Religion and Barack Obama
What is it he really believes and why?
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© 2015 by M.L. Wilson. All rights reserved. No part of this document or the
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* * *
Sometime in January 2015, the group
known as ISIS (The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) murdered a Jordanian pilot
whose F-16 Fighter Jet had been shot down during a bombing run on December 24th,
2014. First Lt. Moaz al-Kasasbeh was a 27 year old pilot in the Jordanian Air
Force fighting back against the burgeoning Islamic State which has already
taken over large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria. His fate was unknown to
his country and his family until a video of his gruesome execution was uploaded
to the Internet on February 3rd, 2015.
The video quickly went viral—as was the
intention of the Islamic terrorists who had recorded the pilot’s death in
Hollywood quality detail. It was clear that in this stylized presentation of First
Lt. Moaz al-Kasasbeh’s execution, a new dimension had been added to the mix.
Gone were the grainy, shaky smartphone videos of the executions which are now
commonplace within those areas controlled by Muslims. Instead they have been
replaced with High Definition, highspeed cameras and recording equipment to
cause the maximum impact in the West as is possible. The slick presentation and
the attendant propaganda would have made Joseph Goebbels proud.
Jordan's King Abdullah II was properly outraged
at the spectacle and made his thoughts on the subject known swiftly by
executing two members of al Qaeda which had been held since a foiled suicide
plot in 2005. There had been moves on the part of Jordan to exchange First Lt.
Moaz al-Kasasbeh for the captured al Qaeda terrorists, but evidently ISIS
believed they could get far more mileage out of the burning death of al-Kasasbeh than exchanging him for two people
who should have already been dead anyway.
The video execution has found a home on
the Internet and every news outlet worldwide. There is no doubt it has set the
bar for filmed executions for years to come. Outrage over the death hasn’t been
unanimous, however. Obviously those pro-ISIS groups have applauded and cheered
al-Kasasbeh’s death, but it is the pockets of extremists Muslims and Islamic
sympathizers within the United States and Europe which is most troublesome. One
such individual appears to be the United States President, Barack Hussein
Obama.
Obama’s own personal religious history
is already well known at this point even if he isn’t eager to speak on the
subject. His father, Barack Obama Sr. was a Muslim from Kenya as was his stepfather,
Lolo Soetoro. A young Barack Obama was raised primarily in a Muslim household
in Jakarta, Indonesia—a Muslim country by his mother and step-father. It wasn’t
until he was a ten years of age when he returned to live with his maternal grandparents
in Hawaii. His mother and step-father remained behind in Indonesia, both pursuing
their careers.
Obama’s religious exposure during his time
with his maternal grandparents was through the Unitarian Church. The Dunhams
were described by Barack Obama in his book, “Dreams
from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance” as willing to sample
religions as one would sample cuisines. He reiterates this religious sampling
in his subsequent book, “The Audacity of
Hope” where he states that his mother, Ann Dunham, would be just as likely to
take him to a traditional Christian Church or a Buddhist Temple for Easter or
Christmas celebrations.
While there is nothing necessarily
wrong with learning about other faiths (I have done much study of other faiths
myself), there was no formative grounding in the teachings of Christ for young
Barry Soetoro. One can look at Obama’s own words in his two autobiographical
books to see very clearly that outside of Islam, he experienced no formal
Christian teaching. Does this formative teaching mean he couldn’t have had a later
conversion and embraced Christianity as he claims? Of course not; most people continue
to grow and mature throughout their lives. I point out this spiritual journey
of Obama’s only to expand his claims to the contrary.
If it is clear that up through the
beginning of his college years Barack Obama’s religious experiences could be
described as eclectic at best, then it should be agreed that Christianity was
but one small sampling amidst many different religions—with the study of Islam
being the primary force. So what changed when he reached collage?
