In my two previous posts, I’ve covered Barack Obama’s worldview and key character traits. His worldview consists of a blend of Marxism, anti-colonialism, and liberation theology. The three blend quite well, a type of unholy trinity. His character, dominated by a self-righteous arrogance and narcissism, leads to fantastic claims of future accomplishments—the lowering of the seas and the healing of the planet being the most ludicrous—and a tendency to put personal interests, whether golf or hobnobbing with celebrities, ahead of the responsibilities of his office. It was important to lay these two foundation stones before proceeding to his external policies because all of his policies are the result of his worldview and character.

There is a tendency in political analysis to separate economic issues from what are usually called social issues. I see that as a false dichotomy. All issues have a moral basis; nothing exists in a valueless vacuum. One’s views of morality are the basis for economic decisions just as much as they are for decisions on family and other social relationships. Obama’s worldview lends itself to a certain type of morality. He sees government as essentially beneficial, not only in matters of national defense but for practically every perceived problem. The more government control, the better for everyone. Private companies that depend on the profit motive are highly suspect; those who have succeeded have probably achieved their success on the backs of others. Therefore, government exists as the great equalizer.

The economic mess he inherited—and which he helped create as a member of Congress—could only be rectified, in his view, by inserting government as the savior. That’s why he pressed for and got the huge stimulus package. This was a package passed over the objections of most Republicans, but his party controlled both houses of Congress so he got exactly what he sought. And just how did that stimulus work?

Well, we have discovered over time that huge amounts of it went directly to those who supported his campaign. As a typical Chicago politician, he learned how to work the system. Obama brought crony capitalism to a new level. Who benefited most? First, there were the unions that were the beneficiaries of his largesse [actually that would be the taxpayers' largesse, but he controlled where our tax money went]. There also were some Wall Street companies with whom he had close ties, even while his rhetoric was anti-Wall Street/pro-Occupy. His duplicity in this respect has become legend. One can’t forget as well all the money that disappeared into the black hole of green technology companies like Solyndra. That company was only the first to fold; others followed, regardless of the taxpayer funding they received.

The waste has taken on mythic proportions.

All that proposed green technology never materialized, so our energy issues continue unabated. Well, that’s too generous. We’ve gone backwards. He reversed the openness to offshore oil drilling and refused to approve the Keystone pipeline. Gas prices remain high as a result of those decisions. Then, to the astonishment of many, he sent taxpayer money to Brazil and other nations to help them develop their oil production. Further, he promises them that the United States will be their best customer. Any comments he may make about leading America into energy independence have to be seen as phony. All his actions make a lie of any such stated commitment. Why would he support the development of oil in other nations and not in his own? I think it all comes back again to his anti-colonialism, and his desire to lessen the economic power of the United States. You see, it’s not fair that we be so far ahead of other nations.

He cares not one bit for the massive deficit he has created. During the Democrat convention, the national debt passed the $16 trillion mark. Obama, in four years, has added more debt than Bush did in eight years. Actually, he passed the Bush debt well before the fourth year. It’s a remarkable achievement in one sense. He’s proven it can be done. No one would have believed it possible. Yet he seems rather unconcerned about it. He’s never made one step in the direction of reducing it. Why? Again, he doesn’t really see it as a problem. Government spending is what brings prosperity. The real question, though, is if he sincerely seeks prosperity. Perhaps he relishes the sad state of this economy because it helps bring America down to the level of other countries. That can be a reasonable debate. Meanwhile, he and his party act as if the deficit isn’t really there.

Unemployment has been miserable for his entire term. We have never dropped below 8%, which means this is the longest sustained high unemployment since the Great Depression. The promises he made were wonderful; the stimulus would bring it down to less than 7% very soon, we were told. The only reason the rate isn’t higher is that the workforce continues to plummet; more people than ever have given up looking for jobs. Maybe he’s found the key to a lower unemployment rate.

