The American Spectator

Print Email

Text Size

Special Report

(Page 3 of 3)

Critic James Hutchins, the bane of Thomas's existence over at UCC Truths (hmm, since Currie likes the Stars Wars analogy, think of Hutchins in this scenario as Luke Skywalker, with Thomas as Vader and Currie as Grand Moff Tarkin), has already raised the obvious point about the impending ad. Instead of resorting to the safety of a static ad in the pages of the New York Times, why isn't Thomas investigating a chance to make his case for the UCC and defend his friend Wright on a Fox show like The O'Reilly Factor? After all, he's the one who had a campaign to get himself on TV talk shows. To which I would add, why not make the rounds of Hannity and Colmes or any conservative radio talk show that would book Thomas? One suspects the reason, of course, is that Thomas has the same thought William F. Buckley once attributed to a liberal who refused his entreaties to appear on Buckley's Firing Line television show: "Why does baloney reject the grinder?"

So let's see if we're in store for another example of what passes for leadership in Obama's church -- my church. Will $120,000 be raised to help any number of poor lost souls who need church help? Or will it be raised and spent this very week to make a rich liberal newspaper richer and promote the politics of a liberal church leader to a targeted audience of liberal readers? As a side effect the ad could open the church to the charge it continues to provide a political benefit among undecided liberals to the favored church member who is the leading Democratic presidential candidate. Who cares if this is a variation of the charge that has already brought the denomination, and possibly now Obama's Trinity church, under the shadow of an IRS investigation? In for a penny, in for a pound.

And by the way, church member to church member, what does my brother in Christ Barack Obama think of this? Is he giving any dough to Thomas to help with the PR fix that he, Obama, has partially caused, necessitating this ad?

MANY AMERICANS ARE FAMILIAR with Ronald Reagan's use of the phrase a "city upon a hill" to describe his vision of America as a beacon of hope. Perhaps not as many realize the phrase comes from the Puritan leader John Winthrop, the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and a "forefather" of what is now the UCC. The more complete version of Winthrop's quote is as follows: "Wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eies of all people are uppon us; soe that if we shall deale falsely with our god in this worke wee have undertaken and soe cause him to withdrawe his present help from us, wee shall be made a story and a by-word through the world."

The idea that the mission of the Pilgrims' church of Christ has been exchanged by a leadership representing 19 percent of its members for a proverbial 30 pieces of modern left-wing political silver symbolized by Jeremiah Wright and John Thomas has unexpectedly become a part of the 2008 presidential campaign.

Spending $120,000 on an ad in the New York Times in a belated attempt at political damage control is one more misguided effort in the left's idolatry of earthly politics that is, as John Winthrop once feared, making this church "a story and a by-word through the world" for dealing falsely with our God.

Can you say "Amen!"?

topics:
Taxes, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Television, Israel, NATO