Confederacy Stains Church Windows

In 1953, was it really wrong to commemorate Gen. Robert E. Lee in the stained glass of Washington, D.C.'s National Cathedral? For context, a typical statement from this post-war unifier from March 15, 1866:

“We shall have to be patient, and suffer for awhile at least; and all controversy, I think, will only serve to prolong angry and bitter feelings and postpone the period when reason and charity may resume their sway.”

Politically correct progressives, it seems, are in a cultural jihad with his ghost. A modern-day McCarthyism-style fervor to annihilate the famous figures populating their own Confederate history. It's analogous to a real-life “Fahrenheit 451”: tearing down statues of their forebearers instead of burning books. However, the goal to eradicate threatening ideas—both sets of objects represent—is identical. Unfortunately, Democrats' demented dogma has recently shuttered the windows of a national religious landmark.

Last Tuesday evening—after a two-year debate—the cathedral's governing board voted to remove two 4-by-6 foot stain glass panels. Related to church windows, what do parishioners typically see other than emanations of color and beautiful designs? Still, the fact that they depict two important Confederate generals, Lee and Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, now means they must be purged. Per Church officials, this sudden “eyesore” is “a barrier to our important work on racial justice and racial reconciliation.” A convenient excuse of the self-righteous to perpetrate retribution against demonized, and defenseless, targets. Flawed as they may have been, weren't these American soldiers also Christians? Thus, to utilize Scripture as a guide:

“Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, 'Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother [Confederates] who sins against me? Up to seven times?' Jesus answered, 'I tell you, not just seven times, but seventy-seven times!'” (Matthew 18:21-2)

As their religion's prime directive is forgiveness, why have these church elders sown dissension instead?

Hence, their brief deconsecration service that followed Thursday was a farce. A hypocritical effort to mask scorn via a “respectful” ritual toward disparaged subjects. Yet, liberals' self-serving perpetuation of an ancient grievance has no relevance, for example, to Lee's post-war actions. In this matter, their ire is a bizarre and destructive (often violently expressed) mind-set. Thus, as the acknowledged face of the Confederacy, Gen. Lee is a scapegoat for Democrats' own existential crisis of conscience. In short, they use his image to inflame today's political landscape. Their groundless accusations—as their unfounded rage—have no bearing on him, then as now.

Neither do their baseless claims of his influence have any connection to race relations in America of 2017. Our widespread celebration of diversity—as demonstrated by commonplace interracial marriage—is a case in point. Those needing a more blatant example of societal evolution need only consider the last occupant of the Oval Office. What greater honor can be bestowed upon anyone to represent all Americans then electing that person to helm the country?

Speaking of obvious truths, the Cathedral Chapter's unfortunate determination is actually an insult to the gift, and the legacy, of the completely blameless United Daughters of the Confederacy (and a private benefactor). After all, they raised the funds and donated the windows to the church. Thus, for 64 years the Daughters' intention was to honor the past, not justify its mistakes. This fact was even acknowledged by religious progressive Gary Hall, the former dean of the cathedral, who stated in 2015 that the prominently placed panels signified a desire to “foster reconciliation between parts of the nation that had been divided by the Civil War.” Historically, that means the Confederacy’s descendants commissioned the windows as an act of contrition: to promote unity, and healing. In other words, precisely what Lee did during the Reconstruction Era. Therefore, what reflective message could be more appropriate in a hallowed space than that one? To the well-informed, removing the windows only abets ignorance of the past. Quite an “enlightened” decision in this topsy-turvy political climate!

Tragically such visual beauty has also become a Rorschach test for polarizing partisans in the MSM. For example, The Washington Post's Colbert King misconstrued:

“The solemn truth was inescapable: The windows honored a system that rested upon black subjugation and white supremacy. They were a stain on the cathedral and were, as the chapter’s removal resolution stated, 'inconsistent with [the church’s] current mission to serve as a house of prayer for all people'. ... They had to go.”

Interestingly, this columnist's spouse, Gwen, is a member of the Cathedral Chapter. She voted to strip the nave of these “offensive” artifacts, too. Given the Kings' collective advocacy of vanquishing the National Cathedral's “silent symbols of a bloody war fought to uphold a traitorous Confederacy rooted in slavery,” perhaps they should complain about the open display of crucifixes next? After all, didn't the Ku Klux Klan (read: the militant arm of Southern Democrats) habitually burn crosses to terrorize minorities? Aren't these archaic instruments of Roman torture as off-putting to the delicate sensibilities of their flock as their newly condemned windows?

As followers of Christ, what would Jesus do?

