Obama’s religious “choice”
Bookworm on Oct 02 2010 at 1:37 pm | Filed under: Barack Obama
For the past week, I have been bugged by Obama’s answer to the question about why he is a Christian. Here, mostly in his own words, are Obama’s thoughts on the subject:
“I’m a Christian by choice,” Mr Obama said. “My family didn’t – frankly, they weren’t folks who went to church every week. And my mother was one of the most spiritual people I knew, but she didn’t raise me in the church.
“So I came to my Christian faith later in life, and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead – being my brothers’ and sisters’ keeper, treating others as they would treat me,” he continued.
“And I think also understanding that Jesus Christ dying for my sins spoke to the humility we all have to have as human beings, that we’re sinful and we’re flawed and we make mistakes, and that we achieve salvation through the grace of God,” Mr Obama said. “But what we can do, as flawed as we are, is still see God in other people and do our best to help them find their own grace.”
Mr Obama said he seeks to do that through daily prayer and public service. “That’s what I strive to do. That’s what I pray to do every day,” he said. “I think my public service is part of that effort to express my Christian faith.”
Every news outlet has focused on the phase “Christian by choice,” but that’s a completely meaningless statement. In a free country (as opposed to a theocracy), once one is an adult, ones faith is always a matter of choice. You can choose either to stick with the faith you were raised in, or you can choose to embrace another faith. This is kind of like saying “I breath air ’cause it’s there.” You haven’t added anything to the discussion with that observation.
What strikes me about Obama’s approach to Christianity is that Christ’s nature seems to be an afterthought. He does mention “Christ’s precepts” early on, but I like them too without being a Christian. I think he was, to use Bush’s word, a great “philosopher,” but that’s kind of a no-brainer — meaning you’d have to have no brain to fail to appreciate his wisdom and his all-encompassing humanity.
It’s his take on Christ’s unique divinity that bugs me. Yes, he does get to it (although some newspaper articles seemed so uncomfortable with that point that they sort of glossed over it themselves), but it just seems weirdly self-referential. He gets to the salvation bit eventually, but he starts off with the fact that Christ provides him with a good role model of humility. Are my antennae set way too high, or is that a funny thing to hear coming out of the mouth of a man who promised to still the waters and who routinely appeared in temple-like settings, the better to remind his followers about his own special qualities?
I guess what I’m saying is that Obama’s Christ seems to him to be a role-model as a fellow God, rather than a mere mortal.
Reality check here, please?
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- Religious war
- The President’s religious desire to reverse Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
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17 Responses to “Obama’s religious “choice””
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I think your antennae are set way too high. Actually, I think his answer was excellent, probably pre-scripted, and I don’t believe a word of it. But, viewed objectively and just considering the text, it is very well done.
I agree with Don Quixote. If I didn’t know who said those words, I wouldn’t see anything egregiously wrong with them. Other than the “I’m my brother’s keeper” thing, which is not exactly what Christ said. That’s the kind of thing a liberal would say–but lots of Christians are liberals and feel that way.
I suspect Obama is about as well-versed in the Bible as your average Christian in America, which is not very. It doesn’t interfere with being a Christian, however. I believe he is as well-meaning and ignorant about Christianity as he is about a lot of other subjects, economics for one. This is another area where a little knowledge but not enough can be a dangerous weapon in the wrong hands.
But he is right, God never said we had to be perfect, and God chose a lot of flawed people to bring about his plans.
We were watching the Glenn Beck show today…and a discussion of whether O was a dedicated environmentalist came up. Giving it some thought, I’ve decided he isn’t a dedicated environmentalist. or a dedicated Christian. or a dedicated muslim. or a dedicated communist…he’s dedicated to one thing only, and that’s Obama. On the other hand, when you consider the quote above, it really isn’t anything that a muslim would object to either. They consider Jesus to be a prophet – just not a Divinity, as Christians believe. Does the answer above sound like he believes Jesus Christ is Lord and God? I don’t think so. I don’t think he’s specifically a muslim either, but he was raised with islamic precepts and considers them “normal” and ok. I don’t think he’s a Communist either – but I think he was raised with Communist ideals so that they’re “normal’ as well. In fact…when you think about it, he’s just floated along, promoting Obama with whatever comes along and floats his boat – so to speak.
