The Cult of Obama Worship

By now, I imagine most of us have seen the disturbing videos of people basically worshiping Obama. There are videos of kids from two different schools singing songs about him, and there is another video of a group of people literally praying to him. Praying to Obama. I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.

But what is the origin of this insanity? Well, there are two culprits. Firstly, if you were paying any attention at all during the campaign, you know that Obama's people did an excellent job of playing up his image, and it all started with that famous blue and red "HOPE" poster. You know, the one that seems eerily similar to the cult-like propaganda posters that featured Stalin, Chairman Mao, and Che Guevara. We've all seen it. Heck, when Kylee and I were in Scotland, we even saw people over there wearing that t-shirt, even though the election had nothing to do with them.

On most issues, I think Obama is weak, naive, and incompetent. However, when it comes to marketing himself, the man is absolutely brilliant. He did such a good job that during the election, a lot of Americans voted for an image rather than a man. He was protrayed by his campaign and the media as an almost messianic figure, a light in the darkness, and the one and only hope for not just America, but the world. It didn't matter if it was true or not. He just had to make the people BELIEVE it was true. He did. And that's how he won the election...

"I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal."
- Barack Obama

"Barack Obama is the Platonic philosopher king we've been looking for for the past 2,400 years."
- Michelle Obama

Riiiiight. But the cult-like worship of Obama cannot be fully blamed on him and his campaign. In fact, we can't even give him the majority of the blame. All he did was shrewdly tap into something that has been steadily growing in American society for the past fifty years or so. The American people want a savior, and unfortunatelty, they're no longer looking to Jesus.

I was listening to a radio show the other day, and a man called in who said his father grew up in Cuba while Castro was taking power. He said that when his father was in school as a young boy, the teacher said, "Okay, class, let's all pray to God to bring us all a bunch of candy!" So they prayed, and of course nothing happened. Then she said, "Now class, I want you all to pray to Castro to bring us candy." So they prayed to Castro, and immediately a bunch of his men came through the door and passed out candy to the children. Sound creepy? Well, it's basically happening here too. These Cuban kids were explicitly taught that God either couldn't or wouldn't help them, but Castro would. Castro could make them happy.

Now, obviously there isn't anything this overt going on in America today. But we're close...

"In a way Obama is standing above the country, above the world. He's sort of GOD. He's going to bring all different sides together."
- Newsweek editor Evan Thomas

"Who is our hero? Barack Obama. Who is going to lead us out of poverty? Barack Obama. Who is going to save the United States of America? Barack Obama. Who is going to save the entire world? Barack Obama. And who do we love? Barack Obama."
- Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-NY

"The event itself [Obama's nomination] is so extraordinary that another chapter could be added to the Bible to chronicle its significance."
- Rev. Jesse Jackson

"We just like to say his name. We are considering taking it as a mantra."
- The Chicago Sun Times

"No one saw him coming, and Christians believe God comes at us from strange angles and places we don't expect, like Jesus being born in a manger."
- Lawrence Carter, dean of the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel

"This is bigger than Kennedy. Obama comes along, and he seems to have the answers. This is the new testament."
- Chris Matthews, MSNBC pundit

And now we hear school kids singing his praises. One song says, "Red, yellow, black, and white, all are equal in his sight. Mmm, mmm, mmm! Barack Hussein Obama." In case you can't tell, those are lyrics from "Jesus Loves the Little Children." And the other song they performed used the tune from "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." You know, it's that song that talks about how Christ died to make men holy, and we should live to make men free, while God is marching on. This is something that has been steadily fading from American society. Here's what we used to believe...

"The general principles upon which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity… I will avow that I believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God."
- John Adams

"It cannot be emphasized too clearly and too often that this nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religion, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here."
- Patrick Henry

"God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever."
- Thomas Jefferson

"It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and Bible."
- George Washington

"We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We’ve staked the future of all our political institutions upon our capacity…to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God."
- James Madison

That final quote is the most important. Madison said that we should place our hope in God and not in the government. So in conclusion, I don't blame Obama for this crazy cult-worship stuff. Well, at least not fully. He obviously helped push the American people in that direction; however, the real blame falls on us. When we stop looking to God for hope and salvation, we inevitably look somewhere else. Sometimes we look to fill that hole inside us with money, or sex, or drugs and alcohol. And sometimes we look to a charismatic figure, like David Koresh, or Charles Manson, or in this case, Barack Obama, for hope and salvation. If it wasn't him, it would be someone else. We have to wake up.