{"id":268,"date":"2008-11-06T17:15:06","date_gmt":"2008-11-06T17:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2008\/11\/praise-god.html"},"modified":"2008-11-06T17:15:06","modified_gmt":"2008-11-06T17:15:06","slug":"praise-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/11\/praise-god.html","title":{"rendered":"Praise God?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Praise God!<\/span><\/p>\n

Barack Obama has been elected President of the United States!<\/span><\/p>\n

Praise God!<\/span><\/p>\n

Proposition 8 has passed!<\/span><\/p>\n

I’ve heard or read both of these sentiments repeatedly over the last 48 hours – sometimes from the same people – and it has begun to make me question how we attribute God’s working in the world. What litmus test do we use to determine if an event is of God or not?<\/span><\/p>\n

I celebrate the election of Barack Obama.  <\/span>He is smart, inspiring and a born leader. His campaign promoted hope, unity and the possibility that we can heal the wounds of our past. With the election of Barack Obama, the American people recognized the past, turned to face the future and stepped forward. <\/span><\/p>\n

I mourn the passing of Prop 8.  <\/span>It was a campaign that promoted fear of difference and devaluated a class of people by degrading their love. It forced lesbian and gay people into second class citizenship. With the passing Prop 8, Californians looked to the future that held Gay and Lesbian people with equal worth and with equal rights, turned to face the past, and stepped back.<\/span><\/p>\n

Martin Luther King, Jr said: “The moral arc of the universe is long but it bends towards justice.” This is the way I understanding where God dwells within history.  <\/span>God is found in the movement towards justice and love for all people.  <\/span>God is found in hope not fear; unity not division; justice not discrimination.  By f<\/span>acing forward, those with eyes to see recognize where God is working today. I can see God even in the Prop 8 vote. While it is a setback for gay and lesbian people, it is also reflects progress as the measure passed with narrow margins and was almost defeated, something that couldn’t have happened even five years ago.  <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Neither the election of Barack Obama, nor the passing of Prop 8 represent God’s final will on earth. Obama’s election does not wipe out the vicious racism of centuries, and Prop 8 shows that there is still work to be done confronting the discrimination of Gay and Lesbian people. But they both represent some progress along the way.  <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>Praise God.<\/span><\/p>\n

“The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The time has come.”<\/em> <\/em> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>Angels in America, by Tony Kushner. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Praise God! Barack Obama has been elected President of the United States! Praise God! Proposition 8 has passed! I’ve heard or read both of these sentiments repeatedly over the last 48 hours – sometimes from the same people – and it has begun to make me question how we attribute God’s working in the world.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-election-08"],"yoast_head":"\nPraise God? - Progressive Revival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/11\/praise-god.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Praise God? - Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Praise God! 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Paul B. Raushenbush is the moderator of the Progressive Revival blog and the Associate Dean of Religious Life at Princeton University. .An ordained American Baptist minister, Rev. Raushenbush speaks and preaches at colleges, churches and institutes around the country including the College of Preachers at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C., The Chautauqua Institute in upstate New York, and the New America Foundation. Rev. Raushenbush has served at Seattle First Baptist Church, the Presbyterian Chaplaincy at Columbia University and as College and Young Adult Minister at The Riverside Church in New York City. He has appeared on ABC World News Tonight and is a repeated guest on CNN. He has been quoted in The New York Times and The Washington Post and is a contributing editor for Beliefnet.com. His first book, Teen Spirit: One World, Many Faiths (HCI) was released in the Fall of 2004. He is the editor of the 100th Anniversary edition of Walter Rauschenbusch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book Christianity and the Social Crisis \u00e2\u20ac\u201c In the 21st Century (HarperOne). His work at Princeton includes strengthening the interfaith community on campus. He is the Co-Director of the Program on Religion, Diplomacy and International Relations at The Liechtenstein Institute on Self Determination at Princeton University. Rev. Raushenbush studied religion at Macalester College before attending Union Theological Seminary in New York City where he graduated with distinction.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/praushenbush"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}