Pro-Life, Evangelical Christians…for Obama?
October 14th, 2008
Obama’s Abortion Extremism
Oct 14, 2008
Sen. Barack Obama’s views on life issues ranging from abortion to embryonic stem cell research mark him as not merely a pro-choice politician, but rather as the most extreme pro-abortion candidate to have ever run on a major party ticket.
Barack Obama is the most extreme pro-abortion candidate ever to seek the office of President of the United States. He is the most extreme pro-abortion member of the United States Senate. Indeed, he is the most extreme pro-abortion legislator ever to serve in either house of the United States Congress. Yet there are Catholics and Evangelicals-even self-identified pro-life Catholics and Evangelicals - who aggressively promote Obama’s candidacy and even declare him the preferred candidate from the pro-life point of view.
What is going on here?
I have examined the arguments advanced by Obama’s self-identified pro-life supporters, and they are spectacularly weak. It is nearly unfathomable to me that those advancing them can honestly believe what they are saying. But before proving my claims about Obama’s abortion extremism, let me explain why I have described Obama as ”pro-abortion” rather than ”pro-choice.”
According to the standard argument for the distinction between these labels,nobody is pro-abortion. Everybody would prefer a world without abortions. After all, what woman would deliberately get pregnant just to have an abortion? But given the world as it is, sometimes women find themselves with unplanned pregnancies at times in their lives when having a baby would present significant problems for them. So even if abortion is not medically required, it should be permitted, made as widely available as possible and, when necessary, paid for with taxpayers’ money.
The defect in this argument can easily be brought into focus if we shift to the moral question that vexed an earlier generation of Americans: slavery. Many people at the time of the American founding would have preferred a world without slavery but nonetheless opposed abolition. Such people - Thomas Jefferson was one - reasoned that, given the world as it was, with slavery woven into the fabric of society just as it had often been throughout history, the economic consequences of abolition for society as a whole and for owners of plantations and other businesses that relied on slave labor would be dire. Many people who argued in this way were not monsters but honest and sincere, albeit profoundly mistaken. Some (though not Jefferson) showed their personal opposition to slavery by declining to own slaves themselves or freeing slaves whom they had purchased or inherited. They certainly didn’t think anyone should be forced to own slaves. Still, they maintained that slavery should remain a legally permitted option and be given constitutional protection.
Would we describe such people, not as pro-slavery, but as ”pro-choice”? Of course we would not. It wouldn’t matter to us that they were ”personally opposed” to slavery, or that they wished that slavery were ”unnecessary,” or that they wouldn’t dream of forcing anyone to own slaves. We would hoot at the faux sophistication of a placard that said ”Against slavery? Don’t own one.” We would observe that the fundamental divide is between people who believe that law and public power should permit slavery, and those who think that owning slaves is an unjust choice that should be prohibited.
Just for the sake of argument, though, let us assume that there could be a morally meaningful distinction between being ”pro-abortion” and being ”pro-choice.” Who would qualify for the latter description? Barack Obama certainly would not. For, unlike his running mate Joe Biden, Obama does not think that abortion is a purely private choice that public authority should refrain from getting involved in. Now, Senator Biden is hardly pro-life. He believes that the killing of the unborn should be legally permitted and relatively unencumbered. But unlike Obama, at least Biden has sometimes opposed using taxpayer dollars to fund abortion, thereby leaving Americans free to choose not to implicate themselves in it. If we stretch things to create a meaningful category called ”pro-choice,” then Biden might be a plausible candidate for the label; at least on occasions when he respects your choice or mine not to facilitate deliberate feticide.
The same cannot be said for Barack Obama. For starters, he supports legislation that would repeal the Hyde Amendment, which protects pro-life citizens from having to pay for abortions that are not necessary to save the life of the mother and are not the result of rape or incest. The abortion industry laments that this longstanding federal law, according to the pro-abortion group NARAL, ”forces about half the women who would otherwise have abortions to carry unintended pregnancies to term and bear children against their wishes instead.” In other words, a whole lot of people who are alive today would have been exterminatedin utero were it not for the Hyde Amendment. Obama has promised to reverse the situation so that abortions that the industry complains are not happening (because the federal government is not subsidizing them) would happen. That is why people who profit from abortion love Obama even more than they do his running mate.
