post-election special the obama as antichrist question 11/9/081post-election secial-001 and 002
TRANSCRIPT
Post-election Special
The Obama as Antichrist Question
11/9/08 1Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Barack Obama's election on Tuesday set off
international celebrations and ignited a fervor for the United States that has been unseen since the days immediately following the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.
• To some observers, the international reaction has elevated America's president-elect to an unparalleled post: president of the world.
11/9/08 2Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• In Kenya, where Obama's father was born, a
national holiday was declared on Thursday. In Indonesia, children danced at the school Obama attended when he was a young boy, embracing him as much for what he represents abroad as for the policies he advocates at home.
11/9/08 3Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• "People from all over Africa, especially in Kenya,
where this is a holiday, are feeling that the most powerful person in the world does not have to be a white guy. That's a huge breakthrough for the United States and for humanity," said Walter Russell Mead, the Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.
11/9/08 4Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• "This is the fall of the Berlin Wall times ten,"
Rama Yade, France's junior minister for human rights, told French radio. "On this morning, we all want to be American, so we can take a bite of this dream unfolding before our eyes.”
11/9/08 5Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• America's popularity abroad waned dramatically
during the Bush administration, and some voters expressed hopes that in electing Obama, they could restore the country's image. The wave of good feelings since Tuesday night suggests that even before taking office, Obama has made substantial inroads.
11/9/08 6Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• "This may be the beginning of a new world. It
marks the end of old elites and opens the door for new approaches worldwide," an Israeli man in his mid-50s said in Tel Aviv.
• Foreign observers, who paid rapt attention during the long election season, are taking a personal stake in the outcome of a vote a world away. Expectations are high for the 47-year-old Obama, who will take over on January 20 amid a financial collapse and who will preside over two wars on his first day in office.
11/9/08 7Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• "The standing of everybody in the world is going
to be affected by what President Obama does or doesn't do," said Mead, noting that all eyes will be looking to the new president for a way out of the global financial crisis.
• In the Muslim world, the response has been mixed. A journalist with a pan-Arab news channel told FOX News that on election night, workers were going around the newsroom congratulating each other, as if Obama were their president-elect.
11/9/08 8Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Iraqis have expressed skepticism that any rapid
changes will come as a result of the election, but many see their fates ineluctably tied to Obama's foreign policy. "By God, the new American President Obama has promised to pull the troops out. This is in the best interest of the Iraqi people," said one Baghdadi.
11/9/08 9Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Arab heads of state have been more circumspect,
waiting to see whether Obama's Mideast policy will depart significantly from that of the Bush administration, and some newspapers in the Arab world have openly announced their distrust of the president-elect.
• "There is no significant difference between Obama and McCain. They disagree only on the means to achieve America's chief goal, which is to rule for another hundred years," said an editorial in the Saudi daily Al-Watan, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute, which monitors the Arab press.
11/9/08 10Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
congratulated Obama Thursday for his win -- the first time an Iranian leader has welcomed an incoming president since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. And some Iranians, speaking to FOX News, said they were excited by the prospect of the coming administration.
11/9/08 11Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• "I want to congratulate you on Barack Obama's
victory that really turned a new chapter in the world's history -- that an African-American man, decent and intelligent, became president of the world," one Iranian said.
• "This was done in America. Your nation has the credit for it." - Fox News
11/9/08 12Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Credit?• Sorry to break the bad news to Joe the Plumber.
But the winner of Campaign 2008 is Peggy the Moocher. No matter who moves into the White House, Peggy has good reason to do a happy dance. The plain, ugly fact is that both major political parties are committed to spreading the wealth in one form or another. It's all just a question of how much and how quickly.
• Who is Peggy the Moocher? 11/9/08 13Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• She's Peggy Joseph, a voter in Sarasota, Fla., who
exulted earlier this week at a Barack Obama rally that this was "the most memorable time of my life." Why? As she told a Florida reporter on a YouTube video that has been viewed by hundreds of thousands: "Because I never thought this day would ever happen. I won't have to worry about putting gas in my car. I won't have to worry about paying my mortgage. You know. If I help [Obama], he's gonna help me."
11/9/08 14Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Messianic fever grips a segment of the American
populace and media. • A great leader seems to them poised to redeem our
collective sins and change nearly everything, bringing about a new era in which permanent solutions are found to age-old conditions.
