OPINION: When Did “Conservative” Become Anarchist?

By Monte Sahlin –

What planet am I living on? I have grown up with the idea that conservatives were those who value tradition and defend the status quo ante; who support the institutions of our society. But now it seems that “conservatives” believe that it is wrong for the president of the United States to talk to the nation’s school children despite the fact that Ronald Reagan did so; that it is OK to carry an automatic weapon to a public meeting with elected officials; that un-fact-checked statementscirculated by unknown bloggers and radio entertainers are to be believed over independent newspapers with long histories of factual reporting.

Part of the problem is simply ignorance combined with complex issues and the do-it-yourself value that leads people to think they can determine the facts for themselves without any expert help. For example, a reporter told me this morning of an Email from a woman who told him to look at a specific page in one of the health reform bills in Congress. She told him that there was proof on that page that if the bill were voted, it would mean that every citizen must have a card with an account number or they could not get any health care. When the reporter read the page and the section that it was in, he discovered that it was a list of information that health insurance plans would be required to place on their ID cards so that hospitals and doctor’s offices would not have to phone or Fax and get the basic information they need in order to treat a patient, thus saving time and money.

The distrust of government has become so pervasive and so extreme that I cannot help but think what would happen if America faced another 9/11 type emergency. Would people and their children die because they refuse to believe official announcements to take cover or boil water, etc.? Part of this is political manipulation by unethical people who are willing to use widely-believed lies to their advantage, but underlying that is a sector of our society so fearful of “socialism” or “liberals” (or perhaps people of color) that they are (probably unwittingly) sliding into anarchist positions. It is the combined effect of the assasinations of the 1960s, Watergate, terrorism and the popular culture of grand conspiracies such as The DaVinci Code, the Left Behind series and the 

This breakdown of trust could be a significant danger signal for America. Increasingly the polarized elements of our democracy define the world so differently that they really do live on different planets. This has some potential, over time, of drifting into the kind of situation that existed in America in the years of “bleeding Kansas” and “the wild West.” It is my prayer that those who value our Bill of Rights will see that they have a patriotic duty to give greater emphasis to shared values than political differences.

 

Reposted with the permission of the author.  Originally posted by Monte Sahlin on his blog, Faith in Context, a commentary on religion, values, and contemporary issues.

Faith in Context: President Obama & Faith-based Initiatives

By Monte Sahlin – As he said he would during the campaign last year, President Obama has retained the “faith-based initiatives” emphasis at the White House, but restructured the organization that he inherited from President Bush. The new unit consists of two parts, where Bush’s White House had only one: An Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and a President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. The council is make its final recommendations in February next year (2010), so it appears that further changes may yet surface. At the same time it is clear that Obama is committed to some kind of working relationship with the nonprofit sector, including the large part of it that is related to religious constituencies.

The key staff person in the White House for this activity is Joshua DuBois, a 27-year-old Evangelical activist who served as Obama’s liaison with the religious community during the campaign last year. DuBois was a student at Boston University and associate pastor at the Calvary Praise and Worship Center in Cambridge. This is a neighborhood that I am personally familiar with because in the 1970s, I planted a congregation there and worked in Boston as a community organizer. The congregation is small, not affiliated with any denomination, but Pentecostal in orientation, made up largely of African Americans and for a while, at least, shared space with two other Protestant congregations in Faith Lutheran Church. Pastor DuBois got the church involved with the Ten-Point Coalition, an effort by African American churches in the Boston area to prevent teen violence and gangs run by the National Ten-point Foundation, also located in Boston. DuBois maintains a mentoring relationship with a teen in Boston even as he takes on the very busy schedule of a White House staffer. He chairs the advisory council as part of his job. The other members include:

