consumed: How Does a Christian Deal with the Obama Phenomenon?

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Richard Clark

Richard Clark is the Founding Editor of Christ and Pop Culture. He is also the managing editor of Gamechurch and a freelance writer for Unwinnable, Paste, and other outlets. He lives with his wife in Louisville, KY and has a MA in Theology and the Arts from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
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7 Comments

  1. Just because he says he isn’t small-minded doesn’t make it so.

    His whole argument (once he actually starts saying what he means—after he’s spent 2/3 of his speech saying how he understands and doesn’t want to be patronizing) boils down to cheap propaganda.

    It is only biblical to first and foremost desire a
    candidate who will actively work to stop the slaughter
    of millions of babies.

    Yeah, that’s not charged at all. Or, I guess sensible. Leaving aside the whole bit about “slaughter,” since when will any nominated candidate of the Big Two actively pursue the end of abortion? Certainly not in the 2009 presidency.

    We must stand for the truth on matters of life
    and death.

    Oh by all means. Funny, I’ll bet a lot of people will vote for Obama for that same reason. *shrug*

    Obama is a pro-death candidate.

    Unlike Mr. 100 Years apparently. Come on, really. “Pro-death”?

    You’ve linked to some goofy stuff before, but usually it’s a link to a report about the fact that something’s goofy—not to the actual motherlode itself. I almost want to turn that post into an email forward.

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  2. GOOOOO DANE!!!!

    Amen.

    I thought there might have been an allusion to Barack being a Muslim somewhere toward the end of the post based on that last paragraph.

    It is funny when I read things like this…I recently wrote a paper regarding this idea of evangelical swing. I think as the older generation passes on, there will be more evangelical democrats who reject the bellicosity and pandering of the republican party (at least the republican party we have seen for the last 7 years) and drift toward the left. God forbid…right?

    Again, I said it elsewhere when another poster labeled Barack as a baby killer, I find the whole proposition preposterous and I will spare everyone else my rant about it…I might just comment on his blog instead…

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  4. Exaggerations on one side of an issue never justifies exaggerations on the other side. While calling Obama pro-death might be going too far, calling this post “propaganda” is equally unnecessary and reductionist.

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  5. Oh, sorry. You’re right. It’s not propaganda in its truest form, but I think propagandist would be both a suitable and accurate adjective to describe the latter half of that article. It may even be the best adjective to describe his technique there, as he uses typical propagandists’ technique throughout that section. He uses loaded words and phrases, generalizations, and an incomplete or even false presentation of things to rouse an emotional response in bandwagon readers.

    By the end, he’s abandoned all pretense of “understanding the other side” and is blatantly provoking action to an Us vs. Them mentality.

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  6. I agree, there seems to be a selective understanding of whose deaths “count” as real deaths, and whose do not.

    Are the thousands of Iraqi children who have been “slaughtered” count as highly as those who die from abortions?

    To me, being pro-war sort of takes the “oomph!” out of being pro-life.

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  7. I find these terms “pro-life” and “pro-choice” unhelpful in the extreme. The anti-abortion camp is hardly “pro-life” about everything — many of them support the death penalty, the war and so on. Ditto the pro-legal-abortion camp. Are they for any ol’ kind of choice? Of course not.

    It would be great if the language could be more straightforward and focus us on the common ground — like reducing the number of abortions, which pretty much everyone, including Obama wants to see happen.

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