Ah yes, the Joy of Cal Thomas! I do not find Cal Thomas to be an evil man...I have agreed with some of the things he has said in the past; however, his recent blog post (full text below) on The Fox Forum neatly captures the pitfalls of fundamentalism. No one will ever be morally clean enough or doctrinally pure enough to satisfy the insatiable appetite for souls and reputations that modern day Pharisees live off of! And, in the end, doctrine and pure faith are not really what fundamentalists seek…they are seeking power for themselves in an effort to militaristically impose a false gospel of might makes right and divisiveness onto those who have already been abused by sin and ruined by religious hypocrisy.
On the contrary, our true gospel rejects fear, demands selfless giving even to the point of death, elevates love to the highest level of character and motive, embraces sinners, sounds the call to social justice, speaks truth to power and to self, makes disciples that know and live all of the words of Jesus, judges actions and fruit rather than doctrinal distinctives and flashy foliage, struggles towards redemption, encourages us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, and cares more for the one lost than the 99 saved.
I have one Lord whom I personally call Jesus. My knee bends only to him. I do not embrace our political leaders as my religious instructors and do not expect them to fit my enigmatic belief structure. We are not calling a pastor to serve and equip the flock, we are electing a president to execute the laws of the nation according to our Constitution. To be completely honest, I currently doubt whether a disciple can be equally faithful to Jesus and to the American flag. There is only one rule and realm of life that we can seek first…so I will seek the rule and realm of a gracious God and his faithful son, and then give to Caesar that which is Caesar’s.
Finally, I wonder if Cal Thomas, and those of his ilk, are willing to allow others to pick their faith and actions to pieces like vultures on a carcass. I know that I could not stand-up to such…my heresies are numerous and my feet are fissured clay! What president would he like to bring forth as our exemplar for Preacher and Priest-in-Chief? Ronald Regan…who heard counsel from his wife’s astrologer and divorced his first wife? Of course not Bill Clinton…who tried to mount everything that moved; but, publicly confessed his sin once caught in the snare of his lies. What about the great General Eisenhower…oops, he kept a mistress and warned about the tyranny of military-industrial power. President Lincoln was a man of faith and action…but during the Civil War he egregiously circumvented the Bill of Rights and expressed distrust of the profiteering capitalists of industry and their trampling of the poor workers. The great defender of religious liberty, Thomas Jefferson, sired children with a slave and pen-knifed the miracles of Jesus out of his Bible. Do the deistic, Masonic doctrinal distinctives of George Washington negate the service, character, and greatness of our first president? Sheesh...
Speak Truth to Power!
By Cal Thomas
Posted on Monday, June 2nd, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Syndicated columnist/FOX News Contributor
Religion is a topic that makes most journalists uncomfortable, unless they can expose hypocrisy — as in preachers who speak of virtue while carrying on an affair — or outrage such as Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the doings at Barack Obama’s now former church in Chicago. Most journalists think taking religion seriously might require them to study the claims of various faiths and too many of them have already decided this might lead them to a faith higher than themselves or politics and they don’t wish to take such a journey of personal discovery.
That is too bad, because such an attitude exposes one of the main gaps between most Americans — who believe in God — and most journalists, who don’t.
An exception is Chicago Sun-Times columnist Cathleen Falsani, who interviewed Obama in 2004 for her book, “The God Factor: Inside the Spiritual Lives of Public People “and asked him specific questions about his religious beliefs.
“I’m rooted in the Christian tradition,” said Obama, who has declared himself a Christian. But then he adds something that most Christians will see as universalism: “I believe there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people.”
Falsani correctly brings up John 14:6 (and how many journalists would know such a verse, much less ask a question based on it?) in which Jesus says of Himself, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” That sounds pretty exclusive, but Obama says it depends on how this verse is heard. According to Falsani, Obama thinks that “all people of faith — Christians, Jews, Muslims, animists, everyone — know the same God.” (her words)
If that is so, Jesus wasted his time coming to Earth and he certainly did not have to suffer the pain of rejection and crucifixion if there are ways to God other than through Himself.
Here’s Obama telling Falsani, “The difficult thing about any religion, including Christianity, is that at some level there is a call to evangelize and proselytize. There’s the belief, certainly in some quarters, that if people haven’t embraced Jesus Christ as their personal savior, they’re going to hell.” Falsani adds, “Obama doesn’t believe he, or anyone else, will go to hell. But he’s not sure he’ll be going to heaven, either.”
Here’s Obama again: “I don’t presume to have knowledge of what happens after I die. When I tuck in my daughters at night and I feel like I’ve been a good father to them, and I see that I am transferring values that I got from my mother and that they’re kind people and that they’re honest people, and they’re curious people, that’s a little piece of heaven.”
Any first-year seminary student could deconstruct such “works salvation” and wishful thinking. Obama either hasn’t read the Bible, or if he has, doesn’t believe it if he embraces such thin theological gruel.
Obama can call himself anything he likes, but there is a clear requirement for one to qualify as a Christian and Obama doesn’t meet that requirement. One cannot deny central tenets of the Christian faith, including the deity and uniqueness of Christ as the sole mediator between God and Man and be a Christian. Such people do have a label applied to them in Scripture. They are called a “false prophet.”
