I was just playing around with my blogs last night and decided to see what was on TV (I had been enjoying Phil Wickham’s “Singalong” album). So I turned the tube on and started surfing our numerous 26 channels. Didn’t take me long to find nothing. Yet…CSPAN2 Book TV had a 2006 interview with our now President-Elect Barack Obama. I am slightly ashamed to say that I left it on the channel to see what it was all about.
Now, I haven’t read Obama’s “Audacity to Hope” book, and now I’m toying with the idea. Unfortunately I’ll go into reading it with a rather negative bias…but it’s too late to change that. What struck me about the interview was a comment he made about “those who interpret the Bible as innerrant” (my paraphrase).
He said that “they” will tend to quote a passage such as that is found in Romans about homosexuality (it would be Romans 1:27, and it describes homosexuality, but doesn’t mention it by name), which, summarized, says that homosexuality is an abomination. He then pointed out that these people (who do such a, gasp, horrible thing) will use this verse and tout homosexuality as an abomination. His argument was that to use such a “obscure passage” (and he did call it that) in a way that trumps Christ’s Sermon on the Mount was invalid.
Unfortunately, I think Obama mainly connects the Sermon on the Mount with the command to love your neighbor as yourself (please realize that Christ said the greatest command was to love the “Lord your God…” and then to love your neighbor – huge difference). This is a huge misstep. Jesus covers a lot of territory in that famous Sermon (it runs from chapter five through chapter seven in Matthew). He even says, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves…” (7:15) – but I digress…
I think the real danger here is that Obama could say something like this and everyone just nods their heads and agrees. But such a statement is biblically and theologically naive. It seems to assume Christ came to give moral teachings, but he didn’t. Christ came to reconcile man to God. His teachings were a part of that, but not the totality of that. And Christ didn’t come to preach love, no he came to be love, to love us, and to show that true love is sacrificial.
His statement about homosexuality can never be upheld in any thoroughly biblical analysis (as has been proven over and over again). But it really undergirds a certain point, at least to me. Barack Obama has presented himself in his campaign as a Christian. But what Christ is he following? It is not the Christ revealed in scripture. It is not the Christ I follow.