All he ever offers to remedy the situation is more government. The number of citizens on food stamps is at an all-time high, as is the overall number receiving some type of government assistance. He has no understanding of how a market system works; he doesn’t care to learn because he doesn’t believe in it. His Marxist indoctrination at an early age is ingrained. He rarely convenes his jobs council, and his disdain for small businesses and entrepreneurship is evident. Every time he talks about taxing the rich he aims directly at the small businesses that do most of the hiring. These small businesses now fit the definition of “the rich.” One of the direct results of this animus toward business was revealed this past week when the new number on global competitiveness came out. The United States has dropped from the top of the list to seventh. This is another one of Obama’s “accomplishments.

And then there’s Obamacare. How can we forget that, no matter how much we might like to do so? Frankly, it’s hard to know where to begin the critique on this one. It will not accomplish any of its stated goals: not everyone will be covered; costs will continue to rise; government bureaucrats will ultimately decide whether you get the treatments you need; it puts the government in control of one-sixth of the national economy; it tramples on religious liberty.

That last concern only surfaced recently as HHS put into effect regulations requiring that religious institutions offer all services through their health insurance plans, even those that go against their core beliefs. The furor began with the Catholic church and its teaching on contraception, but it has spiraled beyond that. Other Christian organizations have begun to realize it is forcing them to provide abortifacients. Lawsuits are springing up all over the land, and justly so.

On that abortion issue: Obama is the most vociferous proponent of abortion ever to sit in the Oval Office. He has publicly taken the side of Planned Parenthood and demands it continue to receive taxpayer funding for its “services.” That’s my money and yours being used to carry out the murder of innocent children. If Obama ever had a conscience on this issue, it has since been seared. He expects us to fall in line with his pro-abortion policy. I’ll repeat something I’ve said before: as an Illinois state senator, he was the fiercest opponent of a law that would have required doctors to provide medical care to infants born alive during an abortion. The Obama policy? Let them die.

He’s also the first president ever to advocate for same-sex marriage, thereby destroying the basic Biblical definition of a family. The quest to normalize homosexual activity is in full swing, and he is using the highest office in the land to promote it. As a Christian, I am appalled that the presidency is in the hands of a man who can be so callous toward helpless children and so determined to applaud sexual deviance.

The abortion and same-sex marriage debates are the ones normally termed “moral” issues—and they are. Yet all the others I’ve listed here are moral issues as well. It’s immoral to amass a huge debt and not care to pay it off; it’s immoral to take money from taxpayers and use it on his personal friends and pet projects; it’s immoral to make the United States more dependent on foreign energy sources when we have the capacity to develop our own; it’s immoral to penalize small businesses and hinder entrepreneuship; It’s immoral for the government to make life-and-death decisions in medical treatment; it’s immoral to try to force religious believers to violate their consciences.

Nearly every domestic policy in the Obama administration is fundamentally immoral, and that immorality stems from his worldview and his character.

Yesterday I examined Obama’s roots and the worldview he received from others. Just as important in an evaluation of the man is the character he has developed over the years. Each of us is exposed to many influences that help in shaping our character, but it’s always important to recognize that they are influences only—our path is not determined; how we respond to those influences is the key. Therefore, we cannot blame anyone else for whom we have become.

I say that because in Obama’s case it would be easy to blame his father, who didn’t stay with the family. Just as easy to blame would be his mother, who pushed him away from Western values, Christianity in particular. And then there were his grandparents who introduced him to his communist mentor, Frank Marshall Davis. Obama’s formative years were filled with what I would call pernicious influences. I’m sorry he had such an upbringing, but he is still accountable for how he responded to all those influences.

Abandoned by his father, raised by a white mother and grandparents, he can be excused perhaps for feeling out of place and in need of an identity. That’s probably why he created a fantasy image of his natural father. So in one sense he had a deep need for affirmation as a person. Yet, simultaneously, he was really quite the child of privilege. He never lacked for anything materially. He went to a private high school in Hawaii, then on to Columbia and Harvard later. Those are hardly the credentials of someone who is a hardship case. He even became editor of the Harvard Law Review despite no real writing accomplishments of his own. Many have raised the question of just who paid for all this education, but he has not been forthcoming with that information, and his college records have remained sealed.

