Two Benedictions
Rob McGinley Myers, Associate Producer
In working on our two new shows about faith — the Left and the Right — in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, we were struck by the fact that the 2008 Democratic National Convention was the first modern DNC that began each day with an invocation and ended each night with a benediction. Our guest Amy Sullivan said, “As I was watching it, what I felt was less kind of a sense that I was witnessing something new and more a disbelief that this hadn’t existed before.” By contrast, Republican conventions have long included invocations and benedictions.
The final benediction of the DNC was delivered by Joel Hunter, a pro-life Evangelical and a registered Republican who serves as the senior pastor to a 12,000-member congregation in Florida. The final benediction at the Republican National Convention was delivered by Dan Yeary, a Southern Baptist pastor of North Phoenix Baptist Church, where John McCain’s wife is a member.
Let us know what you think of these two prayers. Does this religious language ennoble the sometimes less than noble sentiments of these political gatherings? Or do you agree with one of our previous guests, Steve Waldman, that injecting religion into politics can actually hurt religion, by sullying it with the baggage that political figures carry?
