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Keeping Faith With American Voters
Opinion
Taking It to Heart: Barack Obama has made his religious beliefs a central theme of his candidacy.
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More in Forward ForumWith Iowa’s caucus and New Hampshire’s presidential primary votes now cast, it’s time for secularists to get used to something inherent in American political life: Faith-speak works.
In Iowa, the two most faith-based public speakers won. Mike Huckabee is a former preacher, and Senator Barack Obama might as well be one. Both men epitomize the church-based tradition of American oratory — a rhetorical style marked not only by cadence and repetition, but by a sure-footed appeal to classically American religious values — especially the one that says we can all transform ourselves through good works. We Jews call them mitzvot.
Journalists covering Obama report that his campaign events are like “church revivals.” Attendees wait an hour or two for the senator’s arrival, and he is met not just with the zeal of rock-star groupies, but of church supplicants. Obama is seen by many Democrats as a savior for the party, and with wins in Iowa and a strong if not victorious showing in New Hampshire, that is a role he will likely have to play.
Most non-evangelical Republicans lack that kind of fervor for Huckabee, but so far he has been the only Republican candidate to have melded his biography with a finely-honed message. Watching him and listening to him, one has to admire his easy way with the English language, his ability to talk in calm tones and still be interesting — Senator Hillary Clinton could learn a thing or two from the other former Arkansas governor — and most importantly, his determination to win, against tremendous odds.
The messages of Obama and Huckabee differ in certain ways, but they bear close similarity in their regular references to God and religious imagery, and in their consistency with most religious narratives: Here is a little guy who believes in something big, fights the powers that be, afflicts the comfortable, and emerges as the people’s choice.
Ronald Reagan had that narrative, and so, to a certain extent, did Bill Clinton. Whether it’s true or not doesn’t matter. It works.
While Huckabee did not win New Hampshire — he came in a distant third, with 11% — just weeks ago he was not expected to capture more than a percentage point or two of the vote. The other Republican candidates have gotten the message: Be more like Huckabee.
That means more God-talk, more “I’m just a little guy.” Thus you have Senator John McCain running television ads talking about celebrating Christmas in captivity in Vietnam, Mitt Romney — for whom, for the sake of full disclosure, I have written speeches and OpEds in the past — giving a major speech on faith in the public square, and the thrice-married Rudy Giuliani talking during debates about his Bible-reading habits.
Anyone hoping for a rematch between Ike and Adlai Stevenson — between a manager like Romney and a braniac like Clinton or Governor Bill Richardson — is likely to be sorely disappointed. Today’s American electorate may admire business skills or sheer intellectual firepower, but most of all they love someone with a lot of heart — and increasingly that means someone who feels God is walking beside him.
This, of course, is profoundly disquieting to American Jews, most of who are highly secularized and perhaps traumatized by past encounters with religious zealotry. Even when fellow believer Joe Lieberman spoke from his heart about his religious beliefs while running for vice president in 2000, many Jewish organizations and leaders recoiled in fear. To many Jews, secularism is its own religion, with its own high priests and prophets.
But with the 2008 presidential election gearing up to be a faith-a-thon, it may be time for American Jews to feel the spirit.
Having sat through more than a handful of rabbinical sermons thinly disguised as anti-Republican screeds, I can tell you that when the target is right, Jews have no problem injecting politics into their theology.
In fact, some would argue that it is their theology. The challenge to such Jews has always been: Does theology come first? Most tend to use Isaiah or Jeremiah as a proof text for the Democratic Party platform or equate voting Republican with apostasy.
To such Jews, voting for a candidate like Obama may be troubling. He does not use religion as a convenient way to appeal to middle-of-the-road evangelicals; he actually seems to believe it. His appeal to faith is wrapped in his appeal to a better self — a self that does not punish people for being in opposition to him and does not judge people for the SUV they drive or the hunting rifle they keep in their garage. There is a reason Republicans like him.
It is, in short, the kind of faithfulness that bears little similarity to the puritanical shrillness of many secular liberals. Slightly more than seven years ago, that kind of spirit was embodied by George W. Bush; he was viewed as far more likeable and easygoing than Vice President Al Gore. Bush’s speeches were drawn from a common language of American faith; he sought to build his agenda around compassion and hope, while his opponent talked robotically of “schemes” and tried playing the brain card.