There is little doubt that Obama’s
grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, had an impact on his life. In a very real sense,
she was the only mother he had ever known. Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham was busy
with her own life and career and was with her son only sporadically from 1971
onward. However his mother left her mark on Obama’s consciousness as well. As
he explained in his book, “The Audacity of Hope,” his mother was the most
spiritually awakened person he has ever known: “… she possessed an abiding sense of wonder, a reverence for life and
its precious, transitory nature that could properly be described as devotional.”
While his mother didn’t adhere to any particular organized religious beliefs,
she seemed to have a direction and a commitment to those ends, those being a
sense of Social Justice.
None of this translated into any great
spiritual awakening for Obama once he reached college, however. He studied
philosophy in an attempt to make sense out of life and his place in it. At the
end of the day, he was still a boy who had been rejected by his birth father,
abandoned repeatedly by his birth mother and separated from his step-father. By
the time he was in college, Obama had come to understand that most people—despite
what they said to his face, were actually out for themselves.
The people of faith he encountered in
Chicago seemed to lack the zeal he found in his mother. His own religious journey
of sampling different religions had come back to put him in a role more as an
observer, than as a participant. Again in his book, “The Audacity of Hope” he explains that without a vessel, an
unequivocal commitment to a particular community of faith, he would be “… consigned at some level to always remain
apart, free in the way that my mother was free, but also alone in the same ways
she was ultimately alone.”
Part of Obama’s self-discovery
eventually led him to Trinity United Church of Christ. On some level which had eluded him through
most of his life, the philosophy of the church as expressed through its very
charismatic leader, Jeremiah Wright, touched him in a way none of the earlier
religious samplings had. Obama described the church and Wright as “…like family”
to him.
Jeremiah Wright had taken over as the
lead pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in 1972. At that time, the
church had a membership of approximately 250, though only about ninety people
were regular attendees. Wright’s scholarly pedigree is impressive with a Bachelor’s
degree and a Master’s degree in English from Howard University. An additional
Master’s degree was attained from the University of Chicago Divinity School and
a Doctor of Ministry degree from the United Theological Seminary. He has
subsequently taught at Chicago Theological Seminary, Garrett-Evangelical
Theological Seminary and City Colleges of Chicago.
Despite this background in what would be
regarded as Christian-based theological training, Trinity United Church of
Christ’s mission statement is based upon the teachings of Black Liberation
Theology. Thus what a young and still evidently impressionable Barack Obama
entered into when he decided to make Jeremiah Wright his mentor and Trinity United
Church of Christ his “family” was less a Christian environment as outlined by
the New Testament Gospels, and more of a Social Justice concept with a singular
goal of liberating Blacks from the constraints placed upon them by Whites and
the ugly history of slavery.
Black Liberation Theology can be traced
back to a group of 51 concerned clergy who called themselves The National
Committee of Negro Churchmen. This group bought a full page ad in the July 31st
1966 edition of the New York Times to publish their “Black Power Statement,”
which proposed a more aggressive approach to combating racism using the Bible
for inspiration.
Anyone even vaguely familiar with the
Civil Rights Movement in the United States understands that the 1960’s were a
tumultuous time for Blacks. Too many anti-Christian ideas had been adopted by
narrow-minded bigots to support inequality between the various ethnicities (I
do not use the term race as we are all but one race: Human. Ethnicity is a
better term). While such people used the Bible to support their views that
Blacks and other ethnicities were essentially “sub-human,” it is of note that
all such people had to go to the pages of the Old Testament to do so. Such
teachings are not evident within the Gospels or the Epistles of the New Testament.
Why does that matter? If it’s in the Bible, it’s in the Bible. Well yes and no.
Let me explain.
Without belaboring the construction of
the canonical scriptures here in this commentary (much of that was covered in
my earlier commentary which can be found here: http://thegodprinciplebook.blogspot.com/2014/02/is-bible-inerrant-all-contents.html
), it must be understood that Jesus Christ came and fulfilled the Law. As the
Apostle Paul points out in his letter to the Church of Colossi:
“God made you alive with Christ. He
forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the written code, with its
regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; He took it away,
nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the Powers and Authorities, He
made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” - Colossians 2:13-15
The teachings of the Old Covenant are
no longer binding to us as Christians. I realize that this is radical thinking
to many good people of God, but it is never the less the truth. Paul explained
quite clearly that:
“All who rely on observing the Law are
under a curse, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue to
do everything written in the Book of the Law.’ Clearly no one is justified before God by the
Law, because, ‘The righteous will live by faith.’ The Law is not based on
faith; quite the contrary. ‘The man who does these things will live by them.’
