Barack Obama is, in my opinion, the best man that has held the office in a long time and the best hope for this country to navigate through the surge in right-wing batshit that we're under right now.
But his comments at the Easter Prayer Breakfast reminded me that there's always been one thing about Obama that really gets under my skin. Maybe it's the political reality of our time, but when Obama starts talking about Jesus, it's as if I'm suddenly listening to a classic, cynical politician who refuses to respect my intelligence.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/...
I don't mean to cast our President as a messianic lunatic like Sarah Palin or Sean Hannity. Of course he isn't and I'm thankful for that. But when he uses the Presidential pulpit to talk this way, he is legitimizing the next religious politicians / political preachers - who may not be as restrained and modern as he is.
I feel confident that Obama understands the truth about religion. You know, that it's a political structure set up a couple thousand years ago for the purpose of controlling the ignorant masses, keeping women in place, perpetuating the population, extorting money and power from citizens and rulers, and explaining things that science hadn't gotten around to yet.
And I'm fairly sure, or at least I hope, that Barack Obama reads the Bible and the Christian story in a metaphorical way. That he sees Christian doctrine, respectably, as a story about loving our enemies, practicing humility and nonviolence, and standing up for the downtrodden.
That's fine. And maybe he has to play to the Jesus crowd if he wants to stay in office in 2012. But there are ways to do that without referencing "the Resurrection" or the "risen savior" or referring to a room full of religious hucksters and charlatans as "brothers and sisters in Christ."
So I choose to believe, because the alternative is too painful to contemplate, that Barack Obama is a cold, calculating cynic and a liar when it comes to matters of faith.
Here I would pose a question to all those who consider themselves "progressive Christians" or "liberal Christians" - are there ANY Muslims, Jews, atheists, Buddhists, pagans, homosexuals, etc. who might escape eternal torture in the flames of Hell without becoming followers of Jesus Christ?
If you answered YES, then haven't you just acknowledged a gaping hole in your faith? "I am the way, the truth, and the life, and NO MAN comes to the Father except through me." Christian doctrine, like most other evangelical faiths, is pretty clear that it's the only acceptable way. Otherwise, how would Christianity ever convince anyone to join the cause?
Once you disregard that central tenet, once you acknowledge that some parts of the book are just not OK in the 21st century, then isn't the whole house of cards suspect? If gays are not really an abomination, if it's actually OK to work on the Sabbath, if Jesus isn't really the only way, then why not just shrug your shoulders and say "who knows?"
I have the same conversation with my conservative friends. Anti-gay, anti-abortion, church-going Christians who drink, have sex outside of marriage, and curse like Rahm Emanuel. I ask them, "don't you believe that you're doing something wrong? Won't you go to hell for this?" And they say that no, they don't really think God cares.
But they'll believe everything ELSE the preacher tells them. Just not the stuff that's an inconvenience. It's almost as if they're only sticking with the "Christian" label out of a psychological, drilled-in fear of going to Hell. It's the only explanation I can muster for liberal Christianity as well. Alternatively, there's the explanation I have latched onto for our President - in a politician's case, they're just lying for votes.
But if he's sincere, then President Obama is deluded, and he's trying to have it both ways. You can't keep the good and lose the ugly - they're part of the same book, a book which says that you are not allowed to add or subtract from its teachings in ANY WAY. It's right there on the last page of Revelation.
Still, so many liberal Christians try to deny their cake and eat it too.