All Posts Tagged With: "different standards"

“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

— President Franklin D. Roosevelt

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”

— John the Apostle

*

I am literally amazed at how much fear and fear-mongering there has been among many Christians about Barack Obama, his candidacy during the presidential campaign and now on the dawn of his presidency. The rumors, distortions and outright misrepresentations of the man, his beliefs and his policies are staggering. Some are even calling on Christians to pray that the new president fails. (I guess I shouldn’t be too concerned since there was a concerted effort to get Christians to pray that God would rain on Obama’s outdoor convention acceptance speech and that proved to be fruitless.)

I suppose some of this really shouldn’t surprise me. It just disappoints me. Much of the rhetoric is blind partisan ideology over any sound theology. What is disappointing is that many Christians are holding Barack Obama to a higher standard than they held his predecessor whom they identified and unreservedly embraced as one of their own. As one example, a Christian friend on Facebook posted the following note Continued

From Proverbs:

Differing weights and differing measures—
the LORD detests them both.

From Glenn Greenwald:

That’s America’s justice system in a nutshell:  the President who deliberately and knowingly violated our 30-year-old law making it a felony offense to eavesdrop on Americans without warrants has the entire political and media class eagerly defend him against prosecution.  Those who enabled him — in both parties — block investigations into what was done.  Ruth Marcus and Cass Sunstein and friends offer one excuse after the next to justify this immunity.  But the powerless and defenseless — though definitively courageous — public servant who blew the whistle on this lawbreaking is harassed, investigated, and pursued by the DOJ’s Criminal Division to the point of bankruptcy and depression.  The high-powered criminals are protected by our political elite while the whistle-blower spends years paying lawyers and devoting his mental energies to trying to fend of the DOJ’s criminal investigation.

*
Sad, but true. And this is a practice that is not confined to one side or the other. It happens across the political spectrum. And it seriously undercuts the consistent rhetoric from our nation’s leaders that “no one is above the law.” That’s simply not true. It’s proven again and again that those at the top are indeed above the law because no one ever holds them accountable.