Unlike REM, Harold can say he loves Jesus, or, Call me a candidate, hey hey hey*
It's past time to call out Harold Ford, Jr. on the 'I love Jesus' thang. I've got nothing against anyone who does love Jesus**, but I've spent a lot of time (along with a lotta other lefties and Democrats) criticizing politicians on the right side of the wing who wrap their arms simultaneously around God, Jesus, and the flag. Folks who proclaim to be on the side of God tend to be a little too absolutist to be running a democracy, as in, God told me this, who the hell are you to disagree.
C.S. Lewis says it much better than I do...
If you don't know this already, C.S. Lewis was one of the foremost Christian apologists in history. He also wrote 'The Chronicles of Narnia'.
My neighbors have the Sojourner bumper sticker on their car: 'God is not a Republican, or a Democrat' The 'or a Democrat' is in smaller letters because generally speaking, the Dems haven't openly embraced God and Jesus as fellow party members as much as their G.O.P. counterparts.
Harold Ford is single-handedly trying to catch the Democratic party up with the Republicans on this count. Nonsense such as Dems love the Lord more than the Republicans doesn't help anyone other than independent voters move toward the Republican party or at least not vote for Ford.
I am certainly not going to judge Harold Ford's faith or his belief system, but it's past time to quit campaigning with one arm around the baby Jesus. There are a lot of people out here who cherish not living in a theocracy and wish candidates from both sides of the aisle would remember that democracy and theocracy aren't synonyms.
The main reason to vote for Ford is to help put the brakes on the Iraqi disaster masquerading as the Bush administration's war plan. Ford's partition plan (a version of Joe Biden's) should be heard, but Ford's Christian army bit is making it hard to support, what in my mind, is a worthy cause.
If we are going to criticize the Republican party for associating God with their version of the truth, we have to dish it out when 'one of ours' strays too much in that direction as well.
*Title is based on an REM lyric from 'New Test Leper' on 'New Adventures in Hi-Fi', a most excellent CD except for the Patti Smith drone song.
**In fact, I admire THIS guy, quite a bit
Update: Aunt B takes a similiar tack with much more gusto.
C.S. Lewis says it much better than I do...
...since Theocracy is the worst, the nearer any government approaches to Theocracy the worse it will be. A metaphysic held by the rulers with the force of a religion, is a bad sign. It forbids them, like the inquisitor, to admit any grain of truth or good in their opponents, it abrogates the ordinary rules of morality, and it gives a seemingly high, super-personal sanction to all the very ordinary human passions by which, like other men, the rulers will frequently be actuated. In a word, it forbids wholesome doubt. A political programme can never in reality be more than probably right. We never know all the facts about the present and we can only guess the future. To attach to a party programme -- whose highest claim is to reasonable prudence -- the sort of assent which we should reserve for demonstrable theorems, is a kind of intoxication.
This snippet is from "A Reply to Professor Haldane," which was published after C.S. Lewis' death and can be found, most recently, in the collection On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature.
If you don't know this already, C.S. Lewis was one of the foremost Christian apologists in history. He also wrote 'The Chronicles of Narnia'.
My neighbors have the Sojourner bumper sticker on their car: 'God is not a Republican, or a Democrat' The 'or a Democrat' is in smaller letters because generally speaking, the Dems haven't openly embraced God and Jesus as fellow party members as much as their G.O.P. counterparts.
Harold Ford is single-handedly trying to catch the Democratic party up with the Republicans on this count. Nonsense such as Dems love the Lord more than the Republicans doesn't help anyone other than independent voters move toward the Republican party or at least not vote for Ford.
I am certainly not going to judge Harold Ford's faith or his belief system, but it's past time to quit campaigning with one arm around the baby Jesus. There are a lot of people out here who cherish not living in a theocracy and wish candidates from both sides of the aisle would remember that democracy and theocracy aren't synonyms.
The main reason to vote for Ford is to help put the brakes on the Iraqi disaster masquerading as the Bush administration's war plan. Ford's partition plan (a version of Joe Biden's) should be heard, but Ford's Christian army bit is making it hard to support, what in my mind, is a worthy cause.
If we are going to criticize the Republican party for associating God with their version of the truth, we have to dish it out when 'one of ours' strays too much in that direction as well.
*Title is based on an REM lyric from 'New Test Leper' on 'New Adventures in Hi-Fi', a most excellent CD except for the Patti Smith drone song.
**In fact, I admire THIS guy, quite a bit
Update: Aunt B takes a similiar tack with much more gusto.
