Pastor In Chief

Joshua Genig, PhD candidate, Lutheran Pastor in Atlanta, son-in-law of one of a Sem classmate who is one of my oldest friends, has written in First Things about the role President Obama has forged as literally Pastor-In-Chief of our nation.  You can read his own words here...  They are worth your time...

Norman Teigen has often pointed out when it seemed I had crossed the line between the two kingdoms, either falling into the trap of Catholics who want to ecclesiasticize the world or the Evangelicals who want to Christianize the world.  It is not my intent to do either and so I hope Norm is watching the boundaries.

Instead I think Genig has pointed us not to a position we have taken but one that our President has either assumed or intentional sought out -- spiritual leader of the nation's people.  He has repeatedly invoked images and taken positions that presume he is the one uniquely suited to determine what constitutes the first amendment right of freedom of religion, of the particular circumstances when this right is to be abridged in favor of a higher good, and has made personal appeal to those outside the Christian circle -- especially Islam.

His administration took the position that the government can intervene in churches choosing those to be their ministers -- requiring larger rights (in this case the disability provisions of law) to trump the freedom of a church to choose its own ministers.  While the SCOTUS did not agree, it is noteworthy that the administration has not backed down from its position that is knows best.

His administration has taken the exact same position with respect to provisions of abortion, abortifacents, reproductive technology, and contraception.  In the same way, his administration has insisted that there are larger rights than the freedom of religion and that the government is well within its rights to abridge religious freedom to enact what it considers the higher good of providing "preventive" care for women that respects their right to choose to abort a pregnancy (with whatever medical means possible).

He has personally invoked Jesus as the source and approver of his policies - taking for himself the role of Biblical interpreter to decide how Jesus' words and teaching should be applied (so that the rich who have more should pay more in taxes, for example).  Few in politics have been so brazen in identifying their own policies with the teaching of Jesus.

Finally, his administration has continued to rephrase the right of religious freedom as basically a right to worship and only a right to worship.  In this way the administration has sought to reduce the role of religion in the public square and to narrow its focus merely to the worship hour on Sunday morning (or whatever day of assembly is chosen).  Even more egregious is the intrusion of the government into the content of what takes place within that worship hour -- at least in the case of Roman Catholic military chaplains and what can and cannot be said at the homily during Mass -- the one time when no military chaplains function as officers but rather as ministers of religion according to the doctrinal tenets of their own particular church and jurisdiction.

Far from this problem coming from the churches or the people, this is a role the President seems to have taken for himself and the consequences are, in my mind, far more dangerous than either the ecclesiasticization (oops I invented a word) or conversion of the world by Rome or Geneva.  In the mind of this Pastor, it is not we who have mixed the two kingdoms but President Obama.