God’s War

In this news clip from CNN showing Sarah Palin’s interview with Charlie Gibson sheds an interesting light on how the media can make us question the beliefs of the candidates at hand. In the interview, ABC shows clips of a speech Palin gave at her church in which she makes reference to the war in Iraq being ‘God’s War’ and that what is happening is ‘God’s Plan’. This makes her look a bit like she is playing the role of God or delivering God’s words, a bit religiously extreme. However, CNN goes on to expose ABC in that they only showed clips of her speech at the church and those clips had been taken out of context. Palin was not speaking on behalf of God, but instead asking her fellow parishioners to pray that the war was ‘a task from God’ and that there is a ‘plan that is God’s plan’.
Palin’s words were taken out of context and used to make her appear in a certain light while running a political campaign. The CNN piece then goes on to compare her references to God to some well respected politicians of our past and how they were well received but now we do not view religion in the same light. Kennedy used God in his speeches, which was well received, but today we have gone against religion playing a role in politics at all. President Bush is often criticized for using references to faith and God in his speeches, which I believe is sad. None of the politicians using religion are trying to force their specific religious beliefs on us, they are simply sharing them with us. As politicians are they not also free to exercise their right to religion? Our country is weary toward politicians expressing any form of faith or religion, but what happened to freedom of religion? Instead it has become freedom from religion. We do not want our government officials having the freedom to express their religion in a public setting, we as the people want freedom from their religion.
My last thought on this is whether or not religion can be completely left out of a campaign. If Palin were not to bring up her religious life or beliefs, the media still would. Even if her religion were something that she kept in her private life and kept out of her political life, it would inevitably be drug out into her politics. The media has tried and tried again to get McCain to bring up religion, but that is something that he wishes to keep more private, and yet they keep prying. If religion is not something we want in our political relm, why does the media keep dragging it out? Yes, of course to sell papers and get ratings, but it is truly sad that it is often done at the expense of the truth and real context of a political candidates real religious beliefs and affiliations.

***** URL for video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us3sI95L6O0