The "Aura" Campaign and the Kingdom of God

Daniel Henninger reflects on the Democratic Primary in today’s Wall Street Journal. He employs a phrase, with regard to Barack Obama’s campaign, that I think will stick with me profoundly during the coming months. He says that Barack Obama is running “an aura campaign.” He sees it as a speech-making candidacy, a JFK candidacy, the “promise of another Camelot.”

On Monday, in Indianapolis, Obama noted in a stump speech what will likely remain the central way he speaks about himself until November: "I believe that this election is bigger than me or John McCain or Hillary Clinton. It's bigger than the Democrats versus Republicans. It's about who we are as Americans." If that’s true then this election is as big as it can get. It is a defining moment election in American history! It is, in Obama’s dreams at least, an election that will determine who we are as a nation and where we are going. At best this is sheer hyperbolic rhetoric.

My problem with this rhetoric is simple. I’ve heard this before, especially from the left. But in recent elections we’ve also heard it from the right, especially the Christian Right. I don’t buy any of this for one moment. I do not think the winner of this election is that important to our collective future. America can survive either one of these two candidates.

Chalk my response up to age and my firsthand experience of past campaigns since 1960, to my deep-seated cynicism about the claims of political messiahs left and right over nearly fifty years, the constant refrain of the dire predictions of gloom if one person doesn’t win, etc. But I am not buying "aura" from any candidate.

The question is simple: “Will the voters buy into an aura campaign?” My sense is that they will. If the economy remains stagnant and the war in Iraq continues to be reported as it is now being reported, Obama will likely win in the end. But then what? How will he govern? He tells us that he can unite but his record doesn’t prove this at all. He is a man who seems to genuinely enjoy dialog with people who differ from him, a very positive trait in an age of “destroy the opponent” politics. But can he create coalitions and truly govern? We simply do not know. He has no record either way. What we do know is that he has this “aura” about himself that makes him very attractive to many, especially to the very young who are hungry for real change and see him as the man of the hour.

I have only one prediction. If Obama wins he will not be as bad as some think he might be nor as successful as his zealous followers hope. In time he will prove that he is not a messiah and then what?

My prayer is that the youthful zeal shown for Barack Obama might be captured for something far less passing, namely the eternal mission of the kingdom of God. That will not happen until Christians learn how to speak the gospel, and then to live it in community, more faithfully. This is especially true for this new generation. I will be watching various rising prayer movements among the young much more than electoral movements among the them in the coming months. There is some evidence that such prayer movements are growing. I pray: "May they become a conflagration of true spiritual fire!"  What we need is true spiritual awakening, nothing else will change things as we know them. 

Comments

[Bradley Cochran]

Sobering Thoughts. Good meditation.