Photo by David Katz/Obama forIllinois)
(David Katz/Obama forIllinois)
Posted on 07/27/2004 8:26:00 AM PDT by mrustow
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| 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) |
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| Barack Obama speaks to a crowd at Liberty Baptist Church.
(David Katz/Obama forIllinois) |
"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.
I'm pretty sure that his tonic is much stronger than that.
As far as socialist journalists are concerned, you can't be a person of faith unless you DO advocate for abortion.
I believe Jesus disagrees.
I believe cyborg suggested unitarian universalism may be in his background.
Sure sounds like it to me.
I would believe so. That's a central tenant...almost word for word from their faith.
Yes, I have heard that he is interested in helping the least among us--helping the very least among us to die before entering this world.
We shall be known by our acts, not by what we say. Mr. Obama actually looks and sounds very appealing, and I have no doubt that he will be a Senator from Ill. He may outliberal John Kerry and Ted Kennedy while sounding like Mother Teresa.
vaudine
There is no way that the author of this sentence is a Christian. Jesus clearly stated that there is only one way to heaven.
Thank you for the ping! This guy is a good writer.
I thought Obama was a Muslim.
Personally, I recommend that Mr. Obama study the theology of Blood, Sweat and Tears. If you want to deny half of Eternity, there position makes more sense than Obama's. The line goes" I know there ain't no Heaven, and I pray there ain't no Hell."
Guy just Freepmailed me as Norrin, so he'll probably be back posting shortly.
Thanoz,
Here's your saviour, LOL.
Sounds like he's some weird kind of "gangsta Christian" or something. The clown talks about "separation of Church and State" as if it is mentioned somewhere in the Constitution. (He ought to read the US Constitution sometime, unless that is too much to ask of an affirmative-action "professor".)
No doubt, like many lazy go-alongs before him, he thinks that the part about "Congress shall make no law" means that kids who wear crosses around their necks should be thrown out of school, and monuments with the Ten Commandments inscribed on them must never be seen on public property.
The guy's a scumbag.
Regards,
LH
PS. Welcome to Free Republic.
So Thanos/Thanoz/Norrin is a Silver Surfer fan, eh?
Don't be surprised if he comes back as Galactus....
Disruptive strains of fundamentalism = white fundamentalism. It's okay for the COGIC and CME churches to be deep bottom holy rollers.
If these hypocritical wumpus cats really believed in the "separation of church and state" they'd campaign to decriminalize murder. I mean, that's a sectarian religious taboo, right? Got its start in the Seven Noachide Laws and the Ten Commandments. What use are liberals who uprooting public displays of the Ten Commandments when they don't oppose laws that force them on the rest of us (eg murder, theft)?
Just wait till the murderers' rights movement gets started. I suppose they'll call themselves "carefree" or some other such name though.
" Since his mother was a secular humanist (and between the lines, sounds like an atheist) "
boo! hiss! How sad for Illinois, their only choices are/were Obama or the fetish sex club kitty Jack Ryan. Dismal day in the history of Illinois, dismal days. (sob)
heh...hehehehehe
The thing here is that Obama is either a "Man of Faith" or a "Democrat". You can't be both.
A theological legalistic response to his claim is simply not needed, do hit the off button and crank that antenna back into it's holder in the trunk.
Since he's toying with all of us in his illegitimate effort to justify worshiping God and voting Left, I'd say he's on a one way trip to Outer Darkness and is probably beyond our ministrations to the contrary anyway.
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