OTTAWA – Ottawa University’s Norwood Jones Convocation speaker Os Guinness says American religious conservatives are giving American religion a bad name. Beginning with the Moral Majority movement, religious right leaders have tried to advance their religious goals through political means, Guinness, who spoke at OU Wednesday and Thursday, said. Mixing religion and politics tends to make for both bad politics and bad religion, he said. Jesus ordered his followers to “love thy neighbor” and forgiveness without limit, he said. But the religious right has advanced its political power by demonizing its opponents, he said. Guinness, author, social critic and a member of the East-West Institute in New York, expressed alarm about the increasingly shaky state of freedom as designed by the Founding Fathers. Democracy doesn’t work without a common ground on the rules and a sense of faith and courage. The “culture wars” have created a sense of nastiness and cyncism that makes it difficult for democratic means to flourish, he said. That also erode confidence in political leadership, he said. Guinness will discuss his views on this Sunday morning’s Community Perspective at 8:04.
Friday, March 8, 10 a.m.
