and immediately thought of what it would have been like in 2004. In one corner, you have the chair of the Science and technology subcommittee of the Commerce committee - who has seemed very comfortable at MIT. Kerry's curious mind has led him to be well versed on so many scientific fields. In the other you have ... George Bush - I'm not sure, but this could have been a bigger blow out than the foreign policy debate.
On the religious forum, the problem in evaluating how good an idea it was is complicated. The main audience will be the evangelical community that hosted the debate. We would need to know before it started how people were splitting between Obama and McCain. It would also be nice to know the intensity of their likes and dislikes. Then we need to know where they were afterwards.
In Kerry's Pepperdine speech, he said that he needed to speak of his religion because the result of following the Northeastern reluctance to speak publicly of his religion led people to create a caricature. That he chose Pepperdine to give this speech is interesting. What he seemed to being aiming for, more than potential future votes in 2008 :( was that the distrust and hatred that some had for him be eliminated by letting people see more of who he really is.
In 2004, I thought Kerry was a typical liberal cafeteria Catholic - though he is actually far more serious and knowledgeable about his religion (and others) than that. Obama has a greater problem - the inaccurate view of Kerry in 2004 was still well within the mainstream in the US. There are TWO distortions that both hurt Obama - the lie that he is Muslim and the exaggeration of how radical his church is. For the very reasons that Kerry spoke of at Pepperdine - even admitting at one point that he should have spoken to the evangelical population, are the reasons Obama should have done this. The hope would be to accomplish two things - to win some votes and to diminish the fear and hate of others who will still not vote for him to tamp down the polarization.
As to how the chosen audience will react, it is important to consider that neither of them are completely the "home team", but McCain seemed to try to morph his Episcopalian background into an evangelical one. This can go two ways - they can buy it, because they want to OR they may see it as pandering and being dishonest on something they value and thing to be highly personal. Note that they applauded Kerry's speech and respected that he explained his real personal religious values. He did not pretend to be evangelical, but as my daughter pointed out he sounded like he was a liberal MA social justice Catholic saying things similar to things written on her Jesuit school's web site.
I haven't yet read the transcripts as I've been busy getting my youngest ready to go to Idaho for college this Wednesday - but scanning a couple of threads, I was reminded of a Kerry/Obama/Bush analysis that was part of what my middle daughter, a religious studies major, wrote as part of her comments on Kerry's Yale speech on religions.
"It's interesting to me how the current president, Kerry, and Obama all
have such easily traceable theological "accents," more so than most
public figures. Not only this, but they are important voices, each with
more resonance in our society than most people probably know: the voices
of conservative socially-minded evangelicalism, post-Vatican II
Jesuit-inspired Catholicism, and Protestant liberation theology. What's
also so interesting is that these are conscious tendencies on the part
of all three of the aforementioned figures. They aren't unknowingly and
uncaringly using the religious language with which they have become
accustomed (which can be said of many politicians); they have consciously
thought over their religious alliances and influences and are plainly
disclosing them to anyone "with ears to hear."
The clearest example of this is Obama. As a Religious Studies major,
what bothers me most about the treatment of Obama in the press vis-à-vis
Obama's religious beliefs is how off-base it is. With all of the hoopla
over Rev. Wright and Obama's Muslim connections, people are forgetting
that Obama is in actuality a convert to Christianity, an adult convert
whose theology is therefore of necessity conscious and genuinely felt.
Describing his first visit to Trinity, he wrote: "And in that single
note-- hope!-- I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside
the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of
ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath,
Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of
dry bones. Those stories-- of survival, and freedom, and hope-- became
our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears
our tears." The scriptural emphasis, the connection of the African
American story with the story of the early Israelites and the later
Christian minority in Rome, a conversion based on a belief in
liberation-- all of these things 'mark' Obama religiously and show what
is really unique about his faith in American politics. For him, religion
is not synonymous with solid upbringing and stability; it is a powerful
force against corruption and injustice. Obama, I would surmise, is fond
of the more powerful rhetoric in Paul's letters, and one can imagine
that much of his vision of Christianity has been derived from Paul's
dramatic statements: "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but
against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the
darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the
heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may
be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the
breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the
preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of
faith" (Ephesians 6:10-16). I would classify Obama as coming out of a
definite tradition of liberal Protestant theology, and could probably
even guess at which theologians he respects the most.
Kerry, on the other hand, comes out of a different tradition--
left-leaning Catholic theology. You can clearly see the influence Jesuit
theology has had on him every time he speaks about religion-- just
compare it to anything you can find on the Holy Cross website about God
or justice or the purpose of education. He is more likely to rely on the
Thomist conception of the "common good" or the Vatican II councils than
on the fiery scriptural references of Obama. He also has clearly been
influenced by the Catholic (also generally Thomist) conception of
"natural law" (vaguely equivalent to the conception of Noahide laws in
Jewish tradition), which is the belief that, all creatures coming from
the same Creator, there is some "natural" (as opposed to the grace given
through revelation) understanding of what is good and just in all
people, though there are real differences given through revelation.
Traditionally, this would mean that there is good in all faiths, but it
is imperfect compared to faith in Christ. Kerry seems to have his own
interpretation of "natural law", however (and I wouldn't be surprised if
he also got this from some Jesuit friends)-- that the natural law exists
for all people, but different belief systems (perhaps not even
necessarily religious) build on this and each has something to offer the
others, all ultimately based in the shared sense of what is good and
right present in all people. And so most of his speech has to do with
this-- what the different religions can offer each other.
For all her comments:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=273&topic_id=150866#150988 As I have said, I have not read Obama's full comments - so I can't comment on how well he explained who he is. He can win even if most people say McCain did better, if he corrects some of the misconceptions about him and if he makes people more comfortable and makes them see him as genuine. especially, if some people reject McCain as pandering.
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