Originally written in 2008 while Obama was running for president.

It’s time to stop all this talk about whether or not Obama is truly a Muslim. He says he isn’t and I take him at his word.

But the religious discussion is far from over. When Obama says he is a Christian we must carefully ask, “Exactly what does that mean?” After all, Christianity has been around for over two-thousand years. Many different kinds of denominations, movements and cults have taken on the name, Christianity. In some of these organizations, the doctrine does not even remotely resemble the teachings of the Bible. And so, when Barak Obama says he is a Christian, I humbly ask, “What kind of Christian?”

This has been a fair question for quite some time in as much as Obama attends Trinity United Church of Christ, a congregation that teaches black supremacy, displaying the kind of racism that not only smacks in the face of Jesus but any shred of human decency. Some have tried to defend this church by saying they are being misunderstood or taken out of context. But when their pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, gives an award to the Hitlerate Louis Farrakhan, it doesn’t take a genius to realize that their reputation is well deserved.

I know. I know. Obama finally denounced Farrakhan, but it seemed too little too late. He held that option open for a very long time, dancing around it until Hillary forced the issue at a recent debate.

Now granted, his church’s connection with Farrakhan is so obvious, it barely warrants another blog, so allow me to add a new wrinkle to this conversation. Even without all the racial overtones, there is something else about Trinity United that is not being discussed. Trinity belongs to The World Council of Churches. Do you understand what The World Council of Churches is? They are an ecumenical organization which includes (but is not limited to) the liberal movement within Christianity that has caused sub-denominations in many mainline denominations. Permission to read the Bible “liberally” means different things for different pastors. Many liberal ministers downplay miracles, dismiss the need for salvation through Jesus alone, vehemently reject the notion of eternal punishment, and essentially adapt any current, left wing, Politically Correct ideology.

Others reject the Bible as being God’s literal word. No, they do not deny the Bible outright. Instead, they insist that the word of God must be “interpreted properly” according to human reason. Unfortunately, where religion is concerned, there is little agreement as to what is reasonable. Certainly some liberal pastors accept miracles because in their minds such events actually do make sense. But if something else seems irrational to them, the doctrine of hell, for instance, they will assert their “reasonable mind’ and reinterpret a difficult passage until it either no longer says what it actually says or gets branded an “added teaching, falsely ascribed to Jesus.” In this vein, the famous Jesus Seminar made its name by pointing out which words “truly belong to Christ.”

This unusual shift of affections began around the turn of the Twentieth Century when many people who grew up in a Protestant America became fascinated with certain philosophies which had been popular in Europe for years and were now spilling to the shores of the United States. Feeling that they had outgrown such “archaic” ideas as a sin nature, or a miracle, some pastors sought to reinterpret the Bible from a more modern point of view. As the Scriptures became “demythologized” the remaining task for the Christian was to offer social services and leave out all talk about heaven, hell or a need to be born again. This reconstructed version of the Christian mission became known as the Social Gospel.

Reacting to the Social Gospel was a group that crossed denominational lines, known as the Fundamentalists. Taking their name from the Bible “fundamentals” ( sin nature, miracles and anything else shined off by Liberal Theologians) the Fundamentalists over reacted by shying away from many programs of social reform, fearing that such actions would water down Christ’s message. Their return to an honest interpretation of the Bible was admirable, but they were so careful not to be classified as Liberals that they went too far.

Interestingly enough, the two positions became much more extreme and polarized after their original leaders passed away. Walter Rauschenbusch, an architect of the Social Gospel, did believe in a supernatural conversion experience. On the other hand, William Jennings Bryan, the most well known and outspoken Fundamentalist, honestly felt that the gospel should leave its imprint upon society and its corresponding economy.

Later in the 1950’s, people like Billy Graham sought a happier medium by creating an offshoot of the Fundamentalists known as Evangelicals. Evangelicals concede the church’s obligation to make society a better place. Evangelicals believe that one can practice social reform without compromising the spiritual elements of the gospel. Today it gets a bit confusing because most people use the words Fundamentalist and Evangelical interchangeably. Many with a Fundamentalist mentality call themselves Evangelicals. Likewise, Evangelicals, claiming to believe in a literal interpretation of God’s word are labeled Fundamentalists and are accused of being uninterested in the poor and the needy.

