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not sure if I agree by nathan (2.00 / 0) #6 Sun Mar 23, 2008 at 01:20:05 PM EST

It rests on the supposition that all members of a congregation will be in lockstep with the pastor.

Maybe only those who use his sermons for book titles are assumed to be in lockstep?

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I suppose I can understand that argument by lm (4.00 / 1) #7 Sun Mar 23, 2008 at 10:34:49 PM EST

After all, every time I've swiped a catchy phrase from one source or the other, I've always agreed with everything the source has ever said.

There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic
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the point is by nathan (2.00 / 0) #8 Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 04:57:15 PM EST

The book title is one item of evidence demonstrating a tight Obama-Wright connection. If Wright is Obama's "spiritual advisor," and if Wright's spirituality and politics are so intertwined, that creates a presumption that Obama's politics might have something in common with Wright's. It seems

It rests on the supposition that all members of a congregation will be in lockstep with the pastor.

It's that word 'lockstep' that I don't agree with. There is no reason to assume that Obama is not intellectually independent from Wright, but there is reason to assume that he is greatly influenced by Wright to a degree that other congregants may not necessarily be (because Wright may not be such a central figure in their lives.)

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Sure, I'd expect that Wright was quite influential by lm (2.00 / 0) #10 Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 06:18:11 PM EST

But there is an important distinction there. There are quite a few religious traditions where if one person is the spiritual advisor of another that you can reasonably expect that, theology wise, that the two will be like two peas in a pod.

But that expectation doesn't apply to Protestantism in the US where, for the most part, the disciples of spiritual followers take the advice of their elders as advice and not as direction.

The expectation that Obama is in vast agreement with Wright over most issues to impose a foreign paradigm onto the US evangelical movement.

There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic
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more by nathan (2.00 / 0) #11 Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 10:00:18 PM EST

The American religious experience (at least with regards to Christianity) is largely predicated on mostly ignoring what the pastor says. Protestantism does not require strict adherence to party line in the same way that Catholicism or the eastern rites do.

So you're saying that Wright's congregants are unlikely to agree with his theological positions, or just that it's not necessary that they agree? Yes to the second, no to the first.

But I see what you're getting at - it's a genetic fallacy of sorts to attack Obama because of statements made by Wright. But why is it that people are committing this fallacy? Because they just don't grasp Protestant church discipline and ecclesiology?

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: I don't think that many people are buying by lm (2.00 / 0) #12 Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 12:17:22 PM EST

Judging from the slight dip in the tracking polls, I'd say the brouhaha only matters to a small number of people. I'd conjecture that a disproportionate number of those to whom it matters are, like Pat Buchanon, from conservative Catholic backgrounds and have a tendency to think that most of the congregants of a particular congregation will hold to most everything that the preacher says from the pulpit.
For most people, Obama's clear denunciation of the views in question are sufficient reason to consider the matter a tempest in a teapot.
There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic
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on rereading my first comment, by nathan (2.00 / 0) #9 Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 05:07:00 PM EST

I see what the problem was: I said "lockstep." I take that back. There's no reason to think that Obama is "in lockstep" with his pastor on political matters. But there is ample reason to think that his is influenced by Wright on both spiritual and political matters, so asking questions about the extent, the domain, and the degree of this influence seems to the point.

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