The details surely have changed, but the spirit of JFK's remarks to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association during the 1960 campaign ring as true, and apparently, sadly, remain just as required, as they did then.
Rather than defensively deny what amounts to an allegation of being Muslim, Obama, instead, ought to have cribbed this line from Kennedy: "So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again not what kind of church I believe in — for that should be important only to me — but what kind of America I believe in."
Let me just add that, in this, I have a particularly personal interest. I am a non-Christian myself. To use Obama's phraseology, I have been a "committed Buddhist" for a number of years. My faith means much to me, has seen me through quite a lot, and I believe the world is a better place for having available the teachings of the Buddha. Although I have no interest in pursuing any elective office, it pains me to think that avenue is closed to me simply because I do not worship Jesus Christ.
In the midst of the current anti-Muslim hysteria, let me close, simply, with another prescient passage from Kennedy's Houston speech:
For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew— or a Quaker or a Unitarian or a Baptist. It was Virginia's harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson's statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you — until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Eric Dondero
You make a mistake in assuming that it's just Christians who believe Obama to be a Muslim. It's many of us who are Secular, Ayn Rand followers, Deists, Agnostics ect..., as well. Your argument only holds water when you can claim "bigotry" of Christians saying Obama is a Muslim.
Those of us who are Libertarians don't want Sharia Law to outlaw Marijuana, force Women to cover themselves in Burqas, our Gay friends hung, and Prostitutes stoned to death. We don't want our country to be Islamicized which Obama, son of a devout Muslim extremist, seems fully intent on doing.
2 - Glenn Contrarian
1 - Obama's been photographed eating pork and drinking beer. He's not a Muslim, okay?
2 - What religion has killed the most people in the Name of God? Not the Muslims, not by a LONG shot! That particular award belongs to mainstream "Christianity"...and the history stretches from before the First Crusade where the "Christians" massacred ALL the Muslims and Jews in Jerusalem to the Holocaust (where the majority of Germans were Lutherans (Martin Luther was a vicious anti-Semite)) to the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina where the Serbs were STILL trying to ethnically-cleanse the region of anyone of other religions e.g. Muslims.
3 - FYI, I suspect you'd find it's safer to walk around at night in downtown Teheran, Riyadh, Dubai, or even Damascus (but not Cairo) than it is to walk around in American cities of comparable size.
4 - Obama's dad was hardly devout. I really wish you conspiracy nuts would have the courage to check the ACCURACY of your claims....
3 - Jordan Richardson
It's many of us who are Secular, Ayn Rand followers, Deists, Agnostics ect..., as well.
If you're adding "idiots" to that list, you're getting warmer.
4 - handyguy
What is this relatively recent addition to the tinfoil hat parade: the fear that the Obama administration [or other "scary" operators] are secretly planning to introduce Sharia law as a replacement for the Constitution?
It's laughable. And none of these wacko "theories" seems to require actual evidence. It is up to the president, or Justice Elena Kagan, or whoever, to prove the negative.
Please: Get a life. Take your meds. Stop making the world a worse [if funnier] place.
5 - zingzing
"Those of us who are Libertarians don't want Sharia Law to outlaw Marijuana..."
i see...
6 - Baronius
"What religion has killed the most people in the Name of God? Not the Muslims, not by a LONG shot!"
Glenn, I'd love to see some statistics on that.
7 - jeannie danna
It's nobody's business what religion, President Obama practices or doesn't practice.
and then, adding this subtitle implies that there is something wrong...
This is why there will never be a government run religion in this country.
Organized anything, taints the spirit!
8 - jeannie danna
Scott,
Don't you agree? This conversation has no place in politics. faith is personal
9 - zingzing
baronius, with a 1400 year head start, wars all over europe and the middle east in the name of christianity, wiping out entire "savage" cultures here in the americas, witch trials, inquisitions, pogroms... use your damn brain. christians have used christianity to demean, ostracize, torture and kill countless people. islam, if given the same time frame, might have caught up. such is the nature of religion. nasty shit, it is.