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for us …”
- Galatians
3:10-13
Paul also goes onto explain that
because we are no longer operating under the constraints and limitations of the
Old Covenant and its Laws, we are viewed en masse by Jesus Christ far differently
than was humanity viewed by the Old Testament God.
“You are all sons of God through faith
in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves
with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave no free, male nor female,
for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
-
Galatians 3:26-28
When we feel we have been wronged, we
want to correct the error. If such correction is ignored, we then have a tendency
to want to lash out; to enforce our view of what is good and true on those we
see as abusing the truth. This is human nature and in and of itself is
perfectly normal. Black Liberation Theology saw a situation in which mere
prayer wasn’t yielding the results desired and decided to try a different
tactic. One can agree or disagree with such tactics, but is such at its heart a
Christian philosophy? Is using the scriptures and Christ’s teachings in a
manner to marginalize others while promoting self any different than those who
have wrongly applied outdated and obsolete scriptures to justify all manner of
horror upon their fellow man?
I recently read the autobiography of
Harriet Ann Jacobs titled, “Incidents in
the Life of a Slave Girl Written by Herself” One of the most heartbreaking
passages in this book when she had finally decided to escape her master and
fled. The plan didn’t work out as well as she would have liked and she wound up
having to eventually hide herself in the attic space of her grandmother’s house.
She remained in this small space for seven years while she had to watch her son
grow up, catching only fleeting glimpses of him over the years through cracks
in the siding.
Jacob’s master at this point in her
life was a man named Dr. James Norcom. Despite being widely admired, Norcom had
a dark side to him which was evidently overlooked by his compatriots. A member
of the Episcopal Church, Norcom seemed to express none of the Christian
teachings he’d received (if any) through the church to his slaves. Instead he
looked upon Jacobs—and other female slaves—as little more than sexual
playthings. He had many out of wedlock children which the church completely
ignored. In light of Christ’s teachings as highlighted by the Apostle Paul, how
can this behavior be reconciled and regarded as Christian? As a point of fact,
it cannot.
While there was widespread “racism” and
bigotry in the history of the United States, it is unfair to say that all “Whites”
held such a view. Many, many white people fought and died to rid the nation of
the scourge of slavery. A personal anecdote from my family tree: The Wilson
family owned several slaves, including a mother and son, in the mid-1850s. By
all accounts, these slaves were regarded as family and treated as such. When
the old Wilson patriarch died, he left these slaves to his sons. However he had
more sons than he did slaves so those who did not receive slaves were given the
cash value of a slave instead.
My great, great, great Uncle was busy
putting together a militia in the anticipated chance that the Union would
fracture. He had no time to care for slaves and was not in agreement with the
entire notion of slavery in any respect. He paid for the slave’s freedom out of
his own pocket—a sum which was $1300.00 for the mother and son. One of the
other slaves, a man in his early twenty’s, was also freed and joined his
militia to help the fight against the Southern States should they break away
from the Union.
This is but one story I know of
personally because it is a part of my family lineage. I am well aware of the
fact that views were different towards different people back then than it is
today. However there are many countries all over the world in which slavery is
still very much alive. Most of those countries are Islamic, not Christian.
Despite the fact that it was perfectly acceptable in Kentucky in 1858 to own
slaves and not one person would have batted an eye had my ancestor decided to
keep the slaves he inherited, he and his brothers eventually opted to give them
their freedom. They were the radicals of their day and expressed the truth of
Christianity. I point this out only to say that to paint an entire ethnicity
with so broad a brush is not of Christ whether one is Black or White.
