November 24, 2008

  • Have you heard the one about …

    … the school bus driver in Mississippi who kicked two students off her bus because they spoke Barak Obama’s name? 

    I admit that I was disappointed when George W. Bush was re-elected.  I felt depressed for weeks.  I had already witnessed the effects of his economic policies and believed they would only grow worse.  I was concerned about the war in Iraq and the steady march away from doctrines governing justice between nations.  And I can’t remember ever hearing anything that came close to rivaling the actions some disappointed Republican voters have taken, or the bizarre things some Conservative talk-show hosts have said in their opposition to President Elect Obama.

    I love the people who read my blog.  You leave long interesting comments.  Some of you ask questions.  Some of you from yesterday said, “Well, I’ve heard …” which I took as a challenge to go and find those quotes and see what they were about. 

    For those who have heard that Barack Obama said that the Constitution is flawed.  He did.  It was in an interview in 2001 and he was talking about the issues of race in America.  He said that the U S Constitution is a remarkable document which has served this nation well for over 200 years, but that it also reflects the Colonial Culture from which it came.  In that interview (I’m not quoting him now, these are my words) Obama pointed to something that even the framers of the Constitution considered a problem.  Early critics of the document felt it should have clarified the status of slaves as human beings with rights.  But the authors were concerned that if they pushed the issue, the document would never be ratified.  So they left it for future generations to sort out and that little issue culminated in a Civil War about 70 years later.  That’s what he was talking about when he said it was flawed. 

    Wanna hear for yourself?

     

    GUNS: Does Obama oppose Second Amendment rights?  Here’s a Q and A from the debate in Las Vegas last January.

    Q: When you were in the state senate, you talked about licensing and registering gun owners. Would you do that as president?

    A: I don’t think that we can get that done. But what we can do is to provide just some common-sense enforcement. The efforts by law enforcement to obtain the information required to trace back guns that have been used in crimes to unscrupulous gun dealers. As president, I intend to make it happen. We essentially have two realities, when it comes to guns, in this country. You’ve got the tradition of lawful gun ownership. It is very important for many Americans to be able to hunt, fish, take their kids out, teach them how to shoot. Then you’ve got the reality of 34 Chicago public school students who get shot down on the streets of Chicago. We can reconcile those two realities by making sure the Second Amendment is respected and that people are able to lawfully own guns, but that we also start cracking down on the kinds of abuses of firearms that we see on the streets.

    Source: 2008 Democratic debate in Las Vegas Jan 15, 2008
     
    Religion: Is Obama a Muslim?
     
    When this question comes up, most of the time what I hear from people opposed to Obama is information that calls into question whether or not he’s a Christian.  Can we just get clear on something?  I can prove to you from a dozen different theological directions that the baked potato I had for dinner was not a Christian.  But the mere fact of being “not-Christian” doesn’t automatically mean that the potato is Muslim. 
     
    May I suggest that it works in reverse?  There are certain things that adherents of Islam do.  If a person doesn’t do any of those things, he isn’t a Muslim no matter who his daddy was.  (Or wasn’t – there’s no evidence that Obama Sr was a practicing Muslim but a great many statements from friends and family who say he was atheist in his religious beliefs.)
     
    We don’t have a religious test for public office in this country.  As a matter of law and policy no one is prohibited holding office on the basis of their belief.  However, I understand that people’s beliefs and worldview have a profound influence upon their thoughts, ideas, and behavior. 
     
    So I’m not going to argue that the question of Barak Obama’s Christianity is irrelevant.  What I want to ask is how do you judge the salvation of another person?  How do you know whether or not someone is a Christian?
     
    Jesus is quoted in the gospels as saying, “You will know them by what they do, by the fruit they bear, by the love they show … ” (All those quotes are taken out of context – but if you want to read up on it, I would suggest the parable of the sheep and the goats found in the book of Matthew, Chapter 25 and verses 31-46, or the entire 15th Chapter of John.)
     
    The book of Romans says, “If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  For it is with your heart you believe and are justified, it is with your mouth you confess and are saved.”
     
    In this day and age, we’ve added a whole lot of doctrine and theology to that basic confession.  We (I’m speaking of the community of faith now) want to say things like “real Christians believe once saved always saved, or believe that unbaptized children are going to hell if they die, or believe that women should never hold leadership positions in the church, or  believe in a pre-millenial Rapture, or believe  __fill in blank with your issue here___, or do __fill in blank with your idea of whatever it is Christians have to do___, or give _____% of their money to the church, or vote against abortion, or vote for guns, or believe in free market capitalism.”  But you know what?  For the most part, I don’t think God cares about those things at all when it comes to judging whether or not a person is saved.  Now, God might care a great deal about those things in the greater context of life, but in the matter of salvation, you just don’t find those things listed as necessary conditions. 
     
