Some Folks Need to Step Back, Take a Deep Breath, and Relax

Since the election, I have been watching the news and reading political commentary and surveying the blogs. It shouldn't amaze me, but it does, how some people simply lose perspective and common sense.

On the one hand, there are some supporters of Barack Obama, who in their exuberance, act as if the Kingdom is about to arrive. One group in Kansas is organizing a campaign to have November 4 declared a national holiday commemorating the election of Barack Obama. There are also those who have written songs about Obama, sung in choir-like fashion. One bishop has compared President-elect Obama to Moses. The hopes of some are so high that one wonders if any mortal can fulfill their expectations.

On the other hand, there are those who are convinced that president-elect Obama will not bring in the Kingdom, but start Armageddon. They actually believe that he is the Antichrist, or if not the Antichrist specifically, one who will prepare the way for him. Then there are those, who are less inclined to scare us over an Obama presidency in religious fashion, but who suggest that he will move us toward a leftist dictatorship. Yes, one congressman has warned us of such.

Now, the last time I checked, a person had to be dead before getting a holiday named in his or her honor. Moreover, such holidays are reserved for uniquely significant accomplishments. President-elect Obama has had his accomplishments to be sure, but they are hardly worthy of a national holiday. Moreover, even if history eventually judges him to have been quite an effective president, it will not be the start of some new and unique era of human history. We human beings, all too often, get caught up in the prideful arrogance of thinking our era is and will be the best of all. How sad it is that even Christians forget that the new age has already been ushered in through the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and there is nothing that will be able to upstage that.

Moreover, those who are scared that president-elect Obama is Fidel Castro in disguise need to bone up on some history. Politically Left does not mean functionally Marxist; and dictatorships are extremely difficult to give birth to in established democracies. Those on the left, who have screamed for the past eight years that George W. Bush was turning America into a dictatorship are now eating their alarmist words as he prepares to willingly leave office. As far as those who are now certain that Barack Obama's election as president is the beginning of the end, they would do well to remember that all the other figures of history that have been labeled as the Antichrist or the Beast or the False Prophet of Revelation, are now dead as history moves forward. One would think that such continual errors in their eschatological weather forecasting would cause them to rethink their methodology; unfortunately once again sound biblical exegesis takes a backseat to Left Behind ideology.

The realities of political office tend to kick the marble out from under the person we put on a divine pedestal, and they also over time reveal the silliness of the extreme fears that do not come to pass. To be sure, the vast majority of those who voted for Barack Obama are not ready to anoint him Messiah; they simply believe he would make a better president. And most individuals who voted for John McCain are not combing their Bibles for proof that our president-elect is the incarnation of evil. They simply believe that John McCain would have made a better president. Thank God that the vast majority of the electorate exercises common sense as opposed to extreme nonsense.

President-elect Obama will not usher in a new golden age, nor will he bring about the destruction of the world; and for those who believe either one, I have some friendly advice-- step back, take a deep breath... inhale... exhale... in... out... and relax.

Now, don't you feel better?

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Cross-Posted at RedBlueChristian