Vote Obama for Eschatology
I voted for President today. Since I’ll be in Scotland for Georgia’s February 5th primary election, I filled out my Dekalb County absentee ballot today. Leave it to a seminary student to choose a candidate on the basis of a theological doctrine, but that’s the best explanation for my decision.
Barack Obama is the candidate who embodies eschatology; his campaign is one of eschatological hope.
Now I could describe how Obama’s policy positions most clearly match mine, but that’d be boring and folks everywhere will be blogging about such things. Instead, here’s why Obama is the eschatological candidate.
I know this might seem a bit of a stretch. Obama doesn’t talk about the end times. He’s made no indication as to when he considers Christ to be returning. He hasn’t weighed in on how he reads the book of Revelation. But, in my estimation, Obama does function with a clear eschatological underpinnings.
To understand we must separate the strict definition of eschatology from how Christians live eschatologically. My working definition of eschatology is something like, “a theological doctrine having to do with end things; end things as both, 1) the actual final ending of the world and its inhabitants, and 2) final goal or purpose of all things” (credit to George Stroup for that definition).
In mainline churches at least, recent times have seen a dearth of eschatological consideration. We don’t want to be construed as those evangelicals who might read the Left Behind series a bit too carefully. We don’t want to be seen as preparing for a specific time or place of Christ’s return. So, for fear of mislabeling, we don’t talk about Christ’s return enough.
Eschatology is important because it focuses on hope–hope for Christ’s return, hope for the salvation of our individual selves and the renewal of all creation, hope for the fulfillment of God’s prophesies of peace and justice.
Now this hope doesn’t mean we throw up our hands and simply wait for all to be peaches and puppy dogs. Rather, we must work, with this hopeful perspective, for justice here and now. As Cullmann wrote years ago, we at the same time focus on the already as well as the not yet of Christ’s coming. We celebrate that Christ has already come, and we wait in hope as the final redemption has not yet arrived. Now we must focus on hopeful active participation for Christ’s return.
Enter Obama. A republican strategist recently described him as “a walking, talking, hope machine.” His logo looks like a rainbow which, for Christians, reminds us of God’s covenant to Noah (or perhaps suggests Obama is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow). His website sells a shirt reading, “Got Hope?” and a bracelet decorated with the word “HOPE” and the rainbow logo. His grand book is entitled, “The Audacity of Hope” and Obama’s Iowa caucus victory speech contained the word “hope” fourteen times.
In this speech, Obama claimed that his Iowa victory will be remembered as the time when Americans remembered again what hope is. He then described hope in several ways, concluding,
Hope-hope-is what led me here today – with a father from Kenya; a mother from Kansas; and a story that could only happen in the United States of America. Hope is the bedrock of this nation; the belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us; by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is; who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.
Now for slightly more fancy analysis. In his chapter on eschatology in his introduction to Christian theology entitled Faith Seeking Understanding, Dan Migliore goes to great lengths to show how the “doctrine of the last things” functions in every aspect of Christian theology. Eschatology is not a peripheral doctrine, but one so central that it connects every doctrine together. Hope, then, is integral to every Christian doctrine. For this white mainline contemporary theologian, hope is key.
Interestingly, the black theologian James Cone wrote over 30 years ago in a different but not discordant tone. Cone largely concurs with Bosch who affirms, “eschatology is related to action and change.” For Cone, writing in a time of overt oppression of his community, eschatological hope moves him to trumpet against accepting the present as acceptable. For this black theology writing 30+ years ago, hope necessitates action.
Barack Obama’s message is an inspiring and prophetic combination of Migliore and Cone–establishment and near-militant theologians–that skillfully mixes the message of Christianity with an American political platform.
So I voted for Obama, the eschatological candidate, for his message of hope affirms what I believe as a Christian.
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I enjoyed the Newsweek description of political logos that asked if Obama’s team had considered that a rising and setting sun look the same
“His logo looks like a rainbow which, for Christians, reminds us of God’s covenant to Noah.”
Well, it reminds some Christians of gay people, and I’m sure some wingnut somewhere is already jumping on that one.
Seriously, though, I like Stroup’s idea that eschatology is the “final goal or purpose of all things,” some kind of theory of everything, as physicists call it. As an agnostic, I’m always interested in explanations for the crazy interpretations of end times, and it seems that if more of those kinds of Christians would focus on Stroup’s definition, we’d have a lot less grief in this world.
Op Ed piece that sums up my view of Mr. Obama. Picture him as Ms. Obama and tell me you feel the same way Adam. The first hope of a women in the White House is my rainbow. Go Hillary. She just took New Hampshire!
