The Fragile Legacy of Barack Obama - Author Elaine Kamarck, The Brookings Institute

Editor's Note:

This originally appeared in the Boston Review.

It becomes clearer every day that Barack Obama, a historic president, presided over a somewhat less than historic presidency. With only one major legislative achievement (Obamacare)—and a fragile one at that—the legacy of Obama’s presidency mainly rests on its tremendous symbolic importance and the fate of a patchwork of executive actions.

How much of that was due to fate and how much was due to Obama’s own shortcomings as a politician is up for debate and is a question that emerges from Princeton historian Julian Zelizer’s new edited volume, The Presidency of Barack Obama.

With contributions from seventeen historians, the book bills itself as “a first historical assessment” of the Obama presidency. The overwhelming consensus, Zelizer writes, is that Obama “turned out to be a very effective policymaker but not a tremendously successful party builder.” This “defining paradox of Obama’s presidency” comes up again and again: the historians, by and large, approve of Obama’s policies (although some find them too timid) while they lament his politics.

Kasundra BrownJune 1, 2019Barack Obama Legacy, Barack ObamaComment

Understanding the Call to Holiness - An Article by Pastor K

Let me tell you the most interesting thing about both concepts of holiness. They were designed by God to make His people stick out like sore thumbs. Holiness in both the Old and New Testaments made Jews and Christians alike distinct and different. So much so that in 1 Peter 2 of the King James Version of the scriptures, Christians are called “peculiar people.” Holiness is designed to make us look different, because it makes us act different. The key purpose of holiness is to distinguish those who have answered God’s awesome call to a real relationship with Him from those who have not. Peter tells us that those who have a real relationship with the Most-high God should demonstrate that relationship in their daily living. He says in the verse chosen as our focus scripture, “be holy in all you do.”

Kasundra BrownDecember 9, 2018Holiness, God's Requirements, 1 Peter 1:14-16Comment