For those about to Pastorbate...

[Cheap_Trick]

Here's a few words about Hillary's church:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080331/ehrenreich
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/hillarys-prayer.html

Through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the Fellowship. Her collaborations with right-wingers such as Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) grow in part from that connection. "A lot of evangelicals would see that as just cynical exploitation," says the Reverend Rob Schenck, a former leader of the militant anti-abortion group Operation Rescue who now ministers to decision makers in Washington. "I don't....there is a real good that is infected in people when they are around Jesus talk, and open Bibles, and prayer."

>snip<

Clinton's prayer group was part of the Fellowship (or "the Family"), a network of sex-segregated cells of political, business, and military leaders dedicated to "spiritual war" on behalf of Christ, many of them recruited at the Fellowship's only public event, the annual National Prayer Breakfast. (Aside from the breakfast, the group has "made a fetish of being invisible," former Republican Senator William Armstrong has said.) The Fellowship believes that the elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes. Its mission is to help the powerful understand their role in God's plan.

>snip<

The Fellowship's long-term goal is "a leadership led by God—leaders of all levels of society who direct projects as they are led by the spirit." According to the Fellowship's archives, the spirit has in the past led its members in Congress to increase U.S. support for the Duvalier regime in Haiti and the Park dictatorship in South Korea. The Fellowship's God-led men have also included General Suharto of Indonesia; Honduran general and death squad organizer Gustavo Alvarez Martinez; a Deutsche Bank official disgraced by financial ties to Hitler; and dictator Siad Barre of Somalia, plus a list of other generals and dictators. Clinton, says Schenck, has become a regular visitor to Coe's Arlington, Virginia, headquarters, a former convent where Coe provides members of Congress with sex-segregated housing and spiritual guidance.

>snip<

Throughout her time at the White House, Clinton writes in Living History, she took solace from "daily scriptures" sent to her by her Fellowship prayer cell, along with Coe's assurances that she was right where God wanted her. (Clinton's sense of divine guidance has been noted by others: Bishop Richard Wilke, who presided over the United Methodist Church of Arkansas during her years in Little Rock, told us, "If I asked Hillary, 'What does the Lord want you to do?' she would say, 'I think I'm called by the Lord to be in public service at whatever level he wants me.'")

>snip<

These days, Clinton has graduated from the political wives' group into what may be Coe's most elite cell, the weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast. Though weighted Republican, the breakfast—regularly attended by about 40 members—is a bipartisan opportunity for politicians to burnish their reputations, giving Clinton the chance to profess her faith with men such as Brownback as well as the twin terrors of Oklahoma, James Inhofe and Tom Coburn, and, until recently, former Senator George Allen (R-Va.). Democrats in the group include Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor, who told us that the separation of church and state has gone too far; Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) is also a regular.

>snip<

Clinton has championed federal funding of faith-based social services, which she embraced years before George W. Bush did; Marci Hamilton, author of God vs. the Gavel, says that the Clintons' approach to faith-based initiatives "set the stage for Bush." Clinton has also long supported the Defense of Marriage Act, a measure that has become a purity test for any candidate wishing to avoid war with the Christian right.

>snip<

Sean Hannity has called Obama's church a "cult," but that term applies far more aptly to Clinton's "Family," which is organized into "cells"--their term--and operates sex-segregated group homes for young people in northern Virginia. In 2002, Sharlet joined The Family's home for young men, forswearing sex, drugs and alcohol, and participating in endless discussions of Jesus and power. He wasn't undercover; he used his own name and admitted to being a writer. But he wasn't completely out of danger either. When he went outdoors one night to make a cell phone call, he was followed. He still gets calls from Family associates asking him to meet them in diners--alone.

>snip<

At the heart of The Family's American branch is a collection of powerful right-wing politicos, who include, or have included, Sam Brownback, Ed Meese, John Ashcroft, James Inhofe and Rick Santorum. They get to use The Family's spacious estate on the Potomac, The Cedars, which is maintained by young men in Family group homes and where meals are served by The Family's young women's group. And, at The Family's frequent prayer gatherings, they get powerful jolts of spiritual refreshment, tailored to the already powerful.

>snip<

Furthermore, The Family takes credit for some of Clinton's rightward legislative tendencies, including her support for a law guaranteeing "religious freedom" in the workplace, such as for pharmacists who refuse to fill birth control prescriptions and police officers who refuse to guard abortion clinics.

>snip<

Sharlet generously attributes Clinton's involvement to the under-appreciated depth of her religiosity, but he himself struggles to define The Family's theological underpinnings. The Family avoids the word Christian but worships Jesus, though not the Jesus who promised the earth to the "meek." They believe that, in mass societies, it's only the elites who matter, the political leaders who can build God's "dominion" on earth. Insofar as The Family has a consistent philosophy, it's all about power--cultivating it, building it and networking it together into ever-stronger units, or "cells." "We work with power where we can," Doug Coe has said, and "build new power where we can't."




I don't think I've yet to hear a Hillary supporters' opinion on this so-called church of Hillary's.

They always pretend they didn't see this.

They dance around the issue.

Their silence speaks volumes.

[2rth2pwr]

1. When you say "their silence speaks volumes" are you implying that people should criticize Hillary

because of this?

[atreides1]

3. Why Not?

They criticize Senator Obama on what was said by Reverend Wright!!!

[scheming daemons]

4. If you are going to criticize Obama for what a GUEST pastor says in his church....

...then, if the shoe fits.....

[Cheap_Trick]

5. I'm saying you should look at Hillary's own church

before criticizing Obama's. And every time I've brought up this subject, I never get a straight answer. Having read the article, what do YOU think of Hillary's church? I find it far creepier and far more damaging to this country. They have been in part responsible for the policies and mindset that have fucked this country up for the past 8 years.

[americanstranger]

8. Maybe she ought to explain what her connection really is.

I realize they have double-secret rules and everything, but maybe the senator should be held to the same standard of explaining every single thing like her opponent.

Fair's fair, right?

- as

[texastoast]

9. No, I'd just like to know what Hillary supporters think about it

And even though I'm an Obama supporter, I will vote for the Dem candidate. And if the Dem candidate has this going on, this concerns me, just like Obama's pastor issue concerned me. As an issue--for me personally an insubstantial one, but an issue that won't be insubstantial necessarily for all voters.

[boobooday]

2. This association is one that should be explored

And I mean Hillary's association, and the group itself. It's definitely creepy.

[Cheap_Trick]

6. I even took all 'bots off ignore to see how many would discuss this

One reply so far, and of course no discussion.

[2rth2pwr]

11. Most Hillary supporters have been driven off.

[Bucky]

7. Joining this group was a smart move.

The first thing she set out to do upon entering the Senate was to neutralize the most rabidly hateful saboteurs from her husband's administration. In that effort she was remarkably successful and she's had a strong Senate career as a result of that move.

Was she planning on running in 2008 all along? Possibly. More likely she was keeping her options open. Again, a smart move. There's no sell out here and there's no villainy. She's simply doing the job of a politician, which is compromise to get things done.

[Cheap_Trick]

10. wow, what a weak rationalization

for Hillary's membership in a right-wing cult. That's a load of bullshit and you know it.

Rating on the LAME-O-METER: 9.8

Re-read the articles.

Work on your reading comprehension.

[texastoast]

12. Bucky is correct

They both are, after all, politicians.

[oxbow]

13. thankfully i've yet to see any real pastorbation today. I think the campaign is over.

either way, I'm grateful people aren't harping on this like fox news. Even cnn and msnbc have been giving them grief for trying to make this front page 'news.' and DU is much cooler than fox news!