DOES OBAMA APPRECIATE THE CHRISTIAN CLERGY?

Obama and the Church; Hitler and the Church

It occurred to me that you readers might find it interesting to speculate that President Obama may well appreciate the Christian church and clergy being as they are today, in the same sense that Hitler appreciated the Christian church as it was in his pre-Nazi Germany (In reality, he held the clergy in utter contempt for its weakness in the face of tyranny). If Obama is in fact a committed Koran-believing Marxist Muslim, he probably appreciates the fact that, thanks to America's clergy, the teeth of definition, enemy identification, duty, and vigilance in the cause of America's sacred God-given freedoms, have been pulled from the church by the clergy. The resulting vacuum has been filled by weak passive tolerance and irresolution in the great freedom issues by the American citizens.

Will Blind, Confused, Irresolute, Weak-willed Christians Be Raptured Out?

How have the clergy accomplished this weakness? By convincing the "sheep" that there's nothing to be concerned about - not to worry, "God is in control" and that in the "twinkling of an eye" the "believers" will be raptured out to an eternity of paradise with Christ. This prevalent "positive-only" non-confrontational disarming pseudo-faith patronizes, but in reality abandons and mocks Christ (and our founding fathers who gave their "lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor" in the Holy cause of freedom). It blinds, neutralizes and confuses the vigilance of Christians toward the oppression and the tyranny of evil. [Read my recent blogs titled THE NEUTRALIZED "IRRELEVANT" CHURCH; and, ABANDONMENT THEOLOGY - WHAT IS IT?]

In Hitler's own words, straight out of Mein Kampf, He detailed the reasons why the nation was so vulnerable and ripe for his subjugation:
One of the worst symptoms of decay was the increasing cowardice towards responsibility as well as half-heartedness in all things resulting from it....All these symptoms of decay are ultimately only consequences of the lack of a certain, commonly acknowledged view of life and of the general uncertainty in the judgment and the definition of an attitude towards the various great questions of the time, resulting from it. Therefore, everything, beginning with education, is half-hearted and wavering, shuns responsibility and ends thus in cowardly tolerance of even recognized evils. Dreamy humaneness becomes the fashion, and by a weak surrender to the excrescences and in sparing the individuals, one sacrifices in turn the future of millions.

Hitler's Cross

Irwin W. Lutzer wrote a penetrating classic book titled "Hitler's Cross" in which he showed how Hitler capitalized on the passive clergy-induced weakness of the pre-Nazi church. Hitler was raised a Catholic and knew well the power of the faith. Accordingly he held the clergy and the citizens in contempt for not using the faith to confront evil. Rather, they capitulated, focused on salvation-only and personal virtuous living, thus by default opened the door to Hitler who proceded to gain a stranglehold and eradicate the people's personal freedoms. With utter contempt for the capitulating clergy, who had used a perversion of Romans 13:1-4 to justify non-involvement in government, Hitler sent many of them to his death camps.

Romans 13:1-4 vs "victorious personal living"

In America there have been a number of Paul Revere trumpet blowing clergy (and patriots in general) in recent decades. For the most part, the Christians, mesmerized by pabulum from the pulpits, have ridiculed them, labeled them "extremists", "opportunists" and publicity seekers. Rather than heeding their biblical "watchman on the wall" messages (Ezekiel 33: 4), America's Christians have opted to cop-out of their sacred duty to their country by invoking an inversion of the meaning of Romans 13:1-4 (exactly as did the clergy in pre-Nazi Germany) in favor of the
non-controversial lifestyle popularly termed "victorious personal living".

"Watchman" Dr. R.C. Sproul

One of America's great trumpet-sounding "watchmen", Dr. R. C. Sproul, authored a book, "Classical Apologetics" in which he described the church's condition today:

The church is safe from vicious persecution at the hands of the secularist...So long as the church knows her place and remains quietly at peace on her modern reservation. Let the babes pray and sing and read their Bibles, continuing steadfast in their intellectual retardation; the church's extinction will come not by sword of pillory, but by the quiet death of irrelevance. It will pass away with a whimper not a bang.