Suek, if Muslims consider Jesus to be a prophet, ask them what Jesus preached.
They won’t be able to remember much that wasn’t from the Koran or Hadiths.
>>my mother was one of the most spiritual people I knew, but she didn’t raise me in the church>>
Have you ever wondered just exactly what that means … that someone is “spiritual” but has no affiliation with “a church”??
A not-completely-off-topic comment:
It was during this same interview, I believe, Obama also made the comment that it was “Rev.” Wright’s preachings and teachings that brought Obama to “Christianity.” The same racist preacher who Obama claims to have sat in his church and never heard his racist “God damn America” talk.
So Obama, which is it? You never heard Wright speak racist stuff? or you heard his racist stuff and that converted you?
Obama is truly a typical liar – changing his story to match who he thinks the listeners are and what they want to hear. Which supports what DQ said – his answers were “prescripted;” Obama is in perpetual campaign mode and doesn;t know anything else.
Doesn’t Obama kind of remind you of perpetual students – you know, those folks who are good at school and continue on with it forever, never learning what to do after getting a degree so they just continue getting one degree after another; Forever living off grants.
“Suek, if Muslims consider Jesus to be a prophet, ask them what Jesus preached.
They won’t be able to remember much that wasn’t from the Koran or Hadiths.”
Suek, if I may, Ymar, Mohammed considered Jesus a greater prophet than himself. Jesus did all of those miricales (cept conveniently, rising from the dead) and all he did was produce the Koran. He taught that every good Muslim should read the gospels every day. They don’t because they are under that same false teaching that many athiests and thoe desperate to not believe are - namely that the bible that we have today is so corrupted from the originals that is has little to no value.. What they are not taught is that we can verify the gospels we have to day are the gospels that Mohammed had. the archaeological evidence also points to even earlier dates than 400AD. True there are no originals but ther are SO MANY copies and fragments of the originals that we can see where one copy is vacant and in another copy what the vacany contains though that copy itself may have a different vacancy that will be in the other copy or another entirely different one.
I have seen it laid out similar to this: Because the toner was low and sporadic we sent you three printouts of the official notice:
Yo have won t e Lottery
You hav wo the ottery
You h ve won the Lottery
Bet ya got that message! and with only three copies where the new testament has over 10 thousand (whole books and fragments) wheras Homer (another work of antiquity) has 7 – period.
So the Muslims that find out about this are very happy and distressed to hear it and begin learning (quietly mind you, don’t want to go “actin all Christian” you know) about the one who thought it not robbery to be considered equal with God but humbled Himself was found in the form of a servant and became obedient even to death on a cross to redeem mankind should they choose to lay down their nets and follow rather than an “angel’s” stenograf/military savage warring people into a religious system.
I don’t think, Book, your antennae are set to high. I think Obama’s bar of (fill in the blank) is set far too low. Bowing to DQ’s sentiment the statement may have been pre-scripted, it was not, however, very good.
“Christian by choice” is meaningless in the sense that all Christians are so by choice; that’s what baptism and being born again is all about. It’s meaningful in that no one is born Christian as some are born Jewish, Muslim, or any number of other religions in which children derive their religious affiliation from their parents. That was a revolutionary aspect of Christianity – it was open to all who accepted Jesus as the way and the light. For Obama to state that he is Christian by choice sounded forced and a bit disingenuous to me.
The part that bothers me is, “… treating others as they would treat me…” That phrasing is at best clumsy and at worst completely off the mark. If we were to apply Obama’s wording to the world then we would absolutely be carrying out suicide terror attacks in Islamic lands for that is how others are treating us. The whole idea of treating others as I would want to be treated is turned completely on its head. Obama’s words would have us believe that tit-for-tat vengeance is the the gold standard.
