Faith Firestorm: Obama's Prayer Breakfast Speech

Reaction to President Obama's National Prayer Breakfast speech has drifted from withering criticism to scalding condemnation.  In the span of 40 minutes, the president managed to rewrite history, insult Christians and setback religious tolerance 100 years.

It is a tradition for the president to speak at the non-denominational prayer event held annually in Washington since 1953, but no commander-in-chief ever created a firestorm like Obama.  Past breakfasts were unremarkable and unmemorable occasions of non-partisanship and goodwill.

Obama, whose deity is the federal government, exploited the faith celebration to mock Christians.  The president trotted out his undeniable biases on the role of Christianity in the world as not only an oppressor of human rights but a religion that carries out evil in the name of Jesus Christ.

In the context of the present-day atrocities committed by the Islamic State (ISIS), the president lectured the attendees on the wickedness of Christianity going back centuries.  The castigation could just as well been ripped from the pages of a sermon by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the president's long-time pastor.

"Lest we get on our high horse and think that this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and Inquisition people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ," the president scolded his audience of 3,600 with a jab of his finger.

Obama wasn't finished with his distorted history lesson.  "In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ," he reminded the gathering.

His harangue followed on the heels of his admission that modern-day terrorists have perpetrated acts of brutality in the name of Islam. The president cited ISIS for its "brutal, vicious death cult that, in the name of religion, carries out unspeakable acts of barbarism."

The president's sanitized description avoided graphic detail of the Islamic State's savagery.  These jihadists chop off heads of innocent victims, they incinerate the bodies of caged prisoners, they ruthlessly murder gay people and they enslave young girls, cruelly raping them before killing them.

Equating Christianity to ISIS is a disgraceful hijacking of history, pointed out, noted evangelist Franklin Graham.  He called out the president for implying that what ISIS is "doing is the equivalent to what happened over 1,000 years ago in the Crusades and Inquisition."

Graham pushed back: "Many people in history have used the name of Jesus Christ to accomplish evil things for their own desires.  But Jesus taught peace, love and forgiveness.  Muhammad on the contrary was a warrior and killed many innocent people."

Catholic League President Bill Donohue took on Obama's characterization of the Crusades.  "The Crusades were a defensive Christian reaction against Muslim madmen of the Middle Ages."  Most history books agree the Crusades were a response to the murderous Islamic invasion of the Holy Land.

As far as the Inquisition, Donohue called the president version a "fable."  He wrote on the league's website that the "Catholic Church had almost nothing to do with it."  It is historically accurate that a tribunal was established by the church in medieval times (12th century) to combat heresy.

However, beginning with the Spanish Inquisition in 1478,  the movement was led by monarchs with various political and religious motives for pursing the conversion of Jews and Muslins to Christianity. These secular leaders were responsible for hideous crimes, including the burnings of  heretics.    

But the president was not done with refashioning Christian history. He blamed Christians for slavery and Jim Crow laws in the United States. Slavery was opposed by most faith groups and indeed it was abolitionist Christians that led the effort to ban the practice. No organized religion endorsed slavery.

Jim Crow laws, which mandated racial segregation, were mostly the handiwork of scheming Democrat Party legislators in the South during reconstruction.  It was a bible-toting Christian, Dr. Martin Luther King, who led marches and demonstrations to tear down racial barriers.

That doesn't mean there were not individual Christians and Jews who did not use religion to justify slavery and segregation.  There certainly were.  But they were not following the teachings of Jesus Christ, who preached love, tolerance and inclusion.

The president has yet to come to terms with an unassailable truth. ISIS claims to adhere to a variant of Islamic teaching.  They are not hijacking the religion, they are practicing a rapidly growing version of Islam.  Even moderate Muslims are reluctant to refute this alternate interpretation of their religion.

Worst of all is the president's ignorance of Christian history.  No doubt his viewpoint was molded by the black liberation theology of Rev. Wright, whose moral narrative fits an African-American-centric perspective far removed from mainstream Christianity.

To give him the benefit of the doubt, perhaps the president knows better but he is determined to shift the public focus from the barbarianism of Islamic extremists at any cost.  He might have taken his cue from the Muslim leaders he huddled with at the White House on the eve of the prayer breakfast.

In a conspiratorial move, the president deemed the meeting to be private, barring reporters and a pool photographer.  When pressed for a list of the attendees, press secretary Josh Earnest refused to provide the media with the names and affiliations of the Muslims leaders.  So much for transparency.

Clearly, in Obama's world, faith is not a force for good.  Consider during the 2008 campaign when he criticized Christians in Pennsylvania of bitterly clinging to their guns and religion.  He seems all to quick to dress down Christians while tiptoeing around the issue of Islamic jihad.

No wonder polls show many Americans still believe Obama is a Muslim.  His faith is a private matter and this column won't add to the speculation. However, whatever his religion or lack of it, the president exhibits an unhealthy view of Christianity that informs his outlook on evil in the world.      

His concept of Christian faith is at odds with most Americans. The more he lectures the country on Christian values, the more it creates divisiveness.  Obama needs to climb down from his high horse and recognize the threat to the world's security is not Christianity but radical Islam.