Professors Against Drunk Voting

Some of us are prone to excessive and blinding political passions. Politics does that to you. Those in political philosophy, like me, have to balance the sober study of politics with the active life of a citizen who loves (yes, loves) justice. Love engages the passions, and the passions cloud the mind. You see the problem.

Because politics, unlike mathematics, necessarily involves profoundly important moral questions, political passions are both necessary and dangerous. God made us to love righteousness, but not to idolize a well ordered life in this world.

In this week's Worldmag column, "Victory and Idolatry," I reflect upon the forms that excessive and misplaced political hopes often take: millenarian enthusiasm and disgusted withdrawal. I intend this as a tonic especially for Republicans and Tea Partiers as we approach the November election. But not a paralyzing one.

Made in Obama's Image

In my previous posts on Obama art, I have drawn attention to the blend of religion and politics that the artists express, the religion centering on the political figure himself.

Michael J. Lewis makes the same connection in his essay, "The Art of Obama Worship" in Commentary (September 2009).

What is striking about these paintings is not their quality, about which the less said the better, but their consistent tone. They belong to that class of objects known as “devotional art.” Such objects are not only intended as votive offerings, to serve as the focus of veneration; the actual process of making them is itself an act of piety, a consideration that all but places them outside the realm of aesthetic judgment.

Lewis takes us through a recent history of the intersection of art with politics, from the Vietnam War through the art wars of the 1980s to Bush Baiting most recently. He then discusses Shepard Fairey, Ron English, and Shawn Barber, but dwells at length on the Fairey's career and the powerful effect of his Hope poster, recently acquired by the National Portrait Gallery.

He concludes, saying, "...there is something unsettling about images that offer little more political commentary than an uncomplicated adulation that borders on power worship. By showing the subjects removed from all political context, and in a beatific reverie, such art produces images that are aesthetically indistinguishable from the “dear leader” effigies that delighted the dictators of the 1930s or of our own day."

Harold adds:

Great posts David; this is a hugely important and amazing development to watch unfold, with its undeniable connection with fascist and totalitarian propoganda techinques. The hard left has always leaned that way--they admire everything they know about Lenin, Stalin, Che, Castro, Chavez...all of whom knew (know) and exploit(ed) the power of iconic images in their propoganda.

Bill Whittle at PJTV has this video piece suggesting conservatives had better get with the program in understanding the importance of images...recall that Socrates said political philosophy has need of images, and in fact that he himself was "greedy" for images.

More Obama Apotheosis

"Fountain of Hope," by Ron Keas

Here we go again. More apotheosis of Barack Obama. More elevation of the sitting President to divine status.

The New York Times, under the auspices of simply reporting on what's happening out there, gives us yet another spread of Obama celebration art ("Obama's Face (That's Him?) Rules the Web," May 30, 2009). (Of course, I am also publicizing these things in my own small way, but you know where I stand on the matter.) One of the paintings is just dreadful. Perhaps the title of the article recognizes that. "Team Player" is just trite. It depicts Obama in a D.C. basketball uniform wearing #1.

Get it? Sure you do.

There is also one that is quite good ("Looking Presidential" by Mimi Torchia Boothby) with his wedding ring figuring prominently on his pensively and prayerfully placed hand.

Then there is the man in the white suit. What does Ron Keas have in mind with "Fountain of Hope?" In the background is the White House in front of which is a fountain of white water, in front of which stands Barack Obama dressed entirely in white: suit and shirt, but no tie. My wife's first reaction was that he does not look like an American President. American Presidents don't wear white suits. As usual, she put her finger on the central disturbing point. He looks like a Central or South American dictator. Even facially, he looks like a thin Hugo Chavez. And of course, this glorification by art is what they do with their leaders in dictatorships.

The apotheosis is in the phrase "Fountain of Hope." God, according to the well-known hymn, is the "fount of every blessing." The image of a fountain or spring is that of an inexhaustible supply of blessing, in particular of water, the means of life, and thus figuratively of life itself. Psalm 36:9 says, "For with you (the Lord) is the fountain of life; in your light we see light."

I thought perhaps that the artist intended to criticize either the President or his followers with this painting. But, no. Ron Keas is just a terrible painter. See for yourself at keasart.com. He has a whole series of hagiographic paintings of the next re-founder of our republic. He also does Marilyn Monroe and Elvis.

