Spiritual advisors to politicians
The current flap over Sen. Barack Obama’s religious mentor
and advisor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, has brought the issue of spiritual advisors
to politicians to the public consciousness. Rev. Wright has been “Obama’s
pastor for the last 20 years at the Trinity United Church of Christ on
Chicago’s south side.” He “has a long history of what even Obama’s campaign
aides concede is ‘inflammatory rhetoric,’ including the assertion that the
United States brought on the [Sept. 11, 2001] attacks with its own
‘terrorism.’” The Pastor’s rhetoric has
also included such other exhortations as, “God damn America” and “blacks should
not sing ‘God Bless America.’” (ABC News, March 13, 2008).
Senator Obama’s response to this in his March 18 speech
seems to have raised more questions than answers about his true beliefs and
whether he can convince voters that he does not agree with or condone Rev.
Wright’s statements. Given that he attended Rev. Wright’s church for 20 years
and apparently never openly expressed his disagreement, the jury is still out
on the matter of whether Obama is to be believed and what the impact of this
disclosure is likely to have on his campaign.
Religious leaders are often part of the mix that goes into
creating the image politicians want to portray to the public and are generally
used as props in the process.
One of the more notable examples of this was the
involvement of Rev. Jesse Jackson with Bill Clinton, when he counseled the
then-president during the fallout from the Lewinsky affair. The irony of the
situation was that this particular religious advisor, Jesse Jackson, was
himself guilty of having an extra-marital affair at the time and of fathering
an out-of-wedlock child. Unfortunately, this doesn’t say much for the quality
or character of “spiritual advisors.”
Other questionable “spiritual” leaders who come to mind
are Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker.
“In 1986, Swaggart exposed
fellow Assemblies of God minister Marvin Gorman, who was having an affair with
one of his parishioners. The following year, Swaggart
exposed televangelist Jim Bakker’s sexual indiscretions…stating
that Bakker was a ‘cancer in the body of Christ.’” Swaggart
himself was subsequently found in a Louisiana motel with a prostitute.
(Wikipedia)
But, the larger question is why politicians think it’s
necessary to have “spiritual advisors” on their campaign staffs at all.
Salene Zito, writing in Townhall.com, gives us a clue: “…faith
matters for our presidential candidates...Americans like their presidential
candidates to like God. Six in ten of them, to be precise: According to the Pew
Forum on Religion & Public Life, 61 percent of Americans say they would be
less likely to vote for a candidate who does not believe in God.”
She also notes that Hillary Clinton has a religious
advisor “on staff, aggressively reaching out to faith-based voters.” Ms. Zito adds that
“Political scientist John Green, who studies religion in politics, says…It’s
impossible in the American context to take God out of politics...Voters do not
demand that candidates be devout, they just don’t want them to be hostile.”
(“God & American Politics,” by Salena Zito, Townhall.com, Dec. 2, 2007)
Unfortunately, the evidence tends to support the
notion that “spiritual advisors” to politicians are usually not much more than
props in the never-ending process of attempting to project a positive image of
candidates in their quest to win and hold public office.