Bob,

How do you know that a “true Christian would not have an abortion?”

Does this mean that if a woman had an abortion she cannot be a “true Christian”?

Also, could a true Christian kill a baby after it was born?

My experience with “pro-lifers” is that they are not consistently pro-life, as I am as a non-Christian, so I am interested to know if you think killing is o.k. for “true Christians” under any circumstances?

A true Christian would not get an abortion.

You know what is funny?

You know how people can advocate assasination? Such as Pat Robertson about Chavez and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen about Castro? You know how Right Wing radio/TV hosts spew out hatred on a regular basis? You know how some Christian Americans are so anti-gay and anti-abortion that they advocate the death of gays and doctors? You know how some Christian Americans actually have killed?

What’s funny is that Obama is the next great American liberal leader who will try for the White House and that some screwed up Christian American is going to assasinate him.

Only it ain’t funny.

Religion and politics do not and should not go hand in hand, it is good to believe in God but being president might make one do unchristian things because one has to weigh one act against another, I am sure that there are christin people who have an abortion.  I believe that no one wants to take a life even if that life is not able to stand on its own.  But remember Bush was suppose to be a christian and Jesus speaks to him but I wonder what went wrong when we were suppose to win this war in Iraq, I think that God does not take sides, man makes war not God.

Margaret from Vancouver, Washington

Why do so many so-called Evangelical “conservative” Christians hate Jesus?

Falwell, Robertson & the rest would fight over being the first to drive the nails through Jesus’ hands into the wood!

Not all “religion” is true faith, that’s
for darn sure.

And Christ was no Republican!

Murder is not a finite transgression.  It takes away someone else’s life infinitely, forever.
Hitler receives no punishment for millions of murders?  No thanks.

I would like to request that “religious right” commentators on this issue, since they are intolerant of anything that differs from their opinion, would let us know where they stood and now stand on Bush and the War in Iraq.

The association of the “true Christian position” by these folks with people like Robertson, Falwell, Bob Jones, Franklyn Graham, Dobson, and George Bush--all claiming to follow the “true biblical Christ"--indicates that they selectively follow(not) the teachings of Jesus themselves.

Just a request.  Also recommend such folks read and apply Matthew 23 to themselves before branding Warren, Obama and company as “empty” or “vacuous” or having a hidden agenda.

Every one who wants to the rule the world with his thought/idea, please identify yourselves.  Most of us would just like for you to be consistent and be authentically who you claim to be.  If you are pro-life you cannot be pro-war.  and you cannot be a follower of Jesus and endorse any platform based on deceit, lies, revenge and hypocrisy, whether that platform have a D, an R, or a C--for “Christian"--over it.

I’m personally tired of Bible-thumpers who are warmongers.

Thank you.

Too many times it is the “good intentions” component that gets the attention of those who have an agenda—and all do. But Obama and Warren may have good intentions all they want, but the fact is the Bible is clear on all issues of life and they have taken issue with the Bible. Since the Bible IS the book of Christianity (or is supposed to be if you are a true Christian) then to omit that which you don’t like means that you are not fully Christian. Much like leaping between cliffs with a 2 mile drop, “almost” is not “good enough”.

That is what Warren is saying, “Obama is good enough for this issue, even if I don’t stand with him on other issues.” Did Christ side with the Pharisees on points of theological agreement? Hardly. And as for Warren’s statement that he is not a politician, with his recent debacle in Syria, his overt support of a presidential hope-for, and his defending of the same, paints an entirely different story.

Actions STILL speak louder than words!

Is AIDS a good cause? Of course. Is motivating people to address the issue important. Again, of course! But to sideline the Biblical unctions of abstinence and fidelty in deference to the Holy Grail of PC efforts on behalf of the afflicted is STILL wrong. Either you believe the Word of God, God’s laws contained therein, and are living a FULLY Christian lifestyle or you faith is vain.

Politicians are just that—politicians. They will say what will sway the most minds to a worldview they wish to display in order to gain power, influence and position. Are all politicians built that way? God only knows. But what is obvious is that a person who is running for president, fashioning a platform, and making every effort to gain the spotlight in order to forward their agenda, is NOT the person to hold court on the church podium.