The Boy King

By the dog that is god in Egypt*, I don't know who in the Muslim world is responsible for this equation of Obama with Tutankhamen, but it certainly is not any more over the top than anything the sycophantic press corp here has come up with--e.g., "Lightworker" in New Age parlance, "Messiah" or the "One" in Christian-speak. Fortunately, there is an expedient available to deflate this latest idolatry, in the form of Steve Martin's fabulous King Tut routine.

Unfortunately, it is not available for imbedding, which means you'll just have to link to YouTube yourself to see Martin's prophetic political statement. I urge you, in the interest of political hygiene and historical truth, to see it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP7AJiQM2RI

* One of Socrates' favorite oaths upon discovery of yet another aporia.

Ecce Obama

You cannot avoid having to deal with Jesus. The Roman governor who condemned Jesus to death, asked the crowd what everyone must ask himself: "What shall I to do, then, with Jesus who is called Christ?" (Matthew 27:22). Islam attempted to become the world religion, but in the Koran there is a background contention with Jesus. Modern political philosophy is a response to, and an attempt to overcome, the claims of Christ and the working out of them in history. Francis Bacon, the founder of and chief apologist for modern science knew that he had to displace the Christian hope if people were fully to embrace science as the fount from which all blessings flow. The modern political monster, Marxism, is secularized Christian eschatology (insofar as it can conceivably be secularized). The other great bookend of political philosophy, Friedrich Nietzsche, put his hope in the rise of an Ubermensch, a world recreating, heroic, suffering servant. Were there Christian themes in Nazism? I would be surprised to find there weren't. The North Korean ideology is a political gospel modeled on the Christian gospel, with Kim Jong Il in the role of the Son.

Now here are the most ardent Obama supporters casting their political hero explicitly in the form of Christ the Savior. As Jesus referred to himself as "the way, the truth and the life" (John 14:6 NIV), the artist entitles the painting, "The Truth." It is to be unveiled on President Obama's 100th Day in Office by Michael D'Antuono at Union Square in Manhattan.

For those who are totally illiterate biblically, let me point out that Obama has his arms extended with open palms in a way that mimics Jesus hanging on the cross, but with no expression of agony, suggesting that he is already dead. Perhaps D'Antuono is just not as good an artist as his benefactors think he is.

On his head sits a crown of thorns. Again, the Apostle Matthew tells us, "The the governor's soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and then they wove a crown of thorns and set it on his head" (Matthew 27:27-29).

When Jesus died on the cross after many hours of tortuous suffering, "At that moment, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom" (Matthew 27:51). God used this miracle (it tore from the top, not the bottom) to indicate that, by his atoning death on the cross, Jesus had purchased access for God's people into God's holy presence. The curtain that had separated worshippers from the Holy of Holies was no longer necessary for anyone who would approach God in faith with his sins cleansed by the blood of Christ (Heb. 4:14-16; 10:19-22). Clearly what Obama is depicted as doing in this painting is giving the American people access to presidential power.

The Letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament directs the Christian believer's attention from what Jesus accomplished by the cross to "the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful" (Hebrew 10:23). The Apostle John tells us what he promised: "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die." Barack Obama promised us "hope." The hope that this artist sees the new President bringing us, however, is fleeting, illusory, and ambiguous at best by comparison. Obama also promised us change. But Jesus died and rose again so that people could "be changed" (1 Corinthians 15:51; Ezekiel 36:26). He came to raise the spiritually dead to life and recreate us, renewing our hearts in love.

The puzzle of the painting, as I see it, is in what the artist sees as the President's suffering and sacrifice. In what sense is he laying down his life for us? The press adores him and he appears to be having a really good time. His popular approval rating are still quite high. So where's the suffering servant? Does Michael D'Antuono anticipate an Lincolnian end for this President? That is a horrible thought, but not nearly as horrible as a painting that anticipates (one dreads to say "hopes for" in some perverse way) such a national tragedy.

I say once again that President Obama, especially if he is in any sense a Christian, needs to rebuke his followers for this sort of spiritual blasphemy and political lunacy. But I suspect that he won't because evidence of fanatical following supports him politically, and part of him may just believe the adulation. If these suspicions are correct, I fear that he is in for a terrible crash. I just pray that he does not bring the country down with him in the process.

****************
Update 4/29/2009:
D'Antuono has canceled the Union Square showing. You can read his statement here.

He told Culture Monster at the LA Times, "I canceled the showing out of respect for religion. It was not meant to offend so many people. I don't think it would be helpful to the cause of unity to show it."

