Don't be bitter, Obama!
Posted on 04/16/2008 12:36:35 PM PDT by SJackson
Barack Obama, Man of Faith August 22, 2004 by Nicholas Stix
"I am a Christian.… So, I have a deep faith. I'm rooted in the Christian tradition. I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people.
"That there are values that transcend race or culture, that move us forward, and there's an obligation for all of us individually as well as collectively to take responsibility to make those values lived.”
Thus, U.S. Senate candidate for Illinois Barack Obama in a campaign contribution by Chicago Sun-Times columnist Cathleen Falsani.
Obama’s supporters include not only constituents and corporations giving him monetary contributions, but scores of alleged journalists who see their job as doing everything in their power to get him elected. As Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass observed, “A conservative Ditka candidacy would also have forced Barack Obama, the anointed one, to actually campaign for the Senate rather than wait for more air kisses from Hollywood liberals and the Eastern press, the Midwestern press, the Western press.”
Obama, an Illinois state senator representing the South Side of Chicago, is in fact a far-left politician who -- as I’ve previously shown -- seeks to force ever more socialist and racist laws and programs on the American people.
Meanwhile, Obama’s media devotees have launched such a successful crusade on his behalf, that in what took on the airs of a coronation, just before the late July Democratic National Convention in Boston, he was chosen by the Kerry campaign to be a keynote speaker. And he acquitted himself stupendously. Between the lines, one can read Obama’s media cadres going from touting the biracial (half-white, half-black) candidate as potentially “only the third African-American to take a seat in the Senate since Reconstruction” (the New York Times’ Bob Herbert), to seeing in him potentially the nation’s second “black” president. It is worth examining the spiritual world of this rising national player. After emphasizing the transcendence of Obama’s Christianity, Cathleen Falsani would appear to contradict herself, by claiming that “Obama's theological point of view was shaped by his uniquely multicultural upbringing.”
Since his mother was a secular humanist -- and between the lines, sounds like an atheist -- and his stepfather was a Moslem (the late Barack Obama Sr., a Moslem-raised but non-religious Kenyan economist, deserted his family when his son was only two years old), how would that shape the faith of someone who, according to Falsani, “is unapologetic in saying he has a ‘personal relationship with Jesus Christ’”?
I say, appears to contradict herself, since Falsani’s column makes a gruel of Christianity. But on one point, she is clear:
"Alongside my own deep personal faith, I am a follower, as well, of our civic religion," he says. "I am a big believer in the separation of church and state. I am a big believer in our constitutional structure. I mean, I'm a law professor at the University of Chicago teaching constitutional law. [Actually, Obama is not a law professor, but a “senior lecturer.” As Chicago Sun-Times columnist http://www.suntimes.com/output/sweet/cst-edt-sweet081.html>Lynn Sweet has pointed out, and I know from six-and-a-half years as a full-time, college adjunct lecturer, “In academia, there is a vast difference between the two titles.” As Sweet also notes, however, Obama’s misrepresentation of his academic position is the least of his credibility problems.]
"I am a great admirer of our founding charter and its resolve to prevent theocracies from forming and its resolve to prevent disruptive strains of fundamentalism from taking root in this country.
"I think there is an enormous danger on the part of public figures to rationalize or justify their actions by claiming God's mandate. I don't think it's healthy for public figures to wear religion on their sleeve as a means to insulate themselves from criticism, or dialogue with people who disagree with them."
Falsani quotes lefty activist, Roman Catholic Fr. Michael Pfleger, of St. Sabina Church on Chicago’s South Side, "I always have felt in [Obama] this consciousness that, at the end of the day, with all of us, you've got to face God. Faith is key to his life, no question about it. [It is] central to who he is, and not just in his work in the political field, but as a man, as a black man, as a husband, as a father.... I don't think he could easily divorce his faith from who he is." (Martin Luther King Jr. would appear to have been the greatest spiritual influence on Fr. Pfleger, who is obsessed with what he perceives to be white racism, but blind to the very real black variety. Logic is also not Fr. Pfleger’s strong suit, witness the following statement on whites and MLK: “Their anger came from the fact that he would not react to their anger and hatred.”)
So, Obama’s religious faith is and is not transcendent. Thank you, Cathleen Falsani.