Can one grow up in a liberal church and still develop conservative doctrine? Anything is possible and certainly Obama (like all of us) has been exposed to a wide barrage of teachings over the years so we should certainly allow him to speak for himself about his own beliefs. Unfortunately, when he does this, my suspicions are verified. Only recently, while commenting on homosexuality, Obama said he preferred the Sermon on the Mount to “some obscure passage in Romans.” Undoubtedly, the Roman passage in mind was Paul’s condemnation of homosexuality. Obama was not clear which part of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7) he was referring to but it is safe to guess that he meant verses 7:1-2 which contain the famous phrase, “Judge not, lest you be judged.” This is the favorite Bible verse of many because they somehow think it grants them license to ignore all those other Bible verses. You know. The ones that condemn sin.

The idea here is that Jesus’ words somehow trump Paul’s. This displays a complete ignorance of the Bible. It also reveals affinity for the liberal theology so rampant in the World Council of Churches.

First of all, Paul’s words are anything but obscure. They could not possibly be more clear:

Rom 1:26-27

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

How do Paul’s words square with the teachings of Jesus? It’s true that our gospel accounts do not record Jesus speaking about homosexuality directly. But Jesus did confirm the divine inspiration of the Jewish Holy Scriptures (referred to in those days as The Law and The Prophets) and insisted that the Israelites continue to honor God’s Law. In fact,He taught this devotion to the Law in the very Sermon on the Mount which Obama claims to accept.

Matt 5:17-20

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

Since Jesus was authenticating the entire law, that authentication included the specific law about homosexuality:

Lev 18:22

“‘Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.

And so, the Apostle Paul’s teaching was no different than that of the Jewish law. Some still like to dismiss Paul because he was not one of Jesus’ original disciples. That is true, but he encountered the resurrected Christ later (Acts 9). The original disciples were given special authority by Jesus (John 20:22-23). But keep in mind that one of these authoritative disciples, Peter, later authenticated the words of Paul, even to the point of equating Paul’s letters with scripture!

2 Peter 3:15-16

Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. 1He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.

Incidentally, the verse about judging gets taken out of context all too frequently. The Bible actually commands us to make judgments. (1 Cor 5) and Jesus was not forbidding the making of a judgment. He was forbidding self righteous hypocrites who saw another person’s sin but did not see their own. If we would judge our own sin, we could also judge someone else’s.

Matt 7:1-5

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

See? We are allowed to remove the speck from our brother’s eye. It’s just that we have to remove our own log first.

Is Obama a real Christian in the Biblical sense of the term? Would Jesus view Obama as one of his true followers? Only God can see a man’s heart and only God knows how the man will fare on judgment day. Still, some pretty major clues have been offered and so far we can safely conclude the following about Obama’s Christianity: He attends a church that is part of The World Council of Churches, the liberal brand of Christianity that does not view the resurrection of Jesus as important. Neither does it emphasize sin. Conveniently, these churches tend to uphold any loose, modern idea of morality and seem to have little place for Biblical morality. They cherry pick their doctrines and accept only the parts of the Bible they like as being the real word of God. Obama himself demonstrates this by claiming that Jesus’ words are more inspired than the rest of the Bible. But Jesus Himself taught quite the opposite. He accepted the entire Old Testament and He commissioned His disciples who (along with their disciples) wrote the New Testament.

Finally, Obama’s specific church is a racist, black supremacist organization which promotes the Nazi Louis Farrakhan. So just exactly what kind of Christianity does Obama truly adhere to?

One can call himself a Christian and still have nothing to do with Jesus. My source for that provocative statement? Jesus. Since Obama likes the Sermon on the Mount, perhaps we would do well to close this article from Jesus’ own words in the Sermon on the Mount.

Matt 7:21-23

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE

New International Version NIV

Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.