    The Bible verse I referred to earlier says it’s what you say and what you believe in your heart.  The last time I checked there are no handy dandy heart decoder rings that will help you see what’s there.  All we can go on is what someone says.
    So what has Barack Obama said? 

    “I am a Christian, and I am a devout Christian. I believe in the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I believe that that faith gives me a path to be cleansed of sin and have eternal life. But most importantly, I believe in the example that Jesus set by feeding the hungry and healing the sick and always prioritizing the least of these over the powerful. I didn’t ‘fall out in church’ as they say, but there was a very strong awakening in me of the importance of these issues in my life. I didn’t want to walk alone on this journey. Accepting Jesus Christ in my life has been a powerful guide for my conduct and my values and my ideals.” from an interview published in the Jan. 08 issue of Christianity Today.
     
     

Comments (12)

  • to paraphrase “You will know them by what they do, by the fruit they bear, by the love they show … ” – proof is in the pudding … it ain’t over til the red-headed lady sings …

  • Thanks for doing the research and clearing up a few things.  It’s easy to point fingers and criticize when we know (or don’t want to know) the big picture.

  • I love what Obama said in the last bit.  And I agree with you 100% in the paragraphs above it.  I don’t like this litmus test we place on people….guns?….check.  Opposition to abortion?…check.  Toe the Republican party line?…check.  Therefore you are a Christian.    :::shakes head:::  No.  Chritianity is about a relationship with one’s Savior and that relationship bears fruit.  Fruit as in compassion, joy, peace, faithfulness, gentleness, goodness, faith, humbleness, temperance.  It remains to be seen if the Obama administration will show those fruits, but I know I have not seen evidence of any of these by a Bush, a president who made much show of his faith to get elected.  I have seen a great deal more compassion and care for the “least of these” in what Obama says. 

    Anyway.  Great post.  As usual

  • Thank you, thank you!  An excellent post.

  • Obviously, I’m too lazy to do my own research. Thanks for clearing that up.

    Hmm. Interesting quote about his faith. *adds to information arsenal* This will probably be of more value at a later date. The thing that jumps out at me is basically “Jesus set a good example, and I’ll follow that.” But we’ve already established I’m reading with a different set of glasses, so I see things you don’t. And vice versa.

    I personally don’t see how a professing and practicing Christian would promise to lift restrictions on abortion.

    Again, we’ll see who ends up being right about things.

    I really, REALLY don’t want to start a debate/argument on here. I’m just trying to give my own two cents.

    Nice, thought provoking post, as always!

  • Thank you, Terri.  We needed this.

  • @TreeHouseTruths - No worries here.  I thought you raised some excellent questions last night, obviously they prompted me to check it out and see.  I saw that same thing you did, about the example Jesus set.  It remains to be seen what Obama’s Presidency will do or not do in that line, but it sounds like he’s set himself firmly in the “Social Justice” tradition of Christian faith and practice. 

    There’s a great book by Richard Foster (who’s most well-known book is “Celebration of Discipline”) called “Streams of Living Water” where he traces different paths of Christianity.  It opened my eyes when I first read it almost 10 years ago.  He showed me how people I had previously considered to be – nuts – are in fact firmly rooted in the Gospel. 

    We all have different gifts and calling.  I (now) think that the way that we are drawn to Christianity and the kind of Christian life we lead has much to do with those individual gifts.  I could spend a lot of time not very much appreciating people who see things differently than I do, or I could trust that maybe God is dealing with them as individuals in His plan the same way He deals with me.  I look around my life and see that I have close relationships with a number of people.  I relate differently to each of those people and their experience of me is very different depending on whether they’ve been a friend for 20 years, my child, or my sister.  How could I presume that God would be any less able to relate uniquely to each of the people who come into relationship with Infinite Ground of Being. 

  • High five smart, beautiful and inspiring lady. Another thought provoking web log. If it makes people think or search out these things to clarify, more power to you. You rock.

  • Thanks for doing the research on all these “have you heard” issues.  No, I hadn’t heard about the bus driver who kicked kids off the bus for speaking Obama’s name.  How ridiuculous!  An intelligent and informative post as usual.  <3 SuZ  (Oh, and thanks for the support on my comments yesterday, I hadn’t had a chance to reply back yet.)

  • Lord protect the bigots when my kid gets into public school.  I won’t have any of that.  Uh-uh.

    Props for being another voice of reason out there.  The more of us there are, the less the ignorant have a chance to spread their lies and hate.

  • You are the biggest Obama fan I know….wait….you are the only Obama fan I know.    Still…you are a big Obama fan so I hope he does not let you down. 

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