Church and Worship
Covering Up Jesus
by Clay Staggs
On Tuesday of this week, President Obama delivered a speech at Georgetown University on the state of the economy. The speech was given in Gaston Hall, which has behind the dais the seal of the university and, above that, the letters IHS - a fairly common (though perhaps more commonly Roman Catholic) representation of the name of Jesus. Georgetown is a Jesuit university. Or, at least, it is nominallly so.
Apparently, at the request of Obama, the university agreed to cover over the apparently offending IHS with a black piece of plywood, so that it would not appear behind the President. Read the whole story here. There’s another thread with more before and after pictures here.
I don’t know which is worse - that the White House would ask for such a thing, or that a Christian university would agree to it. If the President is so offended at the name of Christ, why go to a Jesuit university to give a speech? And, if the university so easily agrees to scrub Jesus’s name for the sake of anybody, much less a politician, it’s not much of what I’d recognize as Christian.
The whole sorry incident brings to mind immediately Matthew 10:
32”Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. 33But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.
Of course, that’s only compelling to those who believe it, isn’t it?
Posted by Clay Staggs at April 16, 2009 09:51 AM
Excellent post. You summed up exactly what I was thinking.