Let us remember to love and lift up our President in prayer.
The decision by President Bush’s re-election team to have a Muslim imam open the Republican National Convention in prayer (like the decision by the President to celebrate Ramadan in the White House, or while acting in his official capacity as President, to bow in reverence before a Shinto Shrine) is a national tragedy because it is the formal and public advancement of false worship and idolatry.
The problem with using Muslim imams to lead in worship is essentially the same problem as having Zoroastrians, Wiccans, or Hindus lead those who claim to represent Christian candidates in an act of public worship — it is the advancement of idolatry.
What is even worse is the complete silence by Christians in the face of such idolatrous behavior.
Of course the trend on the part of presidents and public officials to imitate ancient Rome by blessing all religions as long as none claim to have the exclusive corner on truth, is not new. It has been in vogue for some time. Such behavior allows candidates of diverse partisan affiliations to use God-talk out of one side of their mouths (just enough to satisfy confused evangelicals), while with the other side of their mouths, distancing themselves from any exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ.
But there are serious covenantal implications of such behavior when it is done by the president of the United States, whomever the president may be at any given time in our history. When such actions are taken by United States presidents, they represent a form of oath-breaking. This oath-breaking is more than a departure with tradition (i.e. the obvious fact that America’s historic roots are found in Christianity, not Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam or even Judaism). A president is an oath breaker if he uses the office of the President to advance a false religious faith which is contrary to our national charter, the Constitution, and its preamble, the Declaration of Independence.
Upon taking their oath of office before Almighty God, presidents are bound to enforce and honor the national charter, which is our covenant as a people. Despite its clear imperfections (i.e. a lack of a national religious test), our national charter is, nonetheless, distinctively Christian in content, expression, and subscription. It is predicated on the formal acknowledgement of the God of Christianity (the “Creator who endowed us with inalienable rights” and allowed us to covenant in the “year of our Lord” Jesus Christ 1787), because it (a) twice incorporates by direct reference the Christian common law into the Constitution, (b) rejects the pagan calendar system for the new Christian calendar system, (c) declares a national commitment to honor the Christian Sabbath, and (d) makes overt reference to Christ, declaring him to be Lord in the all-important subscription clause which gives credibility to the authority of the document itself — to name some of the reasons.
More serious, however, than even breaking a presidential oath, is for a professing Christian office-holder (of any party) to violate their Christian oath to the Creator. Simply put: through baptism, the Christian declares to the world that he is of the Redeemed. As such, he will have no other gods but Jesus Christ. Christians may not build idols, serve false gods, or do anything but remain faithful to the one true God of Scripture. Christians may not minimize the difference between Christianity and Satanically-inspired false religions. They must live by the First and Second Commandments.
Ask yourself the question: What is worse — pagans who promote the worship of false gods, or Christians who promote the worship of false gods?
Again, I implore Christians to remember to lift up in prayer their President, and all authorities and office-holders. There is no issue more important than that we as a people (including our magistrates) acknowledge the God of the Bible as our one true authority for law and life (Psalm 2). We may acknowledge none other but Him. This issue is more important than even the battle over abortion or sodomy because it is the first issue from which all other issues precede.
(FYI: For more on the subject of Christianity and our imperfect, but nonetheless Christ-rooted Constitution, get The Witherspoon Tapes and read The Constitution: A Christian Document, by Herb Titus.)