Saturday, April 19, 2008

Job is My Favorite Book in the New Testament

The Compassion Farce the other night was really remarkable, not because it forced Obama and HRC to lay bare their “true” feelings about faith and religion and God and religious people. It was remarkable and unique in that we were given two solid hours of proof that Obama, HRC and leftist loony liberals in general have no convictions of faith that go further than their control of the world around them.

I’ll take it out of order and start with Obama first since HRC always complains about having to go first at these things. (“Ladies first” and other such chivalric codes are an anathema to a feminist, you know.)

Obama has made some pretty incendiary remarks lately concerning people of faith. Because I’d love to remind you, he said, "It's not surprising [people in small towns] get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them."

When confronted with this the other night, he said, “What I was saying is that when economic hardship hits in these communities, what people have is they've got family, they've got their faith, they've got the traditions that have been passed onto them from generation to generation. Those aren't bad things. That's what they have left.”

That’s all they’ve got left. But not because Jesus is our all in all.

“What people have become bitter about [is] they don't think that government is listening to them.”

What he was telling us here is that government is really god. The government is supposed to nurture us and sustain us, and when it fails to do that, we grab a gun and kill an immigrant in front of our church because we’re so disillusioned with our government. Make no mistake. He was identifying what he believes to be the true and false gods of life. Christianity or any other religion is the false religion for the bitter, the poor and the beleaguered. The government, when it is doing its job correctly, removes the need for that religion. Therefore, if we don’t really need faith, then it’s not true, is it?

Obama was then asked if life began at conception. He gave yet another vague, evasive answer.

“This is something that I have not, I think, come to a firm resolution on. I think it's very hard to know what that means, when life begins…So I don't presume to know the answer to that question.”

He won’t presume to answer the question because he’s afraid to. If he thinks life begins at conception, how can he morally be pro-choice? If it doesn’t, where does it begin? The fact is he either can’t answer honestly (bad sign) or he really hasn’t thought it through (worse sign). He’s a liberal. He’s pro-choice. I’m not saying he’s not a gushy guy who does seem to like his kids. But do not forget, this is the man who equates an unexpected pregnancy with AIDS. (Interestingly enough, he terms them both as “punishment.” It’s a wonder the gay community has not erupted over this pronouncement since their demographic has suffered more AIDS deaths than any other. Punishment? That’s a lot worse than anything Sally Kern said.)

Another thing that’s a point of interest is the reason he became involved in church. He became involved in church because he was involved in politics.

“Some of the pastors started saying, ‘You know, you've got great ideas, Obama, but, you know, if you're going to organize churches, it might help if you were going to church.’”

This feeds the image really churchy people have of politicians and those involved in the political spectrum. And this is why: because it does happen. But it’s not that way, typically. A Christian who is genuinely involved in their church, is involved in their church prior to running for office or vying for a promotion at their job or getting visibility before a wedding or birth or anything else that takes place outside the doors of their church. If they want to do God’s work through whatever so-called ‘secular’ realm they choose (and we’ll discuss that term at length some other time) it’s because of a conviction they receive as a result of their faith. Their public service facilitates their faith and relationship with Christ, not the other way around.

On a small side note, Obama proved his lack of familiarity with Scripture when he claimed that “I am my brother’s keeper” is a “core Christian value.” As far as I can remember, that phrase was only used once in the Bible, and the guy who invoked it wasn’t exactly the hero of the story. But you can take that however you want, it just made me laugh.

Someone once said that the best actors are never on the stage. Hillary Clinton is the perfect example of that. She showed such an aptitude for putting the right phrases in the right places, much better than Obama or most other Democrats do. Of course, while she was roughing it as First Lady of Arkansas, she did pretend to be a Southern Baptist. (Hence Mike Huckabee’s plea that you not confuse him with “the other Southern Baptist from Hope, Arkansas.”) Now she says she’s Methodist. That’s neither here nor there, really. Just mentioning it cause she did.

HRC describes a very mystical, Jane Fonda-type of Christianity. “I have always felt his presence, it’s always with me, it follows me.” But when the questioners tried to pin her down and say, “Give us a specific example of a time your God showed up personally in your life,” she couldn’t answer. Actually, she wouldn’t answer. It’s not like she didn’t have choices. How about when she was confronted with her husband’s adultery? The second time? The third time? The fourth time? She didn’t feel any meaningful presence then? Or during the impeachment hearings? Or running from sniper fire? Nothing jumps out at all? I do not know a Christian of any denomination who cannot pinpoint a time where God showed up in their lives in a personal way. More importantly, I don’t know a Christian of any denomination who will not do so, as HRC pointedly refused to do so.

At one point, she said that winning or losing an election had nothing to do with the candidate’s faith. Her example: “We had two very good men and men of faith run for president in 2000 and 2004.”

These are her examples of good men of faith: Al Gore, who believes he invented the internet and that man controls the planet’s functions; and John Kerry, from whose own discussion of faith I gleaned the quote by which I titled this blog. These are who she sees as men of faith. Wow.

Lastly, because this is already longer than I wanted, I’ll deal with the one thing that was said at which I could not laugh. In fact, as I watched it on youtube the other day at work, I had to fight the urge to throw my laptop across the room. I’m having to fight it again right now.

HRC was asked about the concept of suicide as a means of relieving the suffering of someone who is terminally ill. Her response, her arrogant, presumptuous, callous, ignorant response:

“You know, the Terry Schiavo case in Florida posed that for many people. And it was one of those decisions…where there were people of good faith and people of strong feelings on both sides about what should happen to that woman's life.”

I’d call her what she is but it would unnecessarily insult a dog. This woman had the audacity to use Terri Schiavo as an argument for medically-induced suicide. Terri Schiavo, the woman the Supreme Court allowed to be killed by her greedy, adulterous husband so he could finally get his hands on her insurance money and marry his live-in girlfriend. Terri Schiavo, whose parents had to watch her starve to death after pleading to be allowed to financially provide for her for the remainder of their lives. Terri Schiavo, who was murdered.

But this woman has no concept of the value of life if she thinks that Terri Schiavo’s death was in any way merciful or humane or just.

The Bible says that by their fruits ye shall know them. Not have a general idea of them or be able to make a good guess about them. Ye shall know them. By their fruits. Do not let two hours out of a lifetime gloss over the rest of that lifetime. Remember the fruits.

In stark contrast to this attempt to fool America, we had the arrival of the Pope this week. There was a huge ceremony at the White House, and something special happened. Let’s hear from a different political figure on his radio program about the Pope’s welcoming ceremony and God and country.

“The Battle Hymn of the Republic was sung by the US Army Chorus, and you have to hear this, particularly if you haven't had a chance to have your TV on today or your radio, and you didn't hear this…You realize, this is at the White House, and a song written in tribute to God is being played at the White House. In this country there has been such an effort, and it has been way too successful, to remove God from anything public. Not only was God present, but the largest White House welcoming ceremony ever participated in a ceremony thanking God and respecting God and offering up a tribute to God, and you just have to hear this.

"People still say to me, "I don't understand, Rush, you say you can't hear music because of your hearing loss." Well, I can hear music I knew before I lost my hearing, but also, folks, I can always hear God's music. And this is God's music, written in 1861 in the middle of the Civil War. The story of this song is, to me, evidence of divine intervention in and of itself…It is a great tribute to God, and a great tribute to the United States of America.”

Here is the song. Press “play,” close your eyes and listen to the words.

If that doesn’t move you, you’re not human.

1 comment:

Bryan Kemper said...
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