So it seems he is no Andres Serrano. He's just confused. For example, he also told The LA Times, "It was supposed to provoke political dialogue. I wanted to start a discussion. Is Obama being crucified by the right? Do people think he's the next savior?"

Are we in any need of provocation for political dialogue on Barack Obama? If it is civil dialogue you want, you have to be fairly deeply embedded in the Obama-crazed arts "community" to think that a painting like this one would accomplish such dispassionate conversation. Also, what fair-minded person thinks that the right is "crucifying" the President? But I suppose they are, if ordinary political opposition counts.

The Art of Politics in the Age of Obama

I continue to be amazed by the way artists took up Barack Obama as a theme for their work. Most artists would position themselves on the political left, and thus would be more inclined to the Democratic Party than to the GOP. But we have never seen a political candidate inspire such artistic productivity as Obama has. Even before he was sworn in as President, there was enough material fill a Barack Obama Museum of Art, or rather a Museum of Barack Obama Art.

Here is an interesting recent display, though it may simply be another Abu Graib atrocity.

Magazine covers could be another post entirely.


The most striking adoration of the Bam has been in political posters, however. Consider the effect of these. This one is a more traditional political poster, but very well done.


These posters, by contrast, are not traditional.


These two seem to me to bring out the candidate's African heritage quite strikingly.




This last one suggests that the candidate is a spiritually exceptional person, a prophet, or perhaps even a divine being.

These do not feature Obama's face, but they are beautiful and at the same time troubling in their Utopian promise.



Senator Obama's unwaveringly leftist voting record together with the fainting hysteria surrounding him personally produced a talented response from the more conservative, or at least more politically skeptical, artists. This one places him on the far left.


This one on the far right. (Of course, the left and right converge at some point. The rightist Adolf Hitler was a National Socialist.)


This one, alluding to a recently popular film, mocks Obama's political inexperience.


The best known poster has been Shepard Fairey's "Hope" poster. The same poster also appears with "Progress" as the caption. Fairey's model was this Mannie Garcia AP photo. The Associated Press is suing Fairey over the use of their image.


And here is The Poster.

Fairey appears to have used a Communist genre of political poster art as his inspiration. Here is the Russian Bolshevik, Vladimir Lenin.


Here is Cuba's iconic Che Guevara.


This socialist/communist connection is becoming increasingly relevant as the Obama administration leads the government in nationalizing, taking charge of, and redesigning most of the country's economy.

It is a tribute to the Fairey poster that it has become the model for a growing number of parodies. There are these, for example, that are critical of Obama himself. "Obey" is likely the best-known of the parodies.



There are many other variations. Some are racist, some are just in bad taste, and some just aren't funny, as far as I can tell. These are a few of the wittier ones. They go in various directions, all playing on the word "Hope," but the last two using the "Change" mantra as a take off point.




Finally, as President Obama stumbles and wrecks his way to what he tells us will be a just society and a vibrant economy, the Reagan variation stands as a continuing reminder that there are principles of political and economic liberty that are also principles of political and economic flourishing, and they are...


You can go to Rene Wanner's page to find her collection of 149 Fairey themed posters that she assembled the day after the 2008 election, including the Soup Nazi, Jeremiah Wright, and More Cowbell. Of course, the number has grown since then.

Laying fun aside, this artistic aspect to the 2008 Obama campaign should put every lover of republican liberty on guard. Up to this point, it has only been in totalitarian countries that we have seen a political leader's face celebrated so artistically and plastered so ubiquitously. It is the sort of personality cult that is incompatible with a modern republic structured around a constitutional separation of powers. If he is the One, if he is the Dawn, if he is both the exemplar and the source of moral and political progress, then the separation of powers, which is premised on the recognition of human moral frailty and political epistemological skepticism, becomes inherently unjust. Start researching "the Hugo Chavez political model."

Wendell Phillips said that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." This artistic expression of what is arguably the first "personality cult" in American politics does not constitute President Obama as a totalitarian, but it does prompt the wise to view his every attempt at concentrating political and economic power in Washington with a heightened and aggressive scrutiny.

Oprah's View of History

In Hempstead on Long Island, they have renamed a school after Barack Obama, even though he is not even president yet. Other namings and renamings are proceeding apace. Can we expect a planet to be renamed Obama? Perhaps this planet?

