PrintOctober 16, 2008
Obama's Religious Ruse: The Cult of the Marxist Messiah
Barack Obama has identified himself with Christianity as a cloak for his political agenda. The founder of community organizing, Saul Alinsky, regarded churches as an ideal vehicle for advancing the Marxist cause. But to have credibility in organizing churches, young Obama needed to join a church.
So Bill Ayers' recruit was sent to Chicago's Trinity UCC. There he found in Jeremiah Wright a mentor of kindred spirit, obsessed with race and loathing America. Its mission statement declares Trinity's purpose is to be "agents of change for God who is not pleased with America's economic mal-distribution."[1]
Obama the skeptic was especially impressed by the emotional effect of Wright's preaching on the congregation. From Wright's sermons he discovered that the rhetoric of Christian myths can be a powerful instrument for Marxism. The webpage of Wright's "talking points" identifies Trinity UCC as "a church whose theological starting perspective starts from the vantage point of Black liberation theology being its center."[2]
Wright's own mentor James Cone, the founder of this Marxist religion of racial hatred, defined its core premise:
Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community. . . . Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.[3]
This year Wright defended what he has preached for decades: "I do not in any way disagree with Dr. Cone."[4]
At Trinity, that Marxist and racist core supplants Jesus Christ, the starting point and center of the Christian faith. In the apostolic gospel a person's race is irrelevant, for all believers are one in their relationship to the risen Christ, transcending the ethnic distinctions of this age such as Jew and Gentile.[5] Just as Nazis replaced Jesus the Jew with an Aryan Galilean, Wright's "Jesus" is the black man perpetually suffering injustice from whites, in a "theology" defined by flesh. In his final sermon at Trinity, Wright even likened his "Jesus" to Obama:[6]
Jesus was a poor black man who lived in a country and who lived in a culture that was controlled by rich white people. . . . Barack knows what it means to be a black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people.
For two decades, Obama observed how effectively Wright transformed the christ myth into Black Power.
When discussing his alliances, his agenda, and his "faith," subterfuge is Obama's dominant trait. Surely then, it was with unintended candor he disclosed the nature of his interest in Christian verbiage. Openly identifying himself with skeptics of the secular Left, in The Audacity of Hope Obama wrote that "we make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge the power of faith in the lives of the American people." "When we abandon the field of religious discourse . . . when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be practiced . . . when we shy away from religious venues and broadcasts because we assume that we will be unwelcome - others [from the Christian Right] will fill the vacuum."[7]
For Obama the Left's aversion to religion is detrimental precisely because it prevents them from framing their agenda with moral authority, a failure to use the far more effective rhetoric of religious language:
For Obama, that "larger project" of his agenda is America's servitude to Marxist socialism, for which Christian verbiage can be made a tool of manipulation. As far back as 1995 Wright's disciple and Bill Ayers' protégé disclosed that to establish the "new age" of collectivist "salvation" will require compulsory "sacrifice" of Americans' liberty:
I worked as a community organizer in Chicago, was very active in low-income neighborhoods ...and seeing that in some ways certain portions of the African-American community are doing as bad if not worse, and recognizing that my fate remains tied up with their fates. That my individual salvation is not going to come about without a collective salvation for our country.
Unfortunately I think that recognition is going to require that we make sacrifices and this country has not always been willing to make the sacrifices necessary to bring about a new day and a new age.[10]
Obama knows that his tactical bible -- Alinsky's Rules for Radicals -- is dedicated to the original community organizer, someone so successful that in this figure mythology and history merge. Alinsky was referring to "the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom -- Lucifer." "The organizer is in a true sense reaching for the highest level to which man can reach - to create, to be a ‘great creator,' to play God."[11]
Obama's insights for exploiting Christianity to advance the Marxist cause are a result of combining Alinsky's tactics with what he learned from Wright for two decades. He has also had strategic help: over ten years ago, Obama and "evangelical" Jim Wallis -- another community organizer -- collaborated "to plot building a coalition of progressive and religious voters," as The New York Times phrased the scheme.[12] But strategy goes only so far; for the ruse to work, a demagogue needs stagecraft. "If you want to understand where Barack gets his feeling and rhetoric from," Wallis revealed, "just look at Jeremiah Wright."[13]
While Wright's racist tirades against America would never fare well in electoral politics, Obama had learned from Alinsky to be sensitive to middle-class "aversion to rudeness, vulgarity, and conflict. Start them easy, don't scare them off."[14] From his own experience Obama confirmed that being genial is an effective way to beguile people:
It was usually an effective tactic, another one of those tricks I had learned: People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves. They were more than satisfied, they were relieved -- such a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young black man who didn't seem angry all the time.[15]
His genial demeanor explains in part why many Americans are drawn to Obama. To support him assuages white guilt for racial sins of the past, while at the same time they are reluctant to doubt him for fear of being racist. They cannot admit to themselves that this nice, well-spoken man was mentored by Wright for two decades, is a longtime ally of an unrepentant domestic terrorist, and that he himself embraces their agenda. Obama's charm is an effective tactic, one of those tricks that he learned.
