How Christians Should Respond to Obama’s Re-Election

November 8, 2012 By 8 Comments

LET US PRAY THAT THE PRESIDENT, WHO PROFESSES HIMSELF CHRISTIAN, TRULY GOVERNS LIKE ONE.

As I join my fellow Christ followers in lamenting the re-election of a president whose policies have been decidedly unGodly, I am reminded of the words of the Apostle Paul.

“Let every soul,” he instructed, “be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.”

What that means is that sovereign God, in His divine wisdom, has permitted Barack Obama to rule our troubled land another four years.

Just as He allowed Pharoah to rule Egypt during the time of Moses; Ahab to rule Israel during the time of Elijah; and Belshazzar to rule Babylon during the time of Daniel.

That God allowed those wicked men to govern in no way meant He overlooked their unrepentant sinfulness.

Indeed, He brought ten plagues upon Pharoah’s Egypt, the last of which took the life of the ruler’s first-born son.

Ahab was mortally wounded by a random arrow and died ignominiously as dogs lapped up his blood.

And Belshazarr was slain, and his kingdom lost to his enemies, after God passed judgment on him – the proverbial writing on the wall.

The point is that God remains on the throne. That he rules over all the kingdoms and the nations. That in His hand there is power and might. And that no one, not even the putative “leader of the free world,” is able to withstand Him.

So, much as it pains this evangelical Christian, I accept that Barack Obama is our nation’s duly re-elected president. And I do not challenge his governing authority over me and my house.

However, just because the mass of voters returned Obama to the White House for another four years doesn’t mean that same-sex marriage is no longer an abomination; that abortion is no longer murder; that God no longer has a place in public life.

And no matter the outcome of the presidential election, I believe it the duty of Christ followers to “speak truth to power.” To raise our voices in dissent when our elected leaders pass laws and pursue policies which clearly are contrary to God’s supreme law.

I count myself among the more than half of Americans who, according to Election Day exit polls, believe that our nation is “on the wrong track.” I also attribute the social and economic morass in which our country currently finds itself to our governing authorities, who have turned away from God.

That is why it is up to the Christian faithful to stand in the gap for America the next four years. To pray, unceasingly, that our president, who professes himself Christian, will actually govern like a true Christian.

For God has promised, “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

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Why Christians Should Not Vote For Obama

November 4, 2012 By 6 Comments

‘BELSHAZZAR’S FEAST,’ BY REMBRANDT. ‘YOU HAVE BEEN WEIGHED IN THE BALANCES, AND FOUND WANTING.’

The Bible tells the story of Belshazzar, the very last king of Babylon, who held a great feast for a thousand of his lords during which he commanded his servants to bring the sacred vessels which had been pillaged from God’s holy temple in Jerusalem, so that the king and his lords could drink from them.

In the midst of the unholy revelry, a disembodied hand materialized and wrote upon a wall: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.

It was a message to Belshazzar.

“God has numbered your kingdom, and finished it. You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting; Your kingdom has been divided…”

America is today ruled by a president who defies God, much as Belshazzar did. And for faithful Christ followers who remain undecided how they will vote on Election Day, let us offer ten reasons why they absolutely should not cast their ballots for Barack Obama:

I. The president refuses to acknowledge America’s Christian origins. During a state visit to Turkey, Mr. Obama told his Muslim hosts, “We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation.” That amounted to a repudiation of the nation’s founders, almost all of whom were devoted Christ followers.

II. The president has undermined the institution of marriage – which heretofore was known as “holy matrimony” – by embracing same-sex marriage. His position defies the Word of God, which unequivocally states, “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination.”

III. The president is complicit in the slaughter of more than 4.5 million unborn children during his watch, having sold his soul to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s leading abortion provider. The president even supports late-term abortion and, worst still, the withholding of physician care for babies that actually survive attempted abortion.

IV. The president has said nothing, and done nothing, about the religious oppression, the violent attacks, upon Christian minorities in Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia. The attacks have increased more than 300 percent over the past 10 years.