...but let the church step off the reservation, let her penetrate once more the culture of the day and the Janus-face of secularism will change from benign smile to savage snarl.

Are Christians "IN this world, not OF it"?

Another cop-out sign of the times running parallel to pre-Nazi Germany is the pious expression, "We're IN this world, not OF it", implying to heck with it because we're here only for an instant in terms of eternity. Dr. Sproul writes:

Other religions may choose a radical denial of this world, seeking asylum in a supratemporal sphere of mystical otherworldliness; but Christianity enjoys no such luxurious option. Attempts by Christians, past and present, to quit this world in ascetic retreat betray a tacit denial of the most elemental principles of the Christian view of creation and redemption.

Intolerable Tolerance

One of the glaring signs of the times is the willingness of Christians to compromise their faith by accepting "tolerance" of the previously intolerable. Dr. Michael Savage wrote: "Your tolerance of the intolerable is actually a reflection of your loss of clarity; your tolerance of virtually everything and your "anything goes" attitude is not a mark of liberalism, its a mark of degeneration of your ability to judge anything."

Does Obama Appreciate the Church?

In the above sense it could be speculated that President Obama does in fact greatly appreciate today's cowardly Christian church because, as with Hitler, it has created the vacuum of irresolution, indecision, uncertainty, passiveness, tolerance and inaction toward evil, which empowers Obama to tighten his socialist Marxist freedom-robbing noose around our necks... if in fact, as we speculated in prior essays, those are his intentions. The clergy have watered down the militancy of the Christian faith which gave us our priceless freedoms, and have paved the way for evil, a carbon copy of how they opened the flood gates to Hitler.

Hate Crimes And Political Correctness

The way is being cleared for the Obama-spearheaded "hate crimes" legislation in which the clergy and citizens, may be arrested for quoting God's exhortations in the Bible about the abomination of homosexuality; and his attack on the First Amendment (free speech) through the Fairness Doctrine, and his attack on the Second Amendment through proposed gun controls.

To be "Politically Correct"

These and other Constitution-destroying freedoms can only succeed if the clergy are neutralized and they take their members and followers down with them. It's known as being "politically correct".



NOTE: For references see especially:
AMERICA - OUR SACRED TRUST (archived February/09)
THOSE WHO HATE YOU SHALL REIGN OVER YOU (Lev.26:14) [archived 4/22/09]

NOTE: The above views and opinions are mine, John W. Chalfant. Your's may be different. They are welcome and appreciated.



Note: Numerous quotes above are from the book America - A Call To Greatness.





































Looking at the religious conditions...here too unigform and effective convictions, through a view of life, had long been loist in great parts of the nation.

OBAMA AND HITLER: PARALLEL TRACKS?

This is a continuation of my last blog essay, OBAMA AND AMERICA'S DESTINY, which is based on Ye shall know them by their fruits. (Mat.7:16)

Today, historians are increasingly drawing parallels between spiritual and political trends in pre-Nazi Germany, and similar ones in America in recent years. They warn that trends under the Obama Democrat Administration appear to be accelerating with potentially calamitous consequences to America's God-given freedoms. That is, Mr. Obama is not calling America back to her founding roots; rather, he is accelerating her downward plunge.

In my prior blog essays we examined the decay of the church and clergy in America. I called it "Abandonment Theology - the clergy and the decline of American Christianity". Let us now consider some of the political consequences of that abandonment and mocking of God, which were foreshadowed by parallel events in Adolf Hitler's pre-Nazi Germany.

Historian/syndicated radio broadcaster Brannon Howse authored in Worldview Times one of the most thought-provoking treatises I have read titled "26 Similarities Between America and Nazi Germany". Following are a number of excerpts:

(1) Hitler outlawed school prayer in Germany. In 1962, The U.S. Supreme Court did the same for us.

