I made up a word for this several years ago: parvenize. This is the verbal form of the noun and adjective “parvenu” which has been lying in wait of Barack Obama. A parvenu, you see, is “one that has recently or suddenly risen to an unaccustomed position of wealth or power and has not yet gained the prestige, dignity, or manner associated with it.” Thank you, Merriam-Webster. This describes Obama. He’s a parvenu.

Likewise, it’s incredible to note the messiah overtones in Obama’s parvenization. The current best-selling children’s book on Amazon is testimony to this. The book: Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope. It’s story, his story:

Ever since Barack Obama was young, Hope has lived inside him. From the beaches of Hawaii to the streets of Chicago, from the jungles of Indonesia to the plains of Kenya, he has held on to Hope. Even as a boy, Barack knew he wasn’t quite like anybody else, but through his journeys he found the ability to listen to Hope and become what he was meant to be: a bridge to bring people together.

This is the moving story of an exceptional man, as told by Nikki Grimes and illustrated by Bryan Collier, both winners of the Coretta Scott King Award. Barack Obama has motivated Americans to believe with him, to believe that every one of us has the power to change ourselves and change our world.

You can’t be entirely sure what this children’s book is meant to engender, but without a doubt it’s more than just respect for the President-Elect. For examples simply read the reader reviews left on Amazon.

You have GOT to be kidding me???? There is something seriously wrong with any parent that would give this god-king worship book to a child. I fear for anyone that focuses this much adoration towards a man. I fear for any nation that adores a leader to this extent. Lets pull our heads out of the clouds people.

Or

A friend and I saw and went through this book in a store. We could not believe it. It portrays Obama as Messiah, Obama as deity. And the presentation is to children. Yep, the illustrations are, indeed, beautiful. The message: over-the-top brainwashing. Of children. This book represents the unquestioning society and hero worship. The book is beautiful, and sickening.

It’s also intriguing to see a children’s book about John McCain, too. My Dad, John McCain is written by his daughter Meghan and in somewhat of a reversal has received overwhelmingly positive reviews as opposed to Obama’s children’s book.

Startling observation (HT: JT):

The irony about the election of our first black president, an irony which I wish did not exist, is that while blacks have risen from the indignities and injustice of slavery in which their bodies were sold and consumed as property, and have endured segregation and second-class citizen status and racial discrimination, and have now one of their own elected to the highest office in the land, this very president-elect, Barack Obama, will increase the death toll among black human beings if he fulfills his promise to enact a Freedom of Choice Act, which will serve as a firewall around Roe v. Wade, the Dred Scott decision of our times. Helping to fund abortions also will likely disproportionately increase the number of black victims consumed by this holocaust. Someone might point out that policies about abortion, too, in this post-racial age of enlightenment, should be colorblind, so anyone who cares about the skin color of its victims is a racist, and that appeals to blacks about not aborting black babies is an appeal to a presumed racism on their part.

Al Mohler’s got it right again in American Has Chosen a President:

There must be absolutely no denial of the legitimacy of President-Elect Obama’s election and no failure to accord this new President the respect and honor due to anyone elected to that high office.  Failure in this responsibility is disobedience to a clear biblical command…

May God grant him wisdom.  He and his family will face new challenges and the pressures of this office.  May God protect them, give them joy in their family life, and hold them close together.

We must pray that God will protect this nation even as the new President settles into his role as Commander in Chief, and that God will grant peace as he leads the nation through times of trial and international conflict and tension.

We must pray that God would change President-Elect Obama’s mind and heart on issues of our crucial concern.  May God change his heart and open his eyes to see abortion as the murder of the innocent unborn, to see marriage as an institution to be defended, and to see a host of issues in a new light.  We must pray this from this day until the day he leaves office.  God is sovereign, after all…

America has chosen a President.  President-Elect Barack Obama is that choice, and he faces a breathtaking array of challenges and choices in days ahead.  This is the time for Christians to begin praying in earnest for our new President.  There is no time to lose.

Yesterday my wife Emily and I drove up to visit Thomas Jefferson’s homstead Monticello in Charlottesville, Virginia, about three and half hours northwest of Wake Forest. On the way on I-95 (or was it I-85…can’t remember) I noticed the following billboard: “Martin Luther King Jr. Was a REPUBLICAN.” See the picture below which I grabbed from another blog which points to the controversy this loaded billboard has stirred up. Whether Martin Luther King Jr. was actually a republican or not does interest me as much as the fact that the National Black Republican Association (NBRA) has employed the iconic African-American to combat the candidacy of Obama, leaving the black voter with the question, “Which black icon are you going to side with, Obama or MLK?” To the NBRA, the answer is obvious.

I’m amazed at the number of people who don’t read our president Danny Akin’s emails. I guess one excuse is that they’re usually lengthy and numerous; but this latest email sent out to the student body and published on his blog is truly worth a read and hereby receives my commendation.

Below are Akin’s thoughts prefacing an article which he included in his email:

The secular media and some pollsters are: 1) arguing that many evangelicals are considering voting for Senator Barack Obama and 2) attempting to provide a rationale for why they could morally justify voting for him. Attached is a lengthy and compelling argument by Professor Robert P. George of Princeton University that puts to rest such “foolish talk.” Read this thoughtful response and see if you can find it morally conscionable to vote for “a president of death.”

I would likewise encourage you to read Professor George’s “thoughtful response” which you can find in-full on Dr. Akin’s blog at the following address: http://betweenthetimes.com/2008/10/14/why-faithful-evangelicals-cannot-vote-for-barack-obama.

Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He serves on the President’s Council on Bioethics and on UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST). George is a Senior Fellow of the Witherspoon Institute of Princeton, New Jersey.

With Dr. Akin’s permission to “send it to whomever” I have created a PDF which you can use to attach his entire email and the article by Professor George to an email of your own and/or to print to share with others.

Download PDF (48kb)

The second presidential debate is tonight starting at 9:00PM (EST) at Belmont University.

C-SPAN is offering a live video feed for free.

Here’s a link which you can paste into VLC or WMP:

http://play.rbn.com/play.asx?url=cspan/cspan/wmlive/cspan1v.asf&proto=mms?mswmext=.asx

Alternatively, you can watch with the players I’ve embedded below:

Read the rest of this entry »

I should be reading…but, yeh…