Can Leah Daughtry (works for DNC) Bring Faith to the Party?

[groovedaddy]

LEAH DAUGHTRY SLIPPED OFF HER STILETTO-HEEL SHOES at the House of the Lord Church in Brooklyn, stepped from a pastor’s chair to the pulpit and shouted, “I am on the rise!” She wore a long black tunic with gold buttons that ran from her high collar almost to the carpet. Her graying hair was shorn tight to her dark brown scalp. She always preaches in bare feet in order to “de-self,” she had told me, and to let God’s spirit and words rush through her unimpeded. “I am on the rise!” she erupted again.

Dancing down front, in an aisle between pews, was a woman in an elaborate dress with a lace corsage whose breast cancer had been eradicated, Daughtry had said, through the prayers of her church sisters: “The eggheads will say her chemotherapy worked, but everyone who uses chemotherapy isn’t cured.” The woman cried out exultantly, her voice barely audible above the surging of an electronic organ and the thrashing of drums and cymbals played by one of Daughtry’s nephews, with another nephew, a 3-year-old, adding his own ecstatic beats with a set of sticks. “I am on the rise to a place of dependence on the Lord!” Daughtry screamed.
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In her positions as Dean’s top aid and the convention’s top official, Daughtry, who is 44 years old, is leading the Democratic Party’s new mission to make religious believers — particularly ardent Christian believers — view the party and its candidates as receptive to, and often impelled by, the dictates of faith. She sparked this crusade, both to transfigure the party’s image as predominantly secular and to take enough votes from the Republicans to win this year’s presidential election, in the aftermath of George W. Bush’s 2004 defeat of John Kerry. And in her vocation as a Pentecostal pastor she stands for faith in an extreme form. There is nothing equivocal about her belief. Hers is a religion not only of divine healing but of talking in tongues.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/magazine/20minister-t.html

[Jokerman]

1. What a steaming pile of crap.

First of all I would like to point out that the whole premise of "Bring(ing) faith to the party" implies that there are not already millions of people of faith in the Democratic Party who are "receptive to, and often impelled by, the dictates of faith".

Second, someone who "crusades", speaks in tongues and calls doctors "eggheads", isn't doing us any favors.

[msongs]

2. well if u give churches enuff faith based welfare bribes and cash they will come along nt

[TechBear_Seattle]

3. When are they going to bother working on faith IN the party?

For many years, the Democratic Party has consistently turned its collective back on progressive issues in favor of the same corporate agenda that drives the GOP. Investigations against the criminal activities of the Bush administration are promised, but end up being media events with absolutely no substance. And don't get me started on impeachment.

So now, the Dems are pursuing religious fanatics, much like the GOP pursued them in the 70s and 80s? Are we to become the next bastion of Talibangelicalism, now that the Republican Party has fallen from grace?

Ms. Daughtry, I propose that working to bring a consistent progressive and liberal ideology to the Democratic Party -- one that our Senators and Representatives actually support with Congressional action -- will do far, far more good that wooing the faith-healing crowd. Please, work to restore faith IN the party before trying to bring faith TO the party.

[Az]

4. When you lead by faith rather than reason you are just turning to emotional appeals

Without reason being the guiding influence all you have is charisma, sideshows, and blind faith. Sure it makes for a great rallying point. But it is also the stuff of tyranny and oppression.

If you galvanize a party with faith then you marginalize those who do not share that faith. If you lead with religious conviction then you separate the party into factions. It does more to divide than it does to unite. This is why we are a secular nation. Because the founding fathers saw that religion while beautiful in many ways has the ability to divide people in ways that can never be reconciled.

It may be true that we can never truly separate religion and politics. But we must ever guarantee that religion and government forever remain apart. And trying to fan the flames of faith in order to win a few votes is walking down a path that has been trod before which usually winds up in bloodshed. Keep Church and State separate. Its for the best of everyone.