Thoughts on the faith of our President.

As I have been forced to take an extended break from my normal blog for health and financial reasons, I would like to share these thoughts as I feel they are of great importance to both faith and politics on the current world scene.  I have also recommended to those who may be interested to check out  the "Ebionites" of the first century church as they shed light on the "Arian Question".  This is an old debate within the early church which delved into the Divinity of Christ apart from God the Father.  It is central to the differences between Islam and Christianity today as Muhammad ran from Christianities claim of a Trinity with the claim that God is One.  Both religions seek to know God and to understand Jesus Christ. Both are well represented within both the children of Abraham, fellow brothers within the Human Race, and covered by God's plan of salvation.  Our present day hostilities and ideologies against one another stem from deep misunderstandings and an unwillingness to seek the good - even within our enemy. 

You may wish to study that further, but the remainder of this blog has more to do with the acceptance of one another within the Christian faith itself.  Enjoy then these excerpts regarding President Obama's thoughts on faith and politics and allow me to share my thoughts. Feel free to share your own - and share this with friends. 

Have a wonderful day and watch for new entries on my Bible Blog in November 2010.

from President Obama: excerpts from chapter 6 of "Audacity of Hope"




"although it was Jimmy Carter who would first introduce the language of evangelical Christianity into modern national politics, it was the Republican Party, with it's increasing emphasis on tradition, order, and "family values," that was best positioned to harvest this crop of politically awakened evangelicals and mobilize them against the liberal orthodoxy."



"The single biggest gap in party affiliation among white Americans is...between those who attend church regularly and those who don't. Democrats, meanwhile, are scrambling to "get religion," even as a core segment of our constituency remains stubbornly secular in orientation, and fears - rightly, no doubt - that the agenda of an assertively Christian nation may not make room for them or their life choices."



"Each day, it seem, thousands of Americans...are deciding that their work, their possessions, their diversions, their sheer busyness are not enough...They need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them."



"If I have any insight into this movement toward a deepening religious commitment, perhaps it's because it's a road I have traveled...My grandfather had been raised by devout Baptist grandparents after his father had gone AWOL...while my grandmother's parents...were practicing Methodists." "...religious faith never really took root in their hearts."



"...my mother...Her memories of the Christians who populated her youth were not fond ones. Occasionally, for my benefit, she would recall the sanctimonious preachers who would dismiss three - quarters of the world's people as ignorant heathens doomed to spend the afterlife in eternal damnation...She remembered the respectable church ladies who were always so quick to shun those unable to meet their standards of propriety, even as they desperately concealed their own dirty little secrets; the church fathers who uttered racial epithets and chiseled their workers out of any nickel that they could...For my mother organized religion too often dressed up closed - mindedness in the garb of piety, cruelty and oppression in the cloak of righteousness...In her mind, a working knowledge of the world's great religions was a necessary part of any well - rounded education. "



"...I was made to understand that such religious samplings required no sustained commitment on my part...as a child I rarely came in contact with those who might offer a substantially different view of faith...my father had been raised a Muslim, by the time he met my mother he was a confirmed atheist...my mother remarried...a man who saw religion as not particularly useful in the practical business of making one's way in the world and who had grown up in a countr that easily blended it's Islamic faith with remnants of Hinduism, Buddhism, and ancient animist traditions...I was sent first to a neighborhood Catholic school and then to a predominantly Muslim school; in both cases, my mother was less concerned with me learning the catechism or puzzling out the meaning of the muezzin's call to evening prayer than she was with whether I was properly learning my multiplication tables



And yet for all her professed secularism, my mother was in many ways the most spiritually awakened person that I've ever known...she worked mightily to instill in me the values that many Americans learn in Sunday school: honesty, empathy, discipline, delayed gratification, and hard work."



"My fierce ambitions might have been fueled by my father - by my knowledge of his achievements and failures, by my unspoken desire to somehow earn his live, and by my resentments and anger toward him. But it was my mother's fundamental faith - in the goodness of people and in the ultimate value of this brief life we've each been given - that channeled those ambitions. It was in search of confirmation of her values...And it was in search of some practical application of those values that I accepted work after college as a community organizer for a group of churches in Chicago that were trying to cope with joblessness, drugs, and hopelessness in their midst."



