Barack Obama missed a leadership opportunity with his church!
Bill Falzett III
June 02, 2008
Recently I reunited with an old buddy of mine. In the years since High School we had gone our separate ways, and he had used his time to become a Baptist minister. He was evidently very successful, and had become something of a nationally recognized evangelical speaker. We met for lunch one afternoon and visited a couple hours. During our visit, he described to me an experience he had with a church in our old home town.
He had taken over the Sr. Pastor position a couple years prior, and had pushed the church in a new direction. His mission was one of Christian good works, which was largely defined by rehabilitation and assistance for local drug addicts and alcoholics. He directed his energy and the resources of the church toward this mission. By all indications, his programs were a success, because pretty soon all the drug addicts, alcoholics and other social deviants started showing up for services on Sundays. Suddenly, persons who had been members for 20 years found themselves in their Sunday-best sitting next to foul-smelling indigent types who had lost most of their teeth along with their dignity to crystal meth. When this began to happen the old-school congregants expressed their displeasure with the new direction of the church. It turned out their tolerance for these charitable aspects of Christianity were rather limited. In response to the resulting harsh criticism, my friend chose to leave the church and move on to greener pastures. It was his feeling that these persons were hypocrites, and their disdain unacceptably un-Christian. He has since founded another church on what he believes to be more amenable foundations.
I was struck by this episode, and turned it over in my head for a long time. I found it rather ironic that my friend found the intolerance of the veteran congregants to be intolerable, while finding the sins of the addict to be worthy of effort to reform. In my estimation, leaving the church was the wrong answer. I believe that to remain true to his Christian values, my friend should have stayed on at the church and exercised his leadership to show the old congregants the error of their ways. If one is in the business of saving souls, an intolerant hypocritical soul is just as worthy of saving as the soul of a drug addict. Instead he gave up on them, and chose to move on to a place more amenable to his chosen mission.
I believe Barack Obama has done a similar disservice to his fellow church members and to the people of the United States. I believe that if Obama were truly a leader, he should have remained in his church, denouncing the radical agenda, and modeling behavior that would lead the church in a more positive direction. Instead, he made a politically motivated departure from the church, soft-peddling the un-Christian behavior of the church leadership, and largely defining the problem as one of inordinate media attention. Barack Obama missed an opportunity to demonstrate leadership to the congregants, adults and children, and to bring them into mainstream society in line with his stated vision for our country. It takes courage to stand for principles and to lead others to principled conclusions and value systems. As a result of his abdication and failure to set a good example, his former church remains a black nationalist church, with vocal hatred of whites.
He had taken over the Sr. Pastor position a couple years prior, and had pushed the church in a new direction. His mission was one of Christian good works, which was largely defined by rehabilitation and assistance for local drug addicts and alcoholics. He directed his energy and the resources of the church toward this mission. By all indications, his programs were a success, because pretty soon all the drug addicts, alcoholics and other social deviants started showing up for services on Sundays. Suddenly, persons who had been members for 20 years found themselves in their Sunday-best sitting next to foul-smelling indigent types who had lost most of their teeth along with their dignity to crystal meth. When this began to happen the old-school congregants expressed their displeasure with the new direction of the church. It turned out their tolerance for these charitable aspects of Christianity were rather limited. In response to the resulting harsh criticism, my friend chose to leave the church and move on to greener pastures. It was his feeling that these persons were hypocrites, and their disdain unacceptably un-Christian. He has since founded another church on what he believes to be more amenable foundations.
I was struck by this episode, and turned it over in my head for a long time. I found it rather ironic that my friend found the intolerance of the veteran congregants to be intolerable, while finding the sins of the addict to be worthy of effort to reform. In my estimation, leaving the church was the wrong answer. I believe that to remain true to his Christian values, my friend should have stayed on at the church and exercised his leadership to show the old congregants the error of their ways. If one is in the business of saving souls, an intolerant hypocritical soul is just as worthy of saving as the soul of a drug addict. Instead he gave up on them, and chose to move on to a place more amenable to his chosen mission.
I believe Barack Obama has done a similar disservice to his fellow church members and to the people of the United States. I believe that if Obama were truly a leader, he should have remained in his church, denouncing the radical agenda, and modeling behavior that would lead the church in a more positive direction. Instead, he made a politically motivated departure from the church, soft-peddling the un-Christian behavior of the church leadership, and largely defining the problem as one of inordinate media attention. Barack Obama missed an opportunity to demonstrate leadership to the congregants, adults and children, and to bring them into mainstream society in line with his stated vision for our country. It takes courage to stand for principles and to lead others to principled conclusions and value systems. As a result of his abdication and failure to set a good example, his former church remains a black nationalist church, with vocal hatred of whites.