In the last
post, I looked at Romney's Mormonism, specifically why a
candidate's religion does matter, and why Romney's religion should
trouble people. In this post I'm going to focus on Obama's
Protestantism. I am not doing this to 'be fair' to both sides,
but rather to use Obama's religion as an object lesson on why the
last post is so true. What most people don't realize, and what I
didn't realize myself until recently, is that Obama's Protestantism
explains nearly everything about how Obama has governed these
last four years. While most people think that he's secretly a Muslim,
that claim doesn't explain or shed light on his policies nearly as
good as his publicly professed Protestantism does.
For over
20 years Obama has been a member of the Protestant denomination
called the United Church of Christ. While the name of this
denomination sounds innocent enough, it is actually one of the most
liberal in all of Protestantism. For example, the UCC is
very pro-abortion, it supports the HHS mandate, is in favor of same-sex
marriage, promotes and publishes books on sex-ed (including at very
early ages), has an unhealthy emphasis on environmentalism, and
promotes what is effectively secular humanism under the banners of
social justice and liberation theology. As far as theology is
concerned, the UCC was originally a mish-mash of various
denominations, which means it doesn't really take sides on various
doctrines and leaves this up to the individual leaders/members.
Historically it has been anti-Catholic, and this is even more true
today with the Catholic Church firmly opposing many of the UCC teachings on morality.
Now with that picture painted, is it not obvious the parallels
between Obama's policies and the UCC policies? Clearly, the UCC
deeply influenced his understanding of Christianity and world-view in
general. In his mind, one can be a good Christian and support all
those things. Nothing in Islam would promote even half of those
twisted and immoral teachings that the UCC trumpets. And since
Mormonism doesn't go anywhere near this morally liberal, this means
that Obama's Protestantism is actually more of a concern than
Romney's Protestantism.
These last two posts should dispel any notion that the religion a
candidate embraces “doesn't really matter,” for clearly nothing
can be further from the truth. It is also plain to see just how
dangerous Protestantism is, since one can embrace any number of
outrageous theological and moral views and do so under the banner of
“Christian”. Just think of the number of governing leaders who
publicly claim to be “Christian,” since they do indeed affiliate
with a given Protestant denomination, and while this sounds like a
good thing, what the public doesn't know is that much of the time the
given denomination is espousing the most un-Christian doctrines.
Given this, I believe that both those who say our nation was founded on
Christian principles and those who say our nation was not ever (or is
no longer today) Christian are both right. That's because
Protestantism is only semi-Christian, which means it has the ability
to be Christian and “Christian” as needed.
3 comments:
"That's because Protestantism is only semi-Christian, which means it has the ability to be Christian and 'Christian' as needed."
Theologically, their baptisms are valid and many try to follow Christ to the best of their knowledge, so it would be inaccurate to call them semi-Christian since even Arian's were considered Christians (i.e. their baptisms were valid, see Canon 7 of the Second Ecumenical Council).
They are however the ultimate in Cafeteria Catholics, since everything true in Protestantism is also true in Catholicism, and everything not borrowed from Catholicism is either an arbitrary invented doctrine or just plain wrong.
I agree with what you're saying but would expand on your use of the term Cafeteria Catholic (unless I misunderstood you).
They are the ultimate in Cafeteria Catholicism in that they pick and choose what faith & moral teachings to accept, rendering the teachings a mockery and people parading around calling themselves Christians/Catholics but espousing very unChristian teachings.
I agree there are many Protestants who try to live very Christian lives, but there is no principled way to distinguish their Protestant Christianity from that of 'progressive' Protestant Christianity. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but when almost all Protestants allow contraception, some degree of divorce, and 'exceptions' for abortion, they've effectively demolished any consistent basis to uphold Christian morals as a whole. This makes Protestantism semi-Christian when considered as a whole.
I believe Obama's early exposure to Islam did have the effect of putting some biases against Christianity in his mind. However, an even more important source for his Anti-Christian mentality is the communist Frank Marshall Davis, who many people, (myself included) believe to be the real biological father of Obama. Young Barak spent many hours and days with Davis as a boy. Davis was known to be very Anti-Christian and Anti-Catholic, not to mention Anti-American. Google 'Frank Marshal Davis Anti-Catholic' and you will get links to several articles about this man's hatred of the Catholic Church. The UCC didn't make Obama Anti-Christian or Anti-Catholic, it only reinforced a bias and a hatred that was already there.
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