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.
Obamas 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 Ive previously shown -- seeks to force ever more socialist and racist laws and programs on the American people.
Meanwhile, Obamas 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 Obamas 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 nations second black president. It is worth examining the spiritual world of this rising national player. After emphasizing the transcendence of Obamas 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 Falsanis 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, Obamas 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 Chicagos 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. Pflegers 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, Obamas 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 dont 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? Dont 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 Obamas 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.
Obamas 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 Jacksons 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, Obamas 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.
“How many of you believe that there is life (with souls) on other planets in the Universe?”
I can’t say that I have given it a lot of thought.
I would be willing to bet that my interpretation of that verse is different than yours.
I don’t doubt it.
My point is only that Jesus was pretty explicit in telling how to be saved. Further, Paul admonished those who added their own requirements to “get to Heaven” in Galatians.
Today, lots of people try to make the Bible and Christ fit their own desires and lifestyles. Often, it requires tearing out a lot of pages of scripture. (I am not saying you are doing this)
Barack Hussein Obama
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.
I believe the John quote absolutely and completely, but the mainline denominations, and most especially the Episcopalian leadership say the same. Obama is quoting them Remember the “God cannot be contained in a little box” quote of the leader on one?? She then went on to say what is quoted above.
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“Today, lots of people try to make the Bible and Christ fit their own desires and lifestyles. Often, it requires tearing out a lot of pages of scripture. (I am not saying you are doing this)”
I’ll certainly agree with that.
But I think that even without tearing out any pages, people interpret those pages radically differently from other people. And each thinks that their interpretation is the “Truth.” So you end up with tons of denominations and “factions” if you will.
Don’t ponder it too much or you may miss the bus. Jesus isn’t just a scenario. He was real. He existed. He is deep enough for the most intelligent to drown in and shallow enough for a tiny child to wade in. He is love personified. Love never fails.
If Hussein Osam....Obama believes in Universalism, then he absolutely is NOT a Christian!
Oh dear...Re-reading my post, I don’t think I communicated that part of it very well.
YES — He was real, He existed.
I am saying that the whole Jesus STORY is a scenario — a wonderful scenario — NOT that Jesus himself is just a symbol or scenario and is not real.
Interesting. I have lots of close friends who went to Christian colleges and like to debate finer points of theology. I won’t say that I don’t think about some of them sometimes, but I have decided that if something theological is not central to my faith, i.e. pertaining to salvation, I am not going to spend much time talking or thinking about it. I feel like that takes away from my time and ability to lead others to Christ.
As for the various interpretations and denominations: I think lots of people don’t actually read the Word, but take what their denominations say as the gospel. If they want to worship and practice a certain way, that’s fine by me. If they want to bastardize the Word of God, that isn’t. Luckily, I will never have to stand before the Throne of God and answer for those people.
I think the core, salvation, is pretty black and white. Beyond that, I think so much is about personal preference.
I always tell people to ask themselves:
a. Is what my church teaches Biblical?
b. If what we are teaching/doing is not out of the Bible, why do we do it?
c. If we are doing things according to the Bible, am I comfortable with the way we worship?
Jesus never intended everyone to worship Him in one particular way, but I do believe that He intended everyone to come to Him in the same way.
There are churches of many stripes that preach salvation, and there are many churches of those same stripes that do not. It depends on who is in charge.
Which probably means the "place" he believes "there are many paths to" ain't Heaven. obaMA is sounding more and more like an anti-Christ every day.
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