Posted on 02/16/2006 7:29:43 AM PST by Mr. Silverback
A recent Washington Post profile on Jack Danforth, a former Republican senator from Missouri and an Episcopal priest, doesn’t pull any punches. “Jack Danforth,” it begins, “wishes the Republican right would step down from its pulpit. Instead, he sees a constant flow of religion into national politics. And not just any religion, either, but the us-versus-them, my-God-is-bigger-than-your-God, velvet-fist variety of Christian evangelism. . . . Danforth [says he] worships a humbler God and [he] considers the [religious] right’s certainty a sin.”
This judgmental tone is all too common these days. And it’s unfortunate that Jack Danforth is going along with it. According to Danforth, our work on issues like embryonic stem-cell research and same-sex “marriage” inspires “nausea.” And he was offended by what he saw as the GOP’s “effort to appease the Christian right” in the Terri Schiavo case. If not for us, Danforth told the Post, the Republicans wouldn’t be involved. Well, that’s true, but when a woman’s life is at stake, I don’t see anything honorable about refusing to get involved.
It’s a good thing that Danforth wasn’t around during the campaign against slavery. Then, abolitionists were chastised for being religious zealots. Abraham Lincoln’s opponents said that he would “impose” his moral views on the nation. Well, thank God that Lincoln had the courage to press for an end to the abomination of slavery.
Half a century earlier William Wilberforce led the campaign against the slave trade in the British Parliament. Moved by his Christian convictions, he took on one of the British Empire’s biggest sources of revenue, and in the process, lost any chance of becoming Prime Minister. He and his companions were derided for their Christian beliefs. As one opponent, Lord Melbourne, said, “Things have come to a pretty pass when religion is allowed to invade public life.” Thank God it did—then and now.
Danforth’s crusade against the religious right is filled with ironies. When George Bush was elected president, I went to the White House with Bill Bennett and others to urge the administration to fight human trafficking and slavery in Sudan. President Bush, moved by his Christian convictions, became the first president to speak out on these issues. And when the administration was considering appointing an ambassador to Sudan to deal with the abuse of Christians, we recommended John Danforth. And he did a great job in part because he had the support of the Christian right that he now thinks is such a terrible thing.
And during the fight to confirm Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, Danforth worked side-by-side with Christian conservatives; he had no problem then mixing religion and politics.
Now I don’t want to be critical of Sen. Danforth. He is a fine gentleman with a distinguished record of public service who ably represented our government’s interests in Sudan and at the UN.
And the Christian right surely is not above criticism, and we need to curb our excesses too. But Danforth has gone beyond a reasonable critique to launch into the same tired old diatribe against those who contend for Christian truth in public life—as if you could score points with the liberal media by beating up on Christians, even when you’re one yourself. I think it’s time for the senator to go back and to read his history books, where he will discover that the greatest defenders of human rights in history had been his fellow Christians.
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Many of us would consider his uncertainty a sin.
So9
Didn't Danforth help gloss-over the Clinton/Reno/Waco Military invasion and Democrat Government run murder of the Branch Davidians?
Their stated goal is to defeat christian conservatives and replace them with moderates on the house and senate.
BTW, John McCain is also on the same Whitman PAC board.
Yes, being involved in Christian ministry for many years, I think he's earned the right.
**Sigh**
Do you have any spelunking tips to offer, based on your vast experience? I mean, it's obvious you've been living in a cave for the last thirty years or so. You missed his conversion, and his thirty years of full-time Christian ministry.
I don't recall God being humble, except for Christ's volitional act to humble himself and become a man and die on a cross for our sins. Except for that sacrificial act on our behalf, God never calls himself 'humble' in any way. He is a Holy, Righteous, Jealous, and Loving God, but not a humble One.
It not only is often the pot calling the snowbank "black," but it downplays the more important moral virtue of fighting for your convictions with honor. If you're certain something is right and you press for it with class, honesty and goodwill, you should be lauded for it. Danforth appears to me to be a moral lightweight who did the Chrisitain tap dance so he could keep his Red state seat as long as he wanted it.
You make a good point. I would also say to Danforth that there is nothing arrogant about saying that wrong is wrong and right is right. The arrogance comes in making blanket "lokk at how good I am and how bad you suck" pronouncements like the one he's making.
I'd ask Danforth, who is more "certain" that they personally know what is right and wrong for all people: Kate Michelman and Kim Gandy, or Chuck Colson and Jim Dobson?
A good response from Colson. I really dislike Danforth. He has always been more concerned with his Establishment buddies at the NYT and in DC, than Conservatives or his home state of Missouri.
What could be more arrogant than a politician telling someone they are unchristian?
Does God talk to him on a regular basis?
Actually I appreciate the article, not judgmental, merely informative. I like knowing where a politician stands, don't you?
. . . not just some of them, but all of them have been Christians. Who else stood up against slavery as an institution? Pagans? Hindus? Buddhists? Muslims? Nope, none of the above.Indeed, through most of history Christians didn't either. But from the end of the Eighteenth Century some Christians became militant abolitionists. Enough British Christians did so to cause Victorian Britain to be the great opponent of slavery worldwide. Enough Americans did so to precipitate the Civil War. </Thomas Sowell>
**Sigh**
Do you have any spelunking tips to offer, based on your vast experience? I mean, it's obvious you've been living in a cave for the last thirty years or so. You missed his conversion, and his thirty years of full-time Christian ministry.
As Liddy said, if he would run over his grandmother for Nixon, just imagine what he will do for Jesus.
The fact that he has changed his object of idolitry does not make him a nicer person.
SO9
He will do whatever Jesus tells him to do, no more and no less. Giving his life over to Jesus does make him a better person.
