@Chris: I was wondering if you would comment on Cameron Strang (of Relevant Media Group) and Donald Miller (also emergent, author of Blue Like Jazz) and their decisions regarding praying at the DNC:
Cameron Strang was initially asked to pray, but withdrew after having second thoughts. Donald Miller didn’t even have first thoughts: “When someone asks you to pray, you do it.”
My question is not, “Would you pray?” as interesting a discussion as that might be. My question is actually whether or not Chris sympathizes with Donald Miller’s rhetoric in the interview linked above. As I read it, it sounded more than a little like my favorite Obama-booster. Comparison after the jump:
On Obama as a candidate: “I read his book, listened to his speeches, asked myself some hard questions. When all the math was done, he edged out as a favorable candidate for me.”
On America’s reputation: “If you look in the last eight years, we have lost our reputable standing among most nations… There’s a great deal of hostility against us. As we travel the world, America represents Christianity to the rest of the world. What we have is Christianity being represented by what is perceived as arrogance, bullying, an inability to negotiate peace, an inability to listen. People assume that Christianity is that way.”
On partisan politics: “I’ve not written the prayer yet, but I really wanted to hone in on the theme of unity, even unity between Republicans and Democrats. In the convention, as we highlight our differences that we wouldn’t forget that we’re unified, we have more in common than we don’t. That’s the focus of the prayer.”
On abortion: “The issue of abortion is a very sensitive one and it’s an important issue. I look at from a perspective of, what’s the best that we can do… We’re electing someone who agrees with us on abortion, being sort of a tragedy in our country, and yet can’t get anything done. The executive branch doesn’t have that much power, it has some power, but it doesn’t have much power. You look at the reality of that and say, what can I do to defend the sanctity of all human life, including the living, and the marginalized and the oppressed and the poor? What can we do to better social conditions so that less women are put in situations where they feel like they need to have an abortion. What does looking at the issue holistically look like?”
On gay marriage: “That’s another difficult issue as well. I get a bit frustrated when the evangelical position is reduced to two issues. So many other issues are not a concern to us. What happened was, in my opinion, the Christian positions has been reduced in order to manipulate us. If we give them these two issues, we can do whatever we want.”
Austin,
Not to accuse you of cherry-picking, but there are some other parts to that interview that I think provided a fuller answer:
On Obama as a candidate: “You ask yourself, what sort of person might God rise up to heal the wounds that have been created by that kind of positioning in the world. You would think a very intelligent minority, who came not out of wealth, who’s not only power position in Washington, D.C., a man who’s more thoughtful in his answers and less bullyish, not as simple of a thinker, even as reality is not simple, a man who has spent part of his upbringing overseas and has connections with Kenya, that’s the guy. A name like Barack Obama, you just kind of go, that would be the guy that God would choose to heal some of the wounds that we’ve caused in the world.”
Me: Miller is all about marketing, and sometimes he has some funny ideas. Though I disagree that the men God chooses to save the world are necessarily intelligent man with thoughtful answers, I do believe it is true that God uses the weak to confound the wise. And this perspective on Obama – a man who symbolizes the oppressed and the gentile to many Americans – well, I can see a bit of Miller’s point. God does like surprises.
On gay marriage: “In terms of gay marriage, I see it as a constitutional issue. Until we become a theocracy, I think that judges should look at it from a constitutional issue. Whether I think homosexuality’s wrong, personally? America is not God’s country. It’s not considered a Christian nation anymore. You have to look at everybody, not just Christians and say, what are the rights of these people based on this constitution.”
Me: This is the difficulty I have as well. The Constitution is not a Trinitarian document. It is very good, but it will never turn hearts.
America is now Rome, and not Jerusalem. We have people here who are sinning willfully but should still have certain rights extended to them. I don’t want to grant gays marriage, but I do think that a gay couple should have hospital visitation rights. Call me crazy, but if my wife were hospitalized, I wouldn’t want somebody carding me at the door to see if I had recently coveted my neighbor’s donkey or treated money as an idol. Though the logic isn’t tight (wife doesn’t equal boyfriend), it’s hard for me to not extend dedicated homosexuals a little privilege.
On America’s rep: “As we travel the world, America represents Christianity to the rest of the world. What we have is Christianity being represented by what is perceived as arrogance, bullying, an inability to negotiate peace, an inability to listen. People assume that Christianity is that way.”
Me: Again, Miller has his marketing backwards (Christians should expect not to be liked when they move about the world), but I wonder if he doesn’t have a point. We are to be hated, but because we’re bullies? I haven’t thought through this one all the way, but it seems that our reputation is not as it should be. Russia, China, and North Korea should hate our guts because we refuse to worship their leaders and idly condone injustice in their countries. But should others hate us because we’re empire-building jerks that carpet bomb innocent citizens?
On the DNC: “Somebody calls you and asks you to pray, you do.” Me: Assuming I can pray for whatever I want, I think it is possible to present the prayer in a way that doesn’t seem like endorsement.
In an ideal world: “And Lord, as we pray for the unity of this nation and the peace only you can provide, we pray also that our nation would repent of the great sin of Abortion.” Sweet. Notgonnahappen, but sweet.
In general: Me: I’m a bit shocked and actually a little disgusted that I agree with Miller on a lot of this. Blue Like Jazz was centered on the fact that our fathers suck and girlfriends are hard for a sensitive guy to get; Miller proposes that this causes marketing problems when we say that God is a Father and we are his Bride. His answer, of course, is to retool God’s marketing and make it hip and relevant.
But here, the same objection makes a little more sense. Politics is marketing. I’m a realist. Successful politicking requires a shrewd, wise man, one who is capable of marketing and keeping friends and foes alike in harmony. Somebody who is willing to split a child in two in order to find the truth.
I freely admit I cherry-picked the parts I thought you might identify with, and also sounded the most squishy-washy.
I don’t really have anything else to add… except that it would be nice if we could say things like unto what Miller is saying, without all the smarmasaurus rex stuff mixed in.
[...] up on the earlier discussion about this topic, Dreher weighs in concerning prayer at the [...]
You can check out video of Donald Miller’s prayer HERE