Don't be surprised if Oprah Winfrey suggests that we start renumbering the years, with 2009 as year 1. Given some of the things she has said in the past as well as what she has now said about Obama's upcoming inauguration as President in January, that is the reasonable next step.

There are not even words to talk about what this night means,” Oprah said of Obama's inauguration. “Everybody keeps using the word historic — there’s never been a night like this on the planet earth… Nothing can compare to this.

So in the mind of Oprah Winfrey (and how many others?), that makes Obama's inauguration of greater world historical significance than the death and resurrection of Christ. It also beats the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, and the inauguration of George Washington.

Celebrate the Coming of Dear Leader

Check out the new metro cards Washington DC is issuing to commemorate Inauguration Day. Put this with the hagiographies passing as news pieces put out by Time, Newsweek, and NBC; the commemorative coin sets private "mints" are rushing out; the school text books already including large chapters on the wondrous works of the One; and the sure-to-be-omnipresent Barack channel on YouTube which will pass off propaganda as public information, and you have, at the very least, an unprecedented display of love and devotion to an untried leader. This is only one aspect of the "change" Obama is bringing, to the presidency as an institution, and to the political culture of the nation.

What do you think so far?

**************

Innes: Let me quote from a comment below by Mr. Khan, one of our readers: "I think fawning in general is deplorable as a response to any political figure. The best response any mortal should hope for is a sort of manly admiration, but this is customarily awarded at the end of the race. No Olympian claims gold for winning a spot on the roster."

This brings to mind a story I once heard of a young preacher (Was it John Perkins or E.V. Hill? I can't recall.) who went springing full of confidence up into the pulpit for his first sermon. As he struggled through it, it became clear to him and to everyone in the congregation that he was unprepared for the work that morning. Greatly humbled by the experience, he descended slowly from the pulpit at the end of the service and brought himself to the back of the church where he greeted people as they left. An old woman took his hand and said, "Preacher, if you'd gone up into the pulpit the way you came down, you would have come down the way you went up."

Mr. Khan's remark reminds me more directly of King Ahab's advice to Ben-Hadad, the king of Aram: "One who puts on his armor should not boast like one who takes it off" (1 Kings 20:11).

"Obama and the Politics of Crowds"

This piece from yesterday's WSJ, "Obama and the Politics of Crowds" is one of the best long-view things I've seen in a while. I've been reading Eric Hoffer's "True Believer" and Hannah Arendt's "Origins of Totalitarianism", and much of what Ajami says here resonates strongly with these Cold War era books, with their clear-eyed view of twentieth century psycho-politics ("psycho" as in psychological, not psychopathic, although one could be forgiven for making the assumption).

Karl Lowith, a student of Martin Heidegger, long ago tagged Marxism as essentially a Christian heresy in his book, Meaning in History. Attempts to posit an end of history outside of Christian eschatological categories inevitably take on the religious connotations that come with those categories and symbols. The unholy alliance of Christianity and Marxism that is Black Liberation Theology, for instance, is one expression of this strange hybrid. The total, life-long commitment shown by many adherents of the hard left bears witness to the religious quality of their devotion, and to the deliberately inculcated "imminent transcendence" of bringing heaven down to earth. Think of "Dear Leader"Kim Jong Mentally Il of North Korea and his captive herd of worshippers. A world closed to the transcendent is a violent one, with no mercy, no grace.

But all forms of fascism are also in this category; rebellion against transcendence, and a violent propensity for the imminent here and now, mixed with a usurping messiah figure, as Ajami discusses, typify what we know of fascist movements: Hitler, of course, and Mussolini, but also Juan Peron, Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega, and and a whole host of other South American dictators (what is it about South America and dictators?). Crowds--as distinguished from audiences-- are not rational; an orator cannot reason with them, but a skillful demagogue can produce images that substitute for thought.

Hope. Change. We are the change we have been waiting for. Fill in the blank with your own dream...while standing next to ten thousand others projecting their own images and dreams onto the One.

It's no real comfort to know that they would come down off this drunk after the election to find he is nothing like their conjured image. And though that would be Obama's problem at that point, we would all be sharing the hangover.

Obama Youth Brigade Sings For Change

Evidence of the political Messianism that surrounds Barack Obama continues unabated. Here is a creepy video of children singing out the One. A child sings, "We're gonna spread happiness. We're gonna spread freedom. Obama's gonna change it. Obama's gonna lead 'em. We're gonna change it, and rearrange it. We're goin' to change the world."



