Obama as a Belief System

Jon Stewart, in one of his “news” reports on “Not-Yet President” Obama’s trip to Israel, recounted his “quick stop to the manger in Bethlehem where he was born.”   

Jay Cost has noted that at Obama’s website you'll find at the top of almost every page a picture of Obama with the following quotation:  "I'm asking you to believe.  Not just in my ability to bring about real change to Washington . . . I'm asking you to believe in yours."

If Democrats are wondering why Republicans have taken to sarcastically calling Obama "The Messiah," this is a good indication.   On nearly every page, we are greeted with a picture of an illuminated Obama issuing a challenge from the clouds:  if you believe this special man can change Washington, rally behind him.

The operative word in the Obama campaign is “believe.”  You are asked to believe in him, believe in yourself, believe in change you can believe in, believe that yes you can, believe in the audacity of hope, and hope in the audacity of belief.  People are beginning to notice that there is no specific content to this belief other than the candidate Himself.

Scott Edwards has identified six denominations that constitute the Church of Obama, starting with the “Southern Obamaists”:

This is the chief fundamentalist sect of Obamaism.  Their most important tenets are that every word spoken by Obama is to be taken literally and that there are no contradictions in anything he has ever written.  They also believe that the world was created 46 years ago.

“Cardinal Fang” has commented on Edwards’ effort by advising believers on the “word of the Obamassiah” and the related Commandments:

Do not fear if the words of the Obamassiah are not at first clear, you need only to hear them and believe.  Be not afraid if the feeling of a cool breeze runs up one’s leg.  Do not fear if the words of his glory remove you from your senses and fainting occurs. . . .

I.  Thou shalt not speak the middle name of the Obamassiah.  To do so exposes thine as a racist and it shall not be tolerated.

II.  Thou shalt not mention past associations of the Obamassiah.  To do so exposes thine as a racist.  For despite any recent or current friendship his holiness may have with them, he was only a child when they ran afoul of the law.  Or he missed that sermon.

III.  Thou shalt not mention praise of the Obamassiah by murderers and tyrants.  To do so exposes thine as a racist, it is a sign that thine has truly lost one’s bearings.

There are six more Cardinal Fang commandments, all of which must be followed lest thine expose thyself as a racist.

There is lurking in all this not simply the ridicule that is rightly being visited on a campaign that asks its followers to believe the oceans began receding the night the candidate clinched the nomination, or that the surge didn't work and the fiercest urgency is to get out of Iraq now before the war is won and it is too late.  There is also a serious historical point that Michael Knox Beran, a contributing editor of City Journal, notes in “Barack Obama, Shaman.”

[Obama] is not the first politician to argue that politics can redeem us, but in posing as the Adonis who will turn winter into spring, he revives one of the more pernicious political swindles: the belief that a charismatic leader can ordain a civic happy hour and give a people a sense of community that will make them feel less bad. . . .

Hence his mantra, “Change we can believe in.” Like the Nicene Creed, Obama's doctrine begins in belief. Credo. Once we believe in the possibility of a transformative politics, “the perfection begins.” The selfish politics of the present yields to the selfless politics of the future. We discover that “this nation is more than the sum of its parts -- that out of many, we are truly one.” So believing, we can replace a politics that breeds division, conflict and cynicism with a politics that fosters unity and peace. . . .

Mr. Obama's conviction that it is possible to create a beautiful politics, one in which Americans will selflessly pursue a shared vision of the common good, recalls the belief that Dostoyevsky attributed to the 19th-century Russian revolutionists: that, come the revolution, “all men will become righteous in one instant.” The perfection would begin. . . .

Near the end of "The Brothers Karamazov," [Dostoyevsky] describes an encounter between the devil and Ivan Karamazov. The devil appears, not with claws and horns, but in the guise of an elegant man of the world: he phrases his mordant taunts in French and laughs at modern intellectuals who believe that he doesn't exist . . . . Dostoyevsky implied that it was precisely when the devil became a wit that the intellectual classes of the West succumbed to the most familiar form of diabolic temptation: the belief that men can transcend the limits of their condition and “be as gods” -- demiurges with the power to heal the world's pain and reshape it in accordance with a beautiful idea. . . .

