American News Commentary

ALMOST EVERY DAY, it seems, there is some
new and serious issue confronting Christian believers
-- and many of those issues involve or originate with
the new government of the United States. We cannot
deal with all of them, but instead focus our attention on
those which have a direct effect on American Christians,
and the political implications thereof. Thus, we comment
on the events of the day from a Conservative religious
(Christian) and political viewpoint. Send your comments
to us at: american_news_2008@yahoo.com.
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IF BARACK OBAMA IS RIGHT WHEN HE SAYS
AMERICA IS NOT A CHRISTIAN NATION,
WE ARE A NATION OF HYPOCRITES,
AND WE ARE LIVING A LIE

But first, the latest Presidential proclamation:
On Monday President Obama proclaimed June to be
"Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Month.."
In the proclamation he states: "The LGBT rights
movement has achieved great progress, but there is
more to be done." He takes pride in having appointed
more openly LGBT's to government positions than any
other president. And this fact is also true, that he is the
first president to celebrate homosexuality.

Now back to today's headline: By definition,
"hypocrisy" is "falsely pretending to be virtuous,"
and synonyms are "insincerity, falseness, dishonesty."

If he meant it when he made that declaration to a
Muslim audience, the finger of falseness and
dishonesty was pointed directly at him, because in
view of the whole world, in taking the oath of office
as President of the United States, he had placed his
hand on the Christian Bible, and concluded his oath
with the words, "So help me God."

We sense that his election campaign promise of
"transparency" has been ignored in the face of the
facts from recent surveys (cited in last week's issue
of ANC) that 82% of Americans claim to be Christian,
with Jews, Muslims, Mormons and Pantheists together
accounting for only 7% with the remaining 11%
being skeptics, atheists, agnostics -- in other words
"non-religious." With those facts in mind it is difficult
to justify Mr. Obama's statement to a Muslim audience
that America is not a Christian nation.

This does not mean that all is well with the Christian
cause in America -- just as we lack for strong,
effective leadership in the Conservative political
arena, so we lack for strong, effective leadership in
the Christian arena. In London this past week, Steve
Clifford, the new General Director of the Evangelical
Alliance, addressed the need for the Church to be
involved in restoring Britain's moral values. In a letter
handed in to Prime Minister Gordon Brown's office at
10 Downing Street, Clifford stressed that as Britain
faces problems of financial and political integrity, the
government should utilize the Church's expertise in
moral values and community involvement in helping to
solve those problems. "We are asking for a proper
dialogue, rather than token gestures, so that our
churches can play a substantive role in determining
policy," was Clifford's appeal. It would seem that a
similar letter from American Evangelicals might be
delivered to the White House.

Here in America, the Rt. Rev. David Anderson, President
of the American Anglican Council, the orthodox group
of churches which has broken from the ultra-Liberal
American Episcopal Church, has expressed it well,
"As the Western world turns further and further away
from God and His ordered plan for humankind, and
more and more toward the devices and desires of
humanity's own thinking, chaos enters our churches,
our legal systems, our schools, and almost every
aspect of the communities that we live in."

In similar vein, Fred Hutchison, the scholarly analyst
for Renew America, spoke to the problem this week:
"The mushrooming of seeker-sensitive mega-
churches throughout the land has had zero
influence on the postmodern culture. They have
had little influence on divorce rates, abortion rates,
or the prevalence of sexual immorality. They are
impotent in resisting the anti-family agendas of the
feminists and the gays."

Regardless of what President Obama says, or
believes, based on his upbringing in the Islamic faith,
the facts of history are that America was founded on
Judeo-Christian principles, and became the greatest
nation in the world because of is continued -- although
sometimes tenuous -- adherence to those principles.
We have often -- very often -- cited the statements of
our Founding Fathers, and of our nation's presidents
through the years. Not one United States president has
ever before made such a blatant denial of America's
adherence to the Christian faith.

And speaking of hypocrisy: everyone was shocked
-- and that is not a strong enough word -- by the
murder of Dr. George Tiller in his church on Sunday.
It is true that Dr. Tiller was an advocate of late term
abortion, but murder is a crime beyond understanding,
and a violation of God's law. The hypocrisy in this
terrible event is in the treatment accorded it by the
media and by the Obama government. Attorney
General Holder has proposed massive protective
measures for abortion clinics to prevent mass murders
by people who oppose abortions. A tremendous
backlash can be expected as an asset to President
Obama's pro-abortion agenda. Yet abortion involves
the killing of millions of babies simply because their
mothers do not want them -- yet no outcry for their
protection is heard from the media or the government.
The simple truth is that abortion and murder are both
wrong. What we are seeing is truly hypocrisy in action.

The newest Supreme Court nominee, Judge Sonia
Sotomayor, has been much in the news for the past
few days. The importance of such an appointment to
the highest level of our Judiciary was recognized by
one of our nation's Founding Fathers, Thomas
Jefferson in these comments: "The Constitution ...
is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary
which they may twist and shape into any form they
please." (1819); and shortly thereafter, in 1821, "It
has long, however, been my opinion, and I have
never shrunk from its expression ... that the germ
of dissolution of our federal government is in the
constitution of the federal Judiciary; ... working
like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little
today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its
noiseless step like a thief, over the field of
jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped." This was
the concern of one of the principal founders of our
nation and our Constitution.

