Blue Collar Muse

Senator Barack Obama’s recent comments at the convention for the United Church of Christ are, in keeping with the religious theme, revelatory. According to the story at Breitbart.com, Senator Obama said:

Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and started being used to drive us apart. It got hijacked.

and

Part of it’s because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, who’ve been all too eager to exploit what divides us. At every opportunity, they’ve told evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage, school prayer and intelligent design.

What these comments reveal is a candidate who does not respect religion in general or Christianity in particular and, more disturbingly for the topic under discussion, a candidate who chooses destruction over construction. Once again, as he did with fatherhood at Father’s Day, the Illinois Senator takes an important concept and twists it to fashion a platform from which to expound his own agenda. He hopes linking his agenda with respectable icons will transfer stature and acceptance to him. Fortunately, it doesn’t work.

In the first place, he misunderstands the nature of faith. While faith can be used as a tool to either unite or divide, such use is, in fact a misuse of faith. A man does not possess faith like he has money in his pocket and which he doles out to accomplish his purposes. Rather, faith exists in the heart, and a man places his faith in someone or something else. In the case of Christians it is placed in the God of the Bible. When Christians say they believe in God, they are not seeking to drive a wedge between themselves and those who do not. That such belief places them in a group different from those who deny God’s existence is not a division, it is a definition. Nothing in Christianity requires or even encourages shunning those who disagree with Christian faith. In fact, Christianity’s message is the exact opposite of that. Obama clearly doesn’t respect faith and religion enough to deal with them honestly.

Obama is right, however, about faith being hijacked. Unfortunately, he’s misidentified the hijacker. Obama wants to make Christians the culprits. Basic understanding of Christianity will not permit that conclusion. For something to be hijacked, it must first be going somewhere. Then the hijacker reveals himself and forces a change in direction to suit his purpose with no concern for the original destination. For milennia, Judaism and Christianity have taught that God is the Creator; that He created man both male and female and that that was good; that prayer to Him is a pursuit of the wise and that taking up the cause of those unable to defend themselves is among the most noble and most important things a man can do. That Obama, the Left and religious organizations like the United Church of Christ disagree with some or all of those propositions reveals them as the hijackers. Their break is with Christ and with Christianity itself, not the Christian Right. Of course, they cannot bluntly say so. The political and societal costs would be too great, even in 2007. But their goal is to so alter the understanding of Christian faith and Christian history that one day they can. Obama and the ‘Christian’ Left clearly have little to do with the teachings of Christ.

Finally, this entire conversation by Obama promotes destruction. I find it fascinating, but not surprising, that his four examples are creationism, marriage, abortion and prayer. Put another way these things represent the origin of all life, the human institution divinely ordained to perpetuate and nurture individual life, the beginning of the life of an individual and that individual’s reconnection with the source of all aspects of his life. Obama rightly credits Christians with supporting those things, with supporting Life. I will not say Obama’s lack of support for these things makes him in favor of Death. But working against Life is destructive at best and I have no problem acknowledging Obama is that at a minimum.

Having said that, I wonder if Deuteronomy 30:19 might have some application here after all …

Blue Collar Muse

Popularity: 51% [?]

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 26th, 2007 at 12:20 pm and is filed under 2008 election season, Abortion, Anti Dictionary Democrats, Conservative, Family, Individual Responsibility, Liberal, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.