You can call yourself what you want, Christian, Moslem or atheist, et al, but in the final analysis it will be always what you do that holds truth and not always your words. Words are cheap, as in free, but the lives of the unborn are real and tangible—as is the quest for power and position. Warren has stepped into an arena that is fraught with immoral equivalization and has done so with intent and forethought.

The question only remains, what does Warren want?

J.D. Payne

Mr. Obama is a gifted orator and in this present day political climate, it is a welcomed change to be presented with rhetoric that is hopeful and serving of the common good.  The Republican rhetoric and action is divisive and hateful.  Sadly enough, and in step (or as a bi-product thereof) so is that of the religious right. Fear and imposition of a particular view/ way of life is the montreau of both the Republicans as well as the religious right.  The former in terms of their “war on terror” and imposition of Western Democracy in foriegn lands, and the later in terms of their “way my or damnation” and their incredulous desire to bend the minds of others to their (misguided) world view.  They are both of the same ilk - the same “kind” of mind and motivation - power over one’s fellow man.  It is truly sad that these self appointed “Chirstian” moralists are so ignorant of the true spirit of Christ. It would be a welcome change to open my ears to a leader who inspires noble thoughts and aspirations in our people.  Mr. Obama might be that person.

People must realize that in bibilical times abortion was a dangerous thing.  I think most people (women) consider abortion an extreme thing, I would not get an abortion, but I was never in the position of having too many children, some religious people do not believe in birth control, but some people don’t have a lot of children, some people only have one child and can have no more, but there is a certain portion of the population who could have 20 children, which cannot be good for the children, because some will go hungry, so the religious right might cry about the unborn children, but what of the children who are lost because of not enough food or clothing or a proper place to live.  I know of large families because I am result of one, one of my cousins comes from a family of more than 13, 13 is what is left of 18 pregencies, and two of his brothers have allready of alchol.

My point is too many children is as bad as not enough children, and politics and religion should not mix, the founding fathers knew what they were doing.  Bush and company used religion to further their ambitions. 

The middle east shows you what religion and politics can accheive.

Margaret from Vancouver, Washington

giving publicity to a huckster like obama when he is polishing his empty track shoes for run at the white house is a crass stunt for warren.  obama stands for everything decent people are against.

Judgement is discernment or good sense, the ability to form sound opinions and make sensible decisions.

This is the answer I received from Paul Street when I asked him if he thought B. O. actually believed the drivel he spouts, as opposed to, say, George Wallace, who finally said he did not believe all the BS he spouted over the years of his political career, he did it because it was necessary to get power.......

Mariam: My sense is that (beneath his pronounced statements of Christian committment) Obama is a soulless political machine who says what he thinks will get him into the White House some day. What he or other policymakers and politicans truly believe is rarely a simple matter to discern; sometimes it comes out only later. Pretty much by definition they make a big distinction beween private beliefs and public statements.

My sense is that B.O. is more conscious than most politicians of the extent to which he is spewing bullshit. I mean he’s no dummy. Like Clinton and unlike, say, Bush, he is highly intelligent.

B.O. is considered to have strong “man of the people” and related domestic policy credentials (this even while he has been vetted by corporate elite power brokers, who have determined that he is safe for existing homeland hierarchies) but to be presidentially suspect (as far the structurally super-empowered corporate imperial folks who matter are concerned) because of short national experience particularly with regard to grave matters of foreign policy.

That’s why you see him giving these weighty global policy speeches with obvious major input from people in around the foreign policy establishment. He is trying to sound presidential and safe for the Empire. If you look at the chapter called “The World Beyond Our Borders” in his plodding book “The Audacity of Hope,” it’s just loaded with terrible statements showing (1) the significant influence of elite doctrine and education (how much he believes I have no idea...) and (2) a desire to impress the elite that he’s safe and will seek to maintain basic imperial continuties.. a more intelligent and “competent” version of American global dominance than that promised by incompetent morons like Bush II.