Obama's going to bring freedom, but not for people to pursue happiness. The freedom will come in the happiness that he provides. He will do this by rearranging the world. This is consistent with the messianic claims his more enthusiastic follows have made for him. The song's expectation that he will "rearrange" the world is consistent with his claim that it is not politics that is broken (as McCain claims), but America itself. His wife, Michelle, says, "our souls are broken." Perhaps he will re-arrange our souls.

If Obama is sworn in as President, can we expect an Obama catechism for children, either issued by the White House or initiated by the public schools with the approving sufferance of the White House?

Nazis and Communists have been known for this blend of patriotism (a thing that is healthy in itself), Utopian political hopes, and personality cult. I thank the Belmont Club blog for directing me to this nightmarish scene from Cabaret that depicts a wholesome young man singing a seemingly apolitical song expressing love for his fatherland. The scene slowly transforms into a passionate, mass devotion to the Fuhrer and his personal agency in uniting these people with what they believe to be the beautiful future they deserve. It is called "The Future Belongs to Me."



Consider also this Leninist exploitation of children for political purposes. (Thanks again to Belmont Club.)



I can't vouch for the translation in the sub-titles, but it sounds like Mao's Cultural Revolution and today's North Korea.

[Note: Actually, my colleague at The King's College, economist Alex Tokarev, is a native Russian speaker, and he says the words have nothing to do with what the children are singing in this video, and the reference to Lenin's little potatoes doesn't sound credible even for socialist propaganda of the period. Always go to the source, and to the original language if you can!]

Of course, this is quite distinct from the love of country that we instill in our children, though within measure, even through patriotic songs such as "America, the Beautiful" and the National Anthem. It's worth reflecting on the difference between the cultivation of patriotic sentiment in young hearts and the propagandizing of children in totalitarian states that we see in these videos.

There appears to have been difficulty keeping the "Sing For Change" video publicly accessible, as Belmont Club attests. ("BTW, the original YouTube video was withdrawn from public sharing and the embedded video stopped working for a time, but someone has reposted it (HT Sobieski) and I’ve re-embedded. There may be a struggle to keep the video visible to the public in the coming days. Who could have foreseen it would be harder to keep a video criticizing Obama up than one criticizing Hitler?") Perhaps the thugs from Obama's "truth squads" have been busy.

Of course, the other side of messianic political movements and figures is their actively fascistic (yes, I use the word advisedly) intolerance of any criticism. We observe this in American political liberals in general, as Jonah Goldberg has documented in his book, Liberal Fascism, and as Barack Obama himself has already begun to demonstrate. See Harold Kildow's post "The Dark Night of Fascism."

Lo. He is Now World Citizen-Messiah

Barack Obama's world tour has gone so splendidly well that there is a good chance that he will solve all the world's problems while he is still only a candidate for president. That would leave him with only domestic issues to address once in office. If in the course of this short tour he can pacify and unify the world with his spellbinding charisma and remarkable good sense, he will surely accomplish the same thing here at home within the first one hundred days of his administration. If Obama is elected (and why wouldn't we elect him?), I expect that he will be a voluntarily one term president simply from the prospect of the sheer boredom of a second term with nothing left to do.

These are truly inspiring times. What we thought was an American Citizen-Messiah has revealed himself to be actually a World Citizen-Messiah! How did we not see that he is too good to keep all to ourselves? But you don't know that half of it. After you read "He Ventured Forth to Bring Light to the World" by Gerard Baker in TimesOnline, you'll grope for words to express your thanks for being alive at this Great Historical Turning Point. (Excuse me. I have to cry.)

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.
The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.

When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: “Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?”

Read on. It gets better. Much better. You can see a video version here.
The fellow believers over at Power Line give a synopsis of what the Prophet of Unity said in the Unified City. They end by concluding, "this is a speech about turning America into the European Union more than anything else." Isn't that good news.
John McCain, on the other hand, does serious harm to the prospects for World Evolutionary Advance by focusing people's attention on these unflattering facts about the Peace Child's words and deeds concerning Iraq over the last couple of years. Don't read it. It will just make you mad. Or confuse you. Or something.

