*Posted by Kirk Spencer
I heard that God was booed at the DNC. At first I thought it wasnt true. I thought that the booing was not directed toward God but toward the fact that the term God-Given was being taken out of the Democratic National Platform. And then a kind person set me straight. The leaders in the Democratic Party had already removed the hyphenated word God-given from the platform and the vote that was booed on the floor of the convention was the vote to put the hyphenated God-word back into the platform. So I guess God was booedor at least the God-word God-given was booed. Or more correctly the booing was directed at the chairperson who said that the voice-vote indicated that there was at least a two-thirds majority to approve putting God-Given back into the platform, when in reality (after three voice-votes in a row) it was clear to everyone (except the chairperson) that the room was evenly divided. You can determine for yourself here:
Those Democratic voices for God were summarily passed-over with the judgment of one Democrat chairpersonand so they booed God sort of. The odd thing is that the God that caused all the fuss was, in this case at least, just an adjectival hyphenated clichhe appeared as half of the hyphenated word God-given attached to the word potential. And so, in the Democratic National Platform, Their God-given potential became just their potential and God was not allowed even after He had been hyphenated and clichd.
The same night that the hyphenated God-given was almost exorcised from the platform, our First Lady, Michelle Obama, introduce her husband to the country. In her speech she said, Being president doesnt change who you are. No. It reveals who you are. These words caused the room to erupt in a loud standing ovation. How can you argue with such enthusiasm? It is true that if being president reveals who you are, then we can assume that we can really never know someone, such as a presidential candidate, until they have been president. This does seem to be strangely true about Barack Obama for some reason. I noticed this during the 08 campaign season. After two autobiographies, two convention speeches, months and months of campaigning, just before Barack Obama was going to be elected as president, two of the nations leading news journalist (who should know about Obama) said these words:
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CHARLIE ROSE:
I dont know what Barack Obamas worldview is. I really dont know.
TOM BROKAW:
I dont know either.
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I remember Nancy Pelosi, as the Speaker of the House, making this bewildering assertion: We have to pass the [Obama Care] bill so that you can find out whats in it. It seems that what is true of the Obama Bill is also true of Obama himself: We need to elect Obama as president, so it can be revealed who he is. Recently CNN aired a program called Obama Revealed. After two autobiographies, three convention speeches, two campaigns and four years as the celebrity president appearing almost continuously on both news and entertainment channels, as well as the topic of discussion on a multitude of radio programs, newspaper articles and wall-to-wall news coverageafter all that, and morecertainly who Barack Obama is has been revealed. If not, then I think it is fair to ask, Is it that we dont know who Obama is or is it that we dont want to know? In his recent convention speech, Obama himself said that his election wasnt about him, but about us. His exact words were: The election four years ago wasnt about me. It was about you. Maybe Obama is more right than he knows. Maybe he was the right man at the right moment onto which we could project our affections and prejudices, and whatever else we might want him to be, without concern for what he might actually be. The election was not so much about him (really) but rather about expressing who (we hope) we are as a nation. The question now is Is that still the case or is once enough? Do we need another four years to find out more of who Obama is as we try to convince ourselves of who we are.
In this next election, will it matter that Obama promised, with his hand on the Bible, to the best of his ability, to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and then, after this solemn promise, begin engaging in blatant challenges to the very same constitution? Here are a few examples:
- President Obama bi-passed constitutionally mandated congressional approval of controversial presidential appointments.
- President Obama used executive orders to not enforce federal law passed by a duly elected congress and one of the few real mandates of the constitution for the Federal Government (to protect national borders). Oddly at his reelection convention speech, Obama made reference to this executive order which allowed the children of those who violated federal law and crossed U.S. borders illegally to not face deportation, and then said these words: You did that! Actually we didnt do that. He did that on his own as an executive order, not with, but against what the peoples government mandated in the constitution and the laws that the congress had passed as part of its constitutional responsibility and which he (a former lecturer of Constitutional Law) took an oath, (on the Bible) that he would protect, preserve and defend.
- President Obama used the Federal Justice Department to sue states over laws requiring the same thing that the Federal Law required according to the mandate of the constitution and the laws passed by congress.
- President Obama, the same person who promised to have the most transparent and ethical administration in U.S. history, used executive privilege to override and sidestep constitutional processes such as congressional oversight in relationship to apparent cover-up of injustices in the Justice Department and its clear contempt for congress (literally and legally).
Obamas theology, or Obamadoxy, may also be one of the things we dont know, or dont want to know, about President Obama. However, there was one particular window onto Obamadoxy that opened at the Caf Baci at 330 S. Michigan Avenue in Chicago at 3:30pm on Saturday, March 27th in 2004. He gave an interview to Cathleen Falsani a religion reporter for the Chicago Sun Times. The interview was exclusively about his spirituality. Falsani says he answered everything without notes or hesitation. The complete interview can be found here.
