![]() ("Sure he walks on water, but did you see how much he splashes?") Regarding the failure to mention Jesus Christ in the eulogy: yes, he was eulogizing a preacher, but he is still the President of the United States and while his comments may have been incredibly personal, they are inseparable from his position as president.Īs much as evangelicals may think otherwise, we are not a "Christian nation". But the comments by the evangelical Christian and the born southerner who has worked in politics reminds me that no matter what Obama says or does, he'll be criticized. ![]() I was not surprised by the supportive comments, as this was no doubt the finest speech I've heard by a president (I'm 63, so that gets me back easily to Nixon, a bit of a stretch and we can include Johnson). ![]() When I wrote back to ask the reader how she would like to be identified, she mentioned her church background and added: So your evangelical reader may think his motives for preaching are discredited by his failure to use directly the name of Jesus Christ - but even without that direct reference, the Gospel was most certainly preached, which as Paul tells the Philippians, is all that matters. His aim, or one of them, was to refresh the spirits of grieving and struggling Christians, and to articulate their state of grace in the presence of all the people. He did all that without any heavy-handed exegesis, which is remarkable in itself. ![]() Let us look to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising its shame, and sat down at the right hand of God." But he's surely aware that this passage is a double-edged sword (also a phrase from Hebrews) and presents a challenge to those who know Scripture and might say "Jesus is your Lord, and I am too."ģ) And lastly, he reminds his biblically-literate hearers of the passage that follows directly from Hebrews 11: "Therefore since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us throw aside all weight, and the sin that clings so closely, and run with patience the race that is set before us. Nor is he going to test the attention span of those who don't know or care about Christian theology. He's not going to teach his grandmother to suck eggs. Obama doesn't need to invoke this explicitly - he's come among the congregation of Mother Emanuel without the credentials of all those pastors behind him. Jesus is Lord, which means nobody else is. Again, in the struggle of black Christians in America, Jesus' supremacy is vital, first because it comes from his suffering (and his presence with them in their suffering), and also because Jesus' supremacy surpasses all the other supremacies that are currently acting as the oppressor. I noticed that Obama accomplished three things by alluding to Hebrews 11 as his text to preach from (and I can't think of his speech as anything but a sermon or his performance as anything but preaching, because that's what it was).ġ) By likening the Nine to the heroes of faith who "did not receive what was promised but saw it from a distance," Obama invoked the spirituality of the struggle of black American Christians and asserted its legitimacy - an assertion that was understood by his immediate audience and introduced to the wider audience.Ģ) He brought into the picture the preceding sequence in the letter to the Hebrews that leads up to this passage, which is a densely-argued case for the supremacy of Jesus Christ over all other powers and authorities. I wouldn't have written in myself, but I did want to bring up something in connection with your evangelical correspondent's observation that Obama did not explicitly refer to Jesus Christ in his sermon, and your observation that he was comfortable enough with Scripture to reference his text without citing it. Having been spellbound by the sermon Obama preached in Charleston on Friday, I've been following closely the analysis of it and am grateful you chose to weigh in, and also to publish readers' views on its impact.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |