The Ground Zero Mosque and Obama’s Faith

Islam seems to be much in the news these days.

Of course, there is a reason for this. Islam is on the rise in the West and is now coming into close contact with our Judeo-Christian civilization. That never happened during America’s first two hundred years, and it was not on anyone’s radar screen during my childhood either.

However, the 1970s saw a resurgence of Wahhabiism (radical Islam) that has placed Islam on a collision course with other nations and cultures. In the Western World (Europe and America), an epic worldview battle is being raged between three worldviews. 

One of them is true faith, another is false faith and the third is no faith. Europe and America’s choice of “faith” will determine their fate in the next generation.

Let’s quickly examine these worldviews in tension.

True faith is trust in Christ, which is the true way to God, life, liberty, and loving relationships. Our founding fathers spoke candidly and clearly about true religion and false religion. Christianity is the truth about God and life.

No faith is secularism–faith in man–that leads to moral anarchy and ultimately Big Government (man as his own Savior). Our founders did not respect the fruits of atheism (i.e. French Revolution).

For fourteen hundred years, the West rightly labeled the Muslim faith as false religion. It is false in that it misrepresents the God of love and forgiveness, denies the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for our sins, and creates political theocracies that are often violent and deny basic human (God-given) rights.

This is not to say that there aren’t any decent Muslim folks.  There are. But the religion is false.  Islam has always been based on violence (Mohammed himself led nineteen bloody raids) and deception (erroneous teachings that produced, among other things, sharia law).

Islam is essentially codified religious tyranny. And for decades, now, it has ambitiously exported that form of control into many nations in the world through terrorism.

That’s why it’s in the news every day. We’re fighting a worldview that brings tyranny.

Both America and Europe are caught in the cross hairs of the battle. Both were once Christian-based civilizations who have drifted into secularism due to spiritual apathy and the nrestrained pursuit of affluence. Europe is more advanced in abandoning its godly foundations, but the United States is not far behind. Because of declining birthrates in Europe and massive Muslim immigration, Islam is gaining the edge over secularism on the Continent, with many predicting that Europe will become Eurabia (Islamicized) by 2050.

That could happen in your lifetime.

We are not much better off in America. Our birthrate–which helps preserve a culture and its beliefs about itself–is 2.11–the bare minimum necessary for cultural continuity.  This is due primarily to the high immigration rate of Hispanics. Many Hispanics are Catholic or evangelical, but their cultural worldview  goes back to Spain which was under Muslim control for four hundred years. Thus Latin nations have experienced more tyrannical leadership and human injustice than the United States. Worldviews, no matter how subtle, have enormous consequences.

By the way–I didn’t learn the difference between the Latin worldview and the US worldview from white textbooks. I was taught it from Hispanic leaders in Latin America. Many of them want to cast off the past baggage of Islam and come into the freedom that Christ can bring to nations.

Which brings us back to our headline. For a few days now, the news has been loaded with the controversial mosque in New York and more recently, Barack Obama’s faith.

Let’s begin with the mosque. As has been stated by many, including my favorite analysis by Charles Krauthammer, the building of the Cordoba House mosque near Ground Zero was never a legal question. America was founded as a Christian nation where property is viewed as an extension of one’s personal rights. When I combine honest labor with intellectual capital, it often produces “property” that I possess as a God-given right to use and enjoy.

A Muslim developer in Manhattan acquired such property. He has a right to use it in any lawful way. But we have other Christian principles in our American heritage. These include honor, respect, sensitivity, humility, deference, and love for others. These responsibilities or moral principles are just as important if not more important than our rights. In fact, in our Christian-based society, moral responsibilities are more important than personal rights.

The Muslims should respect our Christian sensibilities and move the mosque elsewhere.

Of course, this stand-off is not really about a mosque. There are one hundred mosques in New York. There is already a small mosque near Ground Zero. But the Cordoba House mosque is not planned as a small or insignificant structure. The developers want to erect a thirteen story, 110 million dollar edifice–a monument–that can only symbolize Islam’s desire for triumphant dominion.

It doesn’t belong near the hallowed ground of Lower Manhatten where twenty Wahhabbists cruelly killed 3,000 of our fellow citizens. We must continue to morally fight it.

As for Barack Obama’s faith, the polls have been interesting. The TIME poll reported 24% of Americans thought Obama was a Muslim and 47% said he was a Christian. The Pew poll had it 18% Muslim (up from 11% in March). 34% Christian with 43% saying they didn’t know.

We can help them those who are confused. First of all, for the record, let’s state the facts that are known:

• Barack Obama was born into a divided household where his father was Muslim and his mother was an atheist.
• His second home and father, in Indonesia, was more decidedly Muslim. He attended a Muslim school and his “religion” during the time was listed as Muslim. That was his father’s choice.
• When he became an adult, Barack Obama says that he became a Christian under the spiritual mentorship of Jeremiah Wright, who espouses Afro-centric liberation theology.

Those are the facts. After the polls came out, the White House scrambled to let everyone know that Obama was a Christian.  To be fair, we have to accept his word.  Only God knows the human heart.

But there is another gauge of a person’s faith: People are known by their deeds, not what they profess to believe. Jesus Himself said “You will know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16).

You can call yourself anything you like. However, your life choices speak more clearly than your words. To use African-American parlance you can’t just “talk the talk; you’ve got to walk the walk.”

Barack Obama doesn’t walk like either a Christian or a Muslim. He attends neither mosque or church, be often plays golf on Saturdays and Sundays. He refused involvement in the National Day of Prayer. He doesn’t use a prayer mat five times facing Mecca. He’s pro-homosexual marriage and pro-abortion. He’s a strong proponent of Big Government.

By his actions, Barack Obama’s  worldview is obvious: It’s secular–with some Muslim sympathies and a Christian veneer thrown in. In some ways he represents all three of the worldviews in tension.

But in his actions and policies, Barack Obama is a secular man–a statist–a man of no practicing faith.

Let’s pray that he and many other Americans will find and demonstrate true faith during this important season of choosing.