Is the new President campaigning against Christianity or is he only trying to be inclusive and respectful of other faiths? This is the question that discomfits Americans who had always learned and always believed in the Christian tradition and foundation of our country. To respect all faiths is a laudatory grace; to deny the influence and spirit of a faith practiced by the overwhelming majority of the country one leads is disgraceful.
Consider that in June 2006 Obama said, “Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation – at least, not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.” (FactCheck; YouTube). And in July 2007 he told CBN News, “America is no longer just a Christian nation”.
One might tolerate a candidate’s flirtations with studies in comparative religions, perhaps in recognition of the changing religious profile of the United States of late (largely due to a failed immigration policy), or one might rationalize his reaction to the doctrinaire and often unforgiving positions assumed by the evangelist wing of Christianity which for too long meddled beyond their mission to save souls to encumber the politics of the GOP. But a President’s responsibility requires a supererogation in contrast to a candidate’s ambitions, and a requisite honoring of American history, tradition, and the realities of the super-majority Christianity comprises in our country.
Yet, as President, Obama recently carried his three year message while in Turkey, “ ‘One of the great strengths of the United States’ is that it does not consider itself ‘a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.’ ” (CNN) No, Mr. President, the great strength of the United States is this: because we are a Christian nation we are tolerant of other faiths as long as they are bound by the same ideals and set of values. Contrast our tolerance and acceptance with nations who are openly and predominantly non-Christian, something you might have done, diplomatically, during your European trip to reaffirm Western ideals.
Are we a Christian nation? According to the American Religious Identification Survey 2008, 76% of the population identify themselves as Christian. That is a number that can make even the most self-assured politician salivate. The original colonies and territories of the United States, with the exception of Virginia, were settled by Europeans escaping persecution for Christian practices that were not tolerated in their home country. And in a case before the Supreme Court, Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 143 U.S. 457 (1892), Justice David Brewer declared in a unanimous decision, “These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation.” Brewer’s argument is replete with examples that firmly establish the Christian tradition in American political practice.
What about the oft-cited “separation of Church and State” in the First Amendment? Nowhere in the Constitution do these words appear. The exact language is, “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, …” Secularist are all too eager to parse the phrase and conveniently leave out the second clause. The original purpose was not to create a God-less society, but precisely the contrary: to protect free expression of faith. Here is Thomas Jefferson, writing to the Danbury Baptists who were concerned about government intrusion into religion:
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.
Obama’s solicitous exclamations about America’s non-Christianity that contradict majority American practice and belief, combined with a misreading of the Constitution by the followers of the former Constitutional professor are tragically being manifested in outrageous demands, that violate at least the spirit of the free exercise clause. Before Obama accepted an invitation to speak this month at Georgetown University, a Jesuit school, The White House requested signs and symbols of Jesus Christ be covered up. (NBC News). What is more unconscionable than that request is Georgetown’s acquiescence in it. Perhaps the Catholics who run Georgetown forgot the words of St. Paul to Timothy, “If we deny Him, He will also deny us.”
Denial of our Christian heritage, denial of history, denial of the very values about which the President bragged to his Muslim interlocutors … we have managed to allow a Christian nation—yes Mr. President, it is—to be turned upside-down by a small minority who understand neither faith nor American tradition.
Michael Avari
http://americancivility.blogtownhall.com/
(11 votes, average: 4.45 out of 5)
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Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackIn a recent rendition of a comment by President Obama, speaking on behalf of the entire United States he stated that, ‘although as I mentioned, we have a very large Christian population, we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation, we consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.’ {4/6/09 – press conference with Turkish president}. Notice he references that he’d made such a comment before – the June 26, 2006 iteration of the statement in his Keynote Address at the Call to Renewal Building a Covenant for a New America conference was:
‘given the increasing diversity of America’s population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.’
In a CBN (Christian Broadcasting Network) email interview, during the presidential campaign {7/27/08}, Obama repeated the statement almost verbatim:
‘I think that the right might worry a bit more about the dangers of sectarianism. Whatever we once were, we’re no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of non-believers.’
Notice the shift in the style of the latest comment from the others. The earlier two versions make believe we can be all kinds of nations at the same time, unsuccessfully trying to pluralize and universalize the religious perspectives into a single national identity. The more recent clip restricts religious expression from the outset by denying religious classification at all, tending instead to a nation of citizens with certain shared ideals and values.
The comment in the earlier versions was a set-up to the further point of how policy is not only made, but even discussed – in 2006 stating further:
‘We should acknowledge this [new ‘nation’] and realize that when we’re formulating policies. We’ve got to work to translate our reasoning into values that are accessible to every one of our citizens, not just members of our own faith community.
Now this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do. But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality. It involves the compromise, the art of what’s possible. At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It’s the art of the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God’s edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one’s life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing.’
The 2007 version:
‘Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, …if I seek to pass a law…, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why …some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.’
So religious belief itself is, according to Obama, inherently invalid as a basis of expression and must at the least be translated into some non-offensive universal form based on communal betterment or common good – Democracy demands it and gives us no choice. Freedom of religious expression, in the public policy sphere, is not just stifled but now deemed a threat to the democratic ideal and the common aim and reality. Someone speaking from a religiously based viewpoint is not just marginalized, but they are now demonized and not to be tolerated. The very manner of expression, even the basis of thought and reasoning, must not include even a religious tone, however subtle – expression must be based then on no faith at all. And so a national religion of no religion is established as policy becomes inherently a-theistic. In this manner, America becomes an Atheistic Nation whose course from the outset is charted in full rejection of God.
Notice again the wrap up on the most recent version, ‘we consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.’ Obama identifies this set of principles as being found in the ‘promise of a secular country that is respectful of religious freedom, respectful of rule of law, respectful of freedom, upholding these values.’ Speaking of respect for religious freedom is all well and good, but rings empty after the creation a new set of ideals and values that demand a wholly secular country and limit the expression of such freedom. The new value and ideal is to have a commonly agreed upon morality and reality that expressly forbids a religious approach and requires the rejection of any existing belief outside reason itself. In such a scheme, there is no room for God and the invocation of religious belief in a public forum is pronounced dead on arrival. The New Atheist Nation is proclaimed.
Something Extra to Chew On—->
Consider further that beyond the ramifications for domestic political discourse, freedom of expression and policy formulation - Obama actually pronounced this in a joint press conference in a moderate Muslim Nation (also predominantly a Nation of Muslims), that being Turkey. He held it out there as if it were something we are proud of that we have absolutely no religious morality or spiritual basis - to a foreign audience (the wider middle east and all Muslims) that is staunchly religious and not just pro-morality but ultra-fundamentalist in the enforcement of religious ideals - to the point of Jihad. So He is trying to say, we’re no threat to you because we don’t really believe in anything anyway - don’t hate us. But in effect He is classifying as not only as an Atheist Nation but as an infidel nation in the eyes of the Muslim world - worthy of conquering by those who Allah has divinely revealed himself to. Nice foreign policy move. What’s next sending Perez Hilton as a goodwill ambassador to Iran - hmmm might not hurt.
I totally agree with what you have said regarding the comments of Mr. Obama. Needless to say those “ideals and set of moral values” can change from day to day or minute to minute if need be to please whoever is in power, there is no absolute authority. Convenient situational morality is what it comes down to, your own personal views of what is right and wrong.
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