Redemption/Salvation

After realizing that numerous times in several different speeches and in many venues our president has suggested our individual salvation depends on "collective redemption" or "collective salvation," I began pondering the meaning, the validity, and source of the idea. This is not a Christian tenet. No, Christianity believes our salvation is individual, depending only on the individual and their acceptance of Christ. Collectivism is not a part of it.

So where did this idea of collective redemption originate? Well, it was used by Sun Myung Moon. (Remember the Moonies cult, circa 1997?) Also, it's something like the "social justice" from Marx. Or like Third Way Socialism as promoted by Hitler. In fact Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao all felt their subjects clinging to their faith was a roadblock to their agendas. Collective salvation is Marxism falsely using the Bible as its authority. Also, using faith to involve Believers in politics and bend them to an agenda is an idea espoused by Saul Alinsky

This idea may have made inroads in Europe, but when Obama attempts to pull the American faithful into this collective redemption idea, tries to involve them in class struggles, he finds that they cling more stubbornly to their faith than Europeans do.

Does Obama take faith seriously? From his own words: "We need to take faith seriously not simply to block the religious right but to engage all persons of faith in the larger project of American Renewal." -- Barak Obama in the Audacity of Hope, page 216.

Sounds like that tidbit is more about politics than about faith.

We are offered redemption through politics; we are justified through a just society. Redemption through politics, salvation through Obama?

Come unto me?

OofDah.