More on the Obama / Dobson Controversy: The Intersection of Faith and Reason in Public
The Washington Post chimed in on the Obama-Dobson feud yesterday with this interesting piece. It speaks of Obama's keynote address at a "Call to Renewal" conference on June 28, 2006, about which Dobson was so displeased.
The message of the Post's piece is that Obama should be commended for espousing the value of a public faith, but not one which seeks a literal application of Scripture in modern affairs.
For one thing, Obama took on liberals "who dismiss religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant" and "caricature religious Americans ... as fanatical." He went on to say: "Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square.... To say that men and women should not inject their 'personal morality' into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of our morality, much of which is grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition."
It seems that Obama's views about faith in public have made a radical change from just a few years ago. Take a look at this clip from a Senatorial debate in October of 2004. Leaving aside the issues of particular voting records on specific issues, take a careful look at what Obama had to say about the issue of faith in public life.
Quite a shift, huh?
Now I don't know whether Obama has re-considered the issue or whether he's simply playing politics nowadays. I'd like to think it's the former.
So what is the proper balance of personal faith and reasoned public discourse. I don't think (in fact, I know) I can say it any better than N.T. Wright:
In particular, we need to recapture that which the Enlightenment highlighted but which has been lost in the world of postmodernity and spin-doctors: the emphasis on Reason in our thinking and public discourse. Reason is correlated with Trust. When you don’t really trust your conversation partner to be thinking things through in a reasoned manner, you cut in with smear and innuendo. And when you don’t quite trust yourself to think things out either, you resort to spin and slogans. And that double lack of trust correlates directly, if ironically, with the Enlightenment’s insistence on separating God from the public world. Many politicians, and many in the media, hope to control what people think and do, and if they can’t they rubbish them instead. Trusting people is altogether different, and needs different back-up mechanisms. Perhaps part of the unintended consequence of the postmodern revolution is to show that if Reason is to do what it says on the tin we may after all need to reckon with God in public. And when that happens we need wise Christian voices at the table, and for that matter wise Jewish and Muslim voices and many others beside, voices neither strident nor fundamentalist, voices both humble and clear; the voices not of those with instant answers but of those with a fresh grasp of God’s truth, whose word will carry conviction because it appeals, like Paul in Athens with the altar to the unknown God, to things which everybody half knows but many try to suppress.
Grace and Peace,
Raffi
The message of the Post's piece is that Obama should be commended for espousing the value of a public faith, but not one which seeks a literal application of Scripture in modern affairs.
For one thing, Obama took on liberals "who dismiss religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant" and "caricature religious Americans ... as fanatical." He went on to say: "Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square.... To say that men and women should not inject their 'personal morality' into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of our morality, much of which is grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition."
It seems that Obama's views about faith in public have made a radical change from just a few years ago. Take a look at this clip from a Senatorial debate in October of 2004. Leaving aside the issues of particular voting records on specific issues, take a careful look at what Obama had to say about the issue of faith in public life.
Quite a shift, huh?
Now I don't know whether Obama has re-considered the issue or whether he's simply playing politics nowadays. I'd like to think it's the former.
So what is the proper balance of personal faith and reasoned public discourse. I don't think (in fact, I know) I can say it any better than N.T. Wright:
In particular, we need to recapture that which the Enlightenment highlighted but which has been lost in the world of postmodernity and spin-doctors: the emphasis on Reason in our thinking and public discourse. Reason is correlated with Trust. When you don’t really trust your conversation partner to be thinking things through in a reasoned manner, you cut in with smear and innuendo. And when you don’t quite trust yourself to think things out either, you resort to spin and slogans. And that double lack of trust correlates directly, if ironically, with the Enlightenment’s insistence on separating God from the public world. Many politicians, and many in the media, hope to control what people think and do, and if they can’t they rubbish them instead. Trusting people is altogether different, and needs different back-up mechanisms. Perhaps part of the unintended consequence of the postmodern revolution is to show that if Reason is to do what it says on the tin we may after all need to reckon with God in public. And when that happens we need wise Christian voices at the table, and for that matter wise Jewish and Muslim voices and many others beside, voices neither strident nor fundamentalist, voices both humble and clear; the voices not of those with instant answers but of those with a fresh grasp of God’s truth, whose word will carry conviction because it appeals, like Paul in Athens with the altar to the unknown God, to things which everybody half knows but many try to suppress.
Grace and Peace,
Raffi
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