As a lapsed Catholic myself, but still prone to rather traditional inclinations in the matters of my faith, (traditional in the old Catholic alliance of the New Deal with politics), I regularly browse through some rightwing Christian and Catholic Web sites. One of the sites I regularly visit is www.spiritdaily.com, a sort of Drudge Report of the mystical Catholic world. They regularly feature articles about trends in world politics in religion which they feel is indicative that we may be living in the "End Times", a belief they share with many of their fundamentalist Protestant contemporaries.
That, and numerous broadsides against "liberal Democrats" in favor of abortion rights and gay rights and embyonic stem cell research. More on the flip:
So it was with great wonderment when I came across a link in www.spiritdaily.com about Hillary Clinton's spiritual beliefs and background, a link to an article from all places the September 1 issue of the Village Voice. In the article, it goes on length about Hillary Clinton's conservative upbringing in the Chicago suburbs, where she attended a congregation of the United Methodist Church, where she was quite active.
http://www.motherjones.com/...
She came under the influence of a young pastor, who emphasized social justice issues such as the civil rights movement. The youth pastor however, insists that he is "neo-Orthodox", and believes that bringing about change is better accomplished through personal change rather than social action.
The article goes on about Hillary's long involvement with a beltway Congressional "prayer group" called "THE FELLOWSHIP", which meets regularly for prayer and Bible reading, and which has kept a very secretive profile on Capitol Hill. Hillary was a member of a cell in THE FELLOWSHIP which consisted of Susan Baker, wife of Bush confidant James Baker, Joanne Kemp, wife of former Republican representative Jack Kemp, Grace Nelson, wife of often turncoat Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and most disappointedly, Eileen Bakke, wife of Dennis Bakke, head of what Mother Jones called the "anti-union Christian management movement.
THE FELLOWSHIP believes that the elite who are in power are in power through the will of God, and that the purpose of THE FELLOWSHIP is to help its members ascertain their role in doing God's Will.
Since it is late here in Michigan and I am not the best at writing long articles, I won't do an entire summation and synopsis of the article. I just wanted to bring this serious issue to the attention of the readers at Daily Kos. Since I myself am a person of faith, although I have been on a sort of spiritual journey the last few years, I respect someone for wanting to engage with others on their spiritual path. But I believe the membership and the philosophy of the FELLOWSHIP raises enough red flags for progressives that we should examine Hillary's role in it and her religious philosophy much more closely than we have in the past.
How Hillary ever got her reputation as a progressive and a liberal is beyond me. The Democratic Party, in my opinion, will be making a huge mistake if it nominates her as its standard bearer in 2008. This is a woman of great complexity, but also possibly of great deception. We need to look into this disturbing association of Hillary, for it is another red flag in a long line of red flags with Hillary, most recently her support by Rupert Murdoch of Fox News. Hillary in my opinion, if elected to office, will be a great disappointment and a great loss for progressives of all stripes.