(and no, atheism is not a religion.)
10 - Baronius
Zing - 600 years. Islam had been killing people for nearly a millenium by the 1400's. If you count up all the witch trials, inquisitions, and pogroms in the history of Christianity, it wouldn't equal the number of people that have died at the hands of Muslims in East Timor in the last few decades. How many "savages" were wiped out in the Americas in the name of God? A lot fewer than died in the name of the King of Spain, and way fewer than died of disease. I don't know the numbers. I've never seen a comparison between deaths caused under the name of Islam versus Christianity. I'd be interested.
11 - Zedd
It must be me again....
Weren't people in an uproar not too long ago about his Pastor (Church of Christ) Jeremiah Wright? Did I dream that?
12 - Dr Dreadful
You make a mistake in assuming that it's just Christians who believe Obama to be a Muslim. It's many of us who are Secular, Ayn Rand followers, Deists, Agnostics ect...
Which just confirms the truism that there's no monopoly on stupidity.
13 - Mark
"There are two novels that can transform a bookish fourteen-year-old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish daydream that can lead to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood in which large chunks of the day are spent inventing ways to make real life more like a fantasy novel. The other is a book about orcs." - Raj Patel
14 - Dr Dreadful
Nice...!
15 - jeannie danna
and the third one is this thread...
16 - handyguy
This game of dueling statistics aiming to prove Religion A is more murderous than Religion B is fairly useless.
It's of course disturbing that so many past and present wars and chronic conflicts can be summed up as "the infidels must die" and "my god is bigger than yours." How do believers reconcile this horrific nonsense with the positive, moral ideas their religions are allegedly based on?
17 - El Bicho
Jeanine, the subtitle references a Seinfeld episode rather than what you perceive it to be.
I agree with Handy about the foolish "this religion didn't kill as many people" game. There's no glory having any spot on the list.
18 - jeannie danna
EL Bicho,
Seinfeld (while, it is NYC) is a little flippant for such an explosive subject.Don't you think? and, How was I supposed to know this?
But, please don't misunderstand me, I was just adding my two cents and speaking to everyone, not Scott.
19 - jeannie danna
Read #8, that was for Scott.
20 - Baronius
That's a pretty intense question. My first thought is that the yardstick you're using is one that's come out of the Christian West. The whole idea of, for example, mercy on your enemies wouldn't even make sense to an ancient Roman or Indian warrior. People are lousy at doing good, but even the idea of trying to do good is a fairly new one for us.
In the modern world, the Germans fess up to what they did. The Turks deny what they did. In the old days, if you wiped out a civilization, raped their women, took the men as slaves, killed the kids, and salted the earth, you'd put up an obelisk proclaiming how great you are. You might even exaggerate the numbers to make it sound like you killed twice as many innocents.
My second thought, a Christian doesn't have to go to the Holocaust Museum to figure out how lousy people can be. We can look in the mirror. We know just how wretched a human being can be, but ideally we can also see ourselves through God's help moving toward something better. You can see it in history, as well: the moment of a St. Benedict or a Mother Teresa.
That's it for now.
21 - jeannie danna
No, I'm wrong, El Bicho I guess they were both to Scott.
22 - jeannie danna
Baronius,
Can you see it in the moment of Mahatma Gandhi or John Lennon? in other words...Does it have to be Catholic moments?
: )BTW, that's a very nice comment.
23 - Glenn Contrarian
I HATE ASKIMET!
I spent a doggone HOUR providing Baronius with the stats he asked for showing that mainstream "Christianity" had killed more people in the Name of God than any other religion...and Askimet kicked it back. Grrr....
Okay, Baronius, here's the short version:
If we count ONLY strictly religious conflicts including the Thirty Years War, the French Relgious Wars, the Inquisition, and the Ustashe genocide in WWII Yugoslavia - and NOT counting many religious massacres of Catholic vs. Protestant, Protestant vs. Catholic, and either vs. Jews - the body count using conservative estimates approaches 15 million dead.
