Obama, Glass Houses and Rocks
The “pot and the kettle” cliché might have been just as applicable apropos statements made by presidential candidate Barack Obama at the United Church of Christ in Hartford, Connecticut on June 23, 2007 on the subject of faith and politics.
History: February 20, 2007 – My column, “Obamination” (which covered Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ [tucc.org] and the unbiblical teachings of its pastor, Dr. Jeremiah Wright) is published. The resulting media coverage (Fox, CNN, The New York Times, The Chicago Sun-Times, and many more) results in Obama distancing himself from Wright and a vitriolic response from the church against me personally and “people like” me (whatever that means) that continues to this day.
To be perfectly honest, I have no idea how sincere Obama is about his faith, despite stating in the exposé and later on Fox News’ “Hannity and Colmes” that I questioned his Christianity, a fact which hasn’t changed.
Given the unwanted national media attention that my column generated, that his decision to publicly take the faith issue head-on is puzzling to me would be a mammoth understatement. Attacking an adversary (or an issue) is best done from a position of strength, one which this candidate certainly does not occupy. In fact, in this area Obama possesses such a prominently gleaming, soft underbelly that it practically begs to be speared.
“Faith got hijacked, partly because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, all too eager to exploit what divides us…”
- Barack Obama, June 23, 2007
Here’s where we get into the pot calling the kettle black (no pun intended…Really). Which is the political party whose members, both white and black, insinuated themselves into the black community (which was extremely socially conservative and largely concentrated in the South at the time of the ‘Sixties Civil Rights Movement) and subverted its church leaders, thus diluting the message its members heard and leading to the lion’s share of problems blacks face today? Which political party has exploited and divided us through the creation of the civil rights activism industry and the racial tension it so energetically perpetuates (A hint: Barack Obama belongs to this party.)?
“There was even a time when the Christian Coalition determined that its number one legislative priority was tax cuts for the rich… I don’t know what Bible they’re reading, but it doesn’t jibe with my version.”
- Barack Obama, June 23, 2007
A blatant lie followed by a big, fat target of a platitude. One of the issues I addressed in “Obamination” was that Obama’s pastor at Trinity United (Dr. Wright) preaches Black Liberation Theology, a doctrine which is manifestly and undeniably unsound scripturally and socially divisive – period. Wright himself is a black militant; though he’d never admit it, his decidedly unpleasant, caustic demeanor when discussing the issue of his teachings, and snarling phrases such as “The United States of white America” speak for themselves.
“In 1972, the church [Trinity United at large] was the first to ordain an openly gay man. Two years ago, the church endorsed same-sex marriage, the largest Christian denomination to do so. Obama believes that states should decide whether to allow gay marriage, and he opposes a constitutional amendment against it.”
- From “Obama: Some in Christian Right Have ‘Hijacked’ Faith”, Saturday, June 23, 2007, the Associated Press.
By the Associated Press – characteristically no friend to conservatives or Republicans, religious or otherwise. If you happen to be a Christian, liberal or conservative: How does your version of the Bible “jibe” with that?
As many have noted, this candidate is being handled by some very savvy individuals, who I am certain were largely responsible for his distancing himself from his pastor, if not his church. So why let him audaciously court the crosshairs? The initial uproar created by “Obamination” (which, all humility aside, was significant) had pretty much died. I’m reminded of a horrific scene in the film “The Deer Hunter” in which Robert De Niro’s Vietnam vet character was forced to watch his heroin-addicted best friend (Christopher Walken’s character) play Russian Roulette in the filthy inner sanctum of a Vietnamese gambling house. The outcome was, shall we say, not good.
It is true that no party or person can legitimately claim to be the sole arbiter of what constitutes true faith (or has a “lock on faith”, in the emerging colloquial). To presume that the brands of Christianity espoused by the Religious Right (again, whatever that is) are “the only true Christianity” is moronic.
Let us never forget that Obama is a Democrat, a party whose leadership and a significant number of its members are secular socialists in word and deed if not in name, and who have been waging a war on Christianity for years – despite some even claiming to be Christians (the Clintons, for example). Barack Obama is now apparently attempting to sell the most watered-down, “politically-convenient” variants of Christianity to a wider market, a faith poisoned by the party that advocates or tolerates unrestricted abortion, the stultification of parental rights, the abandonment of personal accountability, recreational drug use, sexual promiscuity, gender ambivalence, and a host of other morally, socially and economically damaging devices.
