I have just reread your posts. 1) FLOTUS while in our pulpit: “institutional racism impacting poor populations.” This is not a person to be trusted with our pulpit. 2) Ray of Hope pastor’s was “very impassioned” in her intro of and Andy used “flattering words” about the movement. Two endorsements or validators in front of teens, both weilding “considerable influence” over youth, resulting in what? More voters for Obama in 2012? “You betcha!” 3) Did the event have merits for outreach? Short term maybe, but any convert is going to eventually come full circle to this question—can a validator of government ever truly be an effective validator of God again? Can they serve two masters? 4) Merit for national concern? Sure, in the same context as FAFSA tells High school seniors what their parents ought to contribute to their college. Used to be only rich kis expected not to have to work for their own college money, but the expectation set by FAFSA has changed all that as has obamacare changed their expectations for how long their daddy ought to provide health insurance. The message is like Hillary’s on spanking—sounds great for them to say while the police can use force whenever needed. The more govt sets expectations for our behavior in front of our kids, the less voice/authority we have with them ourselves. 5) NO the church should not partner with govt, especially a church known to be “apolitical” in our combined 16 years of attending.
Thanks all for your thoughts. A bit of clarification: Flotus did not say “institutional racism impacting poor populations” while in our pulpit, Ijust know a lot about the anti-obesity effort and know that to be an emerging focus within the health community and it is very frustrating. FLOTUS was very sanitized in her presentation as you would expect, but if you look at all the public health efforts including the emerging effort on obesity all are focusing on social justice and institutional racism as underlying causes for the disparities. The problem of course is that then every black and hispanic child and teen growing up comes to think of our nation as racist or at the very least uninformed, and it is insidious. The viewpoint becomes reality and it is to the point already where if you even argue about the causes you are racist. I have had many such conversations and have to proceed very carefully. I can’t imagine Andy or the leadership of the church is aware of any of this, but it is endemic within the public health and health disparities community and it will continue to make our country more polarized.
I hadn’t considered your other points which were very insightful about the implicit endorsement by Andy to all the children in the audience, and there were many from both churches. Great points! Also, I am not at all convinced that the (medical and other)elites who were in the audience will ever consider Christianity because of a nifty program, though they may want to come back, which is the church’s aim. But not to enough of an extent to merit the partnering.