But what about the Holocaust? Surely we can't blame that on mainstream "Christianity" can we? Well, Baronius, surely you know that prior to WWII, Germany was mostly Lutheran with Catholicism running a distant second. Check out this quote from the FOUNDER of the Lutheran church:
"What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews? Since they live among us, we dare not tolerate their conduct, now that we are aware of their lying and reviling and blaspheming. If we do, we become sharers in their lies, cursing and blasphemy. Thus we cannot extinguish the unquenchable fire of divine wrath, of which the prophets speak, nor can we convert the Jews. With prayer and the fear of God we must practice a sharp mercy to see whether we might save at least a few from the glowing flames. We dare not avenge ourselves. Vengeance a thousand times worse than we could wish them already has them by the throat. I shall give you my sincere advice:
First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians, and do not condone or knowingly tolerate such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of his Son and of his Christians. For whatever we tolerated in the past unknowingly and I myself was unaware of it will be pardoned by God. But if we, now that we are informed, were to protect and shield such a house for the Jews, existing right before our very nose, in which they lie about, blaspheme, curse, vilify, and defame Christ and us (as was heard above), it would be the same as if we were doing all this and even worse ourselves, as we very well know.
Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. For they pursue in them the same aims as in their synagogues. Instead they might be lodged under a roof or in a barn, like the gypsies. This will bring home to them that they are not masters in our country, as they boast, but that they are living in exile and in captivity, as they incessantly wail and lament about us before God.
Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them. (remainder omitted)
Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb. For they have justly forfeited the right to such an office by holding the poor Jews captive with the saying of Moses (Deuteronomy 17 [:10 ff.]) in which he commands them to obey their teachers on penalty of death, although Moses clearly adds: "what they teach you in accord with the law of the Lord." Those villains ignore that. They wantonly employ the poor people's obedience contrary to the law of the Lord and infuse them with this poison, cursing, and blasphemy. In the same way the pope also held us captive with the declaration in Matthew 16 {:18], "You are Peter," etc, inducing us to believe all the lies and deceptions that issued from his devilish mind. He did not teach in accord with the word of God, and therefore he forfeited the right to teach.
Fifth, I advise that safeconduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. For they have no business in the countryside, since they are not lords, officials, tradesmen, or the like. Let they stay at home. (...remainder omitted).
Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping. The reason for such a measure is that, as said above, they have no other means of earning a livelihood than usury, and by it they have stolen and robbed from us all they possess. Such money should now be used in no other way than the following: Whenever a Jew is sincerely converted, he should be handed one hundred, two hundred, or three hundred florins, as personal circumstances may suggest. With this he could set himself up in some occupation for the support of his poor wife and children, and the maintenance of the old or feeble. For such evil gains are cursed if they are not put to use with God's blessing in a good and worthy cause.
Seventh, I commend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, as was imposed on the children of Adam (Gen 3[:19]}. For it is not fitting that they should let us accursed Goyim toil in the sweat of our faces while they, the holy people, idle away their time behind the stove, feasting and farting, and on top of all, boasting blasphemously of their lordship over the Christians by means of our sweat. No, one should toss out these lazy rogues by the seat of their pants."
Baronius, surely you know enough about the persecution of the Jews that began in 1930's Germany to draw the obvious parallels.
So...can you bring up examples of any other religion that has so much innocent blood on its hands? No, sir, you canNOT!
24 - Glenn Contrarian
handy and el Bicho -
This isn't a game of one-upmanship. This is a process of relieving a man of his ignorance of history. I do not 'win' by proving my point, because this is not a zero-sum game (i.e. "if one wins, someone else loses"). The only winner in this contest, if you must call it that, is the one who has a little more of the blindfold of ignorance removed from his eyes.
25 - jeannie danna
Glenn,
Oh good, you found those statistics. I tried last week but failed.