Obama: Religion is “the art of the impossible.”

by Francisco Gonzalez ~ August 30, 2008

Obama’s views on social issues are often not in line with Christian teachings, but that has not stopped him from staking his own claim on such issues. In a supposed dispute with Christian leaders, Obama defends his anti-Christian views on abortion, same-sex unions, and other family-related issues.

“Democracy,” he writes, “demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. Now this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do. But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality. It involves the compromise, the art of what’s possible. At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It’s the art of the impossible.”

Obama even goes so far as to label those with traditional Christian views as intolerant. In 1995, he wrote that, “The right wing, the Christian right, has done a good job of building these organizations of accountability, much better than the left or progressive forces have. But it’s always easier to organize around intolerance, narrow mindedness, and false nostalgia. And they also have high jacked higher moral ground with this language of family values and moral responsibility.”

“I don’t think it [a same-sex union] should be called marriage, but I think that it is a legal right that they should have that is recognized by the state,” said Obama in 2008. “If people find that controversial then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans,” in which Paul’s Epistle to the Romans condemns homosexual acts as unnatural and sinful.

Obama’s mention of the Sermon on the Mount in justifying legal recognition of same-sex unions may have been a reference to the Golden Rule: “Do unto others what you would have them do to you.” Or, it may have been a reference to another famous line in Jesus’ sermon: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” This is certainly a good point by the junior Senator, reminding us that we are all sinners in a fallen world. But, it is theologically incorrect and intellectually dishonest for anyone to pick and choose which part of the New Testament that a Christian should or should not follow. Christians are bound to follow it all. The Apostle Paul might be offended that a Christian such as Obama would call any part of his Letter to the Romans “an obscure passage.”