President Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Many, including the White House, claim total surprise though the U.K. newspaper, The Independent, saw his name on the list as early as February, 2009. Some applaud the choice, others, like Democratic supporter and academic Robert Reich, question it as premature and wonder about his supposed or possible achievements so early into his presidency.
Nobel Prizes, like other awards, are never limited to a recognition of achievement. It isn’t merely about what a person did. They say as much about the presenters aspirations as they do the recipients work. Whether you agree or not (and I’m very apolitical), Obama is heard as a voice of hope in a world of political uncertainty and fear. Our world sees salvation in political terms and it therefore sees Obama as the closest thing to a messiah. In a world that puts it’s trust in Princes, no other leader on the political stage even comes close to being a paradigm of hope.
According to CNN, Thorbjorn Jagland, chairman of the Nobel committee, said “the decision was “unanimous” and came with ease….He rejected the notion that Obama had been recognized prematurely for his efforts and said the committee wanted to promote the president just it had Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 in his efforts to open up the Soviet Union.”
I’m not surprised at all by the committee’s choice. They openly admit to using their power to promote Obama’s aspirations. They believe they represent the longing of the world as a whole. Whether you like it or not, this presentation is a statement of support for his leadership. It is very much a symbol of the world’s “felt-need” in a time of global crisis.
In times like these, more than any other, humanity looks and longs for leadership. If you hold this in contrast to the previous eight years of controversial (to put in politely) American leadership, President Obama appears to many as King Arthur charging forward on is stallion of salvation, closely followed by his Queen and her children. Not since President Kennedy has a world leader so galvanized the world’s attention with the positive possibility of better things to come.
Do I share this hope? Well, I have hope in better things to come and I wish all the best to those who take up their God-given role’s of leadership. I’m told to pray for them, to not hinder them, to treat them as they are, the appointed rulers of this world’s kingdom.
Yet I serve a different Ruler and live in kingdom “not of this world”. For some that will sound a bit schizophrenic, a bit delusional, a step away from Reality. I suppose in a sense it is. This world is not my home. I am in it but choose not to be of it. I look toward a better country, a new heaven and new earth ruled by the righteousness of God. Should President Obama serve that end, to the degree he acts as a peacemaker and leads us in freedom, to that degree I say Amen, “let it be so”.