Another of Whitman's stated goals is allowing homosexuals to marry.
Danforth can go to hell for all I care!
Saint Paul wasn't a nice person before he converted.
Bilgewater. I'm calling you out.
In his career with Nixon, a few short years, he had the FBI files, the domestic spying on Dems and his involvement with the "plumbers."
The guy has a 32 year history as a Christian. Surely you can find many examples of skullduggery he has committed in the name of his Lord, Jesus Christ. Please, list just a few of them for me.
Again, I'm calling you out. Talk evidence or admit your bigotry.
He wasn't a nice person after either.
What he preached had a lot more to do with the meanness of his soul than with the words of Christ.
SO9
Danforth is a dyed in the wool liberal protestant hack. He would vote for the crucifiction of Jesus if he felt it were socially responsible.
And he's made a very nice living at it.
He had to, he had no other prospects.
SO9
Provide examples.
Oops, let's try that again:
Provide examples. Include a reason that the other apostles, who knew Jesus personally, would embrace a cruel hack who was preaching heresy.
Remember, he's Episcopalian (so am I). We see our relationship with God as being pretty much a peer-level thing. ;-D
No, they do it to other groups as well. It's just not as vocal as it is with their favorite strawman group.
Remember, these are the same people who swore that there were armed militias hiding in the mountains at one time, too. They've always got a boogeyman under their bed. Like I said, I guess they miss those days when we used to go golfing with Tip O'Neil.
Nice try. You said...
As Liddy said, if he would run over his grandmother for Nixon, just imagine what he will do for Jesus. The fact that he has changed his object of idolitry does not make him a nicer person.
I asked you to back that up with examples of bad behavior...and your response is that he "made a good living" while he spent thirty years devoting his full time to the good of others? If he was the same as he was when he worked for Nixon, "making a good living" would only have been step one in his plan to screw everybody in sight.
So, again I'm calling you out, but I'll even be nice and give you an additional way to slither out of it:
1. Provide an example of skullduggery Colson committed for Jesus anytime in his 32 years as a Christian.
2. Provide evidence that Prison Fellowship is a scam. If a group has been working in hundreds or thousands of prisons for decades and it has all been a scam, then surely you should be able to show some evidence of fraud. To show Colson is an unreformed criminal, you must show that this work is a fraud and his gains ill-gotten.
I'm calling you out. Provide evidence or admit your bigotry.
Most certainly.
Au contraire, mon ami: Mr Colson has done penance. He did not become embittered. He drew whatever wisdom could be found from a bad situation and put it towards good use. For this, I cut him some slack.
See posts 19, 25, 26, 28, 31 and 35. I bounced him with the sun behind me and he's jinking like a maniac.
I've heard commentary from both Colson and from Danforth.
Both can sound judgemental at times, depending on who is doing the listening.
And it is their right to sound whatever tone they choose.
Until we're under Shari'a.
The same.
Danforth would be dangerous if anyone listened to him.
The guy could put Ambien & Lunesta out of business.
Why he was asked to officiate at Reagan's funeral is beyond me...must've been Patty and Ron P's idea.
I appreciate former Senator Danforth's support of Clarence Thomas during the tumult caused by the left throughout the Thomas nomination process, however, he has NEVER been a conservative.
While pro-lifers and some on the Christian Right need to consider more winning and effective strategies, and develop a greater concern for better PR, and I often differ with them in that regard, the positions they take on issues are exactly right and they should be proud of them. As a minister, Jack Danforth should be ashamed of himself.
While I hate McCain and loathe Whitman, is there anything that McCain has ever said, any legislation he has ever voted on or anything in his record that shows him to be anything but a social conservative?
He has voted for every conservaive judge nominated.
I hate McCain almost as much as I hate Hagel, and there is no way Hagel is going to be on Whitmans PAC, but is Hagel somehow more conservative then McCain for not being on that PAC?
I do not believe him to be a bad man, his record stands for itself, but I do believe he has become misinformed.
Either that, or he has changed over the years.
I keep hearing this ridiculous argument that the attempt to save Terri Schiavo somehow hurt conservatives in the public's mind. I have yet to see any hard evidence of this assumption. Just as any false presumption lib/mods make, they believe if they just keep repeating something it's bound to come true.
You're saying this about Paul the Apostle?
Man, you're off your rocker. Paul's words were the words of Christ. Better get to know your Bible better.
When Paul's words are the same as the quotes in the gospels, they are the words of Christ, but redundant.
When they aren't, he was making it up, just like Jimmy Swaggart or Pat Robertson. He has to be, he never met Jesus.
So9
Wrong again...Paul met Jesus in a very powerful way in Acts 9.
See, I knew you didn't know your Bible well.
Really? I seem to recall a dialogue that went something like this:
Voice from Heaven: "Saul, why do you persecute me?"
Saul of Tarsus (Paul): Lord, who are you that you say I persecute you?
Voice from Heaven: "I am Jesus"
If you think Paul's preaching and his inspired epistles came out of "the meanness of his soul" you don't have a problem with the apostle Paul or with Chuck Colson, you have a problem with God and with his holy Word.
The apostle Paul wrote the majority of the books of the New Testament, and he wrote them under inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He preached the same message in person that he wrote in his epistles, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That is, salvation by grace through faith in the virgin born Son of God Jesus Christ and his atoning death, burial, and resurrection. He also wrote instructions to the local churches, and to pastors, teachers, bishops, deacons, and lay people concerning the proper function and administration of the church and what manner of holy life all those who beieve in Jesus Christ should lead. If you disagree with Paul's writing, you are actually disagreeing with God who insired it.
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