Obama Worship and Obama's Silence

The Apostle Paul Worshiped and Refusing It (Acts 14)

Jesse Jackson Jr. is not an obscure New Age journalist from San Francisco. He is a United States Congressman from Illinois and the son of Jesse Jackson, a prominent figure in American politics for the last 30 years. As Harold reported in the previous post, Rep. Jackson said,

"The event itself [Barack Obama's nomination to be the Democratic party's presidential candidate] is so extraordinary that another chapter could be added to the Bible to chronicle its significance.”

(Politico.com, in "Black Lawmakers Emotional About Obama's Success," reported this without comment in a serious of responses to the historic development.)

This is not an isolated statement. It has actually become quite common to describe the presumptive Democratic nominee in Messianic or at least semi-divine terms. See Jonah Goldberg's "Messiah in Our Midst" and his more thorough documenting of this in The National Review, as well as my post, "Obama Offers Civil Religion on Steroids." Re-read "Is Obama an Enlightened Being?," the article the provoked the previous post. He denies that he is doing a "superhero messiah" thing. And yet... "Many spiritually advanced people...identify Obama as a Lightworker." He can "help usher in a new way of being on the planet." He can even "help us evolve."

Ask yourself, "What would I do if people were saying these things about ME?" Surely you would caution them to sober up and adjust their expectations. (1) It's wrong. (2) As a professing Christian, he should redirect glory to God. (3) It's bad for the republic. (4) It's bad for him politically, as it establishes expectations he cannot possibly meet.

Notice what the Apostle Paul did when the people of Lystra, led by the priest of Zeus, started worshiping him after he healed a crippled man.

"When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, 'The gods have come down to us in human form!'...But when the apostles Barnabus and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: 'Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you.'" (Acts 14:11-15)

But Obama has not uttered a word of that sort. I am curious to see what effect this talk eventually has on him, especially as it is coming (arguably) even from his wife. This is what happened to Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, when he let the praises of flattering crowds go to his head.

"On the appointed day Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people. They shouted, 'This is the voice of a god, not a man.' Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died." (Acts 12:21-23)

Not only has Obama not distanced himself from this sort of talk, the way he eventually did from Jeremiah Wright's outlandish rhetoric, he encourages it. He may even have initiated it. In his speech in St. Paul (ironically) marking his effective securing of the Democratic nomination, he promised the faithful 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 for the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”

Never mind the notion that we have never taken care of our sick, to say nothing of the sick all over the world, but will he really turn back the tides and "heal" the planet? Yes, we know what he means. He is going to introduce legislation to address global warming. But that's not how he puts it. William Kristol, in "A Campaign We Can Believe In?," notes that, "In his evocation of healing powers and dominion over the waters, Obama summons up echoes of the Gospels and Genesis." He presents his candidacy in millenarian and arguably messianic terms. It stirs up the crowds. It has secured the nomination. But it is dangerous and the mark of a demagogue of a sort most threatening to liberty.

To my knowledge, we have never seen anything like this in American politics. It is the sort of immoderate politics that leads to tyranny and horrific tragedy. There are limits to what can be accomplished through politics and in general through these flawed things we call human beings, even the best of them. When we reach for the Republic of Virtue ushered in by an Enlightened Being or a cadre of such extraordinary men, what we get is...the Terror.

Obama has many questions to answer between now and November. His silence in the face of this political veneration, if not worship, raises one of the most important ones. This may put the Constitution and the character of the American people to an historic test.

Political Idolatry

A columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle, Mark Morford, confesses his Obama-worshipping idolatry in the most extravagant outpouring I have yet seen. In a piece titled, "Is Obama an Enlightened Being? Morford's scarily mystical New Age answer is a big YES. I am one of the "miserable, deeply depressed Republicans" he mentions, and his piece is one of the reasons. The following is a representative quote from this paean to the Enlightened One, the still point of karmic, self organizing positive energy:

Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/06/06/notes060608.DTL

So, Obama the Soul-Speaker, this being who is not like us, this Lightworker! is a rare cosmic gift being recognized as such by those among us who are "attuned to energies beyond the literal meanings of things." Can anyone reading this explain what this means? I'm too literally minded, or perhaps "coweringly religious", to get it. But I fear this is only the beginning of this sort of thing, as the literal meaning of idolatry comes down from the ironic and off handed pop-culture references like "American Idol", to a concrete expression, albeit a perverted one, of "spiritually advanced"people's in-built desire to worship something greater than themselves.

