Allahpundit at Hot Air isn’t sure whether this is supposed to be an expression of the “Danish sense of humor,” or whether the editors of Politiken (“one of Denmark’s largest newspapers,” according to the “About this Site” blurb) mean it. I’ve read it several times, and I feel pretty sure that they mean it:
He is provocative in insisting on an outstretched hand, where others only see animosity.
His tangible results in the short time that he has been active – are few and far between. His greatest results have been created with words and speeches – words that remain in the consciousness of their audience and have long-term effects.
He comes from humble beginnings and defends the weak and vulnerable, because he can identify himself with their conditions.
And no we are not thinking of Jesus Christ, whose birthday has just been celebrated – – but rather the President of the United States Barack Hussein Obama.
This is of a piece with some of the messianic language that has been used about Obama since at least the early stages of last year’s presidential campaign, and the editors acknowledge that opponents of The One have objected to such comparisons. Tough luck:
If such a comparison were to be made, it would, of course, inevitably be to Obama’s advantage.
Today, his historic Health Reform is being passed through the American Senate – a welfare policy breakthrough that several of his predecessors have been unable to manage.
Despite all the compromises, it has finally been possible to ensure something so fundamental, as the right of every American not to be financially shipwrecked when their health fails them. Add to that the biggest ever financial support package in America’s history, a major disarmament agreement and the quickest-ever re-establishment of American reputation.
On the other hand, we have Jesus’ miracles that everyone still remembers, but which only benefitted a few. At the same time, we have the wonderful parables about his life and deeds that we know from the New Testament, but which have been interpreted so differently over the past 2000 years that it is impossible to give an unequivocal result of his work.
Obama is, of course, greater than Jesus – if we have to play that absurd Christmas game. But it is probably more meaningful to insist that with today’s domestic triumph, that he has already assured himself a place in the history books – a space he has good chances of expanding considerably in coming years.
There’s not a hint of satire there that I can see. They seem to be quite serious: they believe that Obama has several nation or world-changing accomplishments to his name (though what the “major disarmament agreement is I’m not sure, unless they’re referring to his unilateral withdrawal of missile defense systems from Poland and the Czech Republic), while Jesus…doesn’t. The “marginal Jew” did a few parlor tricks that might have helped a few people, and He said some lovely things, but get real. The One is saving the world, stopping the oceans’ rise, ending poverty and ensuring world peace. What did Jesus ever do that can compare with that?
Truth be told, if you don’t believe that Jesus was God incarnate, that He secured the forgiveness of sins on the cross, that He rose from the dead to free us from the powers of darkness, and so on, then why exactly would you think that He’d accomplished anything? Almost any American president this side of William Henry Harrison would have a better record to point to than an insignificant first century rabbi. There may even be a few members of Congress that could say the same thing. If you’re an atheist, you’re not going to have any use for Jesus. Barack Obama, on the other hand, is a messiah that even an atheist can believe in.
The Reformed Pastor 
December 29, 2009 at 8:11 pm
[…] newspaper, states that Obama is greater then Jesus. And if you are perplexed by this remark, The Reformed Pastor, David Fishchler helps you understand the logic: There’s not a hint of satire there that I can […]
December 30, 2009 at 3:57 am
Actually Jesus gave the world more htan just a few Miracles, and ice stories. Even if you where an Atheist, you coudl appriciate the power of his story. The Theme of a love so great, that while we hated him, he died for us, so we cidl be rdeemed, has so much value in light of human nature that it staggers the imagination that anyone would try it. Even if We set this aside, and approach Jesus as a mere man, the Teachigns he left us have been regarded as Sublime by the whole world, and despite differign intepretations, most of which in matters of Philosophy, none challenge that the world is better with his moral teaching and example.
The contrast to Obama is stikign hoevr, sicne Jesus never sought Earhtly priase, yet Obama does. All politicians do. And considerign how hi spopularity dropped in year ond, and his agenda is partisain, Obama is revealed to be just another run of the mill politician.
Jesus will be changign lives and remmebered far after Obama has Entered his Grave.
December 30, 2009 at 5:37 am
This can’t be serious, can it?
December 30, 2009 at 9:26 am
It’s articles like this that make me wonder if the more extreme “the apocalypse is near” folks are on to something. Obama worship is anti-Christ (I won’t call him Antichrist, although some do). The Mayan calendar ends during his term in office. …
I’m sure everyone can think of other “signs of the apocalypse” that are happening now.
On a more serious note, Revelation as allegorical prophecy has always struck me as a cautionary tale of putting one’s trust elsewhere than the Lord. It gives signs of wavering faith by describing the faults of the seven churches – each of those signs is present in the Church temporal of today just as it was in John’s time. It warns of war (Hitler), famine (Stalin), disease (AIDS in Africa) and destruction (dare I say downtown Detroit?) when we trust in human leaders more than in Him.
The descriptions of how He will return to us are both terrifying and comforting. The Gospel is not, contrary to some sermons I’ve sat through, “You are saved”. The Gospel is “You are fallen, but there is a way to be saved through Jesus the Anointed One.” Revelation reinforces this.
