All week I’ve detailed the reasons why Barack Obama should not remain as president. Today, let me summarize and talk about the electoral challenge before us. As I said in the first post, one must begin at the beginning—a person’s worldview. His supporters usually try to skip over this, but it is the essence of the man. It consists of one part false Christianity, one part Marxism, and one part anti-Western civilization. The combination is lethal for the country because all of his policy initiatives flow from this worldview.

Another toxic ingredient is the character he has developed over time, which is dominated by a spirit of privilege, self-righteousness, and outright arrogance. He is always right; opponents have no valid points to make. Add to that a kind of disinterest in the daily details of his responsibilities and a penchant for spending time with the trendy/celebrity culture, and you have someone who can’t be trusted with the highest office in the land.

On the economic front, nearly four years of his policies have left us weak as a nation, with unemployment over 8% during his entire term. This hasn’t occurred since the Great Depression. The question Ronald Reagan posed after four years of Jimmy Carter is being raised once again: are you better off than you were four years ago? Incredibly, yet somehow unsurprisingly, the Obama campaign is claiming we are better off. Well, perhaps some segments of the population can say that:

Small businesses, in particular, have been hard hit. The uncertainty and proposed taxes on them depress hiring. Obama doesn’t understand the free market; what’s worse, he doesn’t even like it. Obamacare has already begun to drag us down further. So what’s his prescription to those who are looking for relief?

Obamacare also has become the front line of attack on religious liberty. In the guise of helping people, religious organizations are forced to provide abortifacients. As I noted in the post two days ago, lawsuits over this are springing up, and they should be. This is a fundamental abrogation of the First Amendment. It’s also part of his overall disdain for basic Biblical morality, showcased by his abortion-on-demand belief and his promotion of homosexuality. The only “sin” he seems to want to recognize is the “sin” of bigotry, defined as holding to traditional moral standards.

There’s so much more on the domestic side that I didn’t cover, but everything else he has supported, from green energy to Fast and Furious, also emanates from his aberrant worldview.

The War on Terror, from Obama’s anti-colonial, anti-Western lens, is over. He as much as declared it to be when he took office. The term itself was replaced by “overseas contingency operations.” He sympathizes with what he believes are the oppressed of the earth, not the least of whom are Muslims, while simultaneously undermining the security of Israel. Only yesterday did the first crack appear in the administration’s blatant lie about the attack on the Libyan consulate that resulted in the murder of our ambassador. Before yesterday, the cause, supposedly, was the trailer for an anti-Muslim film that could be seen on YouTube. Now, according to Jay Carney, it is “self-evident” that it was a planned, coordinated terrorist action. Why the change? Simply put, the lie couldn’t be sustained; too much evidence to the contrary was making it ridiculous. It was an attempt to shield Obama from political damage. It didn’t work. Now, will the media call it the lie that it was?

Here’s the challenge: can the electorate awaken from its stupor and see clearly enough to reverse the direction in which America is headed? My biggest concern is illustrated perfectly in this political cartoon:

Will voters allow their emotions to control their rational thinking? It’s very easy to become cynical about the intelligence of the American electorate:

Frankly, our future as a nation might be more secure if fewer people vote. I know that sounds like a heretical statement if you believe in representative government, but if the majority of the electorate are unprincipled and reject a Biblical worldview, that majority will lead us into deeper spiritual darkness by their votes. I want to believe we aren’t that far gone yet, but I wish I could be more certain. This election will probably provide the answer. If we keep Barack Obama in office, we may have sealed our fate.

May God have mercy on us and preserve us as a people. May He give us another chance for national redemption.

Policies, as essential as they are, aren’t the only consideration when choosing leaders. Character is of equal significance. One of the key traits I seek in a candidate is humility. Pride is the cause of untold miseries. An arrogant leader is prone to mistakes based on his unrealistic evaluation of his own personal importance. What really gets to me are the polls that show a majority of Americans think Obama is likeable. Since when?

This is the man who wrote his autobiography in his early thirties. Who does that? This is the man who served only two years in the Senate, but who spent most of that time running for president. He has no legislative credentials during that tenure. This is also the man who declared that his election would signal the healing of the planet and the lowering of the oceans. Is there any greater indication of arrogance?

Then last week we were treated to the spectacle of the biographies of presidents on the White House website having been altered. Did you miss that one? Most of the twentieth-century presidents had a comment or two added about Obama. Huh? What did Obama have to do with FDR, Truman, JFK, LBJ, or Reagan? It was a bald attempt to insert his “accomplishments” into the stories of earlier administrations. Fortunately, it has met with the ridicule it deserves:

A narcissist is someone who is overly self-involved, and often vain and selfish. For the narcissist, the world revolves around him, his thoughts, and his deeds. I would say the cartoonist captures the essence of our current president.

