Sinner/I have never learned

Barack Obama is a man I find interesting. I’ll stop short of saying I’m on Team Obama, because I’m not following the US primaries closely enough to choose between he and Hillary, of whom I am also a big fan*. Although I will venture the opinion that if an Obama/Clinton team** were smart they could sew up enough votes to see off any opposition from the Republicans.

Anyway, at the risk of over-blogging about religion and/or politics, Obama has recently used the occasion of a church meeting to accuse religious-right fundamentalists of hijacking faith to achieve a political end which seeks to divide, rather than unite.

The Age web site reports:

"But somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together," Senator Obama said. "Faith started being used to drive us apart. Faith got hijacked."

He is right about at least one thing here. Historically, the churches have had a huge role to play in bringing about the “mainstreaming” of progressive social values. The Quaker Movement, for example, was fundamental to creating social conditions in which the abolition of slavery in America seemed possible. And there are plenty of churches with doctrines of inclusion which seek to unite the world, rather than divide it. Obama’s own church is a case in point, but in the conservative political climate of the US, this may be seen a hindrance, rather than a help.

Secondly, there can be no doubt that the religious right has dominated the poltiical agenda under the Presidency of George W. Bush. Never before has there been such an open relationship between the radical right religious doctrines and the implementation of Government policy and spending.

One of the problems with the religious-right domination of the agenda, is inconsistency, particularly around reproductive issues. Why, for example, would an administration with the stated aim of decreasing abortions worldwide, want to seek to limit funding of contraceptive aid to other countries who are desperately requesting it? Surely this sort of aid achieves this aim (prevention being better than cure) - but instead the Bush White House suggests it will veto the Bill, recently passed by the US House of Reps.

What's more, Obama's point can extend to all religious persuasions who seek to create divisions where there should be none. And it is worth thinking about the coalitions that form around your candidate of choice. But all of that leads me back to being a boring civics nerd, so I'll save the "you should care about your vote" post for another day.

What I find fascinating about the Hillary/Barack dynamic in this race, is that there is absolutely no question that these two candidates represent something different to the American voting public (all twenty-five of them***). Assuming that one of them is able to win the nomination of the Democratic Party, the Presidential race will be a very different race to those which have happened before, not least because they represent their Party’s divergence from Republican thinking – with Nancy Pelosi’s leadership paving the way for a departure from the “me too” politics of the past, and invigorating political debate in that country around divergent responses to issues, rather than divergent responses on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s hair.


* Also, however much I might watch The West Wing, I don't get a vote in the US elections.

** Assuming they can form such a “team”.

*** Pending three individuals being stricken off the voting role for having names like the names of once-convicted burglars in other states in another century. So what’s that – 22 left.