[W]e listen to all the new political speeches and new political options given the electorate and we know nothing will really change. Yet we participate in it anyway, because in essence subconsciously this is what we really want: we wish to protect our own specific pieces of the economic social pie yet feel good about doing it (there’s the classic Freudian split in the subjective consciousness). Zizek suggests that political ideology serves a cynical function now, giving us a Big Other to believe in, making us feel better about ourselves (morally), all the while we hope for keeping the status quo in place protecting our own personal pieces of the pie.

Please read Zizek, and the danger of Obama for the American church by David Fitch at a new favorite of mine: the church and postmodern culture: conversation "contemporary philosophy...for the church...in the vernacular, "conversations hosted by Baker