By his own admission, he was an active drug user in his youth. There’s also no indication he ever had to work hard at any job to help pay for his expenses. All the privileges he received, along with an active imagination about a heroic father, compensated for his loss of identity. He determined to be part of black America even though he lived primarily in a white family and society. This apparently gave his life meaning.

As I noted yesterday, he became a convinced Marxist by the time he went to college, and also latched on to his father’s anti-colonialism, which made him anti-establishment, anti-Western civilization, and even anti-American since it was part of that civilization.

Because everything seemed to be handed to him on the proverbial silver platter, he became self-righteous and arrogant, traits that made it easy for him to slide into the role of political messiah in 2008. He never really discouraged his adoring followers to consider him as simply another flawed human being. After all, as he stated, his election would be the starting point for the lowering of the oceans and the healing of the planet. No lack of self-confidence there. He also proclaimed that we [kind of a royal "we"] were the ones “we” had been waiting for. As if all of history revolved around the coming of the new messiah. The media should have showcased this arrogance, but instead has become his chief enabler, ignoring the fact that the emperor has no clothes and inventing “scandals” for anyone who dares offer a critique of the One.

Since he has been in office, other traits have come to the surface. Even those around him comment that he is aloof. He doesn’t form relationships with anyone outside his own little circle of confidants, all of whom seem to bow to his every whim. He doesn’t even develop solid relationships with congressional Democrats. It’s almost as if they are beneath him and not worth the time. And as for Republicans . . . well, that’s a non-starter. He will talk about compromise, but never do it, and then blame the Republicans for being obstructionists.

Many have commented on his thin skin; he bristles at any hint of disrespect. Often, he is petty, and lets it show publicly. Two examples. First, when he was making overtures to Republicans about budget compromises, he decided to make a speech and invite Paul Ryan to be there. So there was Ryan, sitting in the front row, I believe, and Obama then turned his rhetorical guns on the Ryan plan for getting the nation out of our deficit mess. Ryan, to his credit, took the verbal assault calmly.

But the more famous example was during one of his State of the Union addresses, when he criticized a recent Supreme Court decision as the justices were sitting right in front of him. It was an attempt to humiliate them in the national spotlight. No president has ever used this important address to berate the court while they were honoring him with their presence. The term “mean-spirited” is not too strong for his actions in both of these cases.

I firmly believe Obama is a classic narcissist. He lives to please himself and won’t take any responsibility for anything that goes wrong. The economy? Nearly four years after George Bush has left the office, Obama continues to blame him for the current problems. And his penchant for not paying sufficient attention to his day job—president of the most powerful nation on earth—is becoming painful to watch. He spends an inordinate amount of time playing golf, attending fundraisers, and partying with celebrities. But he seems to get away with it since we are a nation apparently hooked on the celebrity culture. It seems to be hard to get his attention lately:

The most baffling aspect of all this, to me, is that polls show people find him likeable. Reagan was likeable, as even his detractors admitted; Obama is not. He’s the epitome of the anti-Reagan. His arrogance, aloofness, and narcissism are deadly in a leader. And where is he leading us? That will be the subject of the next two posts.

Most political analysts refuse to enter the field of theology and worldview. They prefer instead to just look at the externals of a person’s policies. Yet all externals proceed from what is internal. The questions need to be asked: What does a person believe to be ultimate reality? What principles guide his thinking? How are those ideas then translated into policy? For Obama, as with anyone, we must begin at the beginning.

Both of Obama’s parents were decidedly on the Left with respect to culture and politics. Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, was an American anthropologist. His father, Barack Obama Sr., was a Kenyan who resented and fought against British rule in his native country. That resentment pushed him into being a revolutionary.

