Rick Santorum's Attack On Barack Obama's "Phony Theology" & UUA President Rev. Peter Morales' Attack On "Obsolete Religions" - What's The Difference?
In a Spiritual RevolUUtions blog post entitled 'A Muslim, a Catholic, and a Mormon walk into a White House: Theological Racism in the 2012 Presidential Race' UU seminarian Nicolas Cable aka Nic Cable, who also Tweets as @CableUU, takes Republican Presidential candidate hopefuls, Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich to task for their "explosion" of what Nic calls "theological bashing" religious rhetoric which "erupted after the Obama Administration faced off against the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops on issues of contraceptive healthcare coverage."
Regarding Rick Santorum's attack on President Barack Obama’s United Church Of Christ version of liberal Christianity -
"It’s about some phony ideal, some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology, but no less a theology."
Nic Cable quite justifiably blogs -
"Santorum is implicitly suggesting that Obama’s theological tradition within the United Church of Christ is inherently a phony theology. The subtext to this is clear: the liberal Christian tradition and the social gospel movement are illegitimate. In other words, the President’s agenda of improving the lives of the most vulnerable is anti-Christian."
Here is the comment that I just submitted in response to Nic's blog post and a follow-up comment from Dawn -
“Wow. The political rhetoric and falsehood thrown around by candidates today is unbelievable. And you’ve only touched the tip of the iceberg.”
Indeed some of the UU political rhetoric and “religious” propaganda thrown around by UUA President Peter Morales is “beyond belief”. . .
I do not see a huge difference between Rick Santorum’s public attacks on Barack Obama’s UCC Christianity and Rev. Peter Morales’ attacks on Christianity more generally. Indeed Rev. Peter Morales’ rhetoric is arguably more intolerant and bigoted than that of Rick Santorum. . .
You rightly say that, “Santorum is implicitly suggesting that Obama’s theological tradition within the United Church of Christ is inherently a phony theology. The subtext to this is clear: the liberal Christian tradition and the social gospel movement are illegitimate.”
So what do you make of the following words from Rev. Peter Morale’s ‘A Religion For Our Time’ sermon which did double duty as his “stump speech” announcing his candidacy for UUA President?
“The old religions lead to tribalism, violence, suspicion, hatred, and oppression.”
“We live in dark times, filled with hatred, injustice, prejudice, ignorance. Sadly, obsolete religions created for another time contribute to the darkness.”
There is no question that Rev. Morales is referring to the three Abrahamic religions (i.e. Judaism, Christianity and Islam) but his broadly worded rhetoric implicitly encompasses any number of other “old religions” such as Hinduism and Buddhism just for starters. . .
end quote
Needless to say I *could* say quite a bit more about UUA President Rev. Peter Morales' own questionable anti-religious rhetoric but I have already been there and done that. . .
Regarding Rick Santorum's attack on President Barack Obama’s United Church Of Christ version of liberal Christianity -
"It’s about some phony ideal, some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology, but no less a theology."
Nic Cable quite justifiably blogs -
"Santorum is implicitly suggesting that Obama’s theological tradition within the United Church of Christ is inherently a phony theology. The subtext to this is clear: the liberal Christian tradition and the social gospel movement are illegitimate. In other words, the President’s agenda of improving the lives of the most vulnerable is anti-Christian."
Here is the comment that I just submitted in response to Nic's blog post and a follow-up comment from Dawn -
“Wow. The political rhetoric and falsehood thrown around by candidates today is unbelievable. And you’ve only touched the tip of the iceberg.”
Indeed some of the UU political rhetoric and “religious” propaganda thrown around by UUA President Peter Morales is “beyond belief”. . .
I do not see a huge difference between Rick Santorum’s public attacks on Barack Obama’s UCC Christianity and Rev. Peter Morales’ attacks on Christianity more generally. Indeed Rev. Peter Morales’ rhetoric is arguably more intolerant and bigoted than that of Rick Santorum. . .
You rightly say that, “Santorum is implicitly suggesting that Obama’s theological tradition within the United Church of Christ is inherently a phony theology. The subtext to this is clear: the liberal Christian tradition and the social gospel movement are illegitimate.”
So what do you make of the following words from Rev. Peter Morale’s ‘A Religion For Our Time’ sermon which did double duty as his “stump speech” announcing his candidacy for UUA President?
“The old religions lead to tribalism, violence, suspicion, hatred, and oppression.”
“We live in dark times, filled with hatred, injustice, prejudice, ignorance. Sadly, obsolete religions created for another time contribute to the darkness.”
There is no question that Rev. Morales is referring to the three Abrahamic religions (i.e. Judaism, Christianity and Islam) but his broadly worded rhetoric implicitly encompasses any number of other “old religions” such as Hinduism and Buddhism just for starters. . .
end quote
Needless to say I *could* say quite a bit more about UUA President Rev. Peter Morales' own questionable anti-religious rhetoric but I have already been there and done that. . .
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