Obama the Christian is a devout believer in unlimited abortion rights. He denies the existence of Hell. He came to Christianity through social organizing with activist religious. His devout Christianity derives from the secular humanist “values” his atheist mother imbued him with. He believes, with all his heart, in the separation of church and state – except when he campaigns in black churches, in violation of that separation, and in violation of the tax code. (According to U.S. tax law, any house of worship that permits politicians to campaign within its walls, loses its tax-exempt status. But then, as another Chicago politician, Cong. Jesse Jackson Jr., announced on the radio talk show Nashville This Morning in October, 2000, the separation of church and state and the tax code simply don’t apply to blacks.) Obama wears his religion on his sleeve in black churches, but in dealing with the mainstream media, attacks the same behavior, at least as far as white, conservative Christians are concerned. The only recognizably Christian position Obama takes is his opposition to same-sex marriage, due to the “religious connotations” of marriage. (“Religious connotations”? What about “civic religion”; the “separation of church and state”; the “enormous danger on the part of public figures to rationalize or justify their actions by claiming God's mandate”? Don’t ask.) This is surely due to the fact that blacks are the racial/ethnic group most adamantly opposed to same-sex marriage, and Obama does not want to rile the one voter bloc on which his candidacy is most dependent. However, I would expect his position on same-sex marriage to begin “evolving” around, say, … November 3. Once Obama is safely ensconced in the U.S. Senate, he knows that his black base will stick by him, for richer or for poorer, for better or for worse. Then he will doubtless begin the sort of “education” of the Christian black electorate in matters of same-sex marriage, which black leaders earlier conducted in the matter of abortion. Regarding Obama’s religiosity, which appeared out of nowhere during his social activist work, following his graduation from law school, a line from Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass comes to mind, when the latter explained why Mike Ditka was not prepared for political life. “Ditka doesn't need a political life. And he hasn't spent decades planning for the scrutiny.”
Obama’s closest religious advisers -- Fr. Pfleger, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, and Illinois State Sen. James Meeks, who moonlights as the pastor of Chicago's Salem Baptist Church – may have quotes from Scripture always handy, but are theologically closer to Karl Marx and black nationalism, than to Christianity. (Union Theological Seminary theologian James H. Cone, who is credited with having founded liberation theology, is a black nationalist who speaks the lingo of Marxian dialectic. And as white Marxists have over the past 40 years adopted the language of race war, socialism and black supremacy have increasingly come to resemble each other.
I call the common movement, which is more typically referred to as “multiculturalism,” racial socialism.) The transcendent-non-transcendent motto the Rev. Wright has given Trinity is, “Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian.”
According to State Sen./Rev. James Meeks’ humble, personal church Web page, “Meeks’ practical and charismatic style of instruction motivates the hearer to take action and has resulted in accomplishments of miraculous proportions.” When the good Senator/Reverend is not accomplishing miracles and other feats “never before documented in history,” he serves as the executive vice president of Jesse Jackson Sr.’s National Rainbow-Push Coalition. Why a man of God would want to be identified with Jackson’s personal den of iniquity is a question only the Rev. Meeks can answer.
Keep in mind the parallels between Obama, his black constituency, and the Democrat party. As black Chicagoans have suffered less and less under racism, they have become increasingly racist. Conversely, once the Democrat party gave up its role as a pillar of Jim Crow, it increasingly has come to trade in race hoaxes. And as leading black preacher-politicians (witness Jesse Jackson Sr.’s former opposition to abortion) and white Democrat pols alike have made “Christianity” indistinguishable from the program of the left wing of the Democrat party, so too have millions of black Christians “revised” their Bibles. And so, just as “rights” have become merely a euphemism for whatever black, “progressive,” or homosexual Democrats desire, so too has Christianity.
Apparently, the only thing that the “Christianity” of Barack Obama, Fr. Pfleger, the Rev. Wright and the Rev. Meeks forbids, is voting Republican.
Now that Obama has a Republican opponent in Alan Keyes, Obama’s media acolytes are working hard to discredit Keyes, a talk-show host who is a former ambassador, and presidential and senatorial candidate. Meanwhile, Obama, who when Jack Ryan was his opponent wanted six debates, has no desire to debate Keyes. Obama & Co. had better stick to their new script or Keyes, a brilliant man who knows the Constitution better than “Professor” Obama does, and whose own Christian faith comes not from Karl Marx or black nationalism (or possibly Unitarian Universalism), but from Christianity, might put some hard questions to Barack Obama.
