Brian McLaren has added a 5th reason for voting for Barack Obama on his blog: The Sacredness of Life.
I sympathize with a lot of what he says about the Religious Right blindly supporting the Republican party , and I am all for better health care, more vigorous job creation, better education, and other needed initiatives for people in poverty, but here’s the problem I see with a lot of Christians and their support for Obama: They want so badly to uphold their candidate as the man to fix our problems that they overlook - or in McLaren’s case actually try to reframe in a positive light - the issues that are antithetical to the religious principles they are attempting to uphold (in this case the sacredness of life.)
I’ll be the first to say that Republicans don’t have a lock on the sacredness of life issue, and I find it hypocritical when the Religious Right acts like they have the corner on morality. At the same time, when a Christian leader with a large influence tries to show that the candidate they are propping up with all of their back strength and blog posts is the pro-life politician while at the same time arguing that changing the abortion law won’t actually change much, I get a little skeptical. I begin to wonder if, in an effort to walk away from the Religious Right and its too-close political ties, Christians wander too far the other direction and end up doing everything they can to support their Democratic candidate, no matter what.
Curiously, the candidate that Brian McLaren is voting for has declared that his very first act in office has to do with abortion. If changing the laws on abortion really don’t affect much, as McLaren says - and therefore let’s fix the root of the problem - why has his man proudly announced that his first action as President would be to extend abortion rights?
I don’t see voting for a Republican or a Democrat as a Christian or non-Christian thing. Research the issues, and then vote for Obama, or vote for McCain. But don’t try to reframe your candidate as something that he’s not. Some of us can see through these well-meaning intents.
(P.S. I like Brian McLaren. I’ve read several of his books and greatly enjoyed them and have been influenced by them. I also listened to his “Everything Must Change” lecture in August and thought it was excellent. I wish I could do a tenth of the good he’s doing in the world.)
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Taken from the blog http://thirtythousandpeople.wordpress.com/2008/10/27/mclaren-on-obama-christians-abortion/
I thought it said it very well!!! Written as if I were writting it!
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