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Messiah complex: Obama and the danger of a divinized ruler
WORLD ^ | August 23, 2008 | Gene Edward Veith

Posted on 08/15/2008 7:17:46 AM PDT by rhema

Critics accuse Barack Obama of presenting himself as some kind of Messiah (see "Hurry Up and Wait," WORLD, March 22/29, 2008). His speech upon clinching the Democratic nomination claimed for the event a cosmic significance that future generations would look back upon: "This was the moment," he said, "when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." His campaign slogans exhort us to "Believe." One of his posters gives biblical concepts a new object: "Faith. Hope. Change. Barack Obama for President."

But Obama's messianic image is more than just over-the-top political rhetoric. Many Americans are actually giving him religious veneration. Some are even hailing him as savior.

Conservative Catholic blogger Christopher Blosser started an entire website, Is Barack Obama the Messiah? (obamamessiah.blogspot.com), to track the spiritual devotion to the presidential nominee. The site shows how media photographs portrays the candidate bathed in heavenly light or adorned with halos. More telling are the testimonies of Obama's disciples.

Says U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill., the son of the civil-rights activist, of Obama's pending nomination: "The event itself is so extraordinary that another chapter could be added to the Bible to chronicle its significance." Movie director Spike Lee goes further. After the presidential election, "You'll have to measure time by 'Before Obama' and 'After Obama.'" Lee added, "Everything's going to be affected by this seismic change in the universe."

"A black man with a white mother became a savior to us," proclaimed Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam. He "could turn out to be one who can lift America from her fall."

Established journalists have embraced the new religion. "Barack Obama isn't really one of us," reports Mark Mortford of the San Francisco Chronicle. He is, in fact, "a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve."

At Obama rallies, such is the religious fervor that people often pass out, like being slain in the spirit at a Pentecostal revival.

Democrats have been warning against the danger of mixing religion and politics. They fear the influence of conservative Christians on a secular state. But influence and mixing is far less of a danger to a free republic than the union of religion and politics in the form of a divinized ruler. Human beings have a tendency to revert to that kind of ruler, as we see in the god-kings of ancient Egypt, the divine emperors of Rome, the divine-right absolute monarchies of early modern Europe, and the cult of the Leader in today's totalitarian states.

The real Messiah, though, was despised, rejected, and crucified. He gives salvation from sin, death, and the devil and opens the way to the kingdom of heaven. And He allows for no other Messiahs.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2008; blueturban; issues; obama; obamamessiah
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1 posted on 08/15/2008 7:17:46 AM PDT by rhema
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To: rhema

Mark


2 posted on 08/15/2008 7:20:05 AM PDT by listenhillary (Obama - The Wizard of Uhs)
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To: rhema
Nonesense as the most simple of the sheeple are against Osama and for McCain...
3 posted on 08/15/2008 7:20:41 AM PDT by kcm.org (Conservatives bashing Sen. McCain has Ronald Reagan spinning in his grave!!!)
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To: rhema

“And He allows for no other Messiahs.”

Hillary! doesn’t like that part...


4 posted on 08/15/2008 7:20:51 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin (Save The Earth. It's The Only Planet With Chocolate.)
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To: rhema

5 posted on 08/15/2008 7:21:31 AM PDT by Red Badger (All that carbon in all that oil and coal was once in the atmosphere. We're just putting it back.....)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin


The Big O At his best!
6 posted on 08/15/2008 7:22:08 AM PDT by Sundog (Hussein . . . B. Hussein or S. Hussein?)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

7 posted on 08/15/2008 7:22:59 AM PDT by Red Badger (All that carbon in all that oil and coal was once in the atmosphere. We're just putting it back.....)
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To: rhema

A media created nobody..


