Obama Worse Than 9/11
Obama seeks to move the US into a post-Christian nightmare where the values of atheists and idolaters hold sway: Or Obama’s reasons for keeping Christian ethics out of the public square
Garnet Milne PhDThe Muslim terrorists who drove airliners into the twin towers in New York managed to kill several thousand, maim many others and create fear among the general population in the US. Obviously this audacious terrorist act of evil was devastating. Nonetheless, the terrorists who planned and executed this mayhem could have achieved a far greater ‘victory’ for their cause had they done something more cerebral and more profound. Had they sought to argue for an Islamic morality in a peaceful manner, they might have conceivably been successful in changing the thinking of many Americans about ultimate issues such as the identity of God and the source of morality - they could have exceeded their wildest dreams and begun to take over a nation for their false god Allah.
While military might has often been used to defeat an ideological enemy, true victory only occurs when a population agrees with its (former) enemies because there has been a fundamental shift in the moral and philosophical mindset. You have to win hearts and minds as well as real estate.
9/11 achieved the opposite for the terrorists. They only managed to mobilise a good part of the free world against their cause, making their safe house of Afghanistan no longer safe. But what 9/11 could never achieve may be accomplished by the fresh-faced black senator Barack Hussein Obama.
Although many Americans do not realise it, Obama and his closest advisors are intent on shifting the underlying mindset or ethos of the US majority to a radically different ideology of secularism sanitised by vaguely religious rhetoric. And he plans to expunge Christian and biblical discourse from the public square unless it happens to coincide with the morality of non-Christian idolaters and atheists. Whatever his speech may appear to offer Christians with one hand, he takes it away with another.
Obama exposes his true motives in a speech he gave to the Renewal Conference on Wednesday, June 28, 2006, where he revealed his true intentions for the US, and if it was in his power, for the rest of the world. For this reason his election to the office of president must be opposed by every legal device possible. Well, what did he say at this conference in a speech ostensibly about the relationship between politics and religion – specifically American politics and Christianity?
In this speech Obama deliberately brings confusion to the idea that God has spoken concerning both public and private morality.
Obama Has A Low View Of The Holy Scriptures
Obama draws a parallel between obeying the pope and obeying the message of the Bible, when he writes that Christians say of Obama:
Mr. Obama says he's a Christian, but supports the destruction of innocent and sacred life. [Obama replies] And so what would my supporters have me say? How should I respond? Should I say that a literalist reading of the Bible was folly? Should I say that Mr. Keyes, who is a Roman Catholic, should ignore the teachings of the Pope?
He places the words of a mere mortal pope on the same level as the Bible. He surely knows that Protestantism, of which Obama claims to be a member, teaches that the pope’s pontificating has absolutely no divine authority, whereas the Bible is the infallible Word of God. Obama, therefore, has a low view of the Holy Scriptures. Obama draws this analogy between the Bible and the pope at the beginning of his speech to cause his audience to accept that a ‘literal’ interpretation of the teaching of the Bible is of no more value than the advice of any human religious teacher. We are meant to conclude that the Bible is, therefore, not the source of ultimate truth. Obama also knows that his audience are not well versed in biblical Christianity, since the conference was organised by a liberal ‘social gospel’ group called the Sojourners, who, for example, support homosexual unions. And Obama knows that many US folk who call themselves Christians do not accept the ultimate authority of the Word of God and that his words will fall on fertile soil.The would-be president next avows that he would not call a literal reading of the Bible folly and that Roman Catholics should not ignore the pope’s teaching. This might seem to be a concession by Obama that even politicians should not reject the teaching of their religious leaders. Obama admits that he used to give ‘the typically liberal response in such debates - namely, I said that we live in a pluralistic society, that I can't impose my own religious views on another, that I was running to be the U.S. Senator of Illinois and not the Minister of Illinois’. Whatever Barack Obama avows, he realises that this answer ‘did not adequately address the role my faith has in guiding my own values and my own beliefs’. Obama then proceeds to give twenty reasons why only some purportedly Christian and biblical ethics would be permissible to influence public policy under his presidency and why most should be excluded. Obama’s rhetoric is one very good reason why Christians should withdraw from the political process in the US [If you would like to know more about political dissent follow this link].