Obama-mania is bound in the end to disappoint. . . . it encourages us to seek for perfection where we will not find it, in politics, in the hero worship of a charismatic shaman, in the speciousness of a secular millennium. Lacking the moral parables that made our ancestors wary of those delusions in which overweening pride is apt to involve us, we pursue false gods and turn away from traditions that really can help us make sense of our condition.

See also Kyle-Anne Shiver, "Why I'm Thanking God for Obama," in today's American Thinker (with her usual style mixed with quotes from H. L. Mencken, Pope Benedict XVI, and the Gospel of Luke).

In the end, the Church of Obama requires absolute faith, since one cannot look to the candidate’s national experience (zilch) or legislative accomplishments (zilch). One cannot even look at his words, since Primary Obama said different things than General Election Obama. One simply has to believe in whichever Obama one believes in, and avoid exposing thineself as racist.  Audacious.

That’s all for this week.  At sundown, I need to go cling to my religion.

Comments

[Dr. Chemical]

Cling on brother! Speaking of Klingons do the ears remind you of anyone?

[Dan Alexander]

Mr. Richman,

Though I appreciate some of your sarcasm concerning the popularity of Senator Obama, I hope your criticisms of studied Democratic vagueness are not meant to disparage hope in a fair and just society.

The search for meaningful belief is a basic human need, as old as humanity.

Speaking universally, the drive to seek can become the drive to serve. Speaking in secular terms, persons can "become the change we seek." (Ghandi).

I as an observant Jew believe this need to seek and to believe is God-given, part of our souls. Recognizing that this drive requires limitation and guidance, God gave us Torah, which is a teaching and a path of action and belief - towards a better world. We are the people who leave Mitzrayim to make a new and better home in which to serve God, not the people who give in to cynicism & languish in pessimism, nostalgia for slavery, and power plays.

Rabbi David Hartman in his wonderful book A Living Covenant: The Innovative Spirit in Traditional Judaism notes that biblical & rabbinic texts contain not one, but "two contrasting themes: one that emphasizes the dignity of human responsibility, intellectual adequacy, self-confidence, and covenantal mutuality with God, and another that demands utter silence and resignation before the unscrutable transcendent will of God." (p. 60)

I do not think you belong primarily to the second camp of thought, or you would not be doing what you are doing! I understand this post is primarily a warning against Leftist Messianism.

But I must protest your citation of Kyle-Anne Shiver's critique:

"Obama has arisen from nothingness, from one accomplishment-free political gig to another, propped up by leftists adulators and sycophants, to offer a perfect portrait of socialism's eternal snare. Forget God; put your hope in mankind. Human arrogance and narcissistic pride. From the fall in the Garden to the present, from generation to generation, Satan's delusion holds sway with many."

That's pretty strong stuff!

As you probably know, in Judaism Satan is the Accuser, an angel who acts as God's Prosecuting Angel claiming that humanity doesn't have much claim to holiness. Satan's (minor) role in our holy scripture is evidence that we are not perfect, and certainly both Left and Right have produced horrible dictators. But Satan is just one angel among many - one thought amongst many in God's Mind - and he loses many of his cases on the merits.

Judaism and some Christians part company on the concept of Satan as the Devil, a dualistic rather than monotheistic view of theology.

Both Senator McCain and Senator Obama have offered some ideas on how America can offer its children a good education. Both of them recognize that this is good politics precisely because most people, rightly, want a fair world for our children. Can we have it?

Step by step. We can leave Egypt.

Is it through charter schools & parental choice - with McCain? His campaign avoids specifics on whether private religious schools should receive public, education voucher dollars. He doesn't embrace public charter schools by name on his web site as he heads into the general election, even the best ones, as an innovative strategy for helping our country & our kids.

Obama proposes expanded early childhood education outside the home, so that low-income kids can get loving care & education during the day, in a quality facility from quality staff - while the parents are at work. Is this an effective way to help parents & young kids? Let's have the debate.

Obama seems to say that accountability (negative consequences) for failing public school systems will be reduced under his Presidency. He certainly doesn't embrace charter schools, even the best ones. Hardly a profile in courage.

Let's ask our Presidential candidates to put forward practical ideas for building a better world. That's what they are there to do. That's democracy.

God bless America.