What Does Barack Believe?

13/01/2009

Left and right have concerns about the new President's brand of Christianity.

By Adam Forrest

When Barack Obama stands on the podium outside Capitol Hill to be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States on January 20, his humility will be severely tested. He will become the most powerful person on Earth, a position so lofty it must throw the most stable of egos off-balance. Of course, Obama is supposed to be answering to an even higher office.

America still cherishes its special destiny as “one nation, under God” and Christian faith remains a litmus test for all those seeking power in Washington. Yet, despite winning over the moral majority in claiming the White House, one question refuses to go away – is the new President a true believer?

The fruitcake’s favourite theory – that Obama is secretly a Muslim – has so little foundation it scarcely deserves to be called an allegation. The split with Reverend Jeremiah Wright over the fallout from the firebrand preacher’s “God damn America” sermon has left more lasting damage.

Few could believe the serene Obama shared such sentiments, but it raised a different doubt. Had visits to Wright’s Trinity Unity Church in Chicago been at all important to the politician?

The latest row over Obama’s religious beliefs involves his pick of Christian leader who will give the prayer reading when he is inaugurated.

The political left seized upon his choice of Rev Rick Warren, a charismatic Californian pastor who has established one of the largest evangelical mega-churches in the world, as a betrayal of liberalism. Warren, like most prominent and politically active evangelicals, has aired views hostile to the idea of gay marriage.

The decision to pick Warren for his reading prompted one Time magazine columnist to describe Obama as a “very rational sounding sort of bigot”.
Stephen Mansfield, a Christian conservative author often hailed for helping the outgoing President win over the evangelical electorate with his bestselling book The Faith of George W. Bush, has turned his attention to the new guy and found more in common than he first imagined.

In writing The Faith of Barack Obama, Mansfield discovered a man as comfortable talking about a personal relationship with Jesus as he was weaving scripture into stump speeches.

“I start out very cynical whenever a politician professes faith, but in Barack Obama’s case I found he’s sincerely committed to his brand of
Christianity,” Mansfield says.

Others on the political right are not so sure. Blogger Alex LaBrecque is devoted to exposing the President-elect’s professions of faith as “cloak for his political agenda”, highlighting doctrinal inconsistencies and Obama’s belief his mother is in heaven, despite the fact she was not a Christian.

“Americans are used to a more evangelical, alter-call conversion,” explains Mansfield. “They understood Bush was a hard drinker who had this dramatic conversion. [With Obama] it was a process, one in which he eventually came to accept the core Christian message as true.”  

In a 2004 interview, Obama conceded he had developed faith gradually, having explored different philosophies and spiritual ideas as a young man. “There are aspects of Christian tradition that I’m comfortable with and aspects that I’m not,” Obama admitted. “I think that each of us when we walk into our church or mosque or synagogue are interpreting that experience in different ways, are reading scriptures in different ways and are arriving at our own understanding in different ways and in different phases.”
     
Doubt may be an adjunct to true faith, but by the Presidential campaign Obama had learned to drop the ambiguity and admissions of soul searching when talking about religion. “I believe in the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ,” he stated emphatically in January 2008.Whatever his own inner struggles, an earnest belief in the role of the Church in combating poverty – “I’m a big believer in not just words, but deeds and works” – led Obama to call for a continuation of the Bush administration’s faith-based initiatives last summer.

It was a surprise to those on the left who hoped for a return to their precious separation of Church and State, but not to observers aware how actively Obama worked with various denominations as a community organiser in Chicago.
 
John Wilson, a liberal author who led last year’s online campaign to rebuff each Muslim-related rumour or smear, describes himself as an atheist who admires the practical-minded Obama. “He sees the Church as a social institution,” says Wilson.

“It wasn’t God speaking to him; it was understanding the connection between the church and the civil rights movement that was essential in him deciding to embrace his faith. “He seems to approach it as a rationalist. In some ways, I think his religion is social justice and he came to Christianity because he saw it as an instrument for social justice.”


If Obama found in the Church a strong emphasis on caring for “the least of these brothers of mine”, he has been met with an unusual amount of good will when reaching out to evangelical conservatives, who traditionally found solace in the Republican’s positions on abortion and gay marriage. Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church is one of many to share with Obama an enthusiasm in focusing on the fight against poverty, the spread of AIDS and climate change. Professor Ken Wald, expert on politics and religion at the University of Florida, believes the 10-point swing toward Obama among evangelicals at the election indicates the power of younger born-again Christians; the so-called Joshua generation.

“Many of them are frustrated at what some call the Republican capture of their church and many of them care about things which have not always been part of the evangelical agenda,” he says. “There is a sense of a changing of the guard, with the new leaders less shrill and single-issue focused.” Wald is among those who expect Obama to bring back constraints on government funding that allows favoured churches to expand the proselytising side of their ministry. “Obama wants to restore the limits and go back to funding groups that were church affiliated, but socially directed,” says Wald.

However, those hoping for a secular state may be disappointed, according to Mansfield. “Bush’s faith-based initiatives never really got off the ground. [They] weren’t funded, promoted or clearly thought through. The Obama people have had time to work out what needs to be done, and I think there’ll be an added emphasis on faith-based initiatives. You will see more religiously liberal organisations beginning to be involved.”

Mansfield is looking forward to working with Obama again at inter-faith policy sessions at the White House, even if he voted for McCain. “I like [Obama], I admire him, but I disagree with him on a few things,” Mansfield laughs. “One of them is the abortion issue. I didn’t vote for him, but he kind of laughs that off.”

As well as attending to the tricky task of keeping everyone happy, Obama must choose a church of his own. He and his family have been without one since the unfortunate business with Pastor Wright.

St John’s Episcopal, an Anglican church, is on the same street as the White House, or there’s a Trinity United congregation in Washington DC should they prefer denominational continuity. Whatever his decision, whatever he believes, Obama is about to face trials and tribulations to test the strongest of faiths.