Mark America

False Prophet

Nobody should be surprised to find that Barack Obama would attempt to use Christianity to justify his socialism.  It’s what statists do when they run out of other excuses, and it generally takes the form of the brain-addled professions of mis-quoted faith as a substitute for legitimate government actions. In an article on BuzzFeed, they have documented Obama’s attempt to play this card from up his sleeve, but conservatives of Christian faith should not be fooled by the appeal.  It’s a lie intended to draw you into statist arguments, and we’ve seen it before, originating from Republicans too.  We must reject this, for if ever there was actually a place in which a wall of separation was intended to exist between church and state, Obama’s usage is where that wall must be erected.  In part, the President said:

“And so when I talk about our financial institutions playing by the same rules as folks on Main Street, when I talk about making sure insurance companies aren’t discriminating against those who are already sick, or making sure that unscrupulous lenders aren’t taking advantage of the most vulnerable among us, I do so because I genuinely believe it will make the economy stronger for everybody. But I also do it because I know that far too many neighbors in our country have been hurt and treated unfairly over the last few years, and I believe in God’s command to ‘love thy neighbor as thyself.'”

Here is the problem we confront with the fraudulent, anti-Christian argument of the President:  Too many people will be too easily misled by this entirely nonsensical argument.  You might ask me, “but Mark, isn’t it true that it is Jesus’ command to ‘love thy neighbor as thyself?'”  To you? Yes. To President Obama, personally, as an individual man? Yes.  To the government of the United States?  NO!  If you are a faithful Christian, you will know that the words of Jesus were not a command to government, but to people.  Jesus did not minister to governments or nations, but to people.  Christians understand that there can be no understanding in spirit between The Almighty and governments, but only between their God and individual people.  Not even a church can claim to speak for its entire flock at once, or know the sincerity of all its members’ faith.  Instead, this is the realm of private conscience, literally between you as individuals and God.

What Barack Obama here offers is something else again, in the form of a command intended for individual human hearts and minds, projected onto all of society at once by governmental command.  Is this what Jesus taught?  If so, I cannot find it. Jesus did not teach that it was government’s duty, but the duty of individual men to love thy neighbor as thyself.  When Moses brought forth commandments for the Israelites, not one among the ten prescribed a single word to the state, but instead all to individual actions of people.  What the President has done in this case is to make the most absurd parallel between governmental actions and the actions of individual men.

You might doubt me, as mostly God-fearing people, so let me ask it straight away: Do the teachings of Jesus order you to compel other men at gunpoint to do his bidding?  Do the commandments brought down by Moses say to you that you must steal, or that you shall not steal?  The government in the form Barack Obama here prescribes is one in which the state takes on the characteristics of an individual man, but to do so, must first commit a breach at least one of ten commandments given to individual men.  This is not the teaching of Jesus.  Jesus did not tell individual men that they should appeal to Caesar to love their neighbor in their stead. The proof of this is to reconstruct the line, and decide what is sensible for Jesus to have intended:

“Government, love thy neighbor as thyself”

Obviously, Jesus was not speaking to government. Instead, if we are to place the assumed addressing of the remark, we must edit it like this:

“You love thy neighbor as thyself”

What more does it take than this to understand that this teaching was intended for individual men and women?  This was a direct command to individuals, as all the commands of Jesus.  Of course, there exists no shortage of charlatans who pretend that Jesus intended something else.  Jesus did not tell men to employ the force of government to steal from other men to love their neighbors on their behalf.  Jesus did not minister to a mass, but instead to a sea of individuals, one by one, each in his own conscience.  This is precisely in opposition to the message of Obama, who tells us government should act in your place in all things.  This is the lie Barack Obama teaches, and while it may soothe those who are amenable to this message, you will find that his motives are to pervert the intentions of Jesus to his own ends.  We must not permit this sort of lie to bear false witness against the teachings of Jesus, whether it originates with Democrats or Republicans.