The big buzz phrase in the Obama campaign this week is, “Jesus Christ was a Community Organizer, and Pontious Pilate was a governor.” Some enterprising individual has even gone so far as to make a lapel button with the slogan on it. Cute, and impressive, eh?
If only these bozos knew how far they were sticking their feet down their throats…
First off, Jesus was not a “community organizer”, whatever that is. I’m still a little fuzzy on what exactly a community organizer (CO) does — Kyle-Anne Shiver wrote a piece at American Thinker last week about the history of community organizers; according to her a CO is essentially a political rabble-rouser, working to get people up in arms enough for government officials to take note of their plight long enough to throw some money their way. Granted, Kyle-Anne is probably a little biased against Obama, so I sought out & found another opinion that was biased in the other direction that described the CO as someone who helped people who had recently lost jobs “recover and get the services they needed — job training, help with housing and so forth — from the local government.” And if you look at the things Barack Obama says he did as a CO, it was basically trying to get funding for this project or that (unfortunately for him, most of the projects he took on have since failed miserably.) If either one is even a little bit accurate I rather doubt you could describe Jesus role in his earthly ministry in that way.
But it’s more than a little insulting to even suggest that Jesus’ mission on earth was to be a political rabble-rouser, or even just here to help beggars beg a little more efficiently. Jesus was concerned with the well-being of the people he ministered to, but that was not his primary mission. I wrote about this very thing not long ago in reference to Obama’s alleged Christian faith;
… most people seek to follow Jesus’ example in order to earn their way to heaven. The problem for most is they only make a cursory examination of Jesus’ ministry on earth. Looking closer at Jesus’ ministry reveals that while he eased the suffering of a lot of people by healing them and relieving them of demon possession, that was not his primary focus. A good example of this is found in Mark 1:23-39 depicting a day at the beginning of Jesus ministry. In this passage, he ends his first day in Capernaum by healing many who were sick and casting demons out of many others. The next day, he got up “very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.” When the disciples finally rolled out of bed, Jesus was nowhere to be found.
Mark’s Gospel doesn’t say it in so many words, but I’m sure the disciples were awakened by the sounds of a gathering crowd; a crowd who had heard about the previous nights’ events and had come to be healed or to have demons cast out. I can imagine the people clamoring for the help they knew they could receive from Jesus, and the disciples looking all over the place for him while trying to placate the crowd… “I’m sure he’ll be back any minute!” When they finally found him, “Everyone is looking for you.” Likely they were more than a little anxious to get him back so that he could start work again, because surely, that was what he had come for.
But Jesus had other plans; “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” There was still work to be done in Capernaum, and Jesus knew it. But instead of continuing with that work, he went “throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.” He knew there were others who were seeking relief, but if that’s what his ministry was all about, don’t you think he would’ve stayed? Christ didn’t ignore the sick and needy, but neither were they his primary focus.
Pundits on the right regularly mock Obama as the “messiah” (small ‘m’), and this new slogan — from the left of all places — only reinforces that mockery, and those using it make themselves out to be even bigger fools by using it. The trouble is, many on the left must really think of Obama as their savior, here to rescue the world from sure destruction at the hands of the evil Republicans and their Big Business cohorts, and their devotion to him is nothing less than fanatical. And their devotion to him has served to give Obama quite the ego as well, but from the sound of things, he had a pretty good start on that long before his bid for the Presidency.
And it doesn’t stop there; the slogan also tries to equate Sarah Palin with Pontius Pilate. How ridiculous.
First off, with this statement they unwittingly recognize and admit that Sarah Palin is a threat to Obama. That is the one thing that they’re right about; since the Republican National Convention, the buzz has been all about Sarah, and the bounce in the polls from that convention has been huge. Every imagined controversy that comes up involving Sarah just gives her more time in the spotlight, eclipsing the pathetic Obama even more.
But it gets even better because Pilate didn’t really have a grievance against Jesus, it was the Jewish priests who dragged Jesus in front of Pilate, trying to force him to kill this rabble-rouser (yes, they didn’t get it either.) Pilate wanted nothing to do with it, so he washed his hands of the situation and told them Jesus was their problem. Pilate was no hero, but neither was he the scoundrel the left now wants to make him out to be.
So all in all, this is just another pathetically weak attempt to boost Barack Obama by denigrating Sarah Palin and John McCain. But in the process they are only making themselves out to be the fools they are. Funny how that works, isn’t it?