The Testimony of Senator Barack Obama

In my last post, I wrote about Barack Obama's inspiring remarks to the General Synod of the United Church of Christ. Unfortunately, the media only covered Obama's brutally honest comments regarding the leadership of the Christian Right.

Senator Obama's personal testimony was lost along the way....

Fortunately, Obama's message wasn't lost on David Brody of the CBN (Home to Pat Robertson's The 700 Club). Brody writes....

The headlines from Barack Obama’s faith speech this weekend centered on how he ripped leaders of the religious right. We’ll get to that in a moment. But this speech was a lot more than just that.

Let’s first start with this. Besides Obama, how many times have you seen a presidential candidate get up in front of a large crowd and talk in depth about his salvation? I’ll give you the answer: Zero. For Obama to stand up and talk about how Jesus changed his life, my friends that takes guts. You may disagree with everything he’s about, you may disagree with his policy goals but as Christians, shouldn’t we like it when someone talks about Christ being the missing ingredient in his life? Read the text of Obama's speech.

At the end of the day, Senator Obama’s most important line didn’t have to do with any issue. It had to do with Jesus.

There’s a hunger that’s deeper than that – a hunger that goes beyond any single cause or issue. It seems to me that each day, thousands of Americans are going about their lives – dropping the kids off at school, driving to work, shopping at the mall, trying to stay on their diets, trying to kick a cigarette habit – and they’re coming to the realization that something is missing. They’re deciding that their work, their possessions, their diversions, their sheer busyness, is not enough.

They want a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives. They’re looking to relieve a chronic loneliness. And so they need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them, is listening to them – that they are not just destined to travel down that long road toward nothingness.

In his life, Obama says that somebody is Jesus. And as Christians, that’s something we can all agree on.

Senator Obama's speech was both refreshing and remarkable. Rarely if ever do we hear our elected officials be both unifying and uplifting in their speeches.

Click here to watch Obama's 2006 Call to Renewal speech which has been hailed as the most important speech on religion and politics in 40 years.