This is somewhat older news that came out a month ago and somehow I missed it. This is a video of school children chanting a “praise Obama” song mentioning that “black or white we’re all the same in his sight.” Also there is a clip of the kids singing a “praise Obama” song with the Battle Hymn of the Republic music. Here’s the clip:
If you would like to see the reaction of the parents of these children, view this clip:
As I listened to this, I couldn’t believe it. Our country was founded on a belief in God and trusting in God. Now we can’t pray in schools to the God who watches over all of us, yet we can change the lyrics to a song about God watching over us and replace them with a mere man who happens to hold the office of president.
I hope this is just one isolated incident and that the national attention it received help keep something like this from continuing.
What are your thoughts?
39 comments
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November 12, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Taylor
Unfortunately with a lack of true leadership (i.e. the Savior) people will flock to the individuals that promise the greatest results often without regard to what is right.
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November 12, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Christopher
What do I think? I think your posting of this comes across as a lame attempt to cast a negative light on the president when there are real issues facing Americans right now, including health care reform and the economy.
You want an explanation for the incident? That’s easy enough. A lot of people who belong to marginalized groups in American society got really, really excited by the election of President Obama. Sometimes their enthusiasm got the best of them (as in this incident), and they crossed an inappropriate line by advocating that children in a public school sing a song about him.
I don’t think that qualifies as worship, though. And I don’t see what this has to do with your (terribly inaccurate) belief that America “was founded on a belief in God and trusting in God.”
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November 14, 2009 at 6:31 am
ama49
Christopher,
I’d like to hear how you feel that the founding fathers didn’t believe in God. This will be the first time I’ve heard of this before.
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November 16, 2009 at 11:39 pm
Christopher
I never said the founding fathers did not believe in God, ama49.
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November 12, 2009 at 9:11 pm
john
1. Is there something more sinister here than the kids singing praise to George and Laura Bush following Hurricane Katrina? Remember heckuva job Bush? The fact is this song was done by the kids — they were not taught — and it was months ago. It made no waves at the time. Then, months later, FOX, the fake news channel, glommed onto it and whammo, a crime worse than treason. Get real!
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November 12, 2009 at 11:37 pm
Daniel
lame faux outrage. typical Fox. typical Beck. Continues to paint conservatives in a very poor light.
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November 13, 2009 at 1:22 am
Javelin
It’s silly to be upset about this. I wouldn’t worry about the “worshipping” of Obama. It’s the Tea Party people I worry about. They didn’t raise their voices when President Reagan, Bush1, and Bush2 increased our national debt.
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November 13, 2009 at 4:48 am
ezra
Ama,
Looks like you hit a nerve with Christopher and John. They have no knowledge or appreciation of American history or the Constitution; they are enamored by a messiah with false promises and deceptive hopes.
Truth is, you are right to be concerned. Never has the major television media gone out of its way to make a cult figure out of the president. Most notoriously, previous to the election, the Vice President of NBC produced a children’s choir that sang anthems to then-Senator Obama. Like the North Korean president and Chairman Mao before him, public education presents B.O. as America’s hope. However, our trust is in a real Savior.
Let not your heart be troubled.
“Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.” Psalm 146:3
Blessings in Christ,
Ezra
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November 13, 2009 at 5:14 am
ezra
I can’t believe how delusional people can become–but this site is evidently filled with them.
Obama has spent more in one year than the total expenditure of all the presidents before him. Don’t be worried?
Do you even know how many trillions he has spent? Are you even aware that he is ready to send another trillion on future “stimulus” programs? Are you aware that his health care reform is really focused on engulfing the whole of health care, representing a solid 20% of the economy? Do you know that he (along with willing congressional democrats) are hoping to trap us with “cap & trade”, which is loaded with bogus “carbon credits” and regulations that cripple free-enterprise, here at home and globally? There has never been a time to be more aware of our freedoms–and the paltry propositions for which you are willing to sell your birthright.
Worship Obama, if you will; as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
Note well: you can’t dig your way out of a hole–unless your goal is to reach China.
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November 13, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Christopher
Looks like you hit a nerve with Christopher and John. They have no knowledge or appreciation of American history or the Constitution
Hi Ezra. I’m curious what your basis for such a charge is? That I don’t think a couple of teachers in New Jersey being overly-excited about President Obama’s election qualifies as “worship”? And what are earth do the Obama administration’s fiscal policies have to do with this post?
For the record, I have two degrees in U.S. history and am working on a third. While I may not know everything about American history, charges that I have “no knowledge or appreciation” for that history certainly are not true.
And for the last time: I am not worshipping Obama, though I did vote for him and he does have my support. Me and my house try and serve the Lord, too.
