Obama Disses His Faith Council

February 28, 2012 By 3 Comments

A story published today by Politico  notes the “quiet fade-out” of President Obama’s so-called faith council.

OBAMA HERALDED HIS NEW FAITH COUNCIL AT 2009 NATIONAL PRAYER BREAKFAST

It provides further confirmation of the point I made in a blog post last week: The president is not really as faithful a Christian as he professes. He talks the talk, when it politically profits him. But he doesn’t walk the walk.

Obama’s “first Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships delivered a 163-page report in March 2010 and then disbanded,” according to Politico. “The second council has waited more than a year for a full slate of appointees and has yet to meet.”

That’s too bad, said Arturo Chavez, the president of the Mexican American College in San Antonio, who was an original member of the president’s faith council.

The recent religious controversies in which Obama has found himself – most notably, his mandate that hospitals affiliated with religious institutions must provide contraceptives – could have been avoided, Chavez suggested, if “the president was advised sufficiently about the consequences with the faith community.”

 Chavez gave Obama the benefit of the doubt. He thinks the president unwittingly stumbled into the controversy.

But I believe the president knew his mandate would cause consternation in the faith community. I also believe he seriously underestimated the political blowback his mandate would precipitate.

Yes, the president’s faith council might have offered him advice as to how he might have steered clear of controversy. But he clearly didn’t want its advice.

They council was just window dressing to make it appear that the president wanted input from the faith community on issues of concern to the more than three-quarters of Americans who identify themselves as Christians.

It’s the kind of political calculus for which Obama has become known over the past three years. It may work with his secularist supporters. But not with the faith community.

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: , , ,

Renewed Scrutiny of Obama’s Faith Life

February 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment

OBAMA MADE RARE CHURCH VISIT TO SHILOH BAPTIST IN NATION'S CAPITAL

Pastor Franklin Graham was on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” yesterday. He was asked his opinion of President Obama’s faith life. “He believes in Jesus Christ,” Graham replied. “So I accept that.”

But then the son of Billy Graham, who has prayed with every president going back to Harry Truman, later added, “I have no idea what he really believes.”

The mainstream media seized on Graham’s honest remark as evidence of some sort of political jihad against Obama by the Christian evangelical community. But the president’s actions since moving into the White House are what raise questions about his true religious beliefs.

For one thing, Obama rarely bothers to attend church. The Huffington Post reported that the First Family makes an “occasional” appearance at a number of historic local churches in the Nation’s Capital, or sometimes drops by Evergreen Chapel, the church Ronald Reagan built atCamp David, the president’s weekend retreat.

Perhaps Obama can be forgiven his irregular church attendance – his mainstream media apologists note that he is no different than the 57 percent of Americans who spend their Sundays somewhere other than a church pew – but his policies are what trouble many true believing Christians.

Indeed, since his historic inauguration, some three and half-million abortions have been performed in this country. Yet, the professed Christian in the Oval Office has made no effort whatsoever to stop – or even reduce – the slaughter of the unborn. Instead, he has cast his lot with the abortion industrial complex.

“I am pro-choice,” Obama has stated. “I believe in Roe v. Wade,” the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion-on-demand, that denied the humanity of the unborn.

Then there’s the president’s “evolving” position on same-sex marriage. When he was running for the White House four years ago, Obama stated, unequivocally, “I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman and I am not in favor of gay marriage.”

Four years later, as the president seeks re-election, he has not yet thrown his support behind same-sex marriage, but he no longer stands by his previously-held view that marriage should remain exclusively between a man and a woman.

Yes, President Obama professes belief in Jesus Christ. But his views on abortion and same-sex marriage – among other defining issues – are anything but Christian.

 
Filed Under: Church, Politics Tagged With: , , , ,

Santorum Victim of Reverse Religious Bigotry

February 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment

SANTORUM CAMPAIGNED IN THE BUCKEYE STATE THIS PAST WEEKEND.

Rick Santorum has recently emerged as the front-runner in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. As such, the preferred candidate of Christian evangelical voters has become the target of President Obama’s reelection campaign.

While stumping in Ohio this past weekend, Santorum told supporters that the Democrat president is out of step with the mass of Americans.

“It’s not about you,” said the former Pennsylvania senator. “It’s not about your quality of life. It’s not about your jobs.”

The president is driven by “some phony ideal,” said Santorum. “Some phony theology. Oh not a theology based on the Bible. A different theology.”

Obama’s surrogates immediately pounced on the GOP front-runner’s remark, which they characterized as an attack on the president’s religious faith.