I hope some national journalist or commentator with knowledge of such things asks Obama about this and doesn’t let him get away with re-writing Scripture to suit his political ends.
http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/06/02/barack-obama-is-not-a-christian/
© 2008 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved.
On the contrary, our true gospel rejects fear, demands selfless giving even to the point of death, elevates love to the highest level of character and motive, embraces sinners, sounds the call to social justice, speaks truth to power and to self, makes disciples that know and live all of the words of Jesus, judges actions and fruit rather than doctrinal distinctives and flashy foliage, struggles towards redemption, encourages us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, and cares more for the one lost than the 99 saved.
I have one Lord whom I personally call Jesus. My knee bends only to him. I do not embrace our political leaders as my religious instructors and do not expect them to fit my enigmatic belief structure. We are not calling a pastor to serve and equip the flock, we are electing a president to execute the laws of the nation according to our Constitution. To be completely honest, I currently doubt whether a disciple can be equally faithful to Jesus and to the American flag. There is only one rule and realm of life that we can seek first…so I will seek the rule and realm of a gracious God and his faithful son, and then give to Caesar that which is Caesar’s.
Finally, I wonder if Cal Thomas, and those of his ilk, are willing to allow others to pick their faith and actions to pieces like vultures on a carcass. I know that I could not stand-up to such…my heresies are numerous and my feet are fissured clay! What president would he like to bring forth as our exemplar for Preacher and Priest-in-Chief? Ronald Regan…who heard counsel from his wife’s astrologer and divorced his first wife? Of course not Bill Clinton…who tried to mount everything that moved; but, publicly confessed his sin once caught in the snare of his lies. What about the great General Eisenhower…oops, he kept a mistress and warned about the tyranny of military-industrial power. President Lincoln was a man of faith and action…but during the Civil War he egregiously circumvented the Bill of Rights and expressed distrust of the profiteering capitalists of industry and their trampling of the poor workers. The great defender of religious liberty, Thomas Jefferson, sired children with a slave and pen-knifed the miracles of Jesus out of his Bible. Do the deistic, Masonic doctrinal distinctives of George Washington negate the service, character, and greatness of our first president? Sheesh...
Speak Truth to Power!
By Cal Thomas
Posted on Monday, June 2nd, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Syndicated columnist/FOX News Contributor
Religion is a topic that makes most journalists uncomfortable, unless they can expose hypocrisy — as in preachers who speak of virtue while carrying on an affair — or outrage such as Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the doings at Barack Obama’s now former church in Chicago. Most journalists think taking religion seriously might require them to study the claims of various faiths and too many of them have already decided this might lead them to a faith higher than themselves or politics and they don’t wish to take such a journey of personal discovery.
That is too bad, because such an attitude exposes one of the main gaps between most Americans — who believe in God — and most journalists, who don’t.
An exception is Chicago Sun-Times columnist Cathleen Falsani, who interviewed Obama in 2004 for her book, “The God Factor: Inside the Spiritual Lives of Public People “and asked him specific questions about his religious beliefs.
“I’m rooted in the Christian tradition,” said Obama, who has declared himself a Christian. But then he adds something that most Christians will see as universalism: “I believe there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people.”
Falsani correctly brings up John 14:6 (and how many journalists would know such a verse, much less ask a question based on it?) in which Jesus says of Himself, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” That sounds pretty exclusive, but Obama says it depends on how this verse is heard. According to Falsani, Obama thinks that “all people of faith — Christians, Jews, Muslims, animists, everyone — know the same God.” (her words)
If that is so, Jesus wasted his time coming to Earth and he certainly did not have to suffer the pain of rejection and crucifixion if there are ways to God other than through Himself.
Here’s Obama telling Falsani, “The difficult thing about any religion, including Christianity, is that at some level there is a call to evangelize and proselytize. There’s the belief, certainly in some quarters, that if people haven’t embraced Jesus Christ as their personal savior, they’re going to hell.” Falsani adds, “Obama doesn’t believe he, or anyone else, will go to hell. But he’s not sure he’ll be going to heaven, either.”
Here’s Obama again: “I don’t presume to have knowledge of what happens after I die. When I tuck in my daughters at night and I feel like I’ve been a good father to them, and I see that I am transferring values that I got from my mother and that they’re kind people and that they’re honest people, and they’re curious people, that’s a little piece of heaven.”
Any first-year seminary student could deconstruct such “works salvation” and wishful thinking. Obama either hasn’t read the Bible, or if he has, doesn’t believe it if he embraces such thin theological gruel.
Obama can call himself anything he likes, but there is a clear requirement for one to qualify as a Christian and Obama doesn’t meet that requirement. One cannot deny central tenets of the Christian faith, including the deity and uniqueness of Christ as the sole mediator between God and Man and be a Christian. Such people do have a label applied to them in Scripture. They are called a “false prophet.”
I hope some national journalist or commentator with knowledge of such things asks Obama about this and doesn’t let him get away with re-writing Scripture to suit his political ends.
http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/06/02/barack-obama-is-not-a-christian/
© 2008 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved.
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