The brand of Black Liberation Theology
which Barack Obama was taught by Jeremiah Wright at Trinity United Church of
Christ was anything but Christian. One could easily look at such teaching as on
par with the stunted, bunkered, homophobic and erroneous teaching which was
spewed out of the mouth of “Pastor” Fred Phelps of the Westborough Baptist
Church of Kansas from 1954 until his death in 2014. How can anyone honestly say
that either Pastor is really teaching Christ when one vilifies homosexuals,
stating that God hates them all and desires to kill them and the other man vilifies
all white people because they are all racist slaveholders who do not see Blacks
as people?
How would people see Barack Obama had
he studied under Fred Phelps and attended the Westborough Baptist Church rather
than Jeremiah Wright and Trinity United Church of Christ? Would he have even been
taken seriously as a candidate? It is highly unlikely. Since the late 1990s
when the growth of the Internet gave Phelps a higher profile than he had ever
enjoyed previously, Westborough Baptist Church has been labeled the church of
intolerance and hate. Again how is their philosophy any different than that of
Trinity United Church of Christ? I would submit that when one looks objectively
at both bodies and the tenets of their particular beliefs, hate and intolerance
predominates in both.
Out of this cauldron of hatred has
emerged the Barack Obama who can look into the camera and make a comparison
between Christianity and Islamic Terrorists—not Islam, mind you, but only these
particular terrorists. Obama, for as much “sampling” of other religions as he
has done, has clearly found some sympathy with Islam. This is not surprising as
once again, this was his formative religious teaching; Islam for him is like
going home.
Black Liberation Theology is not a
Christ-centered teaching and as it is more a Social Justice philosophy, Obama
is perfectly content to declare himself a “Christian” while being blinded to
the horrors which are the tenets of Islam. Ignored by Obama are the passages
which condone slavery, subjugation of females, pedophilia, misogyny, and a host
of execution methods which are all a part of the Qur’an and the Hadiths; the
essential tenets of the Islamic faith.
Obama failed to explain why ISIS
executed this Jordanian pilot in the manner in which they did. I’m certain he
must know, but he didn’t even broach the subject. We have seen ISIS execute one
hapless man after another through beheading. Suddenly we’re exposed to the spectacle
of a man led to a cage, doused with an accelerant and set ablaze. After he has
died, he and the cage are crushed by rubble and buried in the desert. Why the
theatrics? What changed?
The answer lies in the tenets of Islam
which were ignored by Obama in his pathetic speech. The term which is best
described as “an eye for an eye” in Islam is called Qasas. (قصاص) as mentioned in Qur'an, 2:178:
“O you who have believed, prescribed
for you is legal retribution (Qasas) for those murdered – the free for the
free, the slave for the slave, and the female for the female. But whoever
overlooks from his brother anything, then there should be a suitable follow-up
and payment to him with good conduct. This is an alleviation from your Lord and
a mercy. But whoever transgresses after that will have a painful
punishment."
As a part of Sharia Law, First Lt. Moaz
al-Kasasbeh was to be executed in the same manner in which he brought death. As
a bomber pilot, al-Kasasbeh’s ordinance exploded buildings, started fires,
burned people to death and caused others to die under the rubble of those collapsed
buildings only to then be buried. This was indeed an “Eye for an Eye” execution, the symbology of which was lost on most
of the West. I seriously doubt that it escaped Obama’s notice, however;
pointing out such would not have helped his Social Justice narrative.
Barack Obama has grown very comfortable
criticizing Christianity even though he claims to be a Christian. Nothing he
has done as an Illinois State legislator, Senator or President has shown he has
a grasp of any teachings of Christ. He has sought only to divide and impart
punishment unto those he deems unsuitable to his cause. In this, Barack Obama
shares much of the same temperament as does the God of the Old Testament, of
Allah in the Qur’an, but nothing of Jesus Christ.