But this barely scratches the surface of Obama’s extremism. He has promised that ”the first thing I’d do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act” (known as FOCA). This proposed legislation would create a federally guaranteed ”fundamental right” to abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, including, as Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia has noted in a statement condemning the proposed Act, ”a right to abort a fully developed child in the final weeks for undefined ‘health’ reasons.” In essence, FOCA would abolish virtually every existing state and federal limitation on abortion, including parental consent and notification laws for minors, state and federal funding restrictions on abortion, and conscience protections for pro-life citizens working in the health-care industry-protections against being forced to participate in the practice of abortion or else lose their jobs. The pro-abortion National Organization for Women has proclaimed with approval that FOCA would ‘’sweep away hundreds of anti-abortion laws [and] policies.”
It gets worse. Obama, unlike even many ”pro-choice” legislators, opposed the ban on partial-birth abortions when he served in the Illinois legislature and condemned the Supreme Court decision that upheld legislation banning this heinous practice. He has referred to a baby conceived inadvertently by a young woman as a ”punishment” that she should not endure. He has stated that women’s equality requires access to abortion on demand. Appallingly, he wishes to strip federal funding from pro-life crisis pregnancy centers that provide alternatives to abortion for pregnant women in need. There is certainly nothing ”pro-choice” about that.
But it gets even worse. Senator Obama, despite the urging of pro-life members of his own party, has not endorsed or offered support for the Pregnant Women Support Act, the signature bill of Democrats for Life, meant to reduce abortions by providing assistance for women facing crisis pregnancies. In fact, Obama hasopposed key provisions of the Act, including providing coverage of unborn children in the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), and informed consent for women about the effects of abortion and the gestational age of their child. This legislation would not make a single abortion illegal. It simply seeks to make it easier for pregnant women to make the choice not to abort their babies. Here is a concrete test of whether Obama is ”pro-choice” rather than pro-abortion. He flunked. Even Senator Edward Kennedy voted to include coverage of unborn children in S-CHIP. But Barack Obama stood resolutely with the most stalwart abortion advocates in opposing it.
It gets worse yet. In an act of breathtaking injustice which the Obama campaign lied about until critics produced documentary proof of what he had done, as an Illinois state senator Obama opposed legislation to protect children who are born alive, either as a result of an abortionist’s unsuccessful effort to kill them in the womb, or by the deliberate delivery of the baby prior to viability. This legislation would not have banned any abortions. Indeed, it included a specific provision ensuring that it did not affect abortion laws. (This is one of the points Obama and his campaign lied about until they were caught.) The federal version of the bill passed unanimously in the United States Senate, winning the support of such ardent advocates of legal abortion as John Kerry and Barbara Boxer. But Barack Obama opposed it and worked to defeat it. For him, a child marked for abortion gets no protection-even ordinary medical or comfort care-even if she is born alive and entirely separated from her mother. So Obama has favored protecting what is literally a form of infanticide.
You may be thinking, it can’t get worse than that. But it does.
For several years, Americans have been debating the use for biomedical research of embryos produced by in vitro fertilization (originally for reproductive purposes) but now left in a frozen condition in cryopreservation units. President Bush has restricted the use of federal funds for stem-cell research of the type that makes use of these embryos and destroys them in the process. I support the President’s restriction, but some legislators with excellent pro-life records, including John McCain, argue that the use of federal money should be permitted where the embryos are going to be discarded or die anyway as the result of the parents’ decision. Senator Obama, too, wants to lift the restriction.
But Obama would not stop there. He has co-sponsored a bill-strongly opposed by McCain-that would authorize the large-scale industrial production of human embryos for use in biomedical research in which they would be killed. In fact, the bill Obama co-sponsored would effectively require the killing of human beings in the embryonic stage that were produced by cloning. It would make it a federal crime for a woman to save an embryo by agreeing to have the tiny developing human being implanted in her womb so that he or she could be brought to term. This ”clone and kill” bill would, if enacted, bring something to America that has heretofore existed only in China-the equivalent of legally mandated abortion. In an audacious act of deceit, Obama and his co-sponsors misleadingly call this ananti-cloning bill. But it is nothing of the kind. What it bans is not cloning, but allowing the embryonic children produced by cloning to survive.