Nicholas Stix
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New York-based freelancer Nicholas Stix has written for Toogood Reports, Middle American News, the New York Post, Daily News, American Enterprise, Insight, Chronicles, Newsday and many other publications. His recent work is collected at www.geocities.com/nstix and http://www.thecriticalcritic.blogspot.com.
“Many ways to get to the same place”. Marxism?
So is it okay to ‘cling to your religion’ or isn’t it? I’m so confused!
“I also believe in killing babies in their mothers’ wombs...I think lots and lots of government is great!...and I’ll bet I can get to Heaven without going through Christ.”
-Barry Obama, World Class Christian
“I am a Christian.… So, I have a deep faith. I’m rooted in the Christian tradition. “
Would he consider himself, “clinging” to religion, then? He prays to Jesus everyday, attends church whenever he can, afterall!
“I am a Christian.… So, I have a deep faith. I’m rooted in the Christian tradition. I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people.”
Many paths? Apparently his brand of Christianity and Bible are lacking John 14:6 (NIV)
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
- "many paths"?? That's not what I learned about Christianity, Barry.
Hope and Change
You are too kind. Barry also believes in killing babies outside the mother’s womb, and has voted for such.
Since he is rooted in Rev. Wright’s church, he really isn’t rooted in a Christian tradition at all. He is rooted in a “blacks are the victims, oppressed by whitey,” Anti-American, racist tradition.
I only wish a journalist was familiar enough with Scripture to ask him where the verse is that says you don't have to have Jesus for salvation. He said he found homosexuality was OK with God in the Sermon on the Mount. I looked but couldn't find it. It must be in the Afro-centric Bible. The King James doesn't have it.
“I am a Christian...I believe that there are many paths to the same place”
These statements are mutually exclusive. You absolutely cannot be a Christian and believe there are “many paths.” There is one path, and Jesus himself said so.
One does not have to judge Obama to confidently say that he is not a Christian. He does not know Christ. His own statement tells us so.
I pray that one day he will be saved, and that, in the meantime, he will not continue to be such a deceiver.
Note the article above.The only recognizably Christian position Obama takes is his opposition to same-sex marriage, due to the “religious connotations” of marriage...This is surely due to the fact that blacks are the racial/ethnic group most adamantly opposed to same-sex marriage, and Obama does not want to rile the one voter bloc on which his candidacy is most dependent.
Of course that was four years ago. He walks the path of political opportunism.
Well his pastor may be a former muslim...
"I am a Christian.… So, I have a deep faith. I'm rooted in the Christian tradition. I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people.
it's not clear that he's referring to a Christian path througy Jesus, rather multiple "paths" to the same destination, presumably salvation though I believe elsewhere he's equated heaven with kissing his daughters good night. That would be consistant with a multicultural viewpoint.
isn’t this magazine owned by Jan Wenner (the tool who owns Rolling Stone and put Gore on the cover with an enhanced ‘package’?)
Don't be bitter, Obama!
There are many paths even within Christianity. Roman Catholicism has a different interpretation than Greek Orthodox than Lutheranism than Southern Baptist than Methodist than Presbyterian than Ecumenical than Restorationist than etc. etc. etc.
There are so many facets and fragments and sub-fragments, so many interpretations, so many different perceptions of the “Truth,” that there end up being many, many different paths taken. And each and every individual takes his or her own unique path to spirituality, too. No one individual’s interpretation is exactly like another’s.
Sure, all of these center on Jesus Christ. But the interpretations of Scripture can be very different. Even within the church that I grew up with, Lutheran, there is the Missouri Synod, the ECLU, and the LWF churches which are at odds with the CLC churches. The LWF and CLC consider each others’ practices to be “fake Christianity.”
So, many paths. Many mansions.
I am not saying all of this in support of Obama in any way, but just as a factual statement.
Hmm, while I’m rambling on here, let me ask an off-the-wall question: How many of you believe that there is life (with souls) on other planets in the Universe?
Don’t know. The article was actually a response to a puff piece in the Sun-Times of the same title. I doubt it was published there first.
“There are many paths even within Christianity. Roman Catholicism has a different interpretation than Greek Orthodox than Lutheranism than Southern Baptist than Methodist than Presbyterian than Ecumenical than Restorationist than etc. etc. etc.”
Except Jesus’ words are not vague.
“13 Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”
Lots and lots of people, including Obama, are on the road to the wide gate.
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