Monday, January 21, 2008 at 12:12am
Politicians in the pulpit
Column: Interesting Times
These ARE interesting times. The day Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated was the day before my daughter's 10th birthday. "Why did he have to get shot and ruin my birthday?" she said, and at the time, I chalked it up to her youth, her lack of context. I had seen the Aug. 23, 1963, Washington, D.C., speech now known as "I Have a Dream" — the speech that helped him receive the Nobel Peace Prize the next year and helped prompt the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I was onboard with King emotionally, mentally and in a few years would be editing a short-lived magazine The Black Politician.
The world seems to honor and revere their assassinated leaders more in death than they did in life, and now, 40 years after his death, on the U.S. national holiday honoring him and his life, I will be telephoning voters in my city to suggest they consider Barack Obama as their primary candidate. It's the least I can do.
Yes. I am the demographic that leans most toward Hillary Clinton. (I prefer to call her Mrs. Clinton, but it upsets some of my friends.) Yes. When I was what I then thought was middle-aged, I could not buy a car without my father's signature on the loan, even though I earned more money than he did. And on and on for decades, and we all know that history. Yes. I have been discriminated against as a woman. When my mother was born, women did not have the right to vote. I am not against a woman as a candidate for president. I was part of that group of women who worked at the U.S. Capitol during the Watergate era, and we have all survived and brought thoughtful insights and serious efforts to the country in a variety of ways. However, for bringing all peoples into the American experience, I am not sure that Mrs. Clinton is the one to lead us to dream that impossible dream.
As she spoke or preached at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City yesterday, she was saying by that very act that she is separating voters as a campaign strategy before South Carolina's primaries next week. And, as Barack Obama speaks at Martin Luther King's Ebenezer Baptist Church, it's Presidential Candidates as Preachers. And to have the pastor of that church, Calvin O. Butts, endorse her offends me, though I like him. Somehow I am insulted. Not that she/they/the Clintons would pursue any voters at all, but that they would assume that African-Americans would be voting for Barack Obama because he had a Kenyan father of African descent and that they have to have every vote to reign again. And I like the former president. At least as head of his Global Initiative. But Mrs. Clinton's husband says he will be going door to church door in South Carolina to convince African-Americans to vote for his wife.
Perhaps I don't have the stomach for "politics." It obviously upsets me. I would be better off, of course, rendering unto Caesar what is his, or something like that, but I do so love being a citizen that I get upset when watching candidates waffle, change their positions to suit the audience, lust after power. The thought of watching any of the folks currently waffling and lusting get on and off a helicopter on the White House lawn next year is enough to make me think of beaches and oceans and staring into space in some Nirvana.
There is a blog by "forachange" that expresses many of my personal feelings about the politics involved in Mrs. Clinton's speech at the Abyssinian Baptist Church, and that poster spares me ranting on about these politicians in churches or these churches in politics.
It's the week for Truth above all else, and so I shall cling to John 8:32: "And ye shall know the Truth and the truth shall set you free." Quoting the old spiritual and making it new again, Dr. King said, "Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty I am free at last" It's the least I can do to honor that cry.
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Lynne Bundesen is the author of five books on religion and was adjunct professor at the Boston Theological Institute under a Templeton Science and Religion Grant. She is currently the spiritual expert for the physical and spiritual health website of Dr. Andrew Weil. Her book "The Feminine Spirit: Recapturing the Heart of Scripture" was just published. Her email address is {email lynnebundesen@hotmail.com}lynnebundesen@hotmail.com{/email}. © Copyright 2008 by Lynne Bundesen.
The world seems to honor and revere their assassinated leaders more in death than they did in life, and now, 40 years after his death, on the U.S. national holiday honoring him and his life, I will be telephoning voters in my city to suggest they consider Barack Obama as their primary candidate. It's the least I can do.
Yes. I am the demographic that leans most toward Hillary Clinton. (I prefer to call her Mrs. Clinton, but it upsets some of my friends.) Yes. When I was what I then thought was middle-aged, I could not buy a car without my father's signature on the loan, even though I earned more money than he did. And on and on for decades, and we all know that history. Yes. I have been discriminated against as a woman. When my mother was born, women did not have the right to vote. I am not against a woman as a candidate for president. I was part of that group of women who worked at the U.S. Capitol during the Watergate era, and we have all survived and brought thoughtful insights and serious efforts to the country in a variety of ways. However, for bringing all peoples into the American experience, I am not sure that Mrs. Clinton is the one to lead us to dream that impossible dream.
As she spoke or preached at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City yesterday, she was saying by that very act that she is separating voters as a campaign strategy before South Carolina's primaries next week. And, as Barack Obama speaks at Martin Luther King's Ebenezer Baptist Church, it's Presidential Candidates as Preachers. And to have the pastor of that church, Calvin O. Butts, endorse her offends me, though I like him. Somehow I am insulted. Not that she/they/the Clintons would pursue any voters at all, but that they would assume that African-Americans would be voting for Barack Obama because he had a Kenyan father of African descent and that they have to have every vote to reign again. And I like the former president. At least as head of his Global Initiative. But Mrs. Clinton's husband says he will be going door to church door in South Carolina to convince African-Americans to vote for his wife.
Perhaps I don't have the stomach for "politics." It obviously upsets me. I would be better off, of course, rendering unto Caesar what is his, or something like that, but I do so love being a citizen that I get upset when watching candidates waffle, change their positions to suit the audience, lust after power. The thought of watching any of the folks currently waffling and lusting get on and off a helicopter on the White House lawn next year is enough to make me think of beaches and oceans and staring into space in some Nirvana.
There is a blog by "forachange" that expresses many of my personal feelings about the politics involved in Mrs. Clinton's speech at the Abyssinian Baptist Church, and that poster spares me ranting on about these politicians in churches or these churches in politics.
It's the week for Truth above all else, and so I shall cling to John 8:32: "And ye shall know the Truth and the truth shall set you free." Quoting the old spiritual and making it new again, Dr. King said, "Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty I am free at last" It's the least I can do to honor that cry.
— — —
Lynne Bundesen is the author of five books on religion and was adjunct professor at the Boston Theological Institute under a Templeton Science and Religion Grant. She is currently the spiritual expert for the physical and spiritual health website of Dr. Andrew Weil. Her book "The Feminine Spirit: Recapturing the Heart of Scripture" was just published. Her email address is {email lynnebundesen@hotmail.com}lynnebundesen@hotmail.com{/email}. © Copyright 2008 by Lynne Bundesen.