• Diane Baillargeon, CEO of Seedco, a New York nonprofit involved in economic development projects. She is a self-described secular member of the council.
• Anju Bhargava, president of Asian Indian Women in America, an immigrant women’s advocacy and help group. She is also a Hindu priest.
• Charles E. Blake, presiding bishop of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), one of the largest historically African American denominations in America.
• Noel Castellanos, CEO of the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) and a well-known Evangelical leader.
• Arturo Chavez, president of the Mexican American Catholic College and a former prison chaplain who has worked as a community organizer and teacher. He is Catholic.
• Peg Chemberlin, executive director of the Minnesota Council of Churches and president-elect of the National Council of Churches and a minister in the Moravian Church.
• Fred Davie, an ordained Presbyterian minister and senior staff member at the Arcus Foundation.
• Nathan Diament, director of public policy for the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations and a key player in the interfaith coalition that has pushed for religious liberty legislation.
• Joel Hunter, senior pastor of Northland Church, a nondenominational megachurch near Orlando, and a board member for the National Association of Evangelicals (NEA).
• Harry Knox, a former Methodist pastor who is liaison with religious leaders for the Human Rights Campaign, a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy group.
• Vashti McKenzie, presiding prelate of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) in Tennessee and Kentucky.
• Dalia Mogahed, director of the Gallup Poll’s Center for Muslim Studies. She was born in Egypt and is a practicing Muslim.
• Otis Moss, a long-time civil rights leader, retired pastor of a Baptist church in Cleveland and a board member for both the M.L. King Centerand Morehouse College.
• Frank S. Page, past president of the Southern Baptist Convention and pastor of Taylors First Baptist Church in South Carolina.
• Eboo Patel, founder of Interfaith Youth Core, a nonprofit that recruits young people to participate in interfaith community service. He is a Muslim born in India.
• Anthony Picarello, general counsel for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, an attorney and Catholic lay leader.
• Nancy Ratzan, president of the National Council of Jewish Women, an attorney and president of Reform Jewish congregation in Miami.
• Melissa Rogers, director of the Wake Forest University School of Divinity Center for Religion and Public Affairs. She is a lawyer and teaches courses on church-state relations.
• David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, and both a rabbi and an attorney.
• William J. Shaw, president of the National Baptist Convention, the largest historically black Protestant denomination, and pastor of White Rock Baptist Church in Philadelphia.
• Larry J. Snyder, a priest and president of Catholic Charities, one of the largest nonprofit social service agencies in America.
• Richard Stearns, president of World Vision; an Evangelical lay leaders with a long background in business before he joined the Christian humanitarian agency.
• Judith Vredenburgh, CEO of Big Brothers/Sisters of America, the largest youth mentoring nonprofit, and a self-described secular member of the advisory council.
• Jim Wallis, founder and president of Sojourners, and one of the best-known Evangelical social action leaders.
• Sharon Watkins, president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Protestant denomination.

The president has asked the council to focus on four priorities: (1) connecting faith-based and community groups to economic recovery, (2) promoting interfaith dialog and cooperation in the arena of community service, (3) encouraging responsible fatherhood and healthy families, and (4) reducing unintended pregnancies and the need for abortions, strengthening maternal and child health, and encouraging adoptions.

What does this mean?

President Obama hopes to avoid some of the mistakes of the previous administration, such as trampling long-held notions about the proper line between religion and government, and overly politicizing the involvement of people of faith, while continuing the necessary cooperation between government entities and religious charities which has been a key part of America from its founding. In many ways it is a return to the ideas that Colin Powell presided over in the 1990s in the aftermath of the Presidents’ Summit on Community Service. In a time of need in a democracy, elected officials are always going to challenge religious leaders to mobilize their adherents to help out simply because religion advertises itself as being about compassion, love and charity.

 

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Reprinted from http://msahlin.typepad.com/faith_in_context/ with the author’s permission. 

Monte Sahlin has worked to understand contemporary trends in our society and to help congregations and faith-based organizations make innovations since he organized ACT while in college at La Sierra University, Riverside, California, in the 1960s. ACT was a student volunteer organization that served in inner city neighborhoods and with suburban teenagers.

He is currently chairman of the board for the Center for Creative Ministry, a research organization and resource center helping pastors, congregations and other organizations understand new generations and how to engage with them. He is also chairman of the executive committee of the Center for Metropolitan Ministry, a “think tank” and training organization based on the campus of Columbia Union College in Washington, DC, as well as an adjunct faculty member at the Campolo School for Social Change at Eastern University in Philadelphia and in the DMin program at Andrews University. In addition, he serves on the steering committee of the Cooperative Congregational Studies Partnership, a coalition of researchers from more than 40 denominations and faiths who produce the Faith Community Today (FACT) research.

Sahlin is an ordained pastor in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, currently serving in the Ohio Conference of the denomination. He served for 12 years at the denomination’s North American headquarters with responsibilites for church ministries, media projects, social needs and issues, and research and development. He then served eight years as a regional vice president. He has pastored small and large congregations in major metropolitan areas and Appalachia.