Obama's exploitation of Christian myth stems from long being a creator of his own myths. At the age of ten he told classmates that "Obama" means "Burning Spear," that he was the son of an African prince, destined to rule the tribe if he desired -- and was so convincing that he almost believed it himself.[16] Known to all from grade school to college as "Barry," in 1980 he told family members to address him so no longer;[17] from now on, he is "Barack Obama" in solidarity with his Kenyan father, a Marxist economist.[18] Barry thus re-invented his identity as a symbol of his growing commitment to "social justice." His Dreams memoir itself is a fictionalized narrative, with names and chronology changed, key figures and events omitted, and others made up.
For his presidential campaign the mythmaker has re-invented himself once again, with strategist David Axelrod as the source of his teleprompted scripts. Having no achievements qualifying him for the nation's highest office is offset by Obama's legendary insight and judgment as one of profound spirituality. Obama fancies himself a thinker of deep thoughts, a channeler of collective consciousness, an oracle of prophetic utterance. Four years ago he said:
...the most powerful political moments for me come when I feel like my actions are aligned with a certain truth. I can feel it. When I'm talking to a group and I'm saying something truthful, I can feel a power that comes out of those statements that is different than when I'm just being glib or clever. . . .
I think it's the power of the recognition of God, or the recognition of a larger truth that is being shared between me and an audience. That's something you learn watching ministers, quite a bit. What they call the Holy Spirit.... there are moments that happen within a sermon where the minister gets out of his ego and is speaking from a deeper source. And it's powerful.[19]
It is unknown whether the following oracles were from a deeper source or channeled through the teleprompter. Reportedly the prophecies were repeated in multiple locations; two samples are quoted here. These occurred in January 2008, as Christians celebrated the Feast of the Epiphany, commemorating that the light of a star appeared over Bethlehem; to the magi this light attested Jesus' messianic birth.[20] Being filled with power and true to himself, Obama prophesied that his rhetoric will be so effective that voters will believe in his anointing:
This verbiage echoes also the Book of Acts' accounts of Paul's conversion, where the disbelieving Pharisee is overwhelmed by the presence of light, the risen Jesus identifies himself, and Paul realizes that this is the Messiah.[23]
It was all a calculated ploy of Prince Barack the Burning Spear, phrased as a messianic epiphany. Exploiting what Obama regards as the christ myth, his campaign has derived his religio-political image from Wright's "theology" -- as a black messianic hero coming to establish social justice, repair racial inequities, heal America's broken soul and save the planet from the United States.
For this ruse to work, like his childhood classmates the voters must be unfamiliar with his background -- or not care at all. Obama has admitted that with his ideology and agenda unknown to voters, "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views."[24] That is actually a tactic he uses to his advantage, and it is evident that subterfuge is intended.
Campaign volunteers are trained to redirect inquirers' attention from political issues to focus on Obama's celebrated personality.[25] The strategy is to make him a human Rohrschach test, with voters projecting him to be what they want him to be - not the Marxist radical he really is.
When reading from the teleprompter he speaks unfathomable generalities with an aura of thoughtfulness, creating for the masses an illusion of nuance, conviction and depth. Charmed by his voice's cadence, audiences project on Obama their personal views, without concern to evaluate who he really is. His speeches affirm mutually exclusive ideas with calculated ambiguity -- "on the one hand ... on the other hand" -- so that all may perceive their own issues are being validated or addressed. In this electoral version of American Idol it is common for Obama's infatuated fans to answer, if asked to identify his accomplishments or agenda: "I like him, and I feel the country is ready for change."
