Charles wrote:
” . . . as I recall bill clinton ascended to god like status in the liberal press in 1992.”
and Mouse wrote:
“‘All such passion seeks salvation. It’s only through “hope”, through “moving beyond” that there can be this salvation, this individual transformation. And of course the most immediately satisfying first stage in that transformation is righteousness; one certainly is righteous when one is remarkable enough to recognize that the present is rotten.”
Good points.
The difference between the Bill Clinton and Sen. Obama candidacies is interesting, i.e. Clinton’s mere evocation and allusion to religion, e.g., the “Man from Hope” vs. Obama’s explicit identification with religion and messianism (see the interesting Obama-Messiah website).
It is the assumption of Sen. Obama’s supporters that his religion is merely of a symbolic abstraction kind. Thus even his most anti-religion supporters can tolerate and even celebrate his religious symbolism and language. Being leftists, they understand that the more Sen. Obama succeeds in appropriating conventional religious language and doctrine, the more he marginalizes traditional believers. In any Newspeak strategy, it’s always effective to appropriate the language of your adversary, e.g. the totalitarian “Democratic Republic” of whatever.
Traditional Christians believe they are seriously flawed and in need of a savior. They can aim at a target but they will continually miss it(hamartia), no matter what their degree of skill. And governments (e.g. Tower of Babel) do an even worse job of hitting the mark.
Liberal Christians, on the other hand, believe that the Bible and Jesus provide some good insights and guidelines. Smart people of good will, given enough money and power, will be able to hit the mark, creating programs that will alleviate the misery and error that have dogged human beings (most visciously via racism, imperialism, sexism, etc.) throughout history.
Dr. Dobson has recently called attention to the gulf that exists between Sen. Obama’s Christianity and that of mainstream Christians.
Stay tuned for what Mr. Olbermann has to say about that!
