An Open Letter to President Obama

Dear Mr. President:

I am one of the pastors at First Baptist Church of Farmersville, Texas. For many years, our church has housed and administered a food pantry. Ours is the only food pantry operating in Farmersville. During the years of your administration, the demands upon our food pantry have greatly increased. Several months ago, our church initiated a conversation about the possibility of moving the food pantry into its own organization, separate from the church. We believe that the food pantry would benefit from such an organizational change, and we were well on the way to formalizing this decision.

At this moment, those plans are completely on hold, and you are the person responsible. Your recent actions regarding Obamacare have made it clear to us that you and a sizable number of people in your political party do not regard the religious liberty of church-related ministries as inalienable rights that you must respect. Rather, you have signaled an intent to withdraw religious liberty from church-related ministries. Today you would force such ministries to fund abortifacient drugs contrary to their religious convictions. Since our food pantry does not employ anyone, your current directive would not affect our food pantry…yet. But once it becomes a settled matter that church-related ministries do not merit the same level of religious liberty that a church enjoys, then we can hardly anticipate all of the draconian dictates yet to come that WOULD affect our food pantry.

And so, the only wise course of action is for FBC Farmersville to refrain from allowing ANY of our ministries to achieve separate legal status from our church. This may not be the ideal circumstance for our ministries, but we're not confident that your policies will allow us to do what is in the best interest of serving those in Farmersville who are hungry. Perhaps you have not considered the overwhelmingly negative impact your astonishingly narrow construal of religious liberty would have upon church-related ministries. It seemed important to me to make the harm done by your policies clear to all.

The Sparks that Set on Fire Every Heart

The news today from Arkansas's First Congressional District, where I grew up, is that Representative Marion Berry (not to be confused with Marion Barry) will not seek a seventh term in office. It's a bad year for holders of that office—Berry's predecessor in the seat is present Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln, who is consistently numbered among the most vulnerable Democrat senators up for re-election this year. She will likely fall to Gilbert Baker's campaign this Fall.

Of course, the retirement of yet another Democrat lawmaker is hardly news worthy of blogging considering the pallor of the Donkey's complexion these days. What is remarkable is what Berry had to say about the attitude of our President. For the complete story together with commentary, see James Taranto's story in the Wall Street Journal, aptly entitled "You've Got Me, Babe." The money quote: "Well, the big difference here and in '94 was you've got me."

Title quote by Dante Alighieri, Inferno 6.73-75

Obama Solution for Disorderly Conduct

The White House has announced a new proposed solution for dealing with people guilty of disorderly conduct—Get 'em drunk.

That always improves people's behavior, right? So President Obama plans to have Dr. Henry Louis Gates and Sgt James Crowder of the Cambridge PD over to the White House for a brewski. Yeah…that'll help them be more civil toward one another. Who knows? Maybe they'll grab a brew and discuss their view of theology. Maybe somebody in the trio will get saved by the miraculous Holy Spirit power of fermented drink.

In other news, the new Middle East Peace Plan reportedly involves slipping some PCP to Bebe Netanyahu and Salam Fayyad.

Kudos to President Obama

We are receiving reports that the United States Navy has killed three pirates and rescued Richard Phillips, captain of the Maersk Alabama (see Fox News report here). Navy SEAL snipers reportedly shot and killed all of the pirates holding Phillips and then brought him back aboard his ship.

President Obama has done the right thing. The next right thing that he should do is to go on television and announce that any piracy inflicted upon an American flagged vessel will receive precisely the same treatment.

How do we determine that this is the right thing to do? Pacifists will not be pleased. And indeed, there is a place for pacifism of a sort. Had First Baptist Church of Farmersville organized an armed band to sail out to the Somali coast and execute the pirates, then we would have done wrong. But government stands in a different role than do individual believers. Those who do evil are to be afraid of the government, "for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who practices wrath on the one who practices evil." (Romans 13:4b) The purpose for which God has ordained government to bear this sword of warfare and capital punishment is for "the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right." (1 Peter 2:14b)

Did the United States of America have authority in this matter? Yes, for the Maersk Alabama is an American flagged vessel.

Were the captain and crew of the Maersk Alabama people "who do right" who are worthy of governmental "praise" and protection? Yes. They were doing their jobs. Incidentally, the Alabama was carrying 400 containers of food as relief supplies destined for Mombasa, Kenya. That's a pretty noble purpose, but any person pursuing any worthy line of work would be equally worthy of the praise and protection of the government.

Were the pirates "evildoers" worthy of meeting the governmental "sword" of "punishment" as they did? Yes. They are thieves and extortionists and murderers.

So, President Obama did exactly the right thing, and having done good, he deserves praise just as much as he owes it to innocents and those who do good under his domain.

Seems Like We've Been Here Before?

Thanks to PGBB commenter Scott Shaffer for first tipping me off, and for Dr. Albert Mohler for speaking so plainly against President Obama's government censorship of public prayers.

Apparently, President Obama has staffers engaged in the task of reviewing, critiquing, and revising(?) public prayers offered at official presidential events.

It all seems very inefficient to me. I mean, how many hours are these staffers having to put into prayer scrutiny at taxpayer expense? Wouldn't it work much better for the Obama White House just to compile a book of approved prayers? Then they could ask Congress to approve it as the national prayer-book. Prayers offered from the text with the President's imprimatur would be legal to offer in public.

It's so simple; it's amazing that nobody's thought of it before.

Time for a New "Bloudy Tenent"?

Roger Williams's most famous work is entitled (in part, and you can thank me for sparing you the whole thing) The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience.

A story in today's New York Times (see here) reports that President Barack Obama intends to reverse regulations protecting pro-life doctors and hospitals from persecution for the cause of their consciences. Let us pray that something might happen to his conscience to remind him how atrocious it is to persecute someone for mere adherence to the sixth commandment.

Really, this case is not even about whether one is pro-life or pro-abortion. I support the participation of our nation in just wars, but I also support the liberty not to take up arms that we give those with conscientious objections to war. Surely our pro-abortion President and the other pro-abortion elements in our society can reach down deep into themselves and find some way to extend this same sort of protection to medical professionals?

Maybe we need some modern-day Roger Williamses to make that argument convincingly and take it to the people?

Obama, God, and the State of the Union

Some will cheer; some will weep; some will wonder why anyone keeps up.

With last night's speech it has become clear that the day of frequent reference to God in presidential speeches is over. Apart from the obligatory benediction at the end, there was no mention of the Lord in the (non-)State of the Union address.

This represents not only a departure from the era of President Bush, but also a departure from the pro-religious tone that we saw in candidate-Obama as early as his 2004 DNC speech in Boston.

The Tragic Irony of President Obama

A blight now exists on a proud moment for the United States of America. In this land our own Constitution once refused to acknowledge our black citizens as people worthy of equal protection under the law. Now, in an awe-inspiring moment, one who would not universally have been acknowledged as a person in 1792 now sits in the Oval Office as the leader of our nation. Of this, our nation can be proud.

Nevertheless, the blight on this accomplishment is revealed in President Obama's statement yesterday. Just two days into his term, President Obama has demonstrated his willingness to free one oppressed group from their oppression by shoving another oppressed group into an even worse fate. He who two centuries ago would have been relegated to slavery by those who denied his personhood will now willingly (even eagerly?) deny personhood to millions of other human beings and condemn them not to slavery but to extermination.

This is indeed a high price to pay for victory. Shame on him. Shame on us all.