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It is time for a confession. I have fallen into the trap. I have let Evangelicals define the agenda, even here on this blog. I’ll explain what I mean by telling a personal story.

While I was pregnant with my second child, I was under the obstetric care of two brothers who shared a joint practice. I never knew which brother I would see at any visit. I knew only that I liked one brother and didn’t like the other.

The first brother, Doctor Sidney, seemed to enjoy being a doctor and seemed to like his female patients. The second brother, Doctor Harold—an early Dr. House misanthropic type—gave the impression that he regarded pregnant women as a major annoyance, who were utterly unworthy of his superior intellect.
 
Harold was a master at asking the kind of questions that made patients wrong at the outset. It was the kind of question that comes under the category of: “do-you-still-beat-your-wife” questions. And so Doctor Harold would ask with a condescending tone: “How many times did you forget to take your vitamins?”

Such questions are a power strategy to make clear who is in charge of the conversation. The question is designed to put the person who is asked such a question into a reactive, defensive position. There was no room in Doctor Harold’s worldview for a patient who took her vitamins without fail.

Why do I bring up memories of my unpleasant encounters with a doctor who was clearly in the wrong profession?  

It is because this is the stance that Evangelicals often use to define the discussion about religion and politics. This is why the pilgrimage by John McCain and Barack Obama to Saddleback Church for the Civil Forum was such a problematic precedent in American politics. An evangelical megachurch pastor asked questions that presupposed that Evangelicals have the corner on God and Bible. Part of this assumption is that only the Republican Party represents an authentic Christian perspective.

I’ll let an Evangelical pastor express his opinion on these assumptions, in his letter in Time Magazine, September 1, 2008. 

As an Evangelical Pastor, I find the high percentage of fellow Evangelicals who believe that Senator John McCain is the candidate “most guided by his religious beliefs” hard to fathom. The testimonies of the two candidates in your “In Their Words” section shows McCain, in fact, to be far less connected to Evangelical spirituality than Barack Obama, who can also lay claim to an authentic born-again experience. Unfortunately, what this shows is that many Evangelicals believe that Republican and Christian are synonymous terms. It’s time that myth be put to rest. Time Letters, The Rev. John Hubers, Chicago

These are the assumptions that led James Dobson to assert that Barack Obama does not follow traditional Christian faith, in his widely publicized statement.

“I think he’s deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology,” Dobson said. Obama ‘Distorting’ Bible, Pushing ‘Fruitcake Interpretation’ of Constitution”)

Such statements are Doctor Harold statements. Since Evangelicals make up a quarter of the electorate, the media and politicians treat Evangelicals as being the true exemplars of Christian faith. This means that religious questions are framed in Evangelical terms, according to Evangelical presuppositions. As a result, everyone else is put on the defensive.

I have fallen into a similar trap with this blog, by reacting to the ways that Evangelicals have claimed the right to ask the defining religious questions. And so, I resolve to stop letting Evangelical presuppositions and assertions define my agenda for this blog.

The truth of the matter is that Evangelicals might make up a quarter of the electorate but they do not “own” God or the Bible. And the claim that an Evangelical viewpoint is consistent with “the traditional understanding of the Bible” does not stand up to any sort of historical, theological, or ecclesiastical scrutiny.

In my next post, I will refer to an article by Greg M. Epstein, Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University, in which he makes these statements:

Happily, though, I’ve seen several signs that an Obama administration might recognize the single most essential truth of American religion and politics in the 21st century. That is, not only is the U.S. not merely a “Christian Nation,” we have become something new entirely: the world’s first truly “Interfaith Nation.” As my Harvard colleague Diana Eck has eloquently described, the U.S. is now the world’s most religiously diverse nation. If we embrace the values of religious pluralism, our diversity will be a rich resource, rather than a source of division.

However, this historic opportunity would become an historic tragedy of prejudice and discrimination if we fail to recognize that an Interfaith Nation must make room for Humanists, atheists, and the non-religious as equal partners alongside Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and many others.  Don’t Exclude Humanists, Atheists from the Melting Pot

Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson

written by Kalinda \\ tags: Barack Obama, evangelical, James Dobson, John McCain, Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Rick Warren

Here’s my helpful tip: never trust a journalist who gives “biblical” advice. In the most recent issue of Time Magazine, Joe Klein makes this statement about what Barack Obama “should have said” to Pastor Rick Warren at the “Civil Forum” at Saddleback Church.

