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Finding His Faith (Obama's Christian Journey)
newsweak ^ | 07/12/08 | Lisa Miller and Richard Wolffe

Posted on 07/12/2008 4:20:59 PM PDT by TornadoAlley3

So much has been made about Barack Obama's religion. But what does he believe, and how did he arrive at those beliefs?

In 1981 Barack Obama was 20 years old, a Columbia University student in search of the meaning of life. He was torn a million different ways: between youth and maturity, black and white, coasts and continents, wonder and tragedy. He enrolled at Columbia in part to get far away from his past; he'd gone to high school in Hawaii and had just spent two years "enjoying myself," as he puts it, at Occidental College in Los Angeles. In New York City, "I lived an ascetic existence," Obama told NEWSWEEK in an interview on his campaign plane last week. "I did a lot of spiritual exploration. I withdrew from the world in a fairly deliberate way." He fasted. Often, he'd go days without speaking to another person.

For company, he had books. There was Saint Augustine, the fourth-century North African bishop who wrote the West's first spiritual memoir and built the theological foundations of the Christian Church. There was Friedrich Nietzsche, the 19th-century German philosopher and father of existentialism. There was Graham Greene, the Roman Catholic Englishman whose short novels are full of compromise, ambivalence and pain. Obama meditated on these men and argued with them in his mind.

When he felt restless on a Sunday morning, he would wander into an African-American congregation such as Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. "I'd just sit in the back and I'd listen to the choir and I'd listen to the sermon," he says, smiling a little as he remembers those early days in the wilderness. "There were times that I would just start tearing up listening to the choir and share that sense of release."

(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2008; faith; husseinobama; obama; obamaandgod; propagandawingofdnc; spiritualjourney
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1 posted on 07/12/2008 4:20:59 PM PDT by TornadoAlley3
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To: All

2 posted on 07/12/2008 4:22:39 PM PDT by TornadoAlley3 ('GOP' : Get Our Petroleum)
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To: TornadoAlley3

What kind of “Christian” faith does it take to kill babies born or unborn because they are unwanted?


3 posted on 07/12/2008 4:23:04 PM PDT by DB
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To: TornadoAlley3
Obama is not a Christian.
4 posted on 07/12/2008 4:23:14 PM PDT by tbpiper (NObama '08 - Unfit in any color)
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To: TornadoAlley3

Geez...another “Newsweak” exclusive. Someone tell the editor that the bias is so overwhelming that one has to wipe the reporter’s drool from the pages of this commie mag.


5 posted on 07/12/2008 4:24:18 PM PDT by max americana
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Comment #6 Removed by Moderator

To: TornadoAlley3

Black Liberation Theology is hardly Christian.


7 posted on 07/12/2008 4:27:12 PM PDT by Always Right (Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?)
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To: DB

In Indonesia, Obama has said, he saw women with and without head coverings and Muslims living comfortably next to Christians. He has said that his life among Muslims in Indonesia showed him that “Islam can be compatible with the modern world.”


8 posted on 07/12/2008 4:28:40 PM PDT by TornadoAlley3 ('GOP' : Get Our Petroleum)
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To: TornadoAlley3
Obama is as much of a "christian" as Reverend Phelps and his merry band of idiots.


9 posted on 07/12/2008 4:29:48 PM PDT by smedley64 (Dems go all-in every 4 years with a 7-2 offsuit marxist, hoping to hit the flop big just one time.)
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To: TornadoAlley3
Often, he'd go days without speaking to another person.

Sounds like he has had language barrier problems for some time now....

10 posted on 07/12/2008 4:31:59 PM PDT by Born In America (Will vote only for the NON-CLIMATE CHANGE CANDIDATE, irrespective of party affiliation....)
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To: TornadoAlley3
So, Newsweek would have us believe that Obama read St. Augustine and ended up choosing Reverend Wright and Black Liberation Theology?

Sorry, I'm not buying what Newsweek is selling...or, what what Obama sells either. Niether of those dogs will hunt.