(2) Hitler believed in reincarnation. He even convinced SS officers that by murdering millions of Jews and other "undesirables" they were allowing them to get on with the reincarnation process and come back more quickly in an advanced status. Americans increasingly accept the idea of reincarnation as well as good and bad karma.

(3) Hitler prevented dissenters from using radio to challenge his worldview. Many powerful liberals in America have made clear their intent to reintroduce the "Fairness Doctrine" that would require conservative and religious radio stations to offer equal time to anti-Christian, anti-conservative worldviews.

(4) Pastors who spoke against Hitler's worldview and his murderous regime found themselves on trial and frequently imprisoned for "Abuse of Pulpit." In America, "hate crimes" legislation has the potential to criminalize Christians and pastors who speak out against the homosexual agenda.

This discourse about the accelerating trends on parallel tracks between today's America and Hitler's pre-Nazi Germany will be continued.

OBAMA AND AMERICA'S DESTINY

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. (Mat. 7:15,16)

Much has been said and written about President Obama's motives in bringing calamitous damage to America's foundational institutions including national defense, the sanctity of life, national borders. Many have tagged him a Marxist and socialist. AmbassadorAlan Keyes, PhD, stated in an interview available on YouTube:

"Obama is a radical communist! He's going to destroy this country. We're either going to stop him or the United States of America will cease to exist."

Disarm America

For example, Mr. Obama is shown on YouTube delivering a speech on national defense in which, before he was elected, he said: "I will cut investments in our missile defense system. I will not develop new nuclear weapons; I will take our ICBMs off their trigger alert and achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenals. I will slow our development of future combat systems. I will not weaponize space." (Note: missile interceptors can be launched from space, and attacking missiles can be targeted by satellite-based lasers. It's part of our vital SDI -Strategic Defense Initiative.)

Cripple EMP Defense: Invite Enemy Attack

It is worth noting that one of the most devastating weapons is known as "EMP" (electromagnetic pulse). It is a nuclear bomb which is detonated about 200 miles high. It can be delivered by a scud missile launched from a cargo ship off our shores. The electromagnetic pulse can destroy solid state control systems nationwide in everything from central bank computers to electric power grids, to transportation. Scientists claim that one successful detonation could "return America to the 19th century, and make us a sitting duck for foreign invasion." Space based lasers and rockets could intercept and destroy those scud missiles in their launch phase. But Mr. Obama claims determination to compromise America's missile defenses.

Note: To "take our ICBMs off their trigger alert", signals America's enemies that they can launch a first-strike against us and decimate a high percentage of our military personnel and our missile retaliatory capability. By thus signaling our enemies who could, for example, comprise an alliance between massively armed (with ICBMs) Communist China and Russia, we are intentionally handing to them the strategic military advantage. We are telegraphing to them that we have lost the will to win. This could encourage an attack from them and all-but assure their victory (inasmuch as our retaliatory capability would be devastated), with unspeakable consequences to America and the free world.

This, at a time when enemies of America are acquiring (and possess) long range nuclear capability. There can be no substitute for America being prepared for any eventuality and possessing the will to instantly respond, and prevail.

Let The Babies Die!

On Right-to-life, Ambassador Alan Keyes stated in a recent YouTube interview: "Obama is one who has actually advocated infanticide - that when babies are the target of abortion, if they happen to escape the abortionist's intention and are born alive, Obama actually supported the idea that those babies should be set aside to die. That is a man with such a seared conscience I can't even understand why anyone in his right mind would consider him worthy of political support. That's a violation of conscience that is inconceivable. Even some of the most hard-line abortion people in America rejected that abomination, and he doesn't."

Is Obama President?

IS - Mr. Obama President of the United States? Dr. Keyes stated: "According to the Constitution in order to be eligible for President you have to be a natural-born citizen. He has evaded the issue and has refused to provide proof that he is a natural-born citizen."