But Obama seems not to have fully assimilated what should be the message of his campaign: It’s the economy, egghead. The economy was almost entirely missing from his dialogue with Pastor Rick Warren at Saddleback Church – and there were more than a few opportunities to insert it. When Warren braced him on abortion, Obama fumbled around, attempting to sound reasonable. He should have said straight out, “We’re gonna disagree on this one. I respect your view on abortion, but I’m pro-choice … And you know, Pastor Rick, Jesus never mentions abortion in the Bible. He did say, though, that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter heaven. Now, that’s a metaphor – but it’s also good tax policy. Unlike John McCain, I want to make it easier for rich people to go to heaven.”   Where’s Obama’s Passion?

Joe Klein authoritatively quotes Jesus: “He did say, though, that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter heaven.”

With this statement, a lazy journalist has once again misquoted the Bible without taking the time to verify the accuracy of his quotation. 

This particular Bible verse is misquoted so often that many of the most devout Bible readers don’t pay attention to the actual quotation.

In the three biblical versions of the story about Jesus and a “rich young man,” Jesus made a statement about a rich man entering the Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven. He didn’t say anything about entering Heaven.

“How hard it will be for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!”  (Mark 10:17-31, Revised Standard Version.)

“Truly, I say to you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:16-30, Revised Standard Version.)

“How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Luke 18:18-30, Revised Standard Version.)

The gospel stories of Mark, Matthew, and Luke share a common underlying metaphor—the idea of the Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven.

Klein is right to refer to metaphor here, but he has missed the point of the metaphor.The critical idea that most people simply don’t understand is that the Kingdom of Heaven is not Heaven. Jesus is not referring to an afterlife. Instead, he is referring to the idea of the rule of God on Earth.

“When Jesus says that the rich cannot enter the Kingdom of God he is not talking about an afterlife. And he’s not saying that if you have money, you can’t get into Heaven. He is talking about the overthrow of the existing order of things in which those who are rich and at the top of the social system will lose their advantage.” Going Broke With Jesus

In fact, Jesus really did have a lot to say about government, religion, money, and abuse of power, but it was not this kind of simplistic notion about whether or not rich people can get into Heaven.

I wrote my book, Going Broke With Jesus, precisely because of such Bible misquotations, which turn into what I call, “biblical urban legends.”

I have created the term, “biblical urban legend,” for at least three reasons.

The first is that the phrase gets to the essence of what urban legends do. Urban legends might start with an element of truth, but they take on a life of their own, as they are perpetuated. In the same way, Bible verses turned into biblical urban legends might start with an element of truth, but they take on lives of their own as they are told and retold.

The second reason is to call attention to our own era. When Bible verses become disconnected from their original story and social contexts, they take on meanings in our own time and place. This is when they become strange new creations—”biblical urban legends.”

I can think of no better description of so many of the contemporary stories told about Bible verses about money. The core of truth becomes false as it takes on a life of its own apart from the original context of the story, turning a gospel story into a warning about money, as if the words of Jesus could be applied directly to a different time and place as if time and place don’t matter.

The most important reason to use the phrase is to make clear that Bible verses cut off from any connection to original context very quickly turn into cautionary tales, rather than heroic stories. Biblical urban legends do what urban legends do. They create fear, anxiety, and confusion in the minds of believers, as they warn against the dangers facing anyone who violates the rules.  Going Broke With Jesus

Of all of the biblical urban legends about “what the Bible says,” my candidate for the most destructive and misleading of all the biblical urban legends is this assertion that “Jesus said that a rich man can’t get into heaven.”

This one verse—as much as any other Bible verse—has made millions of believers afraid to have money, out of fear for their own salvation.

The focus of much Evangelical, Protestant religion has been on personal salvation. This misquotation simply reinforces this idea that religion is all about a personal relationship with God and getting into Heaven. 