Here are a few highlights:
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FALSANI:
What do you believe?
OBAMA:
I am a Christian.
So, I have a deep faith. So I draw from the Christian faith.
On the other hand, I was born in Hawaii where obviously there are a lot of Eastern influences. I lived in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, between the ages of six and 10. My father was from Kenya, and although he was probably most accurately labeled an agnostic, his father was Muslim. And Id say, probably, intellectually Ive drawn as much from Judaism as any other faith. So, Im rooted in the Christian tradition. I believe that 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 My grandparents who were from small towns in Kansas. My grandmother was Methodist. My grandfather was Baptist. This was at a time when I think the Methodists felt slightly superior to the Baptists. And by the time I was born, they were, I think, my grandparents had joined a Universalist church. So, my mother, who I think had as much influence on my values as anybody, was not someone who wore her religion on her sleeve. Wed go to church for Easter. She wasnt a church lady So I dont think as a child we were, or I had a structured religious education. But my mother was deeply spiritual person, and would spend a lot of time talking about values and give me books about the worlds religions, and talk to me about them. And I think always, her view always was that underlying these religions were a common set of beliefs about how you treat other people and how you aspire to act, not just for yourself but also for the greater good. And, so that, I think, was what I carried with me through college. I probably didnt get started getting active in church activities until I moved to Chicago I became much more familiar with the ongoing tradition of the historic black church and its importance in the community So that, one of the churches I met, or one of the churches that I became involved in was Trinity United Church of Christ. And the pastor there, Jeremiah Wright, became a good friend. So I joined that church and committed myself to Christ in that church.
FALSANI:
Did you actually go up for an altar call?
OBAMA:
Yes. Absolutely.
It was a daytime service, during a daytime service. And it was a powerful moment. Because, it was powerful for me because it not only confirmed my faith, it not only gave shape to my faith, but I think, also, allowed me to connect the work I had been pursuing with my faith.
FALSANI:
So you got yourself born again?
OBAMA:
Yeah, although I dont, I retain from my childhood and my experiences growing up a suspicion of dogma. And Im not somebody who is always comfortable with language that implies Ive got a monopoly on the truth, or that my faith is automatically transferable to others. Im a big believer in tolerance. I think that religion at its best comes with a big dose of doubt. Im suspicious of too much certainty in the pursuit of understanding just because I think people are limited in their understanding. I think that, particularly as somebody whos now in the public realm and is a student of what brings people together and what drives them apart, theres an enormous amount of damage done around the world in the name of religion and certainty.
FALSANI:
Whos Jesus to you?
(He laughs nervously)
OBAMA:
Right.
Jesus is an historical figure for me, and hes also a bridge between God and man, in the Christian faith, and one that I think is powerful precisely because he serves as that means of us reaching something higher. And hes also a wonderful teacher. I think its important for all of us, of whatever faith, to have teachers in the flesh and also teachers in history
FALSANI:
Do you have people in your life that you look to for guidance?
OBAMA:
Well, my pastor [Jeremiah Wright] is certainly someone who I have an enormous amount of respect for
FALSANI:
The conversation stopper, when you say youre a Christian and leave it at that.
OBAMA:
Where do you move forward with that?
This is something that Im sure Id have serious debates with my fellow Christians about. I think that the difficult thing about any religion, including Christianity, is that at some level there is a call to evangelize and proselytize. Theres the belief, certainly in some quarters, that people havent embraced Jesus Christ as their personal savior that theyre going to hell.
FALSANI:
You dont believe that?
OBAMA:
I find it hard to believe that my God would consign four-fifths of the world to hell.
I cant imagine that my God would allow some little Hindu kid in India who never interacts with the Christian faith to somehow burn for all eternity.
Thats just not part of my religious makeup.
Part of the reason I think its always difficult for public figures to talk about this is that the nature of politics is that you want to have everybody like you and project the best possible traits onto you. Oftentimes thats by being as vague as possible, or appealing to the lowest common denominators. The more specific and detailed you are on issues as personal and fundamental as your faith, the more potentially dangerous it is
FALSANI:
Do you believe in heaven?
OBAMA:
Do I believe in the harps and clouds and wings?
FALSANI:
A place spiritually you go to after you die?
OBAMA:
What I believe in is that if I live my life as well as I can, that I will be rewarded. I dont presume to have knowledge of what happens after I die. But I feel very strongly that whether the reward is in the here and now or in the hereafter, the aligning myself to my faith and my values is a good thing. When I tuck in my daughters at night and I feel like Ive been a good father to them, and I see in them that I am transferring values that I got from my mother and that theyre kind people and that theyre honest people, and theyre curious people, thats a little piece of heaven.
