was passionate about justice. Not just peace – justice."

Obama is saying that the "church" of Jesus does not only belong to the "state" of the Christian Right. Even more provocatively, Obama is suggesting that the heart of Jesus' life and message is closer to his understanding of progressive politics.