Campaigning With God

As "a lifelong Christian who teaches Sunday school most weekends at my United Methodist congregation in Baton Rouge," Robert Mann has reasons beyond the ideological to point out that Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal

isn’t a stupid man. He knows well that there’s no plot on the left to deny Christians access to the public square. He knows Christianity isn’t under assault from liberals....

Jindal isn’t attacked for being a Christian. He’s been attacked for being the opposite of a Christian — a cynical charlatan who appeals to the grievance, fear and hatred among the Christian right.

Jindal is a GOP presidential candidate who holds a biology degree from an Ivy League school and is a former Rhodes scholar. Still, he has evolved from 2008 into an avid cultural warrior and responding to the Supreme Court decision on marriage, maintained on Friday "This decision will pave the way for an all out assault against the religious freedom rights of Christians who disagree with this decision. This ruling must not be used as pretext by Washington to erode our right to religious liberty."

Jindal (on Meet The Press Sunday, below) talks often about his faith and especially about alleged encroachment upon religious liberty, but

it is rarely to share with his listeners how Jesus Christ has transformed his life (although when speaking at churches, he does sometimes give a personal testimony about his conversion to Christianity). Jindal rarely quotes the Bible, or even Pope Francis, in his speeches.

For kicks, I Googled, ”Jindal my faith teaches me.” What I got were not statements about grace, humility or the poor. Instead, I found a great deal about Jindal’s views on same-sex marriage.








Taking the bait, I for kicks Googled "Obama my faith teaches me" and the best I could come up with was this report of Obama's speech in 2007 at the 50th anniversary celebration of the United Church of Christ, in which

“My faith teaches me that I can sit in church and pray all I want, but I won’t be fulfilling God’s will unless I go out and do the Lord’s work,” he said, speaking before more than 9,000 people at the Hartford Civic Center in front of a red and black backdrop with the church’s marketing slogan: “God is still speaking.”

(That "marketing slogan" was not in vogue in 2007, when CBS and NBC refused to air one of the denomination's ads, shown below. Despite the Court's ruling Friday, don't expect either network- or Anthony Kennedy- to apologize.)






President Obama, though, has cited his religious faith on another occasion, when in 2008 he told Rick Warren (and a national audience) "I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian, it is also a sacred union. God's in the mix."

God, it turns out, was the Vice-President, who on Meet The Press during the 2012 presidential race endorsed same-sex marriage, forcing Obama out of the closet despite that "sacred union" stuff. Notwithstanding Obama's on-again, off-again opposition opposition to gay marriage, prior to the ruling he bragged- without hint of irony or introspection- "When I became President, same-sex marriage was legal in only 2 states. Today, it’s legal in 37 states and the District of Columbia."









There are a few believers, a Mike Huckabee here and there. However, when a politician, Democratic or Republican, starts talking "my faith," hold on to your wallet. He or she smells a  mark. Don't let it be you.





Share |