Call to Renewal
Senator Barack Obama has posted his keynote address delivered at the Call to Renewal conference (see E.J. Dionne’s coverage here). Here is an excerpt:
More fundamentally, the discomfort of some progressives with any hint of religion has often prevented us from effectively addressing issues in moral terms. Some of the problem here is rhetorical – if we scrub language of all religious content, we forfeit the imagery and terminology through which millions of Americans understand both their personal morality and social justice.
Imagine Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address without reference to “the judgments of the Lord.” Or King’s I Have a Dream speech without references to “all of God’s children.” Their summoning of a higher truth helped inspire what had seemed impossible, and move the nation to embrace a common destiny.
Our failure as progressives to tap into the moral underpinnings of the nation is not just rhetorical, though. Our fear of getting “preachy” may also lead us to discount the role that values and culture play in some of our most urgent social problems.
After all, the problems of poverty and racism, the uninsured and the unemployed, are not simply technical problems in search of the perfect ten point plan. They are rooted in both societal indifference and individual callousness – in the imperfections of man.
Solving these problems will require changes in government policy, but it will also require changes in hearts and a change in minds. I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities, and that our leaders must say so in the face of the gun manufacturers’ lobby – but I also believe that when a gang-banger shoots indiscriminately into a crowd because he feels somebody disrespected him, we’ve got a moral problem. There’s a hole in that young man’s heart – a hole that the government alone cannot fix.
I believe in vigorous enforcement of our non-discrimination laws. But I also believe that a transformation of conscience and a genuine commitment to diversity on the part of the nation’s CEOs could bring about quicker results than a battalion of lawyers. They have more lawyers than us anyway.
I think that we should put more of our tax dollars into educating poor girls and boys. I think that the work that Marian Wright Edelman has done all her life is absolutely how we should prioritize our resources in the wealthiest nation on earth. I also think that we should give them the information about contraception that can prevent unwanted pregnancies, lower abortion rates, and help assure that that every child is loved and cherished.
But, you know, my Bible tells me that if we train a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not turn from it. So I think faith and guidance can help fortify a young woman’s sense of self, a young man’s sense of responsibility, and a sense of reverence that all young people should have for the act of sexual intimacy.
Happy July 4th everyone!
I wonder what Obama means when he speaks of “doubt”. I would say that faith in God is compatible with the recognition of difficulties, questions that naturally arise which we cannot answer. But what I would be inclined to call “doubt” is incompatible with faith. If A doubts that God exists, he does not believe that God exists and is at best agnostic. Or at least so it seems to me.
Last year, I was able to attend the National Student Leadership Forum on Faith and Values in Washington, D.C. Senator Obama was the keynote speaker. As a staunch Republican, I was prepared to find Obama as merely another in a seemingly long line of Democrats who wear their faith on their sleeve only when it is election time. However, I found Obama’s speech to be truly heartfelt and inspiring. He even stayed after the speech to speak with students about his faith — with no cameras or political spin doctors within sight. He appeared genuine and a man with serious beliefs about his faith. This recent speech further cements his views on the importance of religion — one hopes the Democratic Party hears his message and does not turn a deaf ear
I suggest that anyone who can go through life claiming to be a believer and doesn’t experience a period of some kind of doubt hasn’t given her/his beliefs enough thought.
If Paul had to work our his salvation in fear and trembling, I think the rest of us need to give it at least the same efforts, including struggling with those things that, form time to time, don’t ring true in our lives.
I have been a life-long Democrat and have worked primarily in industries popular with Republicans (financial services industries). I challenge anyone to prove to me that Republicans are more serious about their religious beliefs than are Democrats. What most Republicans are serious about is wealth-accumulation, power and control.
It is very hard for me to get breathless over Sen. Obama. In fact, he frightens me. I will say it plainly, I do not believe that a man who so consistently and manifestly supports abortion – including partial birth abortion, denial of parental consent, and public funding for abortion – can be truly inspired by the Spirit. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean that he is insincere. That’s why he is frightening – because he is. He can sincerely say. “I follow Christ, but don’t stop that woman and her doctor from sucking the brains out of that half-delivered infant.” That is scary.
As for his view, so succinctly paraphrased here, that conservatives only care about wealth-accumulation, power and control, one can only point out that the greatest point of accumulation of power and wealth is the US Government, and despite all the rhetoric to the contrary, the single greatest amount of resources expended by the government is on social welfare and domestic discretionary spending. If you take into account state and local spending, more is spent on social welfare than defense, police and fire, and roads and infrastructure combined. I, a conservative, would be all for it but for two problems. It’s wasteful and it doesn’t work. By even the most generous estimate at least half of everything spent on social programs never gets to the people it’s supposed to help. More importantly, it creates a type of human degradation and near slavery that would be the envy of the worst Roman Emperors. Sen. Obama complains that the behavior of urban youth is a moral problem, and he is right. The problem with his making the point is that he and other so-called progressive created the environment in which such moral decrepitude can thrive
SeanH:
Granted that there are less-than-desirable results from many of the governmental social programs, what do you think the current administration has done to improve things for those who aren’t direct beneficiaries of the tcurent ax rebate, abolition of the “death penalty tax” , etc? In other words, the middle and lower economic classes?
Jimmy M
I am an attorney, with a little background (it’s not my specialty) in tax law. The estate tax is a great example of very bad tax and government policy. In most cases, the very rich avoid almost all the tax through a variety of lawful, but complex and often economically wasteful transactions. In other words, they will spend a million dollars on accountants, investment advisors and lawyers to avoid ten million in taxes. Not only is the million wasted, but the maneuvers used to avoid the taxes often puts money to much less productive use were the tax not there – even leading to less income tax collected.
The merely “wealthy” – typically successful small business owners or even people who have made good on real estate – are the ones who get burned by the estate tax. Even though their total bill is less, the percentage bite is much greater. These are not trust fund families usally, but very hard working business people who spent decades building their wealth – often at great sacrifice. Moreover, if you look at statitics for charitable giving, these people – the ones with estates in the $2-5 million range – are great contributers to public welfare.
Finally, all this grousing about tax give aways to the rich assumes a very uncharitable view of things – namely that the government has a right to take from one person and give to another (ultimately by threat of force) property that that person has legitimately earned. The impression I often get is that people who are being “charitable” with tax money assume those who made the money in the first place don’t deserve it in some cosmic sense. Maybe they don’t, but who are you and I to decide this.
My objection is not to taking care of the poor – we have an obligation to do this. My objection is to using the power of the state to inefficiently and ineffectively impose charity. It not only doesn’t work well, but it is destructive to the people it claims to help, and to the moral character of society at large.
How has Social Security destroyed the people it “claims to help”? How has society’s moral character been damaged by this program?
Do you object to income tax altogether? Sales tax?
How do you account for the vast disparity in wealth many now enjoy or, depending on your point of view, are destroyed by. Literally.