Religion and politics across the pond

26 Jun 20084 Oct 2017

On the one hand we have James Dobson declaring that Barack Obama isn’t really Christian, because he distorts the Bible. Funny, I thought the Bible had some things to say about that [Matt 5:22, 7:1, Luke 6:37, Rom 2:1, 14:4, James 4:11, but then I’m not a Christian so I am probably misreading it by taking it literally here]. It is clearly un-Christian to make arguments for the arrangement of a secular society in a secular manner. How dare Obama make that argument in a secular society. But we know that the Christian right doesn’t actually want a secular society.

On the other hand we have a secular society – Australia – acquiescing in the government funding of religiously based schools. It seems that the new government is not likely to roll back the privileging of religious schools, even extending it to Muslim schools (and why not? If you are going to give the Catholic or Anglican school system more money than equivalent state schools, of course you’d have to do it for Islamic schools). But it seems that in a society that does not have church-state separation, those schools that actually teach things whether or not they happen to suit some archbishop in Sydney or Imam are being given less support. So the non-religious lose out.

I have voiced my concerns about the religiosity of Australian politicians before. It looks like it is starting to bear fruit.

Politics Religion

Comments (4)

clinteas says:

26 Jun 2008 at 6:19 am

Too much to hope for im afraid John.
Seems the rational and non-religious always miss out,whether in education or other fields.But we will bend our backs as a society to accomodate even the smallest crackpot cult’s demands for funding their schools,the UK is even worse than Australia.
clinteas says:

26 Jun 2008 at 6:19 am

Too much to hope for im afraid John.
Seems the rational and non-religious always miss out,whether in education or other fields.But we will bend our backs as a society to accomodate even the smallest crackpot cult’s demands for funding their schools,the UK is even worse than Australia.
Jim Lippard says:

1 Jul 2008 at 6:35 pm

Dobson accused Obama of bad theology for pointing out that Leviticus says that slavery is acceptable and eating shellfish is an abomination. (Obama also referred to the Sermon on the Mount, stating that it contains “a passage so radical that it’s doubtful our own Defense Department would survive its application.”)
On “The Daily Show,” Jon Stewart said something like, “of course–reference to Leviticus and attempting to apply it to contemporary morality is bad theology,” then showed footage of Dobson appealing to Leviticus as an argument for the immorality of homosexuality.
The funny thing is that Obama isn’t distorting anything about what the Bible actually says.
http://godhatesshrimp.com/
Jim Lippard says:

1 Jul 2008 at 6:35 pm

Dobson accused Obama of bad theology for pointing out that Leviticus says that slavery is acceptable and eating shellfish is an abomination. (Obama also referred to the Sermon on the Mount, stating that it contains “a passage so radical that it’s doubtful our own Defense Department would survive its application.”)
On “The Daily Show,” Jon Stewart said something like, “of course–reference to Leviticus and attempting to apply it to contemporary morality is bad theology,” then showed footage of Dobson appealing to Leviticus as an argument for the immorality of homosexuality.
The funny thing is that Obama isn’t distorting anything about what the Bible actually says.
http://godhatesshrimp.com/

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