Their wealthy, elitist leaders sell themselves as the only party that cares for people, the poor in particular, yet the cyclopean system of entitlements they’ve instituted has done more to harm the poor than their poverty itself – and all the while pointing to “the rich” (who have more materially, thus fomenting resentment, class envy and learned hopelessness) and Republicans (“the party of the rich and tax cuts for the rich”) as the name of their pain.
And Obama has thrown in with them in a big way.
“…separation of church and state is not the enemy of religious freedom but its friend, as so many Founders knew from family experience.”
- Barack Obama, “Discussing God and government, in good faith”, from his official website, Sunday, July 9, 2006
While we’re at it, let’s review that “church and state” point…
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
- Constitution of the United States of America, First Amendment
And that is all (an almost irresistible urge to utilize capitals suppressed here) the First Amendment says about “the separation of church and state”. Yet members of Obama’s party have been at the vanguard of perverting and misinterpreting this Amendment to attack religion and justify a wide range of irresponsible speech in all sectors of American society. Specious public battles (followed up with lawsuits filed by the ever-ready American Civil Liberties Union, of course) regarding “free speech” being “violated” in areas in which the First Amendment doesn’t even apply (because Congress made no law respecting the issue at hand) have become commonplace, with “Progressive” judges prepared to rule in favor of these subversives altogether too often. Even the Supreme Court has become either too over-educated, ideological, or confused to rule clearly on some of these cases. Just how much can one read into – or out of – one sixteen-word phrase?
Again, the Democrat-inaugurated ruin of our educational system (which helped lead to the death of critical thinking) is responsible for the fact that so few Americans even know what the First Amendment says, never mind what it addresses.
The question of whether Obama is sincere about his faith is more of an issue than was President Bush’s evangelical Christianity because we may actually have a stealth black militant running for the highest office in the land. The more important question by far is whether Obama is sincere about serving the American people, just one segment of them, or if he is simply another opportunistic, self-serving, power-grabbing socialist who happens to be black.
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Stumble It!
Erik,
Your essay would have been more persuasive if you had not given in to the nasty “s-word” in your conclusion.
It’s too easy, and frankly, a cop out, to accuse anyone of being a “socialist.”
(Less than 1% of democratically inclined Americans can define that term…)
Believe me, I know this from experience.
Better to end your essay with a provocative question that recapitulates and reframes your primary argument.
Sorry — I used to teach English language…..
And how to break down and reassemble AK-47’s blindfolded.
Same daily class lesson actually!
as unpopular as it may seem here…I will vote for obama, and am participateing in his campaign….
As a man trying to survive in this world one must choose his battles!!!
Borack Obama is the only presidential candidate calling for a full investigation into the duke false rape lynchings…
If Nifong tried to railroad boys into a false rape charge this time..chances are he’s done this before…I want a full investigation into his past prosecutions, and Obama has called for it…
What about his general attitude that men are “lacking” and women are a higher state of being compared to men. I suspect he does agree somewhat with his minister about whites and he agrees even more with feminist about men. We don’t need either Obama or Clinton tearing down what remains of masculine values as president.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
When the Founders wrote the above statement their intention was to prevent the tyrannical control the Leaders of the Roman Catholic Church held over Europe and the murders they committed against any and all who refused to accept their version of Christianity during their reign of terror and religious intolerance…
Today the goal of Religious Right is to turn the US into a ?Theocracy and impose the very same religious intolerance and persecution witnessed during the reign of the Roman Catholic church over Europe…This is why they hate the above statement with a passion and claim that it wasn’t intended to be a wall that seperates both the Church and the State…It was and has worked very well…
The Bible talks about those who claim to be Christians yet deny the power thereof…
So too are those who rely strickly upon the a word for word reading of the Constitution (the letter of the law) while denying both the Founding Fathers intentions and the Spirit of the Law…They show themselves to be false patriots and are just like a lawyer who argues out of both sides of his mouth depending on who his client is and how much he is being paid…
The Declaration of Independence, Constitution and the Bill of Rights as well as the writtings left behind by the founding fathers give clear and timeless principles that were intended to guide and govern the US of A…However it is those who are both power mad and power hungry on both the right and the left who are working day and night to do away with both the Constitution and the bill of rights in order to impose their own way of thinking, lifestyle and laws upon the rest of us…