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Does America want a spiritual woman as president?
Many speak of having a spiritual leader as a president. Someone like Mike Pence, a Christian is not acceptable but someone from some other spiritual belief is. Right now we have a president that is a realist that tells people what is wrong completely undiluted, what he thinks even if it offends some. As the Democrats runners look to 2020, they may have nearly 2020 candidates running. One of them may be Marianne Williamson — one of Oprah’s mentors. This may be the best thing next to Oprah. Williamson who is 66 years old is well known to Hollywood and book readers. She is a best-selling author of a dozen books on spirituality including “A Return to Love,” She's has formed a presidential exploratory committee, and is going to travel to Iowa. “We had a miracle in this country in 1776 and we need another one,” Williamson said in a video announcement. “It’s going to be a co-creative effort, an effort of love and a gift of love, to our country and hopefully to our world.” She added that America needs to get “back to an ethical center that is the true exceptionalism of the American ideal.” Running as an independent in 2014, she raised $2 million in bid to succeed retiring Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman in California. She earned endorsements from high-profile Democrats like former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm and former Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich. Williamson came in fourth out of sixteen candidates with 13 percent of the vote with Rep. Ted Lieu eventually prevailing. In 2014, Williamson also had support from celebrities like Eva Longoria, Nicole Richie and Jane Lynch. Alanis Morrissette even composed a campaign jingle for the effort. "We're going down, down, down. We're going down unless we move to new ground, unless we start a revolution, awaken from this frozen, start the mending of our union today," went the song. During her congressional bid, Williamson brought attention to what she called America’s “permanent war machine,” the mass incarceration of people of color, and economic inequality. After she lost, Williamson told Oprah in an interview that she learned a lot from the experience. “I kept waiting for people to tell me what to do and [I] tried to hire people who would tell me what to do,” she said. “It taught me what I should have already known: to only listen to myself.” All this talk of a new ager like Williamson or even Oprah running for president may be futile. I don’t think either can traverse the hostile political landscape we now have, not even from their own party. They do not have enough positive energies to make it through emotionally unscathed. To have the first woman president as a new ager would be a huge turnaround. We should not forget that she has a different Jesus and does not view Christianity accurately or in a good way. Willaimson teaches The Course of Miracles “...Jesus became what all of you must be. ...Is he the Christ? O yes, along with you” (The Course of Miracles pp. 83-84). we should understand that spiritual and mystical are two very different things. I do not see either her or Oprah holding up to all the negativity (negative energy) that would be directed toward them. She would need an even greater transformation then she teaches in her new age talks to adjust to the politics of our day. Saying all this and then observing the religious landscape that is quickly changing this may not factor in. Many are finding that New Age' beliefs are becoming more popular as fewer Americans follow traditional or seek organized religion. Political analyst Ruy Teixeira says "The data suggests this is the fastest growing religious group in America, are people who don't hold any firm religious beliefs," Teixeira, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, said Wednesday on Hill. TV's "What America's Thinking." "Perhaps these New Age beliefs are in a sense, at least partially, a reflection of more and more people not having an orthodox religious set of beliefs." Teixeira was discussing a recent Pew Research Center poll that found 62 percent of Americans hold New Age beliefs, such as astrology and the presence of spiritual energy in trees or mountains. Seventy-eight percent of those who held at least one New Age belief said they did not affiliate with any particular religion. The survey also found that those who identify as Christian were more likely than atheists and agnostics to hold at least one New Age belief. Sixty-seven percent of mainline Protestants, 47 percent of evangelicals and 70 percent of Catholics said they believed in a New Age belief. This tell us a lot on the spiritual climate of our day that is certainly changing. So a new age president, even a woman may yet be the future of America’s politics.
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