Can it get still worse? Yes.
Decent people of every persuasion hold out the increasingly realistic hope of resolving the moral issue surrounding embryonic stem-cell research by developing methods to produce the exact equivalent of embryonic stem cells without using (or producing) embryos. But when a bill was introduced in the United States Senate to put a modest amount of federal money into research to develop these methods, Barack Obama was one of the few senators who opposed it. From any rational vantage point, this is unconscionable. Why would someone not wish to find a method of producing the pluripotent cells scientists want that all Americans could enthusiastically endorse? Why create and kill human embryos when there are alternatives that do not require the taking of nascent human lives? It is as if Obama is opposed to stem-cell research unless it involves killing human embryos.
This ultimate manifestation of Obama’s extremism brings us back to the puzzle of his pro-life Catholic and Evangelical apologists.
They typically do not deny the facts I have reported. They could not; each one is a matter of public record. But despite Obama’s injustices against the most vulnerable human beings, and despite the extraordinary support he receives from the industry that profits from killing the unborn (which should be a good indicator of where he stands), some Obama supporters insist that he is the better candidate from the pro-life point of view.
They say that his economic and social policies would so diminish the demand for abortion that the overall number would actually go down-despite the federal subsidizing of abortion and the elimination of hundreds of pro-life laws. The way to save lots of unborn babies, they say, is to vote for the pro-abortion-oops! ”pro-choice”-candidate. They tell us not to worry that Obama opposes the Hyde Amendment, the Mexico City Policy (against funding abortion abroad), parental consent and notification laws, conscience protections, and the funding of alternatives to embryo-destructive research. They ask us to look past his support for Roe v. Wade, the Freedom of Choice Act, partial-birth abortion, and human cloning and embryo-killing. An Obama presidency, they insist, means less killing of the unborn.
This is delusional.
We know that the federal and state pro-life laws and policies that Obama has promised to sweep away (and that John McCain would protect) save thousands of lives every year. Studies conducted by Professor Michael New and other social scientists have removed any doubt. Often enough, the abortion lobby itself confirms the truth of what these scholars have determined. Tom McClusky has observed that Planned Parenthood’s own statistics show that in each of the seven states that have FOCA-type legislation on the books, ”abortion rates have increased while the national rate has decreased.” In Maryland, where a bill similar to the one favored by Obama was enacted in 1991, he notes that ”abortion rates have increased by 8 percent while the overall national abortion rate decreased by 9 percent.” No one is really surprised. After all, the message clearly conveyed by policies such as those Obama favors is that abortion is a legitimate solution to the problem of unwanted pregnancies - so clearly legitimate that taxpayers should be forced to pay for it.
But for a moment let’s suppose, against all the evidence, that Obama’s proposalswould reduce the number of abortions, even while subsidizing the killing with taxpayer dollars. Even so, many more unborn human beings would likely be killed under Obama than under McCain. A Congress controlled by strong Democratic majorities under Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi would enact the bill authorizing the mass industrial production of human embryos by cloning for research in which they are killed. As president, Obama would sign it. The number of tiny humans created and killed under this legislation (assuming that an efficient human cloning technique is soon perfected) could dwarf the number of lives saved as a result of the reduced demand for abortion-even if we take a delusionally optimistic view of what that number would be.
Barack Obama and John McCain differ on many important issues about which reasonable people of goodwill, including pro-life Americans of every faith, disagree: how best to fight international terrorism, how to restore economic growth and prosperity, how to distribute the tax burden and reduce poverty, etc.
