of helping in their communities. Look at what his first job was! When he was a community organizer (and agnostic non-church goer) he worked for a church and pulled more churches in to serve the community and not just Christian churches. And look at the church he finally joined. Wright's church had so many community outreach programs into the community for members and non-members. The sick, the sad, hungry, lonely, elderly, students, job seekers, ex-prisoner and so on
When he first ran for state senate in 1995 he talked about the role of churches. Here are various quotes. He was speaking from a deep belief in the potential effectiveness... it wasn't a ploy. He might be less idealistic now but I suspect the memory of his vision remains in him
...They start food pantries and community-service programs, but until they come together to build something bigger than an effective church all the community-service programs, all the food pantries they start will barely take care of even a fraction of the community's problems."
"In America," Obama says, "we have this strong bias toward individual action. You know, we idolize the John Wayne hero who comes in to correct things with both guns blazing. But individual actions, individual dreams, are not sufficient. We must unite in collective action, build collective institutions and organizations."
Some of the points are pretty good here
"The right wing, the Christian right, has done a good job of building these organizations of accountability, much better than the left or progressive forces have. But it's always easier to organize around intolerance, narrow-mindedness, and false nostalgia. And they also have hijacked the higher moral ground with this language of family values and moral responsibility.
"Now we have to take this same language—these same values that are encouraged within our families—of looking out for one another, of sharing, of sacrificing for each other—and apply them to a larger society. Let's talk about creating a society, not just individual families, based on these values. Right now we have a society that talks about the irresponsibility of teens getting pregnant, not the irresponsibility of a society that fails to educate them to aspire for more."
As an aside I always loved this quote from that time
"What if a politician were to see his job as that of an organizer," he wondered, "as part teacher and part advocate, one who does not sell voters short but who educates them about the real choices before them? As an elected public official, for instance, I could bring church and community leaders together easier than I could as a community organizer or lawyer. We would come together to form concrete economic development strategies, take advantage of existing laws and structures, and create bridges and bonds within all sectors of the community. We must form grass-root structures that would hold me and other elected officials more accountable for their actions.
I am not saying I am cool with whatever he does here... but I don't think he sees it as mixing church and state but rather a state assist in using church energy to build this community stuff, in services
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
