Micah Tillman

From the Compassion Forum, last Sunday, at a college in a small town in Pennsylvania:

CLINTON: . . . [W]hat that means to me is that in the face of suffering, there is no doubt in my mind that God calls us to respond. . . .

. . . [I]n my Judeo-Christian faith tradition . . . the incredible demands that God places on us and that the prophets ask of us, and that Christ called us to respond to on behalf of the poor are unavoidable.

The above is part of Clinton’s best answer of the night. But now read the following from later in the interview:

I don’t presume anything about God. . . . Abraham Lincoln was right in admonishing us not to act as though we knew God was on our side. In fact, our mission should be on God’s side.

First there’s the apparent contradiction. She knows exactly what God wants, but has no idea what God wants. The only thing that saves her here is that (a) she claims to know what God wants of all of us in general, but (b) says she doesn’t know what God wants in response to the specific question of her being elected President.

Second, there’s her use of what turns out to be a distinction without a difference. I think it’s pretty clear that if religion matters at all to her — and I think the vague and clichéd answers she gives are evidence that it doesn’t — she thinks God is on her side, not the other way around.

If anything, religion is a support for her politics, rather than being the source of her politics. And notice that this support-not-source thing goes for Obama too:

OBAMA: So as I’m doing this organizing, some of the pastors started saying, “You know, you’ve got great ideas, Obama, but, you know, if you’re going to organize churches, it might help if you were going to church.”

. . . [S]o I started visiting some churches. Trinity United Church of Christ was one of the churches that we were trying to get involved in the organization.

I visited that church and found the ministries that . . . there were a whole host of wonderful ministries that they were engaged in. And Reverend Wright’s sermons spoke directly to the social gospel, the need to act and not just to sit in the pews.

And so I found that very attractive and ended up joining the church . . . . Now . . . there’s been this notion that he was . . . my spiritual adviser or . . . mentor. You know, he’s been my pastor.

And what that means is, is that . . . the ministries that have been built in that church community have been very important to me.

Neither Clinton nor Obama are Progressives because that’s what their religion tells them to be. They find a given brand of religion useful if it supports their Progressivism.

And both of them are smart to make this move. You don’t want to portray yourself as a follower if you’re trying to convince people you’re a leader.

And if you happen to follow some moral authority/leader or other, you want to portray yourself as having chosen that authority/leader because it/he met your own standards of right and wrong. You don’t want to look like you’re just blindly following someone/some book, and getting your value system from him/it.

That way you’re still above the person/book you’re apparently following. You’re still the leader.

[More to come.]

Tags: Barack Obama, Compassion Forum, Hillary Clinton, Messiah College