I’m thinking that, by now, many of you have read ChristianityToday.com’s interesting interview with sociologist Michael O. Emerson on “What Obama’s Election Means for the Segregated Church.” Michael, who is the coauthor of the seminal book Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America, explored similar ground a few weeks back at my new site, UrbanFaith.com. If you have thoughts on either of these articles, I’d love to hear your comments.
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Reconciliation Blog 
One thing I’m tired of hearing is that conservatism doesn’t address or does not care about the poor or equal rights. You can’t simply say, “Well the Republicans are right about abortion and homosexuality and the Democrats are right about the poor.” I could not disagree more.
Many policies Democrats advocate to get votes hurt the people they’re working to get votes from. One example is the living wage, or raising the minimum wage as a social justice isssue. Artificially mandating a higher minimum wage raises unemployment, which affects the poor the most. It also raises costs for business, which slows or stops potential economic growth, also bad for the poor.
Don’t get me started on taxes, health care, free speech, etc.
Most of you probably disagree with my take, but the whole “abortion and homosexuality vs minorities and the poor” is a misnomer.
In the overall scheme of what is really important to most Americans, these aren’t the top ten issues. Maybe a job, education, peace, infrastructure rebuilding, etc. might be worth a mention. But politicians love to divide us on non-issues so they can make easy bank on votes instead of making difficult decisions which tend to bore or alienate voters. Personally, I don’t care about abortion or homosexuality as issues. Legalizing abortions didn’t really do anything but ensure better health care for pretty much the same number of people who were getting them before. Homosexuality is nature’s way of thinning out a population. It’s not something to be punished by taking away their civil rights. Separate but equal certainly doesn’t do much for equality. The poor; well, have you ever known a politician who ever really cared about people who couldn’t afford to donate to their cause? Just my thoughts. Thanks, Jim
This isn’t “funny” in a laugh out loud sense, but I do think this is quite an amazing understatement from Emerson in the CT interview:
“If we are to move forward on reconciliation, it is essential that Obama not be assassinated.”
I mean, it’s true. I dunno. Just seemed like he was pointing out the spectacularly obvious.
Anyways, both good reads.
This has quickly become one of my favorite issues to read, debate, or otherwise just think about. Not that I really enjoy thinking about the divisions in the church in such a bold statement, but it has managed to capture my attention. Let’s face it race does divide the church. Race also divides the world, and the United States in a degree that most European countries have gotten a grasp of (at least it seems like it to me). Emmerson wrote about racialization, the idea that racism isn’t getting better rather it is just changing form. It’s an idea worth more examination with the current President Elect’s influence in the “segregated church.”