V. The president only pretends to be a friend of Israel, the birthplace of Christianity. During last year’s G-20 Summit in Canne, French President Nicolas Sarkozy told Mr. Obama that he couldn’t bear Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom Sarkozy called “a liar.” The president concurred. “You’re fed up?” he said. “I have to deal with him everyday.”

VI. The president gave his imprimatur to a decision to remove any reference to “God” in the Democratic Party Platform, and any declaration of Jerusalem as the capital city of Israel (a designation disputed by Islamists who refuse to accept Israel’s right to exist). He reversed course only after a great public outcry.

VII. The president is hostile to religious freedom as evidence by the argument his  administration made before the Supreme Court that church employees can claim workplace discrimination when their beliefs or conduct are contrary to the tenets of their faith-based employers.

VIII. The president’s health care reform mandates the insurers provide contraceptives on demand for single women – like Sandra Fluke – which amounts to tacit approval of sexual promiscuity.

IX. The president takes spiritual counsel from radical pastors like Jeremiah Wright and Joseph Lowery. Rev. Wright, who married Barack and Michelle Obama, infamously stated that, instead of singing “God Bless America,” blacks should sing “God Damn America.” Rev. Lowry, who spoke at Obama’s inauguration, just recently said, when he was a young civil rights activist, he would say “all white folks are going to hell.” Then he mellowed “and just said most of them are.” Now, he said, he is back to where he was.

X. The president professes himself a man of faith but has managed to attend Sunday church services not even a tenth as many times as he has stolen away from the White House to play golf.

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Obama’s Ungodly Policies Risk Black Christian Votes

September 8, 2012 By 1 Comment

‘PRESIDENT OBAMA IS LEADING THE COUNTRY DOWN AN IMMORAL PATH,’ SAID REV. WILLIAM OWENS.

Once upon a time, I wrote a newspaper column while onsite at a Democratic National Convention.

I opined that, “It really doesn’t matter who the Democrats nominate as their party standard-bearer – Bill Clinton, David Duke or a loaf of bread – black voters will blindly support him (or it).”

Indeed, blacks have gone overwhelming Democrat since the 1932 presidential election, when Franklin Roosevelt captured 71 percent of the black vote.

Given that history, most political observers expect the same outcome when black voters go to the polls this upcoming November. Especially since one of their own is running for a second term in the White House.

Well, I have a different view. While I expect that the majority of blacks will indeed cast their ballots for Barack Obama, I seriously doubt he will capture 95 percent of the black vote this time around.

That’s because a certain segment of the black population – socially conservative, church-going Christians – are none too pleased with the ungodly positions the president has taken on such issues as same-sex marriage and abortion.

Indeed, the 1,300-member Coalition of African-American Pastors is currently circulating a petition among their church congregations encouraging Obama to reconsider his election-year support for same-sex couplings.

“By embracing gay marriage,” said Rev. William Owens, the Coalition’s president, “President Obama is leading the country down an immoral path. Some things are bigger than the next election.”

Then there’s the National Black ProLife Coalition, a network of pro-life and pro-family organizations. It points out that abortion is the leading cause of death for blacks.

And that Democrat-aligned Planned Parenthood, whose president got podium time at the Democrat convention in Charlotte, is most responsible for the yearly slaughter of pre-born black babies.

“We’re calling out black leaders,” the Coalition declares, “who align themselves with the destructive eugenic force of Planned Parenthood.” That includes Obama, who has sold his soul to the abortion-industrial complex.

So, while a majority of black voters almost certainly will line up behind Obama again – despite the immoral path down which he has led this nation, as Rev. Owens lamented, those that place God above political party, above racial hegemony, will vote not to return him to the White House.

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A Pastor Sells His Soul to the Party of Obama

September 3, 2012 By 12 Comments

PASTOR DERRICK HARKINS COMPROMISES HIS FAITH TO SUPPORT DEMOCRATIC PARTY.

