Santorum explains “phony theology” comment
Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum says he wasn’t questioning Barack Obama’s faith on Saturday when he said the Democratic president’s agenda was based on “some phony theology.”
Santorum explained his comments during an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday, saying he was questioning the president’s world view — not his faith.
“I accept the fact that the president’s Christian,” Santorum said. “I just said that when you have a world view that elevates the earth above man says that, you know, we can’t take those resources because we’re going to harm the earth by things that are frankly just not scientifically proven.”
A devout Roman Catholic and social conservative, Santorum brought up the theology issue a day earlier in Columbus, Ohio, as he addressed supporters of the conservative Tea Party movement. (Here’s the story from Reuters’ Sam Jacobs)
On ABC’s “This Week,” Robert Gibbs, a senior advisor to Obama’s re-election campaign said Santorum’s “phony theology” comment crosses a line and was dragging the presidential campaign down.
“I can’t help but think that those remarks are well over the line,” Gibbs said. “It’s wrong. It’s destructive. It makes it virtually impossible to solve the problems that we all face together as Americans.”
Here’s Santorum on “Face the Nation”
U.S. religious leaders urge moral solution to debt talks
Don’t balance the U.S. budget on the backs of the poor and sick, religious leaders said, suggesting that their churches’ charity work is already overstretched and social havoc could result if the government’s social safety net is abandoned.
Representatives from Protestant, Jewish, Muslim and interfaith groups and churches expressed their collective disappointment with the tone of blame in the debt debate between President Obama and congressional negotiators.
The faith groups have organized a vigil alongside the U.S. Capitol and released a letter appealing to the president and Congress to consider the poor and vulnerable in their negotiations.
“The middle class are being crushed. The poor see no hope from getting up from the doldrums of despair and whole communities are facing struggles with joblessness, crime, addictions, violence, and lack the basic necessities of food, shelter, clothing, and adequate education. While these struggles exist in communities, we are witnessing our president and Congress engaging in political posturing, while bickering for power and control,” Rev. Herbert Nelson of the Presbyterian Church USA said.
“It’s time for people of faith to step up and say we as Americans can do better,” The Reverend Canon Peg Chemberlin, president of the National Council of Churches said. She could not believe Americans would abandon the poor to “maintain tax loopholes,” illustrating the support among the faith leaders for more revenues favored by Democrats. However, they also pointed to the need to examine the defense budget for savings.
The concern, Nelson said, should be that social havoc could follow draconian budget cuts. “Poverty isn’t going to be contained,” he said. “No bars on windows, no gated communities are going to stop people desperate to feed their families.”
Nelson said he has spoken to people with wealth who are willing to pay more in taxes if it would help people, and he said he was surprised at the resistance to the rich paying more.
Few would defend the integrity and ethics of most of our elected leaders. Yet such qualities of the highest order are precisely what the American People have called for, for two decades now. As long as the Oligarchs(bankers) maintain their patrons in congress(democrats and republicans), I have no expectation of anything resembling moral conduct regarding public policy to come from Washington.
Obamas make rare church visit
Margaret Chadbourn of Reuters reports the following on the Obama family’s church visit.
President Barack Obama , his wife Michelle, and their two daughters made a rare visit to a Washington church service on Sunday and were promptly invited by the pastor to become members of the congregation.
The Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, a few blocks from the White House, welcomed the Obama family for a special service celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr. on the eve of the holiday honoring the slain civil rights leader.
Michelle Obama received more applause than her husband when the first family’s arrival was announced in church. She was even treated to a round of “Happy Birthday.” She turns 47 on Monday.
When it came time for the Reverend Marie Braxton to say a few words, she promised Mrs. Obama that if the first lady decided to join the church with her family, there would be more than a spiritual force in her corner.
“It would be something if you joined our church, and I got to be your pastor and you got to be my girlfriend. And Mr. President, we would find something for you to do,” Braxton said.
Many local religious leaders have wondered when, or if, America’s first African American first family might choose a new church home,The Washington Post says in its story headlined “New appeal for Obamas as they mark holiday at black church.”
One nation under God!! Please pray for and support our President and his family and do no harm to those you may differ with!! Thanks, Tea party
O’Donnell credits prayer for campaign boost
Republicans may be abandoning Christine O’Donnell’s U.S. Senate campaign. But she still has friends in high places — really high places.
In fact, the Delaware Tea Party favorite is crediting divine intervention for the successes that her campaign has had.
“The day that we saw a spike in the polls was a day that some people had a prayer meeting for me, that morning for this campaign,” she tells the Christian Broadcasting Network, a cable TV channel founded by televangelist and former Republican presidential candidate Pat Robertson.
“I believe that prayer plays a direct role in this campaign,” she said. “I always ask people: ‘Please pray for the campaign. Please pray for our staff. Please pray, specifically, that the eyes of the voters be opened.’” Prayer may be O’Donnell’s best hope. Since her upset primary win over Republican moderate Mike Castle, she has been dogged by questions about her qualifications for office, ridiculed for acknowledging a teenage fascination with witchcraft and excoriated over her understanding of U.S. religious freedoms.