He is the author of several books, scores of research studies and hundreds of magazine articles. His most recent book is entitled “Mission in Metropolis.” Others currently available are “Ministries of Compassion,” “One Minute Witness,” “Understanding Your Community,” “Trends, Attitudes and Opinions” and “Adventist Congregations Today.” In 2005, he coauthored with Harold Lee, “Brad: Visionary, Spiritual Leadership,” a history and evaluation of the career of Charles Bradford, the first African American to serve as president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America.

Sahlin has worked as director, board chairman or strategic consultant with more than 100 innovative, community-based ministries, church plants and nonprofit organizations over the last four decades. In 1994 he was awarded an Outstand Public Service Award by the United States government and in 1996 he participated in the Presidents’ Summit on Volunteerism as well as the prepatory gathering of 50 representatives of the nonprofit sector at the White House.

Supreme Court nominee Sotomayor’s rulings on religious issues

University of Toledo law professor Howard M. Friedman has compiled a list of Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s rulings on religion clause issues at his blog, Religion Clause.   Sotomayor has served on the Second Circuit since 1998. She served as a federal district court judge in the Southern District of New York from 1992 to 1998.

Friedman lists a couple of Second Circuit decisions involving religion where Sotomayor joined the panel majority, but his list of Sotomayor’s Southern District decisions is most helpful:

• Mehdi v. United States Postal Service, 988 F. Supp. 721 (1997) [LEXIS link] (rejecting claim by Muslim plaintiffs that post offices must include crescent and star along with Christmas and Hanukkah decorations);
• Moore v. Kennedy, 1996 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11474 (1996) (prisoner free exercise);
• Miller v. New York State Department of Labor, 1996 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11067 (1996) (employment discrimination);
• Utkor v. McElroy, 930 F. Supp. 881 (1996) [LEXIS link] (immigration asylum);
• DiNapoli v. DiNapoli, 1995 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13778 (1995) (accusations against sibling, member of religious order, growing out of estate administration).
• Rodriguez v. Coughlin, 1994 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5832 (1994) and Campos v. Coughlin, 854 F. Supp. 194 (1994) [LEXIS link] (preliminary injunction allowing Santeria prisoners to wear religious beads).
• Flamer v. City of White Plains, 841 F. Supp. 1365 (1993) [LEXIS link] (enjoining city from preventing rabbi’s placing of menorah in city park during Hanukkah).

Read the full article at http://religionclause.blogspot.com/2009/05/sotomayor-is-high-court-pick-here-are.html

Obama puts believers and non-believers on the same footing in speeches (WSJ)

The Wall Street Journal has published an interesting take on Barack Obama by Laura Meckler.  Obama has managed to be even more religious than George W. Bush in his speech, but also reaches out equally to non-believers.   Meckler’s  article discusses whether Obama can reach out to one end of the spectrum without alienating the other.  

EXCERPT:

 

Mr. Obama speaks easily about his own faith. White House events, even those without a religious theme, often begin with a prayer. And the president said he would expand President George W. Bush’s outreach to faith-based organizations.

At the same time, he has taken a series of policy steps that are troubling to religious conservatives, and pledged that decisions in his administration would be governed by science. He reversed Bush policies on funding for international family-planning groups and stem-cell research, and he has moved to rescind regulations that allow health-care workers to opt out of duties that offend their beliefs.

But even when taking these stands, which would be expected of a Democratic president, he often makes a point to say that he understands the other side.

That stance could win him respect from both sides, but it will be difficult to pull off. “Showing respect and being inclusive will only take the president so far,” said John C. Green, senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

Read the full article at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123785559998620329.html

 

Soros sees no bottom for world financial “collapse” (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Renowned investor George Soros said on Friday the world financial system has effectively disintegrated, adding that there is yet no prospect of a near-term resolution to the crisis.

Soros said the turbulence is actually more severe than during the Great Depression, comparing the current situation to the demise of the Soviet Union.

He said the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September marked a turning point in the functioning of the market system.

“We witnessed the collapse of the financial system,” Soros said at a Columbia University dinner. “It was placed on life support, and it’s still on life support. There’s no sign that we are anywhere near a bottom.”

His comments echoed those made earlier at the same conference by Paul Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman who is now a top adviser to President Barack Obama.