Rev. Derrick Harkins is a hypocrite.

He’s the pastor of Nineteenth Street Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., which the Washington Post describes as “theologically conservative.” And he serves on the board of the National Association of Evangelicals.

But the Baptist preacher also is the National Director of Faith Outreach for the Democratic National Committee, which supports public policies that are an affront to the Almighty.

Indeed, today Harkins presides over a meeting of the party’s so-called Faith Caucus at the Democratic convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Its task is to devise a strategy to somehow persuade Christian voters that the party’s platform is about “being our brother’s keeper” and “compassion.”

Pastor Harkins should be reminded of the Scripture which declares: “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other.”

Harkins obviously believes that Scripture does not apply to him. He thinks he can be, at once, a faithful Christ follower and loyal Democrat.

But the reality – which the pastor is too blind to see – is that his service to the party of Obama is a disservice to the Kingdom of God.

Indeed, there simply is no way that a man of God can support a president, support a political party, that defends the yearly slaughter of more than one million unborn children. And there’s no way that a pastor faithful to God’s Word could blithely associate himself with a president and a party that promote the abomination of same-sex marriage.

I imagine Harkins rationalizes his hypocrisy by invoking the words of Jesus: “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” And I imagine the pastor deludes himself that he is somehow following the Savior’s example.

But the Democrats in Charlotte are absolutely unrepentant of their advocacy of ungodly policies. And they are absolutely convinced that the wrongdoers are those of us who oppose abortion, who oppose homosexual nuptials.

Harkins knows this. Yet he continues to fellowship with those who shake their fists at God, who are gathered this week at the Democratic convention.

The Bible tells the stories of two men – Samson and Saul – who were once highly favored by God, but from whom God’s Spirit departed when they did their will, rather than His.

Those should be cautionary tales for Pastor Harkin. By casting his lot with unrepentant abortionists and sodomites – among other recalcitrant sinners partying in Charlotte – he risks the same spiritual ruin as Samson and Saul.

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Paul Ryan Faces Left-Wing Religious Attack

August 11, 2012 By 4 Comments

REP. RYAN, ANNOUNCED TODAY AS MITT ROMNEY’S GOP TICKET MATE, IS CONSERVATIVE, PRO-LIFE CHRISTIAN.

The Obama re-election campaign huddled today with “progressive” religious leaders as they coordinate a line of attack against conservative Catholic congressman Paul Ryan, Republican Mitt Romney’s selection as his ticket-mate.

The Democrat-aligned religious leaders are critical of the budget proposals Rep. Ryan has championed on Capitol Hill, which, they charge, will exacerbate the sufferings of the nation’s poor.

They also portray Ryan as a secret admirer of Ayn Rand, who famously authored “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead;” who was, at once, a strong defender of capitalism and an avowed atheist.

Of course, it is hard for left-wing religious leaders to play the poverty card against Ryan when they are supporting a Democrat president on whose watch the ranks of the nation’s poor has grown by more than 6.5  million.

As to Ryan’s affinity for Rand, there are many faithful Christians, including yours truly, who share her belief in limited government and individual rights, but who absolutely do not share her disbelief in God.

What amuses is that the Obama campaign actually believes that the left-wing religious attack on Ryan it is plotting can somehow win Christian evangelical votes to the Democrat column this upcoming November.

That’s no more likely than Obama returning the poverty rate, the jobless rate and (while we’re at it) gasoline prices to where they were the day before his inauguration.

Because the faith espoused by religious leaders carrying water for the Obama campaign is quite different than the faith practiced by Christian evangelicals.

No true Christ follower would support abortion-on-demand, like the left-wing religious leaders who stand with Obama. Nor would authentic Christians give their blessing to same-sex marriage. Nor would they endorse government-mandated contraceptives-on-demand for single women.

The Scripture advises believers that, during the early years of Christianity, there were “false prophets among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in damnable heresies.”