• Whenever I watch Barack Obama, listen to his eloquent but nonspecific oratory, and see the near-swooning young people who invariably follow him wherever he goes, I cannot help but think of the pied piper and wonder toward what destination he is marching our youth.
11/9/08 15Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• February 11, 2008• Obama's Politics of Collective Redemption• By Kyle-Anne Shiver• "Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is
promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes not divine, but demonic." Pope Benedict XVIA
11/9/08 16Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Obama is having this pied-piper effect not only
on kids, but also on a large swath of Democrat and not a few independents and Republican voters, too.
• Call me skeptical, but this whole Obama phenomenon seems downright eerie.
• Over and over again, Obama invokes his double mantra: "It's time for change!" and "Yes, we can!"
11/9/08 17Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Obama's name plus one other word:• Obama + messianic 75,200• Obama + savior 226,000• Obama + prophet 312,000• Obama + Christ 504,000• Obama + change 4,540,000• Update:• Obama AND Antichrist = 932,000• Obama AND Savior = 1,710,000
11/9/08 18Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• A number of internet postings indicate that a
great many see Obama in not only political terms, but also wrapped in the untarnished cloak of some vague spiritual-awakening.
• It is quite tempting to assume that Barack Obama simply is harvesting the inevitable fruits of 35 years of dumbed-down, political indoctrination in the guise of education in this country.
11/9/08 19Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• This is dangerous. The problem goes deeper,
right into the human soul.• A lust for transformation is a common feature of
revolutionaries, and when they succeed in grabbing power, the results usually are brutal.
• Less than a century ago, massive numbers of people fell for a different political messiah on the European continent, and they were products of an education system and cultural establishment widely regarded as a world leader.
11/9/08 20Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• That place was, of course, Germany. • And the political messiah promoting "change"
was Adolph Hitler.• Hitler's slogan: "Alles muss anders sein!"
("Everything must be different!")
11/9/08 21Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Hitler used each of these phrases to describe his
own political program:• "A declaration of war against the order of things
which exist, against the state of things which exist, in a word, against the structure of the world which presently exists.”
• "revolutionary creative will" which had "no fixed aim, no permanency, only eternal change.”
• "an ethic of self-sacrifice”• "people's community”• "public need before private greed”• "communally-minded social consciousness"
11/9/08 22Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• All of these expressions came from Adolph Hitler.• Saul Alinsky, one of Obama's primary political
mentors, espoused eerily similar societal admonitions in his book Reveille for Radicals; p. 133 and 105:
• "A People's Organization (later changed to "community organization") is dedicated to an eternal war. It is a war against poverty, misery, delinquency, disease, injustice, hopelessness, despair, and unhappiness."
11/9/08 23Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• "A People's Organization is not a philanthropic
plaything or a social service's ameliorative gesture.
• It is a deep, hard-driving force, striking and cutting at the very roots of all the evils which beset the people...it thinks and acts in terms of social surgery and not cosmetic cover-ups."
11/9/08 24Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• "There is hope, and life is worth living. • There may not be a light at the end of the trail
but they (the masses) have a light in their hands, a light they made themselves, and they know that not only will they themselves have to work out their own destiny but that they themselves can."*
11/9/08 25Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Obama says, "Yes we can!" • change...• Exactly what should change and how is unclear. • Everything?• Time for Tough Questions and Straight Answers
11/9/08 26Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• More than four months ago, when a reporter
noticed that Obama was no longer wearing an American flag lapel pin, and asked if he were making a fashion statement, this was part of Obama's reply:
• "Instead," (of wearing the pin) he said, "I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism."
11/9/08 27Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Well, here we are a week after Super Tuesday
and it seems we are still waiting for Obama to expound upon the "what" and the "how" of this ethereal "change" mantra, to spell out his commitment to "patriotism."
11/9/08 28Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Little has been made in the mainstream press of
the brand of black liberation theology preached by Obama's pastor and spiritual mentor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr., who holds a master's degree on world religions with a focus on Islam, and who has traveled to Middle Eastern countries in the company of Louis Farrakhan. Rev. Wright created and presides over the Center for African Biblical studies, whose mission is African-centered Bible studies:
11/9/08 29Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• "We are an African people, and we remain true to
our native land, the mother continent, the cradle of civilization.”
• Several forms of liberation theology sprouted during the 20th century, all espousing a third way between godless communism and the socialist utopian dream.
• All are predicated upon an acceptance that sin is not individual, but collective, and that sin cannot be overcome through religious conversion, but only by a people's struggle against all injustice.
