{"id":48467,"date":"2016-02-01T05:38:39","date_gmt":"2016-02-01T05:38:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=48467"},"modified":"2016-02-01T05:38:39","modified_gmt":"2016-02-01T05:38:39","slug":"political-candidates-and-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=48467","title":{"rendered":"Political candidates and religion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[ by <strong>Charles Cameron<\/strong><\/strong> &#8212; responding properly to <strong>Tim Furnish<\/strong> ]<br \/>\n.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Political candidates and religion <\/strong>is not quite the same as <strong>church and state<\/strong> &#8212; an issue on which, as a Brit living in the States, I am profoundly impressed both ways. However, religion <em>in<\/em> politics very much interests me, and in my news scan early this morning I noted this tweet:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-cards=\"hidden\" lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Cruz and wife &quot;donated less than 1 percent of their income to charity and nothing to churches.&quot; From <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AP\">@AP<\/a> story. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/NvYoCr5jkE\">https:\/\/t.co\/NvYoCr5jkE<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Julie Bykowicz (@bykowicz) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bykowicz\/status\/693772551621709824\">January 31, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>To which I responded:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Quoted in same article, Cruz suggested politicians should &quot;avoid ostentatiously wrapping yourself in your faith&quot; <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/NOl7iqpibA\">https:\/\/t.co\/NOl7iqpibA<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; hipbonegamer (@hipbonegamer) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hipbonegamer\/status\/693783866553683969\">January 31, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Tim Furnish picked up on this, and tweeted:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-conversation=\"none\" lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hipbonegamer\">@hipbonegamer<\/a> OK. But Hillary just said she is Christian and a devotee of the Sermon on the Mount. Where&#39;s AP story on how much she gives?<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Timothy Furnish, PhD (@Occidentaljihad) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Occidentaljihad\/status\/693803486316666880\">January 31, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p>From my point of view, I think that&#8217;s both a fair question and a great <strong>DoubleQuotes<\/strong> opportunity, so I followed Tim&#8217;s lead to the NYT piece he was refering to, and the result, phrased in headlines, is as follows:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Cruz-Clinton.png\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48474\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Cruz-Clinton.png\" alt=\"Cruz Clinton\" width=\"592\" height=\"621\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-48474\" srcset=\"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Cruz-Clinton.png 592w, https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Cruz-Clinton-286x300.png 286w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 592px) 100vw, 592px\" \/><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<li><strong>AP,<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/bigstory.ap.org\/urn:publicid:ap.org:08f3820adba942dd83492dd0cf283dd1\">Now deeply Christian, Cruz&#8217;s religion once wasn&#8217;t so obvious<\/a>\n<li><strong>NYT<\/strong>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/politics\/first-draft\/2016\/01\/25\/hillary-clinton-gets-personal-on-christ-and-her-faith\/\">Hillary Clinton Gets Personal on Christ and Her Faith<\/a><\/li>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p>For myself, I&#8217;m glad that <strong>Hillary Clinton<\/strong> &#8220;rarely talks about faith on the campaign trail&#8221; and that <strong>Ted Cruz<\/strong>&#8216;s religion &#8220;once wasn&#8217;t so obvious&#8221;. Tithing as an obligation isn&#8217;t anything I worry about &#8212; the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Mark+12%3A42-43&#038;version=KJV\">widow&#8217;s mite<\/a> story gets to the heart of things, I think &#8212; and I&#8217;m a fan of reticence in matters of faith in any case: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>pretty much puts the kybosh on publicity, methinks, as does:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret..<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Similary, the second of <strong>Maimonides<\/strong>&#8216; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chabad.org\/library\/article_cdo\/aid\/45907\/jewish\/Eight-Levels-of-Charity.htm\">Eight levels of charity<\/a> is this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>to give to the poor without knowing to whom one gives, and without the recipient knowing from who he received. For this is performing a mitzvah solely for the sake of Heaven.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And the Qur&#8217;an, Sura 76. 8-9, suggests:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>They give food, for the love of Him, to the needy, the orphan, the captive: \u201c&#8217;We feed you only for the Face of God; we desire no recompense from you, no thankfulness..\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I&#8217;m not dogmatically tied to these views, Tim, but I admire them greatly &#8212; IMO, there&#8217;s simply so much beauty in such advice!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ by Charles Cameron &#8212; responding properly to Tim Furnish ] . Political candidates and religion is not quite the same as church and state &#8212; an issue on which, as a Brit living in the States, I am profoundly impressed both ways. However, religion in politics very much interests me, and in my news [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[526,497,476,185,627,896,415,753,717,603,251,676,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-charles-cameron","category-christianity","category-democracy","category-democratic-party","category-doublequotes","category-dr-timothy-furnish","category-elections","category-islam","category-judaism","category-republic","category-republican-party","category-scriptures","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48467"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48487,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48467\/revisions\/48487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}