Dunham and Obama met at the University of Hawaii and got married in 1961, with the younger Barack already on the way. Barack Sr. neglected to tell her he had a wife and children back in Kenya. After graduation, she stayed in Hawaii while he took off to Harvard for graduate studies. They were divorced in 1964.

The only time he saw his son after that was in 1971 when he visited Hawaii. So the son never really knew his father, yet for some reason, he practically idolized him. This romanticized version of dad helped lead him toward the anti-colonial views his dad held dear.

His mother then married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian also studying at the University of Hawaii. They moved to Indonesia. Although that marriage officially lasted until 1980, it was strained as Dunham became more enamored of Indonesian culture and Soetoro was drawn more and more into Western culture. Whereas Barack Sr. was an atheist at the time of his marriage to Dunham, his family had been Muslim. Soetoro also was Muslim. That has led to speculation by some that Obama is a closet Muslim as well. There’s no real evidence for that. He’s actually more of an anti-colonialist who sympathizes with Muslims because he perceives them as being an oppressed people by the West.

Soetoro’s Western leanings became the impetus for the young Obama to be sent back to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham. They were also radical in their worldview and wanted to ensure that Obama was properly trained in that perspective. One can see that Ann Dunham obviously followed in her own parents’ footsteps ideologically.

In order to fulfill that mission, Stanley Dunham turned to Frank Marshall Davis to serve as a mentor for Obama. Davis was a committed communist who had joined the Communist Party early in World War II. He also was the founding editor-in-chief of the Chicago Star, a communist newspaper. In Davis’s columns for the Star, he wrote against Wall Street, profit-based companies, tax cuts, and anyone he considered wealthy. He also pushed for universal, government-sponsored healthcare and major public works projects. According to Grove City College professor Paul Kengor, who has recently authored a biography of Davis, Dunham introduced Obama to Davis in 1970, and until Obama left for college, he was his primary influence. As a result, when Obama entered Occidental College, he was a full-fledged Marxist. That insight, says Kengor, comes from Dr. John Drew, an acquaintance of Obama’s during that period of his life, and a Marxist himself at that time. Kengor comments of Drew,

He’s totally credible, no axe to grind, no story to sell. Drew contacted me because he knew I was researching Davis. Drew sees himself as the “missing link” between Obama’s time with Frank Marshall Davis and with later radicals like Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. . . . Drew told me about Obama’s belief in what Drew described as the “Frank Marshall Davis fantasy of revolution.” Drew, who was a more realistic, chastened Marxist, was stunned at Obama’s unwavering belief in the imminence of a Marxist revolution in the United States.

The link between Davis and later radicals. When Obama moved to Chicago, he came under the sway of Jeremiah Wright, so much so that he was a member of his church for twenty years. Wright performed the wedding between Barack and Michelle. Most people are aware of Wright’s most famous/infamous quotes, particularly his call for God to damn America. But most people don’t realize that Wright, bolstered by his radical black liberation theology, also claims that Jesus was black, that Israel is a terrorist state, and that the U.S. government created the HIV virus to carry out genocide against minorities. His “church” also supports terrorist organizations such as Hamas. Obama, during the 2008 campaign, distanced himself from Wright, straining belief by saying he had never heard Wright make those kinds of statements. After twenty years at the church? How credible can that be?

Wright had a mentor as well, a theologian by the name of James Hal Cone, who is considered the godfather of black liberation theology. He’s also Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary. So what does this distinguished theologian believe? Here are a few choice quotes:

• Black hatred is the black man’s strong aversion to white society. . . . But the charge of black racism cannot be reconciled with the facts. While it is true that blacks do hate whites, black hatred is not racism.
• All white men are responsible for white oppression.
• Theologically, Malcolm X was not far wrong when he called the white man “the devil.” The white structure of this American society, personified in every racist, must be at least part of what the New Testament meant by the demonic forces.
• We cannot solve ethical questions of the twentieth century by looking at what Jesus did in the first. Our choices are not the same as his. Being Christians does not mean following “in his steps.”
• The black theologian must reject any conception of God which stifles black self-determination by picturing God as a God of all peoples. . . . There is no use for a God who loves white oppressors the same as oppressed blacks. . . . What we need is the divine love as expressed in black power, which is the power of blacks to destroy their oppressors, here and now, by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject God’s love.