In general, the statement strikes me as a great big mea culpa apologia, ‘Oops, my bad! But it could’ve happened to anybody’ kind of statement. Like much of what Obama says, it seems vague, but in reality is meaningless.
Indigo, Good point regarding the misquote of Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Now I can’t remember the verses but several times in his campaign he quoted scripture and it was out of context and misapplied. Something to keep an eye out for.
It may be that he was trying to make the point that he is not Muslim, he has chosen Christianity. Now with all christians you end up in a tug of war with the old nature. EG the clairvoiant tha still speaks with her “angel” that she got guidance from before entering itno a relationship with God. If she stays with she will eventually fiure out it is not the kind of angel she should be geting her information from. While it is true that if anybody is found in Christ they are a new creature, the old has passed away and the new has come, however what we find is the the flesh that we live in has influence and not always for the good. He will be influenced by the good Muslims around him (not all are terrorists) during his formative years even as he has now professed Christ.
Obama’s Christianity speech was political bullshit signifying nothing. Carefully scripted, it contains nothing but words calculated to mean anything to anybody. A fundamentalist Christian and a radical Nicaragua-Sandinistia-loving liberation theology Christian would both agree with every word he said. This merely signifies that he said nothing of any worth or truth at all. This is because his words mean ANYTHING to ANYBODY. He’s very good at THAT. You must always be on your guard when listening to Obama; you must parse every word and every sentence to identify the hidden tricks. Things that I have always called “mind-f$!cks”, if you pardon the expression – if you’re not careful, their insidious, hidden messages slip right into your brain and program you.
(Those on Madison Avenue who craft commercials are generally very good at this as well. Think of the “diamond commercials” as expert psychological programming designed to get men to go out and buy diamonds for their loved ones or suffer unending guilt for not doing so – and to turn wives or girlfriends into hideously materialistic creatures forcefully and incessantly demanding such diamonds be gifted to them! Every single Christmas! Hell hath no fury like the diamondless woman on Christmas morning…
(I’m exaggerating, but it would be the truth if the diamond merchants could *completely* have their way.)
Obama’s speech was nothing more than total-BS political-speak intended to placate the roiling waters that he himself has raised: the suspicions that he may be Muslim; or identifies with Muslims and seeks their betterment AND, having been raised in a Muslim society and attended Muslim schools, has internalized his belief in the inevitability and necessity of Muslim superiority over the rest of us non-Muslims… such that he has a long-simmering hatred and disgust for the West and for traditional Christianity…
That was kind of my idea, Mike. My experience with converts, either to a new faith, or within their own faith (“born again”), is that they have a passion for their religion. Obama sounds as if he made a political calculation and memorized a few catch phrases, although his memory is kind of weak and/or lazy.
This is slightly off topic, but Mike’s discussion of the De Beers diamond ads brought back some memories.
In the 1980s, I was managing editor of a San Francisco-based trade magazine aimed at retail jewelers. The jewelry industry, from miners to gem cutters to designers to retailers, brimmed with great characters, greed, gorgeous goods, rivers of money and more human foibles than even steroidal versions of Dallas, Dynasty, Beverly Hills 90210 or Gossip Girl combined could hope to cover in multi-decade runs.
(Along the way, I briefly met one of the jewelry industry’s most respected men, Maurice Tempelsman, who later became Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis’s consort. I certainly made no impression on him and, frankly, I don’t remember what he looked like or what pleasantries we said to each other in those few seonds. But I did learn later what a wonderful and consoling companion he later became to Mrs. Kennedy, a solicitous and unselfish man in his regard for her.)
