Though the media will not admit it, this presidential election cycle can only be called the “Year of the Christian.” Both political party campaigns are competing for the hearts and minds of people of faith.
In fact, Sen. Barack Obama and his Democrats are attempting to siphon religiously minded voters from the Republican camp. This explains Obama’s recent appearance before the Reverend Rick Warren’s Saddleback Forum. In his book “The Audacity of Hope” Obama wrote, “Our failure as progressives to tap into the moral underpinnings of the nation is not just rhetorical…[o]ur fear of getting ‘preachy’ may also lead us to discount the role that values and culture play in addressing some of our most urgent social problems.”
The Democratic Party Platform’s nod to people of faith reads, “To face today’s challenges—from saving our planet to ending poverty—we need all hands on deck. Faith-based groups are not a replacement for government or secular non-profit programs; rather, they are yet another sector working to meet challenges of the 21st century. We will empower grassroots faith-based and community groups to help meet challenges like poverty, ex-offender reentry, and illiteracy. At the same time, we can ensure that these partnerships do not endanger First Amendment protections and that public funds are not used to proselytize or discriminate.
What is most remarkable about the Democrat’s party plank on faith is the minor role it promises to bequeath faith-based groups coupled with a vow to protect Americans from them.
This, more than anything, demonstrates the great divide between reality and the party of utopian materialism. Democratic nihilists clearly see government as God. What else explains their dismissal of the church as a mere “sector” in the cog workings of the state? While cynically attempting to co-opt the church, they minimize it as “not a replacement for government or secular non-profit groups.”
In the two thousand years since Jesus multiplied the fishes and loaves to feed the multitude, the church has done more to care for the poor and downtrodden than the welfare state could ever hope to. Government programs have trapped many in their grip to a life of dependency and despair, while church efforts feed the body but also equally uplift the soul.
The Democrats twist the meaning of the First Amendment as protecting Americans from religion as opposed to safeguarding the free exercise of religion. They end with an insulting flourish, pledging to protect us from religion’s tendency to “discriminate.” It is apparent that the gods of nihilism are very jealous gods.
It is the stated policy of one of America’s two great political parties to tolerate faith-based organizations so long as they operate under the strictures of gray, soulless bureaucrats. Then, of course, there is the pledge to restrain religious free speech. The high priests of the nanny-state, obviously will be the ones allowed to proselytize if this unholy alliance occurs. In that case, the separation of church and state does more to protect the church from the meddling of pompous authoritarian paper-shufflers than the other way around.
When organized crime needs to launder its blood money, it becomes a “silent partner” in a legitimate business. In this case, if the church is duped and provides legitimacy to the Left’s soulless government endeavor, it will eventually be muzzled for its loyalty.
“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” For the party of Roe v. Wade, their platform clearly assigns both roles to itself.
--Mr. Curmudgeon
