Obama's Words

Senator Obama is a gifted communicator who overcame much adversity to achieve his current success. Somewhat like a young McCain who bypassed many perks of privilege to serve as a pilot in Vietnam, Barack deserves considerable credit for turning down lawyerly riches to serve in a poor Chicago community. I also believe, despite some questionable associations, that his personal love for Christ and the nation are quite sincere.

Yet, Obama’s words, rather than just his fine presentation, deserve scrutiny. For example, what exactly did he mean in Berlin saying, “The walls between . . . Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down." Arguably, the fundamental question of Jesus’s identity is, from the Christian perspective at least, the cornerstone of these walls. (See I Corinthians 1:21-25; Peter 2:4-10).

Perhaps Obama is simply referring to walls of miscommunication that should indeed fall, but I expect his Oprah-esque followers hear a different message. I certainly hope that he meant the former, but the broader point is that there are dangers to the soaring, but substantively thin, speaking style that Obama has adopted. I fear that Obama, the smooth politician that he is, is happy to let everyone hear what they want to hear.

A more relevant question is asked in Os Guinness's (hopefully not futile) call for elevated discourse:

How do we live with our deepest differences as human beings? How do we live together as humans when such differences are religious and ideological differences, and when these religious and ideological differences are absolute, ultimate, and irreducible, so that it becomes evident that what divides us is deeper than what unites us? How do we live together when we acknowledge that these differences are not just a matter of private worldviews but of "comprehensive doctrines" and entire ways of life, each with its own claims and requirements that cannot help but
impinge on the ways of life of others?

The Case for Civility: And Why Our Future Depends on It, p. 10.

To his credit, Os actually attempts to offer an answer to these questions, while Obama is content, in the words of George Will, to "leave no metaphor behind."