Star Wars creator George Lucas, an inventor of fictional heroes, has identified another, acclaiming that "for all of us that have dreams and hopes, he is a hero," "a hero in the making."[26] Crowds chant his name, and women mesmerized by his presence have fainted in Obamanic swoons.[27] New Age Gnostics identify Obama as an angelic lightworker bringing the world to a higher plane of consciousness.[28] Deepak Choprah describes him as one who "knows himself deeply, sincerely, and truly," with "grounding in self-awareness. . . . Watching cynical reporters and political commentators believe in him almost simultaneously is breathtaking."[29] Feeling a thrill go up his leg, MSNBC's Chris Matthews verified: "This is the New Testament."[30]
Oprah Winfrey, the TV evangelist for New Age fundamentalism, is adamant that Jesus cannot be Lord of all, for all paths lead to the consciousness she calls divine. Yet at a campaign rally she invoked the messianic motif of a hoped-for deliverer in hailing Obama: "He is The One! He is The One!"[31]
A critic discerns: "In his speeches, Obama pretends to be a hero out of Joseph Campbell."[32] The preliminary title of a Chicago Tribune reporter's book on him was The Savior.[33] That author says "throughout his life, [Obama] has been able to make people of wildly divergent vantage points see in him exactly what they want to see."[34] With his heart's adulation another journalist compares the efficacy of Obama to Christ:
He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair. . . . Obama is, at his best, able to call us back to our highest selves, to the place where America exists as a glittering ideal, and where we, its honored inhabitants, seem capable of achieving it, and thus of sharing in its meaning and transcendence."[35]
The grandiosity of his vacuous platitudes attests to secularists and churchgoers alike that Barry is a transcendent figure embodying their utopian ideals. "We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek,"[36] the messiah of hope and change confirms of himself.
"Change we can believe in" is the campaign's faith-slogan for Barry's messianic ruse. Decrying America's sin of economic inequality, Michelle Obama touts that he is the only presidential candidate who understands "we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation."[37] Mimicking an evangelistic crusade's call to salvation, rally organizers have encouraged followers to share personal testimonies about how they "came to Obama."[38] "People don't come to Obama for what he's done in the Senate," admits a strategist. "They come because of what they hope he could be." [39]
The earliest Christians believed that in Jesus' ministry, death and resurrection his witnesses had heard and seen God's revelation of everlasting life, the dawn of the new creation, the beginning of the world's redemption for which believers hope.[40] What the New Testament says of Jesus, the Marxist messiah has claimed for himself and his followers:
We are the hope of the future; the answer to the cynics who tell us our house must stand divided; that we cannot come together; that we cannot remake this world as it should be.Because we know what we have seen and what we believe -- that what began as a whisper has now swelled to a chorus that cannot be ignored; that will not be deterred; that will ring out across this land as a hymn that will heal this nation, repair this world, and make this time different than all the rest.[41]
"Your individual salvation depends on your collective salvation," he often refrains. The Gospel of John says Jesus told Pontius Pilate "my kingdom is not of this world,"[42] but Obama purports to do better, telling Christians: "I am confident that we can create a kingdom right here on earth."[43]
Winning enough delegates for the nomination, Obamessiah announced to the gathered multitudes that the time of fulfillment had come, that the world's salvation had begun:
I am absolutely certain that generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick ... This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal . . . This was the moment, this was the time, when we came together to remake this great nation.[44]
Deeply skeptical of the Christian faith himself, he commended his followers for not being skeptical of his ruse: "You chose to listen not to your doubts or your fears, but to your greatest hopes and highest aspirations."[45]
The cult of the Marxist messiah has been effective, and one of his apostles claims it warrants inclusion in the Bible. Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. hailed Obama's presumptive nomination as "the single most extraordinary event" in American history, even a redemptive act of divine revelation: "The event itself is so extraordinary that another chapter could be added to the Bible to chronicle its significance."[46]
No Christian would ever portray himself as a messiah with powers to heal America's soul, establish a kingdom on earth and save the planet. In contempt of Jesus Christ and in exploitation of the Christian faith, Obama and his comrades crafted his messianic image as a religious mask to conceal his Marxist ideology and agenda and to generate a personality cult of gullible voters.
