“The Dream That Is Our Country” by Rev. Heidi Peterson

Rev. Heidi Peterson

I have to vote absentee this year, so this morning I had the satisfaction of completing and mailing my election ballot. I voted for Barack Obama for President of the United States. It wasn’t hard to bypass two other choices to get to his name, third on the list of candidates.

I voted for Barack Obama because I am a woman; and Barack Obama respects both my privacy and my right to make medical decisions that pertain to my body and my life.

I voted for him because I am the mother of three, bright draft age sons; and Barack Obama believes the world will be better served by their completing their educations and taking their places in society than by their being armed with deadly weapons and sent to a desert to fight a specter named ‘Terror”.

I voted for him because I am an American; and Barack Obama sees that an ever widening gap between the wealthiest and the poorest citizens creates a perilously unstable economy for everyone.

I voted for him because I am primarily organic matter with a life force utterly dependent on the minute to minute availability of clean air and water; and Barack Obama understands that investing in the development of renewable energy sources is urgent for me and all living things.

I voted for him because I am a human being, like every other person on the planet; and Barack Obama thinks that our common humanity is enough of a starting point to talk with leaders of other nations for the purpose of exploring what more we might have in common.

I voted for Barack Obama because I am a Christian who places hope in resurrection, eternally, beginning here and now; and Barack Obama has the steady, nuanced world view, the passion and compassion, the humility and confidence that make my hope seem eminently reasonable.

I have heard John McCain speak, and he addresses his hearers as ‘my friends’. I listened to Sarah Palin speak and she addressed her audience as ‘guys and gals’. But these are not friendly or folksy times. We need a head of state who will restore the dignity that befits the office of president; one whose sense of gravitas matches the seriousness of the matters presently besetting our nation

I am not given to hyperbole so it is in quite a literal way that I believe the election of Barack Obama and the chance for his principles and polices to get a legislative hearing, is a matter of life and death for countless people around the globe, and for the dream that is our country.

Rev. Heidi Peterson
Kansas City, MO

“Hope and Compassion” by Rev. Parrish Jones

Rev. Parrish Jones

I am a Christian and a minister of the Presbyterian Church USA. I do not in anyway wish to imply that the only conclusion one can reach as a Christian is mine. However, this is why “a Christian”, namely, me, supports Obama.

I believe that Jesus did not nor never would condone the use of weapons against others. That claim is a conclusion based on an argument that I cannot make here. The most I believe Jesus would allow in the way of violence is protecting oneself, family or others with whom one is in direct contact. That exception is made on the basis that self-defense responds immediately and directly to the one attacking. No collateral damage. There is no way war is self-defense even of a nation and it also involves massive collateral damage and, let nobody fool you, contemporary war is more violent and causes more collateral damage than any time in history.

Jesus taught that love was the tool of Christian response. Does that mean Christians need to be wimps? Quite the contrary, Christians must be persons of incredible courage, but not courage derived from oneself or from adrenaline, but from the soul fed on the spirit of God. We have seen such courage expressed by Christians and non-Christians. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Lech Walensa, Nelson Mandela, and even the young people at Tianamen Square, thousands of Filippinos who stood against Ferdinand Marcos. The book “A Force More Powerful” tells the history of peaceful movements that led to revolutions in the 20th century or effectively confounded the Nazis in Poland, Denmark, Hungary, and against the Czars and Soviets.

Thus I support Obama who I hope and pray will end the Bush era trenchant for using war to carry out U.S. policy. There are many other ways to deal with the regimes we find threatening. Yet, we also need a less ideological approach to determining who is really a threat. Senator McCain seems bent on continuing the hard line approaches of the Cold War. We need more diplomacy. Who knows? If we actually talk to Iran instead of sending ultimatums as the EU recently did, they may actually come around. After all, they want to participate in the world economy and their people want freedoms we have but are willing to forego freedoms in the name of national esteem.

I also support Obama because I believe he wants and will work for a more just and hospitable culture with themes of compassion instead of fear and anger. The scriptures are filled with the demand of social, economic and political justice. We even pray in most churches every Sunday “thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as in heaven.” As Jim Wallis says, “What is it that Christians don’t get?” Is not heaven supposed to be a place of justice, peace, economic equality, and so on. So what are we praying for? We must be praying that through the body of Christ, we will work for those aspects of the Kingdom to be realized on earth.

I am also for Obama because the Earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof. That means a concern for the creation must be high on our priority list. While Senator McCain is far better than GWB on this issue, he is not likely to buck the leadership of his party, nor their dependence on supporters who wish to trash the environment. With Gore as a supporter and adviser it is most likely that Obama will be an environmental president.

Finally, I am for Obama for my children and grandchildren and not for the usual reasons, although those are a part. When children are baptized they are not baptized by one congregation or minister, but by the church in the name of God, Christ, and Holy Spirit. As members of the body of Christ, they share a unique identity with all Christians and all Christians vow to nurture them. I do not want my children growing up believing that revenge and violence are proper responses to danger. I hope they will experience love and peace. Nor do I want them living in a perpetual state of fear. Eight years of that is enough. [One may say that we've only had six, but from the beginning of his administration, GWB was perpetrating the notion that we lived in a dangerous world (Axis of Evil) where we had nothing to do but be afraid and depend on him to protect us]. I hope for a world in which my children and grandchildren and yours and theirs will not see people who differ from them, will not see those who live outside our borders or wish to cross our borders as dangerous and threatening. I hope for a world in which children are nurtured in hope and compassion.

