Obama Uses Sermon on the Mount to Elevate Speeches
WASHINGTON — In a 2006 speech here, then-Sen. Barack Obama said Jesus' Sermon on the Mount was so "radical" the Defense Department wouldn't survive its application. Earlier this month, the new president suggested the economy couldn't get along without it.
In the middle of a nuts-and-bolts speech at Georgetown University on economic policy, Obama overtly cited the sermon's parable of two men, one of whom builds his house on rock, the other on sand. "We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand," the president said. "We must build our house upon a rock."
The reference to Jesus' most famous — and notoriously challenging — sermon quickly drew attention from the media, some of whom labeled the speech "Obama's Economic Sermon on the Mount."
Obama has referred to Jesus' mountainside sermon several times in recent years, sometimes using the same two-houses parable to make a point about sound government policy, at other times using the sermon's wider message of tolerance and love to defend his progressive interpretation of Christianity.
For instance, on the campaign trail last March, and in his book "The Audacity of Hope," Obama has cited the sermon to explain his support for same-sex civil unions.
"If people find that controversial, then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans," Obama said at a campaign event in Ohio when a local pastor asked him how he plans to win evangelical votes when he disagrees with many of them about same-sex unions.
In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul condemns homosexual acts as unnatural and "unseemly."
With its turn-the-other-cheek vibe, and "blessed are the peacemakers" Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount has long been a favorite of progressive Christians, said Timothy Larsen, a professor of Christian thought at Wheaton College, an evangelical school in Illinois.
"It's deeply important to pacifists," such as Anabaptists, said Larsen, who also co-edited the book The Sermon on the Mount Through the Centuries. "It doesn't fit obviously with civil religion. There's lots of uncompromising stuff in there about not retaliating against enemies."
Those are likely the passages Obama was referring to when he said in 2006 that the Sermon on the Mount is "so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application."
Obama was making a larger point during that speech about the folly of using Scripture as an exclusive guide for public policy. But it's equally foolish, he said, for progressives to "scrub language of all religious content."
"If we truly hope to speak to people where they're at—to communicate our hopes and values in a way that's relevant to their own — then as progressives, we cannot abandon the field of religious discourse."
That's why Obama was smart to insert a bit of the Bible in an otherwise dry policy speech on the economy earlier this month, said Jacques Berlinerblau, an associate professor at Georgetown University and author of Thumpin' It: The Use and Abuse of the Bible in Today's Presidential Politics.
Not only was Obama's Sermon on the Mount reference a nod to Georgetown's Jesuit roots, it also "grounded him in the Christian moral tradition and gave the patina of a Christian-based moral argument to his economic policy," Berlinerblau said.
Still, conservative Christians have disparaged Obama's Sermon on the Mount references, accusing him of distorting Jesus' message to sustain his own liberal views. One video that says Obama "mocked and ridiculed" the sermon in his 2006 speech has been viewed more than 4 million times on YouTube.com. Last year, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson reproached Obama for "dragging biblical understanding through the gutter."

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Paul
The way Obama misrepresents the sermon on the mount shows rather explicitly that he does not read the bible, nor understand its message correctly. Rather he makes some vague references to a bible story to try and convince people he is something that he clearly is not. his policies speak much louder then any half attempt at a bible reference in a speech
Dave Wilson
If folks like Russell D. Moore, dean of the school of theology of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, think that Obama is reading and talking about the Bible simply because he quotes it in a speech, I'm afraid they're sadly mistaken. Political speech writers, especially those for Obama, are very calculated in the words and phrases they use... and their placement and timing in speeches and policy discussions. Having been in the field of political public relations for years now, I know it's no mistake that Obama referenced the Lord's sermon on the Mount in a dry economic policy speech. The Biblical reference has done two things... 1) it's stretched Jesus' principle of building on the rock (of God as our foundation) to a seemingly logical interpretation to economic policy (which many a pastor has done), and 2) it's swayed many to believe yet again that an insertion of a Bible reference denotes spiritual motive and intent on Obama's part. Sadly, I don't believe it was.
cellus
Bruce Felder...you said it all, Brother.
pastor
How dare you all ridicule President Obama use of Scripture. For 400 years white people have misused the Scriptures, telling black folks lies. The problem lies in the fact white people think they own the Bible and Yeshua. Black people are learning they were first in the Bible, and you all treated blacks like dirt. Your power over us is ended. It hurts you all to see God has placed a black man to head. So don't talk about the Bible when you all have misused the Bible over and over. We are not your slaves anymore, we are free Praise God. Neither do we hold a grudge because it was purpose by Yah, but stop acting holy and mightier.
Bruce Felder
Let's review the bigger picture. Obama told the muslim world that we are NOT a Christian nation. He wants to corrupt that "obscure" passage about marriage being between a man and a woman. He wants to remove all restrictions to murder of babies. His socialist/facist goals corrupt the social welfare of the church by forcibly taking money from one to give to another, while disallowing tax credits for charity. He has grown government to levels exceeding everything our Founders could have dreamed. He places himself and government above faith, as the ultimate answer to all things. As far as i know, he has never called for prayer, never offered thanksgiving to God, or publically yielded himself humbly and acknowledged his allegiance to God in any way. Of course other than familiar sound bites that he tosses out to the media, to reassure the masses so they will ignore how how the water in the kettle seems to be getting. Many make professions tho Christ will say get away i never knew you.