The left-wing “religious” leaders who have joined the Obama campaign in its planned attack on Ryan are the false teachers of whom the Scripture warned. And the day surely will come when the Lord holds them accountable for the heresies they espouse.

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LA Times Deceives About Evangelical Leaders

August 2, 2012 By 1 Comment

TIMES RELIGION REPORTER MITCHELL LANDSBERG CLAIMS THAT OBAMA AND EVANGELICAL LEADERS ARE ‘ALLIES.’

“Evangelical leaders echo Obama, say U.S. is not a Christian nation.” So read the headline accompanying a putative “news” story published yesterday in the exceptionally liberal, exceedingly biased Los Angeles Times.

Times religion reporter Mitchell Landsberg misleadingly claimed that evangelicals agree with a statement the current president made in 2006 when he was still a member of the U.S. Senate:

“Whatever we once were,” said Obama, “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 unbelievers.”

What the future president was saying at the time was the various faiths (and non-faiths) were morally equivalent in his world view.  And, in advancing that view, he was effectively repudiating America’s  Christian heritage.

For the United States was founded not by Jews (although Christians worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob). Nor by Muslims or Buddhists or Hindus. And certainly not by unbelievers (notwithstanding the fiction promulgated by atheists that the nation’s founders were “deists” rather than Christians).

Evangelical leaders certainly do not “echo” Obama, as the Times suggested yesterday. They certainly do not agree with the view he expressed back in 2006.

What 68 percent conveyed in a just-released survey released by the National Association of Evangelicals is that they do not consider the United States a truly Christian nation, abiding by the teachings of Christ the Lord.

And most of us who are Bible-believing Christ followers would agree.

For a truly Christian nation would not allow more than a million unborn children to be slaughtered each year by abortionists. It would not defile the institution of marriage by allowing gays, lesbians, transgenders, et al to be lawfully wed.

It would not mandate that health insurers provide contraceptives to single women so that they can be sexually promiscuous without fear of pregnancy. It would not bow to the demands of “nonbelievers” to tear down crosses that honor this nation’s war dead, which have stood on public ground for decades.

That’s the post-Christian America to which Obama referred back in 2006. The nation that has moved further away from the faith of its founders during his presidential watch. Further away from God.

The Times is dead wrong to suggest there is any area of agreement between Obama and evangelical leaders. Including whether he deserves to be returned to the White House.

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No to Condoleezza Rice For Veep

July 19, 2012 By 2 Comments

FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE WOULD ALIENATE SOCIAL CONSERVATIVES.

Condoleezza Rice has, in my estimation, served this country with distinction.

First, as a member of the National Security Council during the presidency of George Herbert Walker Bush. Then, as Secretary of State, during the presidency of George Walker Bush.

A FOX News poll released yesterday said that Rice is the top choice of the Republican faithful to be the ticketmate of Mitt Romney, the party’s presumptive presidential nominee.

But she is not the top choice of this social conservative; this long-time Republican.

That’s because Condi supports abortion “rights.” And, frankly, because the 58-year-old has never been married; never had children.

I believe that, after Barack Obama’s jobless “recovery” and his government takeover of the nation’s health care system, the biggest issues in the upcoming presidential campaign will be marriage and abortion.

Romney, the GOP standardbearer, can proclaim himself as the candidate who stands with the majority of Americans who believe in the sanctity of life and the sanctity of marriage.

On the other side is Democrat Obama, who stands with the abortionists; who stands with the homosexuals who defile the institution of marriage, which was created by God Almighty.

I believe Romney loses both the abortion and marriage issues with Condi on ticket.

For while she says that she opposes late term abortion and she favors parental notification when an under-age girl seeks an abortion, the fact remains that, if her views became policy, there would continue to be more than one million unborn babies killed each year.

I do not know Condi’s views on marriage. Whether she agrees that it is the backbone of society; that it should be reserved exclusively to one man and one woman; that same-sex marriage is an abomination in the eyes of God.

