Purpose Driven Posturing
Did Obama Provide Cover for a Religious Right Sneak Attack?
I have a serious problem when a right-wing preacher like Rick Warren (author of the best-selling pop-theology oeuvre, The Purpose Driven Life) is able to outline the political terms of the first major appearance by the two major presidential candidates. And Obama’s decision to participate in Warren’s Christian Right infomercial once again shows his willingness to allow the Right to define the terms of the election and to define him.
Warren’s forum reeked of an attempt to force social conservatism to the forefront of an election where socially conservative issues are on the back burner. Cable news networks and Obama enthusiastically ran interference for an ambitious play by Warren to shape the political discussion. Time will tell if the tactic worked (and I’m not sure it will, conservatism really is in big trouble this year), but the fact that the media and Obama enabled the play is troubling enough.
Even though the US Constitution forbids de jure religious tests for political office, Warren’s forum was a celebration of America’s de facto religious test for political office: You had better be a Christian. By happily answering a battery of theological questions to prove that he believed the right doctrinal shibboleths about salvation and God, Obama gave a big thumbs up to this shameful American tradition. And in an era in which Muslims are victims of discrimination and bigotry and when Obama’s campaign was caught shooing Muslim women off-stage because it might look bad, Obama’s eagerness to humor Warren’s inquisition seems, well, disgusting.
As if that weren’t bad enough, almost all of Warren’s queries focused on issues important to the Christian Right. There were no questions about health care (a major concern for Americans), racism, wages, food and gas prices, corporate America’s responsibility for anything, or even poverty--Warren’s supposed cause célèbre. Instead, we heard about the infinite ability of churches to address all major social problems, abortion, same-sex marriage, and "evil."
Irrespective of what McCain may or may not have known before the forum or whether he was actually in a "cone of silence," McCain’s obviously canned, prepackaged answers seemed to garner more intense applause than Obama’s responses, making this basically a cheerleading session for McCain and the same run-of-the-mill Religious Right causes Warren and his ilk support.
Warren, though he has styled himself as a "different" kind of evangelical, is still very much a part of the Christian Right. Before the 2000 election, he clearly defined the most important, "nonnegotiable" issues of that election to be socially conservative issues. The questions asked at the forum and his subsequent statements on programs like Larry King Live and Hannity and Colmes showed that his political priorities remain unchanged--his charitable work on AIDS and saccharine talk on poverty notwithstanding.
Yes, Warren has done extensive charity work and talks a good game on poverty. But some of the Christian Right’s "old guard" have major charities too, such as Pat Robertson’s "Operation Blessing," or Charles Colson’s "Prison Fellowship Ministries." So I have difficulty seeing how Warren’s efforts on AIDS or poverty make him much different from the rest of them.
One of Warren’s questions at his forum, "when does a 'baby' have rights?" really said it all. Of course, all "babies" have rights because, in fact, a "baby" has been born already and neither a fertilized egg nor a fetus is a "baby." The same Warren who, we are told, longs for civil discourse without “demonization” has no problem with using hyperbolic, inflammatory terms like "holocaust" (an idea he repeated elsewhere) to describe abortion or with implying that abortion means killing “babies.” "Different" kind of evangelical, my ass.
Warren and other conservative evangelicals are making noises about issues like global warming and poverty because they are scuttling to stave off their well-deserved and long overdue comeuppance--a consequence of conservative evangelicals’ decision to identify themselves with the right-wing reaction of the late 1970s. The highly unpopular Bush Administration brought to power by Karl Rove’s strategy to galvanize the white evangelical vote around "wedge issues," is the culmination of that political move. Many conservative evangelicals--the smart ones anyway--perceive a growing exhaustion with their antics and even their own polling data seems to show that their fears are well-founded.
The "new" evangelicals are trying to thwart, or at least blunt, a possible backlash and a progressive resurgence due to frustration with the Bush Administration and the cracks forming in the neoliberal economy (largely around food, energy, foreclosures, etc). By hiding the same old ideas in new rhetoric--pouring new wine into old wineskins, if you will--they hope to be able to salvage their influence and co-opt some of the issues that progressives have traditionally taken up (such as HIV/AIDS and poverty) on their own, right-wing, political terms.
In an interview with the über-reactionary Christian website World Net Daily (often referred to as "Wing-nut Daily"), Warren seems to suggest that his posturing is part of a political strategy to disarm his political theology’s adversaries. He brags about how one of his apologies to former ACT UP activist David Miller "was like I punched him in the gut...You could have knocked the wind out of his sails. Like I just popped the balloon. And then, here, two years later, after this relationship, I'm going to baptize him." I would submit that Warren’s entire disposition is an attempt to "pop the balloon" of the Christian Right’s critics and to mold the coming political debate in his own image.
I have a serious problem when a right-wing preacher like Rick Warren (author of the best-selling pop-theology oeuvre, The Purpose Driven Life) is able to outline the political terms of the first major appearance by the two major presidential candidates. And Obama’s decision to participate in Warren’s Christian Right infomercial once again shows his willingness to allow the Right to define the terms of the election and to define him.
