Books authored by Dr. James Dyet. Purchase on JamesDyet.com

Friday, August 20, 2010

Is President Obama a Christian?

According to media reports, one out every five Americans polled about President Obama’s religion thinks he is a Muslim; four out five think he is a Christian. Perhaps we need another poll, one that asks respondents what they think a Christian is.

The term “Christian” appears for the first time in the Bible in Acts 11:26, when people in Antioch applied it to a specific group of men and women that had “believed and turned to the Lord” (11:21). This group was expanding dramatically as “many people were added to the Lord” (v. 24). We may conclude on the basis of this passage of Scripture that a Christian is anyone who has believed, turned to the Lord, and been united to Him.

A widespread misconception persists in America that a person is a Christian if he was born in a so-called Christian nation and is not an atheist or a Jew or a Muslim or a Hindu or a member of some other non-Christian religion. The misconception is reinforced if the person attends church, at least at Christmas and Easter. But the Biblical concept of a Christian is that of anyone who has received Jesus Christ as his Savior, believing that He died on the cross for our sin and arose bodily from the grave (John 1:12; Romans 6:23; 10:9, 10, 13; 1 John 5:11-13).

So being a Christian has everything to do with a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and nothing to do with where we were born or where we worship or how often we worship. If you do not have a personal relationship with the Savior, why not believe and turn to Him today?