National Prayer Breakfast

Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast this morning, President Obama defended his hard-left positions using Christianity, citing Scripture and personal prayer.   Does that include stomping on religious freedom by mandating that Catholic charities violate the basic tenets of their faith and provide contraceptives?

The president's words reveal how little he understands Christianity, except how he may best use it to his political advantage.  Justifying his healthcare and financial reform laws, he said:

"And so when I talk about our financial institutions playing by the same rules as folks on Main Street, when I talk about making sure insurance companies aren't discriminating against those who are already sick, or making sure that unscrupulous lenders aren't taking advantage of the most vulnerable among us, I do so because I genuinely believe it will make the economy stronger for everybody. But I also do it because I know that far too many neighbors in our country have been hurt and treated unfairly over the last few years, and I believe in God’s command to 'love thy neighbor as thyself. And I think to myself, if I’m willing to give something up as somebody who's been extraordinarily blessed, and give up some of the tax breaks that I enjoy, I actually think that's going to make economic sense.  But for me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus' teaching that 'for unto whom much is given, much shall be required."   

Where to begin?

Politically, this is yet another example of a theocratic double standard.  Conservatives who apply religious principles to political reasoning do so out of a dastardly desire to turn America into a theocracy, yet liberals who engage in the same spiritual justification are simply illustrating their moral soundness.

President Obama follows a long tradition of using Christ's words to justify a socialist agenda.
Yet those politicians who have engaged in such rhetoric blatantly misunderstand the words they're repeating.
That distinction lies at the heart of the fallacy Obama has perpetuated. True charity is not a duty of the government.   It's a duty of each of us, as individuals.

Christian morality requires that charity and altruism be voluntary, not coerced. But in societies where socialism or a welfare state prevails, people are forced to be charitable and altruistic by the state. That is accomplished by the government confiscating money from some and giving it to or spending it on others who are deemed to be in need.


 Some condone this by arguing that “the people are the government.” If that is so, then it should logically follow that, just as people are not allowed to steal, even in the name of charity and altruism, then neither should the government be allowed to steal in the name of charity and altruism. Christianity is concerned with what is in a person’s heart, and that can be known only when a person is free to choose and is not coerced.

If the president feels it's his spiritual and moral imperative to give freely of his finances to those who are in need, that is his prerogative.   He has the right to donate whatever percentage of his income to the outlet he sees as best capable of aiding the poor, even if that's the government.  He does not have the right to demand the rest of us do the same, however -- not on spiritual grounds.

If the president truly wants to help those least fortunate, it would be better making the job easier for charities and making it easier for private wealth to be created so individuals have the means to give to charity.   The United States is the most charitable nation on Earth despite high taxes.  And, curiously, conservatives give far more to charity than do liberals,  a phenomenon seen across all social-economic strata.

 President Obama is less interested in charity than he is in consolidating government power.

 Christ never characterized paying taxes to be used to redistribute wealth as a godly act.  Since LBJ's "Great Society" back in the 1960's,  the US Government has transferred about 16 trillion dollars from the taxpayer to the poor... yet the percentage of poor remains about the same.  To overcome poverty, Presidential candidate Rick Santorum stated that one must get an education and wait until marriage to have children.  (I would add, don't do illegal stuff so you can stay out of jail.)   Just these simple but obvious changes in lifestyle would eliminate much of poverty.   I believe in the old axiom:  "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.  Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life."