1. Obama’s first argument – Religion is a private matter and for a politician to appeal to religious values held by the electorate is exploitation.
Before he gives his new position to the question about whether one can apply Christianity to the public square, Obama bad-mouths conservative politicians who have been ‘all too happy’ to exploit religious differences. In other words this black American politician is saying that if any politician holds to biblical absolutes and gains support from an electorate which takes the same position that there are biblical absolutes, this is an exploitation of other people’s religious views. It is wrong for a politician to translate his religious views and those of others to the public square. Rather they should be kept private.
2. Obama’s second argument – Evangelicals are lacking in intelligence and cannot discern what the Democratic Party stands for. And conservative politicians have duped the country into thinking that all religious Americans are interested in only a narrow range of ethical issues.
Obama avers that conservatives in their exploitation of gullible evangelicals ‘suggest to the country that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage; school prayer and intelligent design’. Obama is attempting with this argument to demonize Christian politicians and to lay the groundwork for introducing a range of ethical issues which can legitimately be discussed in the public square, in his view, while excluding matters like the murder of the unborn and homosexual marriage.
3. Obama’s third argument – Politicians may contradict themselves in order to win votes, even though they cannot assert moral absolutes in the public square.
The Senator from Illinois, having subtly argued that politicians should not appeal to religious values in the voting public, now states:
At worst, there are some liberals who dismiss religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant, insisting on a caricature of religious Americans that paints them as fanatical, or thinking that the very word "Christian" describes one's political opponents, not people of faith.
But this is exactly what Obama himself has suggested, so here he contradicts himself suggesting in this statement that bringing religious principles to the public square is ok. Later he will again contradict himself revealing his true position that he is one of those ‘who dismiss religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant’.4. Obama’s fourth argument – Even though full blown Christian ethics cannot have a place in political discourse, liberals should patronise evangelicals in a way which affirms the validity of their religious beliefs while denying the relevance of those beliefs for public policy.
Obama implies this even though he says
I think we make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge the power of faith in people's lives -- in the lives of the American people -- and I think it's time that we join a serious debate about how to reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic democracy.
This is doublespeak for saying ‘Christian, we acknowledge the power of your faith, but it is not powerful enough to have any influence on government policies.’ ‘Faith’ may be acknowledged, but that is as far as it gets – unless your faith touches issues social liberals like Obama can agree with.5. Obama’s fifth argument – Religion is a hunger and bigger than ‘issues’ and therefore bigger than politics. This being so, it is also irrelevant to political discourse, unless the issues fit a narrow ‘black’ frame of reference.
When Obama ascribes the religious tendency partly to ‘simply the result of successful marketing by skilled preachers or the draw of popular mega-churches’, he is, of course, hinting that this ‘successful marketing’ is partly responsible for religious belief. He is denying the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of Christians, attributing religious conversion to religious marketing. Nonetheless he adds:
This religious tendency is not simply the result of successful marketing by skilled preachers or the draw of popular mega-churches. In fact, it speaks to a hunger that's deeper than that - a hunger that goes beyond any particular issue or cause.
Obama is trying to say that religion is a hunger which is too profound for political policy, and must be explained away as something relevant to private life, but not public discourse. He shows how religion fits private life:
Each day, it seems, thousands of Americans are going about their daily rounds - dropping off the kids at school, driving to the office, flying to a business meeting, shopping at the mall, trying to stay on their diets.But in all this activity Americans are not fulfilled: As Obama continues ‘ - and they're coming to the realization that something is missing. They are deciding that their work, their possessions, their diversions, their sheer busyness, is not enough’. What is more, as Obama the psychologist tells us:
They want a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives. They're looking to relieve a chronic loneliness, a feeling supported by a recent study that shows Americans have fewer close friends and confidants than ever before. And so they need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them, is listening to them - that they are not just destined to travel down that long highway towards nothingness.
The audience are therefore expected to conclude that religion is relevant as an answer to loneliness and psychological hunger – it is an escape. Obama even admits that he had this hunger and has found the answer to his own ‘spiritual dilemma’.