Women Are Never Front-Runners
By GLORIA STEINEM
Published: January 8, 2008
THE woman in question became a lawyer after some years as a community organizer, married a corporate lawyer and is the mother of two little girls, ages 9 and 6. Herself the daughter of a white American mother and a black African father — in this race-conscious country, she is considered black — she served as a state legislator for eight years, and became an inspirational voice for national unity.
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Be honest: Do you think this is the biography of someone who could be elected to the United States Senate? After less than one term there, do you believe she could be a viable candidate to head the most powerful nation on earth?
If you answered no to either question, you’re not alone. Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life, whether the question is who must be in the kitchen or who could be in the White House. This country is way down the list of countries electing women and, according to one study, it polarizes gender roles more than the average democracy.
That’s why the Iowa primary was following our historical pattern of making change. Black men were given the vote a half-century before women of any race were allowed to mark a ballot, and generally have ascended to positions of power, from the military to the boardroom, before any women (with the possible exception of obedient family members in the latter).
If the lawyer described above had been just as charismatic but named, say, Achola Obama instead of Barack Obama, her goose would have been cooked long ago. Indeed, neither she nor Hillary Clinton could have used Mr. Obama’s public style — or Bill Clinton’s either — without being considered too emotional by Washington pundits.
So why is the sex barrier not taken as seriously as the racial one? The reasons are as pervasive as the air we breathe: because sexism is still confused with nature as racism once was; because anything that affects males is seen as more serious than anything that affects “only” the female half of the human race; because children are still raised mostly by women (to put it mildly) so men especially tend to feel they are regressing to childhood when dealing with a powerful woman; because racism stereotyped black men as more “masculine” for so long that some white men find their presence to be masculinity-affirming (as long as there aren’t too many of them); and because there is still no “right” way to be a woman in public power without being considered a you-know-what.
I’m not advocating a competition for who has it toughest. The caste systems of sex and race are interdependent and can only be uprooted together. That’s why Senators Clinton and Obama have to be careful not to let a healthy debate turn into the kind of hostility that the news media love. Both will need a coalition of outsiders to win a general election. The abolition and suffrage movements progressed when united and were damaged by division; we should remember that.
I’m supporting Senator Clinton because like Senator Obama she has community organizing experience, but she also has more years in the Senate, an unprecedented eight years of on-the-job training in the White House, no masculinity to prove, the potential to tap a huge reservoir of this country’s talent by her example, and now even the courage to break the no-tears rule. I’m not opposing Mr. Obama; if he’s the nominee, I’ll volunteer. Indeed, if you look at votes during their two-year overlap in the Senate, they were the same more than 90 percent of the time. Besides, to clean up the mess left by President Bush, we may need two terms of President Clinton and two of President Obama.
But what worries me is that he is seen as unifying by his race while she is seen as divisive by her sex.
What worries me is that she is accused of “playing the gender card” when citing the old boys’ club, while he is seen as unifying by citing civil rights confrontations.
What worries me is that male Iowa voters were seen as gender-free when supporting their own, while female voters were seen as biased if they did and disloyal if they didn’t.
What worries me is that reporters ignore Mr. Obama’s dependence on the old — for instance, the frequent campaign comparisons to John F. Kennedy, though Senator Edward Kennedy is supporting Senator Clinton — while not challenging the slander that her progressive policies are part of the Washington status quo.
What worries me is that some women, perhaps especially younger ones, hope to deny or escape the sexual caste system; thus Iowa women over 50 and 60, who disproportionately supported Senator Clinton, proved once again that women are the one group that grows more radical with age.
This country can no longer afford to choose our leaders from a talent pool limited by sex, race, money, powerful fathers and paper degrees. It’s time to take equal pride in breaking all the barriers. We have to be able to say: “I’m supporting her because she’ll be a great president and because she’s a woman.”
Joi,
Ok, so the Steinem Op-Ed was amazing. It quickly went to the top of the most-emailed articles at the Times. One of my beefs with Hilary is my perception of her as unelectable, or less electable than Obama, when it comes to the general election. Steinem and others this week reminded me that much of her unelectibleness (if that’s a word) stems from her gender and sexist republicans which, if anything, should make me want to vote for her more and later stick it to the republicans.
That said, it’s also been interesting to watch some of the Obama backlash, especially the strange and inexplicable phenomenon of black candidates always polling higher than actual votes. Do white voters, when in the booth, let their racism surface?
No easy answers, certainly. What is true, however, is that the Democrats have had three strong minority candidates this cycle. Compared to the republican all-white all-male disaster, I’m proud to be a young democrat.
thanks for this. easily the best reason to vote for Obama. and easily the best vocalization of why we should vote for Obama.
[...] Remember when I suggested that a theologian might call what Michael Chabon was talking about, eschatological hope? Well a theologian has! [...]