Anyway, back to my thought: I soon learned in the industry that diamonds have been artfully and artificially inflated in esteem and worth by decades of clever effort by De Beers. Diamonds are not rare at all. There may be only a few kimberlite pipes on earth that contain them (South Africa, Canada, Siberia, Western Australia), but those geological formations have diamonds in abundance. The key to De Beers’s success in creating the demand that Mike D describes so well is to deliberately withhold a large portion of each year’s worldwide diamond production from the market, and make sure that the stones that do reach market only do so through the limited number of compliant, non-wavemaking “sightholders” that De Beers deigns to sell stones to. Thus, a contrived shortage allows sellers to charge top price for diamonds.
Rubies, emeralds and sapphires are far rarer than diamonds, and by all rights should command higher prices. But their market is more chaotic and less amenable to control by monopoly, so there has never been the concerted, years-long campaign to elevate them in the public mind in the same way that De Beers has done with diamonds.
Wanna sweep ol’ Martel off his feet? A sapphire anything will do the trick. SADIE, you listening?
Charles:
Years ago I saw a TV documentary making precisely that point. (It might actually have been 60 Minutes, but I’m not sure.) The moment I realized I was being manipulated by a cartel, I lost all interest in diamonds. I’ve never worn or wanted a diamond since then. I don’t like being conned.
BTW, the same show suggested that the Soviet Union (that’s how long ago I saw the show) had a huge supply of diamonds locked up, and that de Beers lived in fear that the Soviets would release that supply, destroying the diamond industry.
The Soviets may have been a bunch of nekulturny louts, but they were always smart enough to know where to make money. Although De Beers feared in theory that the Russians could have a snit and bring down the whole house of cards, they soon realized that the Reds were really angling to get in on a good deal. After all, what was Communism other than a perverted form of monopoly capitalism? All the Soviets really wanted was a decent percentage of the golden goose’s output.
>>The jewelry industry, from miners to gem cutters to designers to retailers, brimmed with great characters, greed, gorgeous goods, rivers of money and more human foibles than even steroidal versions of Dallas, Dynasty, Beverly Hills 90210 or Gossip Girl combined could hope to cover in multi-decade runs. >>
Hmmm. One son completed his college degree only to become a jeweler’s apprentice. He then got a job as a jeweler – making original jewelry, but doing repairs, resizing – that kind of stuff. Got his appraiser’s credentials, and then decided to chuck it all get a law degree. Double hmmmm. I wouldn’t pick this particular son as being greedy etc. Maybe I don’t know him as well as I should…
Charles, I’m a “blue” kind of person, so I like sapphires as well. I have one that was my mother’s – her mother gave it to her for her 16th birthday. My jeweler son has looked at it casually and says it’s probably synthetic – which was a bit of a shock…because I had no idea that they could be man-made, and no idea that the technology in the early 1920 period would permit such a thing. It doesn’t really matter – dollar value only matters if you intend to sell something – but it’s one of those slightly disappointing little things of life!
suek, not to worry about your son. Most people in the jewelry industry were not greedheads or schmucks, but enough were to make it interesting.
You can create artificial gems (the Chathams in San Francisco have been manufacturing man-made emeralds for decades) but they don’t have the appeal and prestige of natural stones that have arrived at their beauty through a thoroughly random process.
Back in my day it was a big no-no to try to alter gems by soaking them in oil or irradiating them to hide internal flaws or deepen their color. But the lure of money is strong: There just aren’t enough saphhires, rubies and emeralds in the world to satisfy demand from both consumers and jewelers, so over the years the standards have slipped. Now it’s permissible to treat gems to enhance their look, as long as the seller acknowledges that that is the case. Many consumers don’t care since it’s the end look that counts for them. (Think of a man who knows his latest girlfriend’s pecs have been helped along. As long as other men don’t know that, he gets to enjoy watching them ogle.)
This was awhile ago, but DeBeers artificially inflates the value and rarity of diamonds.
People think diamonds are rare. They are not. There’s plenty of em coming from Africa, at cheap labor at that. The gems when cut and sold though, are sold with a name brand, a sense that the natural origin is rare and special.