So much for reaching out to those who disagree. So much for the nature of God as seeking to lead all men out of sin and into righteousness. For Cone and Wright—and by implication, Obama—Jesus is little more than the first human revolutionary. He is all about liberation from worldly oppressors, not liberating all men from sin.

A Chicago Sun-Times columnist, Cathleen Falsani, interviewed Obama about his faith in 2004. Here’s some of what he said:

I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, that we are connected as a people. . . . The difficult thing about any religion, including Christianity, is that at some level there is a call to evangelize and proselytize. There’s the belief, certainly in some quarters, that if people haven’t embraced Jesus Christ as their personal savior, they’re going to hell.

The columnist commented, “Obama doesn’t believe he, or anyone else, will go to hell. But he’s not sure he’ll be going to heaven either.”

So what is Barack Obama’s worldview? He’s a devoted anti-colonialist with strong Marxist underpinnings who has adopted a false Christianity based on black liberation theology. This worldview is dangerous for the future of the United States. It’s not just theoretical with him; he is committed to carrying it out. This is the first, and most foundational, of all reasons to vote him out of office.

I remember it well. It was during the final years of the Carter administration—the rise of militant Islam. The birthplace was Iran under the severe rule of the Ayatollah Khomeini. He had chased the Shah out of the country and taken over, along with his fanatical followers. Khomeini determined that the United States was the Great Satan. Therefore, it made no difference to him that the U.S. embassy was officially American soil; his hordes stormed the embassy and took more than fifty hostages. The news showed them taken out into the streets, blindfolded and humiliated.

But, in fact, it wasn’t the hostages themselves who were humiliated; it was the nation they represented. And weakness trickled down from the top in the person of an ineffective president who was out of his league trying to deal with the situation.

Sound familiar?

Jimmy Carter didn’t know quite what to do. At one point, he finally decided on a rescue mission, but it had to be scrubbed when a helicopter went down in the Iranian desert. Another wonderful photo op for the militants. Another humiliation for America. Yet Carter won renomination in 1980 and went into the general election against Ronald Reagan. Polls showed that, despite his troubles and general ineffectiveness, not only in foreign affairs but on the economy—the economists had to invent a new term called stagflation to describe just how bad things were—he held a lead over Reagan right up to the week before the election.

Sound familiar again?

But common sense prevailed in 1980, and Reagan won in a blowout, which confounded most experts. Wouldn’t it be nice to have history repeat itself this year?

At the same time that the presidential campaign was in full swing, Americans were transfixed by a miniseries on TV called Shogun, a drama about a European castaway in Japan who has to learn how to survive in a foreign land. He eventually works his way up in the society to a prized position known as a shogun. One particularly brilliant cartoonist saw a linkage with the current administration:

Although this was a pre-internet age, this political cartoon went viral. It showcased the incompetence of the Carter administration, and it hit a nerve. Even Carter’s reelection team posted it in their cubicles as a reminder of how their candidate was perceived.

The past few days have evoked memories of the Carter years. Iran remains the biggest threat in the Middle East, developing a nuclear capability and threatening to annihilate Israel. America still earns the eternal hatred of this Islamic empire. It has spawned even more radicals who now are taking over many Islamic countries, with the mobs, murders, and threats we’ve witnessed in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen. The world has become even more dangerous.

And whom do we have in charge at such a crucial moment?

This does not inspire confidence.

I’m not going to try to report on all the details of the attacks in Egypt and Libya; plenty of news sources have in-depth coverage of what happened. I will summarize, however, before offering some thoughts on the events.

