Last Tuesday Obama gave a speech on the economy, containing an explicit reference to religious texts. So, how well did his speech-writers stick to the context of the original words, while adapting it for current circumstances?

Here’s the reference, in Obama’s words:

Now, there's a parable at the end of the Sermon on the Mount that tells the story of two men. The first built his house on a pile of sand, and it was soon destroyed when a storm hit. But the second is known as the wise man, for when "the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock."

That’s a slightly loose description of of a passage from the gospel of Matthew. Here’s the original:

"Every one then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.  And every one who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand;  and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell; and great was the fall of it."

Since the original is not much longer than Obama’s summation, why not just quote it directly? Well, pretty obviously, Jesus was not giving remedial advice on architectural design, he was relying on his audience knowing that it was a bad idea to build on a poor foundation for a house, and using that fact to point out what a good foundation was for people: Jesus’ own words. That’s what makes it a parable: point at what’s visible and concrete, so as to point beyond it to invisible principle.

But Obama’s speech-writers then willy-nilly go on to point only at the visible, and not at any kind of principle. Why bother to bring in a gospel text if in fact you’re not going to use it in a relevant way? They could simply have said: “We need to build on a good foundation” and go on from there. We don’t need the gospels to understand how to build physical houses. The gospels speak of more than that. Obama’s reference only ends up speaking of much less than the gospel.

( The speech-writers then go on to point out five things that Obama proposes to do. They decide to call them “five pillars”, and if you google “five pillars” you’ll soon find out what other religion they wanted to bring in to the speech, so as to be all diverse.)

If the gospel is going to be brought in such an irrelevant way, perhaps there is more that we can be looking forward to? “And some fell into good soil and grew, and yielded a hundredfold” could be slipped in to the next speech on agricultural policy. “And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish” would do well for recycling. “For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his life” could be fitted into banking regulation.