At the annual Christmas tree lightning at the White House, President Obama took an untraditional spin on his speech. This year, the focus of his speech was his religion, Christianity. Rather than embracing all the different religions celebrated in America, Obama focused his speech on the birth of Jesus, the sole meaning for Christmas. Obama had been questioned about Christianity and ever since then he has made the extra effort to proclaim his faith. However, his speech at the tree lighting ceremony took Jesus's message and translated it for all faiths to follow, "...that we should love God, and love our neighbor as ourselves." I think that although church and state do not flow today as they have in the past, I think it was important for Obama to acknowledge his own faith and the fact that the faith he was speaking about is where the Christmas tree came from.
Because I am Catholic, I might be supporting Obama's tree lighting speech but in no way am I (or Obama) trying to eliminate the other faiths of the world. I agree with the author, Dan Gilgoff, in that Obama was not trying to persuade anyone into becoming Christian nor was he trying to hurt other beliefs. He was simply trying to relate his specific beliefs to the meaning of this holiday season. Gilgoff used ethos through out his entire article to help show his audience Obama wasn't biased to Christianity. He included many quotes from his speech that included a Christian belief about God but he also reached out to the other faiths by relating them to society today; "So long as the gifts and the parties are happening, it's important for us to keep in mind the central message of this season, and keep Christ's words not only in our thoughts, but also in our deeds."Gilgoff appears to be a Christian and supports Obama for his speech decision. However, Gilgoff also realizes that there are other religions aside from Christianity. He also seems to think that, as usual, American's have blown something out of proportion and are over reacting to Obama's decision.
Obama delivers very Christian Message at Christmas Tree Lighting by Dan Gilgoff
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/01/obama-delivers-very-christian-message-at-christmas-tree-lighting/
Well everyone accused Obama of being a Muslim, and now they're criticizing him for trying to show that he is Christian. People need to relax. Besides, even he was a Muslim, that shouldn't affect whether people vote for him for president.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, Christmas is a holiday that is only associated with Christianity. I think it's perfectly reasonable to talk about Christianity during a Christian holiday.
I find it interesting that people celebrate Christmas as Christ's birth when it originally was a pegan holiday! During the rule of Constantine during the Roman empire the roman people's version of 'christmas' included the worship of many gods and idols. When Constantine made an effort to convert to christianity, he took every pegan aspect of roman culture and tweeked it a little to make it seem christian. so in reality , the day we celebrate the birth of christ, we are celebrating it on what used to be a pegan holiday! little fun fact haha. That being said, I love Christmas! And I celebrate it as the day of Christ's birth none the less! People are overreacting to Obama's speech!
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