2010 California Election Forum

Faith-based organizations must hire nonbelievers

President Obama has appointed Joshua DuBois as his religious affairs director. DuBois led the aggressive efforts to persuade Christians to vote for Obama—the most effective effort in modern Democratic history to win the Evangelical vote.

The office has been renamed the Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. The two big questions:

1. Will faith-based organizations receiving federal funds be forced to hire people who oppose their doctrine?
   It looks like all Christian organizations will be defunded if they have any restriction on belief or sexual orientation.
2. Can faith-based organizations talk freely about Jesus and salvation?
   It looks like all Christian groups cannot talk about Jesus and salvation. If they refuse to comply, they will lose their funding.

Obama, during a campaign speech last year, said that if a group received a federal grant then it “can’t use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can't discriminate against them—or against the people you hire—on the basis of their religion.”

No rest for government watchdogs on Fridays

Every time President Obama issues a new executive order that Christians oppose, it’s done on a Friday.

On Fridays fewer people pay attention to the news, the news media cuts back and less discussion takes place over the weekends.

Here are some whoppers delivered on Wicked Friday so far:

• Lifting restrictions on tax funding of international abortions
• Reversing conscience protection for healthcare workers
• Removing restrictions on embryonic stem cell research

Secrecy is not what the president promised while he was campaigning.

“Instead, we have renounced secret and shameful ways. We do not use trickery or pervert God's Word. By clear statements of the truth we commend ourselves to everyone's conscience before God.”

—2 Corinthians 4:2

Focus is on nonbelievers…not Christ

Prayer at President Obama’s pre-election campaign meetings was common.

Now that he is president, prayer at post-election events is common…kinda.

For example, recent budget rally meetings have indeed been opening in prayer. But the prayers are always nonsectarian, often scripted and reviewed in advance by the one giving it.

Obama wants to invite piety and spirituality at this meeting, but not “in Jesus’ name.”

The emphasis is on interfaith and the inclusion of atheists. For example, he often mentions “nonbelievers,” even when he announced his faith-based office at the National Prayer Breakfast.

Bush allowed prayers to be orchestrated by the event organizers, not dictated by the White House, and he was not afraid to have them ended with “in Jesus’s name.”

“But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.”

—Jesus (Matthew 10:33)

What do you think? Are these politically correct prayers OK with you? Email me your thoughts at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

What’s missing from these objectives?

President Obama established the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, a group of religious leaders to advise on faith-based initiatives.

That’s a good thing, right? Or is it…

The Office’s 15 members ostensibly represent a wide array of religious views: secular nonprofits, Judaic, Catholic, Protestant and Evangelical.

Liberal Evangelicals are well represented by the likes of Jim Wallis of Sojourners magazine, while the nominal “conservative” Evangelical on the team, Joel Hunter, appears to have an agenda closer to his liberal colleagues.

Click the photo for Hunter’s interview by the Christian Broadcasting Network.

Notice I said religious, not Christian. Some great Evangelical outreach took place during the inauguration. Witnessing. Powerful prayers.

Pastor Rick Warren’s inaugural prayer was a poignant one for the president, his family and our country. It glorified God and demonstrated that Rick was not ashamed of the gospel. Even with huge pressure to not mention Jesus or end the prayer in Jesus’ name, Pastor Warren refused to bow to political correctness. Pray for Rick and his ministry…and his church which is still seeing protests from Proposition 8 opponents. Click here to see the prayer.

With the exception of Pastor Warren’s worthwhile message, never before in Washington was such false, religious activity given such an official presidential blessing. Take a closer look:

One way Obama is attempting to affect the Christian community is by quoting Scripture.

Many of us were upset with his misuse of Scripture and his selective dismissing of Romans as being an insignificant portion of Scripture not to be believed.

Did you notice this misuse of Scripture:

In Obama's big speech on race he said, "In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand: that we do unto other as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well."

However, nowhere in Scripture are we commanded to be our brother's keeper. It was Cain who, after killing his brother, actually justified the killing on the grounds that he was not his brother's keeper.

We are commanded to love. However, this verse cannot be confused to mean justifying social engineering or wealth distribution.

Many Christians have been excited about Obama's campaign to woo the evangelical vote.

Special monthly pastor conferences, special lay outreaches and freely integrating his belief in Christ in his speeches and interviews.

But all this was shaken as reports leaked out regarding his pastor, Rev. Wright. If you haven't heard some of his most outrageous comments, click here for 20 quick examples, (running time is about 5 minutes).

The 7,000 member mega church has been praised for its worship, energy and good works in the community.

But its theology and radical left-wing politics have brought the church examination from all the major secular media outlets.

The pulpit is filled with racism, anti-Semitism, anti-Americanism, hate, anger, class warfare and victimization. Not God's love. Not the fruit of the spirit. Not sound doctrine. Instead, distortion of God's nature, His son and His word.

From a Christian worldview, how should we respond? Obama was forced to give a speech on race relations that some tearful liberal TV commentators said was the greatest speech in their lifetime-no kidding for some in history.

How should we respond to Obama, his speech, his faith and his church?

Here are some observations:

1. Obama's church is heretical. For over 20 years, Obama has attended a heretical church.

Back in 1987 he joined Trinity United Church of Christ. He started going to the church to help create an alliance for political community activists.

But he got to know Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Wright became his mentor and spiritual advisor. He and his wife accepted Christ, were baptized and baptized their two children in the church.

In the article below I describe what Black Liberation Theology is. It's based on John Cones writings (see link in the sidebar) which is a mixture of Gnosticism, racism, Marxism, class warfare and victimization.

Last week, Obama shocked many Christians with his view on scripture:

“I think that it is a legal right that they [homosexuals] should have that is recognized by the state. If people find that controversial then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7:13), which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans.”

As you know, the Sermon on the Mount covers many topics. Probably Obama was referring to Matthew 7:12 “So in everything do to others what you would have them to do you.”

But it also covers our witness to a fallen world, loving our enemies and much more. But there is no mention of same-sex unions.

It’s disturbing that Obama calls a verse in Romans obscure.

I assume he means Romans 1:24-27, which is not obscure, but central to Romans 1 as it starts the book of Romans.

It says “They [the unrighteous] exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversions.” (Romans 1:24-27, NIV)

This is clear. It’s also compatible with many other verses in Scripture.

Christians view the word of God as inerrant. You do not pick and choose your verses to fit your own beliefs or comfort.

Isolating a vague notion of Scripture to justify a position contrary to the whole council of God is not using the word of God rightly.

It’s clear the word of God says that marriage is between a man and a woman. And that homosexuality, like all sins, requires repentance.

Obama abused the Bible by justifying his prohomosexual agenda based on Scripture. He is twisting Scripture to justify sin and discounting passages that oppose his position.

Incidentally, the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7:13) also warns “watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.”

What do you think? Please email me at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

For over 20 years, Barack Obama sat without protest under the teaching of his spiritual mentor, Dr. Jeremiah Wright.

Dr. Wright and his church, Trinity United Church of Christ, are advocates of Black Liberation Theology.

This is important, because in understanding this ideology, you can understand the vitriolic preaching, the anti-Semitism, the racism, the anti-Americanism, the odd beliefs such as blaming the U.S. for 9/11 and the propagation of the HIV virus.

Much of it mirrors Marxist doctrines of class struggle and economic determinism.

Black Liberation Theology was defined in 1969 by the National Committee of Black Church Men.