Barack Obama is under fire after replacing his estranged pastor Jeremiah Wright with a new circle of religious confidantes whose views are dramatically at odds with some of his political goals.
The president is now taking spiritual guidance from no less than five different pastors, whom he phones for advice at moments of stress or when making big decisions.
But a year after the incendiary rantings of Rev Wright threatened to derail Mr Obama's presidential campaign, revelation of the "dial-a-prayer" sessions has prompted critics to declare that he has a new "pastor problem".
Four of the president's inner circle of religious counsellors have drawn the ire of gay rights groups since they are opposed to equal rights for homosexuals and in some cases believe that they can be cured of their "sin" through prayer.
Others are concerned that the five preachers, ostensibly selected because they share Mr Obama's view that the church should help tackle poverty at the grassroots level, include two Texas megachurch pastors who preach that personal wealth is a sign of Godliness.
The prayer circle is overwhelmingly opposed to abortion, a position at odds with Mr Obama's "anything goes" pro-choice stance, arguably the most liberal of any president in US history.
Mr Obama has handed huge influence to Bishop T.D. Jakes, Kirbyjon Caldwell, Joel Hunter, Jim Wallis and civil rights veteran Otis Moss Jr, in part, because he and wife Michelle have failed to settle on a new church in Washington to replace the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago which they abandoned last year.
White House sources say that the family have not yet found a congregation that meets their theological requirements and is big enough to cope with the disruption of frequent presidential visits and the likely swell in congregation that would accompany the Obamas' patronage. It will also have to be secured by the Secret Service.
Mr Obama prayed with Otis Moss and Joel Hunter on the eve of his election and would have added Revs Jakes and Caldwell to the conference call if they had been available.
The most controversial figure the president has been telephoning is Bishop T. D. Jakes, head of the 30,000 strong Potter's House parish in Dallas, who refers to homosexuality as "brokenness" and recently claimed that he wouldn't hire a sexually active gay person.
When Rev Jakes' son Jermaine was arrested last month for soliciting gay sex in a Dallas park after exposing himself to two undercover male vice squad detectives, the bishop said he revealed he had issued "correction" to his son.
Bishop Jakes has also been criticised for his advocacy of "prosperity theology", which teaches that God rewards the faithful with material gifts. In one sermon, "Provision for the Vision," he bragged about his own stable of luxury cars.
Similar claims are levelled at Kirbyjon Caldwell, who runs the world's largest United Methodist congregation at Windsor Village Church in Houston, who has been criticised for going "too far in linking spiritual wholeness to financial wholeness".
His church prohibits ordination for practicing homosexuals, same-sex unions and a woman on staff at Rev Caldwell's church runs a group called Metanoia, a gay conversion programme which claims to use Christian teaching to "cure" those "seeking freedom from homosexuality, lesbianism, prostitution, sex addiction and other habitual sins".
That has enraged Obama supporter Wayne Besen, founder of Truth Wins Out, a New York organisation which campaigns against the "ex-gay" movement in the church, which insists that homosexuality is nothing more than a sinful lifestyle choice.
He told The Sunday Telegraph: "I think Obama's got another pastor problem. There's a tendency to surround himself with these anti-gay preachers which is very offensive. These are people who believe that we are sinful and sick and that you can pray away the gay.
"The notion that Obama can't find a pastor in America who doesn't have these outrageous extreme beliefs is baffling to many of us."
Campaigners say that by talking to those with the views of Bishop Jakes, the president sends the wrong message to his gay supporters who had hoped for a new tone from the White House after eight years in which George W. Bush used wedge issues like opposition to gay marriage to drum up conservative votes.
Mr Besen said: "He's giving credibility to people who are virulently anti-gay and promoting discrimination. The president has given these homophobes his stamp of approval. He has given them a platform. By elevating these extreme elements, he's hurting our community." He suggested that Mr Obama should consult Bishop Gene Robinson, the openly gay head of the American episcopal church, whose ordination sparked a split in the worldwide Anglican union.
"Why not have Gene Robinson in that five?" he said. "There's a person of courage and integrity and the kind of international leader that Obama should look towards. It's very disappointing." Campaigners also have a problem with Joel Hunter, the pastor of a conservative megachurch in Florida, who was once the head of the Christian Coalition, a nationwide hardline anti-gay and anti-abortion group.
He provided the closing benediction to the Democratic National Convention in 2008 and offered a blessing over President-Elect Obama during a, pre-inauguration service held at St. John's Episcopal Church opposite the White House, a service also addressed by T.D. Jakes.
The fourth member of Mr Obama's spiritual team, Jim Wallis, president and chief executive of Sojourners, a liberal evangelical magazine based in Washington has made friendly overtures to gay Christians but he is a vocal opponent of abortion and gay marriage.
The only member of the new religious circle the campaigners don't have a problem with is Rev Otis Moss Jr, an old associate of Rev Martin Luther King.