"...My mother...found herself satisfying her need for meaning in her work and in her children. In such a life I, too, might have contented myself had it not been for the particular attributes of the historically black church, attributes that helped me shed some of my skepticism and embrace the Christian faith."



"...Out of necessity, the black church had to minister to the whole person...it understood in an intimate way the biblical call to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and challenge powers and principalities. In the history of these struggles, I was able to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death; rather, it was an active, palpable agent in the world. In the day - to - day work of the men and women I met in church each day, in their ability to 'make a way out of no way' and maintain hope and dignity in the direst of circumstances, I could see the Word made manifest. ...the typical black sermon freely acknowledged that all Christians (including the pastors) could expect to still experience the same greed, resentment, lust, and anger that everyone else experienced...the sins of those who came to church were not so different from the sins of those who didn't, and so were as likely to be talked about with humor as with condemnation. You needed to come to church precisely because you were of this world, not apart from it; rich, poor, sinner, saved, you needed to embrace Christ precisely because you had sins to wash away, because you were human and needed an ally in your difficult journey...It was because of these newfound understandings - that religious commitment did not require me to suspend critical thinking, disengage from the battle for economic and social justice, or otherwise retreat from the world that I knew and loved - that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ one day and be baptized. It came about as a choice and not an epiphany; the questions I had did not magically disappear. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side of Chicago, I felt God's Spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth."



"...any discussion of religion and it's role in politics can turn a bit less civil. Take my Republican opponent in 2004, Ambassador Alan Keyes, who deployed a novel argument for attracting voters in the waning days of the campaign...'Christ would not vote for Barack Obama'...'Why are you letting this guy give you fits?' they would ask me. For them, Mr. Keyes was a kook, an extremist, his arguments not even worth entertaining. What they didn't understand was that I could not help but take Mr. Keyes seriously. For he claimed to speak for my religion - and although I might not like what came out of his mouth, I had to admit that some of his views had many adherents within the Christian church.



"Mr. Obama says he's a Christian, but he supports the destruction of innocent and sacred life...What could I say? That a literal reading of the Bible was folly? That Mr. Keyes, a Roman Catholic, should disregard the Pope's teachings? Unwilling to go there, I answered with the usual liberal response in such debates - that we live in a pluralistic society, that I can't impose my religious views on another, that I was running to be a U.S. senator from Illinois and not the minister of Illinois. But even as I answered, I was mindful of Mr. Keyes's implicit accusation - that I remained steeped in doubt, that my faith was adulterated, that I was not a true Christian..."



"Liberalism teaches us to be tolerant of other people's religious beliefs, so long as those beliefs don't cause anyone harm or impinge on another's right to believe differently...Some on the left (although not those in public office) go further, dismissing religion in the public square as inherently irrational, intolerant, and therefore dangerous - and noting that, with it's emphasis on personal salvation and the policing of private morality, religious talk has given conservatives cover to ignore questions of public morality, like poverty or corporate malfeasance...But over the long haul, I think we make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge the power of faith in the lives of the American people...it's bad politics. There are a whole lot of religious people in America, including the majority of Democrats...when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations toward one another; when we shy away from religious venues and religious broadcasts because we assume that we will be unwelcome - others will fill the vacuum. And those who do are likely to be those with the most insular views of faith, or who cynically use religion to justify partisan ends."



"I am suggesting that if we progressives shed some of our own biases, we might recognize the values that both religious and secular people share when it comes to the moral and material direction of our country...We need to take faith seriously not simply to block the religious right but to engage all persons of faith in the larger project of American renewal...Franklin and Jefferson, were deists who - while believing in an Almighty God - questioned not only the dogmas of the Christian church but the central tenets of Christianity itself (including Christ's divinity)...not all the Founding Fathers agreed; men like Patrick Henry and john Adams forwarded a variety of proposals to use the arm of the state to promote religion...it was Baptists like Reverend John Leland and other evangelicals who provided the popular support needed to get these provisions ratified. They did so because they were outsiders; because their style of exuberant worship appealed to the lower classes;...In the words of the Reverend Leland, 'It is error alone, that stands in need of government to support it; truth can and will do better without...it':"