No matter what the intervening years have wrought to Bush’s image — and having served the man, I can say without hesitation that he is, in fact, deeply faithful and compassionate — the political lessons remain: Happy faithfulness works.
The Talmud teaches us, and many secularists believe, that the brain is a holy instrument, but American politics tells us that the heart is a political gift, if we use it right. That’s where today’s candidates must find their message — and where they must make sure it is received.
Noam Neusner served as President Bush’s principal economic and domestic policy speechwriter from 2002 to 2004.
Comments
Interesting that the loyalist Republican Neusner singles out Obama to discredit as a "man of faith" while praising Bush as being one, and comparing him to Huckabee. Why must American Jews be so RACIST?
As for the previous respondent, Lawrence Glazer, who attempts to discredit Obama for being raised as a Muslim, Obama's biological father (who he met once!) was and atheist. Obama’s (Christian) stepfather worked for a U.S. oil company in Indonesia, and sent his stepson to two years of Catholic school, as well as two years of public school. As Obama described it, “Without the money to go to the international school that most expatriate children attended, I went to local Indonesian schools and ran the streets with the children of farmers, servants, tailors, and clerks.” No religion was taught in his Indonesian public school. Mr. Glazer is, to be polite, "misinformed."
At the same time, I want to go on record as stating that, for me, even IF Obama had been educated as a Muslim when he was a child, or were a practicing Muslim now which he is now, it would not influence my vote for him. As for his United Church of Christ pastor who has come under criticism, I hold him no more responsible for the views and words of his pastor than I would want someone to hold for the fanatical and moronic views sometimes espoused by my own rabbi.
Articles such as this in the Jewish media, and the ignorant and/or bigoted responses they engender, are telling me less about than the candidates than about some of my (supposedly) fellow Jews. What they tell me is repelling me more by the day. However, I KNOW that they do not speak for all Jews, any more than they speak for me.
TYPO ALERT and correction: above comment should read"
even IF Obama had been educated as a Muslim when he was a child, or were a practicing Muslim now which he is NOT, it would not influence my vote for him
Really, there is no need to invite Mr. Nuesner to write for Forward. There are other forums, much better suited for his sloganeering nonsense.
Andrei,
I feel the same about the nonsense and drivel that Fein spews on this site.
Hussein's church affiliation and his older Marxist Muslim brother, trouble me as much as his Muslim upbringing. Hussein the uniter who will unify our country and end divisiveness belongs to a church where he pledged allegiance to the church's Black Value System. I know liberals don't like facts but read the article on the link below. The truth is more important than your opinion. ---------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=285292746454291
For those too lazy to read the full article here are a couple of excerpts from Investor's Business Daily:
""In 1991, when Obama joined the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, he pledged allegiance to something called the Black Value System, which is a code of non-Biblical ethics written by blacks, for blacks.
It encourages blacks to group together and separate from the larger American society by pooling their money, patronizing black-only businesses and backing black leaders. Such racial separatism is strangely at odds with the media's portrayal of Obama as a uniter who reaches across races.
The code also warns blacks to avoid the white "entrapment of black middle-classness," suggesting that settling for that kind of "competitive" success will rob blacks of their African identity and keep them "captive" to white culture.
In short, Obama's "unashamedly black" church preaches the politics of black nationalism. And its dashiki-wearing preacher — who married Obama and his wife and now acts as his personal spiritual adviser — is militantly Afrocentric. "We are an African people," the Rev. Jeremiah Wright reminds his flock, "and remain true to our native land, the mother continent."
Wright once traveled to Libya with black supremacist Louis Farrakhan to meet with terrorist leader Muammar Qaddafi. Last year at a Chicago gala, Wright honored his old pal Farrakhan, who's fond of calling whites "blue-eyed devils," for lifetime achievement.
It comes as little surprise then that Wright would think Israel a "racist" occupier of Palestinians, while describing the 9/11 attacks as a "wake-up call" to "white America" for ignoring the concerns of "people of color."