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Obama's “Trump” wall, outsourced jobs

With 25 million Mr. Obama's de facto Middle Eastern 'jobs for jihadis' program is funding a 125 mile Donald Trump style wall in Tunisia. Is Tunisia—which borders Algeria and ISIS-infested Libya—one of the extra “57 states” then-candidate Obama referred to back on the campaign trail in Beaverton, Oregon in May of 2008?

For the president who famously said, “If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen,” turns out Mr. Obama is pro-jobs, just not domestically or for fellow Americans. Specifically, I refer to the 93 million unemployed, able-bodied citizens out of work due to high corporate taxes (read: the widespread phenomenon of corporate inversion) and, in large measure, to restrictive employer mandates in the bureaucratic behemoth that is Obamacare.

The impediment of a wall was a great historical deterrent to China's invading Mongols and the Vatican's Muslim raiders. Likewise in today's world, how is a U.S.-paid one appropriate for Tunisia, but not for America's southern border? Related to Trump's proposed wall to be paid by Mexico, he who is responsible for absolutely nothing had the audacity to say:

“People expect the President of the United States and the elected officials in this country to treat these problems seriously, to put forward policies that have been examined, analyzed, are effective, where unintended consequences are taken into account,” Obama said at his daily press briefing. “They don't expect half-baked notions coming out of the White House. We can't afford that.'”

Speaking of things the American people can't afford is Mr. Obama's virtual doubling of the national debt, by adding almost 9 trillion (19 trillion and counting). How is that his version of “examined and effective” governance? Further, giving this devil his due, how is the following not unintended consequences: his wasteful stimulus spending (to corrupt political cronies like now bankrupt Solyndra), his race-baiting encouragement of Black Lives Matter (advocating cop-killing chaos), announcing the withdrawal date of U.S. forces from Iraq (convenient for terrorists to re-establish an Islamic caliphate), and the ruinous nuclear deal with Iran (which will guarantee the Imams the leverage and/or use of the bomb within a few short years.) Not only has this fascist ideologue not taken the Constitution, the Bill of Rights or the duties of the nation's highest office seriously, he has wrecked the joint with his disastrous “fundamental transformation of America.” Indeed, he who is the laughingstock of supposed allies and geo-political foes alike really shouldn't throw stones in the crumbling glass house that is his failed presidency.

Despite the farce of a 5% unemployment rate, Mr. Obama has gutted the economy (and the military). Try the experiment of making a technical support call these days. The accent on the other end of the phone is invariably exotic—and likely half a world away—from far flung places like India or the Philippines. Those are formerly American jobs exported to where the labor is cheaper, and the regulations and taxes are less. Capitalist producers, the One Percenters, wrongly demonized by Clinton/Sanders-Democrat/Socialist is standard Sal Alinsky style class warfare: alienate and divide the electorate to ensure their ilk's election. To this end, that is why Clinton fundraising bagman Terry McAuliffe (moonlighting as Virginia governor) did an end around a two days out of session legislature to restore the vote of 200,000 convicted criminals.

As nature abhors a vacuum, any country without borders isn't really a nation. For example, open borders in Western societies invite all manners of gang violence, specifically Europe's rape epidemic. Further, every form of criminality is ignorantly condoned as the rule of law is disregarded from Mr. Obama's White House to local border patrol agents directed to sit on their hands, and collect a government paycheck. The result has facilitated a golden age of drug trafficking, most notably seen in the heroin epidemic in Ohio's heartland. As previously mentioned, globalization of the workforce has outsourced jobs, crippled an already anemic U.S. economy. Democrats' big government intrusion, tax and spend policies, and the bogeyman scare tactic (which hamstrings U.S. businesses with the promise of a “greener” environment) of climate change has left America sinking like the Titanic into a leftist quagmire.

Make no mistake, this has been accomplished by progressives with no loyalty to America—the place or the ideal. Lapel pins and lip service notwithstanding, when was the last time Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton said or acted like they actually love America? With all the prurience of a Caligula, Mr. Obama prattles on about banality, North Carolina bathroom laws with British Prime Minister David Cameron. (With Europe, the Middle East and America in anarchy, do these “world leaders” have nothing more pressing to discuss?)

While the left endlessly debates the wisdom of co-ed, transgender shower rooms, gay wedding cakes baked by cowed Christians, and gender non-specific toilets, how are these people any different from metaphorical fiddling 21^st century Neros as Rome (read: America and the West) self-destructs? To this end, the Middle East literally burns from current conflicts thanks to Mr. Obama's “apology tour” and subsequent “leadership from behind.” There are hordes at nonexistent gates—and rot from within our wall-less society—as the heedless and careless elites of both political parties leave America's prospects to fate by laying out the welcome mat.