"Let's even assume that we only had Christians within our borders. Whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? James Dobson's or Al Sharpton's? Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests that slavery is all right and eating shellfish is an abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the mount - a passage so radical that it's doubtful that our Defense Department would survive it's application?...Surely, secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering the public square;...To say that men and women should not inject their 'personal morality' into public policy debates is a practical absurdity...If I want others to listen to me, then I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all...At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise...If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God's edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one's life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime; to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing...the best we can do is act in accordance with those things that are possible for all of us to know, understanding that a part of what we know to be true - as individuals or communities of faith - will be true for us alone..."



"It would be helpful,...if in debates about matters touching on religion - as in all of democratic discourse - we could resist the temptation to impute bad faith to those who disagree with us...I cannot claim infallibility in my support of abortion rights...in years hence I may be seen as someone who was on the wrong side of history. I don't believe such doubts make me a bad Christian. I believe they make me human, limited in my understandings of God's purpose and therefore prone to sin...There are some things that I'm absolutely sure about - the Golden Rule, the need to battle cruelty in all it's forms, the value of love and charity, humility, and grace."



"I thought of Sasha asking me once what happened when we die - "I don't want to die, Daddy," she had added matter - of - factly - and I had hugged her and said, "You've got a long, long way before you have to worry about that," which had seemed to satisfy her. I wondered whether I should have told her the truth, that I wasn't sure what happens when we die, any more than I was sure of where the soul resides or what existed before the Big Bang. Walking up the stairs, though, I knew what I hoped for - that my mother was together in some way with those four little girls, capable in some fashion of embracing them, of finding joy in their spirits.



On a side note: The Washington Post reported: ""I let Jesus Christ into my life," Obama told the AME delegates. "I learned that my sins could be redeemed and that if I place my trust in Jesus, that he could set me on a path to eternal life. That I submitted myself to his life. I dedicated myself to discovering his truth and to carrying out his works."



Now from a personal point of view: I come across people outside the Church constantly that have left due to the judgmental attitude found within the Church. This, when the word of God in a nutshell is "Love". In reading the excerpts above, I too do not find myself in agreement with this man on faith and a number of issues. I am a Republican and certainly stand against Abortion. However, I have no right to judge his Christianity! I certainly do not hear a Muslim speaking. The concept I have read that "The Republican party does well in getting the baby out of the womb - However, the Democratic party worries much more for that period of time between the womb and the tomb" causes serious reflection. Certainly, we all share guilt before our Creator.



Roman's 1 is a fine chapter on the sin nature of the world. Romans 2:1, however, states: "Therefore you have no excuse, O man, whoever you are, when you judge another; for in passing judgment upon him you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things.



I initially wrote these thoughts in response to a hate filled e-mail from a well meaning teacher and shared by many Christians who focussed upon the evil they realized was within the man (forgetting, perhaps that evil resides in each one of us). As the teacher who wrote this shared e-mai; I also stand in awe of the workings God has wrought through these United States of America, and many other nations in combating evil in our world (yet perhaps we forget that God deserves the ultimate glory for our successes). However, I do not think Jesus Christ would pledge allegiance to these United States of America! We too, are fallible and filled with evil. The membership of the church of Jeremiah Wright, from inner Chicago, certainly does not share my warm feelings of life in these United States of America. If we do not humble ourselves and show compassion and understanding of something other than ourselves, others will continue to distance themselves from us and will become our adversary. Our pride will become our downfall.



If we as a people, do not pledge our allegiance to God (by following His commands to love our fellow man & pray for those who persecute us), Country (yes, as represented by our present leaders), and our fellow man (in service, respect, and ultimately love), we shall fall. If in our addressing our concerns with the leaders God has allowed, through His ultimate control, in a more respectful way, we shall hold no countenance with our fellow man and we shall lose our privileges within our society. Rise up my fellow man, but don't do so by first digging a hole.