Black Liberation Theology is nothing more than a religious construct over the top of abject marxism. It is based on the same "theology" (which in reality is nothing but marxist ideology) that was pushed in Central and South America so the peasents there, who were catholic and would not support a godless revolution, could be persuaded and indoctrinated into supporting marxism with this new construct and twist.

It is, in reality, sacreligious and a perversion of Christian theology and ideals.

Barack bought whole sale into that for political purposes...to futher his own political career and agenda on the south side of Chicago where such teachings and far left liberalism were in vogue.

BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA - CHANGE YOU CAN COUNT ON, BUT DON'T WANT

THE AUDACITY OF TRUTH ABOUT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA

11 posted on 07/12/2008 4:32:32 PM PDT by Jeff Head
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To: TornadoAlley3
How come Muslims around the world accept Obama as one of their own, when he claims to be a Christian?
12 posted on 07/12/2008 4:32:35 PM PDT by Ratblaster ("White folks greed runs a world in need" B Hussein Obama The Muslim Magic Negro)
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To: TornadoAlley3
Obama's organizing days helped clarify his sense of faith and social action as intertwined. "It's hard for me to imagine being true to my faith—and not thinking beyond myself, and not thinking about what's good for other people, and not acting in a moral and ethical way,

The souls of the murdered unborn beg to differ with you Barry.

And my what strange company you've kept for such a "moral" and "ethical" man.

Barry, you're just an empty suit, say anything, lying, crud politician with an extreme inferiority complex causing you to have a life long obsession for power and control.

You couldn't give a dam* about anybody else but yourself.

13 posted on 07/12/2008 4:36:52 PM PDT by A message
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To: TornadoAlley3

He’s a fake, fraud and liar...he’s just another Jesse Jackass....in name ONLY [believer]...no substances to him at all. Dobson has proven Obambi is nothing more than an empty suit.


14 posted on 07/12/2008 4:37:08 PM PDT by shield (A wise man's heart is at his RIGHT hand;but a fool's heart at his LEFT. Ecc 10:2)
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To: TornadoAlley3

Christian? BS Let’s hear him tell that to his Muslim family and friends.

Again, trying to straddle the fence.


15 posted on 07/12/2008 4:39:01 PM PDT by TribalPrincess2U
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To: TornadoAlley3

Why is this not in breaking news Barack Hussain Obama has converted to Christianity. Do we have video of him walking the aisle? Perhaps video of him repenting of his non Christ like political stands? I see its the Jimmuh Carter christian variant! Second term for Jimmuh! Clinton was a better fakir than this guy.


16 posted on 07/12/2008 4:39:06 PM PDT by scottteng (Proud parent of a Life scout.)
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To: smedley64

The cross under which Obama went to Jesus was at the controversial Trinity United Church of Christ. It was a good fit. “That community of faith suited me,” Obama says. For one thing, Trinity insisted on social activism as a part of Christian life. It was also a family place. Members refer to the sections in the massive sanctuary as neighborhoods; churchgoers go to the same neighborhood each Sunday and they get to know the people who sit near them. They know when someone’s sick or got a promotion at work. Jeremiah Wright, whom Obama met in the context of organizing, became a friend; after he married, Obama says, the two men would sometimes get together “after church to have chicken with the family—and we would have talked stories about our families.”


17 posted on 07/12/2008 4:39:50 PM PDT by TornadoAlley3 ('GOP' : Get Our Petroleum)
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To: TribalPrincess2U

Also real Christians are not going to let YoBombo pull the wool over their eyes.


18 posted on 07/12/2008 4:40:53 PM PDT by TribalPrincess2U
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To: TornadoAlley3
He fasted. Often, he'd go days without speaking to another person.

Not much of an achievement.

19 posted on 07/12/2008 4:40:56 PM PDT by coconutt2000 (NO MORE PEACE FOR OIL!!! DOWN WITH TYRANTS, TERRORISTS, AND TIMIDCRATS!!!! (3-T's For World Peace))
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To: TornadoAlley3

What a sweet story of personal journey searching for the religious idenity in which he could find comfort and fulfillment, finally finding his religious home with a rascist America hating bigot. How inspiring.


20 posted on 07/12/2008 4:41:03 PM PDT by San Jacinto
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