Evangelist leads 'disinformation campaign' on Obama: Religion professor - Faith & Reason

REPOST from USAToday - 8/21/2010

Evangelist leads 'disinformation campaign' on Obama: Religion professor - Faith & Reason

Rev. Franklin Graham is leading a "disinformation campaign" against President Obama by attacking Obama's Christian faith and distorting Islam's theology, says a leading religion professor.

After CNN's John King gave Graham a full news cycle to raise a lifted eyebrow at President Obama's Christian profession of faith, Stephen Prothero, religion professor at Boston University, came on King's show Friday night to undercut Graham and question why CNN would ask an evangelist known to slur Islam, to speculate on its theology.

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According to a transcript released by CNN, Prothero, author ofGod is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World, told King, the finding in a recent survey that 18% of Americans believe Obama is Muslim ...

... is because we have people who are supposed to be responsible public leaders, like Franklin Graham, who are spreading what seems to me like a sort of disinformation campaign... What Franklin Graham should say: 'Barack Obama says he's a Christian, he's a Christian, end of story.'

Prothero also pointed out that Obama prayed with Franklin and his father, America's most famous living evangelist, Rev. Billy Graham, in May but Franklin still repeatedly used the "if" word to answer King's questions Thursday on whether Obama has accepted Christ.

Prothero said:

Franklin Graham doesn't seem to be interested in focusing on preaching the gospel of -- of Jesus. He wants to be spreading misinformation about the religion of Islam.

... Why are we listening to Franklin Graham?

CAPTION

By Web Bryant, USA TODAY

Prothero, who also wrote a book on Americans' ignorance about their own faith traditions as well as those of others (Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know -- And Doesn't) told King,

.. it doesn't help the conversation we need to have as a public about Islam to be having people who are just basically spreading falsehoods about the tradition.

We should be listening to Muslims about their tradition. We should be listening to scholars about their tradition. But we shouldn't be listening to Evangelical preachers who are out to trash the Muslim religion in order to gain some political and perhaps religious advantage.

Prothero also pounced on Graham for cherry-picking quotes from the Quran that highlight violence. (In U.S. Protestant culture, picking quotes out of context from the Bible to prove a point is called "proof-texting."). Prothero highlighted

... shared beliefs and practices across Christianity and Islam. And we shouldn't be talking about the worst of the tradition of Islam and comparing it with the best of the tradition of Christianity.

When Jesus says, "I come not to bring peace, but a sword," is it fair to say, oh, Jesus is out to kill people?

No, because you read that in the context of the whole Bible. You read that in the context of the Christian tradition. That's how you need to understand passages in the Quran, is in the context of the whole Quran and in the context of the whole Islamic tradition.

Who are you listening to on Islam and Christianity?

From the UCC Network - Devotional for 8/21

Money and Value 

Excerpt from Acts 5: 1-10 

"Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. With his wife's full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostle's feet. Then Peter said, 'Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? . . . You have not lied to men but to God. When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died." (NIV) 

Reflection by Kenneth L. Samuel 

We don't often admit it, but how we spend our money says a lot about what we value in life. Cash transactions and credit card accounts do say something about character. Jesus puts it even more directly when he says that wherever our treasures are, our hearts are there also. 

The first-century Christian church valued human life and human equality so much that they established a community of faith where no one was discounted and no one suffered from material lack. They established a commune of equals, where value was placed not upon the accumulation of individual wealth, but upon individual sacrifices and contributions to the common good. They established a collective of compassionate contributors and from their collective resources they distributed to everyone according to need, not greed. 

Human equality. Shared resources. Public compassion. No one left behind. I am my brother's keeper. All for the common good. We are one in the spirit of Christ. The Beloved Community. The realm of God. These were the community values of the first- century Christians. These were the community values that stood as a powerful corrective to the institutionalized inequities and injustices of the Roman Empire. And these were the values that were violated by Ananias and Sapphira. They valued material and money over human community, and they paid a price. 

Prayer 
Dear God, as we look again to the first-century mothers and fathers of our faith, help us in the 21st century to reclaim and renew the work and witness for human community. In Jesus' name, Amen. 

About the Author Kenneth L. Samuel is Pastor of Victory for the World Church, Stone Mountain, Georgia.