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November 13, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Robin
Beats chanting “Assassinate Obama”, as schoolkids in almost exclusively LDS Rexburg, Idaho were doing around this time last year.
Wonder where they got THAT from? (“Train up a child…”)
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November 14, 2009 at 6:29 am
ama49
Hi Robin,
That’s pretty terrible if that was indeed happening. Do you have any video or newspaper evidence of this or was it heresay?
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November 17, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Christopher
http://www.2news.tv/news/local/34274374.html
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November 17, 2009 at 4:30 pm
ama49
Wow! I hadn’t heard this one before. That’s pretty intense. We really do need to be careful not to cross the line even if we don’t agree with the elected official.
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November 13, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Richard
Our founding fathers (55-56 men) who wrote The Declaration of Independance were very religious men. The fair majority were actually theologians from different denominations; some went on founding universities with a religious foundation that still exist today. An interesting web site ‘wallbuilders.com’ has facts which have been compiled by a university professor who teaches history of the founding of America. I never knew how religious these men were. Did you know that in the writing of the Declaration, when verbage and debate became intense between them and no conclusions could be reached, they would take a break and as a group, kneel and pray together? Can you imagine our Congress or Senate doing that today? Maybe that’s what they need. The foundation of America was built on religious freedom, not on a particular God, but on a belief that without religion there is no freedom. Thomas Jefferson wrote that one cannot separate religion from freedom, that one will not survive without the other. It is religious freedom that our country was based on; without them we have tyranny; the country dies and so does freedom for it’s people.
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November 14, 2009 at 6:33 am
ama49
Hi Richard,
Thanks for the information and also the website. Maybe you can share this with Christopher who somehow feels the founding fathers didn’t believe in God.
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November 16, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Christopher
ama49, first off, I never said that “the founding fathers didn’t believe in God.” I said that suggestions that America “was founded on a belief in God and trusting in God” are inaccurate and wrong. The two are very, very different things.
For the record, Richard, wallbuilders.com is maintained by David Barton and Rick Green, neither one of whom is “a university professor who teaches history of the founding of America,” as you claim. Both are fundamentalist evangelicals committed to revising the history of America as presented in public school textbooks to focus less on countercultural people of color and more on white Christians, in order to propagate the erroneous belief that America is indeed a Christian nation.
Their website has been roundly criticized and their “scholarship” thoroughly refuted by actual historians with actual PhDs that teach at actual universities. See the following links for a sampling of criticisms leveled at David Bartons and wallbuilders.
http://www.members.tripod.com/candst/boston2.htm
http://candst.tripod.com/bjcpa1.htm
http://americancreation.blogspot.com/search/label/David%20Barton
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November 17, 2009 at 4:32 am
ama49
Christopher,
While the founding fathers may not have knelt in prayer in every meeting and relied soley on God as if it were a church-service, don’t you believe that their belief in a Christian God helped shape our nation?
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November 17, 2009 at 6:49 am
Christopher
First off, speaking in generalities about “the founding fathers” as a collective whole is ahistorical and leads to a distorted view of America’s founding.
Secondly, while some of the founding fathers certainly were Christian, many–including many of the leading figures–were not. So, to answer your question, no. I do not believe that “their belief in a Christian God helped shape our nation.”
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November 17, 2009 at 4:31 pm
ama49
I disagree with you on this, but you’re the PhD student in history. I was under the impression that most of the founders of the Constitution were indeed Christian and that the leaders were as well. Explain why you feel as you do.
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November 13, 2009 at 7:08 pm
Daniel
I hear China is pretty, though a bit smoggy.
btw, this is how you worship a president of the United States.
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November 14, 2009 at 6:24 am
ama49
Daniel,
This is EXACTLY how you worship. You don’t worship a president. You pray over him and pray to God, just as they do in the video you posted. This is completely different than the video with Obama. In the Obama one, they give adoration and worship to him…not to God to watch over him. A very big difference.
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November 14, 2009 at 3:46 am
Javelin
Silly ezra,
You have forgotten what our country was feeling over twelve months ago. Maybe it is nice to live in a world with your head in the sand. Me and my house will live with everything out in the open. It’s much better that way.
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November 14, 2009 at 6:28 am
ama49
Hi Javelin,
You seem pretty passionate. How do you think Ezra has his “head in the sand” as you say? I don’t follow your comment. Do you care to explain?
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November 14, 2009 at 5:48 am
Taylor
Daniel,
I don’t see the worship in your video. They wanted President Bush to be blessed, last I checked that wasn’t worship. They wanted President Bush to remember that it is one nation under God. I don’t see that as worship either.
Now, that being said, I think adoration or any type of worship regardless of who they are except Jesus Christ alone should be condemed.
