The U.S. will never be a theocracy, so from a voting perspective one's theological acuteness may not weigh all that heavily in the voting booth. But since Obama applies the label "Christian" to himself over and over again I found this article from Cal Thomas interesting.
Thomas quotes Obama:
“I’m rooted in the Christian tradition… I believe there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people.”
“The difficult thing about any religion, including Christianity, is that at some level there is a call to evangelize and proselytize. There’s the belief, certainly in some quarters, that if people haven’t embraced Jesus Christ as their personal savior, they’re going to hell.”
“I don’t presume to have knowledge of what happens after I die. When I tuck in my daughters at night and I feel like I’ve been a good father to them, and I see that I am transferring values that I got from my mother and that they’re kind people and that they’re honest people, and they’re curious people, that’s a little piece of heaven.”
Cal Thomas’ conclusion:
It's like me standing in my garage and making car noises with my mouth and screaming to my neighbors, "I'm a car, I'm a car!!!" Everyone knows that I'm not a car. I simple don't meet the definitions of what a car is. Just because you believe that you are something doesn't mean you can throw off the constraints of language and live in your own little self-defined universe.“Any first-year seminary student could deconstruct such “works salvation” and wishful thinking. Obama either hasn’t read the Bible, or if he has, doesn’t believe it if he embraces such thin theological wisps.
Obama can call himself anything he likes, but there is a clear requirement for one to qualify as a Christian and Obama doesn’t meet that requirement. One cannot deny central tenets of the Christian faith, including the deity and uniqueness of Christ as the sole mediator between God and Man and be a Christian."
Unless language is completely meaningless (which it obviously is not or I would not be writing this blog post right now and you wouldn't be reading it) we have to have boundaries on the language we use to to identify the differences between the words "chair" and "cat".
Reminds me of my religion prof. from college who insisted that he call himself a Christian all the while completely denying all the tenets of belief of those who started the movement. It's not very helpful and it just continues to add to the cultural confusion about what a Christian is. I appealed to him once to find a different word other than "Christian" to refer to his belief system. He didn't buy it.
Somehow I don't think Obama would buy it either.
3 comments:
Unfortunately, I don't think Obama is saying anything that 80% (non-technical percentage) of America would say.
Sure I disagree with it, but how do you think the average American views him (by average, I mean non-theologically trained; non strong-reformed church member)?
My response: pray for Senator Obama. Pray that he would encounter and come to know Jesus.
In the same thread, pray for McCain. Neither is an "ideal" Christian candidate.
Todd,
I totally agree. Thanks for the comment.
z
I say the same thing when referencing people who claim Christianity without actually believing it, except I use the example of someone claiming to be a pilot, and really they instead make grilled cheese sandwitches.
They say "I don't trust pilots any more because once a pilot made me a really awful grilled cheese sandwitch."
All the while I'm screaming, "He's not a pilot!"
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