In Cairo, Egypt, a mob scaled the wall of the American embassy, tore down the American flag, and replaced it with an Al Qaeda flag. As of this writing, mobs continue to threaten to break into the embassy. The Muslim Brotherhood president of Egypt has not condemned the actions of the mob; instead, he has only made a statement condemning an anti-Muslim film produced in the U.S., thereby justifying the mob’s presence.

In Libya, things are even worse. The ambassador, Chris Stevens, and at least five other Americans, have been brutally murdered. Stevens’s body was even dragged through the streets. Sources say the consulate where he was residing had no American Marine protection. They were relying solely on Libyan security forces. Another report says those very forces were the source of information that led the attackers to the ambassador. Ostensibly, the Libyan government is not behind the attack; we’re told they are helping to track down those responsible. I would like to believe that. Color me skeptical.

These were not spontaneous outbursts of emotion. They were well-coordinated to occur on the anniversary of 9/11, and judging by some of the chanting in Egypt, were meant as revenge against the killing of Osama bin Laden. The hatred that erupted on 9/11/2001 has not dissipated in the intervening eleven years. If anything, the hatred has multiplied. Anyone who acts as if the War on Terror is over is seriously deluded.

Much controversy was spawned over the initial public statement made by officials at the Cairo embassy. This is the message that went out to the world from the Obama administration’s embassy personnel:

The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims—as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. . . . Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.

Did you notice anything missing in this message? How about condemnation of the actions of the mob? Instead, our government is more concerned about hurting the feelings of the mob. This is political correctness gone wild. Apparently, there was a major tussle within the administration to change the statement, but it took about sixteen hours to do so. Why? Well, when you have a president who favors what he considers the “oppressed” of the world, and then staffs embassies with like-minded individuals, it will take a while for those in charge to figure out what image they really want to project to the nation. I guess they finally realized this was not going to go over very well, and the initial statement eventually was repudiated.

You might recall that Barack Obama, in his book The Audacity of Hope, famously [or perhaps infamously] stated, “I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.” Mr. President, what about when the Muslims are the cause of an ugly political wind?

Mitt Romney rightly criticized the Cairo statement as an unwarranted apology. What was his reward? Immediate accusations of politicizing the event. When he held a press conference, the reporters converged on what they called his “gaffe.” They repeatedly asked him if he now regretted making the statement. To his credit, he held his ground. And why shouldn’t he? There is now audio that reveals the reporters colluded ahead of time to ensure that he would be challenged to back down. The collusion was blatant. Hmm, I wonder if they’ve chosen a side in this election season?

As for the president, he made a Rose Garden comment on the situation, then assured he wouldn’t be put in the same position as Romney by declining to answer any questions—a common ploy for him. After all, he’s a busy guy. He had to catch his ride on Air Force One for a campaign swing to Las Vegas.

Does that sicken anyone else as much as it does me?

We’re in deep trouble. Change must come this November or we may never recover from this presidency.

Can anything new be said on the anniversary of 9/11? Maybe we don’t need to hear anything new; perhaps we just need to be reminded that there are those out there who hate us. However, what is meant by “us?” America, you say? Yes, in the abstract, but what comprises America anymore? Do I with my Biblical worldview represent the true America, or do Planned Parenthood—as one example—and Barack Obama constitute the real America?

On 9/11, eleven years ago today, members of Congress stood on the steps of the Capitol and sang together. At the moment, I can’t recall if they sang “America the Beautiful” or “My Country Tis of Thee” or another similar tune. That specific memory eludes me. But sing they did, although some commentators noted that the Republicans seemed to be leading it and a good number of the Democrats looked reluctant to add their voices to the chorus. What a wonderful image it presented: a united nation.

But it was a false image.

It played well for the camera, but the camaraderie was short-lived. The chasm between two very different visions of America is too deep and wide to be bridged for long, even with a common enemy. After the initial shock of the attack, the progressive visionaries began to downplay the severity of the terrorist threat. They even began seeing in their minds’ eye, though not in reality, a kind of pogrom instituted against Muslims in the U.S. All of a sudden, we were the problem, not them. We weren’t sensitive enough to the way they had been treated; we had brought this on ourselves.