FALSANI:
Do you believe in sin?
OBAMA:
Yes.
FALSANI:
What is sin?
OBAMA:
Being out of alignment with my values.
FALSANI:
What happens if you have sin in your life?
OBAMA:
I think its the same thing as the question about heaven. In the same way that if Im true to myself and my faith that that is its own reward, when Im not true to it, its its own punishment.
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In terms of defining Obamadoxy, I found this statement of particular interest:
I retain from my childhood and my experiences growing up a suspicion of dogma. And Im not somebody who is always comfortable with language that implies Ive got a monopoly on the truth, or that my faith is automatically transferable to others I think that, particularly as somebody whos now in the public realm and is a student of what brings people together and what drives them apart, theres an enormous amount of damage done around the world in the name of religion and certainty.
Obama seems to be suggesting that Obamadoxy is suspect and uncomfortable with any kind of orthodoxy. If so, then Obamadoxy could be defined as an unorthodox (or rather anti-orthodox) orthodoxy. Such an unorthodox orthodoxy works well for politicians, like hyphenating God, because it can be easily tailored to a changing mass market. And in listening to powerful politician speaking obliquely to issues of orthodoxy, yet not addressing directly any of the questions of orthodoxy, we must say, We dont know what their theology is. We really dont know.
However, there is a New Theology, a New Orthodoxy which has been around a whilebut not as long as the old orthodoxy. This New Orthodoxy attempts to make Christianity acceptable to the growing secular intelligentsia that has begun to dominate many areas of society, such as the mainstream media, mainline denominations and most academic institutions. There are different varieties of this New Orthodoxy, but the common core believes that Jesus was not fully God but only human and walked this earth as a great teacher, one of many, who taught that we are all connected in different ways and found a way to connect us to a higher power we might define as God, or something else if we wish. Jesus lived an exemplary life in alignment with his own personal value system that gave meaning to his life by working to liberate the oppressed. This Jesus died a martyrs death to set an example for us to follow, but he did not rise bodily and visibly from the gravehowever, if we choose to follow his example then, in a way, he has risen in our hearts and as we attempt to follow his teachings we can call ourselves Christians. We can even say that Jesus died for our sins, not as a vicarious, substitutionary and atoning sacrifice, but rather Jesus lived and died to show us a better waya way to live in alignment with our own values and thus not sin.
This new orthodoxy uses religious sounding language with many of the same terms used historically, but removes any reference to the miraculous, the afterlife, or a real heaven and hell that exist as an eternal reward or punishment. We might say that the god of this new orthodoxy is adjectival, hyphenated and clichd. Such a god can be hyphenated onto politics, and other things, until such a vestigial divinity has served its purpose. Once its purpose has been served, it can be removed like an appendix, (or it can hurriedly be put back in, if need be) not with a two-thirds majority but with just a simple majority, or even if the room is evenly divided, if the chairperson willsand we are all chairpersons. Howeverbe warneda hyphenated-god is a hazard to every enterprise, even doing church. It happens when we lose our Hope of Glory in Christ Jesus, because Jesus is no longer Christ because science, so called, has proven there is no Glory to hope for anyway So we must hope in our own potential and in our collective potentials as Government.
At the end of Obamas 2012 convention speech he was speaking about the hope and said that it reminded him of these words of Scripture, ours is a future filled with hope. Then Obama said: And if you share that faith with me, if you share that hope with me, I ask you tonight for your vote. Maybe this was why, just a day earlier, the DNC almost removed the vestigial hyphenated-clichd god from their platformthey had found a new faithnot the old faith in their God-given potential, but now a new faith in just their potential. The room was on its feetclapping, screaming, whistlingfor President Obama had just said: Times have changed and so have I. Im no longer just a candidate. Im the President. Why would a reference to the simple fact of who Obama is (president) and his great victory (no longer candidate) cause the room to roar with such religious fervor? I dont know why a reference to Barack Obamas first coming into the presidency would cause such fervor. I really dont know. Brother Tom Brokaw may know but I dont. However, I would like to relate one more insight into Obamadoxy spoken by Obamas pastor of more than 20 yearsJeremiah Wright. On November 11th 2011 at Rev. Jeremiah Wrights office at the Kwame Nkrumah Academy, Reverend Wright made this statement about Barack Obama and the church:
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REVEREND JEREMIAH WRIGHT:
The church was not an integral part of their lives before they got married after they got married.
ED KLEIN:
But the church was an integral part of his politics?
REVEREND JEREMIAH WRIGHT:
Yeah. yeah.
ED KLEIN:
Because he needed that base?
REVEREND JEREMIAH WRIGHT:
Uh-huh. Correct.
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You can listen to the rest of Rev. Wrights statements here.