Fifty years ago today three great men died. In life, though all achieved literary and international acclaim, they could not have been more different. In death, the one overshadowed the two—as the death of Princess Diana overshadowed the death of Mother Teresa. But as was true of the princess and the prioress, so was true of the president and the professor—the memory of the least celebrated on earth often lingers longer in eternity.
The belief that God's business isn't that of human government but only that of the human soul is to diminish God to a narrow-minded deity unworthy of the God of the Bible. Such an idea makes God both cruel and unjust—cruel since He chooses to leave us in this savage present instead of taking us immediately into that glorious future; unjust since He doesn't really care whether human beings live in peace or in anarchy. And that is an injustice most cruel.
When the America president appears on national television to address the American people it's a big deal. His subject, language, and setting need to carry weight—gravitas. Prime time presidential speeches are serious matters. And for the president—and America by extension—to be taken seriously his speech must be clear, cogent, and commanding; it needs to have a centrality of purpose.
I always experience a little burp of bile whenever I see or hear the Bible quoted by political talking heads. Without fail verses are quoted selectively, out of context, and to score political points.
In the bitter aftermath of loosing the 1858 Illinois senate race to Stephen A. Douglas, Abraham Lincoln wrote an encouraging note to a despondent friend. "The fight must go on," Lincoln said. "The cause of civil liberty must not be surrendered at the end of one, or even, on hundred defeats."
What Obama fails to understand or acknowledge is the fact that America finds its historical genesis mistrusting government, not because it was a sham but because it shouldn't be trusted with the people's liberty.
