Jeff Sharlet rants about the role of religion in the presidential campaign and proposes that we start quizzing the candidates on details about the Christianity they apparently hold so dear.
You know, because theological knowledge is what makes your faith real.
The prison writings of Alexei Navalny
19 hours ago
No, theological knowledge isn't what makes faith real. But if you declare that Christian principles would guide your decision making as chief executive of a nation that includes all sorts of different Christians, as well as other believers and non-believers, you'd better tell us what you mean.
ReplyDeleteIf Obama said he was guided by Wilsonian principles, wouldn't you want to know what, in Woodrow Wilson's approach, he felt relevant to his candidacy?
That's a helpful distinction, Jeff--yes, I would want to know which Wilsonian principles, and I certainly want to know if/how the book of Revelation is guiding someone's foreign policy. But I'm not sure why "guided by prayer" is controversial--people have spiritual lives, and in one way or another this spirituality affects (not controls!) their decisions. And what I was responding to was the rest of the following paragraph, which calls for quizzing the candidates not on how their faith affects their public policy (a subject that Obama has spoken on at length) but on how much they know about the faith tradition itself:
ReplyDelete[L]et’s quiz McCain on his new Baptist credentials, ask Hillary why she rejects the social gospel, demand that Obama explain how, exactly, he will be “guided by prayer” in the oval office, as he boasted in a mailer to South Carolina voters. All three present their Christianity as essential to their political identities. Great; let’s find out what they know about their Christianity. I propose this not as a boost to Hillary, who’s by far the most theologically literate, nor as a slam on McCain, who may not actually know that Baptists are supposed to have been, you know, baptized. Rather, I simply want to know what they know. How about a debate in which Hillary and Obama each explain how Revelation will help them make decisions?
Finding out how deep their knowledge is of church teaching or whatever is relevant neither to their public policy nor necessarily even to the authenticity of their claims of faith. Their simple self-identification as religious, however, is important to some voters, who have the right to choose their candidate for whatever reason they want.