I can’t help but think that those remarks are well over the line,” Senior Obama Campaign Advisor Robert Gibbs harrumphed n “ABC This Week” yesterday. “It’s wrong. It’s destructive,” Gibbs added, for good measure.

But it’s the Obama campaign that was “wrong” in this case, as reported by Jan Crawford for CBS News.

The president’s attack dogs hit Santorum hard, she attested, “for something he didn’t really even say.” The Republican wasn’t commenting on Obama’s religion, wrote Crawford, he “was criticizing the president’s liberal environmental views.”

The Obama reelection seeks to portray Santorum, a Christian evangelical, as some sort of religious extremist, which is an insult to the millions of Americans who share the former senator’s faith.

Such reverse bigotry has no place in the presidential race. The Obama reelection campaign owes Santorum an apology.

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: , ,

Christie Punts on Same-Sex Marriage

February 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment

JERSEY GOVERNOR HIDES BEHIND VOTERS

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie pulled a Nicole Scherzinger today.

The former Pussy Cat Doll front woman, a judge on “The X Factor,” a singing competition airing on FOX, was at the center of the most controversial moment during the reality show’s first season when she could not bring herself to choose between two contestants, tearfully punting the decision to the viewing public.

Christie, a Republican, pulled the political equivalent when he vetoed a bill that would have allowed homosexual couples to lawfully wed in Garden State while, at the same time, calling upon Jersey’s Democrat-legislature to put a referendum on same-sex marriage on the state’s November ballot.

“I am adhering to what I’ve said since this bill was first introduced,” Christie stated, in his veto message. “An issue of this magnitude and importance, which requires a constitutional amendment, should be left to the people of New Jersey to decide.”

Please.

Christie is dressing himself up as a populist, who seeks only to do the people’s will. But the reality is the governor is trying to serve two masters – the homosexual lobby and the Christian evangelical community.

His wishy-washyness certainly hasn’t won him the favor of Jersey gays and lesbians.

The governor’s veto, said Jersey Assemblyman Tim Eustace, one of two openly homosexual members of the state’s Legislature, “makes it clear, in uncertain terms, that he doesn’t think my family, and thousands of others, are equal in the eyes of the law.”

The Garden State’s social conservatives can’t be especially pleased with the governor either.

Not when his veto statement declared that he is “adamant that same-sex couples in a civil union deserve the very same rights and benefits enjoyed by married couples – as well as the strict enforcement of those rights and benefits.”

If Christie, a Roman Catholic, actually feels that way, he should have just manned up and signed the Jersey same-sex marriage bill.

He would have lost the political support of this Christian evangelical. But at least I would have respected him for standing on principle.

Filed Under: Constitutional Rights, Marriage, Morality, Politics Tagged With: , , , ,

Is Romney Christian Enough?

January 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment

SOME EVANGELICALS WARY OF GOP FRONTRUNNER

Not since John F. Kennedy stumped for the White House in 1960 has the faith of a leading president candidate been questioned as Mitt Romney’s Mormonism. Many evangelicals say aloud that the Republican frontrunner is not an authentic Christian.

Indeed, if the former Massachusetts governor fails to win tomorrow’s Iowa caucus, it will be attributable in no small part to the unwillingness of the Hawkeye state’s evangelical community to bless him with their votes.

Well, Romney is not a Methodist, like former President George W. Bush, or Episcopalian, like former President George Herbert Walker Bush, or a member of Disciples of Christ, like late great President Ronald Reagan, but belongs to a faith that acknowledges the Lord in its very name – the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-Day Saints.

“We consider Jesus Christ the son of God without parallel,” Romney told People magazine back in November. It seems to me that if anyone acknowledges that Jesus is Lord – as Romney has – he should be embraced by the evangelical community as a brother in Christ, rather than rejected.

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: , , , , , ,

McChrystal can send our son to Afghanistan

September 22, 2009 By Leave a Comment

My 20-year-old son is a Navy sailor. He currently is stationed in San Diego. My wife and I pray for his safety each and every day.

So we found particularly pertinent the assessment of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, that the U.S. mission in Afghanistan is “likely to result in failure” if our current troop levels are not increased within a year.

If President Obama heeds Gen. McChrystal’s assessment, if the Pentagon orders more troops to Afghanistan to mount the “comprehensive counterinsurgency campaign” the general advises, there is a distinct possibility that our young man will be dispatched to Kabul.

