Posted on 05/02/2009 9:29:20 AM PDT by Terriergal
I spoke today with Richard Land, public policy chief of the Southern Baptist Convention—the nation's largest evangelical denomination—and was struck by his praise of President Obama for living out "family values":
Not enough religious conservatives are saying this: It's terribly important that [Obama] gives every indication of being a moral man who is demonstrably fond of his wife and children. I think that's important in a president, be it a Democrat or a Republican. That's why I said I couldn't vote for Giuliani or Gingrich. I think [Obama's] making a real difference in this country in his example as a model father and husband.
(Excerpt) Read more at usnews.com ...
April 29, 2009
Obama Works to Redefine Role of Faith in First 100 Days
by Dan Gilgoff
U.S. News & World Report
The Southern Baptist Convention’s Richard Land has worked with presidential administrations going back to Ronald Reagan’s, but he can’t remember any that has convened an advisory council composedised (sic) mostly of religious leaders, as President Obama has done. The council gives religion “an institutionally higher profile than under President Bush,” says the conservative Land, who directs public policy for the nation’s largest evangelical denomination. “No president that I’ve dealt with has had anything like it.”
Left-leaning advocacy groups agree, though they tend to be more troubled by a bigger role for religion in the White House. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, for example, is dismayed by how Obama’s faith-based office has operated so far. “Bush’s office completely disregarded the separation of church and state,” says Executive Director Barry Lynn, “and nobody sees any change from that yet.”
In his first 100 days in office, President Obama has sought a bold new role for faith in the White House, which aides say is aimed largely at dialing down the decades-old culture wars. Without changing his party’s liberal stances on social issues like abortion, for example, Obama is nonetheless attempting to reach out to religious conservatives by pledging to work toward reducing demand for abortion. And while acknowledging his party’s own secular base—he went out of his way to mention nonbelievers in his inaugural address—Obama has sought to showcase religion’s expanded role in his White House, opening his rallies with public prayer.
So far, the project has blunted the Christian right’s usual criticism of Democratic administrations, even earning plaudits from some high-profile religious conservatives. But it has also alienated some traditionally Democratic constituencies, from advocates for strict church-state separation to the gay rights movement.
http://pewforum.org/news/rss.php?NewsID=18000
More recent article - in context from the same source.
Land likes Obama.
I thought Rick Warren just apologized for supporting Prop 8? How many praise songs and guys strumming guitars in blue jeans does it take to get the Lord to accept homosexual marriage? Just curious..
All the apostles were Catholic. Catholics are the Original Christians. Put your Bible down, which you wouldn’t have in the first place if it weren’t for the Catholic Church, and read the early Church fathers.
Cardinal John Henry Newman, Anglican Convert:
To be deep in the early fathers is to cease to be protestant.
All the fancy music in the world has never and never will, save one soul.
“How many praise songs and guys strumming guitars in blue jeans does it take to get the Lord to accept homosexual marriage? Just curious..”
Its my guess it would take a lot more than exist.
How many hateful statements would it take to get the Lord to reject lost sheep?
“All the apostles were Catholic. Catholics are the Original Christians.”
Baloney
“Put your Bible down,”
Spoken like a true heretic.
So does ND University.
“All the fancy music in the world has never and never will, save one soul.”
Neither has a dusty old church or a false idol sitting atop the ‘alter’
Only Jesus can save. The rest is window dressing.
All the Apostles were practicing Jews, who believed Jesus Christ to be the fulfillment of Judaism, the Messiah. That, in hindsight, made them Christians. Would Peter have recognized a huge, worldwide organization based in Rome, that claims him as their founder? Or would he recognize people following the Messiah as he did, as the church?
As far as the Bible, the glory belongs to God, at whose behest the Bible was compiled. Catholicism played an important role in compiling and editing pre-existing texts, and for that all Christians are grateful. Outside of that, it’s sort of crass for a particular sect to claim ownership of the Word of God, especially one that branded those who attempted early translations into languages other than Latin as heretical, as was the case with John Wycliffe.
Whatever, I’m Catholic already. It only eternal salvation that you are risking. God Bless You...
“It only eternal salvation that you are risking.”
No risk here, I’ve read Gods Word and know the truth.
God Bless you too.
"One article, published anonymously in Spurgeon's monthly magazine The Sword and the Trowel, noted that every revival of true evangelical faith had been followed within a generation or two by a drift away from sound doctrine, ultimately leading to wholesale apostasy. The author likened this drifting from truth to a downhill slope, and thus labeled it "the down grade." The inroads of modernism into the church killed ninety percent of the mainline denominations within a generation of Spurgeon’s death." (From a sermon by John MacArthur)
Read about what they did beginning with Acts. The Catholic Church is the outgrowth of ALL they did. Remember, they did this for the first 70 years with nothing written. It is also useful to get some other perspectives from the fathers, the Didache and other relevant sources, especially when so much happened in the growth of the Church before the Canon was assmbled.
As to the Bible, grouse all you want, but the Catholic Church is the organization that assembled the Canon and continues to infallibly interpret it down to this day, and yes, before you go there Sacred Tradition also transforms us as Catholics.
Moses went up the mountain, and came down to the golden calf. It's not exactly a new phenomenon.
“The inroads of modernism into the church killed ninety percent of the mainline denominations “
It wasn’t/isn’t modernism that is killing mainline denominations. It was falling away from God’s Word.
If you bore the hell out of kids it doesn’t mean they are saved. It means they leave the church as soon as they leave Mom and Dad. Some 80% of children stop attending church regularly once they have left home.
Sounds prideful to me.
“but the Catholic Church is the organization that assembled the Canon and continues to infallibly interpret it down to this day,”
God Word is sufficient.
The Catholic church is not infallible. If you believe that, I've got an indulgence to sell you. Historical instances of abject corruption in the Vatican refute any such claim. No creation of man is infallible, not Catholic, not Protestant, none of them. We're all fallen and find salvation only through the grace of God, and those who repent and accept that salvation consitute the Church. This even applies to the Pope.
Placemark
It was hateful to point out the drift toward world acceptance in Christianity?...just curious
“So does ND University”
Fundamentalism fueled by moral absolutism in an effort to deny that this preacher likes Obama. Now that’s a leftie talking point.
The truth is that both articles indicate that Land likes Obama.
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