Warren’s forum reeked of an attempt to force social conservatism to the forefront of an election where socially conservative issues are on the back burner. Cable news networks and Obama enthusiastically ran interference for an ambitious play by Warren to shape the political discussion. Time will tell if the tactic worked (and I’m not sure it will, conservatism really is in big trouble this year), but the fact that the media and Obama enabled the play is troubling enough.
Even though the US Constitution forbids de jure religious tests for political office, Warren’s forum was a celebration of America’s de facto religious test for political office: You had better be a Christian. By happily answering a battery of theological questions to prove that he believed the right doctrinal shibboleths about salvation and God, Obama gave a big thumbs up to this shameful American tradition. And in an era in which Muslims are victims of discrimination and bigotry and when Obama’s campaign was caught shooing Muslim women off-stage because it might look bad, Obama’s eagerness to humor Warren’s inquisition seems, well, disgusting.
As if that weren’t bad enough, almost all of Warren’s queries focused on issues important to the Christian Right. There were no questions about health care (a major concern for Americans), racism, wages, food and gas prices, corporate America’s responsibility for anything, or even poverty--Warren’s supposed cause célèbre. Instead, we heard about the infinite ability of churches to address all major social problems, abortion, same-sex marriage, and "evil."
Irrespective of what McCain may or may not have known before the forum or whether he was actually in a "cone of silence," McCain’s obviously canned, prepackaged answers seemed to garner more intense applause than Obama’s responses, making this basically a cheerleading session for McCain and the same run-of-the-mill Religious Right causes Warren and his ilk support.
Warren, though he has styled himself as a "different" kind of evangelical, is still very much a part of the Christian Right. Before the 2000 election, he clearly defined the most important, "nonnegotiable" issues of that election to be socially conservative issues. The questions asked at the forum and his subsequent statements on programs like Larry King Live and Hannity and Colmes showed that his political priorities remain unchanged--his charitable work on AIDS and saccharine talk on poverty notwithstanding.
Yes, Warren has done extensive charity work and talks a good game on poverty. But some of the Christian Right’s "old guard" have major charities too, such as Pat Robertson’s "Operation Blessing," or Charles Colson’s "Prison Fellowship Ministries." So I have difficulty seeing how Warren’s efforts on AIDS or poverty make him much different from the rest of them.
One of Warren’s questions at his forum, "when does a 'baby' have rights?" really said it all. Of course, all "babies" have rights because, in fact, a "baby" has been born already and neither a fertilized egg nor a fetus is a "baby." The same Warren who, we are told, longs for civil discourse without “demonization” has no problem with using hyperbolic, inflammatory terms like "holocaust" (an idea he repeated elsewhere) to describe abortion or with implying that abortion means killing “babies.” "Different" kind of evangelical, my ass.
Warren and other conservative evangelicals are making noises about issues like global warming and poverty because they are scuttling to stave off their well-deserved and long overdue comeuppance--a consequence of conservative evangelicals’ decision to identify themselves with the right-wing reaction of the late 1970s. The highly unpopular Bush Administration brought to power by Karl Rove’s strategy to galvanize the white evangelical vote around "wedge issues," is the culmination of that political move. Many conservative evangelicals--the smart ones anyway--perceive a growing exhaustion with their antics and even their own polling data seems to show that their fears are well-founded.
The "new" evangelicals are trying to thwart, or at least blunt, a possible backlash and a progressive resurgence due to frustration with the Bush Administration and the cracks forming in the neoliberal economy (largely around food, energy, foreclosures, etc). By hiding the same old ideas in new rhetoric--pouring new wine into old wineskins, if you will--they hope to be able to salvage their influence and co-opt some of the issues that progressives have traditionally taken up (such as HIV/AIDS and poverty) on their own, right-wing, political terms.
In an interview with the über-reactionary Christian website World Net Daily (often referred to as "Wing-nut Daily"), Warren seems to suggest that his posturing is part of a political strategy to disarm his political theology’s adversaries. He brags about how one of his apologies to former ACT UP activist David Miller "was like I punched him in the gut...You could have knocked the wind out of his sails. Like I just popped the balloon. And then, here, two years later, after this relationship, I'm going to baptize him." I would submit that Warren’s entire disposition is an attempt to "pop the balloon" of the Christian Right’s critics and to mold the coming political debate in his own image.
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Comment by ronbearoh on August 20, 2008 at 9:20am - The Saddleback church forum was nothing more than a right wing christian attack ad for John Mccain.Shame on the pastor,the media and Obama for not seeing it for what it was.
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Comment by Brian on August 20, 2008 at 3:28pm -
I just read this morning that McCain just shot ahead of Obama by five percentage points. It certainly seems as though Obama's strategy of pandering to the Right isn't working very well.
According to the poll, one of the major problems is that Obama's support among all his "base" went down (young people, Democrats). His shifts to the Right are actually hurting him. This is the classic Democratic recipe for defeat and while I am not surprised, it is a little ridiculous that they are trying a failed strategy AGAIN. Some folks just don't learn.
See: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080820/ts_nm/usa_poll_politics_dc
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