But on abortion and the industrial creation of embryos for destructive research, there is a profound difference of moral principle, not just prudence. These questions reveal the character and judgment of each man. Barack Obama is deeply committed to the belief that members of an entire class of human beings have no rights that others must respect. Across the spectrum of pro-life concerns for the unborn, he would deny these small and vulnerable members of the human family the basic protection of the laws. Over the next four to eight years, as many as five or even six U.S. Supreme Court justices could retire. Obama enthusiastically supports Roe v. Wade and would appoint judges who would protect that morally and constitutionally disastrous decision and even expand its scope. Indeed, in an interview in Glamour magazine, he made it clear that he would apply a litmus test for Supreme Court nominations: jurists who do not support Roe will not be considered for appointment by Obama. John McCain, by contrast, opposes Roe and would appoint judges likely to overturn it. This would not make abortion illegal, but it would return the issue to the forums of democratic deliberation, where pro-life Americans could engage in a fair debate to persuade fellow citizens that killing the unborn is no way to address the problems of pregnant women in need.
What kind of America do we want our beloved nation to be? Barack Obama’s America is one in which being human just isn’t enough to warrant care and protection. It is an America where the unborn may legitimately be killed without legal restriction, even by the grisly practice of partial-birth abortion. It is an America where a baby who survives abortion is not even entitled to comfort care as she dies on a stainless steel table or in a soiled linen bin. It is a nation in which some members of the human family are regarded as inferior and others superior in fundamental dignity and rights. In Obama’s America, public policy would make a mockery of the great constitutional principle of the equal protection of the law. In perhaps the most telling comment made by any candidate in either party in this election year, Senator Obama, when asked by Rick Warren when a baby gets human rights, replied: ”that question is above my pay grade.” It was a profoundly disingenuous answer: For even at a state senator’s pay grade, Obama presumed to answer that question with blind certainty. His unspoken answer then, as now, is chilling: human beings have no rights until infancy - and if they are unwanted survivors of attempted abortions, not even then.
In the end, the efforts of Obama’s apologists to depict their man as the true pro-life candidate that Catholics and Evangelicals may and even should vote for, doesn’t even amount to a nice try. Voting for the most extreme pro-abortion political candidate in American history is not the way to save unborn babies.
Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He is a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics and previously served on the United States Commission on Civil Rights. He sits on the editorial board of Public Discourse.
Copyright 2008 The Witherspoon Institute. All rights reserved.
Entry Filed under: current events, politics
28 Comments Add your own
1. John Barker | October 15th, 2008 at 1:46 am
The range of emotions I am experiencing is incredible. I have yet to read a more poignant article on Obama’s stand against life than this one. I am incensed, and sickened. Oh God, Mercy! Mercy great King! Mercy!
Oh that He dose not give us who we deserve. God help us, please.
2. Brooke | October 15th, 2008 at 10:57 am
That is good to know. Thank you for taking the time to write this. I am going to be letting people know about your blog.
3. Absolutely Frightening. &&hellip | October 15th, 2008 at 11:00 am
[…] Dave’s Blog […]
4. Ok, that does it… O&hellip | October 15th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
[…] that does it… Obama must be stopped! Please take the time to read this blog post: http://www.heisatthedoor.com/wordcast/?p=272. Barack Obama is a sick and twisted […]
5. Charity | October 15th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
wow.
can i share this with people?
Your blog, I mean.
Thanks for this.
6. Erin | October 15th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Thanks for posting this David. This makes me burn… The more I learn about Obama, the more appalled I am that any Christian could support him.
7. Yadira Laguerre | October 15th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Thank you so much! I knew these things about Obama, but not to this degree. I will spread the word because unfortunately I still have many Christian friends who are voting Obama/Biden.
8. David | October 15th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
It truly is unfathomable to me - what issue in our time can compare to the greatest crisis facing our nation in its history? Is there a more prevalent social issue? For those who would respond, “I favor the living over the unborn” - read my response to that in the previous post.
And please, make that argument on this blog. I am begging you.
9. michelle | October 15th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
WOW, i can’t even believe what i just read! how can anyone, with Obama’s way of thinking on this, live with themselves? this was a very well writen piece and i thank you for taking the time to write it out and share it with the rest of us. i would love to share this artical with others, if you don’t mind. this information needs to get out, in just the way you presented it! we all know about Obama’s abortion beliefs, still i doubt that many have really taken the time to think about it in such depth.
again, thank you this!