What a contrast can be provided by looking at Ronald Reagan. He brought the nation out of the depths of economic despair and followed policies that led ultimately to the dismantling of the “evil empire,” the Soviet Union. Yet one seeks in vain for any comment from Reagan boasting about his accomplishments. On the economy, whenever anyone tried to give him credit, he would say he simply got the government out of the way; it was the genius of individual entrepreneurs that created the turnaround. When the USSR collapsed, you didn’t see him taking a victory lap. Most of what he did to help bring about that collapse was behind the scenes.

He also did little things that revealed his humility. Reagan had a pen pal in a Washington, DC, school. He visited the boy’s home a few times, but reporters never knew about it. It was something that came from his heart, not from cynical political advantage.

Then when Reagan realized he had Alzheimer’s, he wrote a letter to the American people—his final public utterance. I can imagine some would use this opportunity to focus on self, but again, Reagan had a different spirit. Here’s how that letter ended:

In closing, let me thank you, the American people, for giving me the great honor of allowing me to serve as your president. When the Lord calls me home, whenever that may be, I will face it with the greatest love for this country of ours and eternal optimism for its future. I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead.

How many of us, facing a future filled with lost memories and steadily decreasing mental capabilities, would concentrate instead on how grateful we are to have been allowed to serve? How many of us would be thinking more about our fellow citizens than ourselves? The humility that Reagan brought to the office of the presidency should be an inspiration to us all. It should also create within us a desire to see that kind of humility restored to that office.

On this day in 1789, George Washington took the very first presidential oath of office. His inauguration on the balcony of Federal Hall in New York City was the beginning of a grand experiment. Although the fledgling nation had been in existence since 1776, it had only an ad hoc government throughout most of the American Revolution, then switched to a very weak Articles of Confederation in the 1780s. At Washington’s inauguration, the new Constitution also was inaugurated. The question in everyone’s mind was whether it would or could work.

Ten thousand citizens were present to witness the first inaugural. Washington, at six-foot, three inches, looked every bit the part of a president. Of course, he already had won the confidence of Americans by his leadership during the war. They now looked to him to transfer his leadership from military matters to those of civil government. Everything he did would be seen as a precedent.

After he repeated the oath of office, Washington then kissed the Bible and went inside to deliver his inaugural address in the newly improvised Senate chamber. The address was short, but focused on the need for a strong Constitution, the addition of a Bill of Rights [which came along two years later], and how government was to be for the public good. As was his practice as general of the army in the war, he took no pay other than reimbursement for actual expenses.

At the end of his address, he and a number of the legislators and local politicians then walked to St. Paul’s Chapel to pray. He knew this new nation would need all the prayer it could get. It really was a grand experiment. Many thought it would fail. One of the reasons it did not can be traced directly to the wisdom George Washington brought to the presidency and to the precedents he set, not the least of which was to step down after serving two terms, thus laying to rest the fear that the presidency would evolve into just another kingship.

Excellent character in high office is a requisite for success in government. Washington set the bar high. We can’t say the same for all of his presidential successors, but we can, on this day, honor the good start he gave us. May we work now to preserve that heritage.

Frank Peretti is back. Nearly twenty years ago, I picked up my first Peretti book, This Present Darkness, and marveled at his storytelling prowess. After that, I grabbed every Peretti book that came out. Some were more graphic than others in their depiction of sin, death, and the misery men bring upon themselves, but they all were faithful to the message that sin kills, both physically and spiritually. But Peretti didn’t stop there—he always contrasted the consequences of sin with the redemption available through Christ.

Peretti has been notably absent for some time now. I went into the bookstore last week to pick up a certain novel I had heard about, only to discover it wasn’t there. As I perused the shelves, I found, to my delight, that a new Frank Peretti book is now available.

As I read the description of Illusion on the front flap, it drew me in immediately. It’s a fine mixture of science fiction, action, and romance, all within a Christian context. It doesn’t preach, but it does deliver a sobering message about those who try to play God, the potential of a marriage based on Christian commitment, and how to deal with the loss of a loved one. I refuse to give away the plot, but suffice to say that the plot, along with the character development of the protagonists, held sway in my mind over the four days it took to finish it.

Perhaps one of the reasons I found it so fascinating is that the main characters were both born in 1951—an auspicious year, to be sure, since I also was born then—and what they knew, I knew also. All the cultural connections were real to me, as was the poignant fact of the characters reaching that landmark age of sixty—not quite decrepit yet, but identifying with the man who was wondering why it no longer was as easy as it used to be to run, climb the stairs, or perform all the other daily duties in life.