If she agrees with all that, her views coincide with those of social conservatives and Christian evangelicals, who make up a third of the Republican Party base.

Nevertheless, it would be hard for Condi to make a strong, convincing case for traditional marriage when she’s never been a bride herself. When she’s never been a mom.

I’m not condemning Condi for never being married. And by absolutely no means am I criticizing her for being childless. 

I’m simply saying that that a never-been-married, childless woman – or man for that matter – is not the ideal spokesperson for family values.

That’s not to say that there is no place in a Romney administration for an individual boasting the distinguished resume of Condoleezza Rice.

Maybe U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Or Secretary of Homeland Security.

Just not a heartbeat away from the presidency.

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Why Americans Don’t Think Obama is a Christian

June 25, 2012 By 4 Comments

OBAMA CLAIMS TO BE A CHRISTIAN, BUT HIS POLICIES ARE THOSE OF A ‘RAVENOUS WOLF.’

President Obama proclaims himself a Christian. But two-thirds of Americans either don’t know it or don’t believe it, according to a new Gallup poll.

I count myself among those who don’t believe it. And not just because the president has managed to attend Sunday church services not even a tenth as many times as he has stolen away from the White House to play golf.

The Scripture warns us to beware of those “who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.You will know them by their fruits.”

I believe, as do many evangelical Christians, that Obama is such a ravenous wolf. And the fruits of his presidency bear witness.

On Obama’s watch, more than three and a half million abortions have been performed in this country. Yet, the professed Christian has done absolutely nothing to stop – or even reduce – the ungodly slaughter of the unborn.

That’s because Obama has cast his lot with the nation’s abortionists. “I am pro-choice,” he has declared. He also has stated, “I believe in Roe v. Wade,” the 39-year-old Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion on demand, that denied the humanity of the unborn.

Meanwhile, Obama has so ingratiated himself to the homosexual community that Newsweek magazine admiringly proclaimed him America’s “first gay president.”

He earned that dubious title by repealing the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, ordering his Justice Department not to defend in court the federal “Defense of Marriage” law, and, most recently, coming out in favor of same-sex marriage.

What particularly offended about Obama’s endorsement of same sex marriage is that he dared to suggest that Christ would bless such unholy unions, even though Scripture declares it nothing less than “an abomination” for man to lie with man.

Then there was the Obama administration’s argument before the Supreme Court that church employees can claim workplace discrimination when they are fired because their beliefs or conduct are contrary to tenets of their faith-based employer.

Even Obama’s appointees to the High Court, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, agreed that the administration’s position amounted to an attack upon religious freedom. That’s why they joined their fellow justices in a unanimous ruling against Obama’s imps.

Finally, there’s the provision of the Obamacare law that requires churches and faith-based employers to not only provide, but also pay for contraceptive for their workers – no matter whether they were married or single.

The controversy went supernova when the president’s Democrat allies in Congress held a hearing at which Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke, who turned out to be a radical feminist activist, made the case for why religious institutions should not be exempt from the contraceptive mandate.

When Fluke was taken to task by radio host Rush Limbaugh, who wondered why a single woman like Fluke would need birth control unless she was sleeping around, Obama  came to her defense.

That’s because she was doing the president’s bidding, furthering his secularist agenda to force religious institutions to be conformed to this morally fallen world, which bombards young women and men with the message that there’s nothing wrong with sexual promiscuity as long as they use “protection.”

Such are the fruits of the Obama presidency. Little wonder that two-thirds of Americans do not identify him as Christian.

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Have Republicans No Sympathy For the Jobless?

May 12, 2012 By 6 Comments

MAINE GOVERNOR PAUL LEPAGE SUGGESTED JOBLESS HAVE THEMSELVES TO BLAME.

I’m a Republican. I’m also a compassionate conservative.

That’s why I’m troubled by remarks this week by Maine Gov. Paul LePage suggesting that the unemployed are jobless by choice.

