A Conservative Viewpoint - Christians Reaching Tipping Point

Article by Bob Steinburg
- Edenton, North Carolina: Cradle of the Colony

President Barack Obama recently appointed Harry Knox, a gay-rights activist and a critic of Pope Benedict XVI to the federal government’s faith-based initiative board. George W. Bush’s faith-based efforts focused on religious non-profit organizations. Cyber News Service reports that Obama will now target efforts toward community groups, religious and secular.

Knox will be joined by the Rev. Otis Moss Jr., whose son, the Rev. Otis Moss III, replaced the Rev. Jeremiah Wright as pastor at Trinity Church in Chicago. Also on the board are the Rev. Jim Wallis, who has been called the “leader of the religious left” by the New York Times, and Rabbi David Sapperstein, who denounced the U. S. Supreme Court decision in 2007 for upholding the ban on partial-birth abortions.

In January, Obama repealed rules that previously restricted federal tax dollars going to international organizations that promote or provide overseas abortions.

The Obama administration is also considering removing the Department of Health and Human Service’s conscience regulation - a regulation that protects health care workers against pressure or intimidation to perform medical procedures that oppose their conscience such as abortion and euthanasia. Yet, anyone declaring themselves a conscientious objector to avoid military service may continue to do so. It appears that when it comes to abortion and euthanasia there could be a double standard.

Obama continues to attempt filling his cabinet posts with tax dodgers and others with questionable ties. Fox News reported that Obama’s health secretary nominee, Democratic Gov. Katherine Sebelius of Kansas received three times more money in donations to her campaigns from radical late-term abortionist Dr. George Tiller than she initially admitted. Her ties are disturbing to pro-life conservatives.

It’s obvious the Obama administration is veering hard to the left both socially and fiscally. Liberal Democrats like John Kerry, Teddy Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are driving a liberal agenda the likes of which this nation has never seen; nor perhaps, ever imagined possible.

Those on the left know how to play hardball when it comes to promoting their agenda. Anyone who opposes their initiatives is labeled a racist, hypocrite, bigot, homophobe or on a good day, all of the above. Conservatives hate homosexuality, Latinos, atheists and all other minority groups according to their outlandish liberal rhetoric. The mightiest weapon in the left’s arsenal is to frame any dissent as being politically incorrect, justifying in their minds the stifling of dissent or meaningful discourse.

Roger Hedgecock, a conservative talk radio host and former mayor of San Diego, recently posted an unclassified document by the Department of Homeland Security on the Liberty Papers blog entitled; Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Radicalization and Recruitment.

This is a sweeping indictment of conservatives. But there is no empirical evidence or data in this report to validate. Up until the tea parties, the “silent conservative majority” appeared to have been asleep. For those on the left who believe these peaceful demonstrations were simply an aberration, the continuing fallout from this DHS report should ultimately put that assertion to rest. That could be bad news for liberal Democrats and a few wayward Republicans in the upcoming`10 off year elections.

Columnist Michelle Malkin says, “In Obama land there are no coincidences. It is no coincidence that Tea Party bashing left-wing blogs compare the Tea Party movement to, ironically, a former domestic terrorist group.”

The Weather Underground was a terrorist left-wing movement co-founded by Obama “acquaintance” Bill Ayers in1969. It operated through the mid-70s. This group evolved by declaring a state of war against the U. S. government; blowing up public buildings resulting in the death of a police officer and orchestrating riots and a jail-break.

Looking at many of the signs and banners at tea parties, it became obvious that this protest was about more than tax, spend and waste. It was also about values.

For some on the left to infer that hundreds of thousands of patriotic Americans “peacefully” protesting their outrage with government spending and the all out assault by the left on Judeo-Christian values, to a domestic terrorist group and/or extremists, is not only hypocritical, but ludicrous.

The CIA World Fact Book states that the U. S. population at the end of `08 was 316 million. The number of Christians here is estimated to be 240 million. Yet the “Christian majority” finds their values under a continuous siege by the calculating efforts of a distinct “liberal minority.” The left uses many of the tenets of the Christian faith against them. Love thy neighbor, turn the other cheek and forgive those who trespass against us, they remind the faithful. Christians must understand how those beliefs are being exploited by the left to further their agenda.

In any social struggle there reaches a tipping point. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., a registered Republican, led millions of disenfranchised black Americans in their struggle to secure equal civil-rights. King peacefully channeled their indignation and resentment into a mighty fortress of peaceful resistance that could no longer be ignored nor denied.

The tea parties may also become a harbinger for continued peaceful protests by millions of folks who are fed up with government waste, fraud, corruption and excess. Many also sense that the Judeo-Christian value system, the bedrock of this great republic, is in danger of slipping away because of the liberals vision for a more secular and amoral society.

In the Gospel of John, even Jesus, the example of peace and forgiveness to all of mankind, tipped over the tables in the temple when he had had enough of the fiscal and moral extortion that was taking place before his very eyes. Christians in this country may be nearing their tipping point as well.

For Libertarians who think of ourselves as Christians politics is a tough choice nowadays. The Democrat Party has long been the choice of Christians who think they have the right to make it mandatory under law to "help our fellow man". For a party that so openly denigrates the very idea of a God, it is curious that progressives demand legal titheing to the state for welfare.

Yet because of the backlash against the progressive judiciary's institution of abortion at will with absolutely no restrictions, Republicans have also become almost as determined to legalize the punishment of sin by the state. For those of us who respect God granted "free will", the choice between the parties is tough. Where do we find support for the idea that sin is personal and not intended to be made a law? Where do we find support for the concept that Christian Charity will be granted to the sinner who is trying to deal with life's rough choices and can do so privately between their conscience and their God?

Nevertheless, Bob is right when he says Christians are reaching the breaking point. It is not just that Barack Obama and his Alinsky style of lying and deceit, using the subversion of democracy to destroy America, is unacceptable. It is due to the fact that the attacks on Christians by Democrats are so openly contemptuous and so personally insulting. How can anyone who thinks of themselves as a Democrat fail to be embarrassed at the hatred the liberals in their party openly spew at Republicans? Do they think that they can pretend they are not accountable for the actions of their partners in politics? Barack Obama is a master at aligning himself with evil partners and then insisting when it is convenient that you can't prove he agrees with them. True Christians are getting sick of this hypocrisy and double standard by Democrats.

The time to stand up and be counted is coming fast.