With this focus on getting into Heaven, much of the Evangelical world has missed that Jesus was talking about life on Earth. He was talking about his vision of a just world on Earth.  By making these words say that rich people cannot enter heaven, this misquotation has often robbed people of the capacity to use money effectively and wisely.

The two major points of Klein’s criticism of Obama is that Obama is not sufficiently passionate to win the election and that Obama missed the opportunity to talk about the economy with Rick Warren. 

“One of the great strengths of the Obama candidacy has been the sense that this is a guy whose blood doesn’t boil, who carefully considers the options before he reacts—and that his reaction is always measured and rational. But that’s also a weakness: sometimes the most rational response is to rip your opponent’s lungs out.” Where’s Obama’s Passion?

It could very well be that Klein is right on both points.

• Obama is not passionate enough to connect with voters.
• It’s about the economy, egghead.

But that is not what “gets my blood boiling” about Klein’s article. By nature, I also tend to be careful and measured—probably much too careful and measured for my own good. But if there are ever times when I would like to rip someone’s lungs out, it is when I see this kind of careless misquotation of the Bible.

One of the principles of responsible journalism is to verify your sources and check the accuracy of your quotations. All Klein needed to have done was consult a Bible before he so confidently quoted Jesus. But he didn’t. Instead he used a misquoted Bible verse to tell Obama how he “should have” misquoted the Bible to talk about the economy. And in the process, he reinforced distorted notions about the Bible and money.

Since Klein is putting words into Obama’s mouth, let’s see what might have happened if Obama had followed Klein’s suggestion, and quoted the verse correctly. This is what he might have said.

“We’re gonna disagree on this one. I respect your view on abortion, but I’m pro-choice … And you know, Pastor Rick, Jesus never mentions abortion in the Bible. He did say, though, that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter [the kingdom of] heaven. Now that’s a metaphor [about economic justice for everyone---not just record profits for oil companies.]

By using the actual biblical metaphor of the Kingdom of Heaven, instead of Heaven, Obama could have talked about the economy in biblical terms. If Obama had put the current economic situation in terms of the metaphor of the Kingdom of Heaven, he could have reframed the entire discussion, from a single-minded focus on issues such as abortion to matters of government misuse of power, taxation, and waging war with borrowed money. 

He could also have engaged Pastor Rick on Warren’s newly found efforts to deal with poverty and disease in Africa. Based on the metaphor of the Kingdom of God, Obama would have had plenty to say about the Bible and the economy. 

Of course, this reframing of the conversation assumes that Obama knows the Bible well enough to know that Jesus was not talking about a rich man getting in heaven. I have no idea if he does or not. 

Klein is right. “It is about the economy, egghead.” And misquoted Bible verses about money don’t help Christians—or anyone else affected by misquoted Bible verses—to get the economy right.

And so Mr. Klein…..If you are going to write about the Bible, it’s about getting the Bible verses right, journalist.

Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson

written by Kalinda \\ tags: Barack Obama, Bible, bible verses, biblical urban legends, economy, heaven, Jesus, Joe Klein, Kalinda Rose Stevenson, kingdom of God, rich man and kingdom of heaven, Rick Warren, Time Magazine

On Saturday, August 16, Barack Obama and John McCain will attend a “Civil Forum” at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California. The forum will be moderated by Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church.

Time Magazine made Rick Warren the subject of a recent cover article. The cover identifies Warren as “America’s most powerful religious leader” (Time Magazine Cover, August 18, 2008 Issue.)

A more cautious figure than Warren might have passed on the opportunity to become a political lightning rod. But he has spent the past few years positioning himself for just such a role as a suprapolitical, supracreedal arbiter of public virtues and religious responsibilities.
…
The payoff is the Aug. 16 event, a kind of coronation for the 54-year-old, jovially hyperactive preacher. “It’s remarkable. The candidates are according him tremendous status,” says William Martin, author of the definitive biography of Billy Graham, A Prophet with Honor. “I don’t see them doing it with an Episcopal bishop or a Cardinal – or another Evangelical.”

