A Far Left Turn…You Can Believe In

I congratulate Barack Obama on his victory as President-elect of the United States. I’d also like to congratulate the American people on this peaceful transfer of power which has characterized our Republic for the past two hundred and thirty years. The freedom to vote and elect our own leaders is a special responsibility I hope we never take lightly. In 2008 the American people have spoken. Though I’m deeply saddened by the choice we made in this election year, I also believe in civility and respect in all of our political battles. There is no place for hate or bitterness in our social and political discourse. I commit myself to pray for our new president and support every good effort that he makes to lead America during the coming years.

I also commit myself to stand up to any efforts to turn America away from God and her historic underpinnings of faith. If our new leaders point us in destructive and God-denying directions, I will be one to speak out and resist those efforts in every appropriate way. Our new president is a gifted and talented politician, but his words and record speak loud and clear about the type of change he wants to bring to America.

Barack Obama ran on a message of Change You Can Believe In. If you can trust his words and stated positions, then these are the CHANGES that are coming:

• America will become an increasingly secular nation with greater mocking and attacks on Christianity. Obama calls himself a Christian but he is anti-Christ in many of his political policies. His ideas are doctrinaire liberalism or secularism. In this regard, he has the atheistic press firmly entrenched on his side since only 8% of them attend Church regularly as opposed to 40% of all Americans. This is a primary reason they were so vicious to Sarah Palin: She represented a young and vibrant Judeo-Christian worldview which needed to be discredited. The press saw this as a huge threat to their to their secularizing agenda. The same tactic was used with Governor Mike Huckabee during the Republican primaries. In the liberal view it’s not conservatives who are a threat to America–it is the Christian faith. Will an Obama presidency increase both the marginalization and persecution of Crhistians in America? Do we want to become a spiritually-dying secular state like many European nations, or do we want to remain “America?”
• America will become an increasingly immoral nation with the continuation of the abortion holocaust and the national triumph of gay marriage. Barack Obama told Planned Parenthood that his first act as president would be to push through the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) which would strike down most abortion restrictions in the nation. He also told Rick Warren during the Saddleback Forum that he would appoint activist judges to the Supreme Court. Since we have already killed over 45 million children since 1972, would this multiplication of the “shedding of innocent blood” bring an increase in judgment to our nation? And though Barak Obama has said that he believes that marriage is between a man and a woman, he has strongly supported the gay agenda in America which threatens to destroy the family and could lead to a mass exodus from the public schools by forcing the acceptance of the gay lifestyle on school children. The homosexual lobby has one clear objective: the complete acceptance of perversion including marriage. Will Barack Obama respect the five thousand year history of marriage, or will he pander to the gay interests at the expense of our children?
• America will become an increasingly poor nation with less wealth and higher taxes. Barack Obama does not believe in the capitalism-motivated creation of wealth and prosperity but in the re-distribution of wealth to groups that he favors. He has strong socialist leanings that will raise taxes on capital gains, personal income, and small businesses. In these difficult economic times, many are predicting that his economic prescriptions will turn a recession into a depression. Will he be flexible and pragmatic enough to abandon his liberal philosophy? If he doesn’t, will the wealth and prosperity that America has enjoyed truly become only a memory of the past?
• America will become an increasingly insecure nation with terrorism possibly coming to our shores. Barack Obama has promised to cut the military budget by 25% and bring the troops home from Iraq–regardless of security concerns or victory. He has promised to sit down with dictators without pre-conditions–and our new vice president, Joe Biden, has warned that the Obama administration, due to its inexperience, will be severely tested in the first six months. It’s also very clear that America’s enemies, including Al Qaeda, were rooting for Obama from the beginning. Will Obama’s victory embolden our enemies to bring their fight to the cities of America? For all of George Bush’s faults, the strength of his presidency was putting the enemies of America on the run and keeping us safe for the past seven years. Can Obama do the same with his inexperience and anti-military posture?

I’m not solemnly predicting any of the scenarios listed above. I’m just fearful that President Barack Obama will be who he has said he is. He talks about being a unifier–but with the 4th worst record on partisanship in the United States Senate, does being a unifier mean he will compromise some of his secular principles, or try to “unify” us all into sharing his liberal beliefs? I fear it is the latter.

I also have another concern: The almost messianic hysteria of the Obama election is incredibly scary. Did you notice the people crying and dancing in the streets? You’d think that the Messiah had returned to make everything right with the planet. Is this how they reacted when the Fuhrer of the Third Reich spoke to the masses? Are the people of America so smitten with Barack Obama’s charisma and style that they will think and do anything that he tells us to do? The next four years will answer that question.

Despite these sobering thoughts, my heart is hopeful. Just before Jesus entered the darkest moments of his life on earth, he said to his disciples, “Let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God–believe all in Me” (John 14:1). He knew that God was in control of history, that good would triumph over evil in the end, and that the people of God would ultimately dispel the darkness through faith in his Name. He also knew that the history of nations are like individual lives. There are “dark” chapters in which we must persevere through difficulties and problems, and there are “light” chapters where the grace and blessings of God are robust and clear.

On November 4, 2008, we may have entered a dark chapter in our nation’s history. But God is still at work. And it is our job–as the people of faith–to help turn on the lights again.