10. chris | October 15th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
The claims written in your blog herein are profound, and can border on legal defamation of character if untrue… be advised.
I would like to know what webpages officially document the allegations you raise about Obama and these “liberalities towards free abortions for all” that you suggest.
I am not emotionally moved by your comments, and reports…but will be persuaded only if you send me authentic documentation of publically accessible webpages, or something to support the claims herein written.
What I do hate, is hate inciting messages such as these. If you can give all who read your blog cogent and officially documented evidence to support your claims, it would be easier to align with you, or call Obama to order on those ‘policies regarding embryonic stem cell research, or Abortions”.
11. Matthew | October 16th, 2008 at 10:34 am
David didn’t write the article, as evidenced by the text, “by Robert George” at the top. It’s sad that people will get so hostile and demand proof on matters that are on public record.
The original article is here: http://thepublicdiscourse.com/viewarticle.php?selectedarticle=2008.10.14_George_Robert_Obama%27s%20Abortion%20Extremism_.xml
Here’s another article from a much more reputable source on “Obama’s abortion extremism”: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/01/AR2008040102197.html
12. What’s At Stake Thi&hellip | October 17th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
[…] http://www.heisatthedoor.com/wordcast/?p=272 […]
13. Michelle | October 18th, 2008 at 12:32 am
I am a Christian pastor’s wife that is voting for Obama. I read some of your entries, and you are missing key details (E.g. late term abortions laws for the mother’s health). Don’t you guys get it? The key to helping save lives isn’t through govt, but through love, and support and giving resources to a pregnant girl who doesn’t know God and might not be in the right circumstances to even have a choice other than abortion. Also, when the economy goes down and ppl are not financially taken care of, abortions go up. The church needs to stop philosophizing and walk the walk instead of talking, bringing fear and doing nothing to help these girls. I’ve helped many girls give up their babies for adoption and not abort, but it was through love and direct support. THAT’s how you stop abortions. And the Republican’s rights fear and guilt and sleazy unethical campaigns makes me sick and does not represent our Jesus who is apolitical. Obama/Biden is clearly my choice as an evangelical who sees social justice, poverty as the big issues over abortion. thx.
14. isaac bennett | October 18th, 2008 at 4:53 am
Obama has smiled in the face of America while putting the noose around her neck.
Michelle,
You are certainly right when you said, “The church needs to stop philosophizing and walk the walk instead of talking, bringing fear and doing nothing to help these girls.” Indeed, the the church is lacking much in the way of Christ-like love and compassion. I agree that we must “walk the walk” and one way we do that is to vote according to righteousness and justice. What is our love is it doesn’t touch our voter’s cards? Abortion is a huge issue, much like slavery as the article says - to completely stop abortion would have detrimental effect on our economy and progress as a nation. But, is our progress worth the lives of 50 million babies in the last 30 years? I know you wouldn’t agree with that.
What help is it to a mother to aide them in killing their child? How can we as the church support legislation that legitimizes and propagates the life of one over another. And not just life, but the convenience of life of one over the life of another. Most abortions are not done to save the “physical” health of mother, but for the sake of convenience. Surely you wouldn’t mind sacrificing time and money to raise a child that was appointed to die.
You are right, we must “walk the walk”- find mothers who are considering abortion - and love them as Christ loved them. What did you think about Obama drying up funding for crisis pregnancy centers? I know some of the most Godly helpful women who work at these centers. I want our government to keep funding and promoting these centers. Agreed?
I don’t believe anyone here is saying that the McCain campaign/administration is without flaw. The line must be drawn somewhere - and if it’s not drawn at life where is it to be drawn?
15. chris | October 19th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Matthew…it is strange you would criticize write ups and finally have a better understanding of my request… thanks anyway…it is the articles and links I had asked for, as well as putting forth caution.