Bishop Jakes told the New York Times Mr Obama contacted him for several prayer phone calls, most recently when his grandmother died two days before November's election. "You take turns praying," he said. "It's really more about contacting God than each other." In a move that has provoked anxiety among some of his supporters, Mr Obama has handed three of his confidantes real political power, appointing Mr Wallis, Rev Hunter and Rev Moss to his President's Council on Faith-based and Neighbourhood Partnerships to deliver public funds to church social groups.
Conservative religious commentator Joseph Loconte voiced the fears of those on the right that Mr Obama is seeking cover from conservative theologians to enact liberal policies, that in effect he will neuter them. "The temptation to manipulate faith for partisan ends is likely to prove irresistible," he wrote.
But for those who want Mr Obama to pass key gay rights legislation, including overturning the "don't ask, don't tell" rules banning gays in the military, the fear is that the pastors will neuter Mr Obama's social policies.
Jason Bartlett of the National Black Justice Coalition, a gay rights group, said: "We respect the president's right to seek counsel and guidance from anyone that he chooses," he said. "Where we might begin to object is when those people come into the public domain, like at the inauguration, or speaking at the White House, or having even an unofficial position in the administration if they had undue influence."
Source: Telegraph
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Obama's Five Compromisers, errrrr, Pastors
(Matthew 23:1-36)
Obama's five compromisers, errrrr, pastors. My first reference to Senator Barack Hussein Obama to the Liveprayer family was a good year before 90% of the nation even knew who he was. It was in the context of his church affiliation in Chicago, the ultra liberal Trinity United Church of Christ that was pastored by the now infamous racist Dr. Jeremiah Wright. As the Democratic primaries got underway and then Senator Obama was gaining in popularity, I did several Devotionals documenting his church and his pastor of nearly 20 years.
Having started my ministry in Chicago the same time President Obama began his career as a "community organizer," Chicago-speak for a political hack for the Richard Daley machine, having preached in dozens of major black churches on the South Side of Chicago, I was able to give those in the Liveprayer family special insight that his church membership at Trinity was not about his faith in Christ but for political expediency. When that relationship which helped advance his political career became a liability, he cut all ties with Trinity UCC.
During the primaries and Presidential election, President Obama made a cold and calculated effort to go after the Christian vote that elected former President Bush not once, but twice. He aggressively market himself as a Christian despite holding beliefs and taking political stands in complete rebellion to Christ and the Bible. Sadly, many professing Christians voted for him allowing his skin color to trump their faith in Christ, ignoring the fact this man believes the universalism lie that there are many roads that lead to God and is an avowed proponent of slaughtering innocent babies, promoting the radical homosexual agenda, and standing with the enemies of Israel.
My hands are clean as I did everything I could to warn the people who he was, what he would do once elected, and I have been right every step of the way. God gave the people, even many professing Christians, what they wanted just like He gave the children of Israel a king despite His warnings. I said on the day after the election that God took His hand off of this nation, and almost 4 months later, and as sad as it makes me to say this, nobody with a straight face can argue that I was not 100% correct.
Now that he is in the White House, you don't hear much any longer about Obama being a Christian. The campaign is over so he doesn't need to play that card as much any longer. I was interested the other day to read an article that President Obama has replaced his pastor of 20 years, the racist Dr. Jeremiah Wright, with FIVE pastors. As I looked at the list of who these 5 men were, all I could do was laugh. President Obama went out and handpicked 5 men, not to feed him spiritually, not to hold him accountable spiritually, not to teach him what the Bible says about the key issues of our day, but to simply give him the appearance of being a Christian.
Who are these 5 dupes he handpicked? They are a who's who of prominent, liberal men who call themselves pastors but are a stench in the nostrils of God for being compromisers of the Truth. There is only ONE THING any pastor is required to do, and that is to stand for the only Truth there is, the Bible. To compromise that Truth makes a mockery of God and the Christian faith. The only way these men could have been handpicked by the President to be his "pastors," were to be men who compromised the Truth.
These five men are Rev. Otis Moss Jr., Bishop T. D. Jakes, Rev. Kirbyjon H. Caldwell, Rev. Jim Wallis, and Rev. Joel C. Hunter. Moss came out of the civil rights movement, actively campaigned for President Obama despite his anti-Biblical stand on life, homosexuality, and Israel, and his son is the one who replaced Dr. Jeremiah Wright at Trinity UCC in Chicago. Caldwell pastors the largest United Methodist Church in the nation out of Houston, was very close to President Bush, but was very prominent and aggressive in campaigning for President Obama, again, despite his anti-Biblical positions.
*As a side note, I wonder why the IRS isn't investigating Caldwell, since he willfully and blatantly violated his exempt status in his brazen campaigning for President Obama.