11/9/08 30Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Congregations of various faiths and
denominations have been used as platforms for collective statist approaches to human redemption.
• The social gospel espoused by religious-left churches in the U.S. is another form of liberation theology, which takes a political route to redemption for man's collective soul.
11/9/08 31Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• According to liberation theologies, God does not
save men. • Man saves himself through a political process of
absolute social justice. • Writing in 2004, as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger,
Pope Benedict had this to say about liberation theology in his book, Truth and Tolerance (p. 116):
11/9/08 32Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• "...this struggle (against all injustice), it was said,
would have to be a political struggle, because the structures (of oppression) were strengthened and maintained by politics. Thus redemption became a political process, for which Marxist philosophy offered the essential directions. It became a task that men themselves could -- indeed had to -- take in hand and became, at the same time, the object of quite practical hopes; faith was changed from ‘theory' into practice, into concrete redeeming action in the liberation process." (emphases mine)
11/9/08 33Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Consider these statements from Obama's campaign
website, contained in his video invitation for all to "join us in changing the Country.”
• "We believe in what this Country can be.”• "In the face of war, we believe there can be peace.”• "In the face of despair, we believe there can be
hope.”• "...America can be one people reaching for what's
possible."
11/9/08 34Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Obama indeed seems to be offering a people's
government solution to all human problems. • He is, after all, running for President of the United
States, not for a pulpit. • Substituting the state for God as provider has been
the inherent common thread in all Marxist regimes.• And in this seemingly redemptive offering, Obama
may be promising what only God can actually deliver, in the form of yet another, more eloquent, version of the same old utopian dream that started with Rousseau and Marx.
11/9/08 35Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Can man successfully redeem himself through
collective transformation and liberation?• Pope Benedict says "No" rather emphatically, in
Truth and Tolerance. Writing of the fall of the Soviet Union:"...where the Marxist ideology of liberation had been consistently applied, a total lack of freedom had developed, whose horrors were now laid bare before the eyes of the entire world. Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes not divine, but demonic."
11/9/08 36Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Coincidentally, Saul Alinsky began his book Rules
for Radicals:• "Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder
acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins -- or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom -- Lucifer."
11/9/08 37Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Attempting to discern true meaning from Obama's
speeches gives one the feeling of having been trapped in a sort of verbal quicksand.
• Hair-pulling levels of frustration await any effort to find any specific meaning.
• A sensation of lethargic sinking into an abyss of abstract gibberish awaits the mind looking for specifics..
• Obama's public statements, his speeches, even his "present" votes in the Illinois legislature leave one dangerously unsure of his true intentions.
11/9/08 38Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Obama's World Tour was planned as the high point
of his campaign, with the candidate retracing the footsteps of great presidents of the past, hobnobbing with world leaders and as one pundit put it, "making the Europeans love us again.”
• Obama drew huge crowds in Berlin where he addressed them, oddly enough, as "fellow citizens of the world."
• It was a typically flowery Obama speech, but it hit an unexpectedly sour note when he dramatically intoned:
11/9/08 39Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• "People of Berlin – people of the world – this is
our moment. This is our time. ... With an eye toward the future, with resolve in our hearts, let us remember this history, and answer our destiny, and remake the world once again.”
• Pundits on both sides are trying to sort it out. It's a great speech, like I said, if somebody is running for president of the world… - Hal Lindsey
11/9/08 40Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Whatever Obama's concrete plans are, they
ought to aligned with his political mentor, Saul Alinsky, and his spiritual mentor and liberation theology specialist, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
• In the absence of any genuine explanations from candidate Obama himself, the change of which he speaks reasonably may be inferred to be quite antithetical to anything even remotely resembling American patriotism.
11/9/08 41Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• And that is a legitimate concern for every
American voter.• Kyle-Anne Shiver is a frequent contributor to
American Thinker. • She welcomes your comments at
[email protected].• Page Printed from:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/02/obamas_politics_of_collective.html at November 07, 2008 - 08:26:03 AM EST
11/9/08 42Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• The “Obama as Messiah” Complex • Posted in New World Order, new age movement:
Obama, by truthspeaker on the November 6, 2008 • We are now the Obamanation……I had no idea until
recently that so many people viewed Obama as a Messiah figure! Now I have to say that either Obama has some great marketing people working for him, or else there is a real spiritual force working here! OR, he actually is doing NLP on the masses! It’s easy to see from the following pictures, videos and quotes.
