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By cam (Sat Mar 22, 2008 at 04:22:25 PM EST) (all tags)

Always surprises me the role religion has in America. The US has super-enlightenmentated Europe's western tradition - except in this area. Liberal democracies and market economies increasingly secularise - except for America. Given how America has taken over, innovated upon and advanced the enlightenment it is quite odd that this exists. I think the flap over Obama's pastor is a good example of this. Obama's nationalism and patriotism is being questioned because of his association with a pastor who teaches outside of 'accepted' religious norms. Or does he? The union of politics and religion in non-secular America seems a given. Maybe the flap is that people don't like his strand of religiosity and hence his politics and hence his nationalism?

The Jacksonians (as Walter Russell Mead calls them) conflate religion, politics and nationalism all in one. The Bush South is a good example of Jacksonianism.

Then again in Mead's thesis of there being four schools of foreign policy in American politics, and by implication four schools of politics; the Jacksonians, the Hamiltonians, the Jeffersonians and Wilsonians; the Jacksonians who are likely to go nuts over the Obama pastor thing would never vote for Obama anyway, they would vote for Huckabee first.

Obama's appeal is to Wilsonians first and foremost, maybe the Jeffersonians see something in him in adhering to constitutional principles, while Hamiltonians can ensure that Obama will keep America a financial world leader and calm markets so that American can continue to liberalise the world marketplace and keeps goods/trade flowing too and from the US.

The Jacksonians are a lost cause to Obama's campaign. He didn't speak to them in his speech at all. He basically calmed the patriotic Hamiltonians and Wilsonians.

[was going to write more including describing the taxonomy but I am running out of time]

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Get Up, Get Down, Get Secular | 12 comments (12 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback

(Comment Deleted) by Christopher Robin was Murdered (2.00 / 0) #1 Sat Mar 22, 2008 at 04:43:20 PM EST

This comment has been deleted by Christopher Robin was Murdered

describing the taxonomy by anonimouse (2.00 / 2) #2 Sat Mar 22, 2008 at 05:50:20 PM EST

We know you're giving M a good stuffing, but is this Too Much Information?

Girls come and go but a mortgage is for 25 years -- JtL

: Oh, by anonimouse (2.00 / 0) #3 Sun Mar 23, 2008 at 03:32:26 AM EST

You said taxonomy, not taxidermy.
Girls come and go but a mortgage is for 25 years -- JtL
[ Parent ]

Why is America so religious? by jump the ladder (4.00 / 1) #4 Sun Mar 23, 2008 at 09:05:34 AM EST

Because we shipped all our religious nutters over there and now were payingthe price.

I think it's exceedingly odd by lm (2.00 / 0) #5 Sun Mar 23, 2008 at 09:13:06 AM EST

The anti-Obama stance in this case is anti-Protestant. It rests on the supposition that all members of a congregation will be in lockstep with the pastor. This is a pretty unamerican view of religion. 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.

A good example is the condemnation of John Kerry by some Catholic bishops in 2004. Even most Catholics were `who he?' with regards to the bishop's pronouncement. Protestants were even more so.

The really odd thing about secularism in the US is that the apparatus of the state is decoupled from religion to an extent almost unheard of in Europe save for some of the former Soviet bloc countries. Almost every modern theory of the interaction between Church and State assumes that in such a circumstance, the religiosity would wither away. But it hasn't.

There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic

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?

[ Parent ]

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
[ Parent ]

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.)

[ Parent ]

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
[ Parent ]

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?

[ Parent ]

: 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
[ Parent ]

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.

[ Parent ]

Get Up, Get Down, Get Secular | 12 comments (12 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback