Obama Oblivious About Bible Week

Obama Oblivious About Bible Week
By Janet M. LaRue
11/23/2010

Ramadan got a White House banquet. “National Bible Week” hasn’t gotten a mention, much less an honorable one, by its Honorary Chairman Barack Hussein Obama.

National Bible Week, founded by the National Bible Association, has been celebrated during Thanksgiving week, Nov. 21-28, since its beginning in 1941. According to the National Examiner:

December 8 through 14, 1941 was set as the very first National Bible Week. President Roosevelt agreed to host celebratory events at the White House. A media campaign was planned. Civic and fraternal organizations pledged their support, along with many members of the faith community. To launch the week, a national radio broadcast on the NBC radio network was scheduled for December 7th. That first Bible reading broadcast was interrupted with news of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Soon every radio in the nation was tuned to NBC for news on the attack. In between reports network executives asked National Bible leaders to continue to read the Bible throughout the day. … The President of the United States is the Honorary Chairman of National Bible Week and he issues a White House message.

Americans at war wisely turned to God’s word for guidance and comfort. Obama would do well to follow the example of President Roosevelt and subsequent presidents by encouraging Americans to read the greatest source of moral and spiritual guidance known to man. President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush were Honorary Co-Chairs in 2008.

President Ronald Reagan proclaimed 1983 the Year of the Bible, stating:

The Bible and its teachings helped form the basis for the Founding Fathers' abiding belief in the inalienable rights of the individual, rights which they found implicit in the Bible's teachings of the inherent worth and dignity of each individual.

President George H. W. Bush signed a proclamation declaring 1990 to be the International Year of Bible Reading, stating:

More important, our moral tradition has been shaped by the laws and teachings it contains. It was a biblical view of man -- one affirming the dignity and worth of the human person, made in the image of our Creator -- that inspired the principles upon which the United States is founded.

According to a Pew Research Center survey in February 2008, 71.4 percent of the United States population identifies as Christians, 1.7 percent as Jews, and 0.6 percent as Muslim.

Incredibly, Obama claimed in 2009, “If you actually took the number of Muslims Americans, we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.” Despite the fact that 71.4 percent of Americans identify with Christianity, Obama said, “[W]e’re no longer a Christian nation.”

Since Obama has expended so much presidential capital extolling the tiny Muslim minority in the United States, you’d think that as Honorary Chairman of National Bible Week he’d show recognition and respect to the Book on which this Judeo-Christian nation is based.

Obama concluded his Ramadan remarks praising Islam by saying, “The writ of the Founders must endure.” Apparently, he needs a refresher course on some of writ of the Founders about the Bible and our Founding, available with citations at Wallbuilders.com:

John Adams: “The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God. … Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited. . . . What a Eutopia – what a Paradise would this region be!”

Thomas Jefferson: “The practice of morality being necessary for the well being of society, He [God] has taken care to impress its precepts so indelibly on our hearts that they shall not be effaced by the subtleties of our brain. We all agree in the obligation of the moral principles of Jesus and nowhere will they be found delivered in greater purity than in His discourses.”

John Jay: “The Bible is the best of all books, for it is the word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next. Continue therefore to read it and to regulate your life by its precepts.”

Noah Webster: “[O]ur citizens should early understand that the genuine source of correct republican principles is the Bible, particularly the New Testament, or the Christian religion.”

Daniel Webster: “[T]he Christian religion – its general principles – must ever be regarded among us as the foundation of civil society. … Whatever makes men good Christians makes them good citizens. … [T]o the free and universal reading of the Bible… men [are] much indebted for right views of civil liberty.”

Joseph Story: “One of the beautiful boasts of our municipal jurisprudence is that Christianity is a part of the Common Law. There never has been a period in which the Common Law did not recognize Christianity as lying at its foundations.”

Roger Sherman: “[I]t is the duty of all to acknowledge that the Divine Law which requires us to love God with all our heart and our neighbor as ourselves, on pain of eternal damnation, is Holy, just, and good. . . . The revealed law of God is the rule of our duty.”

Benjamin Rush: “[T]he only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government is the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible.”

And there’s then Sen. Obama who ridiculed using the Bible as a “guide for our public policy.” So it’s not surprising that he ignored National Bible Week while honoring “National Farm-City Week,” Nov. 19-25, in a 438 word presidential proclamation.

It’s not hard to understand why the “writ of the Founders” is preserved in marble and the writ of Obama is fit for an Etch A Sketch.