11/9/08 43Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special
11/9/08 44Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We
are the change that we seek”
11/9/08 45Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• “Many even see in Obama a messiah-like figure,
a great soul, and some affectionately call him Mahatma Obama.”– Dinesh Sharma
• “We just like to say his name. We are considering taking it as a mantra.”– Chicago Sun-Times
• “A Lightworker — An Attuned Being with Powerful Luminosity and High-Vibration Integrity who will actually help usher in a New Way of Being”– Mark Morford
11/9/08 46Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• “What Barack Obama has accomplished is the
single most extraordinary event that has occurred in the 232 years of the nation’s political history”– Jesse Jackson, Jr.
• “This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”– Barack Obama
11/9/08 47Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• “Does it not feel as if some special hand is
guiding Obama on his journey, I mean, as he has said, the utter improbability of it all?”– Daily Kos
• “He communicates God-like energy…”– Steve Davis (Charleston, SC)
• “Not just an ordinary human being but indeed an Advanced Soul”- Commentator @ Chicago Sun Times
11/9/08 48Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• “I’ll do whatever he says to do. I’ll collect paper
cups off the ground to make his pathway clear.”– Halle Berry
• “A quantum leap in American consciousness”– Deepak Chopra
• “He is not operating on the same plane as ordinary politicians. . . . the agent of transformation in an age of revolution, as a figure uniquely qualified to open the door to the 21st century.” – Gary Hart
11/9/08 49Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• “Barack Obama is our collective representation
of our purest hopes, our highest visions and our deepest knowings . . . He’s our product out of the all-knowing quantum field of intelligence.”– Eve Konstantine
• “This is bigger than Kennedy. . . . This is the New Testament.” | “I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don’t have that too often. No, seriously. It’s a dramatic event.”– Chris Matthews
11/9/08 50Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• “[Obama is ] creative imagination which coupled
with brilliance equals wisdom . . . [He is] the man for this time.”– Toni Morrison
• “Obama’s finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don’t even really inspire. They elevate. . . . He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh . . . Obama is, at his best, able to call us back to our highest selves.”– Ezra Klein
11/9/08 51Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• “Obama has the capacity to summon heroic
forces from the spiritual depths of ordinary citizens and to unleash therefrom a symphonic chorus of unique creative acts whose common purpose is to tame the soul and alleviate the great challenges facing mankind.”– Gerald Campbell
11/9/08 52Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• “We’re here to evolve to a higher plane . . . he is
an evolved leader . . . [he] has an ear for eloquence and a Tongue dipped in the Unvarnished Truth.”– Oprah Winfrey
• “I would characterize the Senate race as being a race where Obama was, let’s say, blessed and highly favored. That’s not routine. There’s something else going on. I think that Obama, his election to the Senate, was divinely ordered. . . . I know that that was God’s plan.”– Bill Rush
11/9/08 53Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• “Speaking in February of the man she knows better
than anyone else does, Michelle Obama said that her husband, Illinois Senator and candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination Barack Obama, is the only candidate for president who understands that before America can solve its problems, Americans have to fix their "broken souls.”
• She also said that her husband's unique understanding of the state of souls of the American people makes him uniquely qualified to be President.
11/9/08 54Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• “Obama can do what his opponent in the
Democratic race Senator Hillary Clinton, and Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, cannot do.
• He can heal his countrymen's broken souls. He will redeem them.” - Obama the Savior By Caroline Glick
11/9/08 55Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Messiah In Our MidstThe One, the Anointed. By
Jonah Goldberg • Is Barack Obama the Messiah?Before we answer
that question, let me vent for a moment. In 2000 I was cruelly denied the Pulitzer despite being the only columnist in America to ask the pressing question: Is Al Gore an alien? The evidence was there for all to see. He was born nine months after the mysterious alien sighting at Roswell, N.M.
11/9/08 56Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• His weird syntax and verbal rhythms are
otherworldly. • He often refers to “earth” or “this planet” as if
he’s just passing through, and he once angrily complained to the Washington Post that it had printed a picture of the earth from outer space “upside down.”
• There is no “upside down” in space — unless Gore had his childhood view in mind.
11/9/08 57Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• At least I’m not in the wilderness this time. Lots
of people have pondered the possibility that Barack is our Divine Redeemer. There are websites dedicated to the question “Is Barack Obama the Messiah?” Google that question and you’ll get more than 35,000 hits. (Enter just the words “Messiah” and “Obama” and you’ll get nearly 10 times that.)
