The irony wasn’t lost on me. The only thing that would have made it more delicious would have been if he had come to Eugene, Oregon, on Palm Sunday rather than on Good Friday. And if his supporters had been waving palm fronds rather than “Change You Can Believe In!” placards. The Obama phenomena has risen to the level of religious, almost messianic fervor.

I see among many of the young a hopelessness that is almost tangible. Alongside that is an inability to trust others and to believe in ultimate truths and values. The mantra is that authority cannot be trusted and that the loudest voices in society want to do nothing more than “sell” something. Broken homes have created a generation with absolutely no one to look up to and to turn to for advice. So direction is lacking, commitment is rare, and despair is rampant.

Barack Obama strides into that void. While voicing “other worldly” themes he suggests “this world” solutions. His soaring oratory and his ambitious promises make his appeal to hope and his drive for change seem reasonable and attainable. He appeals to all that is innate and created in us in a longing for that “better country, that is a heavenly one” discussed in Hebrews 11. And he offers fulfillment in his election to the presidency at which time he will unleash the power of government to set things right in a world currently turned upside down. Thus he offers a messianic hope with the full weight and force of the U.S. government to back him up. For many right now, with the youth leading the way, this is a compelling combination. Heaven on earth is indeed appealing rather than having to wait.

In his forty five minute talk at the University of Oregon campus he repeated his tried and true political points. He introduced it by quoting Dr. King’s comment about the “fierce urgency of now.” He told the assembled crowd that it is “almost too late.” He observed that five years of war in Iraq have cost far too much in lives and treasure and have actually made the world less safe. He sees the economy in a shambles with the average American in worse shape financially than they were just a few short years before. He worried about an education system that leaves millions of children behind and a subprime crisis that threatens to leave millions more homeless. In the face of all of that he announced that we can’t afford to wait and that the current broken political system is completely ineffective. He humbly offered himself and his ideas as the way to bring about the changes so desperately needed.

And the crowd went wild.

He said many of the right things. Many things with which I would have to agree. He suggested that it is ordinary people who make extraordinary changes from the bottom up and not from the top down. He decried special interests and the entrenched political culture in Washington.

But it all kept coming back to government solutions. Our health care system is broken but his plan for bringing down insurance costs and expanding coverage to all will solve that problem (details forthcoming). The economy is a mess in part because CEOs are making too much and the little guy is suffering. Too many jobs are going overseas so we need to change our corporate tax structure as well as pour money into infrastructure and provide incentives for developing clean energy sources (details forthcoming). In his “better country” our educational system would be the best in the world literally from the time a child is born until the time they graduate from college. Make way for government financed early childhood education so that our five year olds are ready to face the cold realities of kindergarten. Oh and don’t forget the $4,000 college tuition credit in exchange for government “make work” projects. A “Newer Deal” indeed.

So we have a large portion of the electorate today that is looking to him to be, as he put it, the catalyst to pull this country forward by pulling together. He implored the crowd not to get distracted. Not by the talk about the man he is quick to tell us is his “former” pastor. Not by anything else that will be brought up in this increasingly acrimonious Democratic primary season. He urged the crowd to “put aside fear and reach out for hope.” And in conclusion he promised that “you and I together are going to change this country and change the world.”

At this point in my life that is way too much for me to expect from any politician. As God chooses to intervene in human history, the world is changed. But for many voters this year the hope for change is a journey of faith. But it is not faith in that transcendent “most real being” who is the author of all reality and sovereign ruler over the entire universe. Rather it is faith in a mere mortal. And it is faith in his message that government will provide solutions to the ills of the world. Ultimately it is faith that this particular elected government official will bring this about more effectively than the current crop of elected government officials or any other government officials that have gone before him. Would that their faith would be in one more worthy of that level of trust.