Obama-haters are perverting Christianity
Friday, November 20, 2009
By Tony Norman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Forty-six years ago this weekend, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in his motorcade in Dallas.
Lee Harvey Oswald, the gunman captured and charged with the murder of the 35th president, appeared motivated by obscure political grievances.
Oswald didn't live long enough to explain his reasons in open court. He was murdered by a man with big-time mob ties and more obscure reasons two days later.
Jack Ruby, Oswald's killer, died in prison years later, but his motives for killing the man who murdered the president remain cloaked in mystery and speculation to this day.
Still, of all the unanswered questions swirling around the murder of an American president on an unbearably sad weekend 46 years ago, few people -- even the most conspiratorially minded -- think religion was a triggering agent.
Even the most hard-core, gun-toting Protestant of the most militant backwoods church wouldn't have nursed a big enough grudge against the only Catholic president of the United States to kill him.
The fervent anti-Communism and right-wing paranoia of the early 1960s had yet to produce the kind of "Christians" who could pray for the president's death and call it a religious duty with a straight face.
But after four decades of culture wars, mounting frustration with pluralism and a realization that a constitutional theocracy isn't likely in America, some "believers" are allowing their inner Satan to call the shots.
Two generations after Kennedy was assassinated, there are so-called "Christians" who preach the murder of President Barack Obama from the pulpit.
Earlier this year, the Rev. Wiley Drake of the First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park, Calif., instructed his followers to pray for Obama's death. Presidential candidate Alan Keyes' former running mate called down curses on Mr. Obama, based on prayers of vengeance from the Psalms.
In Tempe, Ariz., Pastor Steven Anderson of Faithful Word Baptist Church called for Mr. Obama's death on the eve of his visit to Phoenix earlier this year.
One of Pastor Anderson's followers attended an Obama speech the next day with an assault weapon he is legally licensed to carry in the open.
For Christians who eschew such violent drama, but want to express their approval of the sentiment, T-shirts with a sly reference to Old Testament scripture make the same point without attracting the attention of the Secret Service.
Don't be surprised if you see a so-called believer known for hating the president wearing a T-shirt with a pair of hands folded in prayer above the legend: "Pray for Obama -- Psalm 109:8." Contrary to what you might think, this person has not had a "Road to Damascus" experience.
A quick review of the verse leaves no doubt about what the person means: "Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow." This follows "Let his days be few; Let another take his office."
How cute -- a veiled death threat that is also a prayer that the wretch under the curse loses his job, too.
There are several other verses in the Psalm that aren't fit for Christmas cards, either:
"Let his children wander about and beg; And let them seek sustenance far from their ruined homes."
Several verses later, there's this gem: "Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord. And do not let the sin of his mother be blotted out. Let them be before the Lord continually, that He may cut off their memory from the earth."
God forbid that a plot against the president ever comes to fruition. In the event that it does, chances are it won't be the handiwork of al-Qaida. It is just as likely to be the work of some murderous thug who calls himself a spirit-filled Christian.
As someone who considers himself a Christian, I have no illusions about my co-religionists' capacity for evil. Western history is driven by the work of those committed to turning the Sermon on the Mount on its head in the name of the God they claim to worship.
Maybe John 8:44 on their shirts would be more spiritually appropriate: "You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him."
Read more:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09324/1014951-153.stm#ixzz0XWcry4K7
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