That vision of an America that was too big for its britches, and that needed to be slapped down, clashed with the other vision—that of an America that, while often making mistakes in foreign relations, nevertheless had attempted to do the best for others most of the time. It’s the vision of an America that has helped rid the world of truly evil dictators and totalitarian movements such as communism. It’s the vision of an America that retains basic moral values stemming from its faith in God.

These two visions cannot mesh; they are too opposed to each other.

For too long, we have tried to ignore this massive chasm and assured ourselves that we are all Americans who will pull together despite our differences. We need to face reality.

There is no real external union without internal unity.

These two separate visions of America stem from two contrasting worldviews. One is Biblical and God-centered, while the other is secular and man-centered:

• Beliefs are different on both sides of this divide
• Purposes/goals are not the same
• Christian morality battles humanistic immorality
• One holds to the sacredness of life while the other aborts it
• One supports traditional marriage and the family while the other redefines sexuality and the very nature of marriage
• Limited government and constitutionalism inspire the one, whereas a socialistic welfare state is the dream of those who would transform our society and make it into something neither God nor the Founders ever desired

It would be a fascinating object lesson to be able to separate these two groups and let them have their way completely—two entirely distinct nations with two distinct worldviews—and then compare the results. One would go the way of every socialist/communist experiment that has ever been tried, while the other would be an energetic, thriving society where innocent children would be safe in their mothers’ wombs, the family structure would dominate, Biblical morality would be enacted into law, and the government would not be overseeing all aspects of one’s life.

But that won’t happen; we cannot separate the two; we have to make it work somehow the way it is.

What have we learned, eleven years later? Unfortunately, we’ve learned we are not really one people. We are not united. Our foundations are crumbling and we are in danger of turning our backs on the God who gave us life and liberty. If we choose that path, we are lost.

God didn’t make 9/11 happen. It was the brainchild of perverted individuals. Yet when sin abounds, He seeks to use the consequences to get our attention. He will use every circumstance to try to reach into a people’s hearts and lead them to repentance. By all means, may we never forget what happened on 9/11, and may we honor those who displayed great courage on that day. But the best way to honor them is to return to the truth, and to the One who is Truth. That is our only hope.

Youcef Nadarkhani is free. The pastor who has languished in an Iranian prison for nearly three years was released on Saturday. He had been condemned to die for his faith, but he is now with his family. This is a personal victory for him, and I am grateful he has persevered and overcome the privations he suffered. He has proven his faith is genuine; he was willing to suffer a martyr’s fate for standing up for the truth of the Gospel.

But as an analysis of the situation notes, he was not fully exonerated by the Iranian regime. Although the apostasy charge was dismissed, he still was found guilty of conducting evangelistic activities. The penalty for that was three years in prison. He had served two years, eleven months, so upon payment of a fine, he was allowed to go free at this time. This is not real leniency on Iran’s part; it’s another attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of a confused and distracted West. His release also follows only one day after Canada cut off all diplomatic relations with Iran. “See,” they are saying, “we’re not that bad; it’s the evil Western countries like Canada that are the real problem.”

Meanwhile, other Christians remain in Iranian prisons for precisely the same reason Nadarkhani was incarcerated. For a fuller treatment of this story, and how this episode doesn’t indicate a softening of the Iranian stance, I highly recommend an article from Commentary, which you can access here.

What does the future hold for Nadarkhani and his family? Will he stay in Iran or leave? Biblically, he is under no obligation to remain where he and his family are in danger of death. He could leave with a clear conscience. On the other hand, each Christian must seek the Lord’s guidance as to where he will do the most good for the advancement of the Gospel. Perhaps he may believe the Lord is calling him to stay. Whatever he decides, I rejoice today that he is free to fulfill God’s will for him. His imprisonment was a testimony to the truth; the rest of his life can be as well. May he continue to draw close to the Lord, and may his efforts for Him be blessed.