In spite of last week’s claims in Turkey that his country is not a Judeo-Christian nation, President Barack Obama will learn soon enough that erasing religious beliefs from the human heart is not a “Yes We Can” kind of mandate.
“One of the great strengths of the United States,” the President said, “is...we have a very large Christian population--we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.”
That may be his take on America, or even an ambitious dream, but both concepts are rooted outside of reality.
The Turkish audience who applauded Obama’s words would have to face the reality that even a president cannot deny the millions of Americans who are Christian.
Christianity is not a medal or an award that can be removed at will.
Within a week of the president’s claims in Turkey, data shows very clearly that American Christians have a very deep-rooted faith.
“Nearly two-thirds of Americans (63%) and three-quarters of Catholic Americans (74%) plan to observe Easter by attending Church services”, according to a newly released Knights of Columbus-Marist poll.
Perhaps Obama is overrating the signs of Christianity under attack in the U.S. and elsewhere.
As George Chiasson, of Atlanta, Georgia so aptly put it in a letter to Canada Free Press, “In the early days of the Christian Church many believers were crucified, fed to the lions in the Coliseum and suffered worse for their faith. They faced torture and death rather than denounce their faith. They met in catacombs and graveyards in order to preserve their faith in Jesus Christ. Now two millennium later we remove Crosses and Bibles from Churches and Chaplets because of the chance that somebody might be offended.
“Onward Christian Soldiers” seems to have been left behind and replaced by “We believe if the State says we can.” These are dangerous times in which we live.”
In modern times Christians are tortured, imprisoned and slaughtered for what they believe in Communist China and in Islamist countries.
Christianity, or any other religion for that matter, is not something that a president, no matter how highly held by a cult, can scrub from existence.
Even if Obama someday succeeds in what appears to be his plan to drag America kicking and screaming into a wholly Socialist state, people will still worship the Almighty, likely even more so.
The pages of history prove that dictatorial governments and repressive regimes determined to crush religious beliefs have failed before. If they defund churches, ridicule their congregants or even burn the churches down, people will gather to worship in fields and in private homes.
In the fields of Communist Poland, Karol Józef Wojtyła (Pope John Paul II) said Mass in a farmer’s field in all seasons, all weather.
Even if worshipping the Creator in the privacy of fields and homes was to be crushed by government, people will still worship in the privacy of their own hearts.
Obama can tear up the Constitution, he can set terrorists free from Guatanamo Bay to roam the streets of America, he can form his own Army, he can even make adulating masses believe that’s it’s possible for him to spend his way out of Recession.
But in his lifetime, Obama cannot expunge Christianity from the souls of those who believe.
Meantime, it’s Easter Sunday, 2009 and Christ is Risen.
Judi McLeod——
Bio and Archives
-- Judi McLeod, Founder, Owner and Editor of Canada Free Press, is an award-winning journalist with more than 30 years’ experience in the print and online media. A former Toronto Sun columnist, she also worked for the Kingston Whig Standard. Her work has appeared throughout the ‘Net, including on Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.
