Tuesday’s Tribute: Americans Who’ve Stepped into the Light

Pres­i­dent Barack Obama was duly elected to and holds the high­est office in Amer­i­can gov­ern­ment. He is the Commander-in-Chief. Every Amer­i­can should, as a con­di­tion of his/her cit­i­zen­ship, sup­port him in his efforts to devise and imple­ment poli­cies that will lead this nation back to eco­nomic sta­bil­ity and pros­per­ity. Every Amer­i­can. No exceptions.

In Jan­u­ary, Rush Lim­baugh, the bom­bas­tic, caus­tic, hyp­o­crit­i­cal, know-it-all talk radio bully was asked, in honor of the Inau­gu­ra­tion, to draft a short essay detail­ing his hopes for Obama’s Pres­i­dency. His response? “I hope he fails.” Dur­ing his Jan­u­ary 16, 2009, broad­cast, he stated: “I would be hon­ored if the ‘Drive-By Media’ head­lined me all day long: ‘Lim­baugh: I Hope Obama Fails.’ Somebody’s gotta say it.” He got what he wanted. He story was widely reported and it is still being discussed.

Recently, I hap­pened upon one of the most dis­turb­ing posts I have ever read. Authored by a pro­fessed Chris­t­ian — the wife of a pas­tor, in fact — in my esti­ma­tion, it per­fectly and suc­cinctly illus­trates why Chris­tians remain the most divided — and divi­sive — spe­cial inter­est group in Amer­ica. So long as we Chris­tians remain polar­ized in our beliefs, and intol­er­ant of each oth­ers’ dif­fer­ing view­points and the man­ner in which we express them, there is no chance that we will be able to come together for the good of our coun­try, much less to “make dis­ci­ples” of this or any other nation.

Mem­ber­ship in Chris­t­ian churches is shrink­ing, not expand­ing, with many denom­i­na­tions los­ing mem­bers to the point that local con­gre­ga­tions are sell­ing or shut­ter­ing their phys­i­cal plants and dis­band­ing. For good rea­son. When Chris­tians exhibit an atti­tude of supe­ri­or­ity, exclu­siv­ity, and revul­sion for any­one who dares to dis­agree with them, they can­not expect non­be­liev­ers to be drawn to them or their beliefs, or want to be iden­ti­fied with either.

The post in ques­tion, enti­tled “Can a Born-Again Chris­t­ian Sup­port Pres­i­dent Obama?” was pub­lished on Jan­u­ary 20, 2009, Inau­gu­ra­tion Day. Like Limbaugh’s shame­ful com­men­tary, it is an unapolo­getic, scathingly judg­men­tal indict­ment of our Pres­i­dent. The author opines:

“I’m rooted in the Chris­t­ian tra­di­tion,” said Obama, who has declared him­self a Chris­t­ian. But then he adds some­thing that will not sit well (at all!) with real Born-Again Chris­tians: “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 man is clearly — not only a friend, but — a dis­ci­ple of Oprah Winfrey!)

…

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. Only God can judge a person’s heart, but one can­not deny cen­tral tenets of the Chris­t­ian faith — includ­ing the deity of Christ as the sole medi­a­tor between God and Man — and call him­self a Christian.

Such peo­ple do have a label applied to them in Scrip­ture. They are called “False Prophets.” And the level of idol­a­try that has fol­lowed Barack Obama for the last twelve months — while unreal and unprece­dented — should not sur­prise us. See II Tim­o­thy 4:3 and I John 4: 1–2.

…

Over the last months since Mr. Obama’s elec­tion vic­tory, I’ve heard many Chris­tians pro­fess these words: “He is my pres­i­dent. I will sup­port him. I want him to succeed.”

You may call me anti-American. I do not want Pres­i­dent Obama to suc­ceed. This does not go against nor con­tra­dict my respon­si­bil­ity as a Chris­t­ian to be sub­ject to God-ordained authority. 

Those state­ments, like Limbaugh’s, are not just un-American and, in my opin­ion, trea­so­nous. They are unde­ni­ably and unre­pen­tantly un-Christlike.

Although the pastor’s wife acknowl­edges that it is a sin to judge another’s faith, she pro­ceeds to judge Pres­i­dent Obama and finds him unwor­thy, by her stan­dard, to call him­self a Chris­t­ian. She declares that she and oth­ers who ascribe to her view­points are “real Born-Again Christians.”

The writer labels Pres­i­dent Obama “evil” because of his stance on var­i­ous issues, proclaiming:

If you are a true, born-again Chris­t­ian, you can­not enable and sup­port such openly and obvi­ously evil actions by a man who denies the Lord­ship of Jesus Christ…

… Even if you agree with him on the envi­ron­ment, econ­omy, or any­thing else. God’s Word unmis­tak­ably com­pels you to reject him.

On what points does she dis­agree with him?

If you believe that God’s Word is inerrant and True, then the fol­low­ing state­ments are FACTS:

• Abor­tion is evil. Pres­i­dent Obama abets abortion.
• Infan­ti­cide is evil. Pres­i­dent Obama enables and defends infanticide.
• The Lord hates hands that shed inno­cent blood. Pres­i­dent Obama’s hands are bloodied.
• Same-sex mar­riage is evil. Pres­i­dent Obama sup­ports same-sex marriage.
• Sodomy is evil. Pres­i­dent Obama upholds sodomy.
• Homo­sex­u­al­ity is evil. Pres­i­dent Obama embraces homosexuality.
• The Lord hates a lying tongue. Pres­i­dent Obama lies with­out remorse.
• The Lord hates a false wit­ness. Pres­i­dent Obama is unre­pen­tant and proud.
• These are demon­stra­ble facts.

