Brother's Keeper

President Obama said at the National Prayer Breakfast that...

"Living by the principle that we are our brother's keeper. Caring for the poor and those in need," Obama said before an audience of about 3,000 at the Washington Hilton. These values, he said, "They're the ones that have defined my own faith journey."

This isn't the first time Pres Obama used the phrase "brother's keeper" to justify his politics.



But Pres Obama doesn't just have some theoretical brother somewhere in the ether.  He has a literal brother, literally living in Kenya.  How well has he "kept" that brother?

George Hussein Onyango Obama

The Italian edition of Vanity Fair said that it had found George Hussein Onyango Obama living in a hut in a ramshackle town of Huruma on the outskirts of Nairobi.

Mr Obama, 26, the youngest of the presidential candidate's half-brothers, spoke for the first time about his life, which could not be more different than that of the Democratic contender.

"No-one knows who I am," he told the magazine, before claiming: "I live here on less than a dollar a month." 

 As you can tell from the mention of "the presidential candidate", the article quoted above is from 2008.  "I live here on less than a dollar a month".  That means all Pres Obama needed to do to double his literal brother's income, and therefore "keep" him in conditions twice better than they were at the time, was to mail his literal brother $12/year.  So, why hasn't he improved his literal brother's situation?

Part of the reason is shoddy theology, which leads to erroneous beliefs.  Back in 2010, Pres Obama stated that...

“I came to my Christian faith later in life, and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead — being my brothers’ and sisters’ keeper, treating others as they would treat me,” 

In case you're not too familiar with the Bible, Jesus never said anything about being ones brother's keeper.  That phrase only appears in Genesis.

⁸ Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.”^[a] While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.
⁹ Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”    Genesis 4:8-10

Please explain, "liberal" Christians; where in that passage do you read a mandate for bloated, morbidly obese government? 


There are so many examples of Pres Obama's shoddy theology that I can't possibly cover them all, so I'll focus on this latest one from the National Prayer Breakfast.

The rich should pay more not only because “I actually think that is going to make economic sense, but for me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus’s teaching that ‘for unto whom much is given, much shall be required,’”  

Let's look at the scripture where the phrase, "for unto whom much is given, much shall be required" originates. 

⁴⁷ “The servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows. ⁴⁸ But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. Luke 12:47-48

In other words, those who've received the Word of God, but refuse to follow it will receive a much worse punishment than those who haven't received it and therefore didn't know any better.  Also, the text clearly states that it is God, and not anyone else, who does the demanding.

Please explain, "liberal" Christians; by what twisted logic does Luke 12:47-48 give government the right to confiscate greater proportions of wealth from rich people?


Therein lies the problem with "liberal" Christianity.  "Liberal" Christians like Pres Obama twist the scriptures to justify their love of socialism, and absolve themselves of the individual responsibility to care for the poor.


That's why Pres Obama, and other "Liberal" Christians, create a false dichotomy in which one either supports bloated government, or cares nothing for the poor.  It never seems to occur to them that private charity can take care of the poor, and in fact does it far more efficiently and effectively than bloated government bureaucracy.  


Worse, as Mark Steyn states, 

“This version of shared responsibility means the state should be your ‘brother’s keeper,’” he said. “And this is the point for the Catholic Church. Separation of church and state is one thing, but big government means the state as church, the sole legitimate source of moral authority whether it’s on contraception or gay marriage or abortion or any of the rest. And that’s what you see in Europe. Big government drives out other sources of moral authority.”

Thus, "Liberal" Christianity renders onto government the responsibilities of the Church - charity and mercy - making the Church irrelevant and making "Liberal" Christianity suicidal.  To be clear, justice is the role of government, charity, grace and mercy are the roles of the Church, and neither does each other's role remotely well.

Finally, Tina Korbe's comments on Steyn's...

Steyn’s comments are thought-provoking, as they usually are. His last statement, though, could easily be reversed: The decline of other sources of moral authority enables big government. It’s a chicken-egg dilemma: Did we first abandon a belief in the authority of church and family, leaving a hole for government to fill? Or did the government gradually usurp the authority of church and family, leading church and family to abdicate responsibility?

 It's a death spiral.  Shoddy "Liberal" theology leads to big government, which makes the Church superfluous, which leads to more shoddy "Liberal" theology, etc.

The solution?

¹⁴ if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14

 In the modern context, "my people" refers to the Church, not the United States of America.  The Church needs to teach Biblical theology, not the "Liberal" garbage - and definitely not the "health wealth and prosperity" "gospel" - that passes for Christianity nowadays.