Who Hijacked Christianity?

This article was originally written on June 26th, 2007 and published on November 28th of the same year:

“Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and started being used to drive us apart. It got hijacked.” So lamented Barack Obama, presidential candidate and senator from Illinois, as he addressed the General Synod of the United Church of Christ (UCC) about his own spiritual journey and the social duties of faith in this world.

Obama subscribes to the Social Gospel brand of Christianity, in which the death and resurrection of Jesus are superseded by His social teachings. It is this theologically and politically liberal faction that acted as the religious wing of the progressive movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Their ultimate goal is to perfect government and man to create a society devoid of social evils. This type of activism has its repercussions, however, and in the years since we have witnessed its consequences: the steady decline of responsibility and the disturbing expansion of government intervention on behalf of the individual. In decades past the Social Gospel manifested itself in labor reform, mandatory public schooling, and prohibition, utilizing Christian language and sentiments to achieve progressive ends.

It is this history that Obama was influenced by when he stopped being a spiritual man skeptical of organized religion and joined the UCC. "In time, I came to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death, but rather as an active, palpable agent in the world." He discovered the efficacy of religion as a tool for the defense and extension of liberalism - the Democratic Party's emotional pleas hidden behind the cross. The Social Gospel is a hijacking. It is socialism marketed as socially conscious religion.

So what is the senator's message? Essentially, the right has stolen the Christian label and maliciously used it to divide the nation. It has focused exclusively on issues like abortion, gay marriage, and the lack of religion in school, all issues we must move beyond because…cue vague Obama abstractions about division and renewal. The speech quickly descends into a catalogue of political initiatives we can undertake to participate in his faith-based Marxism, each carefully wedged between the words "conscience" and "moral." To even begin to perfect society we must end poverty, adopt universal health care, end the genocide in Darfur, acknowledge the value and dignity of every person regardless of "where that person came from or what documents they have," redeploy the troops in Iraq, and close Guantanamo Bay.

If his lecture weren't viewed through the prism of opportunism, it would be comical. Obama's only two mentions of abortion involved seeing past it. Almost immediately after the first mention, he applauds communities of faith across the country that are instead "sponsoring day care programs, building senior centers, and in so many other ways, taking part in the project of American renewal." There is something naïve about believing the American public should be so selective about human dignity; it is God's will that there be day care programs, but there's nothing in there about abortion?

Obama frequently abuses and misuses words. When he says we must look beyond abortion and gay marriage, what he means is embrace. He would not congratulate the UCC for being "welcoming" (it is the first denomination to ordain a gay man and it supports gay marriage) if he didn't. He condemns divisiveness by asking us to isolate and disregard religious issues important to conservatives while accepting the Democratic Party agenda as the twenty-eighth book of the New Testament. Nonsense. Either Obama believes Christians must "rise above" conservatism and take up the banner of socialist government or he believes there is a genuine debate in America over whether or not poverty is a good thing. These are all merely the same liberal ideas dressed in Christian terminology. Tell me again Senator, who is hijacking faith?

Vote for John McCain

Originally published October 28th, 2008 in the Michigan Journal:

Over these past few years, I likely would have roundly dismissed an offer to compose an article on behalf of Senator John McCain. As an admittedly unadulterated conservative, my views forced me to condemn my fellow Republican in many instances: the repression of freedom of speech in campaign finance reform, the Chicken Little howling of his global warming alarmism, the unjust idiocy of his comprehensive immigration bill, and on and on. But in the Election of 2008, I will not hesitate to vote this man into the most important office in the world.

This action requires no more than a simple understanding of his opponent. Senator Barack Obama has successfully hidden his far-left Democrat goals beneath a tapestry of vapid, lofty prose. Each imprecise, feel-good statement rings hollow in any discerning ear. Obama’s words may produce wide-eyed inspiration or dramatic fainting spells at his rallies, but I perceive only echoes of a radical liberalism, determined to pursue naïve and feeble policies abroad and a burgeoning socialist state at home.

Our world has undoubtedly entered perilous times. The war against jihadism continues, and will continue, no matter what dangerous neglect or foolish triviality the Democrats insist upon inflicting on the war effort. Forget his inexperience (as we are told to) for a moment and consider only his recent record. Can we trust a man who was so wrong on the surge and so cravenly evenhanded on the Georgia crisis? When, as his vainglorious running mate with supposed foreign policy expertise predicted, the generated crisis occurs to test Obama, will he really be capable?

We cannot suffer any more Marxist experiments in this nation. The America we all know will belong to history should Obama’s universal health care, charlatan climate change, and “spread the wealth” proposals reach his Oval Office desk. I am absolutely horrified by further expansions in the vein of FDR and LBJ. In this matter, the future of our free, capitalist nation and our economy depend upon the election of Senator McCain.

One cannot vote for a president without first considering character. Should we consider a campaign that only ceases whining about the mere mention of the senator’s shady dealings with Ayers, Wright, and Rezko to run wildly slanderous and inaccurate ads associating McCain with anti-Hispanic slurs, massive Social Security cuts, and a proposed one hundred years in Iraq? McCain is a war hero and a man of honor at the very least; we can trust he is principled enough to lead our nation.

I am not willing to sacrifice my nation’s future to the party of class envy and capitulation. My vote is a vote for experience and dedication to country and against the potential disaster of an Obama presidency. My vote is for John McCain.