Wallis is the president and chief executive of Sojourners, a liberal magazine and social organization based in Washington. Hunter is the pastor of a conservative megachurch in Florida, but has embraced the isues of many liberal churches such as the mythical global warming hoax. He also gave an invocation at the Democratic National Convention in Denver last year, and has been embraced by the religious left movement
Jakes of course is the theologically challenged Dallas pastor who denies the trinity, preaches like a lion in his church but like a lamb in public. He goes on his buddy Dr. Phil's program and never once mentions the name of Jesus, never once uses the Bible as a reference for his comments, and promotes himself not as a pastor but as a motivational speaker. NBC used him for commentary on election night to cheerlead Obama's victory, and never once did this supposed man of God speak out against the FACT our new President had a track record and agenda to kill babies, promote the radical homosexual lifestyle, and take sides with the enemies of Israel.
The architect of President Obama's strategic move to promote himself as a Christian and to attract the Christian vote is a young man named Josh DuBois. He calls himself a Pentecostal pastor, though he has never pastored a church nor is there any record he has ever delivered a sermon. Those in the Liveprayer family may remember DuBois. He is the one over 100,000 contacted with phone calls and emails during the campaign to try and get then Senator Obama to grant me an interview so we could discuss what he acutally believes.
Of course there was no way his handlers were going to let him be interviewed by someone who would not go along with their deception that he was a Christian. DuBois is now the head of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, but still actively choreographs all of President Obama's efforts, like lining up these 5 compromisers to make people believe President Obama is a Christian.
I love you and care about you so much. The sad fact is, none of these "pastors" are there to hold our President accountable spiritually. They are simply willing dupes for President Obama to give the appearance that he is a fine Christian man, all the while making decisions daily without shame or remorse in complete rebellion to Christ and the Bible. They were picked because President Obama already knew they were men who could be "bought by the king."
These supposed men of God epitomize the problem with the church and the spiritual decay of our nation. They have compromised the Truth of the Bible and made the Word of God of none effect in our culture. They are no different than the religious leaders in the day of Jesus who were pawns in the hands of the Roman government. They gave lips service to God, but their actions betrayed their true hearts. They were simply men who were more concerned with their agenda than God's agenda, with their lives than the lives of those they were called to minister to, and their goal was earthly power, not Heavenly rewards. Get out your Bible and read today's anchor verses, Matthew 23:1-36!
Please pray for President Obama to get saved as I do each day. Pray for these pastors to take a stand for the Truth of the Bible regardless of the personal consequences. Once again, this is just another illustration that it is not a politician, not the compromised pastors who are in the spotlight, but those faithful men who lead God's church and refuse to bow their knee to baal, to President Obama, or any man, and those men and women who love the Lord and make up the last days' remnant who will lead this nation back to God and to Biblical values. Turning back to God is the only hope and the only answer if this nation is to survive.
In His love and service, Your friend and brother in Christ, Bill Keller
The article on First Lady Michelle Obama and President Obama prompted me to write youo as I am the author of Words Cross & Across:Word Search on Barack Obama. I want you to know about an do a story on the book. It has ben featured on Associated Press and on CNN radio. It has been featured in USA Today, THE WASHINGTON POST, THE BALTIMORE SUN, THE WASHINGTON POST, and many
other newspapers. Google "Dr. Eugene Williams,Sr.
Interview on Channel 9". Google "Teaching a Vocabulary of Hope' and "Obama Inspires Teacher's Book." Call me at 301-768-8316 or e-mail Educationissues@hotmail.com.
Bill Keller, another fundamentalist, right wing nut job looking for an opportunity to spew his hatred. Shameful!!!
That homosexuals or any group who presume to choose who the President's pastor should be is baffling to me.
Read the article onObama and the "call a pastor criticism". Could you do a piece of news on my Obama book-Words Cross& Across: Word Search on Barack Obama. This book has been featured on Associated Press, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The Baltimore Sun, and numerous other newspapers. It has also been featured on CNN radio and WTOP radio. Google
"Teaching a Vocabulary of Hope" , "Dr. Eugene Williams,Sr. Interviews on Channel 9", and
Obama Inspirees Teacher's Book". For additional information, see Google and Youtube.com.
www.academicresourcesunlimited.org
301-768=8326
It's time for us all to stop judging our president and pray for him. You Bill Keller are also forgetting what the word of God says, "jugde not or you shall be judged." President Obama is just a man as we are, he needs our prayers instead of our judgement. You (Bill) are judging other men of God as well. Sure our president has some issues that need to be changed but don't we all. I myself am a christian and you or no one else can tell me differently. My voting for Obama had nothing to do with his race. I voted for Obama because even though all our presidents make promises and proclaim to be christian, they had everything to do with our current nations problems. I felt like it was time for a change and Mccain could not have provided the change we needed. Obama has only been in office for a few months, pray for him and give him a chance. Since you seem to be a man of God, Search the scriptures and you will see God can turn any man around. Throughout His word, He used several Kings who thought they had it all under control, and He showed Himself mighty in the end. I am a true believer, God loves to show up in the mist of a mess. Our economy and presidential issues(abortion, gay marriges, etc.) are all going to work out in time. For everything under the sun there is an appointed time and season. Our nation has been through this time and time again but through God we have recovered. All of us as being christians already know what's going on, it's just signs of the time. The word speaks of all these things, they must come to pass. Just stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.
Very nice post. Do you accept guest writers?