Click here (alarabiya.net) to read about how Egyptian President Muhammad Mursi has (mis)quoted from the Quran, in efforts to defend his recent consolidation of powers...
What are your thoughts/reactions about invoking religious scriptures for political purposes?
5 comments:
Here are some biblical sites where various translations (including the original versions in Hebrew and Greek) are available. Since my particular interests are biblical Hebrew, the selection of sites is skewed in that particular direction:
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0.htm
Text in Hebrew and English of entire Tanakh (Jewish Old Testament) narrated in Sephardic pronunciation by Abraham Shmeuloff, a native speaker of Hebrew. Texts and sound clips can be legally downloaded.
http://www.biblegateway.com/
A search engine for numerous translations of the entire, including those in the original languages. Very convenient!
http://scholarsgateway.com/search/
Powered by search engine, various versions of the Bible are available as well as parallel Hebrew-English and Greek-English texts which include detailed linguistic analysis.
http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/Hebrew_Index.htm
The entire Tanakh (OT) in the Westminster Leningrad Codex with vowels with various parallel translations. Search engine powered. Includes detailed linguistic analysis and transliteration of the Hebrew script for those who prefer roman script over the block Hebrew script.
http://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/8165
The Hebrew Torah and Tanakh with Rashi commentary. Search engine with parallel Hebrew English text.
A public facade of devotion, or at least active membership in a church, is required in order to get anywhere near the top in American politics. A religious ethic, however, does not necessarily indicate the possession of moral fiber, and moral fiber is what makes a leader great. Invoking scripture is fine, as long as it is done with the correct moral motive. If invoked for the purpose of persecution, for any reason, towards any person or group, than it becomes immoral, and immorality has no place in politics.
John
I think that it is shameful to twist the words of your faith to meet your own ends. Anybody can use scripture to cover up the actions that they want to do. Just as teh American politician can prove. They campaign as Chrstians and then go to DC and remove God from everything in the land.
Bob
Religious scripture holds a great deal of knowledge, and it comes from traditions that are very close to the hearts of the people. In this case, it was possibly too close to the hearts of the people, because they saw his interpretation as wrong.
The thing about scripture is it can be interpreted in numerous ways. I can read one quote on Saturday, and then read the exact same quote on Monday morning and have a completely different interpretation based off of the experiences I've had in the past 48 hours. To some extent, this is true for all writings, religious and secular. However, because religion strikes such a taut chord with the people, its often difficult to find a religious quote, interpret it, and have everyone be okay with that.
In US politics, another layer is added to invoking religious scriptures by the idea of separation of church and state as well as the diversity of religions encompassed by the United states. I guess I just feel that when you are a political figure, everything you say will be under critique, and invoking religious scriptures can be really iffy in terms of payoff.
-Valerie
Thanks for all the links, Ben... some online treasures there!
pdk
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