Obama's Speech to the Memorial Service

[even_sven]

@John_Mace

Two things:

We atheists lost the battle long ago, and will never win it, to keep “God” out of government. But I’d like to keep it there, and not have “Jesus” (or anything else tied to a specific religion) to deal with.

Just out of personal consideration, the president should leave the Jesus talk to the priests and ministers. No one expects a priest to be secular, but the president should. The non-Christians in his audience are his constituency, too.

It’d be one thing if he was speaking about Jesus as a deity or about his role in the Christian faith. But in this case, he was quoting Jesus as a wise speaker (be he divine, historic, or fictional) who had some comforting things to say about innocence and tragic loss. He could have just as easily said “Lao Tzu reminds us that that tears are the messengers of overwhelming grief and unspeakable love…”, but Taoism doesn’t happen to be the set of inspirational quotes he is familiar with. I don’t think anyone can really deny that Jesus said some reasonably helpful things.

[Marley23]

@kopek

I’ll agree to all that on one small condition - I be allowed to add at the end “in advancement of his personal Christian agenda.”

There was no Christian personal agenda.

He had to know what snowballs he was starting down what hills.

What, you mean he had to know people would freak out over this? Please. Seeing how overwhelmingly Christian this country is, I doubt he expected any snowballs (and I don’t think this qualifies), and I think if he prioritized the needs of the parents in Newtown over people who get offended at innocuous mentions of relegion, he made the right choice.

And its already begun - from a report on the local news with a relative of one of the teachers

Obama didn’t say anything about religion in school, and people were saying that stuff before he spoke on Sunday.

[kopek]

@Marley23

Obama didn’t say anything about religion in school, and people were saying that stuff before he spoke on Sunday.

Ditto on gun control. But if ---------- :smack:

[Marley23]

@kopek

Ditto on gun control. But if ---------- :smack:

I don’t know what you’re saying here. Obama wasn’t pushing a Christian agenda or the Christian religion, and he wasn’t arguing for religion in schools. His remarks didn’t enable the “we need more prayer in schools talk”- Mike Huckabee was touting that angle on Friday.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@suranyi

What I don’t understand is the complaining about the insertion of a tiny bit of religion into a religious service. If you can’t have religion in religion, where can you have it?

He’s not complaining about the venue. He’s complaining about the speaker. A POTUS is a POTUS regardless of who he’s speaking to.

[tomndebb]

@John_Mace

It crossed the line of Ceremonial Deism. Now, there isn’t a law against it, but I would expect the president to keep his personal faith out of this very public event. If I’m Jewish (or not Christian), and all of the sudden I hear:

"“Let the little children come to me,” Jesus said, “and do not hinder them – for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”

Charlotte. Daniel. Olivia. Josephine. Ana. Dylan. Madeleine. Catherine. Chase. Jesse. James. Grace. Emilie. Jack. Noah. Caroline. Jessica. Benjamin. Avielle. Allison.

God has called them all home."

as an obvious reference to my child, I would be taken aback.

I take your point. However, I would think that people would generally expect the president in this situation to speak as a person, not as a politician or even a statesman, and relying on his own religious background would be expected.

I have not seen any reference to that line in any of the Jewish press–either in commentaries or reader responses–so I do not know whether they are politely not commenting on what they might consider a moment lacking sensitivity or whether they actually took it in the spirit in which it was offered as the “First Person” of the nation rather than as the political leader.