Yet it’s not just a book for “old” people like me. It speaks to every generation.

If you’ve never read Frank Peretti, this is your opportunity. Try him, you may like him. If you’re like me, a Peretti fan from previous years, you should welcome this new addition to his collected works. It will also be a welcome addition to your library.

A voice from the American past has a message for us today. His name was James Garfield, who was elected president in 1880. Four years earlier, on the centennial anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Congressman Garfield—who also was an ordained Disciples of Christ minister—offered this sage insight in a speech commemorating American independence:

Now more than ever before, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption. If it be intelligent, brave, and pure, it is because the people demand these high qualities to represent them in the national legislature. …

If the next centennial does not find us a great nation … it will be because those who represent the enterprise, the culture, and the morality of the nation do not aid in controlling the political forces.

In short, the Congress, and the government as a whole, are, in the words of a common cliché, merely a reflection of the people who put them in power. If our current Congress is corrupt, we have only ourselves to blame. If the presidency has been debased by class-warfare ideology, again we have to point the finger at ourselves.

Will we learn our lesson after what we have endured the past three years? The 2010 congressional elections show some promise that we have, but we’ll have to wait until November 2012 to know for sure.

It’s really kind of funny to hear some critics say Herman Cain is not an authentic black man like Obama. Let’s compare.

• Obama was from a mixed marriage; he had a white mother. He was raised, essentially, by his white grandmother. Cain’s all-black parents raised him themselves with his father working three jobs to make ends meet.
• Obama went to a fancy prep school in Hawaii, then on to Columbia and Harvard. Cain attended his local segregated school, then went on to all-black Morehouse College. He later got a master’s degree from Purdue, which is good, but not at all Ivy League.
• Obama has never held a private sector job, unless you count his time as a community organizer; yet that “job” was totally political in its orientation, and he was eased through the Chicago machine into state politics. Cain had to overcome racial obstacles on his own, taking charge of his life and moving up the ladder one step at a time. He entered the private sector after his stint in the navy and was eminently successful. The “pick yourself up by your own bootstraps” story come to life.

Here’s another difference between the two black leaders:

While Cain is touting his plan to remake the tax system and move toward the Fair Tax, Obama is busy using the taxpayer money for really important purposes:

Cain—the self-made man. Obama—the elite, privileged man. Yes, there is a difference. And let’s please forget all this talk about being authentically black. Racial politics must end. When are we finally going to judge a man not by the color of his skin but by the content of his character? Sound familiar?

I spoke last evening at the Winter Haven, Florida, 9/12 Project meeting. For those who are unfamiliar with the organization, it began after the 2008 elections with the expressed purpose of educating citizens on the kinds of principles and values that formed the bedrock of our nation and our government. This organization is performing a valuable public service, and I heartily endorse its goals. They are the same goals I have maintained throughout my twenty-two years of teaching at universities. We are an ignorant people, by and large, and it’s time we once again grasped the essence of the republic that was created over two hundred years ago.

I had spoken to this 9/12 group two times previously. The first time I gave an overview of progressivism and how it has led us astray from constitutionalism; the second time was an examination of the principles that made Ronald Reagan’s presidency successful. Last night I focused on the Clinton impeachment of more than a decade ago, and what we should learn from that sad episode. Drawing from the book I wrote back in 2001, Mission: Impeachable–The House Managers and the Historic Impeachment of President Clinton, I concentrated on the reasons the House Managers gave for prosecuting the president at that time. In the face of public opinion polls that showed 67% of the electorate didn’t want Clinton removed from office, and in the teeth of a Republican-dominated Senate that had no stomach for this endeavor, these House Managers risked the wrath of both to make the case for removal.

Why did they do it?

I interviewed all thirteen of those House Managers and found a fairly consistent rationale. They were concerned primarily about the importance of upholding the rule of law in our society. What does that mean? Simply that no one, not even a president, can set himself up as above the law. Everyone must be held accountable for their actions.

Intertwined with that concern were two others: constitutionality [the need for checks and balances in the government] and the character issue, given how Clinton disgraced the high office he held. Many of those congressmen I interviewed were up front with their Christian convictions, which provided the strength to go forward and do what was right even when the public opposed them.

My conclusion in the book is that the Managers acted on principle and deserve to be honored for their attempt. As one of them stated, we need to put principle above expediency, honor above incumbency. The application for our day, a decade later, is obvious.

I thank the 9/12 group for giving me the opportunity to share. I trust I helped fulfill the goals of the organization. May they continue to thrive and attract others to the cause.