Michelle…good work and the Lord give you more grace to do the right things as we (I included) ought
16. Jack D | October 20th, 2008 at 11:43 am
Everyone, may the Lord bless you with His Wisdom and guide your mind, heart, and hand as you vote this November. I am a PER listener in Virginia who stumbled on this article in “Lydia’s BLOG” and am thankful to Professor Robert George of Princeton for posting it. I realize there are many good people who feel compelled to vote for Sen Obama because of the Democratic Party’s stand on various social justice teachings that are in line with Christ’s teachings, particularly in the Gospel of Luke, HOWEVER, abortion is a disproportionate evil scarring our land and keeping us from the fullness of the Kingdom of God at Hand that Our Lord wills for us.
I hope by now all of you are aware of the statistics, over 48 million babies have been killed since 1973, before they ever saw the light of day by the horrible scourge of abortion. Every human life is sacred, is Willed, is Loved, but this staggering figure makes King Herod’s murder of the Holy Innocents (cf Luke or Matthew), or Pharaoh’s murder of the male children of Israel (cf Exodus), look like small potatoes.
I would lovingly and prayerfully point out to Michelle and Chris that some of the most compassionate outreach to wonen in crisis pregnancies has been the work various non-profit Pro-Life groups. There are countless examples of courageous Christians trying to live the gospel, not just enact laws but provide real hope and works of His Mercy. (subject of another follow-up)
But, sadly, Sen Obama’s record is among the most aggressive among national election canddiates in recent years, in favor of expanding abortion rights, as the articles point out. Justices Stevens and Ginsberg, liberals on the Supreme Court, are nearing retirement and would step down for Mr. Obama to nominate liberal judges who would uphold Roe v. Wade, to the bench. Whereas Sen McCain has said he would nominate justices similar in jurisprudence to Justices Thomas, Roberts, Scalia, and Alito ( the 4 pro-life justices on the court now)!
I hope and pray that all Christians vote PRO-LIFE first and foremost among all issues when we go to the polls in two weeks. In closing, here is an article from Washington DC Archbishop Donald Wuerl, a very holy and extremely well educated Catholic Christian who has always been an advocate of Pro-Life issues, on how we Christians must form our consciences to vote. This is written to the Catholic faithful/laity but has Gospel truths equally applicable to all Christians.
Regardless of our Christian faith tradition, Protestant, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, our specific denomination, even people of all faiths who value the dignity of human life, are being called by the Lord to come together on this issue. To stand up for those who cannot speak for themselves. To VOTE PRO-LIFE!
May the Lord bless each of you!
______________________________
17. Erin | October 20th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Why can’t we as Christians stand up for social justice for all the poor and oppressed in our nation, including the unborn? Where is the voice from the Christian voters who support Obama pressing him to change his view on abortion? If you have seen the videos of his speeches to Planned Parenthood vowing his undying support of their agenda of unlimited abortions for all, it would be clear that he’s playing the Evangelical community for their votes. He learned the lesson of the last election that he needs a good portion of the evangelical vote to win.
I have a sneaking suspicion that Christians are tired of being ridiculed by the larger culture for our antiquated views of morality, and so we are trying to tailor our message to appeal to the current culture. But we could take a lesson from the Chinese church on that one. Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Jesus will be persecuted. And evil men will go from bad to worse.
I think we need to look back at history and remember how the godly stood unwaveringly against the evil of their time (slavery, jim crow, murder of the jews) and they were persecuted by the majority for the stand they took. But those are the ones history honors for their willingness to sacrifice their reputations for truth and true justice. So I’m going to stand with them, and oppose abortion.
18. * Home * About * What I S&hellip | October 20th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
[…] 21, 2008 by Jacob I read this at David Sliker’s Blog. Go there and read some great dialog and thoughts in the comments. Wow! We need to realize that […]
19. Greg Comiskey | October 20th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
I love Robert George, one of the best natural law theorists out there. Check out “The Law and Moral Purpose,” an article he wrote in First Things about a year ago.
