Photo:Embassy of the United States, Ankara Turkey
President Obama seems to love intellectual nuance above all else. While he knows the persuasive power of words that speak to the heart, ("yes we can; change we can believe in"), the persona he often adopts reflects the reasoned distance a professor might take from his students while he dances in his own mind with the "what ifs" of a world constructed solely of ideas.
Over the past several years, President Obama has said several times that America is not a Christian nation. David Barton wrote in an article for WallBuilders: "He asserted that while a U. S. Senator, repeated it as a presidential candidate, and on a recent presidential trip to Turkey announced to the world that Americans 'do not consider ourselves a Christian nation.' (He made that announcement in Turkey because he said it was 'a location he said he chose to send a clear message.' ) Then preceding a subsequent trip to Egypt, he declared that America was 'one of the largest Muslim countries in the world' (even though the federal government’s own statistics show that less than one-percent of Americans are Muslims.) "
President Obama seems unaware of how comments that negate American Christianity play on Main Street.
America is not a Christian nation in governance but America is a Christian nation based on the amalgam of the beliefs that are representative of its citizens.
For Christianity, a person becomes a Christian through declaring a specific relationship with another person, Jesus. A 2010 Easter Rasmussen poll found that 78% of Americans believe Jesus was resurrected from the dead; 85% believe Jesus actually walked the earth 2000 years ago; and 81% believe Jesus is the son of God whose death paid the penalty for sinful mankind.
Just because parts of our American population have religious relationships with Islam, or Buddhism, or Hinduism, or Humanism or atheism or other isms too small to be popularly known doesn't diminish America's Christianity anymore than bronze could be considered diminished because it's alloyed with some tin.
It's hard for Main Street to feel secure in the governance of a President who seems to know so little about the country he purports to lead.
Comments
So well said. Thank you for speaking out on what's in the minds and hearts of so many.
Beautiful, Cheri, beautiful. Direct, informative, and to the point with a punch. Think it will ever reach beyond the reasoned distancing of "the professor"?
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