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| Monday January 17th, 2011 |
by Jon DillinghamWe're long used to the omnipresence of religious language in politics and the emphasis these terms get in the media. Eighty percent of the county identifies as religious and there is not a single member of either House of Congress who identifies as a non-believer. New York Times columnist Charles Blow argues that non-belief is "not only seen as unholy, it's also seen as un-American."
Following that, it should come as no surprise that President Obama's universally praised memorial for the victims of the Tucson massacre was laden with allusions to Psalms 41 and the Book of Job, while utilizing familiar bookends: "Scripture tells us..." and "...God bless the United States America."
Given the length at which Obama quoted from the Bible in the Tucson address, surprisingly few media reports discussed the religious meanings of those words. A Lexis-Nexis review of over 100 mainstream print and TV accounts of the President's speech yielded only two that discussed the meaning of the verses Obama borrowed. And though Obama's presence at the memorial made the event an unavoidable political happening, neither of the two articles went so far as to ponder the implications of the religious references beyond the event at which they were spoken.
The most thorough discussion of the speech's biblical message came from a Los Angeles Times piece by Christi Parsons. Parsons gives a warming account of a deeply pained President working with close spiritual advisers to ensure a moving address written close to his heart and his faith. But where most other writers failed to capture the speech's religious dimension, Parsons mostly ignores the speech's political implications. A rigorous interpretation of a political address flavored by religion, or a sermon fueled by politics, cannot afford to divorce one from the other.
The coverage of Obama's talk and its religious undertones overlooked questions about what religion should mean in a deeply polarized -- and often violent -- society that is reeling from an economic malaise and the loss of civil liberty at home, coupled with the waging of multiple wars abroad.
In praise of the speech, the news media, including Parsons, all but rallied around Obama's religion so long as he used the language of reconciliation and assured a conflicted public that no one was at fault; only the mysterious machinations of an amorphous, undefinable evil could be blamed. But shouldn't a press that lends moral credibility to Obama's faith in one instance then also at least ask how scripture informs a wartime president's management of war in another instance? As Obama eulogized the six who died in Tucson, four Afghans and six NATO soldiers were killed, along with two mosque-goers in Iraq and scores more dead as part of our war in Pakistan.
The Chairman of Obama's Joint Chiefs of Staff told us violence is only going to increase in Afghanistan. What does scripture tell us about that? When journalists can ask that question, we'll finally be doing some religion reporting.
Jon Dillingham has written about a range of issues -- from the legacy of war to local sports -- as a journalist based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. He's now studying propaganda in foreign policy coverage as an M.A. candidate in Specialized Journalism at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism.
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