Speaking of being smart and Chomsky, I don’t give smart people a lot of points for being smart but for what they do with their brains. What’s so great about Chomsky in my opinion is that he took an obviously super-gifted mind and background --- capacities that could have probably put him into the economic super-elite if that’s what he’d wanted --- and applied it all instead to marvelous morally engaged radical-democratic criticism of social injustice and imperial criminality. I’ve worked for many years (though no longer) in and around academia and must say that it is full of people with all kinds of smarts (no not Chomsky-level smarts, but very clever and knowledgeable people often enough) who just do nothing worthwhile or meaningful (not to mention radical) with their capacities and their privlege. With some noble exceptions, they spend most of their time making excuses for the crimes of concentrated power or just pursuing totally innocuous subject mattters. It’s a very boring and often quietly vicious, back-kniving world where the stultifying stench of irrelevance and wasted energy is thick indeed.

The Buddhists have a point when they say “the path is the goal.” The notion that you have to opportunistically say all these conservative things to get into office and then you can really rock and roll in a true progressive way forgets that (even if Obama were some kind of closeted progressive waiting to get into touch with his inner democratic socialist or whatever) the daily practice of compromising democracy and justice comes to shape and define you. You become your path. The end does not justify the means and the means change the end, if that makes any sense. This is part of why Martin Luther King, Jr. rejected efforts to get him to run for the presidency.

To suggest that Obama is “more Christian than the Christians” is the height of insanity.
With his views on homosexuality and on abstinence he can in no way be considered a Christian.
No how no way!!!!!!!!!
He is deceived period.

Spinoza is correct. Obama needs to go for an evenhanded position in the Middle East. No nukes, please, for either Iran or Israel. As for Iraq it is not a failed nation. Heavens above, it has never been a nation at all. It’s an artificial construct of the British after the first World War and now a reconstuct by America. America now has to talk tough to the people along the Tigris and Euphrates. Either get your act together or be absorbed by your adjoining real nations--Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and a new nation made up of the Kurds in Turkey and in that farce of a nation called Iraq.

Barak Obama has demonstrated his rhetorical and political skills beyond a doubt, and his lack of “experience” need not be an impediment, as long as his historical knowledge and judgment is sound. His speech to the Christian Right was easy enough for him. A crucial test however will be if he will have the courage, and will make the effort to critically analyze the connection between the Israeli/Palestinian issue and Muslim terrorism against the West, and if he will speak out clearly and convincingly as Jimmy Carter has now finally done in his book “Palestine, Peace, not Apartheid”. Will he lead the way to buck the powerful Israeli (Jewish) lobby, or will he also kow tow to them as have all Democrats (and Republicans)?

Oil and water do not mix very well. Nor does God’s Words and immoral man’s words; light and darkness; righteousness and unrighteousness.

At last a spiritual and political leader. I have long believed that the Democratic party made fundamental strategical errors by refusing to acknowledge faith as personal motivation. It is not in the details of the faith we find conviction, but in the overarching act of compassion.
Looking forward to Obama & Edwards in ‘08.
Lillian M.

To E.J. for the article, to Pastor Rick for inviting Sen.Obama and to Sen. Obama for his comments, I say “AMEN Brothers!”

I would wish Mr. Obama was more left of center and didn’t act like a liberal.  His refusal to call for peace in the Middle East makes him an enemy of the people. He has to stop cow-towing to the Israel Lobby.

I congratulate E. J. Dionne for his coverage of this event and to the participants for participating in it and for Rick Warren’s “whole bird” approach to politics, despite the backlash from “the relgious right”.  I wish we would just call bigots “bigots” in this country, regardless of who they say they are in terms of spirituality and/or religion.

Jesus would approve; in fact, did in Matthew 23 when he said, “Do as they postulate, not as they do...” referring to the “religious right” of his day, his most vile and violent opponents.  Then, he simply did what he did to no other group of people:  he diatribed and diatribed about them, describing their “acting jobs” and consigned them to a fate worse than that of Sodom and Gomorrah, those cities that became the Dead Sea, according to tradition.

So, Warren, Obama, and the pro-life spoke distinguished themselves from that crowd by this event.  Good for them!

Steve Pipkin-Savage
Mesa, AZ

Christian spirit:  infinite punishment for finite transgressions… no thanks, this bird has flown.