Everyone may not agree with every opinion which
is expressed by Pat Buchanan, but it must be admitted
that he often employs a very explicit choice of words
to make a point. With respect to Judge Sotomayor,
last week he wrote: "Speaking at Berkeley in 2001,
Sonia told her audience, 'I would hope that a wise
Latina woman with the richness of her experience
would more often than not reach a better
conclusion (as a judge) than a white male who
hasn't lived that life.'

"Imagine if Sam Alito had said at Bob Jones
University, "I would hope that a wise white male
with the richness of his life experience would more
often than not reach a better conclusion than a
Hispanic woman, who hasn't lived that life.'"

As is often the case, Mr. Buchanan makes his point
quite effectively.

Not from a Founding Father, but from a highly
respected former President, and applicable to our
day and time: "The federal government has taken
too much tax money from the people, too much
authority from the states, and too much liberty
with the Constitution." -- Ronald Reagan


Some Random Afterthoughts . . .


We receive quite a few comments about the "One
Liners" we come across in our research. Here are a
few we noted this week: "Instead of poor America
on socialism becoming more like rich America on
capitalism, rich America on capitalism is becoming
like poor America on socialism." (Star Parker)
"The trouble with socialism is that you eventually
run out of other people's money." (Former British
Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher)
"What am I going to tell the president when I tell
him his teleprompter is broken? What will he do
then?" (Vice President Joe Biden)

Your tax dollars at work: President Obama and
Mrs. Obama flew to New York on Saturday evening
to have dinner and attend a play at a Broadway theater.
No accurate estimate of how many thousands of our
tax dollars the "date" trip cost: aircraft, secret service
personnel, ground transportation, etc., etc. Is this the
kind of example the nation's president should set during
a time of financial hardship for so many ordinary citizens?
Well, hardly . . . but the old rule of the street seems to
apply: "If you've got it, flaunt it."

Some of the "elite media" not doing so well.
Although they are essentially the voice of the present
administration, the "Big 3" networks' evening news
broadcasts in prime time have lost about one-quarter
of their nightly audience since Barack Obama became
president. For example, CBS's nightly audience has
dropped about 27%, from an average of 7.72 million
viewers at the inauguration to 5.61 million in mid-May.
ABC's audience has fallen from 9.34 million to 7.14
million -- a drop of about 24%, and NBC has seen a
drop of 25% from 10.3 million to 7.69 million. It just
might be that the American public is growing tired of
the same teleprompted campaign speech every night.

The Israelis face some real problems: according
to World Net Daily, quoting a Palestinian Authority
official, President Obama and his administration told
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during
their meeting last week the U.S. foresees the creation of
a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. But
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted
last week that all of Jerusalem will always remain under
Israeli sovereignty. Our prayers need to be with Prime
Minister Netanyahu, and, as always, for the peace of
Jerusalem.

And that is one element of a major speech to be
delivered tomorrow by President Obama, to Muslims
from Cairo, a Muslim city. On a previous overseas
trip we saw photographs of Obama bowing in humble
subservience before the Muslim King of Saudi Arabia,
something no American president had ever done before.
He confessed that America has in the past been, in his
words, "arrogant," apparently equating our sacifices in
two world wars while protecting the world from
aggressors with being "arrogant." Shortly thereafter,
before a Muslim audience in Turkey he denied that
America is a Christian nation -- again, something that
no American president had ever done before.

What can be expected tomorrow? He has already
removed the term "war on terror" from a government
approved vocabulary. And while it may be true that
every Muslim is not a terrorist, the fact remains that
to date every terrorist has been a Muslim. He has
already begun taking a stand against our long time ally,
Israel, already under threat of extinction by another
Muslim country, Iran, and has promised Palestine
that they can have God's holy city of Jerusalem as
their capital. It may be noted that enroute to Cairo,
he will be stopping in Saudi Arabia -- some might
say it is to receive final instructions on the speech
from the Saudi King.

One element of the speech might be to emphasize that
the Obama administration State Department last Friday
sent a cable to all US embassies and consulates around
the world, authorizing them to invite Iranian officials to
Independence Day parties held at the embassies on or
around July 4. Such festivities usually include speeches
about American history and values, fireworks, and
traditional American foods like hot dogs, hamburgers,
apple pie and ice cream. One wonders if other Muslims
will feel left out if only Iranians are invited to attend
this most American of all of our celebrations?

Before asking Muslims for cooperation in shared
beliefs, whatever those may be, and in developing a
"common ground," he might do well to reflect on the
final words of instruction from Muhammad to his
followers, and the relevant comment from a strong
American president of the past.

From the Founding Father of Islam: “Know that
every Muslim is a Muslim's brother, and that the
Muslims are brethren; fighting between them should
be avoided ... Muslims should fight all other men
until they say, ‘There is no god but Allah.'"
(Muhammad, final instructions, 632 AD)

An appropriate response: "Christianity is not
the creed of Asia and Africa at this moment solely
because the seventh century Christians of Asia
and Africa had trained themselves NOT to fight,
whereas the Moslems were trained to fight.
Christianity was saved in Europe solely because
the peoples of Europe fought. If the peoples of
Europe in the seventh and eighth centuries, had
not possessed a military equality with, and
gradually a growing superiority over the Moslems
who invaded Europe, Europe would at this moment
be Muslim and the Christian religion would be
exterminated." -- President Teddy Roosevelt, 1916
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