While the Bible contains accounts of God's people battling righteously against invaders and oppressors, the overall scriptural message is that the meek will be rewarded for quietly fighting injustice and hypocrisy by turning the other cheek, rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's and by striving to promote love and forgiveness within the brotherhood of man.

Most instructional scripture from Proverbs to the Book of James warns against misusing the power of the tongue (speech) while advocating for such peace-making strategies as settling disputes before nightfall.   A Christ-like forgiving, peace-loving, non-judgmental nature is what God's children have been encouraged to pursue and to project to the world at large.  It is also taught that those who are entrusted with the responsibilities of teaching and preaching are held to an even a higher set of standards. 

Therefore, because of the tone, vocabulary and incendiary nature of many sermons delivered at the Chicago church that the Obama family has attended for twenty years, the recently-retired pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, risks being judged as a fomenter of revolution against the principles of Christianity, if not merely against Caesar.

To his credit Barak Obama has attempted to portray a positive, Christian attitude to the electorate.  His calm speech and ideas about inclusion and open domestic dialogues combined with his suggested foreign policy that would incorporate more meetings and negotiations with recalcitrant world leaders are, in fact, most responsible for his popularity with change-desiring Americans. 

But ironically, many of Obama’s secular supporters would have distanced themselves from the candidate had they ever considered the origin of the ethic he portrays.  Where would the Obama campaign be today if those media-saturating video clips of his spiritual advisor's sermons contained fundamentalist Christian messages instead of leftist anti-American rhetoric peppered with phrases considered blasphemous by traditional Christians of all races?

The candidate, however, regardless of his church attendance, has proven that he is little more than a typical "progressive" driven by irreligious political correctness on philosophical issues like abortion and gay rights and as it regards his social and fiscal proposals that would promote escalation of entitlement programs, higher taxes and wealth redistribution.  Recent remarks about (assumedly) blue-collared white folks that cling to guns, religion, bitterness and hatred in uncertain times are in synch with the kind of communist propaganda that one would have expected to hear in a speech by Lenin or Mao.

Imagine a white candidate making an accusatory blanket statement about what inner city people of color cling to as a result of their ongoing misfortune.  The speaker of such a racist comment would have been forced to resign his/her candidacy before the story grew legs, let alone after those comments had been dissected over and over again for weeks by pundits.

Obama's "let's talk" scripturally-inspired foreign policy would praise Moses for meeting and reasoning with Pharaoh on numerous occasions in his quest to persuade the Egyptian ruler to free the Hebrews.  Overlooked or criticized, however, would be the fact that the receiver of The Ten Commandments influenced Pharaoh by threatening and delivering a series of plagues that culminated in the death of a significant portion of the population of his realm.  Even after that “nuke card” was played, hard-hearted Pharoah reneged on his promise and attempted to recapture Moses and the Hebrews as they walked across the Red Sea.

Rev. Wright appears to have Pharaoh-like inclinations for he has refused to free his brother from the bondage of his questionable past comments by simply apologizing and leaving the limelight.  For his part, Obama can only make promises about change in his personal life which makes people disbelieve, more than ever, that he could effect sweeping political "change" if he ever became president.

send e-mail

home/archive