Hi everyone, Sojourners (US based Christian magazine) currently has a petition going which is working against a religious right campaign to convince Christians that they should vote for Bush:
"It is the responsibility of every political conservative, every evangelical Christian, every pro-life Catholic, every traditional Jew...to get serious about re-electing President Bush." - Jerry Falwell, The New York Times, July 16, 2004 "I think George Bush is going to win in a walk. I really believe I'm hearing from the Lord it's going to be like a blowout election in 2004. The Lord has just blessed him.... It doesn't make any difference what he does, good or bad." - Pat Robertson, AP/Fox News, January 2, 2004 See http://go.sojo.net/campaign/takebackourfaith While I am not aware of anything similar in Australia, the petition has some material in it that I think is applicable here as well. It says: We are not single-issue voters. We believe that poverty - caring for the poor and vulnerable - is a religious issue. Do the candidates' budget and tax policies reward the rich or show compassion for poor families? Do their foreign policies include fair trade and debt cancellation for the poorest countries? (Matthew 25:35-40, Isaiah 10:1-2) We believe that the environment - caring for God's earth - is a religious issue. Do the candidates' policies protect the creation or serve corporate interests that damage it? (Genesis 2:15, Psalm 24:1) We believe that war - and our call to be peacemakers - is a religious issue. Do the candidates' policies pursue "wars of choice" or respect international law and cooperation in responding to real global threats? (Matthew 5:9) We believe that truth-telling is a religious issue. Do the candidates tell the truth in justifying war and in other foreign and domestic policies? (John 8:32) We believe that human rights - respecting the image of God in every person - is a religious issue. How do the candidates propose to change the attitudes and policies that led to the abuse and torture of Iraqi prisoners? (Genesis 1:27) We believe that our response to terrorism is a religious issue. Do the candidates adopt the dangerous language of righteous empire in the war on terrorism and confuse the roles of God, church, and nation? Do the candidates see evil only in our enemies but never in our own policies? (Matthew 6:33, Proverbs 8:12-13 ) We believe that a consistent ethic of human life is a religious issue. Do the candidates' positions on abortion, capital punishment, euthanasia, weapons of mass destruction, HIV/AIDS-and other pandemics-and genocide around the world obey the biblical injunction to choose life? (Deuteronomy 30:19) Judy -- "Politics is the work we do to keep the world safe for our spirituality" - Judith Plaskow Rev Judy Redman Uniting Church Chaplain University of New England Armidale 2351 ph: +61 2 6773 3739 fax: +61 2 6773 3749 web: http://www.une.edu.au/campus/chaplaincy/uniting/ email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------------------ - You are subscribed to the mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put in the message body 'unsubscribe insights-l' (ell, not one (1)) See: http://nsw.uca.org.au/insights-l-information.htm ------------------------------------------------------
