Windows & Doors

American Prayer, Featuring Barack Obama as God

Thursday October 23, 2008

I happen to love the new music video of American Prayer - the song is stirring, the imagery is powerful, the many stars it features, including Whoopi Goldberg, Forest Whitaker, Joss Stone, and Herbie Hancock, are warm and engaging. Even those who are not Obama supporters can not help but see the beauty in this.

American Prayer portrays a nation that offers shelter and decency to all, from poor black flood victims in New Orleans, to recent immigrants from south of the border, to Hasidic Jews who look no different than their ancestors 200 years back but have been in America for more than a century. We may differ on policy issues, but it's hard to imagine most people, whether on the left or on the right, not celebrating this America.

But there are also some disturbing elements to American Prayer which need to be raised if we are to be honest. For starters, one can not tell if Barack Obama is meant to be understood in the video as the answer to our prayers or the one to whom we should pray. Frankly, it looks more like the latter.

Over and over we see one star after another with hands clasped and eyes gazing upward, followed by saintly looking images of the candidate. It's as if they shot the video based on the Greatest Story Ever Told but simply replaced all the Jesus shots with Obama and made a bunch of singers and actors into the Apostles. That is not good, especially from a bunch of people who are concerned about too much God in the electoral process. They may be correct, but this is hardly better.

And if we are not meant to see Obama as God, American Prayer clearly suggests that his election is certainly God's will. It's especially weird given the response to Sarah Palin having suggested that everything from a pipeline in Alaska to the war in Iraq were matters of God's will, and that she knew what it was. Claiming to know God's will is just as dangerous when it happens to coincide with our desires as when it does not. Failing to realize that, makes both sides more alike, and more dangerous, than either side would like to admit.

I guess it comes down to how we think of prayer. I love the idea of celebrating prayer as the opportunity to voice our most deeply held hopes and dreams. I think American Prayer does that. But I worry about prayer that seems to already know what God's answer must be or precisely who God is, right down to His haircut. And I worry about that no matter what the prayer or who offers it.

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Comments
Itsnottoolate
November 2, 2008 3:44 PM

The newly formed members of the Obama Cult either do not have the genetic ability to reason critically or that ability has been actively suppressed by parents and the education system. We have proof enough that this is true.

George Orwell's book, '1984', is required reading for most American high school and college students. The book is a condemnation of collective thinking and intellectual suppression. It is a horrifying vision of a society in which individualism is dead. But the Obamanoids can obviously read '1984' and not recognize their ideology and themselves in it.

Is political correctness not a subtle form of thought control? Do the speech police of the left not demand their own form of 'Newspeak'? They obviously believe, contrary to all historical evidence, that a more tyrannical government will ensure greater liberty. Less freedom is more freedom. Weakness creates security. Taxation creates prosperity. Regulation creates efficiency. Limited speech is more free that unlimited free speech.

The left is already living in a self-created '1984' world, and is too blind to see it.

Vinita
November 4, 2008 12:25 AM

LET TRUTH REIGN IN YOUR CONSCIENCE. It is very evident that no one is praying to Barack Obama, but all God Loving people should pray for the Safety of this man, and rightfully so....For the prejudice in this country runs deep and wide and is voiced in many unenlightened circles. So sad so very sad that the primitive mindset is alive and well and takes cowardly refuge under the cloak of some fundamentalist "Christian" churches. Well did LORD JESUS CHRIST say... "many shall say Lord.. Lord have we not prophesied IN THY NAME.... and I will profess unto them I never knew you depart from me you that work iniquity"
And another thing to consider: Why is spreading the wealth so fearful for many who claim they are Christians??? This is a core argument for "Joe the Plumbers" by the McCain campaign and I hear this fear from "Christian" shows like Hal Lindseys. In fact this is what Jesus says: "Depart from me you who are cursed into the eternal flame....for I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me....whatever you did not do for the least of these you did not do for me." I think our Lord Jesus has the final authoritative word on spreading the wealth over anyone including McCain and his supporters.
May the true servant of God win this election and be His instrument to deliver us out of the Deceptions of Satan. AMEN

Candy
November 8, 2008 5:59 PM

They should have called the song "This is my pagan prayer" featuring Obama as their "savior", lol...Like these people in that video are so "holy" and "godly" because they say "prayer"...Everyone of these people in that video are ungodly sinners. There is nothing honorable in lifting a mere sinful man to the stature of a god...Obama's gonna bring change alright...but not the kind of change that many have been duped into believing...God have mercy on us all...Come Lord Jesus come!

walker
November 26, 2008 6:16 PM

I will not follow any leader who so faithfully supports abortion.
Also, I believe my God to be pro-life.
Can you please point out an occasion where Obama has refuted the Messiah label.

Wes Hazlett
March 11, 2009 12:53 AM
http://www.thematrixrevealed.kk5.org

With the growing hatred for President Obama's economic and social policies my prayer focus has expanded from praying against his murderous social agenda regarding the unborn to now praying for this Countries' hard working Americans to not completely lose it against Barack Obama- the man.

If you are reading this President Obama please understand that the course you are sending America in has only one end. Destruction.

May God reach your mind in time Sir.

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brad.jpg Author, radio and TV talk show host, and President of CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, Brad Hirschfield is the author of You Don’t Have To Be Wrong For Me To Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticism. Listed as one of the nation’s 50 most influential rabbis in Newsweek, and a regular commentator on Court TV, he is the creator of the popular series, Building Bridges, airing on Bridges TV, and the co-host of the weekly radio show, Hirschfield and Kula.

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