Read more at: http://www.cnbc.com/id/29308452/for/cnbc/

BREAKING NEWS: President Obama Creates New Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships

By Derek H. Davis, J.D., Ph.D.

Director, UMHB Center for Religious Liberty
University of Mary Hardin-Baylor
Belton, Texas

WASHINGTON, DC – President Barack Obama signed an executive order on Thursday, February 5, to create the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships.  The office replaces the controversial Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives that  George W. Bush  created to provide government grants to churches and other faith-based organizations to administer welfare programs.   ”The goal of this office will not be to favor one religious group over another–or even religious groups over secular groups,” Obama stated when announcing the new office at the annual National Prayer Breakfast.  The purpose, he said, “will simply be to work on behalf of those organizations that want to work on behalf of our communities, and to do so without blurring the line that our founders wisely drew between church and state.” 

The president’s announcement follows his selection last week of Pentecostal minister Joshua Dubois, 26, to direct the new office.  DuBois previously directed a religious outreach program in Obama’s former Senate office and holds a master’s degree in public affairs from Princeton University.  DuBois also headed the Obama campaign’s religious outreach efforts, which included organizing nearly 1,000 meetings with clergy across the country to discuss how government might work with faith-based and other community groups to improve the lives of people on the margins. 

Obama now faces the task of revamping the faith-based initiative while avoiding the criticism that was frequently directed at President Bush for ignoring prevailing church-state law. 

Obama now faces the task of revamping the faith-based initiative while avoiding the criticism that was frequently directed at President Bush for ignoring prevailing church-state law.   For example, many faith groups are now waiting to see if Obama will fulfill his campaign promise to prevent religion-based hiring for federally-funded positions within faith-based organizations that receive grants.   Under Bush, faith-based groups receiving government dollars were allowed to exclusively hire those of the same faith, a practice that defied traditional law and custom. Obama said in a campaign speech last summer, “If you get a federal grant, you can’t use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can’t discriminate against them — or against the people you hire — on the basis of their religion.”  Obama has not specified how he will handle the hiring issue, but the executive order he signed Thursday calls for collaboration between his new office and the attorney general for advice on “difficult legal and constitutional issues.” (See www.pbs.org, 2-5-09).

No previous president had been as bold as Bush in crafting a specific program that would so dramatically challenge the American principle of church-state separation.  Grants to faith-based charities during the Bush years, more than 1300 total awards, averaged more than $2 billion annually.  While campaigning last summer, Obama criticized Bush’s plan, saying it “never fulfilled its promise.” Perhaps the greatest shortcoming of the Bush plan was the way it failed, as promised, to end discrimination against religion generally and against various religious groups specifically.  When the Bush plan was first announced in 2000, well-known evangelical leaders such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson voiced objections to the plan because it threatened “Christian America” since groups like Scientology, the Unification Church, and Wicca might receive government money.  But this concern proved toothless, since according to one study in November 2006 reported by the Boston Globe, 98.3% of all Bush administration grants to faith-based agencies from the Office of Faith Based Initiatives were awarded to Christian groups.  The practice of excluding non-Christian groups was confirmed by a former staffer in the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.  David Kuo, in Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction, asserted that applications for federal faith-based funds were often rejected by reviewers because they came from non-Christian applicants.   Kuo reported being told by one grant reviewer, “When I saw one of those non-Christian groups on the set I was reviewing, I just stopped looking at them and gave them a zero. A lot of us did.” (Americans United Press Release, October 12, 2006).

President Obama faces a strong challenge to administer his new office in a way that fairly and effectively distributes government grants to worthy faith-based organizations while respecting settled American law governing the interplay between church and state. 

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The mission of The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor Center for Religious Liberty is to advance religious liberty for all persons, in all parts of the world, without regard to their religious, ethnic, gender, racial or national background. Religious liberty is a basic human right that must be nourished and protected by all human societies; it is the cornerstone of modern societies’ efforts to build a more peaceful world. The Center advances this mission by publishing relevant literature, hosting and sponsoring lectureships and conferences, sharing its expertise with media and other public information outlets, and partnering with other persons and groups who share the goal of advancing religious liberty.  The web site for the Center can be found at www.umhb.edu/academics/crl    

Embracing Exclusivity: How civic religion at inauguration abridges religious freedom

Michael Newdow is an American attorney and emergency medicine physician. He is best known for his efforts to ban recitations of the current version of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools in the United States because of its inclusion of the phrase “under God”. Most recently, he filed a lawsuit to prevent references to God and religion from being part of President Obama’s inauguration. You can read Dr. Newdow’s legal briefs and other materials at http://www.restorethepledge.com/

When we asked him if he had any editorials he would be willing to share with us, he forwarded the following essay prepared in advance of the January 2009 inauguration. While you may not agree with Dr. Newdow’s theology, his views on religious equality are thought provoking.  What do you think?  Post your comments below.  Editor

By Michael Newdow, Esq.
Posted on ReligiousLiberty.TV with the permission of the author.