20. Erin | October 20th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Oh, and about Obama being an Evangelical Christian… This is not going to make you happy, but Barak Obama is not a Christian according to Biblical standards. The following are excerpts of an interview in 2004 with Cathleen Falsani for the Chicago Suntimes. http://www.suntimes.com/news/falsani/726619,obamafalsani040504.article
{”I am a Christian,”
“So, I have a deep faith,” Obama continues. “I’m 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.
“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.”
It’s perhaps an unlikely theological position for someone who places his faith squarely at the feet of Jesus to take, saying essentially that all people of faith — Christians, Jews, Muslims, animists, everyone — know the same God.
That depends, Obama says, on how a particular verse from the Gospel of John, where Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me,” is heard.
Obama describes his father, after whom he is named, as “agnostic.” His paternal grandfather was a Muslim. His mother, he says, was a Christian.
“”My mother, who I think had as much influence on my values as anybody, was not someone who wore her religion on her sleeve,” he says. “We’d go to church for Easter. She wasn’t a ‘church lady.’ ”
In his 1993 memoir, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, Obama describes his mother as “a lonely witness for secular humanism.”
“My mother’s confidence in needlepoint virtues depended on a faith I didn’t possess, a faith that she would refuse to describe as religious; that, in fact, her experience told her was sacrilegious: a faith that rational, thoughtful people could shape their own destiny,” he says in the book.”
“The difficult thing about any religion, including Christianity, is that at some level there is a call to evangelize and proselytize. There’s the belief, certainly in some quarters, that if people haven’t embraced Jesus Christ as their personal savior, they’re going to hell.”
Obama doesn’t believe he, or anyone else, will go to hell.
But he’s not sure if he’ll be going to heaven, either.
“I don’t presume to have knowledge of what happens after I die,” he says. “When I tuck in my daughters at night, and I feel like I’ve been a good father to them, and I see in them that I am transferring values that I got from my mother and that they’re kind people and that they’re honest people, and they’re curious people, that’s a little piece of heaven.” }
Regardless of what he calls it, the belief system Obama subscribes to, however sincerely, is pure humanism. His belief that human beings can come to the knowledge of what is good and right and establish righteousness outside of the leadership of God sets off all sorts of ’spirit of antichrist’ warning bells for me. What he believes is not the gospel of Jesus. When he gave his acceptance speech at the DNC, he even perverted the scripture from Hebrews 10:23 when he exhorted Americans to ‘hold unswervingly to the hope we profess’ but he wasn’t talking about faith in Jesus. He was refering to what he called ‘America’s promise’ which seemed to amount to the idea that if we all work together we can create a better world for ourselves, economically, educationally, socially, etc.
21. David | October 20th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
I edited Jack D’s comment above by inserting the article he added below, for space and clarity - Sliker
22. Jack D | October 20th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
Continuing Reflections on Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship
THE TEACHING OF CHRIST
By Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
The United States bishops’ statement, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship” (http://www.faithfulcitizenship.org), speaks about the faithful being guided by a Christian conscience: “Catholics have a serious and lifelong obligation to form their conscience in accord with human reason and the teaching of the Church” (17).
We are obliged to follow our conscience, yet it does not come automatically filled with ready answers to every moral question. We need to form it with the words of truth and life. The principles articulated in the Church’s moral and social teaching are intended to guide the Catholic politician - as well as the Catholic voter - in having a rightly formed conscience.
It is the task of the Church to proclaim the good news of Jesus. Thus the teaching office - the Magisterium - continues in our day, in our circumstances, to make us aware of Jesus’ teaching. The bishops, as successors to the apostles, carry on the work of teaching the Christian faithful.
Competing with the Church and the Gospel in today’s world are many other voices seeking to form conscience and thus determine what actions will reflect our identity as a people. The voices that speak values often antithetical to Christian values are loud, persuasive and well supported. An individual’s position on abortion is a clear case of Christian conscience being rightly formed by God’s word in respect of life or badly formed by voices that cloak the evil of abortion in the rhetoric of personal choice.
There are some things we must never do, either individually or as a society. “Forming Consciences” tells us “such actions are so deeply flawed that they are always opposed to the authentic good of persons. These are called ‘intrinsically evil’ actions. They must always be rejected and opposed and must never be supported or condoned” (22).