If Warren is not quite today’s Graham, who presided as “America’s pastor” back when the U.S. affected a kind of Protestant civil religion, he is unquestionably the U.S.’s most influential and highest-profile churchman. The Global Ambition of Rick Warren

The idea of the forum as a “kind of coronation” for Rick Warren raises all kinds of interesting questions about the connections between religion and politics.

What is clear is that Obama and McCain are making a kind of religious pilgrimage to one of America’s evangelical megachurches, to make an appearance before “the U.S.’s most influential and highest-profile churchman.”

What is obvious by now is that neither Barack Obama nor John McCain is an evangelical. This means that both are problematic candidates for a significant number of evangelical Christians. The reason this matters politically is that so many American Christians identify themselves as evangelicals.

“It’s quite an extraordinary thing, it’s the first time a preacher has convened the two presumptive candidates …

They are both fighting for that vote,” said Michael Lindsay, a political sociologist at Rice University in Houston.

Evangelicals account for one in four U.S. adults and have become a key conservative base for the Republican Party with a strong focus in the past on opposition to abortion and gay rights and the promotion of “traditional” family values.

Such issues delivered almost 80 percent of the white evangelical Protestant vote to President George W. Bush in 2004 but the movement is more fractured and restless this year though it remains largely in the Republican camp. Obama, McCain Aim For Faith Vote At Forum 

So, both Obama and McCain are in the position of having to prove themselves sufficiently evangelical to satisfy evangelical voters, especially on the litmus test issues of abortion and gay marriage.

McCain has not excited conservative evangelicals because of his past support for stem cell research, his blunt criticism of the movement’s leaders in 2000 and other political heresies.

But the Vietnam veteran and former prisoner-of-war has long been opposed to abortion rights, a trump card with this group.

“McCain has a good record on that issue (abortion) and he must show that he will continue it as president,” Tony Perkins, the president of the conservative lobby group the Family Research Council, told Reuters. Obama, McCain Aim For Faith Vote At Forum 

The most significant point I want to make here is that the “faith” of these two candidates is being defined by their stances on these issues—especially the issue of abortion.

Once again, public discussion of religion has been reduced to a few critical, hot-button issues. Complicated issues of faith, the relationship of religious groups to political power, the role of religious education in public schools, and a multitude of social justice issues get little attention. Instead, religion and faith become defined by a few issues.

It is important to note how Rick Warren has expanded his focus beyond the evangelical hot-button issues since the 2004 presidential election.

During the 2004 presidential election, he seemed to toy with using his new influence to become the next Jerry Falwell or James Dobson. Although he did not officially endorse George W. Bush, the mega-author made no secret of his preference. Two weeks before the election, he sent an e-mail to the several hundred thousand pastors on his mailing list, enumerating “non-negotiable” issues for Christians to consider when casting their votes: abortion, stem-cell research, gay marriage, euthanasia and human cloning. The Global Ambition of Rick Warren 

Since then, Warren has started a global program to mobilize churches in the Third World to deal with poverty, disease, and illiteracy, among other global issues.

And he is both leading and riding the newest wave of change in the Evangelical community: an expansion beyond social conservatism to causes such as battling poverty, opposing torture and combating global warming. The movement has loosened the hold of religious-right leaders on ordinary Evangelicals and created an opportunity for Warren, who has lent his prominent voice to many of the new concerns.

A shift away from “sin issues” – like abortion and gay marriage – is reflected in Warren’s approach to his coming sit-downs with the candidates. He says he is more interested in questions that he feels are “uniting,” such as “poverty, HIV/AIDS, climate change and human rights,” and still more in civics-class topics like the candidates’ understanding of the role of the Constitution. There will be no “Christian religion test,” Warren insists. “I want what’s good for everybody, not just what’s good for me. Who’s the best for the nation right now?” The Global Ambition of Rick Warren

Yet, despite Warren’s larger vision, for many evangelicals in this election season, “faith” is neatly defined by the “right” answers on a handful of hot-button issues.

So, Barack Obama and John McCain will sit down as Rick Warren—who promises that there will be no “Christian religion test”—will ask Obama and McCain about abortion.