Borders and Amnesty

Regarding borders, Ambassador Keyes stated: "Rushing forward with ideas like destroying our borders - an amnesty bill that will actually have the American tax payers footing the bill for illegals to come to this country to live, to get housing and everything they want...this is insanity. It's as if we have put insane children and adolescents in charge of our government."

Predictable Obama

CONCLUSION: We have only touched upon national defense, right-to-life, and national borders. If Alan Keyes is right, that Obama is a radical communist, then Obama is as predictable as a Marxist communist would be. "We disdain to conceal our views." (Marx, Communist Manifesto)

America's Predictable Destiny

It appears that America's destiny of plunging into a dark abyss under the baton of Mr. Obama is also predictable.

[Next blog essay will compare pre-Nazi Germany and Hitler to trends in America today.]

ABANDONMENT THEOLOGY - WHAT IS IT?

Part II following THE NEUTRALIZED "IRRELEVANT" CHURCH: Abandonment Theology is a term devised by the author to describe a faith which deceptively pawns itself off as Christianity by operating in the name of Christ but which produces fruits destructive to America's God-given freedoms. It comprises what is left today of the militant, power-filled, full-dimensional Christian faith of America's Founders after decades of erosion, watering down and trivializing of God's action mandates by America's abandonment clergy. It is "feel good" theology that patronizes Jesus Christ and thereby gains legitimacy while at the same time producing disobedience to the commands of God and desetion of Christian duty. Abandonment Theology is so deadly that we are losing our liberties, and evil is triumphing in nearly every aspect of life. A terrible spiritual blindness has come over millions of unsuspecting, victimized Christians who in turn have even allowed God, the Author of our liberties, to be outlawed in our nation's public schools and institutions.

Through decades of erosion, the Abandonment clergy have succeeded in extracting from Christians the teeth of vigilance, of action, of obedience to God. If the clergy taught their flocks to Fear God and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man (Eccl. 12:13), America would not be plunging into the dark abyss as she is doing today. Instead of the clergy's focus being primarily on "victorious personal living", it should have led the people to vigilantly guard the sacred institutions of their American Constitutional Republic and not fall for the evil propaganda about separation of church and state, unable to distinguish it from the inseparability of righteous freedom-based government from God.

That is, as 6th President of the United States John Quincy Adams said on July 4, 1821: "The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity".

The great theologian Dr. R.C. Sproul described America's defection from militancy, and the neutralization of her Christians by the clergy:

"The church is safe from vicious persecution at the hands of the secularist...So long as the church knows her place and remains quietly at peace on her modern reservation. Let the babes pray and sing and read their Bibles, continuing steadfast in their intellectual retardation; the church's extinction will come not by sword or pillory, but by the quiet death of irrelevance. It will pass away with a whimper not a bang".

In his famous book "The Gathering Storm", British Prime Minister Winston Churchill reflected upon why world war II which claimed 50 million lives, had been possible at all. The parallels between Churchill's England and today's undiscerning America are alarming:

The malice of the wicked, he said, was reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous.

ABANDONMENT THEOLOGY (once militant Christianity) may soon take a terrible toll as a consequence of the clergy's disarming the Christians of their understanding of the nature of our battle for the survival of our God-given freedoms against the destructive, enslaving evil of the devil.





Note Most quotes are from the book America - A Call To Greatness.

see www.greatness.com

THE NEUTRALIZED "IRRELEVANT" CHURCH

ANNOUNCEMENT: I will write a sequence of blog essays on the subject of what is meant by, "As goes the church, so goes the nation". As the Christian church has descended into becoming primarily a politically neutral social institution dedicated to teaching its members the art of "victorious personal living", it has by default opened the flood gates to the onslaught of anti-Christian freedom-destroying political liberalism. So prevalent is the desertion by America's clergy of the militant full-dimensional faith of America's founding fathers which gave us our Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution, that it's as if it today's Christianity is a strange new theology. So, I'll call it ABANDONMENT THEOLOGY.

Part 2 will be titled ABANDONMENT THEOLOGY - WHAT IS IT?