Religious Leaders and Politics

By
Cross posted at Say Anything: Reader blogs


Iowa's Christian Conservatives Seeking Candidate

I'm not sure which is more irritating, media stories framing religious involvement in politics as religious leaders telling their followers who to vote for or the religious leaders, particularly Christian religious leaders, who think that is appropriate to tell their followers who they should vote for. The pastor interviewed was very careful to note that what he was talking about was what was important to him in deciding who to vote for and to note that those are likely to be things that are also important to other Christians.

As much as the media spends time talking about how religious leaders, particularly Christian leaders, instruct their followers who to vote for I wonder how often that actually happens. The whole notion bespeaks the stereotype that religious people just follow along where they are lead. Any Christian religious leader is free to stand up and say which candidate they are going to support and why (hopefully not in the pulpit because that is not what it is for). Every Christian is free to completely ignore them. I know I do. At this point certain religious leaders have been so much more involved in politics than in anything else that their endorsement of any candidate is an indication for me to take a more skeptical look at said candidate.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

What's in a flower?

By
Specifically hydrangea flowers. In this post I pointed out that anthocyanin (a family of plant pigments) appears blue at high pH, red at low pH and is responsible for the wide variety of colours in hydrangea flowers. Ilona pointed out that , "in hydrangeas you lower the ph for blue flowers (more acid) and raise it for pink (more alkaline)." I did a bit of checking and found that this is the case . At lower soil pH hydrangea flowers do appear blue and at higher soil pH they appear red. But soil pH is not the only thing that affects the colour of hydrangea flowers. It appears that pH inside the plant cell has an affect as well: Sepal Color Variation of Hydrangea macrophylla and Vacuolar pH Measured with a Proton-Selective Microelectrode Anthocyanin changes its color depending on pH (Goto 1987, Brouillard 1988, Goto and Kondo 1991). In strong acidic conditions it shows red, in neutral, purple and in alkaline, blue. But generally the vacuolar pH of plant cells is weakly aci
Read more

Treating autism as traumatic brain injury

By
I've been doing research into autism, dyspraxia, how the normal brain works, and how an autistic/dyspraxic brain works (or doesn't work). Traumatic injury to different parts of the brain can cause the same problems suffered by autistic and dyspraxic children. Compare this list of the functions of different parts of the brain and the problems caused by injuries to those areas with these descriptions of dyspraxia and autism. What is Developmental Dyspraxia? Developmental dyspraxia is a disorder characterized by an impairment in the ability to plan and carry out sensory and motor tasks. Generally, individuals with the disorder appear "out of sync" with their environment. Symptoms vary and may include poor balance and coordination, clumsiness, vision problems, perception difficulties, emotional and behavioral problems, difficulty with reading, writing, and speaking, poor social skills, poor posture, and poor short-term memory. Although individuals with the disorder may b
Read more

Battlestar Galactica needs more colour?

By
Here are the letters I mentioned in the previous post. The one that started it (I'm guessing these letters were written after the show's first airing at the end of 2003): Galactica Needs More Diversity The problem I had with Battlestar Galactica was there were no major and very few minor African American characters. There were no Black men in the show at all or if they were, they had virtually no screentime. In the original series, Boomer and Tigh were both played by African American actors. In this rendition of Battlestar, those characters were played by Asian and White actors. In the Caprica city, there no African American extras. On the Galactica's bridge, there was only one African American actress. Another Black actress could be found playing a religious official that swore in the new President of the colonies. This was very troubling to me. Do you not want African Americans to watch your show? Do you want to project the idea that African Americans are not part of the
Read more