And many Evangelicals have, like Warren, broadened their agenda of concerns to include issues that should favor Obama like global poverty and the environment. But in practice, abortion continues to be a threshold issue for a large number of Evangelical voters.
Warren has already said he will raise the issue with the candidates on Saturday, and Obama could well take advantage of the opportunity.
…
Large numbers of Evangelical and Catholic voters will be listening for Obama to articulate his abortion position in his conversation with Warren. A significant number of them remain undecided in the race, and their votes may hinge on his answer. Obama and McCain’s Test of Faith

When I read the words of Jesus in the four gospels, I wonder how abortion and gay marriage have become the defining issues for evangelicals. As far as I can tell, Jesus had nothing to say about either topic. Does this mean that Jesus would approve of abortion and gay marriage? It only means that they were not mentioned in the gospel narratives. It is hard to make any case on any issue based what someone didn’t say about it.

Although Jesus did not directly address current hot-button issues, he had plenty to say about power, justice, and the poor. My impolite question is: How is that these are not the defining issues for people who base their identity on scripture as the sole authority in faith and practice?

Emphasis on the “sin issues”—as Time magazine calls them—without giving at least equal weight to such central gospel topics as justice, power, and poverty is an example of “selective hermeneutics.”

Exegesis focuses on “what it meant.”  Hermeneutics focuses on “what it means.” Selective hermeneutics occurs when people pick and choose portions of the Bible, to decide which parts are relevant and which are not relevant to their lives. This is what has happened with abortion and gay marriage, along with stem cell research and cloning. They have become the defining issues of faith, even though none of them is explicitly mentioned in scripture.

When selective hermeneutics is at work, religion becomes reduced to a small set of issues. This means that politicians find themselves in the position of having to tiptoe carefully on a tightrope between the hot-button issues and their own religious beliefs—whatever they are—to placate potential voters who have reduced ”faith” to a limited set of beliefs on a few defining issues.

“Faith” reduced to these few topics is dramatically diminished biblical faith. We all deserve more than a few carefully chosen responses on a handful of topics to determine how any candidate for public office will address the relationship between religion and political power in a multi-cultural, multi-religious nation.

Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson

written by Kalinda \\ tags: abortion, Barack Obama, Bible, civil forum, evangelical, exegesis, gay marriage, hermeneutics, Jesus, John McCain, Kalinda Rose Stevenson, politicians, politiics, Rick Warren, Saddleback Church, selective hermeneutics

The Bible as Word of God—inerrant, infallible, and solely the work of God—remains the single most important distinction between evangelicals and other Christians.

In an interview with Stephen Mansfield, author of the new book, The Faith of Barack Obama, this is Mansfield’s answer to the question:

“So, where do you think Obama fits in the spectrum of Christianity?

I think Barack Obama believes about Jesus and about conversion what your average evangelical does. He believes that Jesus is the son of God and that he died for the sins of the world and God raised him from the dead again. Where he begins to depart from orthodox evangelical Christianity probably begins with his view of scripture. He believes some of it might be of human origin, and some scriptures may be of more weight than others. So in a sense, [his is a] traditional theological liberalism that tends to treat scripture as being at least partially of human origin. Stephen Mansfield Interview with Jessica Ramirez

This is a revealing quotation, both in what Mansfield claims and the language he uses to claim it. He says that Obama believes about Jesus “what your average evangelical” believes.

Mansfield then asserts that Obama “begins to depart from orthodox evangelical Christianity” with his “view of scripture” because Obama believes that some of scripture “might be of human origin.” According to Mansfield, this “view of scripture” is evidence of Obama’s “traditional theological liberalism.”

(In this post, I won’t even begin to address the second part of the claim: Obama believes that “some scriptures may be of more weight than others.”) 

There is so much going on in this paragraph that I hardly know where to begin. It is full of code language with specific meaning for evangelicals.
   
As a student at Gordon-Conwell, I had to learn three new languages: Biblical Greek; Biblical Hebrew; and a code language that I will call “evangelicalese.”
 
In evangelicalese, the phrase: “view of scripture” carries particular weight. On many topics, evangelicals fluent in “evangelicalese” will base their actions and opinions upon “a high view of scripture.”