There already are thousands of Navy personnel on the ground in Afghanistan, putting their lives on the line for their country. Indeed, just a fortnight ago, a Navy Corpsman just one year older than our son was killed by a bomb blast while supporting U.S. Marines in southern Afghanistan.

Yet, even though a U.S. military “surge” in Afghanistan could very well mean that our only child will be deployed to Afghanistan for six to 12 months, during which he almost certainly would find himself in harm’s way, we nonetheless agree with Gen. McCrystal’s sober analysis and we support his call for a counterinsurgency campaign.

My wife and I do not like to think about the dangers that could lie ahead for our young man in Afghanistan. But, at the same time, we think of the nearly 850 young men and women serving our nation’s military who have died in Afghanistan since Operation Enduring Freedom began in 2001.

If the Taliban manage to regain control of Kabul, if Afghanistan once again becomes a safe haven for Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, then the young American heroes who’ve died in Afghanistan over the past eight years will have done so in vain.

Our son swore an oath before God to support and defend his country against all enemies – even at the risk of his very life. We, his parents, continue to pray for him and for our men and women in uniform.

Filed Under: Military, Politics, Public Policy

Foes of Obamacare likened to homophobes

September 18, 2009 By Leave a Comment

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco Democrat, must be smoking some of that medicinal marijuana dispensed by her city’s cannabis clubs.

That has to be the explanation for her outlandish remarks yesterday likening present opposition to President Obama’s plan to makeover the nation’s health care system to anti-homosexual rhetoric in San Francisco in the late 1970s.

The 1970s rhetoric was “very frightening,” she said, “and it created a climate in which violence took place.” She was alluding to the 1978 murder of openly gay San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk by a colleague on the city’s Board of Supervisors.

Well, maybe Milk’s murder was driven by homophobia (although, late San Francisco Mayor George Moscone, who was not homosexual, was also gunned down along with Milk). But it’s downright demagogic of the House Speaker to insinuate that opposition to Mr. Obama’s proposed health care scheme is driven by hatred of the president.

Indeed, in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, more Americans said they oppose Obamacare than support it, 48-46 percent. Even worse for the President, Americans by 54-41 percent say the more they hear about his health care reform, the less they like it.

Are those 48 percent of Americans who oppose Obamacare all haters? Are the 54 percent who like proposed health care reform all the less the more they hear about it all Obamaphobes? Has the current debate over health care created a climate in which an assassination attempt upon the President is a distinct possibility, as Speaker Pelosi irresponsibly suggested?

No, no and no.

When a President – Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative – proposes a reform as large and historic in proportion as that which Mr. Obama proposes with health care, he has to anticipate strong and spirited opposition.

That’s what George W. Bush encountered four years ago when he attempted to restructure Social Security. That’s what Bill Clinton experienced 16 years ago when he proposed to overhaul the health care system. That’s what Ronald Reagan endured when he undertook tax reform 28 years ago.

Presidents Bush, Clinton and Reagan faced no less opposition to their proposed reforms than has President Obama. Yet, none of their supporters went so far as to suggest – as Speaker Pelosi has in the current health care debate – that reform opponents created a climate in which violence would take place.

Filed Under: General, Politics, Public Policy

Dumbing down high school

September 9, 2009 By Leave a Comment

The Class of 2010 is back to school in California. One in ten will fail the state’s high school exit exam and will not graduate with their peers.

The California Teachers Association – and the state lawmakers beholden to the powerful public teachers union – has long opposed the exit exam. They insist that it is wrong to withhold diplomas California’s high school seniors simply because they fail to pass the exam.

They also oppose school vouchers, which would enable the parents of students attending the worst public schools to enroll their children in private or parochial schools, where their childrten would have a considerable better chance of passing the high school exit exam.

This past summer, California’s Democrat-controlled Assembly proposed a four-year moratorium on the exit exam, supposedly to save the fiscally-challenged state money. Suspending the exam “makes good sense in a budget crisis and as good educational policy,” argued Assembly Speaker Karen Bass.

SAMPLE QUESTION

The cost of an afternoon movie ticket last year was $4.00. This year an afternoon movie ticket costs $5.00. What is the percent increase of the ticket from last year to this year?

 

A  10%

B  20%

C  25%

D  40%

Speaker Bass also cited a “disturbing” study from a Stanford University researcher, which found, she said, that the exit exam “has had a dramatic negative effect on the graduation rate of girls and on students of color.”

Well, excuse me. As the father of a “student of color,” I don’t see how a test that measures a high school senior’s proficiency in mathematics and English-language arts is negative in any way – except, that is, if that senior is unable to pass the test.

