Obamania, Post-Masculine Charisma & The Tempting of America
Because my personal life is so damn exemplary these days, I’m hardly political, nor is this blog (pace Jenny Holzer).
But I observe the political as it relates to faith, culture and American society, and Barack Obama is impossible to ignore. I see Obama buttons and bumper stickers even at mega-churches. I’m hip, trendy and a classical liberal, so I have to consider voting for Obama, right?
Obama’s vague and nebulous campaign mantra of “Change” is clever, but even the articulate can’t be expected to articulate all of his implementation strategies for his policies in 15-second sound bites. Obama has a lot of the same attributes as John F. Kennedy, and he looks great in a $2,000 suit. Will he make a good president?
Obama sets out to make history if he wins the election. A tad grandiose for someone with his limited track record, but he has appeal, especially to women (but see below).
Okay, politics aside, what has given me a check in my sprit from the outset about all this Obamania is how many supporters look to Barack Obama as someone who can atone for the sins of America, the Bush Administration, and every other perceived evil that the dissatisfied, the discontent and the disaffected can think of or, rather, feel.
The most literate, insightful and discerning analysis of this Obama phenomenon I’ve read so far is Michael Knox Beran’s article in City Journal, “Obama, Shaman.”
Excerpts:
“The danger of Obama’s charismatic healer-redeemer fable lies in the hubris it encourages, the belief that gifted politicians can engender a selfless communitarian solidarity.”
“[Obama] … phrases his vision in the tranquilizing accents of Oprah-land. His charisma is grounded in empathy rather than authority, confessional candor rather than muscular strength, metrosexual mildness rather than masculine testosterone.”
“But Obama-mania is bound in the end to disappoint. Not only does it teach us to despise our political system’s wise recognition of human imperfection and the pursuit of private happiness; it encourages us to seek for perfection where we will not find it, in politics, in the hero worship of a charismatic shaman, in the speciousness of a secular millennium.”
Read it yourself and let me know what you think.
A few thoughts:
Beran’s article is way above the head of the ordinary folk …deep…intellectual…insightful…true and thus scary.
I’m reminded of Mr. Worldly Wiseman in the Pilgrim’s Progress when I read the description of the devil here…
“Dostoyevsky was among the few who grasped the momentousness of the change that Machiavelli initiated in the West’s conception of diablerie. Near the end of The Brothers Karamazov, he describes an encounter between the devil and Ivan Karamazov. The devil appears, not with claws and horns, but in the guise of an elegant man of the world: he phrases his mordant taunts in French and laughs at modern intellectuals who believe that he doesn’t exist or who worry that to admit his existence would harm their “progressive image.” Dostoyevsky implied that it was precisely when the devil became a wit that the intellectual classes of the West succumbed to the most familiar form of diabolic temptation: the belief that men can transcend the limits of their condition and “be as gods”—demiurges with the power to heal the world’s pain and reshape it in accordance with a beautiful idea.”
When a nation that once served the God of the Heavens and the earth turns its back on that God, it automatically falls for any god that will do – today it’s Obama. Perhaps this (an Obama presidency) will be that nations’ chastisement for leaving the God of its youth for a youthful looking mortal. May God help America!
Perhaps I am a cynic, but I see Obama’s selection of Joe Biden as his running mate as a “tell” that his hand holds cards the body politic cannot see. If Obama’s promise is to move America beyond the current (and historical) adversarial political system, it won’t be by joining hands with old style politicians like Biden. If the system is truly “broken” as Obama professes, wouldn’t we expect his vice presidential running mate to be less of a power politician, Beltway insider, and general string-puller than this?
No, the truth is that Obama is the new “face” of the old Democratic party – up to their old tricks, but unable to convince large enough numbers of voters to open up their already strained pocketbooks without some fresh face to put a beard on their business-as-usual shenanigans. Those who truly “believe” are either dyed in the wool liberals, young and foolish idealists, or the trade unionists, environmentalists, and trial lawyers, lurking slyly in the wings. Not really buying into the hype, but understanding that those who do are playing into their own much larger political agendae.
Yes, Obama is guilty of mixing and matching political and religious ideas and emotions…
But aren’t all politicians guilty of such rhetoric?
I don’t believe that more government is the answer, rather, I believe Jesus’ government is the answer! However, that doesn’t excuses us from doing all we can to live in between Jesus’ victory at Calvary and the fulfillment of the promise of renewed creation we see in Revelation, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, etc.
This is decidedly more than political in nature, but also, (it must be pointed out) it is not less than political in nature!
“Jesus is Lord,” was the profession of the early church, and 2,000 years later we easily fail to realize that the unstated (but obvious to any 1st century Jew, pagan, or Roman) corollary, was that “Jesus is Lord, and Caesar is not!”
I take serious issue with some of the planks on the Democratic Platform, however, I take serious issue with the Republican Platform on issues just as abhorrent to my faith. I find it interesting that Republicans of all people would be the ones to call Obama on his ‘Messianic’ visions of a rebuilt America; is it perhaps that they are bitter they have lost the corner on the religious market?
PS Dave, while I can’t help but agree with your assessment of the situation, I also have to point out that I take it as a sign that I am living faithful to my calling when people call me a foolish idealist! (I know you weren’t calling me that, but I thought I would speak for ‘young idealists’ everywhere!)
Dave,
I just read “The Obama Nation”, by Jerome Corsi. It lays out BHO’s life story – according to BHO’s own words in “Dreams from My Father and “Audacity of Hope.”
It talks about:
- BHO’s Kenyan father. His father killed himself while driving drunk.
- BHO’s off-beat mother who abandoned him to be raised by his grandparents so she could obtain an advanced degree.
- BHO’s high school days at a Nichols-type private school in Hawaii. There he was mentored by the Communist poet Frank Marshall Davis and read works by such people as Malcolm X.
- BHO’s early days as a community organizer in Chicago. Inspired by Saul Alinsky, the radical socialist, he adopted the mantra of “change”, and that the end always justifies the means to bring it about.
- BHO working with local churches to help further his socailist/Marxist agenda. Basically saying that “you people in the churches are not satisfied. Let me help you get the life that you deserve.”
- BHO joining Trinity UCC. His reason to accept Christianity, he says, was a decision, not a epiphany.” Corsi surmises that, likely, Trinity UCC’s black liberation theology fit in to BHO’s worldview, and that to have credibility as a community organizer, he had to join a church.
- His involvement in Kenyan politics, and his endorsement of Raila Odinga, the socialist and apparent Muslim sympathizer as president. When Odinga lost the election this past December, he demanded that he be president. Over 1000 people died in post-election violence. Many Christian churches were burned to the ground, while not a single mosque was touched.
- BHO’s association with Ayers and Dohrn of the Weather Underground. His campaign kick-off for Illinois Senate was at Ayers’ and Dohrn’s house. Corsi shows this relationship as more than casual/incidental.
- The Jeremiah Wright/TUCC involvement.
- The Father Pfleger involvement.
- BHO’s endorsement by Hamas.
- BHO’s unopposed run for the Illinois Senate (he got the other candidates kicked off the ballot due to signature disputes.)
- BHO’s Illinois Senate voting records on abortion, gun control, taxes, etc.
- Michelle Obama and her big mouth.
And much, much more!