A “high view of scripture” is that God is the sole source of scripture. Any suggestion that human beings played a part in the origin of scripture is evidence of a “low view of scripture.”

In my seminary years among the evangelicals, I heard a variation of this statement dozens—maybe even hundreds of times: “I would like to support the ordination of women to ministry, but I can’t, because I hold a high view of scripture.” 

Although Mansfield doesn’t use the word “high,” he is clearly contrasting the “evangelical high view of scripture” about the solely divine origin of scripture with the “liberal low view of scripture,” which asserts that human beings might have had some role in the writing of the Bible.

And so, Barack Obama—whose belief in Jesus is the same as “your average evangelical”—has a “view of scripture” that sets him apart from evangelicals. Obama’s belief that “some of it might be of human origin” turns Obama from “evangelical” into “liberal.”

Notice also the contrast between “orthodox evangelicalism” and “traditional theological liberalism.” “Orthodox” is a theological designation of correctness, in contrast to ”traditional theological liberalism,” with its implied “unorthodox” view of scripture.”

(At some point, I’ll explore how a perfectly noble word, “liberal” got such a bad reputation among evangelicals, but that will wait until another day.)

The key point is that Obama’s belief that human beings “might” have played a role in the origin of scripture makes him a theological “liberal with a low view of scripture.” This opinion about the Bible sets him apart from “orthodox evangelical theology” and its dedication to the belief in the Bible as the inerrant, infallible, Word of God.

Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson

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Do you know that you are the product of all the stories you have learned throughout your life? Most of us try to live with stories that don’t serve us. This is especially true with Bible stories. To find out why most of the Bible stories you learned about Jesus and money are not true, be sure to visit Going Broke With Jesus.

written by Kalinda \\ tags: Barack Obama, Bible, evangelical, Faith of Barack Obama, high view of scripture, inerrant, infallible, Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Obama, scripture, Stephen Mansfield

I have addressed this blog to seekers…people who are looking for something, often without quite knowing what they are seeking.

What do seekers seek?  Why do people go from church to church, and from churches to ashrams, from temples to yoga studios, from Presbyterianism to Scientology?  Why do Christians convert to Islam?  Why do black Baptists become Black Muslims?  Why do Catholics stay home and Lutherans consult tarot cards?  Why do people join cults? Why do people flock to evangelical megachurches?  Why do they replace the Bible with “The Course In Miracles?”  Why do seekers put their hopes in “The Secret” and purported revelations from channeled entities?  What are people seeking to find with all of this coming and going? 

Is it Truth?  I don’t think so. I suspect that few of us are motivated by a deep desire to clarify abstract philosophical concepts. I think the real quest is for something other than “the Truth.”  Beneath our quests, our strivings, and our seekings, there is a deep and abiding longing to find a better story.

Each of us is a product of our stories. Stories define us, shape us, tug at us. It’s not so much the experiences that shape us, as the stories about those experiences. If you take away our stories, we are left with skin and bones, and not much else. Why?  Because stories tell us who we are. They tell us why we are alive. They tell us what it’s all about. They answer the deepest questions:  “Do I matter?” “Does anyone care if I live or die?” 

Broadly speaking, there are two types of stories in this world. There are stories that expand us and stories that shrink us.

My book, Going Broke With Jesus, is about Jesus and money stories. My premise is that the real stories about Jesus and money are heroic stories, but these heroic stories about money become constricted when they become Bible stories to teach about money. They stop being heroic stories and turn into morality tales. In other words, instead of teaching us to be heroic about money, they teach us to shrink.

And so I suspect that the real reason we join churches and leave churches comes down to the stories. Every religious group is a story machine with the implicit claim: ”Become a member of our church, and along with free coffee on Sunday after church, you get to be part of our story.”

But this leads to the problem. But what if I don’t like the story?  What if I cannot live with the story?  What if I cannot find a home in this story?  This is when seekers leave, to seek out a new place with a new story.

No one personifies this dilemma more than Barack Obama. Barack Obama has captured attention, both good and bad, because he has a story unlike any other story we have heard before from presidential candidates. It’s not his politics that are relevant here, but his quest to find a place where he can find the story he can live with.