Obama's older brother still lives there. Abongo "Roy" Obama is a Luo activist and a militant Muslim who argues that the black man must "liberate himself from the poisoning influences of European culture." He urges his younger brother to embrace his African heritage.
Beyond family politics, these ties have potential foreign policy, even national security, implications.
Odinga is a Marxist who reportedly has made a pact with a hard-line Islamic group in Kenya to establish Shariah courts throughout the country. He has also vowed to ban booze and pork and impose Muslim dress codes on women — moves favored by Obama's brother.""
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This not the man we want running our country. He is bad for the USA and he is also bad for Israel and Jews. The most anti-Semitic segment of our society happens to be black people not evangelicals. Just look back to the outrage from the Congressional Black Caucus when Gore chose Leiberman as his running mate. Jews in particular should be wary of this man. He even makes Hillary look good, and that's not easy to do.
It's embarrassing and amusing, though unfortunately less and less surprising, to read the spewings of the lunatic right-wing fringe of American Jewry. Thank G-d they speak for the vast majority of us only about as far as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright speaks for Barack Obama. Which ain't much.
As to the unabashed anti-Black, pro-White attitudes of some who posted here: let us not forget that the last time we Jews threw in our lot with White people, they turned around and murdered six million of us. The last time Africans rose up en masse against Jews, we brought ten plagues upon them, made off with our unpaid wages from their coffers and drowned their armies. They haven't given us as much trouble since then.
If a group of Black Americans want to establish a self-sufficient community, what right have we to say anything about it? Furthermore, let us propose a few minor modifications to the article "Steven" quotes above:
"[The value system] encourages Jews to group together and separate from the larger American society by pooling their money, patronizing Jewish-only [i.e. Kosher] businesses and backing Jewish leaders... In short, Obama's "unashamedly Jewish" synagogue preaches the politics of Jewish nationalism. And its tzitzit-wearing rabbi — who married Obama and his wife and now acts as his personal spiritual adviser — is militantly Zionist. "We are a Hebrew people," the Rabbi Jeremy Wrightman reminds his flock, "and remain true to our native land..."
Doesn't sound so unusual now, does it? The fact is, as Jews, Black Americans are our natural allies. We share a common history: not only of slavery, discrimination, and marginalization, but also of rich cultural heritage, marked creativity, and a continued cultural vitality in the face of immense pressure to assimilate. The Jewish and Black communities have grown apart since the Civil Rights movement, to the detriment of both. And we are foolish to keep waiting for someone on the other side to extend an olive branch; the menschlich thing to do is take the initiative and begin to repair the bridges between our communities.
Finally, regarding Neusner's unsubtle defense of Republicanism: while voting Republican may not necessarily be tantamount to apostasy, supporting a political party whose stated platform and core values run counter to thousands of years of Torah and rabbinic principles of justice and ethics surely is. While the Democratic party may have many flaws -- not least of which is the lack of testicular fortitude necessary to stand publicly against the brazen corruption of our current regime -- the Republican party is, and always will be, the party of idolaters. If you are with them, you are one of them.
Oh, one more thing: I couldn't stop laughing over Steven's comment that "The most anti-Semitic segment of our society happens to be black people not evangelicals."
These are the same Evangelicals who fervently believe that, when we rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem, Jesus will come back, send us all to burn forever in Hell, and take all the faithful (i.e. Evanglicals) to Heaven with him before destroying the world in a massive battle royale, right? And to make sure this happens, they are not only donating money to Israel, they are even raising a herd of red heifers to slaughter on the rebuilt altar! (see http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/apocalypse/readings/forcing.html for more fun reading).
Really, does anyone seriously believe these people are less anti-Semitic than a few stray Black folk who have the temerity to suggest that maybe Israel should ease up a bit on the Palestinians? That's not just ridiculous, it's hilarious!
What is wrong with American Jews? Obama was brought up as a Muslim and I am sure thinks like a Muslim. Even secular Jews will defend Judiasm and so will Obama defend the Muslims because basically that is what he is. And worse he is thinks like a black man. And what have blacks done to Jews? Did their appreciate Jewish help in emancipation. You know the answer. They are worse to Jews than the Klan.