In 1892, the 1/8th black Homer Plessy was convicted of violating Louisiana law by sitting in a “Whites only” railroad car. He took his case all the way to the Supreme Court, where his conviction was upheld by an 8-1 margin. “A statute which implies merely a legal distinction between the white and colored races,” wrote the Court, “ … has no tendency to destroy the legal equality of the two races.”

The lone dissenter in that case was Justice John Marshall Harlan, who refused to buy into the majority’s logic. Although it was true that whites and blacks were treated “equally” in a literal sense (since the law prohibited whites from riding in colored cars just as much as the opposite), Justice Harlan focused upon the “real meaning” of the legislation: “that colored citizens are so inferior and degraded that they cannot be allowed to sit in public coaches occupied by white citizens.”

It took fifty-eight years for the Supreme Court to recognize that Justice Harlan’s view was correct. In Brown v. Board of Education, the “real meaning” of “separate but equal”– i.e., that the nation’s white majority was using the government to affirm its self-proclaimed racial superiority – was put to an end. As a result, the whole of American society changed, so much so that we now have an African American poised to become the nation’s president. Surely, Barack Obama would never have been elected had Plessy remained the law of the land.

And yet not everyone has learned the lesson of Brown, including, of all people, Barack Obama. The message that “we” in the majority are “better” than some minority to which our Constitution guarantees equality is once again about to be sent. This time, rather than with race, it is in the realm of religion, as Mr. Obama plans to continue the practice, first introduced in 1937, of having clergy espouse the view that belief in God is superior to disbelief.

Mr. Obama plans to continue the practice, first introduced in 1937, of having clergy espouse the view that belief in God is superior to disbelief.

The hypocrisy of this “tradition” might best be seen by simply reading from his inaugural committee’s website. There one can read of a “commitment to … ensure that as many Americans as possible … will be able to come together to unite the country and celebrate our common values and shared aspirations.” With the official theme being “Renewing America’s Promise,” Mr. Obama is quoted for the proposition that “in America, we rise or fall as one nation and one people. That sense of unity and shared purpose is what this Inauguration will reflect.” Thus, in this inauguration, there is alleged “a commitment to organizing activities that are inclusive.”

Mr. Obama, a former constitutional law professor, is surely aware that (as Justice Scalia has written) “government may not … lend its power to one or the other side in controversies over religious … dogma.” After all, he was teaching at the University of Chicago Law School when the Supreme Court instructed the nation that “the religious liberty protected by the Constitution is abridged when the State affirmatively sponsors the particular religious practice of prayer.” More importantly, having undoubtedly reviewed Justice Harlan’s dissent in Plessy on numerous occasions, the President-elect has to realize that the “real meaning” of such formal espousals of God’s supposed existence is to brand believers as “superior” and Atheists as “inferior” citizens, in precisely the same way as the “separate but equal” laws did barely half a century ago.  Actually, that’s incorrect. “Separate but equal” at least pays lip service to the notion of equality. There is nothing equal when the government explicitly chooses to place one belief system above another. It is only Monotheism that is provided with an official platform at the nation’s premier celebration.

There is nothing equal when the government explicitly chooses to place one belief system above another.

Does Mr. Obama really think that this divisive religious claim helps “to unite the country?” What message does he believe is conveyed when he asserts that proclaiming the glory of God is a “common value?” What could possibly lead him to argue that a “sense of unity and shared purpose” results from intruding into the inauguration a religious ideology that, like every religious ideology, is divisive? He’s a graduate of Harvard Law School, who must have reviewed the text and the history of the First Amendment numerous times. How can such a learned man reckon himself “inclusive” by paying homage to a Supreme Being denied by millions of those he represents?

