Obama speech at Prayer Breakfast
Obama argued that no faith has the market on goodness, that each has adherents who commit evil acts in the name of their faith and that within humans something exists that can pervert them, that can cause them to use faith for evil. He argued ISIS is now doing that with the Muslim faith.
He noted that faith, and all faiths, can inspire people to good but in the wrong hands faith can be “twisted and distorted, used as a wedge, or, worse, sometimes used as a weapon.”
He delivers those words at an apropos moment in history given the acts of horror ISIS has recently committed. He pointed out that many millions of Muslims practice their faith as the vehicle of goodness it is meant to be.
He’s right and we need reminding that we must remain strong in the face of temptation to blame the many for the actions of the few. That we must recognize that the part of humanity that has a hold upon members of ISIS is just that: a part of all humanity, a potential that is a human potential, not a Muslim potential. A human condition, not a condition of any one religion.
Here is a key section of Obama’s remarks verbatim:
“How do we, as people of faith, reconcile these realities: the profound good, the strength, the tenacity, the compassion and love that can flow from all of our faiths, operating alongside those who seek to hijack religions for their own murderous ends?
“Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history. And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”
Reactionary Republican right
Now here’s a reaction to Obama’s speech from former GOP Virgina governor Jim Gilmore that is as foolish a one as you’ll find:
“The president’s comments this morning at the prayer breakfast are the most offensive I’ve ever heard a president make in my lifetime. He has offended every believing Christian in the United States. This goes further to the point that Mr. Obama does not believe in America or the values we all share.”
He and others suggest that Obama is comparing ISIS to Christianity, which is ignorance of a colossal kind. They entirely miss the point, simple though it be. He isn’t comparing Christianity to ISIS, nonsense! He is talking about people committing evil acts under the guise of their faith, when in fact their faith does not condone it. Regardless of what faith they allege to believe in.
Those who use Islam to commit evil, as ISIS is doing, are not Muslims, but people who pervert a faith for their own end. Just as those who used Christianity to commit evil, members of the KKK for example, were not Christians, but people who perverted a faith for their own end.
That’s the comparison and if Mr. Gilmore can’t acknowledge that persons have perverted Christianity in the name of evil, as ISIS has perverted Islam in the name of evil, then he is not in touch with history or human psychology.
Maybe he doesn’t like a black male handing out advice to the nation on faith, some Republicans are guilty of that in their incessant criticism of this president. At least one writer suggested they may be faking indignation to play to partisan politics, faking outrage to gain votes. But if that is so then they clearly have a low opinion of the American electorate.
Obama and the onslaught
There’s a list of responses by politicians and columnists from the right here should you care to read them. They are entitled to their opinions of course, but the rest of us are entitled, I am entitled, to wish they would contribute positively to their country and our world, rather than shrivel up and satisfy their own prejudices.
President Obama must be exhausted after six plus years of this. The birther nonsense, the obsession with a former-preacher and idiots who say he is Muslim. Those that forever bring up associations he had in Chicago decades ago — innocuous ones at that — and attack his reaction to Benghazi, despite a non-partisan panel that found he and his government did nothing wrong.
The list goes on and on, beyond opposition politics and into the realm of an ignorance borne of…spite? Anger? Fear? Borne of being disempowered?
Despite this he, and his administration, lifted America up economically and morally. Room to improve? Of course, lots. But America is no longer sinking in the economic quagmire George Bush left as his legacy, and no longer a joke on the international scene. And his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast is a wonderful indicator that he’s still in there fighting the good fight.
He is an example of someone who truly follows his faith.