“To all you able-bodied people out there,” he said, during a speech at his state party convention, “Get off the couch, and get yourself a job.”

Well, I understand that the cost of providing unemployment benefits to Maine’s 51,000 jobless is taxing the state’s treasury.

But, I simply don’t believe that most of those out of work in the Pine Tree State– including the able-bodied of whom LePage spoke – prefer government welfare to a full-time job.

LePage  is no compassionate conservative. If he were, he would sympathize with the out-of-work. And he would hold the party of Obama accountable for the nation’s jobless recovery.

Indeed, in 2009, Democrats enacted the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the massive $825 billion economic stimulus package that was supposed to create millions of jobs and keep the nation’s unemployment rate below 8 percent.

Three years later, the stimulus has proven a complete failure. The unemployment rate has topped 8 percent a record 38 straight months (and counting). And there are today 740,000 fewer jobs in post-recession America than when Obama moved into the White House.

A close look at U.S. Labor Department’s April jobs report reveals a labor market that remains in the worst shape since the Great Depression.

Some 12.5 million Americans were officially counted as unemployed. Of those, some 5.1 million were categorized as “long-term unemployed,” meaning they were out of work a half-year or more.

Another 7.9 million Americans were underemployed. They held part-time jobs because they couldn’t find full-time positions.

Then there were 2.4 million persons identified as “marginally attached to the labor force.” They wanted and were available for work, had looked for a job sometime in the previous 12 months, but had not searched for work in the four weeks prior to the jobs survey.

Nearly 1 million of the marginally attached were considered “discouraged workers,” having given up hope of finding work

When you add the officially unemployed to the underemployed and the marginally attached, you come up with 22.8 million Americans lacking gainful employment.

It is a statistical portrait of pain, hardship and loss. It should move people of faith to compassion for those seeking work. Not to contempt.

That’s why Gov. LePage’s remarks have done damage to the GOP. It makes it appear that those of us who are Republicans lack sympathy for those who are unemployed through no fault of their own; who are victims of the jobless recovery.

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Jimmy Carter Reminds Us of His Evangelical Roots

March 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment

THE FORMER PRESIDENT HAS RELEASED A NEW STUDY BIBLE.

The late, great Bob Bartley won a Pulitzer Prize for his Wall Street Journal editorials deconstructing the hapless presidency of Jimmy Carter.

During a conversation I had with Bartley, some years after Ronald Reagan denied Carter a second term in the Oval Office, the WSJ editor told me he really had no animus toward the Democrat.

It’s just that he thought Carter would have made a much better missionary than leader of the free world.

I’m reminded of that conversation with news that the former president has just released a study Bible. It draws upon the 685 or so Sunday School lessons the Southern Baptist reckons he has taught over the years. It also includes his “personal reflections.”

With the media’s paranoia about the political influence of the evangelical community – particularly within the Republican party – it is often forgotten that Carter’s 1976 run for the White House was the impetus that got the evangelical community to take its Christian values from the church to the voting booth.

Carter, the Plains, Ga.peanut farmer who served one term as governor of the Peach Tree State, unabashedly campaigned as a “born-again Christian.” And, as he told CNN last week, he “tried to put into (his) services as president the teachings of Christ.”

Indeed, evangelicals might still be faithful to the party of Carter had it not strayed so far from the traditional values he represented when he was elected back in 1976.

Evangelicals didn’t leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left them.

It supports abortion-on-demand. It supports repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as a union between a man and woman. It supports stem cell research involving destruction of human embryos.

It opposes sexual abstinence programs for under-age youth. It opposes public aid to faith-based social service providers. It opposes any mention of God or creation in public schools, while the exaltation of Darwin and evolution are perfectly acceptable. It opposes a crackdown on hard core pornography on the Internet.

Those are the kind of public policy positions for which the Democratic Party stands in 2012. And, in the minds of most evangelicals, they hardly represent the teachings of Christ of which Jimmy Carter spoke.

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