The political uses of religion

Cynics say that all sides "use" religion to their advantage, and I suppose in some sense that is true. What is really bizarre, however -- so bizarre as to be almost reminiscent of George Orwell's pigs walking on their hind legs in his distopian novel about Marxist revolution, Animal Farm -- is when liberal Democrats attempt to do so. First of all, check out this piece by AP religion writer, Eric Gorski, "Democrats open faith-filled covention with prayer" (Yahoo! News, August 24, 2008). Now faith can mean different things. A faith of which there is an abundant kind in the Democratic National Convention is faith in the Anointed Child from Chicago who comes to bear witness to the truth so that the world might believe through him (cf. also "Is Obama the Messiah?"). That is not the faith, however, that's being used in the convention. Gorski's article opens with this:

DENVER - At the first official event Sunday of the Democratic National Convention, a choir belted out a gospel song and was followed by a rabbi reciting a Torah reading about forgiveness and the future.

Now compare that to the excerpt from the piece by Leonard Pitts, Jr. "It's a shameful thing, Mayor Kilpatrick" (Detroit Free Press, April 8, 2008), which we excerpted in a post back on April 9, 2008. Pitts wrote:

So it's a black thing? Not a sleaze thing, not a betrayal of the public trust thing, not a breaking the law thing? Just a black thing?

This would seem to be the message of the recent rally thrown for you at a black church in Detroit. It was, to judge from media reports, quite the shindig. Standing room only; gospel choirs doing that gospel choir thing; posters in red, black and green; chants of "I can make it through the storm!"

The church's Cardinal Ronald Hewitt seems to have caught the spirit of the event when he declared, "Kwame Kilpatrick just happens to be the symbol of bold, uncompromising black power in this city. We're not giving him to you.

Mmmm ... hmmmm ... You know what I'm talkin' 'bout.