Nonetheless notice that Obama says in this speech that he was drawn to his ‘black’ church because it was issues orientated. Having elevated religion as something which is bigger than issues and policy, he now sees his Christianity as believing ‘in the power of the African-American religious tradition to spur social change’. But no mention of abortion or homosexuality at this point! No, but a Christian can address issues politically if they are issues Barack Obama endorses:
Because of its past, the black church understands in an intimate way the Biblical call to feed the hungry and cloth the naked and challenge powers and principalities. And in its historical struggles for freedom and the rights of man, I was able to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death, but rather as an active, palpable agent in the world. As a source of hope.
So faith can challenge powers and principalities, by which Obama means political power, because the issues are ok and pass Obama’s check list.
6. Obama’s sixth argument – Genuine faith has doubts. In other words Christians cannot be sure that they are right and, therefore, for this reason cannot impose their wills on the public square.
‘Faith’, the black senator continues, ‘doesn't mean that you don't have doubts... The questions I had didn't magically disappear’. Obama describes his faith as ‘newfound understandings’, which included needing his sins washed away and because he is human and needs ‘an ally in this difficult journey’. God, therefore, is Obama’s ally. Obama describes how with doubts and all, he affirms his faith as a matter of choice ‘not an epiphany’. Perhaps here he is mocking or at least questioning the profound spiritual conversions of those who with the certainty of Scripture describe their entry into God’s kingdom as being ‘born again’ (John 3:3).
Nonetheless Barack affirms that ‘I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth’. But remember it is a ‘truth’ beset with doubts and therefore by implication a ‘truth’ that cannot unreservedly hold sway in political life and social ethics.
7. Obama’s seventh argument – Because Christianity is no more real than Judaism, Islam and other religions, Christians cannot expect to impose their moral values on the rest of society.
US Christians should sit up and take notice that Obama is as much a universalist as George Bush and no doubt John McCain. For the Illinois senator, the theological beliefs of all types of religion also coincide with the various values of those religions. And because conversion to different religions is ‘a path that has been shared by millions upon millions of Americans - evangelicals, Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims alike’, none of any one set of religious and moral ‘values’ can take priority over another. Islamic ‘values’ are just as important as Christian ones. For Obama, other religions are just as much paths to moral truth as Christianity. Obama say one can be a ‘good Christian or Muslim or Jew’, by which he means morally or spiritually ‘good’ even though their ethics may contradict one another at various points.
8. Obama’s eighth argument – Democrats will be pushed out of political power if we fail to relate to religious people, and by implication fail to show how biblical religion and politics must be kept separate at all costs.
He candidly admits:
We cannot abandon the field of religious discourse. Because when we ignore the debate about what it means to be a good Christian or Muslim or Jew; when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations towards one another; when we shy away from religious venues and religious broadcasts because we assume that we will be unwelcome - others will fill the vacuum, those with the most insular views of faith, or those who cynically use religion to justify partisan ends.
Notice his deceit. Having said how important religion is to people and what a wonderful thing faith is, he now isolates those with ‘the most insular views of faith’. These people, along with those cynics who use religion for partisan ends, should be pushed out of the public square or the liberals will be pushed out. Clearly Obama has in mind ordinary Christians such as those who believe that little children in their mother’s womb should be protected by the state from the murder which is euphemistically abortion. Obviously the ‘truth’ believed by such Christians cannot form part of the social values of American society.
Fundamentalists like Jerry Falwell’s ‘truth’, who possessed ‘the most insular views of faith’ will compete for the ears of evangelicals. So according to Obama there are three Christian groupings, - liberals (Obama), evangelicals (most) and those of ‘insular faith’ (Bible believers). Most of the evangelicals and those who take the Bible to be the infallible Word of God cannot have their ‘truth’ be part of the ethical debate in US politics and society.
9. Obama’s ninth argument – Christianity and politics do not mix because religious language or rhetoric is merely ‘the imagery and terminology through which millions of Americans understand both their personal morality and social justice’.
