B-diddy and I have had quite a back-and-forth about the "evil" question at Saddleback last weekend. Diddy thinks that McCain is the bees-knees because when asked what to do about evil, McCain said "Defeat it." Obama, by contrast, launched into a monologue about issues related to 'evils' in the world, but didn't come off as definitive as McCain. I do concede that Obama should have mentioned terrorism when going through his litany of other evils, but I think that he was truly trying to answer the question thoughtfully, not as someone who is looking to drum up votes. Despite this, I think that Obama is more even keeled and in line with my own beliefs, as Andrew Sullivan puts it:McCain's vow to "defeat evil" at Saddleback was both asinine machismo - like we haven't had enough of that after eight years of Cheney - and deeply unChristian. There's no way a president of the United States or any country can "defeat evil." Evil is everywhere and always for Christians - until the Second Coming. Particular manifestations of evil can be defeated, but not evil itself. That endures, and is part of us too.
In this, of course, Obama's theology is far more mainstream than McCain's bravado. And Christians are first reminded that we too are capable of evil - even as we try to do good. And so a genuine effort to spread democracy and human rights can even allow some leaders, divorced from real Christianity, to commit absolute evil in the name of good.
Right on.
Like, say, torture.
The problem is that McCain wasn't even truly answering the overall question. In the week since that forum, it has become clear to me that McCain was simply tying the evil question to terrorism. Terrorism is all he wants voters to think about when imagining him as president: John McCain hunting down Osama bin Laden and throwing him into the fires of hell... with his bare hands. Hell, they should produce a web-ad to that effect. He's barked out that line about 'follwing Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell' so many times that I almost chuckle when I hear it now.
This imagery, somewhat obscured by the venue at which it was discussed, is going back to the Bush/Rove well of get-them-scared political maneuvering. When will people begin to see through the cloud of obfuscation that Republicans have been throwing around for the past eight years?
If you don't vote for [insert Republican candidate name here], the terrorists, jihadists and 'Islamic extremists' will kill you.
Except that now we are getting dangerously close to inserting the Russians in where it currently says 'Islamic extremists'...
The Pajama Pundit - Founder/Editor
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