Having no cable or satellite TV, I don't get to watch broadcasts of events like Rick Warren's "Saddleback Forum," his interview of the prospective presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama. He asked them the same questions and let them talk on a nationally televised interview. However, I did watch quite a bit of this event, courtesy of YouTube.
One thing that stuck out to me was Warren's question to Obama of how Obama's Christian worldview affected his life. Obama said that Christ inspired him to help the helpless, whom he used Jesus' words to describe as, "the least of these." I didn't think about the heinous nature of that statement for a day or two, but it is terrible. Think about this with me for a moment, because it is not at first obvious why Obama erred so in this statement.
"The least of these," is a statement used by Christ to refer to Christians...it is not referring to just anyone. However, in Obama's use of the term, it refers to economically downtrodden people or those in American society who traditionally have not had much. So Obama's use of Christ's principle is a misuse of Christ's words first of all--that is wrong in itself, but let's probe further: Did Christ promote helping the helpless? Yes, He did. He taught us to love our enemies (Matt. 5) and He taught us to give to the poor (Matt. 6), and he taught us not to tempt others to sin (Matt. 18), among many other things...in fact, we could say that Christ's principle given for Christians in their personal conduct with other Christians and unbelievers is an extension of "love your neighbor as yourself" (Matt. 22).
Now, lets compare this to one of Obama's views...his position on abortion. Who is more needy and helpless than an unborn infant? Who needs our support to make it more--a poor person or an unborn child facing the scissors and a vacuum tube? Who is more able to defend their life? Who is "the least of these" in this circumstance? An unborn child has 23 chromosomes. Under normal circumstances, much of the time, these 23 chromosomed-creatures (called human beings) make it out into the world where they will be unequivocally proclaimed to be people. Eventually, they would defend themselves if they could. For Obama to proclaim that he is unable to see if they are persons or not is hogwash. It is apparent that these are indeed "the least of these." Indeed, as I blogged on earlier, Obama attacked legislation that would have provided protection for unwanted pre-term down-syndrome babies that had been born. On this, even the liberals admitted that this is a child, born into the world--deserving protection, and they voted for it in Congress. But Obama didn't. He wouldn't even grant these children--undoubtedly "the least of these," the compassionate political stance that would have helped preserve or at least comfort their suffering little lives.
And so, for Obama, it may be "above his pay-grade" to determine when human life begins...but it is also above his pay-grade to determine what Jesus meant when He said "the least of these."
"Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. 19:14)
1 comment:
This is yet another case of one using "religious language" in order to appeal to the church folk. The sad thing is that speech-givers such as Obama may not be much different from many of our Gospel singing groups. Yet, the majority of Christians seem Biblically illiterate and would never criticize Obama's comments. Rather, they (we) would hear the religious language and begin to think, "Well maybe he's not so bad..." Does this fall on the shoulders of the church for lack of discipleship? Had we been better discipled, wouldn't we more quickly spot such poor hermenutics and the attempt to use Jesus to gain a crowd? Maybe so.
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