Although I can’t speak for ama myself, I think that was his point. Just my opinion but regardless of who a person worships i.e. God, Jehovah, Allah, etc. believing in and worshiping a diety is certainly more the point rather than worshiping a man.
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November 14, 2009 at 6:26 am
ama49
Hi Taylor,
You hit the nail on the head with your comments. There is a very big difference between worshipping and praying for a president and worshipping a president.
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November 14, 2009 at 7:28 am
jks
Anyone else notice that advertisements use Obama’s name. “Obama wants moms to go back to school” or “Obama urges homeowners to refinance” for an ad!!!
I think pretty much people think it is a good way to sell something. Advertisers aren’t stupid. I was telling my husband about it and we joked that we might as well play “Obama says” instead of “Simon says.”
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November 15, 2009 at 2:06 am
ama49
Hi JKS,
I have noticed it and I do think it is a joke how people swoon(ed) for Obama. Hopefully (as the polls indicate) that honeymoon is over and people will start seeing him as a man and not an icon or someone to worship.
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November 15, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Aaron
Our founding fathers may have been religious men, as stated above, but most of them were not religious in ways that most of us would recognize today. Most Mormons and Evangelicals would probably be shocked by the Deism of some of them. Also, anyone talking about our founders must take into account the influence of Masonry on the founding of our country, which was considerable. None of this has, as far as I can see, a darned thing to do with President Obama. What is apparent to me is that certain people do not like him — their privilege — and are willing to engage in the silliest of thinking to express their dislike. The fact that you quote only the Faux News Channel above makes clear your bias.
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November 17, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Christopher
Explain why you feel as you do.
Because many of the founding fathers were not Christians. They were Deists.
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November 17, 2009 at 6:03 pm
ezra
Christopher,
I respect the fact that you have an earned doctorate–but I have learned long ago to look at the foundation upon which those doctorates are based. It happens in every field. Perhaps I am wrong, but it seems that your degrees were granted by liberal-minded people who diminished the role of godly men and women. Granted, history does not fall into neat little categories, but the evidence seems to be that our nation was more religious than not; more Christian–even to the 1960s–than not. I submit the following:
In 1796 the US Supreme Court issued this ruling, “By our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion, and all sects and denominations of Christians are placed on equal footing.” Some 57 years later, after Congress was petitioned to separate Christian principles from government, in 1853 the House Judiciary Committee issued their formal report, including these words: “In this age there is no substitute for Christianity. This was the religion of the founders of the republic, and they expected it to be the religion of their dependents. The great vital, conservative elements in our system is the belief of our people in the pure doctrines and divine truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ.” – – – Dr. Gerald Beavan
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November 17, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Christopher
I respect the fact that you have an earned doctorate
No you don’t. If you did, you would not have to qualify that respect with a demeaning comment about the people and institutions I’ve worked with and at in graduate school.
Perhaps I am wrong, but it seems that your degrees were granted by liberal-minded people who diminished the role of godly men and women.
Liberal-minded? A lot of people I’ve worked with in graduate school have been “liberal-minded,” sure. Diminished the role of godly men and women? Depends on what you mean. Do they teach a providential view of history? Of course not. Such would be terribly inappropriate. Do they recognize, though, the significance of religion and religious individuals and communities in shaping American society? Oh course. If they didn’t, it would be irresponsible scholarship.
Granted, history does not fall into neat little categories, but the evidence seems to be that our nation was more religious than not
As a historian of American religion, I agree that religion has been a powerful force in the country’s history. What’s your point?
In 1796 the US Supreme Court issued this ruling, “By our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion, and all sects and denominations of Christians are placed on equal footing.” Some 57 years later, after Congress was petitioned to separate Christian principles from government, in 1853 the House Judiciary Committee issued their formal report, including these words: “In this age there is no substitute for Christianity. This was the religion of the founders of the republic, and they expected it to be the religion of their dependents. The great vital, conservative elements in our system is the belief of our people in the pure doctrines and divine truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ.” – – – Dr. Gerald Beavan
Really? That’s your “evidence”? A single court decision from 1796 made by a group of Christian men acting in their own self-interest, and a quote from an otherwise obscure congressman saying that the founding fathers were Christian, and therefore they were? That’s all you’ve got?
And what does any of this have to do with Barack Obama and an isolated instance of school children singing a song about him in New Jersey?
