Glenn Beck highlighted a video on his show this morning, and frankly I just about fell over. It’s since been taken off YouTube.com but I’ll keep looking for another link. (Found it: see the video in this post.) The ManifestObama.com website says “this site is no longer here,” but it’s still disturbing, nonetheless.
(This just in: The ManifestObama.com site is down, but you can see still the cache of the page. It comes to you from the touchy, feeling, reveal your inner wisdom, New Age site, Wisdomology.com.)
The video, from ManifestObama.com, used the worship song “Sanctuary” as a soundtrack to dozens of people saying the name, “Barak Obama,” with the following copy scrolling across the screen (thanks to P.J. Gladnick at Newsbusters.com for the transcription):

Between now and November 4…
Let’s spend one minute a day…
Envisioning Barack Obama…
As our President…
Prepare your heart to fill with hope…
Prepare your mind to embrace the change…
Envision Barack victorious on election night…
…Taking the oath of office…
On Inauguration Day…
Believe that this great moment in American history is already a reality…
Say the words to yourself…
To your family…
To your friends and neighbors…
Say it to the world…
Your vision is a sacred trust…
You are a sanctuary of a sacred vision for a renewed America…
Envision it…
Say it…
Feel it…
Believe it…
Make it our reality…
Manifest Obama, America!
It’s not just that they use the worship song “Sanctuary” in a political promo that bothers me. It’s that they makers of the video have declared Obama as that sanctuary! In fact, it’s some kind of New Age thing.
You’ve got to be joking.
The song is a worship song sung to God, asking for our hearts to be a sanctuary for worship to the Almighty – not a song for Barak Obama. Here are the lyrics to the song “Sanctuary”:
Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary
Pure and holy, tried and true
With thanksgiving, I’ll be a living
Sanctuary for You
It is you, Lord
Who came to save
The heart and soul
Of every man
It is you Lord
who knows my weakness
Who gives me strength,
With thine own hand.
Lead Me on Lord
From temptation
Purify me
From within
Fill my heart with
You holy spirit
Take away all my sin
The CCLI license lists John W. Thompson and Randy Scruggs as the authors of this song. I wonder what they’d think of their song being used to proclaim a political candidate as “the sanctuary of a sacred vision” and his political platform a “vision of a sacred trust.” In fact, I wonder if the people in the video even knew their short “Barak Obama” would end up in a video profaning a worship song.
But what do you think? Is it appropriate for a political candidate (even if the video was created by Obama supporters and not officially by the Obama campaign) to use any worship song as promotion? And have Obama followers taken on a weirdly cult-like attitude, or is it just me that thinks that?
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