But all idols, after they have done their damage, are eventually exposed for what they are: pathetic--and malicious--imitations of the One who truly dwells in the light, and unworthy of the extravagant devotion lavished on them.

Although this is not a new thing under the sun, it is one that has not been seen for a while--a political leader worshipped as god. May the real God help us.

**Update**

The Politico website shows the fever is spreading. Jesse Jackson Jr, on hearing Obama's big speech:

“I cried all night. I’m going to be crying for the next four years,” he said. “What Barack Obama has accomplished is the single most extraordinary event that has occurred in the 232 years of the nation’s political history. ... The event itself is so extraordinary that another chapter could be added to the Bible to chronicle its significance.”

Obama Offers Civil Religion on Steroids

In this election cycle, religion is showing up in novel and surprising ways. We have seen religion playing a prominent role since Evangelicals broke their isolation in the late 1970s. Since then, we have seen the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, Preacher Pat for President and, on the Democratic side, Reverends Jackson and Sharpton. In the campaign for 2008, we have a Baptist minister advertising his “Christian leadership” as he surges ahead in Iowa, and even Hillary Clinton (amazing grace!) has found religion.

Barack Obama is employing religion in an especially interesting way. Rather than invoking the Savior or pointing to Him, the junior Senator from Illinois is claiming to be the Savior…or at least supporters who are intimately close to him are doing so.

It seems that Obama may be transforming from a man of faith into an object of faith. In his column today, “Obama the Messianic” (The New York Post is more aptly titled “Oprah the Apostle”), Rich Lowry observes Oprah’s anointing of Sen. Obama as what she called “the one” who was to come. You can view the video here or at BarakObama.com.

In a her long introduction to the candidate before a packed South Carolina stadium, Oprah Winfrey said, "We need politicians who know how to tell the truth. But more important, we need politicians who know how to be the truth." (The emphasis was hers.) Barack Obama, a professing Christian (though his Evangelical orthodoxy is at least open to question, such that even David Brooks can see it), is surely familiar with Jesus' messianic claim to divinity, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6).

Michelle Obama seems to be following this Messianic theme (I have not been able to locate the source): "We need a leader who is going to touch our souls, who's going to make us feel differently about one another." Of course, Jesus does that. It's called spiritual regeneration -- being born again. To Michelle, Obama is the Life. To Oprah, he is the Truth.

What does the prophet Barack say? In a South Carolina church a few weeks ago, he said that, through the new politics that he will bring, we will "create a kingdom right here on earth." Did the congregation gasp as they should have? I doubt it.

The American Revolution was, as Martin Diamond put it, one of "sober expectations." It recognized the sinful depravity of man and designed a constitution that could bring out the best in us and manage the worst in us. It was the French Revolution that promised "Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité," a Republic of Virtue. Obama's rhetoric, and that which he is condoning, places him in the radical French tradition which led of course to the Terror and to Napoleon's tyranny. Excessive expectations for what is possible to achieve through politics always do. Hillary Clinton is more practically political, less inspiring, and even more selfish, and in those respects -- believe it or not -- she is a safer candidate.

A previous reflection on the longings of the soul and immoderate politics, "Community and the Longing Soul," is relevant here.

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Oprah then suggests that Obama is perhaps not a god or a person within the Godhead, but rather a more highly evolved form of our species. "We are here to evolve to a higher plane. And the reason I love Barack Obama is because [sic.] he is an evolved leader who can bring evolved leadership to this country."

In the immediately preceding statement, Oprah claimed that Obama would not only love our country, but also love our enemies. "All human hearts are the same. Every mother losing her son in every country feels the same." This simply repeats the peacenik arguments from the 1980s that, because "the Russians love their children too," there is actually no threat of war coming from the Soviet Union. They skipped over the fact that even that argument depended upon maintaining credible nuclear and conventional threats. Oprah's own argument does not, of course, account for the women who have supported their children in their suicide bombings. Nor does it account for the little influence that tender hearted women have in our enemy nations. But not to dwell too long on an entertainer's silly remark.

She then adds that, "We need a president who cares about our friends and also cares about our enemies." Does Senator Obama stand behind this statement? Does he propose that, when he is President, he will be above politics, above the America-world distinction, the friends-enemies distinction? Would he see himself as representing not just American interests, but in some way the worldwide common good? Does he understand that there are irreconcilable conflicts between national interests or between various local aspirations? He is so unseasoned, and he presents himself as being so idealistic, that I would take nothing for granted.