Barack Obama and Heaven

After graduating from Columbia University in 1983, Barack Obama turned down more lucrative positions to become a "community organizer" in Chicago. He primarily worked with African-American churches, but was not yet a believer.

Both his father (who left when Barack was only two) and step-father had been non-practicing Muslims. His mother sometimes took him to church on Christmas or Easter, but also took him to the Buddhist temple, the Chinese New Year celebration, the Shinto shrine, and ancient Hawaiian burial sites. He says she was a Christian, but "she was not a church lady." He has described her as "a lonely witness for secular humanism."

In working with churches, people often told him how helpful it would be if he joined one. In his first book, Dreams From My Father, he wrote, "I remained a reluctant skeptic, doubtful of my own motives, wary of expedient conversion, having too many quarrels with God to accept a salvation too easily won."

Then, at Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, Pastor Jeremiah Wright reached him in a way no one else had. According to The New York Times, "It was a 1988 sermon called ‘The Audacity to Hope' that turned Mr. Obama, in his late 20s, from spiritual outsider to enthusiastic churchgoer."

Senator Obama says, "In that single note — hope! — I heard something else: At the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and the Pharaoh, the Christians in the Lion's Den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church on this bright day seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world."

Indeed, the Bible gives a template for helping us understand the story of a people struggling toward justice and dignity. But Obama is the first Christian I have ever heard express it as the reason he became a Christian. For most of us, the question about Christianity was not, "Is it comforting?" or "Is the church a vessel for carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world?" Most of us asked, "Is Christianity true? Is Jesus who He said He is?"

A Question of Heaven

The Christianity he espouses is hobbled by a terrible sickness far more prevalent in the Body of Christ than you might expect. He ends the Time article with the story of one of his daughters asking him what happens when we die. "‘I don't want to die, Daddy,' she had added matter-of-factly — and I had hugged her and said, ‘You've got a long, long way before you have to worry about that,' which had seemed to satisfy her. I wondered whether I should have told her the truth, that I wasn't sure what happens when we die, any more than I was sure of where the soul resides or what existed before the Big Bang."

According to The Chicago Sun-Times, he believes there is no hell. And while he hopes there's some kind of heaven, he feels no certainty.

One Christian reads this and says, "How can you call yourself a Christian and not be sure of heaven?" Another Christian reads it and says, "I have my doubts, too."

Think for a moment of the first three verses of the first and fourteenth chapters John. (In case you're unfamiliar with this part of the New Testament, the context shows that "Word" here refers to Jesus and in the second quote, John 14, it is Jesus speaking.)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. — John 1:1-3

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. — John 14:1-3

In John 1 we see Jesus as Creator of all things. In John 14 we see Him put His whole credibility on the line — "if it were not so, I would have told you" — on the issue of heaven.

Taught, as we are, to believe only our eyes (despite the obvious scientific folly of such an idea) twenty-first century American Christians seem to be having a tough time with the concept of heaven. Yet, it is essential to a Christian world view. Trying to understand life without eternal life is like trying to understand the Mississippi River when you think it ends at St. Louis.

Context is everything, and time's context is eternity.

The Sweet Bye and Bye

The knowledge of heaven is a balm to the oppressed, but there have been times when it was also used as a sedative. "Yes, you're a victim of injustice, but all will be well in the sweet bye and bye."

For generations, this teaching was one of the things used to keep African-Americans marginalized. No wonder such thinking is rejected, even loathed, by many within that community. Resentment of the way the doctrine of heaven has been used, can lead to a suppression of the doctrine. When that happens, we not only remove the sedative, but the balm also.

This problem is not unique to black churches. Worldliness leads Christians of all colors and backgrounds, to see the riches of heaven as a mere consolation prize.

Also, there's the problem of hell. We want to be liked. Churches and ministers take great pains to show themselves politically correct. Of course, it is politically incorrect to admit to any level of political correctness, but it is a real phenomenon. In some cases, we're trying to find common ground with unbelievers, not necessarily a bad thing. But a lust to be liked makes it all too easy to try and contort Christianity into something far less controversial than it actually is. We want religion neatly packaged for present-day society, nice and PC.

