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.

[cyborg]

Nope nothing to discuss! Have a nice day :)

[O.C. - Old Cracker]

Well, our current president overturned the previous president's passage of a bill that allowed doctors (read 'healers') to perform a near complete delivery of a full term baby, insert scissors at the base of its skull, turn and open said scissors, and then introduce a vacuum tube in order to evacuate the brain tissue.

Clinton approved of this procedure, aka 'Partial Birth Abortion', which is nothing less than murder. Democrats support this man's policies to this day. Ergo, Democrats condone murder.

President George W. Bush outlawed this Satanic practice and has, before and since, proclaimed Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. Ergo, President George W. Bush is practising what he preaches. He embraces life and this is consistent with the teaching of Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God.

Democrats, on the other hand, embrace death. A worldview best represented in the nihilistic philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche.

[marshmallow]

Try not to paint with too broad a brush.

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.

[O.C. - Old Cracker]

No, this is still quite dishonest and you know it. Others on this thread have received these emails from you. You need to grow up and stop playing childish games. There are adults at work here. Go away please.

[O.C. - Old Cracker]

Really? Jesus didn't espouse helping those least able to help themselves? Has my church been lying to me all these years?

He just unwittingly hit the nail on the head. It is exactly what President George W. Bush has been advocating all along. It is the job of churches, civic and charitable institutions to shoulder the task of helping the homeless, widows and orphans among us.

[billhilly]

There you have it. It has been obvious for years that the left wing, which makes up about 65 % of the Democratic party, worships "civic religion" otherwise known as the democratic party. Is there any need to look for a further explanation of Christian bashing? Christians are a danger to civic religion because they sometimes question it and hold it to account, as our CHRISTIAN FOUNDERS instructed us to in their writings.

[O.C. - Old Cracker]

As for me, this discussion is at an end. You talk too fast and don't think first. Reread your posts, then sit and think about the wisdom we have shared with you.

[marshmallow]

I am merely pointing out where Mr. Obama's philosophy of government responsibility comes from.

"Government responsibility" for what?