US President Barack Obama welcomed Christian leaders to the White House for breakfast Tuesday to “pray and reflect on Holy Week and Easter” and then made a speech in which he again took a swipe at Christians.
Obama said Christians are supposed to love all their neighbors but that he sometimes hears “less-than-loving expressions by Christians,” and that concerns him.
He quickly added, “But that’s a topic for another day,” to laughter and applause.
He then joked: “I was about to veer off. I’m pulling it back.”
Rev. Franklin Graham is among the religious leaders who have criticized Obama for leading an administration that displays an “anti-Christian bias.”
Graham scolded Obama for remarks he made in a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast, when he linked Christians to violence by claiming that atrocities such as the Inquisition and the Crusades were done “in the name of Christ.”
Obama said: “Unless we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. And in our home country, slavery, and Jim Crow, all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”
Graham, of Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, reminded Obama that Jesus Christ came to Earth to die for the guilty, while Islam’s Muhammad killed the “innocent.”
“Today at the National Prayer Breakfast, the president implied that what ISIS is doing is equivalent to what happened over 1,000 years ago during the Crusades and the Inquisition,” he wrote on his Facebook page. “Mr. President – Many people in history have used the name of Jesus Christ to accomplish evil things for their own desires. But Jesus taught peace, love and forgiveness. He came to give His life for the sins of mankind, not to take life.”
Bill Donohue of the Catholic League called for Obama to apologize.
“In an attempt to deflect guilt from Muslim madmen, President Obama said, ‘Unless we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.’”
Donohue said Obama’s “ignorance is astounding, and his comparison is pernicious.”
Vice President Joe Biden, Cardinal Donald Wuerl and Rev. Al Sharpton were among the guests at the post-Easter prayer breakfast. WND