SAMPLE QUESTION

 Read this sentence from the article

 Help yourself to a daily vitamin and mineral supplement, and help yourself to improved health and longevity.

 What does this sentence mean?

 A  Helping other means encouraging them to take vitamins and minerals.

B  A large helping of vitamins and minerals is necessary for good health.

C  Taking vitamins and minerals is one way that people may help themselves.

D  Taking vitamins and minerals regularly will have a positive effect on a person’s health.

 And California’s exit exam hardly is a one-shot deal. High school students are given eight – count ’em eight – opportunities to pass the exam, beginning in the tenth grade.

In fact, 65 percent of California tenth graders manage to pass the exam. Not because they are young geniuses, but because the English portion of the exam tests on the tenth grade level and requires a 60 percent passing score, while the math portion is on an eight grade level and requires a mere 55 percent passing score.

Students that cannot pass California’s high school exit exam after eight attempts do not deserve a diploma, no matter their gender, no matter their race. That the state teachers union and its friends in the state Assembly are trying to get rid of the exam condemns “girls” and “students of color” to the soft bigotry of low expectations.

Filed Under: Education, Politics, Public Policy

Prayer for the jobless

September 7, 2009 By Leave a Comment

President Obama traveled to the Buckeye State today, where he delivered a speech at Cincinnati’s annual AFL-CIO Labor Day picnic. The president  introduced his new manufacturing czar and promote his controversial health care initiative.

While Mr. Obama  received a friendly hearing, his remarks  provided little comfort to the one in ten Ohio workers who are without jobs on this Labor Day. They couldn’t care less about a manufacturing czar. And a government takeover of the nation’s health care system is hardly what they are looking for right now.

What they want are jobs. And what they want to hear from the President is what his administration is going to do for them to get them off the unemployment rolls and into new jobs.

Indeed, to revive the hurting home building and real estate industries, the federal government continues to offer an $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers. To resuscitate the ailing auto industry, the federal government offered new car buyers a credit of up to $4,500 through the “cash for clunkers” program.

So why not stimulate hiring by offering employers a temporary tax credit of, say, $5,000 to $10,000 for every new worker they hire between now and next Labor Day? Call it the “Wampum for Workers” program.

In his weekly radio address, in advance of Labor Day address, Mr. Obama said, “We’re putting Americans back to work again.” He cited “tens of thousands of recovery projects” throughout the country that are underway, “repairing our nation’s roads, bridges, ports and waterways; renovating schools; and developing renewable energy.”

Well, that’s fine for those who rely of public works projects for gainful employment. But for the other 90 to 95 percent of the American labor force, the federally-subsidized public works jobs are of no help to them.

That’s why “Wampum for Workers” makes far more sense. It would encourage hiring not just in public works, but also in such leading employment sectors as computers, software and related services, restaurants and hospitality, banks, insurers and other financial services, department stores and general merchandise, health care, telecommunications, and travel and tourism.

Filed Under: Politics, Public Policy

Pastor’s death wish

August 31, 2009 By Leave a Comment

We were warned about Steven Anderson, pastor of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Phoenix.

Some two thousand years ago, Christ foretold: “many false prophets will rise, and shall deceive many.”

Anderson delivered a sermon yesterday, entitled “Why I Hate Barack Obama,” in which he declared that he is praying for the president’s death. “I hope it happens today,” he added, urging that his congregation join him in his decidedly ungodly prayer.

It so happens that one member of Anderson’s church is Christopher Broughton, who made national news earlier this month when he brought his AR-17 assault rifle to a rally outside the Phoenix Convention Center where President Obama was inside talking about health care.

Pastor Anderson insists that he does not condone killing. Yet, his sermon surely provided motivation for some misguided gunmen to take a shot at the president under the delusion that they were acting on behalf of God.

Indeed, there have been at least nice cases of anti-abortion murder since 1993, including the slaying this past May of Dr. George Tiller, who was gunned down at his church in Wichita, Kansas as he served as an usher.

There may be some deluded souls, deceived by latter day false prophets like Anderson, who believe that murdered abortion doctors, like Tiller, got what was coming to them, and that presidents they despise, like Mr. Obama, have premature death coming to them.

But those of us who are sane Christians, who oppose abortion, who disagree with many if not most of the president’s policies, are ever mindful of the scripture in which the Lord declares, “Vengeance is mine.”

We pray for those who provide abortion, rather than kill them. And we pray for our president’s well-being, rather than his death.

Filed Under: Politics
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