Meanwhile, here's another good article (opinion) on Buttigieg's 'faith':
What Would Jesus Do? Pete Buttigieg Has No Idea
His clever line about “saying so much about what Christ said so little about, and so little about what he said so much about" ignores the parts where Christ talked about the most important issue if all -- eternal salvation.
It also necessarily dismisses Paul as any kind of official spokesperson for God.
What Would Jesus Do? Pete Buttigieg Has No Idea
The Democratic candidate's heartfelt argument on faith is also partisan nonsense.
Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is one of the many candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination. But that’s not his only long-shot bid. He also wants to claim Christianity for contemporary progressive politics.
“Christian faith is going to point you in a progressive direction,” he told USA Today.
Even in our largely secular press, the coverage of the Buttigieg campaign has been rapturous. A few conservatives have contested the mayor’s version of religious politics by denying that he is truly Christian, citing his support for same-sex marriage (he is in one) and legal third-trimester abortion. Some of those critics have gone so far as to dismiss the Episcopal church, of which the mayor is a member, as no longer Christian.
Buttigieg’s fans have, naturally, responded to that line of argument with outrage, having apparently missed that the mayor is fine with questioning other people’s faith. “It is hard to look at this president's actions and believe that they're the actions of somebody who believes in God,” he said in that USA Today interview.
Obviously people who describe themselves as “Christians” disagree with one another, generally sincerely, about what being a Christian entails. There are Protestants who don’t think that Catholics make the cut.
This type of disagreement is not distinctive to religion. The boundaries of such groupings as “conservatives” and “liberals” are also contested. The debates among Christians will probably be more fruitful if they proceed as inquiries into what followers of Jesus should do than as attempts at expulsion and counter-expulsion.
For Buttigieg, the basic mistake of conservative Christians is “saying so much about what Christ said so little about, and so little about what he said so much about.” His interviewer, journalist Kirsten Powers, calls it an “insightful formulation” and specifies that abortion is one of those topics Jesus ignored.
What He did talk about, Buttigieg says, includes “defending the poor, and the immigrant, and the stranger, and the prisoner, and the outcast, and those who are left behind by the way society works.” Hence his claim about how Christianity dovetails with progressivism.
It is a heartfelt argument. It is also partisan nonsense, a politicized distortion of both the Bible’s words and its silences.
Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is one of the many candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination. But that’s not his only long-shot bid. He also wants to claim Christianity for contemporary progressive politics.
“Christian faith is going to point you in a progressive direction,” he told USA Today.
Even in our largely secular press, the coverage of the Buttigieg campaign has been rapturous. A few conservatives have contested the mayor’s version of religious politics by denying that he is truly Christian, citing his support for same-sex marriage (he is in one) and legal third-trimester abortion. Some of those critics have gone so far as to dismiss the Episcopal church, of which the mayor is a member, as no longer Christian.
Buttigieg’s fans have, naturally, responded to that line of argument with outrage, having apparently missed that the mayor is fine with questioning other people’s faith. “It is hard to look at this president's actions and believe that they're the actions of somebody who believes in God,” he said in that USA Today interview.
Obviously people who describe themselves as “Christians” disagree with one another, generally sincerely, about what being a Christian entails. There are Protestants who don’t think that Catholics make the cut.
This type of disagreement is not distinctive to religion. The boundaries of such groupings as “conservatives” and “liberals” are also contested. The debates among Christians will probably be more fruitful if they proceed as inquiries into what followers of Jesus should do than as attempts at expulsion and counter-expulsion.
For Buttigieg, the basic mistake of conservative Christians is “saying so much about what Christ said so little about, and so little about what he said so much about.” His interviewer, journalist Kirsten Powers, calls it an “insightful formulation” and specifies that abortion is one of those topics Jesus ignored.
What He did talk about, Buttigieg says, includes “defending the poor, and the immigrant, and the stranger, and the prisoner, and the outcast, and those who are left behind by the way society works.” Hence his claim about how Christianity dovetails with progressivism.
It is a heartfelt argument. It is also partisan nonsense, a politicized distortion of both the Bible’s words and its silences.
His clever line about “saying so much about what Christ said so little about, and so little about what he said so much about" ignores the parts where Christ talked about the most important issue if all -- eternal salvation.
It also necessarily dismisses Paul as any kind of official spokesperson for God.
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