Church can be model for Obama team, McCurry says
Mike McCurry says The United Methodist Church can show the Obama
administration how people from different perspectives can come together
to transform the world. A UMNS photo by Kathy L. Gilbert. |
By Kathy L. Gilbert*
Jan. 22, 2009 | WASHINGTON (UMNS)
President Barack Obama is ushering in a time of “great awakening,”
and faith will play a big role in his presidency, said former White
House press secretary Mike McCurry.
“We are rediscovering a prophetic big-based voice on the left, on the
center left, to match what I think has been common on the religious
right for some time,” he said in an interview with United Methodist
News Service. “The Democratic Party and the progressive side of our
political movement moved away from religion and politics during the
1970s and 80s.”
McCurry served as press secretary under President Bill Clinton and is a
member of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Kensington, Md.
The United Methodist Church can be a resource for the new
administration and serve as a role model for creating an environment in
which people from different perspectives can work together, he said.
The church is in a position to help as the country faces difficult
problems.
“We are about making disciples for the transformation of the world, and
you can’t transform the world unless you get in the middle of it and
roll up your sleeves,” he said. “I think The United Methodist Church is
prepared to do that.”
Testing faith
Obama knowingly took on controversy from both the right and the left
when he chose the Rev. Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church, the
Rev. Joseph Lowery, a United Methodist pastor and civil rights leader,
and Bishop Eugene Robinson, the first gay pastor in the Episcopal
Church, to take part in his inauguration.
“I think that shows that Barack Obama is willing to test his faith and
test the faith of his supporters and ask people to really reflect and
bring new questions into the public dialogue. I think that is very,
very encouraging,” McCurry said.
The United States has had a partisan, polarized political culture
because of a breakdown in trust between the right and left, he said.
Obama understands that and is pleading for people to set aside some of
their traditional differences.
Offering hospitality
McCurry led a Jan. 19 workshop at Mount Vernon Place United
Methodist Church on “the risky territory of politics and religion.” It
was the holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., which came
one day before Obama’s inauguration.
Workshops, learning experiences and service projects were sponsored by
40 United Methodist churches in the Baltimore-Washington Annual
(regional) Conference as part of the “Be the Change You Want to See”
initiative to mark the inauguration.
Professors from Wesley Theological Seminary led other workshops, which
covered such topics as addressing racism and creating a color-blind
church; how Christians should respond to the new administration; and
environmental justice.
During his workshop, McCurry quoted from King's “Letter from Birmingham
Jail,” written in 1963 to white moderate church leaders. In the letter,
King remembered a time “when the church was not merely a thermometer
that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion: it was a
thermostat that transformed the mores of society.”
Often today, as in King's time, church leaders are consoled by the
church's silence, rather than shaken up by the “God-intoxicated”
Christians who disturb the peace and speak truth to power, McCurry said.
Profound challenges
As a senior statesman, McCurry said he has been helping “from the
sidelines.” He said his advice to Robert Gibbs, the new press secretary
for Obama, is “don’t take yourself too seriously. Don’t forget your
sense of humor.
“These are very profound challenges our country faces, but you’ve got
to enjoy the job that you’re in and make this a time of joyful and
humble servitude to our country,” he continued. He added people around
Obama seem to be enjoying themselves so far.
One dimension of the inauguration is the “palpable excitement of young
people,” McCurry said. Young people are excited about the promise of
change. They don’t consider themselves strongly liberal, strongly
Democrat, they are just pro-Obama, he said.
“I think they are very excited by the get-it-done, yes-we-can attitude
that they think Obama has brought. I think they will draw a lot on that
type of generational change as they tackle some of these problems.”
*Gilbert is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in
Nashville, Tenn. Melissa Lauber, editor of UM Connection, the newspaper
for the United Methodist Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference,
contributed to this story.
News media contact: Kathy L. Gilbert, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
Video Interview with Mike McCurry
“There’s a basis of a very good, solid working relationship.”
“You really sense a dramatic transforming moment.”
“We have to bring people together.”
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Resources
44 Steps Closer: A Nation’s Journey
Be the change
2008 Election Coverage
Commission on Communication |