Obvi­ously, in that woman’s world there exist only two col­ors: Black and white. The Good News that Jesus became Incar­nate to deliver is that the real world is made up of an infi­nite num­ber of col­ors … more shades and gra­di­ents than we can count or imagine.

For­tu­nately, not all Chris­tians live in such a con­strained man­ner. Most of us read the Bible in a ratio­nal, thought­ful, intel­lec­tual, critical-thinking man­ner. And we under­stand that it is unmis­tak­ably unfair to label Pres­i­dent Obama or any other indi­vid­ual as a per­son lack­ing faith just because that per­son dis­agrees with us on polit­i­cal issues or mat­ters of social jus­tice. That type of intol­er­ance divides believ­ers and makes us the object of deri­sion and ridicule rather than what we are called to be: Shin­ing bea­cons of light to nonbelievers.

And no one who truly loves another human being as Christ loved the church on earth can hon­estly desire that another per­son fail. Much less that the Pres­i­dent of the United States will fail.

Because if Pres­i­dent Obama fails, we all fail.

Let me make clear that I do not refer to myself as a “born again Chris­t­ian.” I was born to Chris­t­ian par­ents, bap­tized at the ten­der age of three months, con­firmed as a young adult, and remained a mem­ber of a main­stream Protes­tant denom­i­na­tion until a cou­ple of years ago. I have never expe­ri­enced or needed to expe­ri­ence a “con­ver­sion” to Christianity.

My beliefs are not sub­ject to human judg­ment. The Bible makes that clear. Nor is it my place to deter­mine whether any other per­son meets the stan­dard of “believer” or “Chris­t­ian.” I am appalled by and embar­rassed for any pro­fessed Chris­t­ian who refuses to under­stand that there is not a sin­gle, cor­rect way to look at world issues.

That’s when the Phar­isees plot­ted a way to trap him into say­ing some­thing dam­ag­ing. They sent their dis­ci­ples, with a few of Herod’s fol­low­ers mixed in, to ask, “Teacher, we know you have integrity, teach the way of God accu­rately, are indif­fer­ent to pop­u­lar opin­ion, and don’t pan­der to your stu­dents. So tell us hon­estly: Is it right to pay taxes to Cae­sar or not?”

Jesus knew they were up to no good. He said, “Why are you play­ing these games with me? Why are you try­ing to trap me? Do you have a coin? Let me see it.” They handed him a sil­ver piece.

“This engraving—who does it look like? And whose name is on it?”

They said, “Caesar.”

“Then give Cae­sar what is his, and give God what is his.”

The Phar­isees were speech­less. They went off shak­ing their heads.

Matthew 22:15–22, The Message

Jesus made clear that when it comes to mat­ters of the world, we are to sub­mit to the gov­ern­ment. We are to respect, honor, and sup­port our lead­ers, but draw the line at mak­ing them into idols or gods.  If we fol­low Jesus’ exam­ple of love, care, and com­pas­sion, we will never wish fail­ure upon any other per­son, no mat­ter his/her posi­tion or sta­tus. That is par­tic­u­larly true with respect to the leader of our country.

The pastor’s wife con­cluded her arti­cle by encour­ag­ing her read­ers to pray for Pres­i­dent Obama. But rather than endors­ing inter­ces­sions for his suc­cess as our Commander-in-Chief, she opines that prayers should be offered “for his Salvation.”

True patri­ots under­stand that what Pres­i­dent Obama, a man who already pro­fesses the name of Christ, needs are prayers for wis­dom, dis­cern­ment, courage, and strength, as well as phys­i­cal and men­tal robust­ness. We should be offer­ing inter­ces­sions that he remain safe from those who seek to harm him, as there are many, and be sur­rounded by advis­ers who, like him, want to see this coun­try suc­ceed in every con­ceiv­able way and at every level.

Instead of declar­ing that the Bible is com­prised of absolutes (it is not), thought­ful Chris­tians never stop study­ing, ana­lyz­ing, con­tem­plat­ing and med­i­tat­ing upon Scrip­ture, always striv­ing to hear the Word of the Divine Cre­ator through refreshed ears and see the rain­bow col­ors of the beau­ti­ful world through com­pas­sion­ate, non­judg­men­tal eyes. Only then can we hope to come together in cel­e­bra­tion of our dif­fer­ences, bathed in the light of our glo­ri­ous diver­sity, con­fi­dent that, if united, we can throw our unbri­dled sup­port behind Pres­i­dent Obama such that we all ben­e­fit from his suc­cess.

I reject the opin­ions and beliefs of the pastor’s wife because true evil resides in, through and under such haughty and pride­ful thoughts and wishes. I pray daily for Pres­i­dent Obama, his fam­ily, Con­gress, the mem­bers of his Cab­i­net and their staffs, and the mem­bers of the United States Supreme Court and those who work with them. I pray for their spec­tac­u­lar achieve­ments and extra­or­di­nary accom­plish­ments. Because if they suc­ceed, my life will be bet­ter for it, as will the lives of all Amer­i­cans, includ­ing the pastor’s wife, her fam­ily, and those who look at the world through the same lens.

I pray for her and peo­ple like her that they find the strength to step into the light and see the world in all of its col­or­ful splen­dor. And applaud those who are already liv­ing there.

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