Obama's Religious Ruse: 'I've Always Been a Christian', Part 1 of 3
H/T to Ben at ANewtOne.
This is perhaps the best researched article on this subject I've read to date. The essay is rather long but well worth the read. I will post part of it here and trust you will follow the link to continue reading.
From American Thinker, by Alexander LaBrecque.
Barack Obama insists that he is a "devout Christian" of "deep faith," and Big Media echoes his claim without question. Even some critics hesitate to challenge the validity of that claim.
The ruse that he is a Christian must be exposed for what it really is: Obama's cloak to conceal that he is a Marxist from a Muslim background, for which he holds widespread support in the Islamic world. This series of three articles will analyze his exploitation of Christian rhetoric to serve the subterfuge.
Obama's claim that he is a Christian coincides with his adamant denial that he was ever a Muslim. Yet his sister with whom he lived as a child has disclosed "my whole family was Muslim."[1] His 1968 registration at a Catholic school lists him as "Barry Soetoro," a citizen of Indonesia, and his religion is Islam.[2] He himself admits that later he studied the Koran at a public school in Jakarta. Only Muslim children studied the Koran there,[3] and his former principal recalls that Barry studied mengaji - recitation of the Koran in Arabic, an advanced form of study.[4]
Without intent, he corroborated this in a 2007 New York Times interview: with a first-rate Arabic accent Obama recited the opening lines of the Muslim call to prayer and remarked that it is "one of the prettiest sounds on earth at sunset."[5] These lines chant the confession of faith committing one to Islam: the declaration of Allah's supremacy, that there is no god but Allah, and that Muhammad is his prophet.[6]
His memoir discloses that in his teens he considered becoming a Black Muslim like Malcolm X.[7] Obama divulged this year that in 1981 he made a three-week trip to Karachi, Pakistan with Muslim friends from college, and there he became knowledgeable of Sunni and Shiite sects.[8] Although his memoir concealed that journey, it revealed his inner state at that very time: "I had spent the summer brooding over a misspent youth ... the state of the world and the state of my soul. ‘I want to make amends,' I said. ‘Make myself of some use.'"[9] Obama's experience with Islamic sects on that soul-searching, penitential pilgrimage preceded his radical commitment to Marxism as a student at Columbia University.
For two decades Obama was indeed a member of a "church" in Chicago, but its Marxist "theology" of Black Power, its affinities with the Nation of Islam, and having the raving malevolent Jeremiah Wright as his "spiritual mentor" make Obama's claim to be a Christian less than credible.
Confirming that Obama's "deep faith" is not Christian has been his denial that Jesus Christ is Lord of all and the supreme revelation from God for all humankind, and its corollary, his admitted skepticism about an afterlife.
The reality of Jesus' resurrection from the dead is the most basic confession of the Christian faith and has been affirmed by all Christians since the first generation as God's revelation of life everlasting.[10] Christians call upon the name of Jesus as the crucified and risen Lord whom God vindicated to become the Savior of all peoples and to give believers eternal life. This hope is so integral to the Christian faith that the apostle Paul reasoned that conversely if resurrection is not the destiny of those who belong to the risen Christ, then Christ himself is dead, the faith has no content, and believers are not reconciled to God. "If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all."[11] Inherent in Jesus' teaching and the Christian hope is also the Jewish expectation of God's judgment of all persons, that beyond this life divine justice will reward the good and punish those who do evil.[12]
In 2004 Obama was interviewed by Cathleen Falsani of the Chicago Sun-Times. He told her that Christians "may presume a set of doctrines" that "I don't necessarily subscribe to." Elaborating, he trivialized the core of the Christian faith by which believers live: "If all it took was someone proclaiming I believe [in] Jesus Christ and that he died for my sins, and that's all there was to it, people wouldn't have to keep coming to church, would they." Immediately Falsani asked him if he believes in heaven, and the skeptic mocked: "Do I believe in the harps and clouds and wings?" "I don't presume to have knowledge of what happens after I die," or whether rewards for one's conduct will be in this life only or in a hereafter. He identified "heaven" with feeling that he cares for his daughters and that they are learning from him his mother's values. In the same way, sin - inconsistency with his values - is "its own punishment."[13]
Because faith perceives that which is presently unseen, all Christians struggle against weakness of faith, but Christian faith is not skeptical about the hereafter. No one who actually believes that God resurrected Jesus from death to personal immortality remains agnostic about an afterlife.[14] Obama's skepticism on this core premise betrays his skepticism about the reality of Christ's resurrection, about the Christian faith itself.
Continue with Part 1.
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