The story of Obama’s religious journey is a uniquely American tale. It’s one of a seeker, an intellectually curious young man trying to cobble together a religious identity out of myriad influences. Always drawn to life’s Big Questions, Obama embarked on a spiritual quest in which he tried to reconcile his rational side with his yearning for transcendence. He found Christ–but that hasn’t stopped him from asking questions. “I’m on my own faith journey and I’m searching,” he says. “I leave open the possibility that I’m entirely wrong.”
 ”Finding His Faith.”

Barack Obama, as much as any of us, has been on a quest to find the story that will allow him to be most authentically himself. Consider his challenges. Half black and half white, so stories about black or white cannot contain him.

Barack’s mother was named “Stanley” (because her parents wanted a boy) and so she lived out of their story until she decided that that she was through with being Stanley. Meanwhile Barack was reared by his white mother and grandparents, which means his lived story is not black enough, because his immigrant father from Africa abandoned him and did not provide the African part of the story. And so he sought to claim his black side by seeking out a black church with its own stories of white injustice, but he cannot deny that he is half white and the beneficiary of white privilege.  

Barack Obama’s story is more dramatic than most stories, but the challenge is the same for all of us. What do we do when our stories are too small?  Where do we find stories that will give us room to grow?

Although I am not Jewish, I spent years deeply immersed in the study of Hebrew and Hebrew scriptures, and even taught Hebrew to theological seminary students. Along the way, I grasped several insights from the “Old Testament” that are much richer, much deeper, and much more liberating than anything I ever learned in Sunday school or church.

One of these liberating insights is the essential difference between Christian education and Hebrew education.

Often, Christians who approach the Hebrew Scriptures do it with the idea that the Jews have the old stuff. They have the “Old” Testament. But Christians have the new stuff. Christians have the “New” Testament. If you have experienced any form of Christian education, you have heard this. The Jews have law. Christians have grace. Or to put it another way, Christians have the answers. Jews have missed the boat.

Even though I am oversimplifying and overgeneralizing, the difference between  Christian and Jewish education comes down to this difference:  Christians learn catechism. Jews learn midrash.

Basically, a catechism teaches doctrine in the form of questions and answers. Catechism provides both the questions and the answers, with the expectation that the answers will be memorized. Even if your Christian education didn’t involve a formal catechism (there was no catechism class in the First Congregational Church of Harwich) the tendency is endemic in most Christian education. “This is what you are to believe.” 

If you challenge the received answers, Christian history teaches you that you run the risk of excommunication, burning at the stake, shunning, or simply being hounded by Christians who are sure you are wrong. (As exhibit A, see the young man pounding his fist on the table as he declared without the slightest trace of doubt:  “God does not call women.”)

Compare the process of catechism with midrash. The verbal root of midrash is “to seek.”  With all of its variations, midrash encourages seeking of personal insights into scripture. This simple difference is the difference between learning received answers to a specific set of questions and being encouraged to ask questions to find your own answers.

Clearly, this is an over-simplification of a complex topic, but the core insight is this. Christians are told to learn the answers, because asking questions is a sign of disobedience to God’s authority. Jews are taught to ask new questions, as part of their obedience to God’s authority.

I suspect this single difference is the reason that so many Jews are such innovators in medicine, law, business, science, and the arts. They learned to ask new questions while Sunday school and catechism taught Christians to learn the old answers by rote.

So, this is the choice facing each of us.

• We live with the old stories, attempting to shrink ourselves to fit into them.
• Or we ask new questions to find the stories that give us room enough to grow.

And at the bottom of all of our seeking, the deepest insight of all is that we do not find our stories. We must create them.

Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson

written by Kalinda \\ tags: Barack Obama, catechism, Kalinda Rose Stevenson, midrash, seekers, stories, story

Religion is at the heart of this political campaign. Candidates are involved in efforts to persuade religious voters by traveling to particular locations associated with specific religious groups.

In a transparent effort to persuade Catholic Hispanic voters, John McCain has traveled to Mexico.

McCain, whose home state of Arizona borders Mexico, began the day at Mexico City’s famed Basilica de Guadalupe, the country’s holiest site for Catholics.  (“McCain To Meet Mexican President”)

McCain not only visited the site, he received the blessing of the monsignor.