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Basic Obama unknowns plague presidency, legacy

As “Christians,” Barack and Michelle Obama should easily recognize Matthew 15:18, in which it is written: “But the things that come out of a person's mouth come from the heart, and these defile them.” For the Obamas, it seems, honesty comes through various historically odd slips of the tongue that reveal truth despite MSM narratives designed to cover up and obscure.

The controversy starts with what Mr. Obama's “real name” is. At one point during his formative years—an Indonesian childhood infused with the study of the Islamic holy book the Koran—our 44th president took on a step-father's last name. Back then, and later as an undergraduate at Columbia University, he was known as Barry Soetoro. (Ironically, as president, Mr. Obama also has trouble appropriately “naming” things such as calling domestic terrorism “workplace violence;” ISIS as ISSL; terrorism obviously perpetrated by radical Islamic extremists in San Bernardino, as such.)

Specifically, this myopic obtuseness explains Mr. Obama's inflexible, progressive ideology, and reputation for cool, personal aloofness. Likewise, time has made clear his consistently tone-deaf policies and politics that are, by and large, completely out of touch with the American people. (Much like his previously described unorthodox upbringing).

Indeed, this inability to label things what they actually are, speaks to Mr. Obama's delusion that the world should be as he “mandates it” rather than meeting it where it is. Indeed, Mr. Obama's Sal Alinsky brand of divisive, “destroy within” rabble-rousing is the antithesis to JFK's embrace of “being American” as a unifying ideal of Christian brotherhood that overlooks superficial differences that Mr. Obama exploits for personal political gain.

For Mr. Kennedy, we should selflessly aspire to our purer instincts modeled by Jesus Christ's gentle example. Yet, Mr. Obama embodies the opposite. For him, everything is “burn, baby, burn,” a violent upheaval coded by the soft innocuous phrase, the “fundamental transformation of America.” What it really means: tis better to rule in a Democrat-created first world redistributionist, big government Hell (à la socialist Bernie “90% tax rate” Sanders). Hence, the last 7 years of the ignoble Obama Administration is finally laid bare.

However, the enigma at its center—and basic facts related to the man himself—remain a mystery. Fundamental to this dynamic is the Obama “is he, or is he not” this-or-that? For example, beyond his surname, what is Mr. Obama's place of birth? Kenya, Hawaii, somewhere else? In any case, in Denver, Michelle Obama publicly muddied the waters in August of 2008 during her GLBT luncheon speech: “When we took our trip to Africa and visited his home country in Kenya, we took a public HIV test for the very point of showing folks in Kenya that there is nothing to be embarrassed about in getting tested, and we did it as a couple.” Would any worldly and educated spouse in a 20 year marriage ever mistake her husband's birth country? Moreover, would any American generally confuse a home country with somewhere else?

This begs another question: because of his well established connections with foreign lands, is Mr. Obama somehow “A closeted American?” On the other hand, speaking of closets, if the claims of outspoken homosexual Larry Sinclair have merit, is Mr. Obama in the closet of a different kind? While the answer is intimate, is never likely to be known and is not the public's concern, it is a relief to know that the Obamas are in the practice of taking HIV tests. This is the point: after almost two full presidential terms, isn't it amazing that Mr. Obama remains so ill-defined in such basic ways?

Now, we move to the big kahuna: the president's religion. For 20 years, Mr. Obama allegedly sat in the back of the Christian church of anti-American ranting Jeremiah “America's chickens are coming home to roost” Wright who proclaimed from the pulpit “God damn America.” Specifically, in a September 2008 pre-election first term interview with George Stephanopoulous, Mr. Obama said:

“You’re absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith and you’re absolutely right that that has not …”
Stephanopoulos (interrupting): “Your Christian faith.”
Obama: “My Christian faith. Well, what I’m saying …”

Utilizing the above nebulous history as context and fast-forwarding to today, we now learn per Washington Times columnist Tammy Bruce that Mr. Obama's inexplicable foreign policy is being heavily influenced by Koranic prophesy. Hence, the irrational position that America should not put puts on the ground in order to destroy ISIS because that is “what the latter wants,” some apocalyptic battle.

To truly be known, any person should be viewed by their faith-informed actions not their words. By definition, Christians traditionally look to the Holy Bible for guidance and prophesy, not elsewhere. On this basis, the religious question regarding Mr. Obama is more than answered. What remains is what else may also be true of the most polarizing president ever to helm the country.

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