But there's nothing politically correct about the doctrine of hell, and if we talk about heaven, talk of hell inevitably follows. This leads us, whether we're conscious of it or not, to leave the whole subject alone. Don't sing about it, don't teach on it, and don't preach it.

Born Again?

So here's a man who testifies of his belief in Jesus — Barack Obama. He claims his faith informs every part of his world view, but fails to embrace the context of a Christian life, which is heaven.

Christianity Today asked "Do you consider yourself born again?"

Senator Obama answered, "I am a Christian, and I am a devout Christian. I believe in the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I believe that that faith gives me a path to be cleansed of sin and have eternal life. But most importantly, I believe in the example that Jesus set by feeding the hungry and healing the sick and always prioritizing the least of these over the powerful. I didn't ‘fall out in church' as they say, but there was a very strong awakening in me of the importance of these issues in my life. I didn't want to walk alone on this journey. Accepting Jesus Christ in my life has been a powerful guide for my conduct and my values and my ideals."

So He sees Jesus's death as "redemptive," and believes his spiritual awakening put him on "a path to be cleansed of sin and have eternal life." We know from other statements that he's not at all sure about the eternal life part. And it's sad to see someone who accepts the death of Jesus as redemptive, but fails to understand that being cleansed from sin is not a good work we do, but grace we receive.

"But most importantly," he said, "I believe in the example that Jesus set by feeding the hungry and healing the sick."

For two millennia, from Peter and Paul to Augustine and Luther, believing in the example Jesus set in doing good works was an important part of the Christian life, but not the most important. For them, seeing Jesus feed the hungry meant more than watching a man hand out a meal. It affirmed that the "Bread of Life" had come. When Jesus opened blind eyes, it was better than universal health care. It bore witness to the world that its Light had come. Yes, Jesus healed the sick and still heals today. He enjoins us to feed the hungry and visit the prisoners. But first and foremost, He was His message. If you read the Gospels and don't get that, then you don't understand them . . . or Him.

Liberation Theology

I don't condemn Barack Obama for his questions. His honesty is refreshing. I only wish he would search the Bible for the answers. But even there, he has a problem.

For the twenty years of his Christian walk, he has been taught a thing called Liberation Theology. That's a phrase you may associate with South American marxists. In this case, it doesn't mean violent marxist rebels. But it does mean something pretty devastating to the Gospel.

At the request of Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) wrote a paper that went to the heart of the problem. Liberation Theology, he wrote,

sees itself as a new hermeneutics of the Christian faith, a new way of understanding Christianity as a whole and implementing it. Thus it affects theology in its basic constitution, not merely in aspects of its content. . . . The biblical concept of the ‘poor' provides a starting point for fusing the Bible's view of history with marxist dialectic; it is interpreted by the idea of the proletariat in the marxist sense and thus justifies marxism as the legitimate hermeneutics for understanding the Bible. . . . liberation theology intends to supply a new total interpretation of the Christian reality.

Please understand that I am not calling Barack Obama a communist. He's far from it. But it's essential that Americans understand the theological place he's coming from and why it's so dangerous. His pastor and spiritual mentor regularly expresses deep anger and bitterness toward white people, America, and Israel. Barack has publicly repudiated many of the specific teachings of his pastor, but we need to understand that such teachings are an outgrowth of a world view. The eyebrow raising quotes from Obama's pastor are symptoms of a larger, deeper problem.

Next Week

A few days ago, the Senator's wife, Michelle Obama, said this is the first time in her adult lifetime she has been proud of her country. When you heard this, you may have considered some of the great things America has done during her adult years, and wondered how she could say such a thing. You may have questioned how this beautiful American woman whose own life provides dramatic testimony to the opportunities afforded by such a nation, could not feel any pride in her country until her husband was well on the road to its presidency.

It all relates to Jeremiah Wright, his strange and angry teachings, and how those teachings attracted and influenced the Obamas. I hope to examine these things in next Friday's essay. Please come back, read it, and pass on the internet address to others.

It's important.

Posted: 2-29-2008
Note: At original posting, all links were active.