Barely a week before Election Day, her Democratic opponent Chris Coons has more than 50 percent of voter support in a recent Rasmussen survey. Some pundits give her zero chance of pulling off a victory and blame her candidacy for sinking Republican hopes of capturing the Senate.
But O’Donnell says she hasn’t started praying only now that the chips are down.
Well, I think that she has something since the country was founded upon God and his sovergn power, why not? Seems to me that if we applied God to everything, we wouldn’t have these problems. Furthermore she was right when she made reference to the The Bill of Rights, which states and I quote; Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free excercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
That means that they can’t make a law against or for religion, Capeesh!
State Dept: church Koran burning plan”un-American”
There have been lots of angry words over plans by an obscure Florida pastor to burn copies of the Koran on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
But State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley pulled out the biggest gun of all on Tuesday in his effort to distance the government from the pastor’s incendiary proposal — he called it “un-American.”
“We are conscious that a number of voices have come out and rejected what this pastor and this community have proposed,” Crowley told a news briefing. “We would like to see more Americans stand up and say ‘this is inconsistent with our American values.’ In fact these actions themselves are un-American.”
“Un-American” is not an epithet that trips lightly off the tongue for U.S. government spokespeople, carrying as it does the tang of the 1950′s witchhunt for alleged communist sympathizers spearheaded by the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center church in Florida presumably doesn’t think his book burning plans are un-American, at least by his definition.
Jones said he would torch copies of the Muslim holy book on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in an effort toward “exposing Islam” as a “violent and oppressive religion.”
“When do we stop backing down?…when does American stand for truth?” Jones said in an interview with CNN.
This reminds me of the imam priest in a mosque in the sindh province of Pakistan who was the sole survivor with the mosque and did not flee from the flood water. His comments to a jounalist; I have been living in the mosque, the house of God and lookibg after it. If God almighty wants to destroy his own house then be it and I am prepared to die”. He survived with the house of the God, Quraan is the property of God and not the property of muslims, Let Got decide what the infidels want to do with the book, read it, agree or dis agree with it or attempt to destroy it. There are always consequences for the crime whioch we commit in this world, the rest is just a distruction!
I have seen flag burning on the TV nand I have seen the on the Tv the burnings of the human written books, I have also witnessed the consequences on the TV and I have read about the crusaders onslaught against Islam and I have seen holiday films about the european kings and noblemen armies march into the holy land and I have also read about the defeats of the evil forces. I have also witnessed the world war war 2 and the consequences andf I am prepared to witness the ww3 on any pretext, so be it. Let us recognise just one principle, the world is controlled by the almighty God and it is illusary to believe that the human power can decide what is to transpire in the end.
Have a nice day, you brave warriors, unleashing anger the oapparent weak people.
Poll shows Americans are confused on Obama’s religion
A year and a half into his presidency, Americans appear to be growing more uncertain about Barack Obama’s religion.
A Pew Research Center survey shows that nearly one in five Americans — 18 percent — believe Obama is a Muslim, up from 11 percent in March 2009. Meanwhile only about one third of Americans surveyed correctly describe Obama as a Christian, a sharp decrease from the 48 percent who said he was a Christian in 2009.
The survey was completed in early August, before Obama backed the controversial construction of a proposed mosque and Muslim cultural center near the site of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York.
Obama said last week he believed Muslims had the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in the country and supported their right to build the center in lower Manhattan – comments that could add more confusion about his religion.
The Pew poll said the view that Obama is a Muslim is more widespread among political opponents than his supporters. In addition, beliefs about Obama’s religion appear closely linked to his job approval rating.
Among those who say Obama is Muslim, 67 percent disapprove of his job performance while a majority of those who think he is Christian approve of the job he is doing.
The poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life was conducted July 21-Aug 5 among 3,003 respondents.
I could not care less what religion Obama is or if he is religious or not, I can’t see how it matters at all. We have a separation of church and state in our constitution for a reason.
Obama sits down with Rev. Billy Graham
President Barack Obama had his first face-to-face talks on Sunday with one of America’s top spiritual leaders, the Reverend Billy Graham.
Graham, 91, who is ailing with Parkinson’s disease, has prayed with U.S. presidents over the course of the past 50 years or so.
Obama visited his Montreat log cabin home at the end of a weekend trip to western North Carolina.
“Rev. Graham has obviously been an important spiritual leader for past presidents and for the American people for decades,” White House spokesman Bill Burton said.
He called Graham “a real treasure for our country and the president appreciates the opportunity to visit him at his home and speak with him.”
He said he assumed Obama and Graham would pray together.
The U.S. Army last week withdrew an invitation to Graham’s son Franklin Graham to speak at a Pentagon prayer service next month following an outcry over his references to Islam as a violent religion. The invitation had been extended by the private, Colorado-based National Day of Prayer Task Force.
Clinton finds the jazz in her job, honors King and Gandhi
With jazz great Herbie Hancock and Congressman John Lewis at her side, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hosted a State Department ceremony on Thursday to mark the departure of a cultural delegation to India to commemorate civil rights leader Martin Luther King’s trip there 50 years ago.
