The gospel according to The One: better get some better advisers

By Bryan Fischer

The White House has been talking up President Obama's Christian faith since a poll revealed that he has sent such confusing signals on faith matters that 20% of Americans believe he shares the religious convictions of the people who blew us up on 9/11 and want to exterminate Western civilization.

As easy as that it is to believe — based on the disastrous dismantling of American greatness he has been able to accomplish in less than two years — this was obviously a public relations nightmare for the Ruling Class Democrats, who love power more than anything in life.

So we've been hearing from Obama's surrogates about how devout he is, how many Christian pastors serve as his spiritual advisers, and how he gets daily devotionals on his Blackberry.

Well, if what he said Wednesday in somebody's backyard is any indication, those spiritual advisers have some serious remedial work to do.

According to Obama, his understanding of the story of Cain and Abel is 180 degrees out from reality, and his understanding of the Golden Rule is that he gets to be as mean to others as he thinks they are to him.

Among the "precepts of Jesus Christ" that "spoke to me," said Obama, is "being my brothers' and sisters' keeper." This is clearly a reference, not to anything Jesus said, but to the ancient account of Cain and Abel found in Genesis 4.

After Cain killed his brother (Q: how long did Cain hate his brother? A: As long as he was Abel), God said to him, "Where is Abel your brother?" To which Cain replied, "I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?" (Genesis 4:10) This was Cain's way of saying, "Don't have a clue. Not my day to watch him."

So the phrase "brother's keeper" was not found on the lips of Jesus but on the lips of a murderer who was trying to dodge a felony charge from God himself. In other words, the phrase "brother's keeper" meant the exact opposite of what the president thinks it means.

Then The One compounded his theological error by turning the Golden Rule on its head, and verbalizing a version that gives him permission to be as malicious and cruel as he perceives his political opponents to be, which could explain a lot.

What Jesus said was this: "Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them" (Matthew 7:13). Obama's version: "Treating others as they would treat me," which being interpreted means if they're mean to me, I get to be just as mean back.

According to Jesus, the standard of conduct is how you would like to be treated. According to Obama, the standard of conduct is how people treat you.

Once again, Obama turns the teaching of Scripture upside down and gives a version 180 degrees out from the truth.

(Rush Limbaugh likewise had better leave theology to the professionals. He erroneously attributed the Golden Rule to Hammurabi, of all people. Hammurabi was the great Babylonian lawgiver of the second millennium B.C., but never put anything remotely like the Rule in his code. There is, it is true, a negative version of the Rule found in the teaching of Confucius, along the lines of "Don't do to others what you don't want them to do to you," but nothing as simple, as positive, and as elegant as the crystalline teaching of Christ.)

To Obama's credit, he did get one thing right — and, in fact, the central thing — when he referred to "Jesus Christ dying for my sins."

What is striking here is to compare the deafening silence from the out-of-the-mainstream media to Obama's declaration of faith in Jesus to their reaction to George W. Bush's declaration that Jesus was his favorite "political philosopher" because "he changed my life."

They went ballistic, and vituperatively condemned Bush as everything from a modern-day Torquemada to a contemporary version of Hitler, and bloviated endlessly about the coming Dark Ages that would descend on America if this Neanderthal managed to gain the highest office in the land.

Why the difference? Aside from the obvious fact that they are in the tank for Obama and serve simply as MInisters of Propaganda for the junta, the reason for their silence now is simple: they know that Bush was serious about his Christian faith in Christ and Obama isn't.

If they thought Obama was even remotely intent on taking the "precepts of Jesus Christ" seriously, they'd be as apoplectic as they were with Bush, because this would turn Obama into a pro-marriage, pro-life president instead of a pro-deviancy, pro-death one. But they know he doesn't mean a word of what he says, so they can safely ignore what would otherwise be embarrassing lapses into faith language.

It was odd, by the way, to see the media hacks trumpet Obama's Christian faith when they discovered that so many Americans think he's a Muslim. Why, you'd have thought it was a credit to a man's reputation to be identified with Christ! Who'd a thunk you'd ever hear that from secular fundamentalists like Katie Couric and her ilk? They were simply doing their part as faithful apparatchiks in trying to preserve what is left of his political viability.

But Obama's conduct — as opposed to his words — brings to mind another one of the "precepts of Jesus Christ," in which he quoted the words of Isaiah: "This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me."

Obama also exposed his anti-Christian mindset when he said, regarding other people, that it was his task "to help them find their own grace." This "all roads lead to heaven" nonsense is about as far from the "precepts of Jesus Christ" as you can get. For Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6)."

Of course, the president has the right to hold and promote a view of salvation that is different than the view of Christ. What he is not entitled to do is to call himself a Christian while doing it.

(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)

© Bryan Fischer