11/9/08 58Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• But there’s more concrete evidence. Since Obama
declared his candidacy, there have been remarkably few biblical plagues. And lions and lambs seem open to bilateral negotiations.
• Obama’s apostles are hard to dismiss. Oprah simply calls him “The One,” because “we need politicians who know how to be the truth.” (Jesus says in John 14:6 “I am the way, the truth …”)
• Oprah goes on to say Obama will help us “evolve to a higher plane,” which would put Obama in the role of our Intelligent Designer.
11/9/08 59Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• According to the New York Times, Obama’s
volunteers are taught to eschew discussions of the issues and instead “testify” about how they “came to Obama.”
• For many, he’s no retro-redeemer, but a 21st-century savior, a Matrix-messiah and Neo for our modern-day Nineveh. Self-help guru Deepak Chopra dubs Obama “a quantum leap in American consciousness,” while prominent “leadership coach” Eve Konstantine assures us that, “He’s our product out of the all-knowing quantum field of intelligence.”
11/9/08 60Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Obama willing, I will never be stuck next to these people
on a plane.• Michelle Obama is arguably Obamanity’s greatest
evangelist, even though she has a streak of Old Testament smiting and wrath to her.
• She insists her husband has redeemed the entire nation (hence her newfound pride in America).
• She proclaims her husband is the sort of leader who will fix our broken souls.
• But don’t hope for grace on the cheap. “The change Barack is talking about is hard,” she insists, “so don’t get too excited, because Barack is going to demand that you, too, be different.”
11/9/08 61Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Those of you who thought we had a Second
Amendment to keep government from fixing your soul are so 20th century.
• Evolve already.• And then there’s the Gospel according to Obama
himself. • In January, he told Dartmouth students that they
will know to vote for him because “… a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany, and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Barack.”
11/9/08 62Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• When asked in an interview what sin is, Obama
defined it as “Being out of alignment with my values.”
• Apparently, the editor failed to capitalize the “M” in “My.”
• But such mistakes can be forgiven, for Hillary has been cast out and the nomination is nigh. So we can get cracking on fixing America — and ourselves.
11/9/08 63Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• “I am absolutely certain,” Obama proclaimed in
his victory speech, “that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs for the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal. This was the moment — this was the time — when we came together to remake this great nation …”
11/9/08 64Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Now, if you’re under the mistaken impression
that sick people had some care, or that a few jobs were to be found prior to June 2008, or that maybe — just maybe — the oceans don’t rise and fall with the election returns, or that America itself doesn’t need “remaking,” you’re not one of the “ones we’ve been waiting for.”
11/9/08 65Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• But you might be one of the ones Al Gore has
been waiting for. You’d understand if you realized “Earth in the Balance” is a cookbook.—
• Jonah Goldberg is the author of Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning.© 2008 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
• — Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online.
11/9/08 66Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Messiah Obama His Traveling Salvation ShowBy
John D. Turner• Women moan and pass out when he speaks. Chris
Matthews feels “this thrill going up [his] leg”. • There is even a website called “Is Barack Obama the
Messiah?” which has been around for over a year now.
• Having talked to folks, and read numerous articles, I have to conclude that it isn’t just me; the Obama campaign really is taking on all the aspects of a religious revival.
11/9/08 67Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• I find this, quite frankly, both amazing and quite
scary. • A quick Google search on “Obama Messiah”
turns up 246,000 hits. While I obviously have not researched each and every one, a quick look at the initial few pages is instructive, as many of the hits are dealing with the actual concept that Obama is, or may be, the actual Messiah. True, they are pretty much tongue in cheek. Some deal with the obamamessiah blog site, or the article published in Slate.
11/9/08 68Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Similarities are noted between aspects of his
campaign, (and how his campaign is reported), and religious revivals. And of course, there are the references to Chris Matthews Leg (which if you Google that, returns a whopping 494,000 hits), which was probably the biggest influence in the “is Obama the Messiah” articles to date.
11/9/08 69Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Much of his appeal seems to hinge on image and
symbolism, not substance. If you ask the typical Obama supporter what accomplishments he has had while in public office, few can give a coherent response. Usually about all you can summon up is “I like him” or “he’s for hope”, or “I believe in him”; a response more often heard when referring to God or Jesus Christ. There is a reason why it is hard to put a finger on what he has accomplished; he has only held office as a U.S. Senator for two years, and for a large chunk of that he has been running for president. He really doesn’t have much in the way of accomplishments, or experience for that matter.