One crosses a clear line when fostering public policy that allows for the destruction of millions of unborn babies. Unlike other pieces of legislation that touch on the building of a good and just society and that may be open to prudential judgment about what is truly the best response, legislation fostering abortion - permitting the killing of the unborn child - ultimately helps to bring about the death of unborn children.
We as Catholics must have a clear understanding that taking an innocent human life is always wrong. So consistently has this teaching been presented that today in the public forum it is one of the defining hallmarks of the Catholic Church. Most people know that Catholic teaching prohibits abortion. But many may not be aware of the reasons for this teaching. One of our tasks as pastors of souls and as members of Christ’s body is to articulate as persistently and persuasively as we can why the Church opposes abortion and why political support for abortion is also wrong.
“Forming Consciences” tells us that in the public political debate today there is no other issue that rises to this level of moral certitude. Abortion is always wrong. To support public policy and political platforms that protect so-called “abortion rights” is to participate in some way in the inexorable conclusion: many, many innocent unborn children will be killed. “A legal system that violates the basic right to life on the grounds of choice is fundamentally flawed” (22).
The right to choose brings with it the corresponding responsibility to choose the moral and ethical good. “Forming Consciences” simply reminds us of the ancient and once universally accepted moral principle that it is wrong to kill life in the womb.
Sometimes a single issue will be so important that it overrides a whole range of lesser issues. Human slavery is one such issue. It simply cannot be condoned no matter how much political support it might enjoy. The same could also be said for the discrimination and even elimination of people for ethnic reasons. This is simply wrong and cannot be justified.
We are called in “Forming Consciences” to show a consistency and cohesion in the application of our moral convictions to our public and political life. Our vote should follow our convictions.
What defines us as a people is, in no small way, how we respond to the urgent issues of our day. Life - the protection of human life - especially the most vulnerable at life’s beginning and at its end - must always be at the top of the list.
Every election places each of us before serious moral choices. Our political activity engages the defining moral issues of our day. Our vote is the means we have to see that good is done and evil avoided. It comes with significant moral obligation.
23. David | October 20th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Chris - if the article is truly “hate inciting”, then how would citations dim the fervor produced by these words?
How could one present Obama’s views on abortion without “inciting hate”, in your opinion? It seemed like a passionate presentation - but “inciting hate”? Doesn’t that seem a bit over the top to you?
24. David | October 20th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Good to see you again ’round these parts, Greg. Your brain has been sorely missed.
25. Dorean Beattie | October 22nd, 2008 at 11:05 am
Thanks for sharing this. I hear pundits/journalists decrying the close-mindedness of voting for a candidate based on ‘just one issue”. When the issue is that of protecting a voiceless, powerless sector of human-kind, how can anything else even be on the table?
26. dave & janet horsman &hellip | October 22nd, 2008 at 2:16 pm
[…] even! - are totally willing to ignore the fact the Barak Obama has the most liberal and atrocious views on abortion because his ideas on social action sound “good.” …But here is my contention: […]
27. Adam Beattie | October 24th, 2008 at 3:58 am
Sadly enough to say, there are many in the Media who honestly don’t care about any of the facts presented here. I have to admit being sickened when I see those who are called “journalists” defending Barack Obama tooth and nail as being one to stick up for the “poor and oppressed”, ignoring the fact that he is advocating the wholesale slaughter of the single most defenseless people group on the planet… The unborn.
For all of this, I have to admit that I starting to not want to pray for a specific outcome for the election. Rather, my prayer has changed to something along the lines of, “God, I don’t care who wins… save the children.” I pray that God will give Sen. Obama a Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation… If God will not give Senator McCain the Presidency, may He change the heart of Senator Obama.
28. Katie | October 27th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Woe to all those who feel that “we must vote for the economy, not the moral issues”. How on earth do we think our society/economy ever got where it is? We quit voting on the moral issues. We quit taking stands. I am sick of people saying that voting on the basis of moral issues such as abortion or gay marriage is silly. It is our mandate by God to prayerfully consider these issues when voting, as well as economic issues. God save us, for only you can!
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