8 posted on 08/15/2008 7:25:51 AM PDT by vietvet67
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To: rhema

1.) COLB
Proven fake by more than one source
2.) Sketchy childhood
We know some details - Lots of gaps
3.) College thesis has vanished
Was it anything like Michele’s?
4.) Overseas travel
Pakistan? Why?
5.) Law records
What cases did he represent?
6.) Senate records disappeared
What was he trying to hide?
7.) Associations
Rev Wright, Ayers, Michele etc.
8.) Senate voting record
That speaks for itself
9.) SCOTUS
10) I’m clinging to my guns and religion

Ten reasons not to vote for Obama
A vote for McCain is a vote against Obama


9 posted on 08/15/2008 7:27:18 AM PDT by mouse1 (I'VE BEEN CALLED A REDNECK BIGOT AND I'M PROUD OF IT!!)
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To: bcsco; Charles Henrickson

Dr. Veith ping!


10 posted on 08/15/2008 7:27:45 AM PDT by Cletus.D.Yokel
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To: rhema

“My job is to be so persuasive that if there’s anybody left out there who is still not sure whether they will vote, or is still not clear who they will vote for, that a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany ... and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Obama”

Lebanon Opera House, New Hampshire. January 7, 2008.


11 posted on 08/15/2008 7:28:05 AM PDT by IrishMike (Obama stands for change. He wants to change the subject.)
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To: rhema
Maybe he's the Antichrist?
12 posted on 08/15/2008 7:31:07 AM PDT by aggie21
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To: rhema

Those who proclaim to be the Messiah is really the Devil.


13 posted on 08/15/2008 7:34:10 AM PDT by Piquaboy (22 year veteran of the Army, Air Force and Navy, Pray for all our military .)
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To: rhema

Mohammad Obama is the foreign king, not of our fathers, and his media disciples are too dug in on hands and knees to notice. Welcome to the wonderful world of PC. As a tyrant, this inexperienced, brainwashed kook is going to make history in ways we haven’t imagined in our worst nightmares.


14 posted on 08/15/2008 7:39:42 AM PDT by pallis
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To: pallis

If the American people elect this snake they deserve the disease that follows.


15 posted on 08/15/2008 7:43:30 AM PDT by B4Ranch ("Don't pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you"--John Steinbeck)
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To: Piquaboy

Throughout history, many have pointed out that man needs something to believe in. Historically that has meant a major religion in a culture. The Lenin-Stalin-Putin tried to shift that belief to the state and the party that ran the state.

Here in post-Western Europe and America there is a vacuum. The mainstream culture no longer contains a clear concept of Christianity, Judaism or any historical religion. Only isolated remnants of the historical religions remain. For example, Obama’s UCC, and the United Methodists and mainstream Presbyterians, and most Catholic religous have abandoned all but lip service to the historical religion.

Enter Obama and CHANGE to fill the vacuum. Change you can believe in ... because you are devoid of any other belief system and seeking something, anything to grasp on to.


16 posted on 08/15/2008 7:45:20 AM PDT by spintreebob (.)
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To: kcm.org
Nonesense as the most simple of the sheeple are against Osama and for McCain...

Absolutely!

The most simple minded of people are for McCain!

Funny how his supporters fail to remember how he helped defeat the GOP majority...so if McCain was (and is) against Conservatives, then are those who support him are as well?

The GOP suffers from battered constituency syndrome!

17 posted on 08/15/2008 7:53:28 AM PDT by Eagle Eye (I'm a RINO cuz I'm too conservative to be a Republican. McCain is the Conservatives true litmus test)
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To: rhema

“First you get disciples, and then they crucify you.”

— anonymous


18 posted on 08/15/2008 7:56:42 AM PDT by yefragetuwrabrumuy
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To: rhema

Obama is not a messiah, that is a Judeo-Christian thing. In keeping with his religious tradition, he’s more of a prophet (false, of course).


19 posted on 08/15/2008 8:04:42 AM PDT by Defiant (The Dem's creed: There is no god named Allah, and Obama is his messenger.)
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To: rhema
"A black man with a white mother became a savior to us," proclaimed Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam. He "could turn out to be one who can lift America from her fall."

Someone has been incorporating Star Wars fiction into their world view.

20 posted on 08/15/2008 8:07:05 AM PDT by Defiant (The Dem's creed: There is no god named Allah, and Obama is his messenger.)
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