Certainly the Mainstream Media is hammering the presumed Republican Prez nominees if Obama is a Christian or not, for instance (reformatted, emphasis mine):
Gov. Scott Walker: ‘I don’t know’ whether Obama is a Christian
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a prospective Republican presidential contender, said Saturday he does not know whether President Obama is a Christian. “I don’t know,” Walker said in an interview at the JW Marriott hotel in Washington, where he was attending the winter meeting of the National Governors Association. Told that Obama has frequently spoken publicly about his Christian faith, Walker maintained that he was not aware of the president’s religion. “I’ve actually never talked about it or I haven’t read about that,” Walker said, his voice calm and firm. “I’ve never asked him that,” he added. “You’ve asked me to make statements about people that I haven’t had a conversation with about that.
I actually thought that was a decent answer. However, Obama himself said something that would tend to answer that question:
…that my individual salvation is not going to come about without a collective salvation for the country. Unfortunately, I think that recognition requires that we make sacrifices and this country has not always been willing to make the sacrifices that are necessary to bring about a new day and a new age.”
I don’t know of any Christian orthodoxy that says that my salvation depends on everyone elses or even ANYone else’s – so, MSM, do you? I can tell you as a former Sunday School teacher, youth leader, Christian Ed Board member, Chairman of the Christian Ed board, and Deacon (and NONE of that means that I am an expert – as with many things, the more one learns the more one realizes how much more there is that is yet to be learned), Obama’s statement is a complete Christian rejection of orthodoxy which is, simply put:
Jesus said (John 14:6) “Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”
One – an individual. Not “one” a group or a collective.
Romans 5:7-9: “…7For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. 8But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.”
We are saved by his blood shed on the cross – that is what “justified” means. Period. No more but certainly no less. Christian theology of salvation is that it is a personal belief (and not a collective one) in Jesus Christ’s (and not making sacrifices) taking on our sin, the sinless Son of God dying on the cross for our sins, and then rising from the dead for us. And our focus is on heaven and not a “heaven on Earth” (“to bring about a new day and a new age“). Ephesians 2:8-9 makes Obama’s emphasis on sacrifice (aka, “works”) quite hollow:
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.…
It is clear that salvation is a GIFT from God and not something that we can earn or work for; one only has to ask for His forgiveness and acceptance of that Gift of his Son’s sacrifice, and simply believe.
Which is NOT what what Obama implies or said. Instead, it is taking religious words and weaving it into something it is not. Taking Obama on his own words, it seems his belief, while fitting into a Progressive mantra, is not congruent with traditional Christian theology. Read into that what you may.