Peace, if it means anything, is a sense of certainty that the overwhelming majority of people in the world want that for themselves and their children also.

Peace,
Rev. Parrish Jones
Washington, DC

“Raise Your Faithful Voice” by Dr. Bob Mesle

Dr. Bob Mesle

In one week, 1,000 people signed on to CLERGY FOR OBAMA. Now we need 10,000. PLEASE HELP.
Right now we need people to do three things.
1. Sign up.
2. Contact every ordained person you can think of and invite them to sign.

Beyond that, raise your faithful voice in any way you can. Talk to friends. Write letters to your local papers. Be attentive of legal requirements that you not support one political view from your pulpit, but you can preach the social gospel of concern for the poor and oppressed.

Religiously, America is not one voice, but a choir. We need to raise ALL our voices.

RAISE YOUR FAITHFUL VOICE FOR
SOCIAL JUSTICE– FOR THE POOR AND OPPRESSED.
RAISE YOUR FAITHFUL VOICE FOR
TAX POLICIES WHICH SHARE OUR COMMON BURDENS JUSTLY, TAXES WHICH DON’T MAKE THE RICH RICHER, AND THE POOR POORER.
RAISE YOUR FAITHFUL VOICE FOR
COMMUNITIES, LAWS, AND POLITICS THAT INCLUDE EVERYONE REGARDLESS OF RACE, GENDER, OR SEXUAL-ORIENTATION.
RAISE YOUR FAITHFUL VOICE FOR
EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK.
RAISE YOUR FAITHFUL VOICE FOR
POLICIES WHICH REDUCE THE NUMBER OF ABORTIONS
BY ASSURING POOR WOMEN THAT THEIR CHILDREN WILL HAVE HEALTH CARE,
BY CREATING ECONOMIC SECURITY FOR WOMEN AND FAMILIES,
BY RESPECTING BOTH WOMEN AND THEIR CHILDREN, AND
BY GIVING WOMEN THE POWER TO MAKE SURE THAT EVERY CHILD IS WANTED.
RAISE YOUR FAITHFUL VOICE FOR
POLITICAL CANDIDATES WHO APPEAL TO OUR “BETTER ANGELS” RATHER THAN OUR FEARS AND HATREDS.
RAISE YOUR FAITHFUL VOICE FOR
A VISION OF A NATION UNITED IN WORKING FOR THE COMMON GOOD, FOR THE WHOLE WORLD.
RAISE YOUR FAITHFUL VOICE FOR
HOPE– FOR ALL OF US.

ADD YOUR SIGNATURE TO CLERGY FOR OBAMA. INVITE OTHERS TO RAISE THEIR VOICES WITH YOU.
Bob Mesle,
Lamoni, Iowa

“Keep Church and State Separate!” by Rev. Bill Nottingham

Bill Nottingham

We are also clergy for Joe Biden after the medieval assault by the bishop of Scranton. The New York Times on Wednesday, September 17, Page One upper left, had an article by David D. Kirkpatrick titled “Abortion Issue Again Dividing Catholic Votes: A Theological Dispute Felt in a Swing City.” It says the local bishop announced that Biden is barred from receiving communion in his diocese, because of the Veep candidate’s support for abortion rights.

So much for the separation of church and state! Bishop Joseph F. Martino was not named, but cardinals Rigali of Philadelphia and Chaput of Denver were cited for scolding Biden and Pelosi. Despite Catholic teaching on the Iraq war, immigration, health care, and alternatives for reducing abortion rates, conservative groups oppose the Democrats because abortion, embryonic stem-cell research, human cloning, euthanasia and same-sex marriage are called “nonnegotiable.”

A prominent article on Joe Biden in Saturday’s Times never mentions the Scranton Bishop’s excommunication. Called “Meanwhile, the Other No. 2 Keeps On Punching” by Mark Leibovich, church issues are overlooked entirely.

Bill Nottingham
Highlands Ranch, Colorado

“When I See . . .” by Rev. Hollie Woodruff

Rev. Hollie Woodruff

Upon my ordination, I was challenged to keep sight, keep watch, to pay attention to the broken places, the places where “the safety net has been torn apart, to see the secret wounds that have been carried for years and where the ground beneath is not solid.” This was my challenge – to have the courage to speak to and challenge the powers and principalities of the world.

When I see the poor consistently disenfranchised; when I notice a Political Party is morally bankrupt; when I pray with a family who has just lost a daughter in a war that makes no sense; or when my hard working neighbors are about to lose their house because political leaders lead with greed; when I think about women losing their right to choose, or hard working Americans watching their retirement dwindle away; and when I learn of a college student unable to go to the doctor because she has no health care – it is my vocational duty as a minister to speak to these injustices! As ministers, it is our responsibility to love all God’s children and to bring God’s loving word and justice to a hurting people. This is not happening in the current regime and it is time for a change.

I don’t want to wake up on November 5th wondering if I could have done more. I would be ashamed for myself for thinking that someone else would pick up the slack. Barack Obama is depending on us. We need to do our part. We need to canvas our neighborhoods to register voters and speak faithfully and candidly about why we will be voting for Obama.

The stakes are too high. This election is not just about the United States of America but about the poor throughout the world. They are depending on us to get our act together. It’s time we wake up – and stop letting our institutions do our sinning for us.

Rev. Hollie Woodruff
Wilson, North Carolina