Even though a full-orbed biblical Christianity has no role to play in bringing moral values to the political table, we cannot ‘scrub’ language of religious imagery because it is by religious imagery that voters categorise their moral values including those that address ‘social justice.’ Obama is declaring that it is ok to use the terminology to promote Democrat Party or liberal values, but Christian values should be understood as merely imagery and terminology.
10. Obama’s tenth argument – Liberal politicians can impose values acceptable to moral liberals on society but conservatives may not, therefore liberal values are more valid than biblical values. Or Christian values can be endorsed only when they match the liberal agenda.
Barack Hussein Obama obviously realises that when he equates Christian morality to mere rhetoric, he will be dismissed as anti-religious. So he adds:
Our failure as progressives to tap into the moral underpinnings of the nation is not just rhetorical, though. Our fear of getting "preachy" may also lead us to discount the role that values and culture play in some of our most urgent social problems. After all, the problems of poverty and racism, the uninsured and the unemployed, are not simply technical problems in search of the perfect ten point plan. They are rooted in both societal indifference and individual callousness - in the imperfections of man.
Obama equates values and culture with religion, but admits that social problems arise from the ‘imperfections of man’. Things like racism need government intervention. And while the government should keep guns out of the city, when a gang member murders with a gun the government cannot help much because there is a ‘hole in that young man's heart - a hole that the government alone cannot fix’.
Obama then gives some of his policy ideas he believes should be imposed on society, including the promotion of contraception to lower abortion rates, and laws that give ethnic minorities preferential treatment when seeking employment. Here he is also implying that abortion is something unhealthy for a society, but that his ‘values’ can only introduce policies which may reduce the volume of abortions in the US, but not outlaw them.
11 Obama’s eleventh argument – While the state can teach contraception is ok for children, the Christian can only teach the value of being responsible about ‘sexual intimacy’.
Barak Obama intimates:
But, you know, my Bible tells me that if we train a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not turn from it. So I think faith and guidance can help fortify a young woman's sense of self, a young man's sense of responsibility, and a sense of reverence that all young people should have for the act of sexual intimacy.
He has given the state the role of doing something about unwanted pregnancy by educating children to use contraception, but he uses the Bible, Proverbs 22:6 ‘Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it’ to leave moral guidance on sexual intimacy to the parent. The state can teach your child to use contraceptives, and even give the child contraceptives or abortions without the parent knowing, but the state cannot legislate against the moral evils of adultery, fornication and abortion.
12. Obama’s twelfth argument – You can have morality without religion.
Obama is again contradicting himself here. Earlier he had tied values to religion. Now he is says that an atheist may affirm legitimate ethics and values, putting their ‘morality’ at least on the same level as Christian ethics.
Obama gives a caveat about atheists (he calls secularists):‘...secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, William Jennings Bryant, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King - indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history - were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. So to say that men and women should not inject their "personal morality" into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
While he now seems to be affirming that bringing one’s faith to the public square is a good thing, notice that the folk he mentions are all either abolitionists, asserters of equal rights for all, or champions of the poor. Few of us would disagree that it is perfectly acceptable to argue these causes in the public square, but social justice for the unborn, or shutting down the immorality of Hollywood and countless other moral causes must be consigned to the private life of the individual who must not speak out as a politician against moral evil – unless it happens to be moral evil Obama agrees should be publicly opposed.
Obama then waxes lyrical over the efforts of some Christians, whose public stance he supports. But notice that it is a carefully contrived list which gels with the liberal agenda:
Pastors, friends of mine like Rick Warren and T.D. Jakes are wielding their enormous influences to confront AIDS, Third World debt relief, and the genocide in Darfur. Religious thinkers and activists like our good friend Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo are lifting up the Biblical injunction to help the poor as a means of mobilizing Christians against budget cuts to social programs and growing inequality.
13. Obama’s thirteenth argument – The only issues we can get involved with publicly are those where all religions agree with Obama and other atheists or secularists.
He urges:
And by the way, we need Christians on Capitol Hill, Jews on Capitol Hill and Muslims on Capitol Hill talking about the estate tax. When you’ve got an estate tax debate that proposes a trillion dollars being taken out of social programs to go to a handful of folks who don’t need and weren’t even asking for it, you know that we need an injection of morality in our political debate.
