Barack Obama, Man of Faith

Illinois Leader ^ | 27 July 2004 | Nicholas Stix

[mrustow]

Barack Obama with Illinois Senate President Emil Jones and other leaders at a 1,500 person rally for the Senator at Liberty Baptist Church on Chicago's South Side on Tuesday, March 9th.

Photo by David Katz/Obama forIllinois)

Barack Obama speaks to a crowd at Liberty Baptist Church.

(David Katz/Obama forIllinois)

OPINION -- "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 Barack Obama in a campaign contribution by Chicago Sun-Times columnist Cathleen Falsani. (Obama’s supporters include not only constituents giving him monetary contributions, but alleged journalists who see their job as doing everything in their power to get him elected.)

In the next breath, 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, 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 an “all-things-to-all men” 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.

"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 reportedly campaigns in black churches, in violation of that separation, and 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 a radio show 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, criticizes such behavior. Regarding Obama’s religiosity, which appeared out nowhere following his graduation from law school during his social organizing work, a line from Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass comes to mind, when he 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 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 founding liberation theology, is a black nationalist who speaks the lingo of Marxian dialectic. And as white Marxists have over the past 30 years adopted the language of race war, socialism and black supremacy have 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,” and 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.

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[Nicholas Stix has written for the New York Post, Daily News, Insight on the News, Weekly Standard and American Enterprise. His weekly column appears at www.therant.us and other fine Web sites.]

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What are your thoughts concerning the issues raised in this commentary? Write a letter to the editor at letters@illinoisleader.com, and include your name and town.

[amordei]

Given that you have been privately e-mailing people so that you won't be banned, I think that speaks for itself.

As for your points, I too believe that we are required to help the least among us. BUT I don't believe that the government has any significant role in doing so-for a number of reasons, which include inefficiency, one-size-fits-all programs which do not meet the individual's need and the fact that many social problems are not materialistic in nature, but rather spiritual (which the SCt has barred the government from addressing). Moreover, government's solutions tend to exacerbate the problem, rather than ameliorating it.

Your point that government does what we as individuals cannot do is well-taken. However, we CAN help these people without government and did so for many years before the Great Society (read the Tragedy of American Compassion by Olasky).

So, please take your stereotypes of those on this forum elsewhere. We're not interested.

[cyborg]

Well if he/she picks names by odd numbers I predict thagos will be the next freep name.

[marshmallow]

Well that's just libertarian tripe. You'll build roads, huh? And public schools? And you'll build a sewage system on your own, right? And if someone breaks into your house and sets it on fire, you don't need to have the police and fire dept come by, becuase you know best, right?

And that's what I call a nice straw man.

Read what I wrote in post #65.

Here it is again:

The government does have an important role. Keep the peace. Uphold the law. Defend the country. Wealth re-distribution is not one of its functions. That's communism. It's not the job of people in cubicle land to decide who has too much money.

Try not to move the goalposts, OK?

This discussion started around the subject of Christian duty, charity and the government's role therein. In other words, whether it is an individual or state repsonsibility to provide for the needy. Now it's all about crime, sewage systems and roads??

Keep on topic.

[mrustow]

Obama Osama Zing!

[mrustow]

Obama Osama Zing!

[cyborg]

Obama believes in abortion on demand. Correct?

[mrustow]

Obama Osama Zing!

[pyoursu]

ABORTION IS EVIL

IF YOU ABIDE ABORTION

YOU ARE EVIL

[amordei]

But no response to my points? That would be too hard, huh troll?

[amordei]

The gov't shouldn't forget about you just because you're poor.

---

But the government shouldn't keep you poor as many left wing programs end up doing.

Thye government should provide you with a safe neighborhood and not overtax and overregulate those that can provide you jobs.

But Obama needs these people to stay on the plantation. We know the drill. Again, troll. DU or dailyKos is probably missing you.

Convincing people that Obama is the man isn't going to work over here.

[marshmallow]

Providing the basic necessities for ALL our citizens is a big portion of what Obama believes in.

It's a big portion of what I believe in, too. However, I believe that it's a part of my personal responsibility as a Christian. Furthermore, I believe that I can best identify who needs the assistance, rather than some bureaucrat. Maybe you disagree.

The gov't shouldn't forget about you just because you're poor.

Right. It should forcibly take money from someone who's worked hard for it and give it to you. Again, wealth re-distribution. Socialism, communism.

[mrustow]

For someone that talks big about wanting to debate something in the open, you do a remarkably poor job of it.

I've been here responding to several people on this thread, and you've been nowhere on your own posting.

Considering that you took over one month (in your recent incarnations, anyway) to go from sending nasty FReepmails to actually posting to threads, don't you think it's a bit presumptuous for you to criticize me for not more actively participating on this thread? Besides, you've done such a marvelous job of stirring the pot, that there hasn't been a crying need for heavy-handed activity on my part. And I would think that after 4+ years and 20,000+ posts, that I shouldn't have to always be pounding away at my keyboard. I need time off to fight with my wife, just like the next man.

[amordei]

Testy because you are abusing this forum with freepmail and returning after you have been banned.

If you had a shred of dignity, you would abide by the rules here. But, ...

Look at the state of the black family before the 60s and after. AFDC and other govt. programs were largely responsible for the dramatic increase in fatherlessness. In fact, since 1996, there are encouraging signs that the family unit is having a resurgence in the black community (I mean the less affluent--the black middle class is strong and fine, thank you).

As for people's living conditions, I don't think that the Great Society is responsible for the incredible advances in medicine and nutrition in the past century.

[cyborg]

awwwwwww thanos went away