It’s interesting how the state-run press is uniformly uninterested in grilling Barack Obama about his supposed Christian faith, but they love to play “gotcha” by asking Republicans about it.
That’s what happened most recently with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a prospective Republican presidential contender.
“I don’t know,” Walker said while in Washington for the winter meeting of the National Governors Association, after being asked if Obama was a Christian.
But that wasn’t enough for the Washington Post. Two reporters double-teamed the governor insisting Obama has frequently spoken publicly about his Christian faith, to which Walker responded: “I’ve actually never talked about it or I haven’t read about that. I’ve never asked him that. You’ve asked me to make statements about people that I haven’t had a conversation with about that. How [could] I say if I know either of you are a Christian?”
The question was really a followup to another one he declined to answer definitively about whether or not Obama loves America, which had earlier been questioned by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Walker responded to that one with this: “I don’t know, I honestly don’t know, one way or the other. I’ve said that 100 times, too.”
It’s a classic case of the media defending Obama – not by asking him about delicate questions based on his behavior, his own words and his own policies, but by putting Republicans on the spot.
While I can understand why some politicians won’t fall into the obvious trap of judging the hearts and minds of others – especially a president running roughshod over the Constitution, making dangerous and reckless foreign policy decisions, ruling domestically like a dictator and destroying the economy, I am only too happy to comment on Obama’s alleged Christian faith.
No. 1: Obama will be judged by the Creator of the universe one day for his beliefs and his actions on matters of faith in Jesus, the only way anyone can experience eternal life, the Bible clearly teaches. It’s really a matter between him and God.
No. 2: While Obama has repeatedly and publicly stated he is a Christian, it has not been without ambiguity and astonishingly confusing talk and actions. Think about the interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in which he referred to “my Muslim faith,” and had to be corrected by the former official in Bill Clinton’s administration: “You mean your Christian faith.” I’ve never met another Christian who made such a slip.
No. 3: I’ve never heard another Christian characterize the Muslim call to prayer as “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.”
No. 4: Obama said he came to his Christian faith at the church of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, at whose feet he sat for 20 years. But even Wright questioned Obama’s commitment. In an interview with Ed Klein, Wright was asked if he converted Obama from Islam. His answer, said Klein, was: “I don’t know about that. But I can tell you that I made it easy for him to come to an understanding of who Jesus Christ is and not feel that he was turning his back on his Islamic friends and his Islamic traditions and his understanding of Islam.” If his own pastor of 20 years cannot say whether Obama is a Christian, how are others supposed to affirm with certainty that he is?
No. 5: What does Obama say about his faith beyond asserting, “I am a Christian”? He told one interviewer: “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. That there are values that transcend race or culture, that move us forward, and there’s an obligation for all of us individually as well as collectively to take responsibility to make those values lived.” But Jesus flatly contradicted the notion that there are “many paths to the same place” – if that place is the Kingdom of God. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” In other words, it’s not enough to believe “there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people.” Does Obama believe what Jesus said about being the only way to the Father? Or is he believing in another gospel entirely?
Indeed there are good reasons for Christians to wonder about Obama’s claims to be a follower of Jesus – including his policies such as affirmation of same-sex marriage, abortion on demand for any reason or at any stage of development, including babies who survive outside the womb, the abject abandonment of persecuted Christians in the Middle East while offering “refugee” status to tens of thousands of Sunni Muslims, who are not experiencing religious persecution.
Some are fond of quoting Matthew 7, in which Jesus said, “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” But that’s not all Jesus said about judgment.
In the same chapter, He said believers would not be clueless in knowing who is a true believer and who is not: “Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? and then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”
Does Obama have such fruits of the faith to show?
I’m not judging, but I can’t see any. Can you?
Media wishing to interview Joseph Farah, please contact [email protected].
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