Not only does morality come from all religions, but it is only ‘morality’ which suits the Democratic Party agenda which can be legitimately endorsed by any religion, and their voices heard in public policy.
Across the country, individual churches like my own and your own are sponsoring day care programs, building senior centers, helping ex-offenders reclaim their lives, and rebuilding our gulf coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
14. Obama’s fourteenth argument – Christianity cannot have unfettered access to the public square because religion needs to be controlled by politicians like Obama, and therefore what constitutes morality needs the imprimatur of the black senator from Illinois and his co-secularists.
The values of religions and secular people must be merged, but this requires ‘ground rules’ and ‘good will’. Hence you need to agree with others (otherwise you do not have ‘good will’) and you must obey Obama’s ground rules: ‘...each side will need to accept some ground rules for collaboration’.
Naturally the first ground rule is to acknowledge that there must be a separation of church and state -and conservative Christian leaders especially need to be reminded of this. So Obama lauds Baptist sects who strenuously would have nothing to say in the political process, and argues that this is the correct way to interpret the first amendment to the American Constitution.
It was the persecuted minorities, it was Baptists like John Leland who didn't want the established churches to impose their views on folks who were getting happy out in the fields and teaching the scripture to slaves. It was the forbearers of the evangelicals who were the most adamant about not mingling government with religious[sic], because they did not want state-sponsored religion hindering their ability to practice their faith as they understood it.
And now Christians have even less right to interfere with matters of civil government and public policy because ‘the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater’. He puts Christians firmly in their place asserting that the US is no longer a Christian country:
Moreover, given the increasing diversity of America's population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.
Obama admits that as far as he is concerned ‘we’ are ‘no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers’.
15. Obama’s fifteenth argument – Christian conservative biblical ethics cannot have a say in the public square or underpin government policy, because there are many Christianities teaching contradictory things.
So Obama patters:
And even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson's, or Al Sharpton's?
Obama is teaching that biblical truth cannot be discovered, because there are various expressions of Christianity. The true form cannot be distinguished from the false and therefore no Christianity at all can have any official place in education or politics. This is Obama’s mantra – religious truth and therefore moral truth specifically tied to the Bible cannot be known with certainty, therefore the ‘morality’ of the great unwashed must dominate while Christianity itself, including its theology and ethics, must assiduously be kept out of national life. This position is further explained under Obama’s next argument.16. Obama’s sixteenth argument – The Bible cannot be the basis of public morality, because it is contradictory and does not teach a consistent morality.
Obama writes:
Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount - a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let's read our bibles. Folks haven't been reading their bibles.
Consider the appalling nature of Barack Obama’s argument. He is essentially mocking the Bible (he uses all lower case for ‘bible’). Plainly, whatever Jeremiah Wright has been teaching in his church he has filed to give Obama any grounding in biblical hermeneutical principles (or principles of interpretation). There are clearly defined principles, taught within the Word of God itself, how we are to interpret the Bible. These principles, when applied faithfully, demonstrate that the food laws governing the Jews are no longer in force in the New Testament (read Acts 11). Similarly the penalties for offences in the Old Testament are not taught in Scripture to automatically be the same in the age of the New Covenant.
Obama even asserts that taking the Bible literally would mean that the defence forces could not protect US citizens because of the Lord Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount which teaches, for example, Matth. 5:9 ‘Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God’. Obama does not explain how this teaching prevents the army from defending a nation, because he cannot explain it. When Obama arrogantly claims that ‘Folks haven’t been reading their bibles’ he is talking about himself far more than he realises.
17. Obama’s seventeenth argument – Religiously grounded moral positions can only influence civil society and government policy if everyone in the society agrees. Or religion and reason are opposites.
This is how Obama words this argument:
Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all [emphasis added].
Obama contends that religion and reason are opposites. Reason stands outside religion, according to this confused politician who even claims to be a Christian himself. Biblical morality can only undergird civil laws if they appear reasonable to practitioners of other religions and to atheists. Obama is telling Christians that their biblical ethics others do not agree with must be irrational or unreasonable. He uses the example of abortion. And he is plainly asserting that if the Bible teaches the sanctity of all of life, including the life of the unborn, this cannot be used as public policy because atheists and others do not accept biblical ethics.