11/9/08 70Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• When you listen to the comments made about
Barak Obama you begin to wonder if what you are hearing is really about a political campaign or the establishment of a new religion. Is Barak running for Commander-in-Chief, or, at least in the eyes of some of his followers, is it really some kind of mystical Theologian-in-Chief? Or a combination of the two? Here are some examples:
11/9/08 71Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• “[Obama is] creative imagination which coupled
with brilliance equals wisdom…[He is] the man for this time.” –Toni Morrison
• “Obama has the capacity to summon heroic forces from the spiritual depths of ordinary citizens and to unleash therefrom a symphonic chorus of unique creative acts whose common purpose is to tame the soul and alleviate the great challenges facing mankind.” –Gerald Campbell
11/9/08 72Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• You kind of get the idea that were Barak to
abandon his candidacy and decide to found a religion instead, millions would follow his banner. Can you imagine conservatives speaking this way about a Republican candidate for President? Can you imagine what the media would say if they did? And yet, some of the ones quoted above are in the media! Conservatives don’t even wax this poetic about Ronald Reagan!
11/9/08 73Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• And that is one of the reasons why to me, this is so
frightening. Charismatic leaders are always problematical. They can be a force for good or ill. Examples abound throughout history. Perhaps the two most recent that come to mind are Adolph Hitler and Benito Mussolini; both charismatic leaders, both of whom were elected to power by cheering crowds of their fellow countrymen. Neither however had the religious element attached to them. For the religious side, we can point to such as David Koresh and Jim Jones as some of the more recent charismatic religious figures that turned out horribly wrong.
11/9/08 74Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• I am not saying that Barak Obama is akin to any of
these. I am just trying to illustrate how things can come off the tracks when one waxes euphoric on a charismatic high and fails to look at the substance that lies beneath the pretty words and high-sounding phrases. And I really don’t want to be in the position of someday being able to look back at current events with historical hindsight and wonder “what were all those people thinking anyway?”, as I see the big smoking crater where my country once stood, and the graveyard where my children and those I held dear are buried.”
11/9/08 75Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• The Antichrist!--also described in the Bible as the
"son of perdition" & the "beast"!• Like Hitler, who was one of history's antichrist
archetypes, he will have great charisma & speaking ability, "a mouth speaking great things”.
11/9/08 76Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• The Antichrist will rise to power on a wave of
world euphoria, as he temporarily saves the world from its desperate economic, military & political problems with a brilliant 7-year plan for world peace, economic stability & religious freedom.
11/9/08 77Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• His power base will include the leading nations
of Europe, whose leaders, the Bible says, will "give their power & strength unto the beast.”
• The Bible even gives some clues about his personal characteristics.
• The prophet Daniel wrote that the Antichrist "does not regard the desire of women." This could imply that he is either celibate or a homosexual.
11/9/08 78Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Daniel also tells us that he will have a "fierce
countenance”, and will be "more stout than his fellows"--more proud and boastful.
• The 7-year peace-pact (or covenant) that is engineered by the Antichrist is spoken of a number of times in the Bible.
11/9/08 79Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Under the final terms of the Covenant, Jerusalem
will likely be declared an international city to which Judaism, Islam & Christianity will have equal rights.
• Scripture indicates that the Jews will be permitted to rebuild their Temple on Mt. Moriah, where they revive their ancient rituals of animal sacrifice.
11/9/08 80Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• According to prophecy the Antichrist will not
only be a master of political intrigue, but also a military genius.
• Daniel describes several major wars that he fights during his 7-year reign, apparently against the U.S. & Israel, who will oppose him during the second half of his reign.
• For awhile, most of the world is going to think the Antichrist is wonderful, as he will seem to have solved so many of the world's problems.
11/9/08 81Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• But , three-and-a-half years into his seven year reign he
will break the covenant & invade Israel from the North.• At this time he will make Jerusalem his world capitol &
outlaw all religions, except the worship of himself & his image.
• The Bible says that the Antichrist will sit in the Jewish Temple exalting himself as God & demanding to be worshipped.
• It is at this time that the Antichrist imposes his infamous "666" one-world credit system...
11/9/08 82Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Scripture teaches Antichrist to be a
political/religious individual, yet to come in the future who is opposed to God and God's Christ and God's church. Although the only places in Scripture the name Antichrist is used are I and II John (I John 2:18,22,4:3, II John 7), the Bible is replete with instruction regarding the reality we call Antichrist.