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November 17, 2009 at 7:05 pm
ezra
ama,
Thank you for this invigorating discussion. Although it may seem (for some) that there is a disconnect to go from the question of “worshipping” Obama to the dreadful actions of his administration, there is none. Never in our history has a man been worshipped by the media and a pass given to a president who is so radically changing the economy of our nation–for they would rather polish and position the man than put him under the scrutiny a president would otherwise have. Yet we ignore the trillions (mis)appropriated, the governmental takeover of 2/3 of the auto industry and almost the same of the banks and now the directed take-over of the health-care industry–never mind the unstabilized economy where stocks rise and fall, trying to eke out some takings from businesses that fear employing too many least they have to pay higher premiums for healthcare or fear laying them off and having to pay extra terms of unemployment. So here we sit with the highest unemployment and the lowest in GNP and the most stagnant economy since Carter–but don’t say anything against d’king. That would be blasphemy.
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November 18, 2009 at 4:29 pm
ama49
I agree with you on this one Ezra. However, as you see from some of the comments people choose to “put their head in the sand” (as someone accused me of doing) and pretend that nothing is going on.
To be honest with you though, President Bush did the same thing with dumping money out that we didn’t have, so to be fair to Obama it didn’t start with him, but he sure isn’t helping any.
As for the comments with worshipping Obama, I think it’s totally uncalled for and people have a false hope in him.
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November 17, 2009 at 7:09 pm
ezra
Chris,
You are a piece of work.
…
So you win: I will revoke my previous statement. From your comments I can see you are not deserving of respect.
You want to believe what you want to believe.
I hope my kids never encounter a professor like you.
Good luck with your life.
Ezra
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November 18, 2009 at 3:50 am
Christopher
Ezra, I admit to being a little dumbfounded by your comment, and am not sure what to make of it.
You made a suggestion that my education was somehow invalid because the professors with whom I have worked are “liberal-minded” and because they “diminished the role of godly men and women.” I explained that while many of them were indeed liberal, that none of them denied the role of religion in American history. Is that what bothered you?
Or was it that I challenged how representative the evidence you brought forth in support of your claim that American is/was a Christian nation is? Could you please explain why either one of these things caused you to insult me in the manner you chose?
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November 19, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Right Wing'd Carpenter
I truly believe that President Obama is doing the will of God. He won the Election because God wanted Obama
to win!
…. Let every person be subject to the governing
authorities. For there is no authority except by God’s
appointment, and the authorities that exist have been
instituted by God. … Romans 13:1
I also believe that he is the result of a sinful land that
has turned it’s back on God and the 10 commandments.
… For this reason God gave them over to degrading
passions; for their women exchanged the natural
function for that which is unnatural, … Romans 1:26
In the last election Americans wanted a King, a Messiah,
a Savoir and they got one! They believe that only Obama
can save them (from Global warming, with his Hellthcare,
from the Religious Right, ect..). Some of these people are
actually teaching little children to worship him.
….7 And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the
voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they
have not rejected thee,
* but they have rejected me,
that I should not reign over them.
….8 According to all the works which they have done
since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even
unto this day, wherewith
* they have forsaken me,
* and served other gods,
so do they also unto thee…. 1Samuel 7-8
Basically I am saying that
WE ARE GETTING THE GOVERNMENT WE DESERVE!
THE LEFT WANTED A KING AND NOW THEY HAVE ONE!
This country turned against God long ago and now Obama
is its just reward. The American Left has DONE WHAT IS
EVIL IN THE SIGHT OF THE LORD for decades and decades.
Barack Hussien Obama is the perfect punishment onto a
debased, defiant, depraved democracy that is doomed to
destruction.
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November 22, 2009 at 9:53 pm
ama49
Right Winged Carpenter,
I agree with you in the fact that Obama is the result of a reflection of where our country is.
I disagree with you that God wanted Obama to be there.
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April 14, 2010 at 11:33 pm
Tony
While some of those founders were surely critical of contemporary Christianity in their day, that does not change the fact that many of them, as far as I know, were surely Christian men. Some claims by people that men like Jefferson were atheists are complete hogwash.
As for Obama, sure, Bush wasn’t perfect by any means (as Obama LOVES to point out), but Obama has gone places where Bush wouldn’t even dream of doing.
I bet it would surprise some people to realize that the government recently promised to pay some men substantial amounts of money to link up all of the communications systems, tvs, electricity, etc. to a grid, and have it so that Obama can turn it all off on a whim. They’ll probably call me crazy, but I have quite a few people willing to testify of that.
As if that were the only abuse by our current government officials. Do people realize that our “safe schools” czar is a gay man with an agenda to push homosexuality down the throats of school children? MassResistance has clearly documented his crimes.
http://www.massresistance.org/docs/issues/fistgate/index.html
And we give money to this guy.
Leftists and secularists will always seek to potray tea-party goers and conservatives in a bad light (they’ve recently gone so far as to infiltrate these tea parties in order to make them look bad, and they’ve admitted to this).
The health care bill is another great example. The list just goes on.
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