Friday Links - Plus a Special Song

Chart Via Ezra Klein's Blog

 

-President Obama said last night that the media was painting everything in terms of re-election, and that should not be the point.  I don't think that is going to change, and I also don't think 99.9% of politicians think that way either (nor should they? though that is a question for another day). 
-A number of other reactions to President Obama's speech, as put together by Andrew Sullivan.
-Paul Harvey (Religion Dispatches) argues that 9/11 did nothing to change the narrative of war in America.

As we think about 9/11 this weekend:

Friday Links - Plus a Special Song

A carefully curated list of interesting links just for you:

Lillian Daniel/Christian Century: On people who claim to be spiritual but not religious.  A piece that has been burning up the internet (at least amongst my small, insular circle of divinity school students). 
Ed Kilgore/The New Republic: An argument for why Bachmann and Perry are religious radicals.  I am still not sure that Perry is.  I think he is playing the game just like G.W. did.  Though I am not sure which is worse at this point.
Andrew Sullivan/The Daily Dish: Differing opinions on the Keystone XL pipeline.
Matthew Yglesias/Think Progress:  All genders and races can vote in America.  Doesn't mean there still aren't ways to make it hard.
Killing the Buddha: An online magazine about religion, culture, and politics. Check it out.

I leave you with a fun song about finding heaven on earth.  Have a great weekend.  Thanks for supporting the blog.



-Tim

Breivik the Christian

Andrew Sullivan: The difference is not in ideology, but in the move to violence. That move is, of course, a central, profound and vital one, and [Bill] O'Reilly's views of the world are in no way responsible for what just happened in Norway. But it is hard to see where O'Reilly would disagree with vast tracts of Breivik's ideology - except the resort to violence. Ideologically, there is scarcely any difference at all.


Damn.

Sullivan's critique (please read the whole thing!) begins from this Bill O'Reilly quote: Breivik is not a Christian. That's impossible. No one believing in Jesus commits mass murder. The man might have called himself a Christian on the net, but he is certainly not of that faith.


It is interesting what we are willing to attribute to an ideology or religion in relation to one's actions in the name of said ideology or religion. Was Stalin actually a communist? The history books certainly label him as such, but would Marx have agreed?  Sullivan brings up Bin Laden, whom certainly is painted at the very least as an Muslim extremist, but do all Muslims claim him as one of them?  


And what do we do when this question is posed for that which we one cannot renounce?  I have had more than a few people look at my ID card and comment that I look like Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech killer (I swear I do not look like him...), but it would make no sense for me to say something like, "Well there is no way that he is a true Asian.  Asians don't do that."  Wouldn't that be convenient Mr. O'Reilly?


-Tim