11/9/08 83Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• The key passages are Daniel 7, 8, 11; Matthew
24; II Thessalonians 2; and Revelation 13, 17 and 18 -- where Antichrist is referred to as a beast, a little horn, a false Christ, that wicked one, and the man of sin.
11/9/08 84Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Antichrist's name gives us indication of what he is. He is
Anti-christ • As every Jew knows, the name Christ is simply the Greek
translation of the Hebrew Messiah, whom the Jews expected to come in God's name to save them. The Messiah, or Christ, is the one anointed by God and qualified to carry out a certain work in God's name. Christ's work is to redeem God's people from sin and death by His own death, and to renew God's creation as a creation of righteousness and peace.
11/9/08 85Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• The man Jesus of Nazareth (died circa AD 33) is this
Christ. He is God's anointed, the servant of Jehovah. He is qualified to do the work of redeeming God's people and renewing creation. The confession of the church down through the ages is, "Jesus is the Christ.”
• Antichrist is a false Christ, according to Matthew 24:24. He claims to be anointed by God with the Holy Spirit and claims to be qualified to do the work in God's name of redeeming God's people and renewing the creation.
• But he is not. He is a liar. His claims are false. He is a false Christ.
11/9/08 86Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Antichrist goes about his business by speaking
the lie. II Thessalonians 2 says that he comes "with all deceivableness of unrighteousness." Revelation 13:12 says, "and he spoke as a dragon...." Revelation 17 tells us that he was a false prophet, a prophet being one whose calling it is to speak and to teach. The armies of the world may have guns and tanks and bombs to bring people into submission; but the power of speech and ideas is a mighty power.
11/9/08 87Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Now he uses a "dragon" who speaks crafty, lying
words. • His speeches will be heard by millions who will
hang on his persuasive rhetoric. • The content as well as the form of his speech will
attract. • Like most false prophets, he will even be sincere
and passionate. • But he is a liar.
11/9/08 88Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• He adds dashes of truth to the mix, so that his lie
tastes like truth. • He will use all the right catchwords, using the
language of the church, even throwing in a Bible text or two.
• But he is the ultimate Liar, and will deceive many.
11/9/08 89Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• He will use every tool available: school teachers,
politicians, news broadcasters, artists, musicians, scientists and doctors, lawyers and businessmen.
• All will be pressed into the service of Antichrist to deceive men.
• But especially he will use those whose calling it is to persuade and to teach -- men who claim to be preachers of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
11/9/08 90Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• What is this message that has such power to
deceive? • What is it that is preached by the now-apostate
churches once rooted in true Christianity, that stirs up mankind to this ecumenical worship?
• What gospel will attract the hordes of men and women?
• What good news will knit the souls of such diverse peoples and nations and tongues?
11/9/08 91Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• The gospel of Antichrist is humanism -- the
happiness of man, the glory of man, the peace and prosperity, the health and wealth of man.
• The number of the beast, do not forget, is 6-6-6, the number of man.
• But we remind you, the Antichrist deceives. He will not tip his hand by declaring publicly, "I am the Antichrist."
11/9/08 92Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• He will not claim that there is no God, no Christ,
no salvation, and that the message of the Bible is a lie.
• But he will say, "I am your Messiah; you are God; and an earthly life of peace and prosperity, of health and happiness -- that is salvation."
• The distant rumblings of Antichrist's thunder are growing louder.
11/9/08 93Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Performing miracles, Antichrist will establish
himself and validate his claim as God's anointed. • This is the emphasis of II Thessalonians 2. • Men have always performed miracles to
establish their authority, presenting them as the credentials of their divine appointment.
• Moses did in Egypt. • Elijah did on Mount Carmel. • Jesus Christ and His apostles did.
11/9/08 94Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• So will Antichrist. • Revelation 13:13 says that the second beast
"doeth great wonders..." and verse 14 that "he deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast."
11/9/08 95Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special• Matthew 24:24 indicates the same thing: "For there
shall arise false Christ’s, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect."
• This is the teaching of II Thessalonians 2:9, "even him whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders...."
• The works of Antichrist will be the works of Satan, who has power beyond the natural ability of man.
11/9/08 96Post-election Secial-001 and 002
Post-election Special
11/9/08 97Post-election Secial-001 and 002