My wise grandfather once said, “Be kind to everyone — you never know who you might need to ask for a favor one day.”  In other words, you shouldn’t be rude to someone and then turn around and ask them for something. 

So, in a political environment where Christians know that they are as unpopular as long sleeves in Michelle Obama’s closet, it is interesting to note that Obama has recently been addressing Christians on health care reform.  Well, let’s clarify: Obama knows that his numbers are tanking and his health care vision is not fooling the American people, and he knows that people with religious convictions make up a significant chunk of American voters.  As a result, Obama has dusted off the old tactic of “guilt tripping” in an attempt to get health care reform moving through the legislative process. 

In an August 19 telephone town hall meeting with thousands of religious leaders around the country, Obama stressed that many people have been “bearing false witness” about his health care plan and that it is a “moral obligation” to support health care reform. 

In other words, Obama is asking the same people he disdained to turn around and be “good Christians” and support government-run health care.  He stressed that it is the moral duty of believers to support his plan for the government to provide health care insurance to every single person in the United States (although we know that, ultimately, not every person would be covered).

The key word here is government.  Obama is trying to guilt-trip religious Americans into putting their faith in the “almighty” government, not in the God that they strive to serve on a daily basis.  He never addressed the reality that in socialist-leaning nations atheism runs rampant and people pray to their “false public official gods” because they know that the government will give them everything.  He also never addressed the reality that when the government imposes crippling taxes on its people, they have less money to give to charities and churches.

Obama is trying, in essence, to guilt-trip Americans into surrendering their moral responsibilities to the government, which is in itself a major contradiction.  Christians who sincerely believe in helping others believe that God is the ultimate authority in that arena — not the government, which isn’t exactly known for its moral superiority anyway. 

Let’s hope that Christians in America will not allow themselves to be guilt-tripped into feeling like they are bad people if they don’t support Obama’s health care vision.