This is NOT a political endorsement.
Barack Obama delivered a speech to over 200,000 in Berlin Germany. He is considered “Public Enemy #1” among USA Christians. I’ve received numerous emails asking me to help “stop the Obama tide” by forwarding the email to 30 people.
I remember when John Kennedy was elected President. My Dad said the “anti-Christ” is here!
Why do “we” do this? What gives us the right to put someone in the cross-hair of our scope and fire away?
Barack was raised by his Grandmother in Hawaii and attended public schools in a very diverse ethnic environment. There were twelve African American students in his high school class and few Caucasian Americans. He was raised in the midst of the “aloha spirit”. His worldview reflects his background exactly as my being raised in Augusta, GA has great bearing on my world view. Unfortunately, that view was very racially biased for the first twenty-two years of my life.
The July 21 cover story of Newsweek is “Finding His Faith” and chronicles Barack’s spiritual search since his college days. He will be interviewed by Rick Warren in mid-August at Saddleback Church along with John McCain.
No political candidate has attracted this much “faith attention”. Barack finally had to distance himself from his pastor and rightfully so.
The Newsweek article quotes Obama, “At the point to accept Christ, what was intellectual and what was emotional joined, and the belief in the redemptive power of Jesus Christ, that he died for our sins, that through Him we could achieve eternal life-but also that, through good works we could find order and meaning here on Earth and transcend our limits and our flaws, and our foibles—-I found that powerful.”
The interesting thing is that I’ve shared this link with friends and colleagues. The reaction is unanimous—shock, doubt, and mumbling.
Barack says we need “Change”. I say “we” need a meltdown.
We need the biblical knowledge in our head to meltdown to our heart and have that information govern the way we talk about others and govern the emails that we send.
“Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” 1 John 4:11-12
Regardless of political preference, we have an assignment of being people who love.
Enjoy the meltdown!
Mike
August 2nd, 2008 at 7:49 pm
I do not know if Obama is the second coming of Christ of the anti-Christ. I do find, however, that he seems to use whatever pulpit he has available to say the right sounding things to the audience on hand. This causes me concern.
However, once the dust settles, I find that my two major concerns with him are:
1. The church in which he sat for more than 20 years, and to which he exposed his children, has been the source of some very racist, hate-mongering and, on occasion, anti-American rhetoric. One does not remain in such an environment unless one endorses and supports such values.
2. As a white, Christian male, I do not believe that Obama’s values (he has referred to “white greed”) reflect my very traditional, classical liberal, freedom-loving American values.
Finally, I do love politics; however, I also do not like to see politics in either sports or religion. So (though I could not resist replying to this posting) I will refrain from further political commentary on this spiritual site. JRI
August 4th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
My concern regarding Obama is his honesty. He has a Muslim father. He has at least one Muslim family member who claims Obama as a Muslim. According to my understanding, one is born into the Muslim faith. He can recite the Muslim morning call to prayer extremely well. He went to Muslim schools as a kid. His pastor Jeremy Wright was recently protected by the Nation of Islam during a prominent speech.
Is Obama a Christian? Maybe so. But if he is, it appears that he converted to it from a Muslim heritage. That’s fine. But I’ve not heard any evidence of him saying that he grew up Muslim or was born in to being a Muslim and has since converted. Instead, he has chosen an all out rejection of his heritage. That seems dishonest.
Furthermore, the reports that I have heard from his visit to Israel are that a good number of Israelis don’t trust his story either. They know the Muslim faith much better than I do, so I have to pay attention to what they are saying.
I think the old adage still applies quite well, “if it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck and if it looks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.”
I don’t think Obama is the anti Christ, but I don’t think he’s honest.
Zale
August 10th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Obama is pro-choice. Is there anything more to say?