God was back in the news this week, and even for those of us who believe He is omnipresent He was popping up in some unexpected places.

The Almighty made a few cameo appearances, for instance, at the presidential inaugural. This will come as no surprise to those who believe that President Barack Obama is the Almighty, but more skeptical observers such as ourselves were startled to hear God mentioned so often during the inaugural address. Obama modestly credited God with the gift of our freedom, but added that “It must be secured by His people here on earth,” and he apparently had it on the highest authority that this could only be achieved by full implementation of the Obama agenda. He then implored the country that “a little girl born into the bleakest poverty” should know that “she is equal not just in the eyes of God but also in our own,” and given the increased numbers of little girls in poverty since Obama’s first inauguration the plea seems especially urgent. Obama also said that his oath was to “God and country,” and ended with the traditional presidential request that God bless America, but God’s most prominent appearance came when the president claimed that his “green jobs” program “is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God.”

Nobody in attendance booed any of the mentions of God, as they did at the Democratic National Convention that nominated Obama, but the president’s decidedly secular base of support must have felt a bit uncomfortable. Several of the more ardent Obama fans of our acquaintance have assured us such talk is merely shtick intended for the rubes, that the president is far too smart to really believe any of that God nonsense, and such prominent supporters as the professional blasphemer Bill Maher have said the same thing, but these same people were fashionably insouciant about the president’s “spiritual mentor” bellowing a plea for God’s damnation on America. We do not claim to know Obama’s true religious beliefs, but we suspect he does believe he has God’s blessing for his hugely expensive and disastrously ineffective “green” boondoggles. With science offering little support for Obama’s claims about climate change causing “the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms,” he will have to find a more persuasive argument in theology.

We have lately come to think of California as the most godforsaken place in the union, but God also made an appearance in the gubernatorial inauguration there. He even got a co-starring role along with Montaigne and Yeats in the oration by Gov. Jerry Brown, who re-told the Genesis story of Pharaoh’s dream of seven cows and Joseph’s sage interpretation that Egypt should set aside a portion of the coming seven harvests for the subsequent seven years of famine. California is currently flush with cash from the recent soak-the-rich tax hike that “Gov. Moonbeam” championed, and will be back to yearly deficits just as soon as the state’s last remaining rich people can re-locate to Texas or Florida or some other temperate and income-tax-free jurisdiction, so Californians would be wise to heed this ancient Hebrew financial advice, but we doubt that the free-spending Democrats of the Assembly will be persuaded by some Old Testament scripture.

God also weighed in on the gun control debate, in form of the National Cathedral’s Very Rev. Gary Hall, and it turns out He does not approve of the Second Amendment. Hall offered a statement to that effect at a press conference for Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, a state that is apparently in the grips of a full blown religious mania, as she unveiled her unprecedent gun-grabbing bill. This should be sufficient to keep the secularists from objecting to the very existence of a National Cathedral, which does seem slightly antithetical to the First Amendment’s prohibition of any law respecting an establishment of religion, and we expect that the anti-gun nuts won’t object to having God along so long as He’s on the right side of the issue. Any ministers who cite Jesus’ admonition to the apostles that “he that has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one” should expect to be chided for dragging God into the matter.

There is something satisfying about hearing people on the Left acknowledge God’s existence, and we hope that to whatever extent their beliefs are sincere they will be enriched by religion in their personal lives, but we’d hate to see them gain any political advantage by claiming God’s endorsement. The left is bossy enough in its cocksure belief that they’re bringing heaven to earth, and if they got it in their heads that they’re also bringing social justice to heaven it would be unbearable. We close with the words of C.S. Lewis, who looked deeper into the wisdom of God’s word than most.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satisfied; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”