This position taught by Obama is an affront to God Himself, for it makes His moral government less authoritative than the views of atheists and other blasphemers. According to Obama, since ‘religion does not allow for compromise’, it has no place in politics or civil government. Everything positive Obama has said to date about Christianity (or religion generally) has proved to be a chimera. The great biblical principle of the sanctity of life cannot be upheld by the government of a society. Indeed it would be dangerous to let it according to Obama. He explains that there is a common ‘morality’ which is true and yet which contradicts the morality of the Bible. ‘Politics’, Obama pontificates, ‘depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality’
Obama defines a ‘common reality’ as ethical positions which will be endorsed by the majority non-Christian society. Christians must be excluded from this common morality because Obama assumes that the common morality is something other than biblical ethics. Christians therefore are excluded from public discourse and political relevance unless they agree to the ethics proposed by the ‘common aims’ and ‘common reality’ of the non-Christian world. ‘It involves the compromise, the art of what's possible’. Regulating abortion is ‘possible’ according to Obama’s mantra, but outlawing abortion is not possible.
But who says so? Obama has placed himself above the Bible, and claimed that an atheist who has no moral foundation is actually more moral than God Himself.
It might be true that a consistent Christian government would not be elected because the ‘common reality’ is anti-Christian, but this just goes to show that there is something fundamentally wrong with both the electorate and the system of government in the US. The ‘common reality’ in several other countries, such as Northern Ireland, is that all parties refuse to contemplate the legalising of abortion. Why can Obama not agree that politicians can take a strong principled stand and show real moral leadership? He realises that if he were to be principled, then he would never be elected as the democratic presidential nominee.
18. Obama’s eighteenth argument – Religion requires one to act immorally
Obama also demonstrates his confusion and deception by appealing to a contrast which is totally beside the point. The black senator repeats the erroneous comparison we have already observed. To show that being a consistent Christian leads to criminal and immoral actions, he appeals to the biblical account of Genesis 22:2 where it is recorded: ‘And he [God] said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of’. Obama’s gloss on this account follows:
We all know the story of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham is ordered by God to offer up his only son, and without argument, he takes Isaac to the mountaintop, binds him to an altar, and raises his knife, prepared to act as God has commanded. Of course, in the end God sends down an angel to intercede at the very last minute, and Abraham passes God's test of devotion.
Next he makes the absurd observation that ‘if any of us leaving this church saw Abraham on a roof of a building raising his knife, we would, at the very least, call the police and expect the Department of Children and Family Services to take Isaac away from Abraham’.
If this is how Obama would reason as the US president with the nuclear button under his finger, we have cause to shudder. Obama is saying that modern Christian politicians cannot implement a biblical morality which requires the outlawing of abortion, prostitution or pornography because to do so is equivalent to someone receiving a revelation to kill his son.
But this conclusion is ridiculous for several reasons: Firstly, God no longer gives revelations as He did to Abraham (Hebrews 1:1-2) and so if someone claimed God had so instructed him to kill his son, we would realise that God had not done this, because He no longer gives immediate revelations as He once did. Secondly, God’s revealed moral will for individuals and societies, which is now confined to the completed canon of Scripture, never requires an individual to make an immoral choice. God’s Law is perfect (Ps 19: 7) and is the highest wisdom. The Bible also teaches that the sort of ‘wisdom’ Obama is touting, namely lowest common denominator or 51% morality, is puerile (1 Cor. 1:20-24). Thirdly, Abraham was not set on killing Isaac in the belief that Isaac’s life would be over. God had promised Abraham that ‘in Isaac shall thy seed be called’ (Gen. 21:12). Isaac knew that God would not allow his son to die, even though He had given Abraham this instruction. Abraham trusted in the promise of God that through Isaac a nation would be established and the Messiah Himself would come from Isaac’s descendents. Abraham expected God to intervene. And finally, how can some modern fanatic who falsely claims God has instructed him to kill be compared to Christian politicians legislating to save the unborn from murder? Obama is both deceitful and dangerous, and the gullible have fallen for his confused and contradictory rhetoric.