The argument he raised, conflating the
Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition with the acts of barbarism displayed
liberally by Islamic followers is a strawman argument. I reiterate that the
essential tenets of Islam are being followed by these terrorists. I have cited
(and can cite even more) scripture from the Qur’an and the Hadiths to support the
fact that the essential tenets of Islam are to eradicate all who do not believe
as they do. (For a more in-depth look at Islam, my earlier commentary can be
found here: http://thegodprinciplebook.blogspot.com/2014/09/islam-who-are-real-radicals-all.html
)
Obama’s argument citing comparisons can
only be genuine if he also compares the tenets of each teaching. This he
refused to do. When one scours the New Testament looking for teaching whereupon
Christ instructs his followers to kill others, one is going to come up
empty-handed; there are no such teachings anywhere period.
At this point, more than six years into
his presidency, Obama’s Progressive Liberal leanings are well known. His
knowledge of the tactics of Saul Alinsky has been put to good use, helping to
get him reelected. In large measure, ISIS has been allowed to blossom as a
direct result of a move Obama made in order to ensure his reelection: Pulling
troops out of Iraq prematurely. Against the advice of his senior military
officers, Barack Obama pulled out our troops and allowed the gains to secure a
stable country in a very unstable region to completely evaporate overnight.
Obviously he didn’t see it quite that way, but the fruits of his actions are
evident in the numerous gruesome deaths which have followed in ISIS’s rise to dominance.
In a week which saw Obama show only
utter disrespect and contempt for a longstanding ally in the Middle East, that
of Israel and their Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, ISIS pounced and
released the snuff film now seen around the world. Whereas Jordan’s King Abdullah
II as well as Netanyahu voiced their absolute disgust at ISIS and vowed the
craven terrorists would not go unpunished, Barack Obama measured his words
carefully and levied no real blame on them at all.
The final veil of doubt as to where
Obama’s sympathies lie fell away from his face at the annual National Prayer
Breakfast. While he had harsh words for those particular “militants” who had committed
the crime, he refused to acknowledge what everyone else in the room seemed to understand
quite well: ISIS is a revolutionary Islamic movement not populated with
crazies, but rather with fundamentalist ideologues who have shown quite clearly
that they mean serious business.
Has Barack Obama abrogated his
responsibility to be the president to all citizens of the United States? Given his
actions—especially those he has taken since his re-election, it certainly seems
so. Further his insincerity with respect to Christianity AND Islam show a man
who has no problem lying to the public in order to create a specific image of
himself and his ideology. While we have come to expect such lying behavior of
our public servants, it does not make it right. An honorable person wouldn’t
even consider such behavior, but then we have seen nothing but subterfuge with
this particular man.
Since Mr. Obama is so fond of
conflating the Old Testament God with that of the terrorist’s actions, I
thought it only fitting to point out these scripture verses:
“Truthful lips endure forever, but a
lying tongue lasts only a moment”
-
Proverbs 12:19
“The Lord detests lying lips, but he
delights in men who are truthful.” - Proverbs 12:22
"And they (the disbelievers) schemed,
and Allah schemed (against them): and Allah is the best of schemers."
- Qur’an 3:54
"He who makes peace between the
people by inventing good information or saying good things, is not a
liar."
- Bukhari 49:857
As a Christian, Mr. Obama should be
crystal clear in his intents. Lying should not be a part of his routine. While
I am not so naïve as to believe that he is to disclose all to everyone (he is
also the Commander-in-Chief and discretion is a part of the job), I do not subscribe
to the notion that he must lie to prop up his ideological beliefs. If such
beliefs have merit, then they should stand on truth. If they do not, lying only
delays the inevitable.
I close with these pieces of scripture
from the Apostle Paul. If Barack Obama is truly interested in justice, he would
do well to really study Christianity as the relationship it is meant to be to us
all, rather than as a weapon to destroy his enemies. Christianity is not Islam and never can be; the two
ideologies stand in complete and total opposition to one another. Only those
who have not studied the two faiths do not know this. Those who have yet
continue to assert they are alike, are lying to themselves and to everyone else.
“I speak the truth in Christ—I am not
lying, my conscious confirms it in the Holy Spirit…”
-
Roman 9:1
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love,
joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and
self-control. Against such things, there is no law.” -
Galatians 5:22-23