The Republican received a blessing from the basilica’s monsignor, laid a wreath of white roses at the altar and stood atop the Papal balcony there. (“MCain To Meet Mexican President.” )

There is nothing innocent in such gestures. Through Christian history, kings and emperors have sought the blessing of the Church. Politicians do the same. Blessings from the clergy, laying roses on an altar, and an appearance on the Papal balcony are all religious actions, done in an effort to demonstrate that God is on the side of the candidate. These are powerful strategies of persuasion.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama has gone into the lion’s den by going to Colorado Springs. Colorado Springs is the home of Dr. James Dobson, of “Focus on the Family,” who recently characterized Obama as distorting traditional understanding of the Bible.

“I think he’s deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology,” Dobson said. (“Dobson: Obama ‘Distorting’ Bible, Pushing ‘Fruitcake Interpretation’ of Constitution“)

Obama’s choice of Christian conservative Colorado Springs for his visit showed the degree to which he is courting Republican religious voters and trying to make McCain compete for their affections. (“McCain To Meet Mexican President.”)

My point is that candidates are attempting to persuade potential voters on religious grounds. As time goes on, we will see political candidates continue to make pilgrimages to religious sites, to seek the approval of religious leaders.

As voters and observers of the political scene, our task is to be aware of how such strategies are used as means of persuasion and manipulation.
 
Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson

written by Kalinda \\ tags: Barack Obama, Catholic Hispanic, Dr. Dobson, Dr. James Dobson, Impolite Topics, John McCain, Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Kalinda Stevenson, McCain, Obama

If you wonder about the connection between religion, politics, and persuasion, read the story published by the Washington post about Barack Obama.

“Obama rumors fly in Flag City USA,” by Eli Saslow, Washington Post,  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25447998/

The story is not really about Barack Obama, but about persuasion. How do you believe what you believe?   Why do you believe what you believe?  How do you decide what is true and what is false when you are confronted with radically different claims about the same person? 

The central figure of the story is Jim Peterman, who lives in Findlay, Ohio, and doesn’t know what to believe about Barack Obama.

The reason for his confusion is that the news he hears about Barack Obama in the news conflicts with the stories he hears from people he has known for a long time.

The news media say that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii and is Christian. The local stories say that he was born in Africa and is a radical Muslim. And just to make the stories juicier, the stories also suggest that Obama might also be gay.

This story demonstrates the power of what is called “social proof.”  It is similar to the old story of the emperor and his new clothes. If “everyone” says it, it must be so. You can be persuaded to believe something contrary to what you see with your own eyes.

“I’ll admit that I probably don’t follow all of the election news like maybe I should,” Peterman said. “I haven’t read his books or studied up more than a little bit. But it’s hard to ignore what you hear when everybody you know is saying it. These are good people, smart people, so can they really all be wrong?”

This story also demonstrates the power of “urban legends.” Urban legends usually have some truth to them, but turn false as they get embellished and told and retold. When urban legends take hold on the internet, they become impossible to kill.

And so Jim Peterman, a man who wants to vote responsibly, is confused by the conflicting stories and is not sure whether he ought to vote or not, because he doesn’t know whom or what to believe. Confused people don’t act. This is another way of saying that Jim Peterman is considering surrendering his power to vote, because he doesn’t know who is telling the truth.

“I don’t know. The whole thing just scares me,” Peterman said. “I’m almost starting to feel like the best choice is not voting at all.”

This is a story worth studying because this is how persuasion and manipulation work. If you have enough people repeating the same story, and if the people who tell the story are people you know and trust, you can be persuaded to deny what you see in front of you.

Jim Peterman is right. It is scary. The real point of this story is not Barack Obama, but all of the rest of us. How do we separate truth from lies, real facts from urban legends?  How do you know when you are being manipulated by lies?  How do you recognize the truth? How often do we surrender our power to act because we don’t know whom or what to believe? 

Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson

written by Kalinda \\ tags: Barack Obama, Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Kalinda Stevenson, politics, religion, social proof, urban legends