19. Obama’s nineteenth argument – Faith positions need to be distinguished. ‘Central’ beliefs like the Ten Commandments or Christ’s divinity differ from other edicts which are really just cultural beliefs such as the belief that contraception is wrong.
Obama is deciding for everyone else what biblical teachings are important and what are not. Who is he to contradict what God says about contraception or about any other position for that matter? We need to note that this argument does not help Obama, because ‘Christians’ who endorse contraception are just being inconsistent. Their inconsistency cannot be used, as Obama tries to, to prove that biblical ethics have to be accommodated to modern life. I ask ‘who decides which issues or beliefs can be written off or dismissed as culturally conditioned?’
For Obama, wisdom in a Christian’s church and personal life is to be divorced from political wisdom. He claims that secular wisdom in politics is greater than God’s wisdom in the Bible as lived out by Christians.
20. Obama’s twentieth argument – Christianity is divisive and so should not have a place in political decisions. According to our senator, faith is used as a tool to divide. This is another argument by Obama that Christian ethics should not have a place in political social policy.
He claims that a sermon becomes a harangue or diatribe (screed) when it addresses social ethics and political issues. Christians don’t like such sermons because this is ‘not how they think about faith in their own lives’. Obama claims he knows what sort of sermons Christians want. Since the views expressed in such sermons are divisive in the church the views they represent must equally be divisive in the public square. It is also true that his former pastor Jeremiah Wright is and was divisive, but that was because he was promoting a racist ‘black’ theology which has no warrant from the Word of God.
Conclusion
Obama gives a personal anecdote about an email letter he received from a Doctor who challenged his language about abortion issues on Obama’s website. Obama says he changed his language though kept his pro-choice position. This illustrates that Obama is both a pragmatist and a schemer. He will do all he can to persuade the electorate that he can be all things to all men. But he also illustrates that he is very confused about where truth is to be found.
Obama describes how after he had changed the language on his website, he said a prayer which he summarised in this way:And that night, before I went to bed I said a prayer of my own. It's a prayer I think I share with a lot of Americans. A hope that we can live with one another in a way that reconciles the beliefs of each with the good of all. It's a prayer worth praying, and a conversation worth having in this country in the months and years to come.
He apparently believes that beliefs which contradict the beliefs of others, including the beliefs of Christians and atheists, can be reconciled and that there is a common ‘good’ accessible by all religions or no religion at all. Obama is praying that God’s will not be done on earth as it is in heaven. Rather he wants the will of idolaters and atheists to prevail. For Obama has already told us that the moral principles which will prevail in any political situation he can influence will be the ‘morality’ of ‘common reality’- a reality where the majority are anti-Christians, idolaters and atheists.
Obama has risen to prominence as a young man who rejects the validity of much of biblical morality having any influence in wider society. That he has gained such popularity should teach us that the American electorate, as it is presently defined, is not fit to choose godly counsellors and that the American version of democracy is opposed to a biblical world and life view.
The world should expect compromisers and pragmatists like John McCain, Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton to dominate the political race taking place in the US this year. The US government has an historic obligation to establish biblical Christianity as it is summarised in the Westminster standards of Reformed Presbyterianism and in the covenant which is central to the establishment of a society truly faithful to the living God. God will not be mocked, and He laughs at the Obamas of this world who argue passionately, glibly and falsely that God’s wisdom is insufficient for any society:
Psalm 2:2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, 3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. 4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. 5 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. 6 Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.
Verse 6 affirms that King Jesus rules from heaven, and that ultimately His determinations will prevail. The responsibility of Christians in the US is to register their dissent and not vote in such a compromised and therefore evil context. In this way they will stand as faithful witnesses against the kind of political system which rewards and encourages the Barack Obamas of this world who are intent on denying God’s sovereign goodness and wisdom by replacing it with the folly of Satan.
It will be a cruel but hopefully salutary irony if a President Hussein of the US takes over from a President who devoted his time in office to defeating a President Hussein of Iraq – especially when the new President Hussein will hand victory back to the enemies of democracy in Iraq.