Two months ago, when the American people chose Barack Obama to serve in the highest office in the land, it seemed that Homer Plessy’s dream had finally been realized. America, we thought then, truly stands for the justice and equality guaranteed in its Constitution. Yet, in a few days, as our new president steps up to the inaugural podium, the reality will be that government-sanctioned favoritism – now for religion, instead of race – will continue. Perhaps some day, as the leader of our nation swears “to preserve, protect and defend” the document upon which Homer Plessy’s dream was founded, he or she won’t simultaneously be ripping it … and us … apart.

Judge Bork predicts ‘terrible conflict’ will endanger U.S. Catholics’ religious freedom (CNA)

EXCERPT:

Washington DC, Jan 21, 2009 / 03:19 am (CNA).- Former Supreme Court nominee Judge Robert Bork has predicted that upcoming legal battles will have significant ramifications for religious freedom. He names as issues of major concern the continued freedom of Catholic hospitals to refuse to perform abortions and the likely “terrible conflict” resulting from the advancement of homosexual rights.

Speaking in an interview published Tuesday by Cybercast News Service, Judge Bork discussed the contentious nature of modern politics.

“Everything is up for debate these days. I can’t think of anything that isn’t,” he said.

“You are going to get Catholic hospitals that are going to be required as a matter of law to perform abortions,” he claimed.

“We are going to see in the near future a terrible conflict between claimed rights of homosexuals and religious freedom… You are going to get Catholic or other groups’ relief services that are going to be required to allow adoption of a child by homosexual couples.  We are going to have a real conflict that goes right to the heart of the society.”

Asked whether there was a freedom of conscience clause anywhere in the Constitution that might prohibit the U.S. government from compelling a religious hospital to perform abortions, he replied:

“Well, the free exercise of religion clause might fulfill that role.”

The role of religion under Obama (CS Monitor)

EXCERPT:

WASHINGTON - After decades of ceding God to the GOP, at least in the public square, Democrats – with President Obama in the lead – are speaking with a fuller religious voice. The watchword? Inclusiveness.

It’s a voice that signals openness at a time when diversity in American religious life is rising.

“We know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus – and nonbelievers,” Mr. Obama said in Tuesday’s inaugural address.

Wednesday’s National Prayer Service, a tradition since George Washington’s inauguration, featured faith leaders chosen “to symbolize America’s traditions of religious tolerance and freedom,” said the 2009 Presidential Inaugural Committee. It included, for the first time, a sermon delivered by a woman.

For Obama, the broad outreach into the faith community isn’t confined to ceremonies but is emerging as a key element in his approach to coalition-building, say religious leaders who worked on the transition.

Read the full article at http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0122/p01s02-usgn.html

 

Photo from Faithbase.

Barack Obama on Religious Tolerance and Persecution

Full Transcript: Saddleback Presidential Forum, Sen. Barack Obama, John McCain; Moderated by Rick Warren
Aired August 16, 2008 – 20:00 ET

WARREN: Religious persecution, what do you think the U.S. should do to end religious persecution, for instance, in China, in Iraq, and in many of our supposed allies? I’m not just talking about persecution of Christianity, but there’s religious persecution around the world that persecutes millions of people.

OBAMA: Well, I think the first thing we have to do is to bear witness and speak out, and not pretend that it’s not taking place. You know, our relationship with China, for example, is a very complicated one. You know, we’re trading partners. Unfortunately, they are now lenders to us because we haven’t been taking care of our economy the way we need to be. I don’t think any of us want to see military conflict with China.

So we want to manage this relationship and move them into the world community as a full partner, but we can’t purchase that by ignoring the very real prosecutions, persecutions that are taking place, and so having an administration that is speaking out, joining in international forums, where we can point out human rights abuses, and the absence of religious freedom, that, I think, is absolutely critical. Over time, what we are doing is setting up new norms and creating a universal principle that people’s faith and people’s beliefs have to be protected.

Over time, what we are doing is setting up new norms and creating a universal principle that people’s faith and people’s beliefs have to be protected.

And as you said, it’s not just Christians, and we’ve got to make sure, you know, one thing I think is very important for us to do on all of these issues is to lead by example. That’s why I think it’s so important for us to have religious tolerance here in the United States. That’s why it’s so important for us, when we are criticizing other countries about rule of law to make sure that we’re abiding by rule of law, and habeas corpus, and we’re not engaging in torture, because that gives us a moral standing to talk about these other issues.

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