King and his wife, Coretta, traveled to India in 1959 to study the life and works of India’s legendary nonviolent independence leader Mahatma Gandhi. King adopted many of Gandhi’s principles of nonviolence to the U.S. civil rights movement in the early 1960s. Clinton said she was “jealous” of the trip by the delegation, which includes Hancock, civil rights veteran Lewis, King’s son, Martin Luther King III, and Alabama Congressman Spencer Bachus. The group will travel to New Delhi and other sites associated with Gandhi.
Hancock said the philosophy of cooperation, communication and harmony espoused by King and Gandhi “are also essential elements of every jazz band.”
Clinton, meanwhile, said the delegation was “exactly what the State Department should be doing even more of.”
“Jazz is not just about music,” the newly installed diplomat said. “As secretary of state, I’m improvising every day.”
For more Reuters political news, click here.
Photo credit: Reuters/Tim Parker (Herbie Hancock and trumpeter Roy Hargrove play at Powell Symphony Hall in St. Louis on Sept. 28, 2001)
So let me see if I understand the sentiments…it’s ok to spend Billions and Billions of dollars on senseless wars in two middle eastern countries, completely destroy the reputation of the United States throughout the world by proliferating our skewed view of freedom and democracy, and allow the Bush Adminstration to take a budget surplus of close to a Trillion dollars in 2001 and turn it into the largest deficit on record in a matter of a few years, BUT…it’s NOT OK to spend a little money on sending a delegation to promote peaceful dialog and cooperation around the world in order to restore that reputation. Which would allow the U.S. to re-establish needed connections with businesses around the world, who might want or need our products. Thereby creating the jobs we all so much want to get and keep. Your right, stay home, stop spending, and wait for those Bush Tax Cuts to really jolt the economy.
from FaithWorld:
Obama evokes church/state divide at National Prayer Breakfast
Religion's role in U.S. politics was on full display on Thursday as President Barack Obama spoke and prayed at the annual National Prayer Breakfast.
Obama, an adult convert to Christianity, used the occasion to announce that he will be establishing a White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. This will replace or be an extension of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives established by former President George W. Bush, who was strongly supported by conservative Christians.
Some of Obama's remarks about the new office are sure to raise eyebrows in those conservative Christian circles. For example:
"The goal of this office will not be to favor one religious group over another – or even religious groups over secular groups. It will simply be to work on behalf of those organizations that want to work on behalf of our communities, and to do so without blurring the line that our founders wisely drew between church and state."
For many conservative U.S. Christians, it is an article of faith that the founding fathers in the late 18th century did not erect a wall to separate church and state. Many religious and secular liberals contest that view, making it one of America's never-ending culture war battles.
Obama also let it be known that while he is a Christian he is not about to favor one religious group over another. In his prepared remarks, he said:
Alex, many evangelical Christians thought they could trust George Bush because he was evangelical, and quite a few were disappointed by him. A lot of Jews trusted Bernard Madoff with their money, at least partly because he was a fellow Jew, and they got wiped out financially. With that in mind, can you really think you can trust a politician just because he’s a Muslim like you?
Candidates spar over abortion rights
DALLAS – Barack Obama and John McCain got a chance during their third presidential debate on Wednesday night to directly address their respective bases when they were asked about abortion.
Moderator Bob Schieffer, who noted that Democrat Obama supports the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court Roe vs Wade decision that grants women a constitutional right to an abortion, while the Republican McCain opposes it, asked: “Could either of you ever nominate someone to the Supreme Court who disagrees with you on this issue?”
Both candidates said they would not apply ”litmus tests” if they were to select justices for the top U.S. court, whose nine members are currently almost evenly divided between conservatives and liberals.
“I would consider anyone in their qualifications. I do not believe that someone who has supported Roe v. Wade that would be part of those qualifications. But I certainly would not impose any litmus test,” McCain said.
Obama said: “I am somebody who believes that Roe versus Wade was rightly decided … what ultimately I believe is that women in consultation with their families, their doctors, their religious advisers, are in the best position to make this decision.”
Abortion is one of the most emotive and partisan issues in America. Most Democrats support abortion rights; the Republican Party is opposed to abortion rights and its conservative Christian wing is especially vocal and activist in this regard.
i understand a women should be able to self determine her own productive rights but because of entrenched politics we have decent people unfortunenatly have to support the action of a baby being dragged from the womb and murded on the way to stay partizan to a political agenda.we should get together and spend as much time as we do on renewable energy to try to develope tech to incubate the baby and give it a chance to live then every one will benifit including the mother.
All these so-called “social conservatives” screamed bloody murder when it was rumored that Muslims were being granted a religious exemption to the individual mandate on PPACA. (Even though that was nothing more than a chain-email rumor.) Now these same wingnuts insist that if Obama doesn’t grant Catholics a religious exemption that he’s somehow violating the constitution. Which is it Republicons? Do your religious beliefs exempt you from following the law or don’t they? Or is it just YOUR religious beliefs that garner special privilege?