As the background for his acceptance speech at their convention, the nation's socialist party staged the façade of an ancient Greek temple - ironically, as if to honor pagan divinity. Later the son of the founder of community organizing wrote praise of the campaign as "a fine tribute to Saul Alinsky":
The Democratic National Convention had all the elements of the perfectly organized event, Saul Alinsky style.
Barack Obama's training in Chicago by the great community organizers is showing its effectiveness. It is an amazingly powerful format, and the method of my late father always works to get the message out and get the supporters on board. When executed meticulously and thoughtfully, it is a powerful strategy for initiating change and making it really happen. Obama learned his lesson well.[47]
The Marxist messiah may yet win his own kingdom, as Alinsky had lauded of Lucifer. By contrast, in Jesus' obedience to God he not only resisted the first community organizer but opposed him all the way to the cross:
Then the devil ...showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence, and he said to him, "All these I shall give to you, if you will prostrate yourself and worship me." At this, Jesus said to him, "Get away, Satan! It is written: ‘The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve."[48]
[1] "Mission," Trinity United Church of Christ.
[2] "Talking Points," Trinity United Church of Christ.
[4] "Rev. Wright at the National Press Club," FoxNews, April 28, 2008.
[6] Video posted by Michael van der Galien, "Two Extreme Pastors," Poligazette, March 13, 2008.
[7] The Audacity of Hope. Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2006), pp. 213-214.
[10] "Barack Obama ‘Dreams From My Father,'" Eye On Books, August 9, 1995, italics supplied.
[12] Jodi Kantor, "A Candidate, His Minister and the Search for Faith," New York Times, April 30, 2007.
[13] Ben Wallace-Wells, "Destiny's Child," RollingStone, February 22, 2007.
[17] "When Barry Became Barack," Newsweek, March 22, 2008.
[18] His father was ousted from the government when Kenya's president cracked down on communist agitators. His Marxist views are manifest in: Barak H. Obama, "Problems Facing Our Socialism," East Africa Journal, July 1965.
[19] Falsani transcript of March 27, 2004 interview, italics supplied.
[21] North Charleston, South Carolina, January 24, 2008 (Gal Beckerman, "Seeing the Light in South Carolina," Columbia Journalism Review, January 25, 2008).
[22] Lebanon, New Hampshire, January 7, 2008 (CNN, January 7, 2008).
[25] John Hill, "Obama Basic Training," Sacramento Bee, January 21, 2008).
[26] "George Lucas on Obama: ‘A Hero in the Making,'" The Huffington Post, June 4, 2008.
[27] James Taranto, "We Shall Be Overcome," Wall Street Journal Online, February 14, 2008.
[28] Mark Morford, "Is Obama an Enlightened Being?" San Francisco Chronicle, June 6, 2008).
[29] "Obama and the Call: ‘I Am America,'" The Huffington Post, January 5, 2008.
[30] Quoted in Felix Gillette, "Primary Scream," The New York Observer, February 5, 2008.
[32] Jack Shafer, "How Obama Does That Thing He Does. A Professor of Rhetoric Cracks the Candidate's Code," Slate, February 14, 2008.
[33] Wallace-Wells, "Destiny's Child," referring to David Mandell's book, now published as Obama: From Promise to Power.
[34] Mandell, quoted in Mike Littwin, "Obama's ‘Change' Could Be More Than a Coined Phrase," Rocky Mountain News, August 29, 2007.
[35] Ezra Klein, "Obama's Gift," The American Prospect, January 3, 2008.
[36] "Barack Obama's Feb. 5 Speech," New York Times, February 5, 2008, italics supplied.
[39] Bruce Reed, Democratic Leadership Council president, quoted in Wallace-Wells, "Destiny's Child."
[43] Peter Hamby, "Obama: GOP Doesn't Own Faith Issue," CNN, October 8, 2007.
[44] "Barack Obama's Remarks in St. Paul," New York Times, June 3, 2008.
[46] Josephine Hearn, "Black Lawmakers Emotional About Obama's Success," Politico, June 5, 2008.
[47] L. David Alinsky, "Son Sees Father's Handiwork in Convention," Boston Globe, August 31, 2008.
