On Inauguration Day, Pastor Mark Driscoll tweeted this controversial quote:
“Praying for our president, who today will place his hands on a Bible he does not believe to take an oath to a God he likely does not know.”
Driscoll took a big risk in tweeting this direct attack on the president’s faith. Since then, a multitude of progressives, atheists, and liberal Christian leaders have been ripping Driscoll to pieces over the tweet, but also other well respected Christian figures have labeled it as insensitive.
Regardless how one feels about Driscoll and his tweeting, is there truth in the message?
Obama is a professing Christian who believes in Jesus as a “role model” based on how he describes his Christianity. Christian author and theologian A.W. Pink would call him a professor based on the way Pink describes people like Obama in his 1300 page “Exposition on Hebrews.”
The President takes a number of unbliblical positions on important social issues which validates the first part of the quote:
1. He supports the abortion platform vehemently, despite multiple biblical passages demonstrating that unborn babies are persons who feel joy, who can be filled with the Holy Spirit, and their life and servitude is planned out by God before they are born. Obama previously said he would not want to punish his daughter with a baby if she made a mistake and became pregnant. He may have hinted that pre-marital sex is ok, as long she takes the necessary precautions not to get pregnant.
2. He supports the gay agenda despite multiple Bible texts which speak against homosexuality.
3. He accepts an unbiblical view of marriage by supporting same sex marriage.
4. In a TV interview Obama made clear that he embraces the idea that all religions lead to heaven and that Jesus is not the only way to salvation. He makes clear that following the moral code of other religions can lead to salvation, which is really a salvation by works and not by grace through faith. Such statements are against the Bible, further supporting Driscoll’s claim that he does not believe the Bible.
As for the second part of the quote, Driscoll knows the issues listed above and that is why he states that the president probably does not know the God, Jesus Himself, revealed in the Bible, Who stated the He is “the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through [Him]” (John 4:16). The president disagrees with this statement, and this leads me to conclude that he believes in a different god than the One revealed in the Bible.
No one can be sure about anyone’s salvation but we can make educated guesses based on the things they say and do, in other words are the fruits of the Spirit in their life…?
Is president Obama a Christian? Yes, he is a professing Christian.
Is he a born-again Christian? No.
Was Mark Driscoll insensitive in this tweet? Probably.
Was Driscoll correct in his assessment? Yes.
Truth is controversial. Truth hurts sometimes.
Delight in Truth 