Danish newspapers anointing Barack Obama do not make him a saviour – we already have one, thanks.
December 30, 2009 at 10:07 am
Dave: I’m afraid so. Leaving faith and theology aside–isn’t historical perspective wonderful?
There was a piece in First Things about fifteen years ago that I’ve never forgotten. It was entitled “Why the News Makes Us Stupid,” and was basically about the effect that focus on what’s happening now has on our ability to see things from a larger perspective. I think the journalists at Politiken have demonstrated that principle splendidly.
December 30, 2009 at 10:20 am
Heh. Kind of reminds me of whenever an American President says something about our armies being the greatest fighting force in the history of the world, and I think to myself, “Are we comparing ourselves to the Hittites now?”
December 30, 2009 at 10:55 am
…and religious folks wonder why secular people think they have no sense of humor.
December 30, 2009 at 11:16 am
What does sense of humor have to do with anything? There’s not the slightest hint in this piece that it wasn’t meant to be taken utterly seriously. The “I was only joking” defense only works if there’s something that indicates that it was, in fact, a joke. Nothing here qualifies.
December 30, 2009 at 2:47 pm
If you don’t get the joke, it’s on you.
If you’ve been reading right-of-center blogs this year, there’s an awful lot of “Obamessiah” this and “The One” that. It’s a common theme that Obama supporters are so far gone that they actually see their candidate of choice as a deity. It’s a straw man, of course: anyone who cares to listen seriously to their ideological opponents can figure out the difference between hope and worship. But the canard has been repeated so often in the echo chamber that this one little slice of hyperbole has led some to take it as truth. So here comes an article that validates the hyperbole and conservatives go crazy. Take a look at the trackbacks: it’s entirely right-of-center or religious bloggers in various degrees of apoplexy. No liberals are reading this, stroking their goateed chins and nodding.
For a more clear cut example, imagine an editorial in The Nation celebrating “a year in which we got closer to our goals of creating a thought police, taking over the private sector and instituting sharia law.” That’s clearly a joke. The Danes were just a bit more subtle about it.
December 30, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Yeah, you said the same thing to Rod Dreher, and you don’t make any better a case–in fact, you demonstrate the opposite with your Nation example. The items mentioned regarding Obama’s achievementsin the Politiken editorial are unadorned, straight-faced statements of what the editors consider facts. Their recitation of what Jesus did–miracles and parables–are actually quite correct, as I noted in the post, and if that’s all there was to Jesus, He would have never been heard from again. But the key to knowing their intent is in this:
They don’t particularly want to “play that absurd Christmas game,” but they state their conclusion anyway, and top it off by expressing the opinion that he will go on to greater achievements in the future. To buy that this was meant as humor, I’d have to be convinced that everything they said about Obama, including their litany of his accomplishments this year, was meant to be satire. But there is nothing in what they say that would indicate that, nothing that exaggerates, no hyperbole (except maybe the claim vis-a-vis Jesus itself), nothing that would give anyone any reason to think that this is anything but serious.
Oh, and BTW, the language you’ve seen in conservative blogs is simply a reflection of the way so many liberals drool when they contemplate The One. Remember these:
*”Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul.” (Mark Morford, San Francisco Chronicle columnist)
*”In a way Obama is standing above the country, above the world. He’s sort of God. He’s going to bring all different sides together.” (Newsweek editor Evan Thomas)
*”But it is really not easy to make fun of the Obamas, because they’re really — they’re kind of really perfect, aren’t they?” (Joy Behar)
*”No one saw [Obama] coming, and Christians believe God comes at us from strange angles and places we don’t expect, like Jesus being born in a manger.” (Lawrence Carter, dean of the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel)
Just check out the Obama Messiah blog for a seemingly never-ending collection of this kind of thing, and then tell me that you can’t take what the Politiken editorial says with perfect seriousness.
Of course, there may be something in the original Danish…
December 30, 2009 at 5:00 pm
The fact that all but one of those generally out of context quotes was pulled from a righty site called “Obama Messiah” proves my point. Take the Joy Behar quote. If that was a friend getting catty about the neighbor couple using the same language, would you really get into high dudgeon about idolatry and the like?
You really need to go out and meet some actual liberals. Not the ones you get filtered through the right wing blogosphere, but actual, in-the-flesh liberals. Note how we’re not made of straw.
But whatever you think about whether this is a joke or not, most liberals laugh at the “obamessiah” meme and don’t use terms like “The One,” except perhaps in rare cases as an over-your-head reference to Cyrus in The Warriors, which has its own distinct connotations.
Maybe getting laughed at for taking a joke seriously is just what conservatism needs. After all, what is anti-elitism if not the gnawing fear that someone, somewhere is laughing at you for not “getting it”?
December 30, 2009 at 6:53 pm
Whatever, pal. I live in the DC metro area–you think I don’t know any liberals?
December 31, 2009 at 10:53 am
Whether this article was supposed to be a joke or not (and if it was, the satire seems to have been lost in translation) what’s actually pretty funny is that anyone takes it seriously regardless of the intent of the original article.