Post-Election Flotsam and Jetsam
by Abbot Joseph
There are a couple of loose ends I’d like to tie up here, before I begin totally to ignore politics once again. Oddly enough, though, in recent years religion and politics have been more inextricably entwined than they have been for quite some time.
The first concerns the happy passage of California’s Proposition 8 (something of a miracle here in the “fruit and nut capital of the world”). The people of this august state have voted (narrowly, but hey, a majority’s a majority) to amend the state constitution to make it explicit that the definition of marriage shall be a union of one man and one woman only.
Rather than showing a bit of good sportsmanship, however, the “gay” community has turned out to be riddled with sore losers. A perusal of the internet will turn up comments like the following, from the preachers of tolerance: “I have never considered being a violent radical extremist for our Equal Rights, but now I think maybe I should consider becoming one.” “Can someone in CA please go burn down the Mormon temples there, PLEASE. I mean seriously. DO IT.” [The Mormons joined Catholics and other Christians in promoting Prop. 8] “I’m going to give them something to be [expletive deleted] scared of. I’m a radical who is now on a mission to make them all pay for what they’ve done.” “Burn their [expletive deleted] churches to the ground, and then tax the charred timbers.” “I hope the No on 8 people have a long list and long knives.” “I swear, I’d murder people with my bare hands this morning.” “Trust me. I’ve got a big list of names of mormons [sic] and catholics [sic] that were big supporters of Prop 8. … I warn them to watch their backs.”
Now let’s put things in perspective here. If a Catholic priest or some other Christian minister merely says from the pulpit, “The Bible says that homosexual activity is sinful,” people will be screaming about “hate speech” and there will be accusations of incitement to “hate crimes.” (This is not speculation. It has already happened in a number of places, and ministers have even been fined for preaching Christian morals in their own churches.) But let the gentle souls quoted above threaten to burn down churches and murder Christians for voting according to their consciences and nothing will happen. They are merely exercising their right to free speech. There is only one standard that such people live by: double.
I just read that the former boyfriend of Linda Ronstadt (also the former Governor of California and presently its Attorney General), Jerry Brown, has declared that he will protect Prop. 8 from legal challenges but that he will also honor the 18,000 gay “marriages” performed in this state since June, when the state supreme court (in a 4-3 vote) decided to toss out the millennia-old definition of marriage. One would think that if the state constitution now reads in effect that “gay marriage” is a contradiction in terms, one wouldn’t see 18,000 gay couples flashing their marriage licenses in this same state. One blogger notes: “Indeed it may have been lunar influence that caused the temporary suspension of natural law, producing the result that marriage is always and everywhere recognized as a union of a man and a woman, except in California between June and November 2008.”
The other issue concerns the piety of the president-elect. The following was part of his campaign propaganda during the primaries (doubtless only in Bible-belt states): “Sen. Obama’s campaign distributed literature during the primaries that described ‘That day Obama felt a beckoning of the spirit and accepted Jesus Christ into his life.’ One panel on the brochure, ‘Called to Bring Change,’ declares, ‘We do what we do because God is with us.’ Another described his belief in ‘the power of prayer,’ and another, labeled, ‘Called to Christ,’ stated, ‘Kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side, I felt I heard God’s spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth and carrying out His works.’”
Forgive me if my lunch begins to rise to my throat upon reading this. “His will, His truth, His works.” This is what Mr Obama has submitted himself to. The unborn children who will soon be dismembered and thrown in the garbage with Obama’s blessing may ask God, as they leave this world (no doubt saying, “good riddance, if that’s what you’re like!”): “Is this really Your will, Your truth, Your work?” And God will say: “Mr Obama has forgotten my commandments, and here I’m not even referring primarily to ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ I’m referring to the more fundamental one about not having other gods before Me.”
You see, we have to seriously question Mr Obama’s submission to someone he thinks is God, or Christ. If he really thinks that the Spirit of the true and holy God has called him to bestow his blessing upon the murder of millions of innocent human beings, then he is severely and tragically deluded. It seems closer to the truth that he has actually submitted himself to “the god of this world” who “has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2Cor. 4:4). How dare he say he is carrying out the works of the Lord Jesus!
This brings me to a related reflection on something that is both more spiritual and more personal. I just unhappily discovered that one of my family members is following “A Course in Miracles” (I thought that by now that was passé even for new-agers!). The relation to Obama’s submission to one whose will and truth and works include the slaughter of the unborn and the benign approval of sexual perversion is that the woman who produced the Course (Helen Schucman) did so by channeling a spirit that called itself “Jesus.” Maybe she too thought she was submitting herself to Christ and his will and truth and works. But what this spirit “revealed” to her was in many ways contradictory to what the true God had already definitively revealed to the world. It’s all glossed over in words of peace and blessing and higher consciousness, but the bottom line is that it denies the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Redemption in the sacrificial blood of Jesus.
By their fruits they shall be known. For all her teaching on the illusory nature of sin, evil, suffering, etc, and all her insistence that her teachings would lead one to a life of joy and peace and love and blessing, she “spent the last two years of her life in the blackest psychotic depression I have ever witnessed,” said Fr Benedict Groeschel, who was an acquaintance of hers. The evil spirits she had channeled finally came to claim their property, after she had deceived many according to their will and works. What shall the fruits of Mr Obama’s “submission” be—not only for himself but for our country?
Let us pray to the Lord. “Lord, have mercy!”
Read Also Post-Election Reflection #1 by Abbot Joseph: Obamanation
