So this preacher is attempting to thwart God’s preordained plan? Who the fuck does he think he is?

You can want the apocalypse to come all you want, but if you help it along, you’re an agent of Satan and bound for Hell.

Or something.

For all his qualities Obama has been a U.S. Senator for only 2 years.

Darryl,

Not that this takes away from your point (which I partially disagree with), but I’m pretty sure Obama was elected in 2004. Assuming he was took office in January of 2005, that makes him a Senator for 3 1/2 years. Sort of minor, but if we are to accept your greater propositions, the basic facts must be correct.

FYI — Obama has three and a half more years in the Senate than our last two presidents did. They were only state executives before.

A friend’s girlfriend has a Lutheran minister for a father. When she mentioned that she was considering voting for Obama, he flipped out —apparently he thought that Obama coming into power was one of the signs of the apocalypse and that she was NOT allowed to vote for him.

So this preacher is attempting to thwart God’s preordained plan? Who the fuck does he think he is?

Have you read Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America by Randall Balmer? He makes the case that the Repub agenda is anti-Christian.

I didn’t say Republican policy was Christian in nature (any sane person can see it’s not), I said many fundamentalists consider acceptance of Republican principles as an essential facet of their religious worldview (which is another thing that any sane person who lives in America can see).

A genuine crazy preacher

Wright isn’t crazy, and everything he said about America is pretty much correct. Can you blame an older black man for having problems with this country? Criticizing one’s country out of a genuine desire to see it improve isn’t unpatriotic, and only nationalistic neocon assholes would say otherwise. It sickens me that the same group of people who loudly shout about supporting our troops question the loyalty of a former Marine just because they don’t like his opinions.

the Repub agenda is anti-Christian. Jesus said his followers should look after the poor, yet the Repub agenda is all about corporations. And he also thinks it is ironic that a lot of Christians have environmentalism, even though they think that they have a duty to preserve God’s creation, but instead support a party that pushes policies that favor corporations over people.

No! It can’t be!!!

I think Obama is secretly an atheist. No one can think outside the box like this, have this much tolerance and global thought, CARE about the future of our planet 9 a very non christian thing to do in my opinion) and believe in God. Thoughts?

I think Mike C. would fit this description, but he’s no atheist.

For all those who think Obama is such a dramatic departure from Bush,
I won’t say anything except to point you to this editorial.

Polly, there is no question that Obama is a dramatic departure from Bush, but that’s a separate issue from how in hell Barack is going to clean up the mess that we have made in the Middle East. He can’t do it (if he can do it) by himself. If the Congress and, more importantly, our people are not behind him, nothing will change.

WARNING: Darryl is going to vent now. If you’re not into politics or unpleasant realities, then stop reading now.

Every day I see decisions being made by our government that deflate my hope for a turn-around in the country. I think we’re at a place where we’re so far down this road that to turn around, if that’s even possible anymore, will involve great suffering. The fault is with us–as it always has been. In the face of rampant corruption, and apathy, and downright stupidity, I’m dubious about whether a enough Americans have those qualities necessary to preserve a Constitutional Republic.

The pulpits of America ought to have enough talking points to last from now to Kingdom come by just naming the sins of our people, and the errors of our way, but where are they? They have become salesmen, like Joel Osteen, selling good feelings, telling us what we want to hear–that we’re good and we’re going to be okay.

Where are the prophets? You know, those preachers that risk everything by naming names and crimes. The preachers we do hear about are decrying the teaching of evolution in our schools, or licking their lips over the prospect of filling the Supreme Court with judges who will overturn Roe vs. Wade, except–except for the Rev. Wrights who do point the finger at us, but not without discrediting themselves in the process. If we’re supposed to be such a religious nation, where in hell are the preachers? They’ve been bought off just like everybody else. Do we really expect the Ralph Reeds and Tony Perkins of this country to save us? What a joke.

Where are the Dr. King’s when we need them? Where are the preachers that risk something for the truth, and have nothing to gain by it? Here’s another way that the conservatives are not Christian: Jesus stored up his wrath and his most piercing rhetoric for the hypocrites that paraded themselves as the eminently faithful. I hear more Jesus out of Bill Moyers and Amy Goodman than from the pulpits of the televangelists. Maybe there’s a few out there, somewhere, that just haven’t come to my attention. I suppose it’s up to them now, since government and the press have taken a walk.

What irony it is that only preachers are expected to be truthful about sin, but the ones we hear from are usually stupid, and the rest are silent or unheard. The true preachers don’t come attired like priests. Like Bill Moyers, they are assumed to be partisan schemers, the Left’s answer to those morons on the far Right. What a sorry country we have become when it’s up to the myth-makers to save us, and even they are failing us!

Kierkegaard is vindicated.

We’ve made a mockery of our politics. We’ve nominated the less-qualified to be our President–AGAIN!. Why? Because it’s entertaining. It’s a horse race. What fun! And, because we’re cynical about politics. It’s only about power now.

Nietzsche is vindicated.

For all his qualities Obama has been a U.S. Senator for only 2 years. He only came to National attention 4 years ago. But, he seems to be the only choice for liberals. I am fucking astounded that McCain is even competitive in this election. Considering the state we’re in, how in hell does a Republican even have a prayer? I don’t fool myself–McCain could win in November. That’s how screwed up we are.

Please forgive me, my people, but I have nothing but utter disgust for Americans now, which is to say “mea culpa.” Don’t get me wrong, I’m too much the optimist to lose hope; it’s just that my hope is not with America any more. We’ve failed. We’ve failed ourselves and the rest of the world. If we’re going to be saved, it will come from elsewhere, not here.

When I bring up those last 20 years in a xian church, my mother says, “have you heard what his rev. Wright said about America?”

Has she heard what some white preachers have said about America? To a lot of people in this country, religion is just a “Get Out of Jail Free” card.

Your wife doesn’t think Muslims can be loyal to America?

Remember, a muslim as president. I think it’s just general suspicion that he’d favor Islam in the country – as the current prez. favors “faith” based programs.
Also, there’s a pretty firm view in this country that Xian extremism represents the fringe, but Islamic extremism represents Muslims in general.

Talking politics just leads to annoying debates I’d rather not participate in, so I’m actually more reluctant to bring up that topic.