President Barack Obama has expanded upon former president Bush's faith based agenda, creating a White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships to help aid in healing the nation's ills. While I do wonder where the hue and cry about the effort is, considering the flack that Bush took for the original idea, I must concede that I am heartened to hear of the plan and even more impressed by the new President's words.
"...there is a force for good greater than government," Mr. Obama said. Well said, Mr. President. While I'm skeptical of his opinion that, "...there is no religion whose central tenet is hate," or that I at the least believe that such a statement requires clarification, I do agree with his essential point. There is no reason for government and religion not working together on issues which necessarily involve the spirit. There is no reason to believe that government is the sole answer, or even the best answer for our problems. And at the least, the overwhelming majority of religions do in fact agree on the basic tenets of morality and civil responsibility.
How deeply he means his words I do not know. But at the risk of drawing the ire of many of my conservative friends, there is a part of me who believes the new President sincere. He may not always act on whatever exact faith he holds, but he does appear to respect faith and have some understanding of the critical role it plays in the general governance of our society and our wills.
Yes, maybe it is a sop; time will tell. Yet for now, I'll cut him slack, and presume his good will. Until the opposite happens, I think he merits it.
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2 comments:
you are "growing". Perhaps it is my influence. Keep it up. There may yet be a seat for you on the O train
With mucho respect to the previous commenter, I'm going to be pretty blunt.
Perhaps you've also illustrated what I consider two defining differences between conservatives and liberals (as wholes) in terms of mindset.
First, conservatives don't want the person to fail, they want individual flawed policies to fail (whereas liberals wanted *Bush* to fail).
Second, we believe in the best in people. I may disagree with Obama, but I don't think he'd intentionally try to damage the country. Many of our brethren across the aisle, however, couldn't even toy with the notion that maybe, just maybe, Bush wasn't some war-mongering oil-grabbing power-hungry nitwit, but a guy who, even if they disagreed with him, genuinely thought he was doing the best for his country.
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