This article would be anything but surprising if it appeared in the Christian Post or any other conservative publication. But here it is in USA Today. The editors obviously felt it is relevant to their MOR or even vaguely Left readers. I heard an interesting "take" on the Obama presidency the other day. Think back to all the high hopes at the outset in January of 2009. You might even call them "messianic hopes." The symbol for all of that was the Nobel Peace Prize award he received. Expectations for his presumed success were sky high. The post mortem is not so sanguine. Basically, as the critique I heard said, he blew it. The key, according to this analysis --can't remember who said it-- was how the admin dealt with the economy in those early days. The huge mistake of that time set the stage for the next big mistake about health care. BHO had to opportunity --not quite universal acclaim-- to be transformative and "reinvent" the economy or, at a minimum, set new moral standards. Not my original observation, he could have demanded that as a price for bailouts to the financial industry, the condition would be that banks, etc, MUST make credit available widely to reasonably qualified borrowers. Instead, impossible to miss by everyone but the brain dead, high finance was protected, viz, the fortunes of the rich and famous, and nearly everyone else got stuck with the tab. That sucked the half air out of the admin's sails. Health care sucked the other half out of the sails. Anyone who wants to can add still other large mistakes. Maybe the air was sucked out in one half followed by two fourths, but there is no question that when the world could see that high finance would be protected and all the privileges which attach to Big Money, pure idealism toward Obama became impossible except among the most religiously inspired of Left wing voters. Now his "Christian base" --never a majority of his voters but regardless crucial in putting him over the top in 2008-- is slipping away. Maybe it has already slipped away. About one in four Evangelicals cast ballots for BHO. The article makes the point that, for all his protestations of Christian faith he doesn't much seem to care about Christian ideals or Christian heritage. To sum it up, the feeling of a heck of a lot of people now might be characterized in hypothetical words spoken by today's version of a Reagan Democrat : "This guy is a total amateur, he doesn't really know what in hell he is doing and he sure doesn't give a damn for anyone but the rich and welfare queens, and for Muslims and homos." This is how I conceive what a large number of people in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania and Tennessee and Arizona are saying these days. Billy ==================================================== USA Today / December 14, 2010 Watch your religious language, Mr. President By Thomas S. Kidd Sometimes it seems like President Obama just can't catch a break, from the long-faltering economy to the Gulf oil well explosion. But some problems are just of his own making. Nowhere is this more clear than in his clumsy use of religious language. The president cannot stop stumbling over the religious maxims that have defined us as a nation. Earlier this fall, President Obama repeatedly misquoted the Declaration of Independence, saying "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that each of us are endowed with certain inalienable rights." Why leave out the "Creator"? Doing this once would have gathered no notice. Twice, and the grumbling began. Three times, and people began to wonder whether he had made a conscious decision to reword this founding document, presumably for the purpose of political correctness. Another misstep came in his speech in _Indonesia_ (http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Places,+Geography/Countries/Indonesia) a month ago, when Obama told the audience that America's national motto was E Pluribus Unum, or "Out of Many, One." Of course, this is incorrect: the national motto, since 1956, is "In God We Trust." (Didn't they teach that at Harvard?) This error would be a minor problem in isolation, but it continues to fuel the growing concern that this president is recasting the ways in which these capacious religious principles have stood at the heart of our national identity. This past week, the Congressional Prayer Caucus filed a letter of protest with the president, asking him to clarify his comments on the national motto and the Declaration. Why it matters So is the president's misuse of our God-centered dictums a big deal, or is it just one more example of his enemies piling on when they see a chance? Given our conflicts over America's religious identity, it really is a big deal. First of all, it is important for President Obama not to repeatedly misquote the Declaration of Independence and to incorrectly identify the national motto. But more substantially, his mistakes send a message — hopefully unintentional — that the president wishes to define America as a secular nation.
In 2009, the president generated another controversy when he said that Americans "do not consider [them]selves a Christian nation." To the extent that this means we are not an exclusively Christian nation, he is correct. Religious liberty in America has always sheltered non-Christians under its protective shield. But it is quite another thing to construe America as a secular nation, in which religion — or principles of faith — will have no role in the public sphere. A secular nation is hardly what the Founders intended. Religious principles have always undergirded the nation, and none more so than equality by God's creation. The notion that "all men are created equal, (and) that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights," is indispensible to understanding American history. It is not susceptible to casual modification by the president, or anyone else. This idea assures us that our equality comes from our common standing before God, our Creator, who has endowed us with rights that no one can justly violate. Our public faith This principle stood at the heart of our revolution against Britain. In the Gettysburg Address in 1863, _Abraham Lincoln_ (http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/People/Historical+Figures/Abraham+Lincoln) said equality by creation was the unique principle to which our nation was dedicated. _Martin Luther King, Jr_ (http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Martin+Luther+King,+Jr) ., said that it was America's "creed." We must not let this cherished ideal slip away in the name of politeness or secularism. In the Christmas season, the question of whether America is fundamentally religious or secular seems even more acute, as small numbers of activists try to have "Christmas" villages and trees re-designated as emblems of an innocuous-sounding "holiday." Meanwhile, millions of Americans wonder whether our country is slowly becoming hostile to all public expressions of faith. If President Obama does not mean to exacerbate believers' worries about his secular intentions, then he needs to watch his religious language. Thomas S. Kidd, Senior Fellow at Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
